Adventures & What’s Up – May 2023

ADVENTURES

Baby Update

As we approach Triple V’s first birthday next month, its truly amazing how fast time flies considering as I write this, I’m monetarily done with my maternity leave even though I did take an extra month to sort out some 12 month appointments next month. Triple V’s been growing height-wise quite a bit but not so much weight wise, something that we will probably need to mention at the next follow-up. With weather being better, we’ve been outside a little more and he’s touched the curious green stuff on the ground that he seems to like. He is crawling around like a champ and using everything to climb to standing position to touch whatever he can (including a few orchid tumbles which I wasn’t particularly a huge fan of cleaning) reminding us everyday of something else to babyproof that has slipped out minds. He loves crawling after me wherever I go and we’ve been starting to play around with fluctuating his routine a little here and there and seeing how much we can push the times for certain things. He can eat all by himself except when its something that requires a spoon. Its pretty great to think about how it was just last year we were waiting for him to arrive and in a blink of an eye, he’s already almost walking.

First Mother’s Day

Triple V was born right in time for Father’s Day and this month was his first Mother’s Day or well, my first Mother’s Day. I can’t say I feel very different from usual since my daily routine didn’t change much so we went and made a big deal by buying flowers for the grandmothers instead. We had a big feast with my mom, marking a little lobster tasting for Triple V and we ordered in food with my in-laws.

Gardening Update

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Much like the past years, the week of Victoria Day means a greenhouse visit and gardening. We decided to pick the hottest week to work on the garden. We’ve swapped things around quite a bit this year with the vegetable patch moving the green peppers, cucumbers changing places but two assortment of tomatoes going in ground instead of in containers. The containers now have eggplants, 4 other peppers (orange, red, sweet red, yellow) and all the zucchinis. We’re still working through the flowers as I’m still finding little time here and there to clean up the flower patch.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• The BFG
• The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
• Esio Trot
• The Magic Finger
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Billy and the Minpins
• The Twits

Full steam ahead with bedtime reading of Roald Dahl book collection. So far, there’s a few that actually feel pretty familiar, some of them feel like tongue twisters and some are just a fun ride. I will be putting up some kind of review for them eventually. I’m not sure why but The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me was probably one of the most fun to read.

Movies

• Nightmare Alley (2019 rewatch)
• Veronica Mars (2014 rewatch, Review)
• Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
• Black Widow (2021)
• Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
• Love and Leashes (2022 rewatch, Review)
• Too Cool To Kill (2022)
• On The Rocks (2020)
• Herstory (2018)

There was a nice selection. A few for Movies and Tea production, some are rewatches, some Disney Plus and then some screeners which you will be seeing the reviews pop up very soon. If there are some definite recommendations, it would probably be surprisingly the Marvel films since both films were pretty fun but Black Widow was a great back story. The screeners also delivered some great stories, Too Cool to Kill was a good comedy for the most part and Herstory was an eye-opening look at comfort women from Korean in Japan in WWII who are fighting for compensation and apology from the Japanese government.

TV

• Sex/Life (Season 2, 2023)
• Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Mini-Series, 2023 Review)
• Veronica Mars (2019)
• Queer Eye (Season 7, 2023)
• Business Proposal (2022 Review)
• XO, Kitty (Season 1, 2023)
• Beef (Season 1, 2023)
• How To Build A Sex Room (Season 1, 2022)
• Black Knight (Season 1, 2023)

Currently binging: Who’s The Murderer S8, Light the Wild, 1899, Youth Pi Plan, Barbecue Showdown S2, Wonderland S3

As I look back at this year, I have so many TV binges in the works right now. Netflix came back pretty strong this month and released a bunch of stuff that I was interested in. If you noticed that the Reality TV roundup was missing last month, the main reason is that it will be grouped into this month’s since that will have a lot more to talk about. I actually had fun with a lot of these series, making Sex/Life Season 2 the one that I wasn’t a huge fan of, which isn’t shocking considering I didn’t really like the first season a lot either. XO, Kitty was not horrible but it was disappointing since it didn’t seem to do the character of Kitty justice or the promise of the whole South Korean exploration. As for 1899, we started it up on the dub version which affected my interest but I later realized there is an original audio version which I will probably restart in this version.

If I had to choose highlights of the month, It would probably be Queer Eye and Black Knight.

Games

Currently playing: G30, Coffee Talk Episode 2: Butterfly and Hibiscus

I’m about halfway through Coffee Talk Episode 2 right now and its still such a joy to play and an incredibly relaxing experience. I finally decided that I’d go with an annual plan for Google Play Pass since I do enjoy gaming on the phone a little here and there and there’s still some game that I wanted to check out. With that said, it brings us to G30 which is a puzzle game which is pretty entertaining so far. I’m not sure how many levels there are to the game but it does feel like it will end at some point

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for May 2023!
What have you been up to?

What’s Up & Adventures – April 2023

Its time for this month’s What’s Up & Adventures! Yet again, not a whole lot of adventures per se as its all pretty normal life stuff and I’m even talking normal as per the pre-pandemic life like actually going to a restaurant to hang out with friends without masks the entire time. Its a big step for me since I’ve been pretty much keeping things fairly protective especially with a baby at home. Our biggest adventure as a family which I’m not going to write an entire section about: our first power outage. I mean a legit one where it took 8 hours to get back the electricity and we all had to bundle up at home to stay warm.

ADVENTURES

Baby Update

Triple V has gone through some big developments this month. Over the course of the month, he’s been still practicing how to work and after a lot of guidance and motivation, he has started to crawl recently. He’s also able to eat his own finger foods and starting to get curious about how the spoon works whenever we use it for the puree. The baby gates have finally been unboxed. As of very recent like this morning, he’s also starting to learn to go down the stairs on his own with his butt. The crib has finally been dropped to the lowest level since he’s been able to stand up on his own in there and being a tall baby also stands pretty tall over the edge. We’re at the 10 1/2 months now and its been lots of first times and memories. Its also great that we had our first playdate after a few stroll dates with my best friend and her baby.

Brunch With Friends

After trying to get together repeatedly since last fall until now, the gettogether with my friends finally happened. My husband relieved me of the baby duties for a few hours so that I could go out for a brunch. It was a lot of fun to go out although after 10 months of being 24/7 with my baby, it did feel a little weird to be out. With that said, the restaurant’s service was rather poor although I think that it had to do mostly with lack of staff which is an issue with most restaurants nowadays. However, the chat was my friends were great as we caught up with everything between brunch and some window shopping and bubble tea at Real Fruit where I got a Jasmine Green Tea Light Sugar with grass jelly and mango jelly. Its the first time I’ve had Real Fruit Bubble Tea. Their Jasmine Green Tea is pretty good and I’m glad that I got light sugar since the mango jelly was surprisingly sweet so it balanced out the drink.

