What’s Up 2020: Week 16

Welcome to Week 16 of 2020! Self-isolation has been going on for a month or so. Its been quite an experience. I can’t say that I’ve been able to do a whole lot of things different from usual since work has been quite busy and its all about getting through April. Week 16 was a lot of wanting to do something but not being able to because of work overtime or home things.

READING

Currently reading: Undead Ultra

Still reading Undead Ultra and I can tell you that I’ve moved forward very very little. The time to read wasn’t quite as much as I’d like but I am aiming to finish the book soon. Its not a particularly long novel but I just need to sit down to do it.

PLAYING

• Doors: Awakening

Currently playing: Concrete Genie, Happy Color, Bounce That Bird, Color Spots

I’ve been working on a lot of Game Warp stuff lately. Concrete Genie is our upcoming game of the month so its one that I’ve been playing through in preparation for the next recording. As for the other games, Doors: Awakening is a game very similar to other puzzle games published from Snapbreak and its part of the Google Play Indie Games Festival Finalists along with Bounce That Bird and Color Spots and a whole bunch of free games that I’ve been playing through for a little capsule reviews, something like a Mobile Game Roundup.

WATCHING

• The Game (1997)
• The Farewell (2019)
• Black Mountain Side (2014)
• Berlin Syndrome (2017)

I have a ton of movie reviews lined up to write so all of these are currently in line to be written. This week’s highlight goes to The Farewell which I finally got around to seeing thanks to a cheap rental. Its a great film. The story and characters and whatnot all make for a great watch. Other movies in here are for Movies and Tea recording (you can guess which one yourself). Black Mountain Side is a movie on Shudder which I personally don’t recommend but apparently some people on Letterboxd seem to like it more than I did. While on the other hand, Berlin Syndrome ended up being surprisingly decent and Teresa Palmer acts in her own Australian accent instead of playing an American so that was quite a surprise as well.

BINGING

• Find Yourself (rewatch 2020)
• Too Hot to Handle (Season 1, 2020) Review
• Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner (Season 1, 2019)

Currently binging: Me to Us, The Singer 2020, The Love Equations, J-Style Trip, Youth With You 2, The Untamed

As usual, with a lot of work, TV is the most abundant thing since I like binge-watching on my spare time the most. Plus, TV means a lot of times that I can multitask and that was exactly what I needed. After some though, I decided to watch Too Hot to Handle and it was something that fit into my current mindset so I even finished up a review so you can read my thoughts there. I did a rewatch for Find Yourself which I’m working on a review right now and then wrapped up Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner which was a decent structure as a documentary series. While I like the Ugly Delicious style of docuseries, I like this one a lot too.

Currently binging is really not that different. The Singer 2020 is about to end as they wrap up the semi-finals and head into the finals in the coming week. J-Style Trip is my filler show since it only has one episode a week and it blends well with Me To Us that updates one episode a week on the weekend. I’m enjoying everything that I’m binging right now actually and its just a matter of choosing which I want to watch and which to watch over the course of the following week although my weekend mornings are watching the premieres on Youtube for The Love Equations so I binge those 4 episodes released over the weekend a lot. That series is so fun. On the other hand, I finally started The Untamed which was a HUGE deal last year and I can see why as I binged 10 episodes in one day and if I kept this pace, it’ll be done in no time, even at 50 episodes total. Lots of great TV to watch and catch up with!

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

What’s Up: Week 46 Blood in the Snow Festival is right around the corner…

A week of vacation is upon us and the recap of it actually is surprisingly not quite a lot, especially since we just had a stay-cation so still around our home quite a bit. However, a lot of it was in the relaxing state so all doing things that I wanted to do while catching on a few little errands and eating good food and you know, the having fun not in the house variety. I’ll share those adventures at the end of the month in the November Adventures post. For now, lets look at the week!

READING

• Proximity by Jem Tugwell

Currently reading: Love, Potions & Other Calamities

And we are done with Proximity! Its a pretty clever little mystery and suspense thriller which plays on a future that could happen if technology were to control our lives or due to the overdependence of it in the future. A premise that definitely applies very well to questioning certain elements of a technology-filled world and how it applies to the investigation. I’ll talk more about it in the upcoming review. As for now, I just started reading Love, Potions & Other Calamities. Its too early to say anything yet but I have great hope that it will be great as this author Charlie Laidlaw has released some solid novels.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Afterparty & Cube Escape: Paradox

An hour down and a bunch more to go for Afterparty but its a start. Afterparty is a game that I’ve been anticipating since its announcement so I’m working hard to get some hours into it. Only thing hindering it is that whole Cube Escape: Paradox that I started but never got around to finishing it as its very difficult. I’m going to wrap that up before continuing on with Afterparty.

