2022 Upcoming Plans!

Its 2022! After spending an entire year in the pandemic last year, life has definitely changed from watching new releases to just real life in general. Routine and everything has definitely taken a shift. Its the new year and we can only hope that we will hopefully escape the pandemic in some form in the coming year.

With all that said, yesterday we wrapped up with a 2021 overview and today is to share what to expect in 2022. Not a whole lot of change in general but for those new to the blog, it will give a general guideline of what to expect. I will try my best to achieve the majority of it but some things may not actually pan out. Its just how life works in general. If 2021 has taught me anything, its to just let things flow.

Enough of that and let’s move on to the actual plans!

BOOKS

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2022: 15 books

Last year was a massive fail in terms of reading. So I’ve basically opted to half the goal from last year. This goal feels overall attainable. One book or so a month seems pretty doable in general. I recently did a clean-up of my books and the goal is to go through the physical TBR books sitting on my bookshelves.

MOVIES

Movies will be basically the same thing as this year. I truly don’t believe new theatrical releases are in the horizon in terms of actual theatre visits so I’m going to focus on Netflix, Shudder and Digital rentals for most new releases. At the same time, this year’s big change is to take a year off of festival coverage. I will talk briefly about some life changes below as we get into some personal plans.

• Focus on Double Features format
• New releases or screeners get single reviews
• Marathons:
  • February- Valentine Romance
  • October – Horror
  • December – Holidays
• Ultimate Decades Blogathon: annual blogathon that I co-host is back and announcement post will be coming in a few weeks
• Movies and Tea Podcast: podcast that I co-host will simultaneously be shared here as we dive into more director filmography and themed seasons

TV

All TV binges this year will focus on Netflix content for the greater part.

Where will the Chinese-language dramas that I consume go? That’s in the next section below!

TRANQUIL DREAMS PODCAST

After a few months of hiatus, the podcast will be making a return. This time, I’m going back to the original concept of what I had initially wanted to do with the podcast: Chinese-Language Dramas!

The podcast still needs some structural elements to be finalized but I will be covering Chinese-Language Dramas. What does that mean? Mainland Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong TV dramas. The main focus will be those accessible on streaming services since they are becoming more and more available on Netflix alone and I feel like it doesn’t get talked about enough since there are a few gems in general.

I am debating to have a Chinese and English version but that’s a whole other discussion which I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to quite yet in terms of time and editing alone. I do also have another idea for moving the once Sunday lists here as a monthly podcast segment but its a little more work so still under consideration.

MONTHLY SEGMENTS

Mostly the same:

• Music Obsessions: first weekend of every month
• Adventures & What’s Up: combined together at month-end

PARTIAL REVIVAL: BAKING THROUGH DISNEY & STUDIO GHIBLI

Look, Baking Through Disney is behind us. There’s no point in dwelling on something that probably won’t happen at this point. I bake desserts pretty much once a year. I’m not saying that it won’t happen again since I have been having the thought lately (due to some upcoming changes) but it won’t be happening in a good part of this year. However, I’m going through a bit of a burnout on horror films which makes the movie portion for horror marathon a big maybe whether I will do it by October or not. Maybe I will be out of it but other factors come into play (also something mentioned later in this post).

With all that said, I’ve been missing animated films and think its a great time to jump back into it so I do want to review Disney films preferably in the order of the ones I have access to or can rent (unless Disney+ has another cheap subscription month), very much like how the original project was structured minus the baking and creativity part. With that, I do also want to go through the Studio Ghibli films seeing as they are mostly available on Netflix right now. Perfect timing and all.

PERSONAL LIFE GOALS (AND A LITTLE UPDATE)

Most of the blog stuff is pretty much updated above so we will do some quick personal life goals. Last year’s workout goal in general worked at its best during the summer. This year is a little bit more different.

Let’s start with the update and real life news/update that may create the biggest change for my life and blog. I’m pregnant and due in a few months so anything in the second half of 2022 will be a big unknown at this point. With that said, the life goals will be very much oriented towards this new change.

• Eat healthier: For obvious reasons, this is already underway. I am in the process of boosting calcium since lactose intolerance doesn’t exactly help in that department. Along with that, also boosting fruit consumption since I was very bad at that last year.
• Streaming Once A Week: After that one stream last year in March, I’ve been thinking of streaming regularly for a while but never really had the right timing. So, I thought I’d take baby steps and set in one stream every weekend. I will probably do an official announcement once I finally take the step to start it up.
• Set Up the Nursery & New Office: The news above basically means I’m working on clearing out my current office to transform into the nursery. I mean, this is a gradual to-do list. There’s a general plan right now so this kind of links to the above goal since I do want to transition to the new office area in the house before streaming. Less hassle that way.

FINAL GENERAL NOTE FOR THE BLOG

I’ve been slowing down on writing this past year. A lot contributed to it. With the new changes in life, I don’t foresee writing frequency increasing and I don’t want to stress over it. The goal is to get a post up every 2 to 3 days. Plus, after a decade of blogging, I do want to jump into some new projects hence the solo podcast with this new structure and also streaming. Maybe when those things happen, I will also want to write more. It will take time for a new routine to build in so some of the newer things will be lesser frequency. Either way, I am going to maintain the quality instead of quantity.

2022 will hopefully be a great year despite the craziness in reality!
Happy New Year and Wishing Everyone All the Best!

Do you all have some new projects? Feel free to share it in the comments!