Building Blocks Puzzles

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While I probably should be writing and reading more, I find that building blocks really help clear the mind with the sheer concentration it takes to dig through these tiny pieces and put this together. With that said, they are looking gorgeous on top of my bookshelf so I decided to grab the set of the zodiac and take my time to put them together.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• My Illustrated Classics Collection

Currently reading: The BFG

I’m still spending most of my time reading books to my little man. While I’m sure he doesn’t quite understand any of it and just likes it as a means of soothing him to sleep, I’m starting to go through some books that I’ve bought for when he gets older and using this time to read through them and see when is suitable for him. We just started the Roald Dahl boxset (bought from Costco) and going through them all. I’ve read a few of them when I was a kid but its good to revisit as well as check out the ones I haven’t read before. Book reviews should be popping back soon.

Movies

• The Witch Part 2: The Other One (2022 Review)
• Monster Hunter (2020 rewatch, Review)
• A Short Story (2022 short)
• Saint Maud (2019)
• Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018)
• The Menu (2022)
• Ride On (龙马精神, 2023 Review)
• Saludos Amigos (1942)
• Fresh (2022)
• Anita: Director’s Cut (2022)
• Disenchanted (2022)

Due to upcoming Movies and Tea season preparation, I ended up getting a month of Disney Plus so a lot of films this time are from there as I try to make the most of the month (with not a whole of success) but still managing to catch some decent titles. As I work through the titles I haven’t seen from animated films and watched Saludos Amigos which was pretty average with one or two more charming shorts, I also caught mostly Searchlight films catching some newer films like The Menu and Fresh. I’m working on those reviews so they should be posted in a few days. Disney Plus also acquired Anita but the Director’s Cut version, a film that I’ve been meaning to watch so I settled for this version and still trying to figure out where to find the theatrical version and see where the differences are. Much like the end of my MUBI subscription made me finally be able to catch Long Day’s Journey Into Night which I’ve heard great things when I was chatting up with other reviewers back when I was doing press during film festivals.

TV

• Veronica Mars (Season 2 rewatch, Review)
• A Love So Beautiful (rewatch, Review)
• Come Sing With Me我想和你唱 (Season 4)
• Veronica Mars (Season 3 rewatch, Review)

Currently watching: Light The Wild, Who’s The Murderer S8

As you can see, everything got affected. I decided to rewatch A Love So Beautiful before it left Netflix, a series that still holds up and is a lot of fun. Of course, you can still catch the Korean version of it which I have yet to watch. I’m mostly focusing on rewatching Veronica Mars with my husband who is watching it for the first time. We caught up to everything for the original series so that we can experience the first watch of the “Season 4”. I’m basically trying to catch up and finish all the stuff I’ve started so first up is Chinese variety show, Who’s The Murderer Season 8.

Games

Currently playing: Coffee Talk Episode 2

I had tons of intentions of what to play this past month but a few things occupied my evenings so only recently I’ve been able to start playing Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly. While its not for everyone, I loved Coffee Talk (review) since it was such a fun little experience set in an alternate Seattle and the only thing to do was just making coffee for the clients who dropped by for a chat and share their stories. The second Coffee Talk happens after the first one and I just started so just met two new characters. So far, its still really fun and I’m looking forward to mixing and discovering some new drink mixes.

That’s it for this month’s Adventures/Updates and What’s Up!
What have you been up to?

Adventures & What’s Up – February 2023

ADVENTURES UPDATES

As you can see, February was not a whole lot going on. I had a few personal things that happened which I don’t plan to discuss. Things like dentist appointments and financial planning, fun grown-up things, right? I do have a big dental work coming up which will cost a bit of money so yay, I guess. Anyways, positive vibes here only even if I’m so tired, I don’t even have the energy to write as much as I used to. I will address all that in this segment and some little changes.

Baby Update

Triple V is growing and learning new things every day. February had a lot of things from figuring out how to drink from a sippy cup with a valve to starting to move towards drinking independently from a sippy cup for his snacks and meals. We’re working towards getting rid of the actual baby bottles so he can drink on his own. He’s still figuring out how to tilt the bottle when its the sippy cup without a valve. Work in progress, right? He also finally started baby babble and is continuing his teething journey. At the same time, we’re in the lovely 8 month sleep regression as of recently so its just waking up and doing some babbles or trying to get himself on all fours sometimes. Nighttime baby monitor sometimes can be pretty cute and funny despite feeling so tired. We are currently starting up a second cold thanks to some wonderful cold weather that we got but definitely not as worse as what we caught at the beginning of the year.

New Monthly Segment

While I’m not writing a lot lately, I’ve been still watching a lot of random stuff and its starting to dawn on me that I’m going to temporary need to change things a little around here to keep up a decent production. Although January and February lull is usually fairly normal around here, its been incredibly low and I’m not too happy about it since this is an outlet for myself that I really do love. With that said, I think the best course of action are monthly segments, they have a rounding up effect for the things I’ve seen but don’t really feel I have enough for an entire post dedicated to that one thing and lately, its about anything that I can put in the background and take care of my child or just relax after his bedtime or when its time with the husband, nothing too violent. All that basically leads to a lot of reality/competition/variety TV.

The new segment for each month is going to be a Reality TV Roundup which will include all the stuff I watch which involves real people in whatever context it may be and focusing mostly on Netflix and Chinese shows. Obviously, I’m starting a tad late so you will see the January roundup very soon and then after that it will be released on some time during the second weekend of each month. Music Obsessions releases the first weekend so we’ll spread it out a little.

Not sure who it will interest but I think it’ll be a nice change of pace for myself and will be a lot of fun.

Valentine’s Marathon, Upcoming Podcast Release and the forgotten Blogiversary

My brain’s apparently gone to mush and there’s been a lot of things that I simply forgot. The first being that January 17th was my blogiversary and I didn’t even mention it last month because like I said, I forgot. It just slipped my mind. The original plan was to get the all-new podcast up for then but plans have changed and I need a little more times in lieu of this wonderful baby phase I mentioned above to the next month, preferably before my birthday as a little gift to myself for starting up an individual podcast project.

Another thing I mentioned was Valentine’s Marathon and while I had a pretty good plan down, I just didn’t really feel like watching romantic films and ended up watching one Taiwan romance drama instead. BUT, I will talk about that more in the next section!

WHAT’S UP

BOOKS

• Mr. Happy
• Thomas’ Snowsuit
• The Lost Dinosaur Bone
• Just Some Lost Treasure
• Mortimer
• The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble at School
• Something Good
• Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too
• Angela’s Airplane
• Mickey Mouse and the Best Neighbor Contest
• The Berenstain Bears and the Slumber Party
• 101 Dalmatians
• Donald and His Friends

Currently reading: Broken Darkness

Suffice to say that my main reading has been with Triple V and traverses a lot of books from when I was a kid with the Mr. Men series, Robert Munsch, Lil Critters and Berenstain Bears along with some Disney books. A lot of great memories as I read them to him since he doesn’t really understand any of it but he is starting to get interested in what I say when I’m talking and my facial expressions and actions.