WATCHING

As the final festival of 2019 is among us, yet again the watching section will be split between two sections. The normal viewings and the festival viewing. The festival hasn’t actually started BUT remote coverage means some reviews can start going up as it approaches so if you are in the Toronto area, you can always go and catch it during this festival run.

• Creepshow 2 (1987) Friday Film Club
• Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
• The Ice Storm (1997)

If only I had a 2007 then I’d have watched films ending with 7s over 3 decades. It wasn’t intended until I noticed the pattern here. Either way, Creepshow 2 was my pick for the Friday Film Club and I’ve shared the link up there. However, the movie that caught my attention the most was Murder on Orient Express which finally landed on Netflix so I jumped right on it during vacation week to catch up and it did not disappoint. As for The Ice Storm, its part of the Movies and Tea new season which is starting up soon with Ang Lee’s filmography.

Blood in the Snow Festival 2019 (Remote coverage)

• Puppet Killer (2019)
• Liaison (short 2019) Review
• Housekreeping (short 2019) Review
• Happy Face (2018)
• Copenhagen Road (short 2019) Review

I’m slowly getting into the Blood in the Snow Festival screeners day by day and working out a nice schedule to get the writing done. Its been a lot of procrastinating and pondering. Hopefully by the time this gets out, the review for Puppet Killer will be listed as done above. I spent a few days thinking about it and putting together the review and its really growing on me.

BINGING

• Wait, My Youth (2019)
• Nailed It! France (Season 1, 2019)

Currently binging: Lipstick Prince (Season 2), Relation Ship, Green Eggs and Ham, Chase Me, Who’s the Murderer (Season 5), Viva La Romance (Season 3)

Go ahead! Tell me to pick my favorites this week! Not an easy task. Everything I watched was really awesome. Wait My Youth was the TV series that I chose as the series to watch during my week off and it was a ton of fun. I’m a huge fan of the male lead, a young actor with a lot of potential. Nailed It! France was hilarious to watch as well. The husband and I has pretty much pinpointed that understanding the language does help in the enjoyment of these things but this host also seems more in line with our type of humor than the other foreign version we saw, I think it was Nailed It! Mexico (review). I’ll probably do a TV binge on Nailed It! France soon!

Even my currently binging stuff, which is more currently playing, except for Green Eggs and Ham, has been pretty entertaining. All the variety shows and reality shows and whatnot have just been a blast to watch. I sometimes play the episode in the background when I’m writing to watch again. Its rare that I do that usually. Unfortunately a lot of them don’t have subtitles. But then, I’m translating the 90% of Chase Me, which is a celebrity Ultimate Beastmaster tag concept game on Zhejiang TV (on Youtube), for my husband as he also finds it very amusing to watch. Not to mention Season 5 of Who’s The Murderer is set on a cruise ship so its awesome plus it has Boran Jing (who I like a lot) as one of the participants. Viva La Romance Season 3 also started (and I just realized that I never finished Season 2..oops) and it has Miriam Yeung and I never knew a lot about her after she got married so its a fun little wife’s trip. So far, its been pretty cool. Lots of a great shows!

That’s it for this What’s Up!
Week 46 already of 2019! Its crazy!
But then, we have started setting up for Christmas..so I guess its not that crazy, right?

What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

What’s Up 2019 – Week 39

The last week of September signals the end of Q3 of 2019. Man, time flew by this year. Its already getting chilly outside and my autumn jacket is out. This week has been busy and fun and a whole lot of starting to prepare for upcoming things mentioned earlier on the September adventures post HERE.

READING

Currently reading: Sketch by Didi Oviatt

Back to a slow reading week as I’ve been a tad tired this week because of work rushes and other things going on. I’m still reading Sketch and probably more than a quarter done at this point. I should finish it up soon. Its actually quite good and has me guessing on what will happen next.

PLAYING

Mobile Games for the September round-up over at Game Warp has been my main focus. While I’m about to start up the next long form game very soon as things get settled again. I have a big plan to replay some games that I had wanted to review but never did last year that were on the phone and played for mobile. Its a franchise so might be just a franchise recap or like a few games per roundup. I’m still deciding. Nothing to much to talk about this time around for gaming but definitely have several games to get back to and wrap-up or get started.

