My June Adventures!

In a blink of an eye, we’re at the end of June and summer is here. Weather’s been a bit nuts here with a crazy heat wave/drought and then the last few days has been raining and much more comfortable. A little update on the Montreal confinement situation or well, we’re pretty much deconfined at this point although still get cases everyday so you can decide how you feel about that situation. Of course, with this ease of situation, my work situation is getting back to pre-COVID normal soon, which I’m not too sure how I feel about it but I don’t make the call so I just have to follow through with it. Although, today’s announcement (I’m writing this the day before posting so I don’t know yet if its going to happen) is supposed to make wearing face masks mandatory on public transit so that’s definitely rather reassuring.

COVID-19 is part of our lives now for over 3 months now so it has to be addressed before we head into other things that has gone on this past month! Let’s check it out!

Nike Training Club – 4 Week Program

I’ve slacked off during the entire lockdown phase and really struggled to get back on track with working out. The weather is warming up and hiking is starting back up (as you will see later on) which also requires a little bit of outside training to make sure my muscles are strengthened and build a bit of endurance to do the harder trails so I’m getting back on track with another 4 week program on Nike Training Club to kick things off. This time is different from before as I’ve added in the running option.

As the month ends, I should be getting back. Thing is, the weather turned so nice that I ended up being the most motivated to go running as you can see above so I didn’t stick to the program a whole lot but at least it made me want to be more active in other ways like pool workouts and hiking and running while still adding one of the workouts from the program to get some weights or body weight exercises in. At this point, its more of a guideline than following the program and its in the final week.

Movies and Tea Podcast

As I’m getting a rhythm of getting our archive on Youtube for Movies and Tea on a weekly basis, if you  haven’t caught up with the first season of Movies and Tea, you can start catching the episodes every Monday. The general idea now is that while we get through Season 4, I’ll be updating the archive of Season 1 every week until we start up Season 5 and that will be uploaded when it goes live so that we’re not always behind. Currently updated to Season 1, Episode 5 with our big Resident Evil Franchise episode.

With that said, I’m not going to go share all the episodes of Movies and Tea posted on Youtube but here’s the latest one above so that you can go check it out and subscribe to our channel if you enjoy it!

Hiking: Mont Cathedrale (Carre) & Marais du Kingsbury

First hike done and the recap of the hike is already posted so you can check it out HERE.

Summer Game Fest

We might have lost E3 this year but Summer Game Fest is the next best thing with a bunch of conferences spanning over May to August. We’re a bit late to the party so missed out most of the May events but June included the Playstation 5 reveal and conference (Recap), EA Play Live (Recap) as well as PC Gaming Show 2020 and a new show called Future Games Show (Recap). We didn’t get around to doing the recap for PC Gaming Show and now its already weeks later so a bit late to do it however, you can check out our thoughts on the other shows. There was a bunch of other things like developer showcases which present the new Crash Bandicoot game titled Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this June update!
I’ll share some garden updates next time. I just forgot to get all my pictures taken.

What have you been up to?

What’s Up 2020: Week 25

Bonne Saint-Jean to my fellow Quebecers (if there’s anyone reading this from Quebec)!

Almost halfway through the year everyone as we hit Week 25 and summer is finally here. The tail end of this week left us in extreme heat wave so I spent a lot of time sitting in or by the pool to cool down than sitting in my partially air-conditioned home. Plus, the Summer Game Fest started off over the last two weeks and it took us a little by surprise so had to clear out some schedule to do some coverage over at Game Warp.  Let’s see how it all went down!

READING

Currently reading: Call Numbers: The Not-So-Quiet Life of Librarians

Sitting by the pool and reading is one of those things that I truly enjoy doing during the evening so I finally moved forward with Call Numbers. I’m about at the 25% mark (maybe a little over) and I need to get more time to read some more but its been an interesting read as its about the dynamics of these characters working at this library.

PLAYING

Summer Game Fest bought along the Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition which was a pile (more like a mountain) of free demos to try out on upcoming or released games. It was more games than I could keep track of so I just sat down and downloaded the demos that looked like it would be my cup of tea and took a chance on it.

• The Almost Gone
• Moncage
• Ami
• Arrog
• A Juggler’s Tale
• Backbone: Prologue
• Unbound: Worlds Apart
• Slender Threads
• Under
• Genesis Noir

With that said, the first 5 demos in the list have already had a First Impressions post go up on Game Warp that you can check out HERE.

I’m working on the last 5 as a second batch so that should come out soon.