My October Adventures!

Welcome to October Adventures! I’m going to say this right now…October was an adventure in some ways but nothing that I can really talk about here yet. Its some real life stuff that I’m working through right now which did cause some hiccups in the original blogging plans and well, the many festivals that happened to pop up with their last minute accreditation approvals so it was a little wild in general. Call this an update on the original commitments as a lot of stuff didn’t go as planned, but here we go!

Halloween/Horror Marathon – Extended

First things first, the main focus of October was the Halloween Marathon. Suffice to say, I stopped about halfway through the month and then switched gears into other commitments. Some did match the theme more than others but overall, I will talk about some little things happening potentially next month. Right now, I’m still working through it. However, because Halloween Marathon aka Horror Marathon is a big part of my year and I don’t want to cheat my way out of it as I haven’t even completed the main feature franchise film reviews, I’m going to be extending it for another 2 weeks or so to make up for the second half of the month. I still have some other reviews to wrap up which I will talk about in other sections of this update but it will be potentially going on simultaneously as I get rid of all the backlog in terms of movie reviews and festival coverage.

50th edition – Festival du Nouveau Cinema Overview

The first festival coverage to give me accreditation the day that it started was FNC 2021. Now, I’ve covered Festival du Nouveau Cinema a few years already and they have some great movies most of the time. Very arthouse and different from my normal wheelhouse including some Oscar nominated films even, however, the last minute thing threw me for a loop. Its not exactly anyone’s fault but my own since I lost track of what festivals I had applied for so didn’t realize that everything was clashing together. With that said, I truly did want to get more done for this festival however, due to work and life reasons, this festival was the one that suffered the most. It also occurred to me that this festival might truly be above my capabilities anymore as a lot of films while intriguing, its a sea of so many unknowns that in the process of decision-making, its a fear of choosing something that I didn’t like that worried me the most, causing less films being chosen as well.

However, I am still sitting on a few films that I haven’t reviewed yet. You can check out the films I have reviewed to this point. I did pick some pretty fun ones.

Compartment No.6
Bound
The Noise of Engines
Wood and Water
Days

I still have a short films compilation as well as two reviews coming up soon.

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2021

Toronto After Dark ran for a swift 5 days event. This is the first year that I got the full media accreditation and not only short films (which is what I got in 2019). In all my festival coverage time, I do feel that TADFF has the best press support team. I had issues with the virtual platform and they helped me out immediately that evening. Plus, the press coordinator was pretty cool and did check on likes and dislikes from the festival which I hadn’t got in other festivals before. A really lovely experience overall. The technical issues did set my coverage plans a little behind but I did end up catching everything that I intended on watching. With this being horror film focus during October, it did have priority during those few days and there were some fantastic discoveries.

You can check out the reviews below:

Canadian Shorts After Dark
Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It
Post Mortem
Nightshooters
Ditched
The Free Fall

Blood in the Snow Film Festival

The final film festival to come in is Blood in the Snow Film Festival! Now, this one is a little unique as it has its virtual platform at as a three day event at the end of October. Suffice to say, no reviews have been posted considering the delay on my reviews over this weekend however, they will be coming up soon. There are a few films that I’ve reviewed previously so there’s only a few movies for this part.

However, this festival does have its on location festival (of course, I’m covering remotely as I’m not in Toronto) during November 18 to 23 which I will have reviews up for that line-up probably around mid-November. It might be the final wrap-up for the extended Halloween marathon as it seems to fit. If you are in Toronto, you can see if you want to go check it out. The line-up is on the website: bloodinthesnow.ca

Tranquil Dreams Podcast – Hiatus

As a final update, due to just everything going on, I’ve decided to put the Tranquil Dreams podcast on hiatus for now. I have other projects going on and coverage and its just too much at the moment. Plus, I’m not too happy with the What’s Up structure that I’ve been doing. I want to really focus on creating some shows that highlight my initial idea of why I wanted to start the podcast in the first place. Its going on hiatus so that I can get it back on the drawing board. Get some ideas and structure set and bring it back with content that I think will be more fun to record and more interesting in general.

ON THE SIDE NOTE: If you are looking for podcasts, I’m still co-hosting Movies and Tea and Game Warp with Elwood so you can still find them on most platforms where you can listen to podcasts. Movies and Tea is in its female directors season so you can check out which directors and their respective films made it on our list for this season.

A Little Life Update
(one of the reasons for the slowdown this month)

So…the last two updates I’ve talked about not feeling too good overall and its been truly taking a toll on me. As much as I want to keep the blog running as it did, I’m slowing down to focus on myself a little bit. Most of it is restructuring my lifestyle a little and getting back to some form of routine. Its working for the most part as you can see that I’ve been posting a little more frequently lately. However, I have decided to change my sleeping routine (aka sleep earlier) and get back to some healthy lifestyle with more workouts and healthier eating. This stuff all takes more prep time and dedication so more time there means less time for the blog. I am finding my routine over this month so its been going rather on track. That’s all I’m going to say for now but that is one of the main reasons.

I’m hoping that November will have some more normalcy in posting. The goal is to get a post up every other day. I’m definitely not lacking in content to write, but I just need to find time to do it.

That’s it for this October “Adventures”!
Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!
I sure hope everyone’s month has been much more exciting and healthier and feel good!