For myself, I am working through Broken Darkness which is a reading commitment that I need to get done. I had wanted to get it done for end of this month but best plans and all, right?

MOVIES

• Lady Vengeance (2005 rewatch, Review)
• Dr. Jason Leong: Ride With Caution (2023)
• F9 (2021)
• A Trip To The Moon (1902)
• Hidden Blade (2023, Review)
• Decision To Leave (2022)
• Great White (2021 rewatch, Review)

Probably one of the lowest output in movie watching in a long time and involved a lot of rewatches but everything was pretty good and a lot of fun, other than Great White which dropped half of its stars from my first time watch rating. Hidden Blade drove a lot of traffic on Twitter and the blog which makes me happy since it was a screener and the movie is really good on all elements. I’ve always wanted to watch A Trip To The Moon and caught that before it left MUBI (which I have until early April). Dr. Jason Leong’s new standout comedy is a real hoot. It was so much fun and had a lot of good laughs. F9 and Decision to Leave’s review is in the making but both stand on very different levels: one is just entertaining and the other probably deserves a second viewing to really grasp all the small nuances and details that Park Chan-wook likes to do.

Definitely thinking about an Asian month soon since I have a lot of films on MUBI, Netflix and Shudder to get through. I’m probably going to try and make that happy.

TV

• Drunken to Love You (Netflix: Love You 醉後决定愛上你, 2011)
• Lockwood & co. (Season 1, 2023 Review)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 1 rewatch, Review)
• The Mole (Season 1, 2022)
• 28 Days Haunted (Season 1, 2022)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 2 rewatch, Review)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 3 rewatch, Review)
• Physical: 100 (Season 1, 2023)
• Gilmore Girls (Season 4 rewatch, Review)
• Perfect Match (Season 1, 2023)

Currently binging: Who’s The Murderer S8, Memories Beyond Horizon S1, Night in The Greater Bay S2, The Last of Us

A lot of TV watching on my front as well as I dive once again for probably the fifth time into Gilmore Girls. Its my stress-free and fun TV binge. Between this and a lot of reality TV, this is where I am. Of course, I did get in a romance dose with a 2011 Taiwan romance drama that I had never seen. There was almost a decade that I didn’t watch a lot of Asian anything and now its about catching up to what I can get my hands on when I see it around. I did manage to binge Lockwood & Co. which I enjoyed immensely and can’t wait for hopefully a Season 2 seeing as it kind of ends on a cliffhanger but I do also plan on getting to reading the books. Seeing as I already announced the Reality TV Roundup segment, I’m going to leave the whole chat about the reality TV on the backburner plus a bunch of these are mostly silly stuff, the only one that I enjoyed a ton was The Mole although 28 Days Haunted was pretty decent even if the last one of the season overturned all the effort of making it not staged. Either way, more on that later on.

GAMES

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• Boxes (Demo)
• Planet of Lana (Demo)
• Blue Wednesday (Demo)
• Mika and the Witch’s Mountain (Demo)
• Bionic Bay (Demo)
• I Am Future (Demo)
• Alt-Frequencies
• Far: Changing Tides

Currently playing: The Gunk, Disney Dreamlight Valley

Steam Next Fest happened so I caught up with a few demos. Some of them were really great especially Planet of Lana which was exceptional and definitely right up my alley. The other one would be Mika and the Witch’s Mountain which I also ended up backing on Kickstarter because it looked so great. Plus a game inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service seems like something I would have thought existed already but finally someone’s doing something about it. I’ve been pretty much working through the Google Play Pass games since I have it for 3 months on a 90% discount so its pretty sweet. As much as people think mobile games are dumb, there’s some pretty good ones and one of them is Alt-Frequencies. I’m working on a review for Game Warp but I am thinking of checking out their previous game which I own but haven’t played yet. I’m moving through Game Pass with a similar mentality except chasing after games before they leave the service. This month of course was Far: Changing Tides which I describe as Journey but operating a ship. Its pretty great as well, we have a recording lined up for Game Warp so you can look forward to that if you follow the podcast.

A few games currently playing but I’m probably going to put them aside for the next batch of games leaving. Yes, I said batch. Not sure where I’ll find the time but I’m definitely going to try my best to finish Paradise Killer and give Guardians of the Galaxy a whirl to see whether I want to work on that one as well.

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

Adventures & What’s Up – January 2023

Hello everyone! The first adventures & What’s Up of 2023 is here as I wrap up a bunch of small things. Not a whole lot going on in terms of adventures since its winter and our little baby isn’t vaccinated so yet again, mostly updates on a few things.

If you missed my Upcoming Plans for 2023, you can check that out HERE.

ADVENTURES

Baby Update

7 months old now! We had our “supposed to be 6 month but because of previous postponed” 7 months checkup. Triple V remains high on the baby curve as a bigger baby and everything is developmentally on track. He has a little bit of cradle cap or dandruff or something along those lines but not a big concern so far. Triple V is also eating an assortment of purees now which is really fun to see his reaction to the different flavors. He even had his first snow picture and since January was rather snowy, we’ve had a few uses for his snowsuit. He’s definitely getting stronger day by day and its so nice to see him grow a little more and learn more things. One of the big recent successes after the doctor’s follow-up appointment and her pointer which he took the change like a champ is that he is officially able to sleep through the nights and has a decent sleeping and wake-up schedule. He even got his first teeth. Last development goal that he reached is recently responding to his own name.

Letterboxd Year in Review

Letterboxd Year in Review always is a bit late and its pretty self-explanatory so here’s a quick look at that.

Avenue of Daydreams – 365 Challenge

I’m working on reviving the Avenue of Daydreams this year with a 365 Photo Challenge. I’ve been sharing it on a weekly basis on Instagram as well. Here are the weeks in January. I fall behind every once in a while but its been really fun to try to get a little more creative and push myself to explore the pro feature on the camera on my phone.

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Hydroponic System

After a good bit of research and a final failed attempt at planting basil in our no sunlight house (or at least rarely sunlight comes in), we decided to get a hydroponic system. We got the Yoocaa 12 Pods Hydroponics Growing System and decided to give the first whirl to a herb garden. As we speak now, the mustard has germinated first and its only been about 4 days or so since we set it up. Fingers crossed it’ll work out. I’ll probably keep you all up to date with that here (and also acts as a notes for myself since I have horrible memory now).