WATCHING

• The Social Network (2010)
• Jack Frost (1997, Review)

Much to my awesome co-host’s credit and the latest season recordings for Movies and Tea, I finally got around to watching The Social Network. Biopics aren’t usually my go-to genre but this one is pretty good. Its the obvious standout of the week as I can’t say the same for the other movie I saw which was more of a B-horror comedy that I wasn’t overly enthusiastic with but then did have some fun. Still, in terms of biopics, The Social Network does do a good job especially with its characters and how its executed. I won’t say too much and leave it for you all to listen when the podcast eventually comes out (but we’re way ahead with recording so it might be a little while).

BINGING

• Me To Us (Season 1, 2020)
• Floor is Lava (Season 1, 2020) Review

Currently binging: Produce Camp 2020, Wonderful Little Forest, You Are My Destiny, Mr. Fox and Miss Rose, Woof Meow Story, Rap Star, Viva La Romance 4, Go Fridge 6, Yes I Do 2

It seems spring/summer season for variety shows and whatnot are all clashing together with content. I’ve been caught up on a bunch of Tencent TV series and then watching a lot of variety shows from Mango TV.  A few new things started up like Viva La Romance Season 4, the first season of Rap Star which is a contest for hip hop music and Wonderful Little Forest which is a show about taking a bunch of young kids on littler adventures to learn about nature.

The highlight for this week goes to the wrap-up of Me To Us which is a show about putting together bands and crowning a band to promote. The structure of the contest and how it puts together the voting system of both industry experts and public audience is a nice one that I’m going to probably do a TV binge post on it.  The first season crowned the band that I liked the most throughout the whole show (and the video above is one of their performances, not the final one since that’s not up yet) plus it has my all-time fave Nicholas Tse as one of the mentors. I’m really hoping that this show gets a second season. Bands have a fairly limited audience in the Chinese music landscape as boy groups and girl groups keep having these competitions, which are good but bands are such a different style and if they do, hopefully retaining the three mentors in this season.

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

 

What’s Up 2019: Week 50

Its Week 50 already! That is absolutely crazy! The end of the year is just around the corner and its been a lot of wrap-up and thinking more about the next year and of course, holiday stuff. There is also a bit of holiday fatigue and work rush before holidays factored in here, so things have slowed down or been a bit irregular. Anyways, lets see whats going on!

READING

• Love Potions & Other Calamities by Charlie Laidlaw

Currently reading: Legends of Exile

I am working on double speed to get things back on track on the reading front and took some extra time to finally finish Love Potions and Other Calamities. I literally just finished so the review is coming up this week. And then, its time to finish Legends of Exile to get these things done and next year a clean slate. I have accepted that I won’t on the books make the Goodreads challenge evem if I read 3 book packs at the beginning of the year that only counted as one entry. So, I guess I did… I’ll know when I do the final overview of 2019 😉

PLAYING

• Roki Demo
• Carrion Demo
• Wooden Nickel Demo
• Chicory: A Colorful Tale Demo

The Game Awards happened as well and of course, Game Warp did watch it and did a recap on the winners as well as the trailers and impressions. Some fun stuff. You can read it HERE. This is the first year for The Game Awards to work with Steam to have a 48 hour Steam Game Festival which is like most game festival concepts to play demos of upcoming games and that was most of my gaming as I tried to play as much as I could and ended up playing 4 demos (out of 8 or 10). It has made me anticipate both Roki and Carrion. Different gaming styles but both so fun in different ways. I did record the playthrough of those demos so it’ll be going up on the channel soon. Its in the process of revival.

WATCHING

• Hulk (2003)
• Let It Snow (2019, Review)
• Holiday Joy (2016, Review)
• Shazam! (2019)
• Klaus (2019)

Other than Hulk which was for Movies and Tea, its been a lot of holiday viewing. You can argue that Shazam isn’t but it is set during Christmas with snow and Christmas decorations everywhere so it counts even if I do admit it was simply added in because the rental was going to expire and I almost forgot about it. My fave goes to Klaus which is a new Netflix Original about the beginnings of Christmas and Santa Claus in an original story and has voice acting by J.K. Simmons and Joan Cusack.

BINGING

• Zumbo’s Just Desserts (rewatch, Review)

Currently binging: Who’s the Murderer 5, The Brightest Star in the Sky, Viva La Romance (Season 1)

I am watching VERY little TV right now as I am trying to read and catch on blog posts on all projects so I did rewatch Zumbo’s Just Desserts which is my go-to for rewatch and background when I work. Other than that, I am still rewatching The Brighest Star in the Sky on Huace Channel and wanted to finish Viva La Romance Season 1 before finishing Season 2 and 3. Its almost done but I do have to give mega props to Who’s The Murderer Season 5 which has really taken a lovely turn this season and become not only one that has some pretty good cases and mysteries but has been edited in a way that makes it somewhat have a better line of link to make educated guesses on the culprits.

That’s it for Week 50 recap!
Things are starting to get back on track! Yay!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?