nail polish rec + Answer Me 1994
Feb. 4th, 2017 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
I just used the Pretty Woman nail polish from January's Ipsy Glam bag, and I was really impressed with it. I'm only OK about the color I got (gray), but I really loved the formula/texture, and seemed to dry quickly (I hate it when I put Seche Vite on and the brush smears the still-wet polish below). The one weird thing about it is that it has a larger-than-normal brush, so that if you have very small nails, it would be quite the chore to not paint outside your nailbed. I don't know if it was the polish or the brush, but I was able to paint ALL the nails on one hand without having to redip the brush, and what went onto my nails was still highly pigmented and even. I don't know that I have EVER been able to do that with a polish. O.o And I'm not sure if it was this particular color or formula, but it seemed to me that I could have just stopped with one coat. I still did two out of habit, but afterward concluded that there wasn't much of a difference and really needed only one. Again, very unusual. All that, plus being 5-free, cruelty free, and vegan? I'm in! Since it's one of this month's Ipsy samples, you can get 30% off an entire order (discount code: IPSY30), so I ordered 8 polishes (and there's free shipping for orders over $15, which is so reasonable). I hope I'll like the others as much as I liked my sample!
Because the gray is kind of boring, I'm thinking of putting some black nail art on them. If they turn out well, I'll share here! If not... I won't. LOL.
Since I enjoyed Answer Me 1997 so much, I've now started Answer Me 1994, and so far I am extremely underwhelmed.
- They apparently use the exact same actors to play the parents in all 3 of the "Answer Me" series, and while I love them, I also find it a little jarring and lazy, particularly since several actors from AM1997 do cameos later in AM1994. I'm only on episode 3, so it's possible those actors aren't playing their same characters, or that they don't meet the parents, but... how exactly would that work, if they did? "Oh... hey... you look just like my parents. Oh, your dad is a baseball coach too? Oh, your mom makes tons of food at a time, too? What a coincidence..."
- There seems to be a ton of retread in general. The brother-who-isn't-really-a-brother, who seems primed to be the main love interest. The loss of a child in the family. The parents, as mentioned, who are lazily similar to how they were written in AM1997. The heroine being obsessed with a celebrity (only it's a basketball player this time, and not a band... though I can actually relate to this more. My biggest college crush was on Charles O'Bannon, a UCLA basketball player, lol). The "guess who the husband is" schtick. I loved it in AM1997... but I ALREADY WATCHED THAT SHOW.
- I feel like I'm supposed to ship the heroine with her not-really-brother, or at least, I feel like he's going to be the one she ends up with, so I shouldn't pin my hopes on anyone else. It's so dissatisfying to ship things that don't get the HEA, honestly. But at the same time, I really want them to do something different from AM1997, and have it be one of the other guys. None of the guys are very attractive to me at the moment, so I'm not rooting for anyone in particular. There's no SIG in the bunch, that's for sure. I guess I would put it this way: If this weren't an Answer Me show, I would be shipping the heroine with the not-brother. But because it is an Answer Me show, I want it to be almost anyone but him, and for them to make me like it. But to be very honest, I will be incredibly surprised if it's NOT the not-oppa who's the husband in the end.
- I find the heroine really annoying. Shi-won had her annoying moments, but I liked Jung Eun-ji a lot. The AM1994 gal is nowhere near as charming.
- Once again I find myself wishing I could distinguish between the accents. It makes me wonder if non-English speakers can tell when someone is speaking in American, British, Australian, etc., accents, or if it all sounds like gibberish the way I hear the accented Korean.
- Given that I'm not enjoying 1994 nearly as much as I was enjoying AM1997 at this point in time, it's a huge bummer that these episodes run well over an hour long, the typical length for a drama. The episodes draaaaaaaaaaag. Maybe it's a chicken or egg thing -- because they're so slow-paced, I don't like it as much. Oh, and good god, there are 21 episodes?! Kill me. Why couldn't AM1997 have been this long??? Sure, it wasted some of its time, too, but at least I could have seen more of SIG!! And maybe they could have shown me more of how Shi-won got to the realization that she liked Yoon-jae! ARGH.
- The two fish-out-of-water guys ordering 40 biscuits at KFC while on a blind date with the Seoul girls cracked me up. Yes... that's the only moment from AM1994 I can single out, at this point in time. -.-
jade_okelani and I finished Goong yesterday and started Answer Me 1997. :D I had the same reaction to Goong as I did the first time, lol. It gets so terrible and draggy at the end that you forget all the good stuff that came before and just want it to end. Chae-kyung is probably one of my favoritest heroines EVER, but they take so much agency away from her! She should have spurred a change in the palace, rather than having to leave because it was stifling her. It was all so dumb, how it went down. They could and should have taken advantage of their premise -- a commoner marrying into the royal family -- and turned it into a story about how a commoner was able to bring freshness and modernity into an aging institution, and won over the hearts of the people, etc. Instead, in the end both she and Shin had to leave in order to be happy. I mean, yay that they're happy together, but come on, what a dissatisfying story. Plus there was way, way, WAY too much of fucking Yul and his fucking mother, UGH. I don't think I'll ever need to watch this show again other than possibly to make a Pacey-Joey type supercut or to make gifs of CK's awesome outfits.