February Romance Month

Normally, February is our Romance month. I have to admit that I’ve been pretty bad at keeping up with the marathons but I will try to get some reviews up for this one. No guarantees on how many movies but I do have a decent list compiled even if I’m pretty sure I won’t get through all of it and review them all before Valentine’s comes around. Maybe I will just do it for a month-long event and get some romance instead of the overabundance of crime, suspense and horror that I keep watching.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• Mr. Nosey
• Mr. Topsy-Turvy
• Mr. Bump
• The Queen Who Stole The Sky
• Mr. Messy
• The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day
• Love You Forever

Another month of children’s books despite really wanting to start an actual book. Good thing is that as I’m writing up this post, my Kindle is on charge plus after watching a TV series for a book I read last year, it changed my mind and I bought the remaining two books of that trilogy which I plan to start after a book review commitment. Its actually really fun re-reading books from my childhood that I’m passing on to my little guy now. He might not understand any of it but he’s starting to look at me when I read especially when I make weird sound effects for some of the things within my limited ability.

Movies

• Roadgames (1981)
• Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (2022 Review)
• Perfect Blue (1997 Review)
• Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal (2020)
• Freaky (2020)
• Kairo (2001 rewatch, Review)
• To All The Boys I’ve Love Before (2018 rewatch, Review)
• Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Review)
• Fall (2022)
• A Cinderella Story (2004 rewatch)
• Russell Peters: Deported (2020)
• Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
• The Wandering Earth 2 (2023, Review)
• Ponyo (2008 rewatch)

Its been a pretty fun month in terms of movie watching with quite a bit of variety. To be fair, I didn’t watch a lot of movies since I was absolutely obsessed with Matilda the Musical so had it in the background constantly. I did catch up on a lot of films that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while like Perfect Blue and rewatched Kairo with the husband and taking advantage of the wonderful MUBI deal I got. I did get a couple of screeners, one was a lot better than the other. I did manage to catch Everything Everywhere All At Once after multiple recommendations especially co-host listing it as his top first time watch of last year, much like Roadgames which also made it on his Top 10. If you haven’t listened to that episode on Movies and Tea, you can check it out HERE.

Basically, January is always a bit like this every year where I want to sort out what to review in the backlog while working out the upcoming year so working through a lot more TV or rewatches instead of starting something new.

TV

• Pressure Cooker (Season 1, 2023)
• Wonderland Junior (Season 1, 2022)
• Line Walker 2: The Prelude (2017)
• The Circle (Season 5)
• Bake Squad ( Season 2)
• The Summer I Turned Pretty (Season 1, 2022)
• Line Walker 3: Bull Fight (2020)

Currently binging: Night on the Greater Bay S2, Physical:100, Drunken to Love You, Lockwood & Co., The Last Of Us

I’ve been catching a lot of reality shows on Netflix. The beginning of the year has been pretty packed with a lot of these shows from Pressure Cooker to Bake Squad and the latest season of The Circle. I also signed up for the Amazon Prime trial so caught up with The Summer I Turned Pretty which I had reviewed the book (Review) last year and as mentioned in the “Books” section above, I ended up buying the sequels and it kind of changed my mind a little on the story. Its rare that the adaptation is what changes my mind but somehow it did in this case especially since it was renewed for Season 2. The big triumph and focus was to finish the second and third season of Line Walker and boy, it was a crazy ride. Line Walker 2 and 3 aren’t nearly as great as the first one but it still has some great moments and such a solid central cast.

Games

• Doors: Origins
• Doors: Paradox

Currently playing: The Gunk, Alt-Frequencies

I believe I mentioned last month that I picked up the Google Play Pass for peanuts so I’ve been focusing on that mostly. I ended up finishing the Doors: Origins and Doors: Paradox which is so creative. Its a mobile game but I had a ton of fun figuring out the puzzles and such. I’ve moved on to Alt-Frequencies on my phone which is one that I’m definitely going to talk more about when I’m done as the game mechanics, premise and concept are all very creative and a very unique gaming mechanic and experience. Aside from that, I’m still waiting to get back to finish The Gunk but January has been a wild month so didn’t have time to get back to Game Pass just yet.

That’s it for this month’s adventures and What’s Up!
What have you been up to?

What’s Up & Adventures – September 2022

ADVENTURES

Halloween Marathon

Its the time of year again, even if I think its a bit hard to believe we’re already here. I’m going to admit right now that this may go very bad with very little output as mostly my sporadic lack of sleep does affect my writing efficiency. However, Halloween Marathon is something that I truly enjoy and with some changes in circumstances, via a one-month sub of a streaming service that I will talk about in the Movies section, I have some great choices to add to the line-up plus Netflix and Shudder has some nice stuff to watch as well. If you follow me on Letterboxd, you know what I’ve been watching and what reviews will be coming up. With that said, the first post for the marathon starts tomorrow. Expect TV binges and Double Features in the line-up.

Baby Update

Triple V has been quite a bundle this week as he passes his 3 months. For Chinese people, we like to celebrate 100 days so my mom got him some little gifts. On top of that, his 100 days also signified a change because he’s a whopping 15lbs now which means he can’t sleep in his bassinet anymore and had to be moved to the crib. The transition was the biggest highlight since we had just mastered some great sleeping habits in the bassinet to find that the transition to the crib felt almost like it was starting all over again, which was a little deflating on our already lack of sleep and slowly gaining back sleep stage. However, as I write this post, it was really only the first few nights with the first where Triple V decided he wanted to explore the ENTIRE space and started going in circles and then getting himself stuck and woke up and cried. A few days later, he is still doing it but all the trying to flip over and the getting stuck and waking up is done. He now wakes up mostly in desperate hunger and some weird need for attention in the early mornings but mostly he can go back to sleep fairly well or get himself out of the corner on his own. Slowly we will get there…

Exercise Update

Its been over 3 months so I’ve been taking longer walks now. I’m not jumping into intense exercising (not that I’ve done that in a long while) so its mostly morning and evening strolls with Triple V and they are gradually getting a bit longer. While I can’t remember to track everything, I still try to get one to two strolls a day nearby.

Broadwalk “Hiking” – Marais de la Rivieres aux Cerises

With the whole exercise chat, we decided that we would go for a little fall foliage since we seem to always miss it when we go during Thanksgiving. However, this year it seems everything is a little delayed so we were a tad early. There were some areas with a lot of trees that had changed colors but a lot of places that didn’t really have it yet. It was nice to take a little easy hike even we had already been here before (probably about a decade ago) but this time it was a little first road trip adventure with Triple V.

WHAT’S UP

Books

• The Summer I Turned Pretty (Review)

Currently reading: Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3), Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle

Look at me and reading. I can’t really recommend The Summer I Turned Pretty and you can read all about it in the review. In terms of YA novel content, The Lunar Chronicles does a better job as Cinder is a stellar book and its sequel is passable so I decided to start that one up but then got attracted to my new purchases of Kiki’s Delivery Service (which I never read the source material before) and Howl’s Moving Castle (which I have but wanted to re-read). I should finish a part of that list during October, let’s hope.