Double Feature: Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016) & Life (2017)

Next double feature comes at us with nothing too in common. For the K selection, I chose Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV which came out as the story leading to Final Fantasy XV’s video game release. For the L selection, which you will notice is going to be the first of 2 selections (the second title paired up in the next double feature with the M selection) is the 2017 sci-fi film, Life, which got relatively low ratings but remains intriguing to me.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016)

Director: Takeshi Nozue

Voice cast: Aaron Paul, Lena Headey, Sean Bean, Adrian Bouchet, Liam Mulvey, Alexa Kahn

King Regis, who oversees the land of Lucis, commands his army of soldiers to protect the kingdom from the Niflheim empire’s plans to steal the sacred crystal which gives Lucis its magic and power. – IMDB

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is the story that takes place before the events of Final Fantasy XV. The ending of this film introduces the four main characters in the game however doesn’t show them anywhere else in the film. With that said, this story takes a look at the kingdom and the threats as well as the soldiers abilities. Video game adaptations or even films derived from a game always has the difficulty of just appealing to those familiar with the franchise or the story. In this case, while Final Fantasy has had a lot of games so far and is a successful franchise, FF15 is a different story with different characters so the idea of making this film is a good one however the execution might not have been done quite as well as the story feels convoluted.

Voiced by Aaron Paul as Nyx, Lena Headey as Lunafreya and Sean Bean as King Regis, the character voiced here are done pretty well. At the same time, the visuals of the kingdom and even the action itself as well as the character design all are appealing. However, where this movie does fall apart is that the script isn’t written well, some dialogue feels very rigid and the story flow feels a bit slow where some parts actually start feeling a bit boring and slow.

Final Fantasy may be an overall pretty great gaming franchise however, its movies have mostly been lacking except for maybe one. Therefore, Kingsglaive might not be a good movie but I also didn’t expect to feel all that much different when I finished with it. Its visually appealing but everything else falls short in the spectrum of things.

Life (2017)

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dykhovichnaya

A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars and now threatens all life on Earth. – IMDB

Life’s one of those films that I’d chalk up their general lack of box office or negative reviews on expectations and the fact that their trailer reminded the audience of an Alien rip-off. I’m not going to argue that I wasn’t affected by the trailer hence why I’ve put off watching it for so long. However, putting aside the similarities of sci-fi films and comparing it to the very fantastically done ones like Alien, Life is a pretty solid sci-fi film. Its quite entertaining that most sci-fi films in the Alien veins reminds us of the fascination of finding that we are not alone in the universe but then quickly wishes that we were because foreign extraterrestrial organisms are probably going to be much more lethal and a good part of it has to do with it being unknown. In that sense, Life’s best attributes is giving us an organism that develops and grows exponentially in a short frame of time and we learn about it just as the characters stuck in the spacecraft is at the same time.

Life is also quite good in the sense that its paced fairly well. The background music is done well especially to boost the atmosphere. With that said, the atmosphere and environment is controlled and the use of gravity and space is also done quite effectively. There is a good deal of tension throughout the film and it has a lot to do with the setup of the film being in a closed space within another closed space for a good part of the film.

Overall, Life is actually pretty good. If you can set aside some of the similarities it does have and see some of the things that are done differently. The quality of the film is definitely still there. There are tense moments and intriguing moments and the pacing is very fast paced so it helps propel the film forward without giving much time to think too much about the things in depth. Maybe its because I went into this one with lower expectations but its one that I’d gladly sit down to watch again. There are issues with it and it has to do with some of the very familiar characters which also don’t truly get a whole lot of depth because we don’t spend too much time with them before things get bad.

That’s it for this double feature!
Have you seen either of these films? Thoughts?

What’s Up Week 13: The first quarter of 2019 is behind us!

Another week has gone by and as March wraps up, the first quarter of the year is done. Since I’ve been really enjoying the written formats of this, I think that I might do a video format soon of things. I haven’t forgotten about doing videos but its just been incredibly busy that editing anything seems to be hard to find time for nowadays. A seasonal round-up sounds like a good way to do it where I’ll just highlight some fave movies, TV, books and games in the first quarter. I’ll get around to it soon before the rush starts.

READING

Currently reading: Obsidio

So close to the end but yet, when this week ended, Obsidio is still in progress. I’m at the big showdown part now where things are going to be chaotic. I don’t usually like to start those parts without having sufficient amount of time to read it all in one go. I honestly can’t wait to finish it because its been one heck of a ride. Not only in terms of this book but the entire trilogy. A part of me wants to re-read all of the trilogy back to back and see how it works without all the gaps in between. But then, I have a ton of books in the TBR pile, both physical and on Kindle.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Thumper

Gaming has been real sparse as I dive into working on the Mobile Games Roundup. I don’t usually list the mobile games to keep a surprise factor for that post. Since it was my birthday weekend and there’s been still a few game reviews to get done. I took a break with new things and went back to try and get back some Thumper skills to at least try to get past where I’ve been stuck for the past 2 year (well, I stopped playing it about 2 years ago or something….). Its a work in progress but I’m getting better. Things get back to normal next week. This might still be in the currently playing but I’ll have something else done.

WATCHING

• Eloise (2016)
• Crimson Peak (Rewatch – Original review)
• Life
• Jaws 3
• Jaws: The Revenge

In between some bad Jaws sequels, a below average horror film, a sci-fi film and a Del Toro gothic romance, its really hard to truly pinpoint what was worse. I can tell you there was only two of these which I enjoyed more than the other three for sure and then out of those two, one of this was a rewatch that proved to not live up to how I thought of it the first time. That pretty much narrows it down to one choice, Life. Look, I know that a lot of people gave this movie crap for its similarities to Alien but I thought it worked. Its not Alien but then that movie is a freakin’ classic but Life does a good few things great. I’ll review it soon, once I think of what to pair it up with for a double feature. Still, if you haven’t seen it, give it a chance. It might just surprise you.