WATCHING

• Anna and the Apocalypse (2017, Review)
• The Babadook (2014, Review)
• Blue My Mind (2017)
• The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

Its been a very questionable list of movies that I’ve chosen to go into blind for the Halloween horror marathon. Just look at the four films this week, right? One is full of zombies and is a horror comedy but is a Christmas movie, the second is pure psychological horror, the next is a transformation horror but more of a drama and coming of age and the last is more in line with horror. Either way, my double feature plans are slightly falling apart right now because of certain changes and hopefully will get back on track. However, the first one is out to kick off the marathon and also has my fave movie of this week, Anna and the Apocalypse that I have gone on to rewatch the movie multiple times during the week because I love the soundtrack so much.

BINGING

• A Discovery of Witches (Season 1, 2018)

Currently binging: When I Grow Up, Dream Space 2, Relation Ship

Its been definitely a tame week in terms of TV, which seems to be uncommon of late. With the Shudder subscription, we’re taking some time to spend more time on there right now. The first thing that caught our eye was to check out A Discovery of Witches. I have my husband might have some slight regrets on watching it but as for myself, I have some thoughts on it but overall, I’m looking forward to Season 2, whenever it gets released.

That’s it for this What’s Up for Week 39 as we wrap up Q3 of 2019!
Its been a crazy ride this year and What’s Up has given me a really good perspective of whats been going on and such!

What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

What’s Up – Week 20: New Things, Old Things and Catching Up

20 weeks into 2019 already! Spring is finally showing its face and as I go out to do more things, some of these bits might get slowed down a little bit. Its still a little too early to know but I’ve been transitioning between different elements of life and somewhat swapping my routine a little. As some TV series also winds down, I’m thinning it out a little to try to get some extensive backlog out of the way. It won’t reflect here but gradually, as Montreal events start coming into play as well.

READING

Currently reading: Crossline by Russ Colchamiro

I’ve been getting hit with some spring fatigue so I’m still reading Crossline at a very turtle pace, which needs to be remedied because I have another book lined up that needs to get started by the end of next week. Crossline is pretty good but I’ve been also watching movies with similar themes that I’m not sure if I’m getting an overdose of sci-fi. Keeping an open mind and I’m only slightly past the quarter mark in the book so its just the set-up phase done and things are started to unravel.

PLAYING

Currently playing: The Witness

For a moment, I honestly thought this week would be no gaming at all except maybe some mobile game titles to fill up some space here. Those are going well but I like to keep it a little mysterious for the mobile games roundup segment. However, the husband started up The Witness last night and we played a few puzzles together, which was pretty cool. I’m probably going to start it up on my own also and play some of the puzzles also.

WATCHING

• The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
• Europa Report (2013) – rewatch – Review

I’m not going to lie that this list kind of probably should add in rewatching Jaws 2, 3 and The Revenge to refresh my memory for the Triple feature HERE. However, I won’t because I honestly just played it in the background to remind of the story and dialogue and wasn’t actually looking at the screen. So we are left with two films. One is a rewatch for an upcoming podcast which is Europa Report, a little found footage-esque sci-fi film. Trying to get things done in advance is always a good thing. And as I’m still a tad behind on the double features, I’m also trying to save up some more movies gradually and moved onto the M selection. I’m using a general of movies in my list that are rated badly but still I would like to watch so I ended up checking out The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. I love Shadowhunters, the TV series thats in its last season (if it hasn’t already ended) so seeing how the movie interpretation would be. I’ll share my thoughts on it in the double feature but lets just say, when the background world or lore is too heavy, its hard to just rally it all up in 2 hours and hope that its not convoluted.

BINGING

• Dream Space (Season 1, 2019)
• Put Your Head On My Shoulder (2019)

Currently binging: Le Coup de Foudre, Go Fridge (Season 5), Great Escape, Produce Camp 2019, Nailed It (Season 3)

Two TV series done this week. I’m feeling quite accomplished. One of them is a Chinese social variety show called Dream Space which is something like a matchmaking show which takes a look at romance and opening up a space for single women and men to focus solely on their romantic sides for a few days. I’ll write about this variety show even if I don’t for others because its worth it. I have a few thoughts on this one and they are having a season 2 already getting new candidates so I’m pretty excited to see how it changes. As for dramas, Put Your Head On My Shoulder wrapped up as well and its a nice little dose of cuteness along the line of the A Love So Beautiful universe and they make a point at the final episodes to address that to clear up some of the suspicion that people have been having. More on that in the TV binge at some point….

Most of the things currently binging is still very much the same. The only new addition is Nailed It which released its Season 3 on Friday. Because there were too many other stuff to take care of, its probably one of the first seasons that I didn’t finish it in the first weekend but we’re about 6 episodes in so its not a whole lot left to watch but its still very fun. The only other one I want to talk about is Great Escape which is heading into some more intense escape room experiences and its getting very intriguing to say the least.