Movies

• Spirited Away (2001 rewatch)
• The Reef: Stalked (2022)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (2004 rewatch)
• The Little Mermaid Live (2019)
• Waitress (2007)
• Hocus Pocus (1993 rewatch)
• Mary Poppins Returns (2018 rewatch, review)
• Sheng Wang: Sweet and Juicy (2022)
• Death On The Nile (2022)
• Turning Red (2022)
• The Maze Runner (2014 rewatch, review)
• Do Revenge (2022)
• Monsters University (2013)
• Incredibles 2 (2018)
• Jennifer’s Body (2009)
• Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
• Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015, Review)
• Underwater (2020)
• Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018, Review)
• Antlers (2021)
• Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
• Captain Marvel (2019)

Currently watching: Nightmare Alley

As I mentioned before, I got a one month subscription to Disney Plus for the Disney Day deal for $1.99. Last year I got it, I forgot that it existed and didn’t really make use of it too much so we’re making back for it this year. There’s quite the catalogue even outside of the Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars content so it was pretty good. There’s still a little less than half a month left so you will probably still see some more of this service’s titles pop up in the next month.

With that said, its been a very low amount of reviews written mostly because a lot of this is prep work for the Halloween Marathon or for Movies and Tea podcast. If its not, you should see those soon, probably after October’s marathon month. I do have an ambitious goal of catching up with Marvel’s films since I stopped at Infinity War so I buckled down to do it. You can see that I’m already slowly catching up.

My recommendations this month goes to Turning Red, Do Revenge, Underwater and the Maze Runner trilogy.

TV

• I Just Killed My Dad (Limited Series, 2022)
• The Oasis鄧錄圓魚洲
• The Rap Of China中國説唱巔峰對決
• The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist (Limited Series, 2022)

Currently binging: Great Escape Season 4 密室大逃脫第四季, Love Between Fairy and Devil 蒼蘭訣, Call Me By Fire 2 披荊斬棘的哥哥, Heart Signal Season 5心動的信號, Hello Summer Relationship相遇的夏天, Rock & Roast Season 5脫口秀大會,

Oh boy, TV series will be hard to talk about unless you have a massive interest in Chinese Variety shows or dramas. Its honestly just the time of year where all the shows I like have gathered together to be released at the same time. Most of them are currently playing in the currently binging one. The standout is always Great Escape where Season 4 has truly notched up the fun element and they expanded and blended the Escape Room with other game elements.

I actually was planning on finishing Love Between Fairy and Devil before Netflix added it but got lured to watch other stuff and never got around to resuming it however, its a pretty great show and if you have Netflix, it makes it so much easier to watch.

Games

• A Plague Tale: Innocence (to be finished)
• Coffee Talk (Review)
• AI: The Somnium Files (not finished)

I’ve been taking a little more time on gaming when I have the time to spare. I mean, I have a fixed amount of time where I can do my own stuff when the little one naps or goes to bed at night so its not really a ton of time. However, with a lot of the Game Pass catalogue leaving during September, I tried to get through the ones that I wanted to play hence the unfinished two games. A Plague Tale: Innocence is actually pretty good but I saved myself the rush mostly because I didn’t realize that my husband bought it on Steam so I will get back to that eventually. AI : The Somnium Files is a pretty good game and super expensive to buy in general but its a visual novel with investigative elements and you can’t really rush those so I unfortunately didn’t get to finish it. I was pretty much a third into the game at that point looking at some of the game chapter breakdown. This one’s a little quirky and odd but there are some pretty graphic murder scenes in this one.

Now, lets talk about something that I did finish: Coffee Talk which is also a visual novel and once where you brew coffee while listening to what goes on with the customers. Its a relaxing game to say the least plus there are some fun drink blends that they include which were fun to discover as well.

What’s Up & Adventures – August 2022

ADVENTURES – AUGUST 2022

Welcome to the adventures for August 2022. Honestly, I should just change this coming year into baby adventures more than anything. Considering I’m on maternity leave right now, there’s really nothing else in my life more important than taking care of my newborn and making sure the house doesn’t slip gradually into chaos. With that said, there were some nice little baby updates which includes no pictures and we did have family visit which is quite the unusual since we really haven’t seen anyone out of town since before the pandemic.

Baby Updates

Triple V had a few little adventures of his own. For one, he had his 2 month vaccinations which went as well as could be expected with both of his thighs getting vaccines for various illnesses. Despite some crying, he did calm down fairly quickly and fell asleep so I consider him quite the champ. Considering that this month, we’ve also experienced some crazy evenings with some intense crying and a hard time pinpointing what was the issue.

With that said, he also had his first medical check-up. Yay to our healthcare system where you can’t find a family doctor anymore so the 2-4 weeks check-up turned into a 2 months old check-up. Luckily, all is well and he is growing up quickly. Apparently, we have a “big baby”, which I’m pretty sure I didn’t need the doctor to tell me since he was pretty big in my belly already and then he waited until the last day so he spent some quality time growing before he hit the outside world.

On that front, we are getting in some more exercising. More that I’m taking him out for strolls when its not raining or heat wave. August has been rather abundant in those two fronts. However, its quite relaxing to get out of the house every now and then and get some fresh air. At least for myself, it feels like I’m getting a part of my own active lifestyle back. Its going to take a while but I’ll eventually get back there to some form.

Podcast Update

With that said, I guess I should mention a little update on the podcast which probably is the only thing really goin on track in the case of these projects. Podcast recording is gradually back in production. Much like my post before I went on leave announcing a semi-hiatus, I had pretty much said that it wouldn’t affect it to much and it didn’t since we created quite a bit of backlog for both Movies and Tea and Game Warp so its just a matter of getting those out one by one. I will get back to reposting those. In the meantime, you can always check out both podcasts on most podcast platforms. Those places will have the most recent updates.

As things calm down gradually hopefully, I am starting to think about getting that revamped version of my solo podcast off the ground again. I’m still working out how to approach the content but I have a solid list of topics for the episodes already and it will be really relevant. If my plans go well, you might see something soon-ish. I’m not so worried about recording as it is finding time to edit. I’ve been thinking about it more and more so it should at some point happen.

WHAT’S UP – AUGUST 2022

Books

Currently reading: The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

As I spend more time at home now, I am gradually wanting to expand during baby’s naptime to do something other than watching TV so I’ve literally just cracked open The Summer I Turned Pretty. There’s not too much to say. My expectations for it: An equally entertaining time as Jenny Han’s previous book To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Might be a tall order but hey, who knows, right?