BINGING

• My Amazing Boyfriend 2: Unforgettable Impression (2019)

Currently binging: The Singer 2019, Mr. Swimmer, The Brightest Star in the Sky, On My Block Season 2, Great Escape

So…luck has it that April is just around the corner and while one series is wrapped up, everything else that I had my eye on in 2019 for Chinese drama is getting released. Choices, right? I did a test run of a few of them to see which one caught my attention the most to keep watching. You might see some currently binging rotation going on. Of course, Friday also saw the new season of On My Block released which I’ve been waiting for desperately since the cliffhanger ending in Season 1 last year. My Amazing Boyfriend 2 finished finally and boy, was it a fun ride. I actually think the change of cast worked great and hopefully, maybe they’ll do a third one with this cast but then with Mike Angelo heading into his first role in Hollywood, maybe he won’t do China stuff anymore, although Bingbing Fan also had that development and still stayed in the Chinese entertainment. So who knows, right?

With that said, new things on the list goes to The Brightest Star in the Sky which I’m liking so far and then a new Hunan TV variety show called Great Escape which I had posted the trailer on the Facebook page and is an escape room sort of deal. I can’t say the first episode was really exciting but I can see that once they find their rhythm, it could be fun. While The Singer 2019 is heading into the semi finals and finals so its getting exciting because all the people I like made it through so far.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

My Weekly Adventures: A Little Bit of Everything…

Welcome to the next Adventures post!

First of all, if you do drop by here frequently, I’m sorry for the sparseness of the posts, I’ll have a general explanation of what went down and kind of took over my life. I feel like I’ve said that a lot in 2018. While there were a lot of things that have been fairly cool in 2018, overall on a personal sense, 8 months in and I’m sure my husband and I are quite over it and ready for something incredibly great to balance things out. Anyways, we gotta stay positive to hopefully attract some more positive things..at least thats the concept in my mind.

Let’s see how the second half of August went!

The next Battle of Ingredients

We skipped a month of Battle of Ingredients in July because well, its busy in July for myself. However, we got things set for mid-August and had it all ready to go for our Take 2 of BBQ. This time, we each made some nice twists and there were a lot of success. Some recipes are ideas for other cooking methods in later challenges for non-BBQ and others, we learned from its not so perfect execution. Overall, it was a fun little time together to hang out and catch up and explore some new recipes. Its hard to imagine we just did the 9th Battle of Ingredients and the next is the 10th!

You can check out the full post HERE.

Lachine Half Marathon – Spectator

No pictures for this event. I’ve grown so accustom to doing half marathon support for my friend that I just kind of chill out a lot. It was a super hot day and I got a mini sunburn. Honestly, my bad for choosing to sit on a bench under the blazing sun catching up on reading. It was a super nice and honestly, I kind of miss it because the weather’s slightly cooled down and after that race and going home for a pool session, our pool motor is dying but as its the end of the season, we are only replacing everything next year and closing the pool early for the year. However, in terms of the Lachine Marathon, it was a tough one because the heat came in fairly quick. My friend did finish it within the time he wanted but so close. This season has been a tough one for him. A few more races to go for the season and with the heat ramping down a little, I’m hoping that its gets a positive turn for him. However if you haven’t been to the Lachine Half, its set in a pretty cool pier/park area with some stuff set up to look at and nice little sitting areas and all that fun stuff.

The 15 Hour ER Adventure

Life takes us for some crazy time. Don’t freak out! I didn’t go to the ER personally however, my husband did have some pain that he was enduring and we had chalked up to maybe indigestion or stomach flu until he had pains on his side which because just very unbearable by the time we hit the end of the work week. For those who don’t know about Canada’s free healthcare, it just means that there is an incredible wait time more so because in Quebec, medical professionals and the whole system is fairly messed up so we ended up doing a 12 hour wait time in the ER then got sent to the room to wait for the doctor another hour before he saw him, took tests and proceeded to round out another 2 hours or more waiting for test analysis, results and diagnosis. It turns out it was something of the beginning of a stomach ulcer and its time for meds to stop it before it gets more serious and well, the pain still showed up every once in a while so further test is in the horizon at the moment. Quite the stressful time and honestly, after my 5:30am arrival to home after the ER adventure and staying awake to make sure the husband was okay and being over 30, the all nighter and sleeping 2.5 hours just kind of murdered my entire week that followed and with it, any energy or motivation to process thoughts on movies and reviews. I spent most of the time after work sitting in my chair just resting and relaxing this week.

Either way, with that little scare…we are officially enforcing…

A Transition to Change in Eating Habits and having more Balanced Meals

Not sure why that’s a section in itself! But I’m totally grasping for straws for something to talk about. Anyways, I’ve been getting back to working out as you can see. As I’m typing this up, we just literally finished binging Ultimate Beastmaster Season 3 and boy, am I excited to talk about it in the next TV Binge! Yes, its moved forward in priority because I’m so hyped by it. However, that is good because Ultimate Beastmaster usually gets us super motivated to train again. We are already working on the eating healthier thing and for that reason, I’m decreasing Goodfood boxes to help get into a groove of making food from scratch on our own and not always relying on boxes because the reality is that the boxes were meant to help support the crazy weeks and not so that we could get lazy and that is what we’ve been doing a lot, which results to some bad eating habits whenever we don’t get boxes. Either way, transition going on already and I’m probably not going to share that except perhaps on Instagram or if I try out any cool new recipes.

