What’s Up 2019 Week 8: Slowly back to normal…

Welcome to Week 8! February’s almost over and its incredible to think about that. As the Valentine’s marathon is more of a romance marathon in its last leg, movies have slowed down a little as I got back into the groove of both gaming and TV series again. Reading is doing pretty well also. Things are back to their normal balance and its pretty refreshing even if it feels like the Valentine’s marathon’s  last leg is a bit hindered. However, I am enjoying the themed month and thinking of doing that more frequently.

READING

• One Flew Through The Dragon Heart by C.S. Johnson (Review)

Currently reading: The Princess and the Peacock

Wrapped up One Flew Through the Dragon Heart finally. It really had nothing to do with the book itself as you can see in the review (link above). The blog tour is currently happening. The book had a nice subgenre that I don’t read enough of: steampunk. There was really one thing that bothered me a lot but then in the sum of things, it turned out to be a fun little adventure. Its the first book in a series so it’ll be nice to see where it heads next. The current read is also from C.S. Johnson but is a novella so I’m blasting through it rather quickly. So far, The Princess and the Peacock is interesting to say the least. I’ll gather more thoughts probably in the second half (which I’m about to get to).

PLAYING

• Mortal Kombat XL [Story mode]

Currently playing: Eastshade

After a few weeks, much longer than anticipated, of having my playing game as Mortal Kombat X, I have finally moved on with life. Its been a fun game though and a fitting one which helped decrease a lot of frustration via video games. It did have its difficult moments because I’m not good at fighting games but then, its kind of obviously seeing as I took a 4 hours campaign and doubled the time to finish it. Oh well, its how things are. As long as it had its entertainment value.

WATCHING

• Remember Me (Review)
• Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho!
• Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
• Secret

Look at this list! I almost am not used to seeing it so short however, it was nice to take a moment to not just watch movies everyday on turbo mode. Its always nice to catch up with newly released comedy shows. Ken Jeong is a comedian that I do enjoy more and more over the years. He’s not my favorite but this comedy show was pretty good. There were some bits that truly worked out very hilarious. As for movies, things were fairly average. Every movie had their issues that broke it a little but as low as 2007’s Jay Chou directorial debut Secret was rated, I connected with it the most and appreciated what it was trying to achieve. Review coming up for that one in the next double feature (probably later today).

BINGING

• Super-Vocal (Season 1, 2018)

Currently binging: My Amazing Boyfriend 2, The Singer 2019, My Little One (Season 2), Miss Rose

The big binge was finally catching up with Super Vocal, which is a new Chinese operatic music competition that just ended in January 2019. I’ll do a binge of it soon but all the factors work out really well here. I do hope that they keep this as annual thing because it has so many cool things. I found it through the Super Vocal quartet that joined into The Singer 2019. However, the entire thing is pretty fun and I’m a big fan of this type of music even if I don’t listen to it very often.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
Its been colorful and fun to say the least!
What have you been reading/watching/binging/playing?

What’s Up Week 7: Marathon and Blogathon!

Welcome to week 7 of 2019. We’re halfway through February and its crazy! Time sure does fly and then its super busy as well. Some of the categories have been very quiet but February has been a month full of movie-watching.

READING

Currently reading: One Flew Through the Dragon Heart (Favan & Flew #1)

Still reading One Flew Through the Dragon Heart. I’m about three quarters done with the book. At this point, I’m enjoying the setting and adventure aspect of it. Its a lot of fun to read although I have some little issues with it, and its something I feel that seems to persist since the beginning.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Mortal Kombat X

It was weeks ago that I started up the campaign of Mortal Kombat X and then never found time to get back to it. I powered through a good part of it this weekend. While its supposed to only take 4 hours, this will definitely take me more as I have issues with combat games and just executing combos which causes problems. But I’m getting better, I think… The hope is to finish it up in the coming week.

WATCHING

• Nappily Ever After (Review)
• The Other Boleyn Girl (Review)
• Prince Charming (Review)
• The Bullet Vanishes (rewatch) (Review)
• Permission
• SPL/KillZone (rewatch) (Review)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (rewatch)

A bit less crazy on the movie watching front but still the category that I spent the most time doing. With Ultimate 2000s Blogathon kicking off and Movies and Tea podcast recordings really amping up, two of these movies were for those respective purposes. The Bullet Vanishes was another rewatch for recording as a guest with Asian Cinema Film Club. As for the others, they were all for the Valentine’s Romance Double Feature, whatever you want to call that which I extended to the entire month to finish off the Netflix Alphabet theme. I’m enjoying it so far and have discovered some interesting films. Nothing has been so bad that I regretted watching just yet, some definitely were lackluster but I’ve also discovered some true gem. However, as much as you want to say that I’m doing a shameless plug for Ultimate 2000s Blogathon, SPL: Kill Zone was my fave movie of this batch. I always love to find a reason to rewatch that one and its probably why the review was so out of control long. I haven’t written a review that lengthy in a long time.