Movies

• Purple Hearts (2022, Review)
• The Lorax (2012 rewatch, Review)
• Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989 rewatch)
• Wedding Season (2022, Review)
• Bewitched (2005)
• Porco Rosso (1992 rewatch, Review)
• Look Both Ways (2022, Review)
• Princess Mononoke (1997)
• Inside The Mind of a Cat (2022)
• Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968)

Packed with a few rewatches and some new films from Netflix for the most part, the movies I watched this month were relatively good. Netflix rom-coms are always about the same but then I did already write the reviews so you can check those out. Among that pack of films, Look Both Ways definitely stood out as its not exactly a rom-com. Other than that, I FINALLY watched Princess Mononoke which was a Studio Ghibli title that my friends have been hassling me about not having watched for years. You will hear my extended thoughts on that on Movies and Tea in a good while. For the most part, I really liked it for the scope of the film and compared it to Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind but didn’t quite resonate with the characters as much. Wrapping up the month is a new Netflix documentary about cats called Inside The Mind of a Cat which was super fun to watch and gave me some terms to attach to cats and some extra knowledge that explains some of my own cat’s behavior.

TV

• Boo, Bitch (Limited Series, 2022)
• Twinkle Love Season 2怦然心動20嵗第二季
• The Most Hated Man On The Internet (Limited Series 2022)
• Never Have I Ever (Season 3)
• Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist (2022)
• Wonderland Season 2五十公里桃花塢2
• I Hear You 最動聽的事
• Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives (2022)
• The Puppet Master: Hunting The Ultimate Conman (2022)

Currently watching: I Just Killed My Dad, Great Escape Season 4 密室大逃脫第四季, The Oasis登錄圓魚洲, Love Between Fairy and Devil 蒼蘭訣, The Rap Of China中國説唱巔峰對決, Call Me By Fire 2 披荊斬棘的哥哥, Heart Signal Season 5心動的信號

I have to give myself a nice pat on the back for creating a decent mix between the Chinese drama and variety shows versus the English content, even if most of the English content are all limited series for Netflix crime documentaries. Its my latest thing that I’ve really liked seeing as Netflix has some pretty strong crime documentaries and are pretty consistent in quality. The four gave me an array of emotions: Most Hated Man was very upsetting and fit its title, Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist was truly well done and had a nice message about forgiveness, Bad Vegan made me question whether someone would truly believe something like that or its all excuses (still contemplating that one) and Puppet Master was just a wild ride since its unbelievable how someone can get away doing that stuff.

Onto more lighthearted stuff, I had a ton of fun with teen series Boo, Bitch and Season 3 of Never Have I Ever. They were so entertaining and still had some pretty good moments. Both of those TV binges are almost done so you should see them soon. I lack of TV series review writing inspiration currently happening. As for Chinese series, a lot of the currently watching TV shows are about to end but man, Wonderland Season 2 was a such a great one. I didn’t watch the Season 2 so currently debating if I should, hopefully it isn’t under VIP since I don’t want to subscribe to another streaming service, although I probably will at one point to WeTV since I have a lot of series that is locked in VIP that I missed before and I don’t really like watching them on YouTube.

A fun update is that I’m currently watching Love Between Fairy and Devil (yes, the title is stupid but the series honestly isn’t) which will land on Netflix in September some time (I can’t remember the date so if you want to check out Chinese fantasy dramas, this one is good and not too long. Netflix has been doing a good job at picking up some of this year’s heavy hitters. Now, maybe they can also get Love Like The Galaxy, which is another breakout series currently playing which is on my watchlist.

Games

• Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition

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After starting up Spiritfarer last summer, I finally went back to it to play through the rest of the main content plus all the updates in 2 weeks. The updates were really great since the last one did give it such a well-rounded ending to the whole experience which adds so much to the narrative element of the game itself which plays a big part. There’s so much to love about Spiritfarer. Even though I finished the game with probably the most amount of hours and the closest I’ve ever gotten to 100% of the game content, I still am considering picking up this game at one point and revisiting it just for the beautiful world and stories that it tells.

What’s Up & Adventures – June 2022

June 2022 Adventures

If you hadn’t caught my mid-June announcement/update, you can find that HERE.

The biggest event of June which has consumed most of the month is that: I had a BABY BOY!

I’ve been kind of a bit hush hush on the whole thing on the blog and just dropping little hints about the nursery and such in the adventures post since the beginning of the year. Obviously, if no one read it then they probably never quite realized it was a thing in my life. It also explained the lesser amounts of posts in the past 8 months or so since the first trimester was just a fatigue filled sleep fest. I wanted to sleep all the time. With that said, I couldn’t complain a lot since I had a pretty smooth pregnancy with no cravings, almost no nausea or food aversions except for fish and nothing came back bad in any of the tests and checkups.

Where things started to go wrong was the actual birthing process where things got a little scary for a moment and didn’t go as planned resulting in a C-section. However, everything is so far so good and as I sit here recovering and the husband and I are on our maternity/parental leave , its been quite a journey for the past 2 weeks or so with a newborn. The surgery meant that I basically can’t do a whole lot of stuff except for caring for the baby without having a lot of discomfort. Luckily things are getting better day by day.

If you take a look at the announcement/update post, basically things will remain fairly slow for at least the next month or two. However, my other projects with my fantastic co-host who is holding down the fort and our hard work in creating a huge backlog in our production means those projects are still going out. If you ever want to hear some podcasts, Movies and Tea is currently in its Quentin Tarantino season and Game Warp is also having scatters of reviews and non-E3 2022 coverage.

To be fair, I haven’t had a vacation from work in the past 3 years (partially pandemic- related) so I’m taking the leave to relax a little and enjoy my time with my newborn, we nicknamed him Triple V so if I mention him again, may be under that name from now on.

Basically June’s adventures was half the month waiting to birth the baby and the second half is taking care of the baby. Its crazy how fast time goes by.

What’s Up – June 2022

Books

Currently reading: The Woman in Cabin 10

Recently started up The Woman in Cabin 10. Literally one chapter in so I will talk about it more next month. Maybe by then, I will have finished it.

Movies

• My Neighbor Totoro (1988 rewatch)
• The Night Clerk (2020)
• Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)
• Rogue (2007, Review)
• Trust (2021, Review)
• Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill (2022)
• Girl’s Revenge (2020, Review)
• Cyber Hell: Exposing An Internet Horror (2022, Review)
• Hellboy (2019)
• Constantine (2005 rewatch)
• The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
• Profile (2018)
• Adrift (2018)

Sitting at home for maternity leave for the entire June gave time to catch on some movie watching (among many other things) especially before our baby arrived. I was able to catch up on some titles I hadn’t seen before. As usual, highlighted titles are the ones I personally recommend. Reviews are on the way for some of these. Special mention goes to 2007’s Rogue which was a ton of fun for a creature feature and Profile, a Screenlife title which I thought worked really well also. Much like Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark which was a fun little kids horror adaptation.