We did make this recipe today as a little throwback: Basil Avocado Bacon Pasta. The post is HERE. We found this recipe 5 years ago and we still make it a few times a year. Its actually the first time we made it this year so like I said, we’re off our game a little.

If you have any healthy and tasty recipes, do share it in the comments below. We’re always down for suggestions!

New Dairy-Free Food Discovery

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So happy to see @breyers joining into the #dairyfree #icecream alternative with this #cookiesandcream #flavor. #sweettooth #desserts #food #tryingnewthings

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Sep 1, 2018 at 9:22pm PDT

Upcoming:

• TV Binges
• Book Reviews & Blog Tour
• Restaurant Review/Recap

Kitty Cute Pic

If you are following me on Avenue of Daydreams, you already saw this pic!
A silly kitty cat moment as she pulls down our towels that was hanging to dry on the railing to the ground to improvise a bed.

Thats it for this Weekly Adventures!
Its a little short but its just what happens when life gets taken over by more serious things!
On a side note, I am more avid on Instagram when I’m not posting or adding random posts on Facebook, so be sure to follow me there.

What adventures have you been up to?

My Weekly Adventures #63 What’s Up Revival!

Nothing much happened in the last two weeks. Just some quick and easy stuff to go through!

Meals with Friends

Easter weekend was an eventful one. For one, it was my birthday. On Monday when I got back to work, lets just say it was really stressful in an eventful way also. My husband however had the week off and decided to hang out with some friends and we went out for dinner at Jack Saloon’s. Its been years since we’ve gone there and I went back to get a pulled pork sandwich. I can’t say it was as great as when I had it a few years back though. It was still pretty good but not quite like I remembered it. However, the company was spectacular and entertaining so that is what matters.

Then the weekend afterwards happened. If you missed it, Battle of Ingredients also happened. You can find the post HERE. I made a few veggie dishes and this easy marshmallow wand dessert.

As per tradition, one of my good friends took me out for breakfast. I need to spend some time to research a new breakfast place to go to but this place called Le Cartet in Old Montreal is just so delicious. This is called Le Canton or something like that and its absolutely delicious. I love it to actual bits. It also is quite filling so I really only have this for my birthday breakfast. Next year though, I’ll figure out somewhere else to try.

Kickstarter Rewards

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Just received the #waywardsisters #graphicnovel #comics from @torontocomicsanthology ! Can't wait to read it! #reading

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Apr 6, 2018 at 4:18pm PDT

Its been a week of rewards coming back. The first came in the mail just as I was looking through Twitter and saw a lot of people already received it but I hadn’t yet just to get home and find it in the mailbox. tis the Wayward Sister Anthology. TO Comics is now one of my favorite comics. I backed this project just because I had read one of their books and loved it so much. I recently also backed another one of their projects. I’m hoping to get to this one after my mountain of books and commitments are done, which might take a month but I’ll get there. When I need a change in palette, I go for comics/graphic novels.

Second reward I got back was for The Black Gloves, which is a film from the director of Lord of Tears, which was the first project I backed of his on Kickstarter. The review is HERE if you don’t know about the movie. Wow, 2013 movie and five years later and I’m now about to back his 4th film project (as soon as I work out some finances). I still have to review the last two films but Laurie Brewster (the director mentioned) has such a great eye for horror. Its a little odd and awkward but I love the tone that he sets and the atmosphere and just how he puts it together. Anyways, I know that he wrote that The Black Gloves is now available on Amazon so here’s the link if you want to check it out.

Snapchat Fun

My husband’s family loves to play around with Snapchat. I never quite got into it until recently..and boy was that a can of worms I did not need to open. It is pretty adorable and cute..the filters, not me. I’m not too into my own selfies so posting that kind of took some confidence. These posts is about what I’ve been discovering in life. I tell you, this Snapchat thing is quite hilarious, especially when its not for myself like the one below.

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Look at this #cute #Chester Fetch #DontStarve #snapchat #filter! #gaming #videogames #characters

A post shared by Game Warp (@gamewarppodcast) on Apr 6, 2018 at 4:38am PDT

What’s Up Revival

It seems I have so many announcements in these things that I lose track of what is brewing up in my head! Anyways, this is the final one for a while. As I try to expand more content on my own Youtube channel since there’s no unboxing right now and its just sitting dormant, I decided that I’ll be reviving the What’s Up segment as a video format. That way, I can recap on films that I’ve seen and for those of you who subscribe, it’ll be an earlier capsule of things I’ve seen and usually an earlier short opinion of it. I’m about to film the first one soon (like tonight) so depending on the length since I usually go through movies and games and TV series, I might cut them into different segments to go up on different days of the week since I don’t want any part to be more than 10 minutes. I mean, who has more than 10 minutes to sit there and watch or listen to me ramble about these things, right?

I do want to eventually expand to some vlog stuff or opinion pieces and random thoughts but I never seem to have any recording stuff with me whenever I’m in those situations. I’m going to work it into my schedule slowly and we’ll get there. 🙂

Yet again, if there are any topics or whatnot that you have suggestions for what would be interesting content for the Youtube channel, suggest away in the comments and I’ll give it all a thought. I miss the days when I took recommendations for movies. It helped me credit others in this wonderful community.