BINGING

Currently binging: My Amazing Boyfriend 2 (2019), The Singer 2019, My Little One (Season 2), Miss Rose (rewatch)

My Amazing Boyfriend 2 starting up on Valentine’s Day. It runs 2 episode releases on Youtube every week from Thursday to Saturday. 6 new episodes a week is usually pretty normal. If you were here a few weeks ago, I had just finished up My Amazing Boyfriend and talked about how they were using a main leads to do the sequel. After watching the first 6 episodes, its funny but the new girl does capture a lot of the original actress, Wu Qian’s style and in some shots even look a bit like her. I’m also enjoying Mike Angelo play the male lead also. He brings a slightly different vibe in his expressions but I might actually like it even more than the original. Not sure quite yet.

As I mentioned before that I’m slowly going through all the series that I watched last year and never reviewed so I ended up rewatching Miss Rose. No worries. I’m working on the stuff wrapped in 2019 as priority as a lot of stuff I’ve been stuck on got written out so I’m hoping it’ll get me out of this writing rut. The Singer 2019 went on as usual and it was a nice episode full of fantastic performances.

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

What’s Up – Week 3: Time for some Movies…

Welcome everyone to the next What’s Up! Halfway through the first month of the year and its starting to feel like the destiny of this segment is going to be slightly like a roller coaster ride with a week of progress and a week of what’s in progress. However, I’m pretty happy with this week. Reading went well, movies went relatively already, gaming had some moving forward and TV series had a few wrap-ups as well.

Let’s see what went on last week!

READING

• The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events #13) Review
• Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before #3)

Currently reading: The Girl From Everywhere

This week has been great in terms of reading. I finished off the last few percent leftover from the previous week for A Series of Unfortunate Events series and then went ahead to read the third and final book in All The Boys I’ve Loved Before called Always and Forever, Lara Jean. Both are some really good reads.

PLAYING

• Tsioque

Currently playing: Mortal Kombat X

We finished off Tsioque last week and the edit is going to take a little whilr as we did get stuck a few times. However, both the story and the game design itself is pretty entertaining and clever. I am about 3 games behind (counting this one) in game reviews so it will happen soon. However, with the Mortal Kombat 11 reveal last week, we decided to do our next feature review on Mortal Kombat X which I never finished the campaign. It might be short but I am not a skilled fighting game player so it may take longer.

WATCHING

• Bird Box
• American Ultra
• Dredd (2012)
• Blade II
• Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

As for movies, we did pretty well. Blade 2 is for the next Movies and Tea recording while Jumaniji: Welcome to the Jungle was a cheap rental I got during Boxing Day on the Play store. My husband’s been bothering me about watching Dredd so we finally did and it reminded me a lot of The Raid: Redemption but then this came first so he said maybe the latter is inspired by that movie structure. I don’t know but don’t think so. Its just similar. On that note, we are working through all the unwatched films in out movie collection for both my husband and I to break away from Netflix a little. So theres all that to expect. On the Netflix front, I loved Birdbox and will pair it with A Quiet Place for a double feature and finally caught up with American Ultra. I am currently debating a Kristen Stewart roles ranked list at some point so I might watch more of her films. I am starting to think Twilight is her lowpoint and she is better in other roles.

BINGING

• My Amazing Boyfriend (2016)
• Ugly Delicious (Season 1) – rewatch

Currently binging: Who’s the Murderer (Season 4), My Little One (Season 2), Meteor Garden (2018 rewatch), The Singer 2019

TV binges are not moving along fast enough. They are turning out to be the most time consuming segment but I love watching TV series so its staying. I finished rewatching Ugly Delicious and I do have something to bring up in the review which is a question that I have been pondering over this rewatch. I also finished My Amazing Boyfriend, a 2016 Chinese Drama headed for a sequel but retaining the entire cast except the main leads. I will talk about that in the TV binge. However, this is a fun one. It had a lot of funny moments and the chemistry between the leads are pretty good as well. As for the currently watching, I don’t really have anything new that I’m watching. Who’s the Murderer wraps up on Friday so that’s another one to add to the pile of TV binges to work on. 😉

Its been a pretty productive week overall!
Watching movies became a big part of progress however everything moved along pretty well also.
Lots of upcoming reviews to work on. 🙂

What’s Up Thursday #4

I’m WAY overdue for the post but I figured I haven’t done What’s Up Wednesday, and its Thursday now. I feel like mid-week is where my slump happens as things slip away from me. Regardless, I guess more to talk about than the last one. I’ve been doing a lot of gaming so less of everything else. However, gaming is a world of discovery and while they frequent Twitch more, a shoutout to SplatPanda who has taken up a lot of my time as I watch their fun streams on games that I doubt I could play for many reasons. However, they are a great companion to writing. Not all is lost 😉

Anyways, moving along with whats been going on behind the scenes or in the works.

Binging

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 3

I’m a huge fan of the show and I always binge it when it releases during the first two weeks. I can’t say I qualify as binging right now but I am just wrapping up everything else so that I can watch it without worrying about anything and just having fun. Plus, I have a few TV binge posts in the works that I would like to wrap up before starting (or finishing) something new.

Reading

After reading some books sent to me for reviews, which I still have at least two, I am back to clearing up some overdue Kindle reading from books bought back in 2014/2015.