TV

• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 3, Review)
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 4, Review)
• The Floor is Lava (Season 2)
• Riverdale (Season 2, Review)
• Midnight Asia (Season 1)
• Iron Chef: Quest For An Iron Legend (Season 1)
• Yes I Do (喜歡你我也是, Season 3)
• Riverdale (Season 3)
• The Umbrella Academy (Season 2)
• The Umbrella Academy (Season 3)
• Camping Life (一起露營吧）

Currently binging: Day Breakers 暗夜行者, Nightflyers, Infinity and Beyond聲生不息, Love The Way You Are 愛情應該有的樣子, The Great Canadian Baking Show (Season 5)

With a ton of TV binges in the works right now from the past month, here we are. We started Nightflyers which was good but I had to stop as we hit a part of the series which triggered the pregnant me a little so we took a pause on that. Chinese variety shows were my jam with Infinity and Beyond taking the lead bringing back a ton of Cantopop nostalgia. Finished up Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and got back into Riverdale and now Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa seems to be haunting me as I look around and its just shows that he is working or worked on. Having never seen even one episode of Iron Chef, the Netflix version was so much fun. Highly recommend if you like cooking competition shows. Finally we finally caught up with The Umbrella Academy with the third season recently being released, no better time than now, right?

Games

• How To Say Goodbye (Demo)
• Paper Trail (Demo)
• The Last Stop (Review)

Currently playing: Backbone, Lost Words: Beyond the Page

Gaming finally picks up again! Beginning of June saw the non-E3 2022 happen as Game Warp covered some out of our highlights from various showcases that peaked our interest. It also brought along Steam Fest which meant a lot of demos for upcoming indie games to check out. The two I played were How To Say Goodbye and Paper Trail. Both were pretty decent concepts although Paper Trail has a bit of the Gorogoa vibe except with paper as the item of manipulation, which I absolutely adored.

I am mostly catching up with Game Pass titles at this point. Last Stop left Game Pass at the end of June so I played it through. My first game review in eons is on the Game Warp blog if you wanted to check it out. I am focusing on smaller games and less brain involving ones so its why I put Backbone aside and started up a simpler word-based platformer Lost Words, which I had tried the demo before. About halfway through the game as this post goes up.

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for June 2022!
What have you been up to?

What’s Up & Adventures – April 2022

Welcome to this month’s wrap up for What’s Up & Adventures for April 2022.

April is always a crazy month work-wise and adding in a lot of the current situation, its been a lot more bonkers as well. Hence the later than usual recap post. While adventures is a little lacking, we have been getting things together in general. Lets take a quick look at some fast updates before we jump into the much more interesting Wha’ts Up portion.

New Season – Movies and Tea Podcast

While I am still working through the reblogs for the previous season, Movies and Tea blog and our podcast platform everywhere is already updating the new season of the podcast as we go through our Quentin Tarantino season. For myself, its a whole new adventure since its almost three quarters first time watches.

You can check it out over at the blog HERE or on most podcast platforms.

Baby Things and Preparation

I have really held off on talking a whole lot about the pregnancy since my little not so hidden announcement at the beginning of the year or last month’s office move/nursery setup. As the nursery starts shaping up and my due date is a little over a month away and the last stretch of preparation shows up, its fine time to talk about something probably not so important but something I always thought was a somewhat memorable moment if and when I had a baby and its buying the first pair of shoes.

Not to mention, one of April’s highlights was going for the second ultrasound as the first one had a minor little abnormality which was all normal in this one. All around good news so far plus seeing the much bigger baby then was a pretty touching moment.

What’s Up – April 2022

Books

• The Girl On The Train (Review)

Currently reading: Nevernight

Still relatively on track with reading as I try to use the commute to the office to read as much as I can. The Girl on the Train is a pretty decent read. I do hope to watch the adaptations at some point.

As for the currently reading selection, Nevernight has a world building which is pretty extensive but there are some elements that I am finding a little annoying. I am still fairly early in the book so I don’t want to make any judgments quite yet especially since beginning of books are my usual hurdle.

Movies

• Virus (1999)
• You vs. Wild: Out Cold (2021)
• Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy (2022)
• The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021, Review)
• Desperado (1995)
• Knives Out (2019, Review)
• Rebecca (2020)
• The Invisible Man (2020, Review)
• The Sadness (2021, Review)
• The Crazies (2010, Review)

Movies are still going relatively strong this month. Even the writing is pretty on track as well. The movie reviewing writing slump is slowly going away. With that said, this month was full of fun film discoveries from all genres. Nothing really disappointed too much except one or two. The interactive film You Vs The Wild: Out Cold was kind of a snoozefest but these things are never too long so it helps fill up some time when I couldn’t decide what to watch next. As for recommendations for this month, Knives Out, The Mitchells vs. The Machines and The Invisible. If you don’t mind a massive trigger warning and gut-wrenching gorefest, The Sadness is a decent choice as well.

TV

• Another Me (2019)
• Archive 81 (2022, Review)
• Falling Into Your Smile (2021)
• Bullsh*t The Game Show (2022)

Currently watching: Yes I Do (Season 3), Who’s The Murderer (Season 7), Gypsy, Falling in Love With a Scientist, Infinity and Beyond

Looking at the TV list, it sure feels like eons ago that I finished Another Me at the first half of the month. Probably because the TV series had a lot of issues for the most part and hit a whole new level of melodrama that started bothering me. The ending did kind of redeem itself a little though. The film version which I have yet to see did get lots of praise so I will hopefully watch it at some point.

With that said, Archive 81 is a cliffhanger ending and cancelled Netflix series which is somewhat of a pity since it is pretty good. Netflix did add Falling Into Your Smile which is a Chinese drama that I had my eye on last year but its from a channel which geo-locked the series when I wanted to watch it. Highly recommend. This might just be the series for me to get back into some form of TV binge for the Chinese dramas since I am so behind on it.

Games

• Erica
• Football Game

A light gaming month to say the least. Both of these games were fairly short in content. Erica is an FMV game which is basically an interactive film with 4 endings running at around 2 hours per run. Considering that I didn’t do the run again and did some research and think the ending I got was the good one, I just left it at that. The second game, Football Game is a short point and click game which is a little bit laborous with little favors and tasks which all comes down to a deeper story for the thriller as it came to a rather vague but depressing ending. I will try to get a review up for these two over at Game Warp but its a daunting since game reviews have fallen into the abyss for myself.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for April 2022.
Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you’ve been up to some exciting stuff.

My Adventures & What’s Up – March 2022

Weekly Adventures – March 2022

Nothing much happened in March. March basically included a lot of cleaning and tidying. I did work on some of those “2022 Upcoming Plans”, one of which is I’d say 80% done at this point. Since I haven’t been super vocal about being pregnant or sharing my experiences despite the blog slowing down a whole lot. The goal I’m talking about for this year to move the office and set up the nursery is the only thing that is happening as the due date gets closer. However, that’s personal stuff and other than acknowledging it quickly, I don’t want to post up any photos of it since its still a work in progress. My adventures basically has to do with being pregnant which is not exactly exciting to talk about other than my own experience of it. The other part is mostly job and then my constant contemplation on eating healthier and really starting to miss some of the stuff that I’ve cut out of my diet to be healthier. That’s basically it in that department. Oh right, and I also just turned 36! Isn’t that exciting, right?