Cute Kitty Pic

 

My Weekly Adventures #53

The second half of October has been an interesting one. We’re finally settling into our routine after my husband had a work schedule change. Its also calmed down after vacation so in reality, I almost have nothing to really write about but as I sat here think about the last two weeks, its been pretty awesome overall. I honestly have no other words to describe it. Why? Let’s just jump right in!

Shudder

A few years ago (I can’t remember how many years now), I backed a project on Indiegogo. Possibly one of the last projects I backed there because I didn’t find it as reliable especially when projects got funded regardless of whether they reached the goal or not meaning the chances of the project not cashing out is extremely high. I think I’ve backed 4 projects and at least one of them is probably not going to happen. One I’m fairly certain will cash through as its by two big stars and there is a lot of development updates going on. Regardless, I’ve gotten smarter. We’re not here about Indiegogo but rather a project I backed on there finally came through. Its called Found Footage. Found Footage is available for both 2D and 3D (except we got our 3D glasses mailed to us so early that I have no idea where it is now). It got distribution on Shudder, which is subscription streaming service but focused on horror movies.  You don’t need to sign up to see what movies they have so go ahead and check it out because its great. They have a trial for 7 days and such and its not really expensive. However, I do have Netflix so I kept hesitating and after procrastinating too much, something great actually came out of that and I had an extended trial period. Of course, I went ahead. Nothing beats the incentive of having gotten more free stuff. What I’m curious is how frequent there are new movie selections added and that will be a huge factor in whether I keep this one as a paying member. Regardless, its changed my horror marathon line-up in the final week to say the very least and it will also mean that there will be more horror movie reviews coming up. I have my eye on a few movies such as Seoul Station, Bullhead, Dead Snow, Haunter, Cherry Tree, Martyrs for starters.

Canadian Gaming Expo Montreal

On October 21st and 22nd weekend was the first time that the Canadian Gaming Expo has been held in Montreal. We went for the free event and did a little coverage for the games showed in the expo area. The coverage post will be up on That Moment In shortly but a little delay due to the hiatus last week. For the first time, my husband’s changed schedule now has him being free when these events happens so he can come with me. It was a lot of fun. We found a good parking spot (which is a pretty awesome accomplishment) and had a lot of fun.

Pretty New Things #1: SNES Classic & GT Sport

Wouldn’t this be a great new segment if only I had money to spend? 😉 I’m grateful for everything I have especially since I love to joke about my first world problems as I fully acknowledge that they are. However, I ended up asking my husband what he wanted for  Christmas and asked him whether GT Sport would be good for his early gift and I knew the answer already. He wanted the fancy limited edition steelbook with all the extra bonuses like extra cars and preorder had extra stuff as well. He really enjoyed the beta a few weeks ago and I know the $90 I put into will be put into good use as the replayability usually is worth it since Gran Turismo is one of those games who takes their sweet time to get out their next one to make sure it adds on a lot more improvement and polish and a better experience.

Aside from that, after I talk about being super poor, I need to justify that the stars aligned and I ended up getting a SNES Classic. October 23rd is a heavy day for myself but it was a day that came with so many great stuff and nice things that happened that I was able to forget the heaviness a little.

Pretty New Things #2: Nice Leggings

Have you ever wondered when you change your seasonal clothes that things just vanish? Mine are always leggings.  Luckily, I went to check if there was a sale at Dynamite Clothing and there was! I picked up these Moto Leggings and a pair of basic high rise leggings. They are super comfortable and feels very durable which is thicker so very suitable for the cooler weather.

Friend’s Baby Shower

Last Saturday, a few of our friends got together to celebrate one of my elementary & high school friend’s baby shower. She’s having a baby boy. I’ve never been to a baby shower but being invited to one was pretty fun. We played a few games which was great, won some candy and caught up with everything about her pregnancy and baby and everything else. I couldn’t stay long since I need to get back to the overtime work but it was nice for those few hours to see friends.

Letting Go

Emotionally, it seems this last month or so has been quite crazy. Perhaps not so apparent on the blog although I’ve mentioned it here and there but I’ve been working out some stuff on my own. More like admitting that I can’t do everything and that sometimes, its just that the right thing to do is to let go. It seems October is one of those months who will always be known for that. Anyways, this weekend, I finally let go of this thing that I’ve been trying to pursue. For the last month, my husband and I have been talking about it and working out the feelings about a lot of those issues and its helped me a lot. While I’ve gotten over a lot of it, there’s still some residuals feelings after actually committing to the decision. Anyways, I don’t really want to elaborate on it too much. Its nothing major just something I’ve spent a lot of time and my life working for (something of a hobby) and now choosing to stop.

Why No NaNoWriMo?