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

What’s Up Week 17 & My Weekly Adventures: Its been a few days and I’m finally back!!

Welcome to the duo segment post of What’s Up and My Weekly Adventures!

Due to the lack of things going on and if you haven’t noticed, my unannounced hiatus for the past 4 days, its been rough and mostly just out of control on the work life personal side of things. I did give a warning last week but things just got more intense. Hence, to save everyone an overload of the same thing, I will do both segments together in this post. Lets start with Whats Up and move onto My Weekly Adventures!

READING

• Forever People (Review)

I finished up Forever People just in time for the blog tour so I will keep things brief here so you can see my thoughts over on the review. Overall, its a good story: good premise and compelling characters to say the least.

PLAYING

• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The husband and I finished up The Vanishing of Ethan Carter very soon after we started it. Its a pretty creative indie title with a lot of mystery and nice execution on gameplay and narration. Plus, the game sets itself in a visually stunning backdrop. I’ll be editing the playthrough after last week’s Rime. It’ll take a little while to get things back on track on my end.

WATCHING

NOTHING…absolutely nothing. I can tell you that I’m planning on catching up with all the Marvel movies in the next little while: Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp as well as all the other Pixar stuff in case it gets removed from Netflix at some point and get around to rewatching The Shape of Water for the next Movies and Tea episode.

BINGING

• My Daughter’s Boyfriend (女儿们的男朋友, Season 1)

Currently binging: The Brightest Star in the Sky, Put Your Head on My Shoulder, Z Nation (Season 1), Idol Producer, Rush to the Dead Summer (rewatch)

My Daughter’s Boyfriend is a 6 episode variety show which follows the daughters of 4 different famous fathers (actors and soccer player) and watch how they interact with their boyfriends over a few weeks time as they comment on various aspects on relationship and how their views and their daughters view on marriage, life and everything else changes. These shows usually can get very heartwarming and China has a lot of these variety shows from different angles and in the end, other than watching the relationships here whether its the love life or the father-daughter one, the main thing here is usually opening up the channel of the importance of communication and family and probably talk through some issues that everyone at one point or another might encounter in dealing with these different situations. Its 6 episodes and I thought it was really good. I’m not going to write about this show but it seems to already be greenlit for a second season so I’m looking forward to it.

As for the other shows, I’m pretty much watching the same things. Due to having a lot of overtime at home, I ended up rewatching Rush to the Dead Summer in the background while trying my best to stay on track with my two current favorite shows The Brightest Star in the Sky and Put Your Head on My Shoulder. I’ve been also semi-watching Z Nation with my husband but not completely focus although the show really doesn’t seem to have that much depth in Season 1 yet. The new thing this week is Idol Producer which I went back to watch to see how boy group Nine Percent started because a good few of them is now Nex7 which I think has some potential to do well and is the focus on Master in the House which I didn’t get a chance to catch up with this week but will get back to soon as well as Great Escape and such.

What have you been watching/reading/binging/playing?

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Suffice to say not a ton happened so I’m going to keep it short and sweet as its pretty much the upcoming post recaps and such that I’ll be talking about. A few upcoming plans and perhaps some seasonal segment revivials and all that great stuff. The few days off reminded me of how much I miss writing and editing and recording so I have a few things to also deal with and get back on track on all projects.

Restaurant Discovery: Mama Dumplings

Its been a crazy hunt looking for  a dumpling place not on the island of Montreal or more specifically Chinatown and by complete spontaneity, I drove by one  a week or two ago and since then have gone two times with my friend. I’ll have a post soon about it.

Movies & Tea Podcast: Crimson Peak

If you didn’t see the reblog last week, Movies and Tea has a new podcast episode for Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak. My first time viewing feelings back when it released and this rewatch definitely had some differences.

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was probably a mistake thinking back now with all the overtime but I think it also charged me up a little. We didn’t really do a ton for Easter weekend and mostly just relaxed and took advantage of the relatively nice weather and took care of some chores like changing tires and you know, taxes. However, my husband and I did go for a little walk in a park and its nice because the park itself has a lot of workout stations so I’m planning out some way to incorporate cardio with these exercises to get into shape. Add some changes here and there and whatnot. Only 7 weeks until my best friend’s wedding and I’m living in constant fear that I won’t fit into the bridesmaids dress at the lack of exercise, especially after this work rush. We are still working out the workout routines and such but the big plan starts in a few days after I’ve recuperated some energy.

Cute Kitty Pic

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