Now moving on to more fun things like the next part, What’s Up for the past month!

What’s Up – March 2022

Books

• The Handmaid’s Tale (Review)
• Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) (Review)

Currently reading: The Magician’s Nephew (re-read), The Girl On The Train

Finally some progress in the Goodreads Reading Challenge this year! It was a slow start but now I’ve been motivated to move from one book to the next and get those reviews up as soon as I finish to keep things rolling. Scarlet was a really fun read. I guess taking a break from YA novels was a great move since I did appreciate the easier reads. The basic system now is alternating between YA books and older books. I should start adding classics to it but it will probably happen later this year.

Movies

• Time (2021, Review)
• Ms. Pat: Y’All Wanna Hear Something Crazy (2022)
• Piranha 3D (2010)
• American Girl (2021, Review)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022, Review)
• Great White (2021)
• The Bay (2012)
• Catherine Cohen: The Twist?… She’s Gorgeous (2022)
• Crawl (2019, rewatch Review)
• Jaws (1975, rewatch)
• Secretary (2002)
• Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
• In The Cut (2003)

As Movies and Tea focuses on the next season of production, a lot of these movies are a part of that. In a perfect world, I did want to get at least one more double feature out before this recap post went up but oh well, what can we do? Movies was a decent month. Other than my not so happy outing with Piranha 3D, everything was pretty decent overall. Some was a little disappointing like Great White, a few surprises like The Bay, some exceeded expectations like Time and then some lived up to expectations (in a good way) like Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. It did feel great to catch up with some older films that I have heard great things about like Secretary and finally returned to watch a Meg Ryan film. If you have been here in the earlier days, I really love Meg Ryan and have been wanting to go through all her films but Netflix is usually a bit thin on that front.

TV

• Love Under The Full Moon (2021)
• RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 7, 2015)
• The King’s Avatar (2019 rewatch)
• Is It Cake? (Season 1, 2022)
• Light The Night (Part 3, 2022)
• Bridgerton (Season 2, 2022 Review)
• Fresh Fried & Crispy (Season 1, 2021)

Currently watching: Who’s The Murderer (Season 7), Another Me

Looking at the list, I didn’t even realize how much TV I have watched. To be fair, I had 4 episodes left of Love Under The Full Moon when I started the month so not exactly hard to complete. The King’s Avatar was a rewatch basically because I think its a great choice as background content but also a great choice as a kickoff for my podcast concept which I promise is going into production soon. A little tired of my own procrastination. Just overthinking the whole thing at this point. Highlight of this month goes to Light The Night Part 3, the anticipation and wait was pretty worth it. Netflix will never see this but if they do, please don’t split a complete series into 3 parts. Its really pointless. Bridgerton Season 2 was also a bingeworthy watch considering I watched it over a weekend.

Games

• Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master!
• The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
• A Memoir Blue

Currently playing: Bloodroots

Even gaming had a lot of progress. I did play The Drum Master for the longest time but finally stopped when I hit a bug that kept shutting off the game on its own. A Memoir Blue is a one sitting simplistic narrative game that was pretty heartfelt and fits the Game Pass really well. The highlight is definitely House Of Ashes which I streamed shared story mode with my friend BrandelSavage. We do plan to play it again since there seems to be a few other paths to explore. I will also replay it on my own. Maybe on stream, who knows. I do want to start streaming which was also on my goals for this year especially since my office is moved, the only issue is that its now in open space so need to reconsider when to stream.

I guess this whole recap explains why I haven’t had adventures considering how abundant everything is. Its been pretty fun overall. April will be crazy work phase so expect a big drop in the next month although I also have some planning to do for this next month to get things ready in advance as much as I can.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for March 2022!
What have you been up to?

What’s Up & Adventures – January 2022

Welcome to 2022’s first adventures post and its all new and shiny. If you missed the 2022 Upcoming Plans post, this year I’m trying out combining the What’s Up and Adventures. With the current state this month of Montreal, Adventures are rather thin although I’m going on a completely new journey internally and physically so that’s something. With that said, Adventures to begin and then we’ll wrap up with the What’s Up at the end for a monthly round-up of the books, films, games and TV that I checked out.

Letterboxd Year in Review

Films Logged: 219
Hours Watched: 472
Most Watched Actor: Samuel L. Jackson
Most Watched Director: Quentin Tarantino

Letterboxd Year in Review always arrives later than the year-end recap so here’s a quick overview of some of the stats there.

Booster Shot

Booster shot is done! It went much smoother than the second dose to my surprise. I was pretty happy about it though since it meant that I could still do some stuff during the weekend as I recuperated. Not much to say there. I just had a little pain in my upper arm and that’s about it.

11th Blogiversary

Its been 11 years of blogging with this blog! There’s been lots of ups and down in life and also a lot of changes in content and more projects coming and going. I had some plans for the blogiversary that kind of fell apart. There’s just a whole lot to be thankful for and really happy with how I’ve built this space even if sometimes it feels like blogging is a lot less popular and the familiar bloggers are slowly less and less everyday. Either way, I’m excited for this new year. Lots of fun stuff coming up that I’m just having a hard time getting off the ground mostly because of work deadlines and lots of overtime but that’s slightly better now so hopefully you will be seeing more frequency on the posting front!

What’s Up- January 2022

Welcome to the new style for the What’s Up as it pairs with the Adventures post! This time around I will leave most of the actual opinions to the reviews themselves which will be released within a month of completion for the most part. Might be a slow start yet again due to work schedule for this month however everything’s partially written. I usually do highlights as well for this section to share what I think stood out to me. In this new one, the titles will be in bold for those that I particularly feel is worth your time.

Books: Nothing yet. Books in transition to a new shelf.

Films:

• The Birds (1963)
• 6 Years (2015, Review)
• All The Bright Places (2020, Review)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (rewatch, 2004)
• Booksmart (2019, Review)
• Carrie Pilby (2016, Review)
• Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
• Poupelle of Chimney Town (2021, Review)
• Alligator (1980)
• Dude (2018, Review)
• Every Day (2018, Review)
• The F*ck-It List (2020)
• Aziz Ansari: Nightclub Comedian (2022)

TV:

• Light The Night (華燈初上, Part 1&2)
• Voir (Season 1, 2021)
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (Season 1, 2021) Review
• Love At Night (夜色暗涌時, 2021)
• The Silent Sea (Season 1, 2021)
• Deadly Class (Season 1, 2018)
• Too Hot To Handle (Season 3, 2022)
• The Wheel of Time (Season 1, 2021)
• The World of Fantasy (靈域, 2021)
• Hellbound (Season 1, 2021)

Currently binging: Shining For One Thing (一閃一閃亮星星, 2022)

Games: Currently playing: Genesis Noir

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up recap!
Hope you enjoyed it!
What have you been up to?