For some of you who have been here for at least the last year or so, maybe even followed me because of the NaNoWriMo writing thing, for the first year since 2012 (or 2013..I can’t remember), I’m not doing NaNoWriMo. I don’t mind the hard work and I actually do have an idea on what I’d like to write about, however, this year has been crazy and I not only need a break but instead of writing, I want to use that time to edit one of my previous novels. Its something I have meant to do for years and years. I don’t intend to publish it as an ebook or anything but its been something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m a reader and its been nice to see what being an author feels like to get that imagination and creative juices and really hammering out a novel and figuring out plots and outlines of different genres over the years but authors go through the entire phase and it sounds like a crazy hard time but definitely an experience I’d like to try and see if I can at least have one of those novels edited and get a few drafts until I think its perfect. Plus…I promised my husband and my best friend that I’d stop NaNoWriMo last year and edit so I’m really just following through on that promise to them this year 😉

With that said, if you are doing NaNoWriMo, I’m cheering for you! Keep it up! Know that you can do it! Message me if you ever need any ideas on staying on track or at least how to push through. My 5 years (or more) of experience has taught me a few tricks. Doing word sprints with the WordNerds are one of those tips. Don’t know who the WordNerds are, search them up on Youtube. 😉

Mini Update: Now Till the End of 2017

I had wrapped up this post and was thinking about now till the end of the year! December, or a good part of it, will be working on a holiday marathon/themed month. Phoebe and I have already started thinking about the Battle of Ingredients menu. I guess the update really is for November. With NaNoWriMo out of the picture and Game Warp needing to get back on track, November is going to have heavy focus on getting a lot of the backlog cleared up. I have screeners and unfinished books and TV Binges that need to be written and a few movies that I haven’t reviewed either. Its going to be a busy trek to the end of 2017, especially with my mind already feeling like making a few changes here.

With that said, as always in November and December, I ask you what brings you to Tranquil Dreams? 🙂

Cute Kitty Pic

Coming up: 

• MTL a Table (in place of the Battle of Ingredients)
• Movie Reviews & TV Binges
• Book reviews

What a week & what makes it better (kind of)

Whew! Its been quite a week at the Tranquil Dreams HQ.

What I’m saying is today’s post will not be happening as I just can’t get my mind to settle on writing up the review for Ready Player One. Plus, if I were to write anything at this point, it might be ranty and ridiculous and pretty sarcastic. Seeing as here is where I sit for positive stuff, I’m going to just take today ooff and think about some of those real life problems that have got me in a funk and I just need to embrace and figure out.

Excuse me as we’re taking a day off to find solutions and get back onto our positive fun regular programming…

Meanwhile, what is making me feel better just a little? Funny you should ask…

Gilmore Girls

And some lines from the series that I’m feeling right now…

Chocolate, Junk Food and Tea (really anything to eat)

Technically, I’m craving popsicles, chips, dark chocolate, fries and a ton of random stuff…self-control comes in the form of tea.

Electronic Music

Geometry Dash

I’m much further than this level..but just so you know what it is.

That’s it for me!
Let’s at least try to end with some positive..so here is a cute red panda.

**Regular programming should resume tomorrow**

My Weekly Adventures #46!

 And we are back to another Weekly Adventures  segment! If things have gone as I wanted and you are seeing this post, I am currently away on vacation and have managed to keep up with posts. I’ll be home soon and will have another week of staycation so it will be fantastic to catch up on everything from personal projects, blog backlogs and Game Warp. 

Lets not get ahead of ourselves and look back at the second half of June. 

Pointe-Claire Half Marathon & Bakery Visit

My friend who runs all these half marathons I go to had his next one at Pointe Claire Village. It was by far the hottest weekend we had, hitting the high 30s Celsius in the late morning with the humidity. While I waited for him, I went looking for some much needed tea because I had an early 2am airport dropoff and found the bakery I went to the year before called La Mie Bio.

La Mie Bio is a cute and friendly bakery with a nice selection. There are lactose free and gluten free baked goods. I ended up taking these spelled croissants. They were really delicious. 

Magog Day Trip & Haul

We had our St. Jean Baptiste holiday (pretty much our provincial birthday). As it was on a Saturday, my office had Friday off so my husband and I headed out to the Eastern Townships. If you remember, we went to Festival des Vendanges last year and got a coupon book so we wanted to start checking out. Our first stop was Bleu Lavande, one of the first places we went to when we started dating. Above is our haul. Two of the sprays was a promotion free with our purchases. We bought the hand soap for my mother in law and kept the vase and soaps for us. It was rainy and the cooler weather meant the lavender hadn’t bloomed yet so onto the next stop.

Next stop was a free tasting of two chocolates at Chocolats Vanden Eynden. My husband tried two milk chocolates and I had these dark chocolate selections. 

We ended up picking up a few other chocolates. I even picked up a bag of dairy free chocolate chips for future baking projects (probably next week).

A few quick stops but still a lot of fun. Plus I had to get back for a dinner with my girl friends.

We had dinner at Zibo at Quartier Dix30 in Brossard. It was pretty good. We took a quick walk afterwards.

Family Hangout

Long weekend and birthday celebration for my husband’s nephew meant a family gathering. They wanted to head to our place so we hosted a quick afternoon and dinner gathering. There were hamburgers and hot dogs, some wine and beer for the adults along with soda for the kids. We had a passing downpour which was quite the adventure but the sun eventually came back.

I was off dessert duty so my sister in law got me some dark chocolate and everyone else had the ice cream cake as birthday cake. 

Overcooked Hype!

Following E3 and Summer low season for gaming here, Playstation had a lovely sale and we finally got Overcooked. It finally put our second controller to good use. Good, fun, hectic and awesome fun! 

Vacation!!!

Due to work deadlines, I had to start vacation midweek and only had a few days overlapping my husband’s vacation. However, as I said at the beginning of this post, we are on vacation at the moment and am heading home very soon. I’ll be posting up the travel posts next week once I sort through the pics. 