Jade is LOVING AM1997 so far. She's so innocent right now, not knowing of the angst and pain to come, that I feel very protective. Haha. But soon, SHE'LL KNOW.
My cousin is coming into town next Friday to interview for a job up here... that would be so awesome if he moved up here! We're going to get together on Saturday, and I'm drawing a blank as to where to take him for meals. O.o I've already taken him to some great places during a previous trip: Staple & Fancy, Lola, Paseo, Señor Moose... I don't want to re-do any of those. I also am trying to avoid Asian, because he lives in LA and can get good Asian food any time. What to do, what to do...
Because the gray is kind of boring, I'm thinking of putting some black nail art on them. If they turn out well, I'll share here! If not... I won't. LOL.
Since I enjoyed Answer Me 1997 so much, I've now started Answer Me 1994, and so far I am extremely underwhelmed.
- They apparently use the exact same actors to play the parents in all 3 of the "Answer Me" series, and while I love them, I also find it a little jarring and lazy, particularly since several actors from AM1997 do cameos later in AM1994. I'm only on episode 3, so it's possible those actors aren't playing their same characters, or that they don't meet the parents, but... how exactly would that work, if they did? "Oh... hey... you look just like my parents. Oh, your dad is a baseball coach too? Oh, your mom makes tons of food at a time, too? What a coincidence..."
- There seems to be a ton of retread in general. The brother-who-isn't-really-a-brother, who seems primed to be the main love interest. The loss of a child in the family. The parents, as mentioned, who are lazily similar to how they were written in AM1997. The heroine being obsessed with a celebrity (only it's a basketball player this time, and not a band... though I can actually relate to this more. My biggest college crush was on Charles O'Bannon, a UCLA basketball player, lol). The "guess who the husband is" schtick. I loved it in AM1997... but I ALREADY WATCHED THAT SHOW.
- I feel like I'm supposed to ship the heroine with her not-really-brother, or at least, I feel like he's going to be the one she ends up with, so I shouldn't pin my hopes on anyone else. It's so dissatisfying to ship things that don't get the HEA, honestly. But at the same time, I really want them to do something different from AM1997, and have it be one of the other guys. None of the guys are very attractive to me at the moment, so I'm not rooting for anyone in particular. There's no SIG in the bunch, that's for sure. I guess I would put it this way: If this weren't an Answer Me show, I would be shipping the heroine with the not-brother. But because it is an Answer Me show, I want it to be almost anyone but him, and for them to make me like it. But to be very honest, I will be incredibly surprised if it's NOT the not-oppa who's the husband in the end.
- I find the heroine really annoying. Shi-won had her annoying moments, but I liked Jung Eun-ji a lot. The AM1994 gal is nowhere near as charming.
- Once again I find myself wishing I could distinguish between the accents. It makes me wonder if non-English speakers can tell when someone is speaking in American, British, Australian, etc., accents, or if it all sounds like gibberish the way I hear the accented Korean.
- Given that I'm not enjoying 1994 nearly as much as I was enjoying AM1997 at this point in time, it's a huge bummer that these episodes run well over an hour long, the typical length for a drama. The episodes draaaaaaaaaaag. Maybe it's a chicken or egg thing -- because they're so slow-paced, I don't like it as much. Oh, and good god, there are 21 episodes?! Kill me. Why couldn't AM1997 have been this long??? Sure, it wasted some of its time, too, but at least I could have seen more of SIG!! And maybe they could have shown me more of how Shi-won got to the realization that she liked Yoon-jae! ARGH.
- The two fish-out-of-water guys ordering 40 biscuits at KFC while on a blind date with the Seoul girls cracked me up. Yes... that's the only moment from AM1994 I can single out, at this point in time. -.-
jade_okelani and I finished Goong yesterday and started Answer Me 1997. :D I had the same reaction to Goong as I did the first time, lol. It gets so terrible and draggy at the end that you forget all the good stuff that came before and just want it to end. Chae-kyung is probably one of my favoritest heroines EVER, but they take so much agency away from her! She should have spurred a change in the palace, rather than having to leave because it was stifling her. It was all so dumb, how it went down. They could and should have taken advantage of their premise -- a commoner marrying into the royal family -- and turned it into a story about how a commoner was able to bring freshness and modernity into an aging institution, and won over the hearts of the people, etc. Instead, in the end both she and Shin had to leave in order to be happy. I mean, yay that they're happy together, but come on, what a dissatisfying story. Plus there was way, way, WAY too much of fucking Yul and his fucking mother, UGH. I don't think I'll ever need to watch this show again other than possibly to make a Pacey-Joey type supercut or to make gifs of CK's awesome outfits.Jade is LOVING AM1997 so far. She's so innocent right now, not knowing of the angst and pain to come, that I feel very protective. Haha. But soon, SHE'LL KNOW.
My cousin is coming into town next Friday to interview for a job up here... that would be so awesome if he moved up here! We're going to get together on Saturday, and I'm drawing a blank as to where to take him for meals. O.o I've already taken him to some great places during a previous trip: Staple & Fancy, Lola, Paseo, Señor Moose... I don't want to re-do any of those. I also am trying to avoid Asian, because he lives in LA and can get good Asian food any time. What to do, what to do...