Right now its Talespins which I just started a few pages. It seems fun to read. Probably going to take some time to sit down and read it in a few days. Same issue with book reviews as for TV binges is that I never try to have too much backlog and I believe there’s still one book that needs to be reviewed to be up to date. Its a new strategy on my part to try and minimize any backlog because what becomes backlog usually stays there. A good example are books that I started this year that are just sitting in my Currently Reading on Goodreads and I just haven’t been in the mood to go back to them.

PLAYING!!!

Currently in recording phase

Trying to complete an expedition

Story mode with my husband

Achievements Run

Told you that I’m gaming a lot, right? Let’s break it down 😉

Little Nightmares was our featured game of May and also a strong contender in my game of the year. There’s some super great news about new DLC material coming out in the next few months. I love the game so much that I went back to do an achievement run, which I’m currently still doing. The goal is to unlock the secret achievements along with breaking some stuff and hugging some things. It won’t mean anything unless you’ve played it. If you haven’t watched out episode, you can check it out HERE.

Rise of Balloons however is a game that we had a fantastic chat with the devs last year when this game was first released on mobile. I have already completed and reviewed it last year but the devs told me recently when they told me about the PC release that they added new contents and expanded the game. So I’m a few levels in and its still lots of fun and I have seen some new levels and some more details. We’ll have a review discussion mini episode over on Game Warp soon.

Just to make sure that I’m covering all the genres at the same time, we recently went on fun expeditions on Renowned Explorers. While this isn’t my usual go-to game because it requires my brain too much as a turn-based strategy game. However, once I start this up, it usually pulls on my determination to win. Although I did just decide in yesterday’s session to change my team and start over because they just weren’t strong enough as a group to beat that battle and I knew that even if I swapped the strategy, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Finally, I’ve been having a crazy desire to play fighting games which is super weird, because I’m horrible at them. Apparently, I’m not all that bad and since I recently picked up Mortal Kombat XL on discount, my husband and I are working through the story mode. Its incredibly brutal but man, its a nice change in pace.

On top of that, I’ve been tracking and streaming on release date the Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, which just had the episode 2 release.
Maybe you’d like to watch it 🙂

That’s it for this What’s Up segment!
Don’t you sometimes wish that you could be split yourself up and be at different places at the same time? Haha!

What have you been up to?

Unboxing: Arcade Block [January 2016]

Arcade Block finally made its appearance on our doorstep on Monday.  Its not too late so that’s good! We’re nearing the end of our subscription.  I think the next one is the last one.  We are debating whether to keep subscribing or not. Next unboxing, I’ll probably give an update on what we decide to do.  That aside, these Arcade Blocks have been rather awesome and really makes our day.

Let’s open it up, shall we? 😉

Arcade Block [January 2016]

Puzzle Cube (Exclusive item)

Anyone like to figure out Rubik’s Cube? I used to when I was young but nowadays, its not a frequent thing I do.  However, this puzzle cube is cute as a button with all 6 sides with different gaming icons. I love it! 🙂 Although its also the reason why I wouldn’t mess it up and rely on myself to put it back together.

Morph Ball Stress Reliever(Exclusive item)

I’ve previously mentioned that we’ve gotten a lot of stress ball-like sort of nerd gear.  Some of them are just hanging out on shelves and bookcases as decor.  This one is legitimately a useful stress ball.  I’m thinking of moving it into the basement with as a stress reliever when I’m raging over how I can’t pass a level in some platformer like Rayman or my most rage-worthy game, Trials Fusion. Maybe it’ll help me not want to toss the controller at the TV because I can never figure out how to do a bunny hop…

Portal-Safety First Tin Sign

This is completely laugh out loud! I just love it! I’m still deciding where to put this! 😉  Where seems the most suitable?

Trainer Beanie

I’m not sure exactly who will wear this.  We’re not Pokemon fans.  Digimon was a thousand million times better to me. And we’re both not exactly beanie types.  I have a winter beanie hat but its warm and adorable so I love it.  Maybe I can use this to shovel snow on our next snowstorm 😉

Mortal Kombat X Bobblehead: Scorpion

I haven’t had the chance to play Mortal Kombat X yet but I’ve seen tons of gameplay videos on it and it looks great.  Scorpion is a classic character and its absolutely suitable that he’s the one we get in this block.  I’ve creatively opened up a new spot to put the figures 😉

Street Fighter V T-Shirt (Exclusive item)

If you’ve seen the Want to Play It Now post that I did with David over at That Moment In, you’ll know that while I’m not a really great combat game sort of person, Street Fighter is absolutely fantastic. Its a classic and I’m excited about Street Fighter V. This is a super cool T-Shirt with artwork from Stanley Lau (ArtGerm).  Some boxes got the Ken T-Shirt.  We got Ryu and well, I’m perfectly fine with it! 🙂

Overall…

January 2016’s Arcade Block was fantastic.  I’ve ordered the Arcade Block for a year, guys! I started last year in January!  This box was fantastic.  It hits a lot of games that we love a lot and I can see use for most of it and that is just great! Arcade Block still keeps its high quality/value.  Loving it! 🙂

*There should be another unboxing for something completely different soon.  I’m just waiting for it to arrive*