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• TV Binges
• Travel/Vacation recap
• And more…Game Warp, gardening update..etc

Little Life Lessons: Things I’ve Realized Recently

I love quotes.  Love them to bits and I have a growing and thriving Pinterest board dedicated to it.  When I did the My Weekly Adventures, I’d always add a quote to the end.  That’s just how I am. My Weekly  Adventures has somewhat diminished but Tranquil Dreams formed because I wanted to be inspired with life and find a means to stay positive.  I say that because sometimes I get caught up with life and forget to live. My Chinese name may mean Tranquil Dreams but I bet you that my brain is never tranquil, its always moving.  Probably why this space is crazy versatile…

Maybe this is a little excuse to ramble a little about things but 2015 is proving to be quite an exciting journey (even with a few frustrating and mind-boggling experiences). But, doesn’t mean that I’m not learning everyday.  After some thought about doing this or not, I decided that it’ll be nice to have this little random segment.  I might keep this a “regular” segment, something like monthly instalments like Music Obsessions or Pinterest Therapy (I should get one of these done also).

Lets see how it goes first! It could be about anything.  Its my place to talk about random things pretty much. And it could be fun and maybe a little inspirational, I don’t know 😉

 1) I have some phenomenal organizational skills that makes it possible to stuff everything into my one room when I find it hard to put it into an entire house

Maybe its not fair that I use this as my exhibit.  Thats our movies all organized.  More than half of those resided in my room before.  Moving issues right now pretty much become HOW I can possibly fit everything in an organized way into the house.  I’m approaching actually physically moving in and this is just the movie collection, I forcefully got 80% of my books on shelves and another 60% of my clothes tucked away in storage or closet or new dresser. How did all this stuff fit in my room before? I’m in constant wonderment about that.

What did I realize? Yes, I’m a pack rat but my organizational skills only appear in confined spaces…I guess thats what I wanted to say.

2) My world is easily in a constant nerd mode (aka finding my Kakuro books and being obsessed all over again)

 

I used to be a huge Sudoku fan.  Thats until one day, I discovered Kakuro.  Its more challenging than Sudoku and I bought two of these books to work on that logic that seemed to be slowly slipping away.  After realizing I really sucked at Kakuro, I tucked it away and because of moving, I found it all over again.  Apparently, getting older has caused a lot of pretty bad changes: lower (than my already low) alcohol tolerance, unable to stay up as late as I used to, not being able to eat a lot of junk food (not necessarily a bad thing) but my logic is better now and Kakuro is becoming easier.  I found the trick to it, or I think I did.  In a day, I go through about two of these in my spare time.

Well, spare time..haha! Thats probably why I’m falling behind with TV and movies.  Netflix has been slightly ignored for the past week or so…I promise to get back on track, especially since I have another 5 movies expiring on March 30th.

3)Being Creative is not a hobby!

Over at my other blog, Days Nights and Daydreams, I had a really busy week a week or two ago because inspiration was crazy flowing.  I was on fire just because I saw something that made me thinking of something else and just how to work the story out.  I even had a little discussion with my boyfriend to help sort out some thoughts.  Creativity really rocks when its around and it felt so awesome! You can follow the link to read the first part of my little apocalypse beginning of the idea in a little fifty word thing.

On that note, I’m pushing for one of my projects to start, the Disney one.  I’ll have an update on it soon. That takes a little more work and I think I just found a way to expand it? I don’t know how to make it work but you know, things always work out last minute 😛

4) When spring refuses to arrive, I start thinking about gardening..

Last year was my first official year gardening in my own space.  My dream is to do an indoor herb garden and make it work even when my house doesn’t get all that much light.  Still, this concept up there makes me realize that it could be doable.  That’s whats been occupying my brain a little more these days.  Plus, I have a desire to use some of my garden in the backyard to turn into a butterfly garden.  Walmart also had seeds for a hummingbird garden.  I saw ONE hummingbird in my garden so long ago and never again but I think its worth a shot.

For now, I’m wishing away the snow and hoping that my tulips and daffodils are going to pop out and that I didn’t bury them too deep.

Who knew I have a secret desire to be a gardener? I sure didn’t…

5) Video games are getting more and more real adding that touch of adventure and action at the same time

I knew this before.  I  watched my boyfriend play The Last of Us and hints of Heavy Rain but its the first time, I’ve sat through an entire game with him.  We only made it through one ending for now with Beyond: Two Souls, but I really wanted to talk about it.  This game is a big YES! I love heavy story based games.  And I love that it reminds us that life’s about choices and you chart your own ending and everything amounts to a certain ending. Thats pretty cool.

Not exactly a realization, but where else would I talk about Beyond: Two Souls being an awesome game.  But I’m sure a ton of you already know.  Oh, and it goes well with my whole movie review thing because Ellen Page, Willem Dafoe and Eric Winters does voice work and are the characters here.  Technology, I really do love you…sometimes.

6) Quotes that really hit certain feelings I’ve been having in the past month

This is getting long so I’ve been having some personal stuff going on and these quotes are exactly how I’m feeling.

 

There you go! My little life realizations.  I don’t know how to make My Weekly Adventures work, instead I want to dedicate multiple little posts than one big one.  Here is a little way to make Tranquil Dreams stay true to how it started and I probably will do this on a monthly basis.

Hope you enjoyed! 🙂 

What do you think about this little segment? Thoughts and suggestions?