sarea: (sungjae gq)
[personal profile] sarea
I have watched two more movies: Game Night and Annihilation. I would rate them both about the same (which also bears out on Rotten Tomatoes, as they have similar ratings), but this is actually a surprise for me, because I had very high expectations for Game Night that it didn't quite meet, while I had no expectations at all (or perhaps, even low ones) for Annihilation, so it had a low bar to meet.

Game Night - It was a pretty fun movie, and I'm not exactly sure what I expected. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are great, but isn't he like way too old for her? (I'm too lazy to look it up.) If I'm right, then it's just typical Hollywood, where the women have to be young to play the wife, when the husband and wife characters are supposed to be roughly the same age. The cuteness of the movie relies largely on Jason and Rachel -- but the rest of the cast was pretty strong, too. The weakness of the movie was basically the actual plot itself, along with the "moralities" the characters learn along the way. As Jade said, that part was really paint by the numbers. I also had an issue with the fact that the characters were supposed to be super into games, to the point where they had Dance Dance Revolution at their freaking wedding, and yet when they went to Jason's brother's house to play games they brought LIFE, Monopoly, and Scrabble. SERIOUSLY?? Um, no. Anyone who likes games as much as these two supposedly did would have graduated beyond those basics LOOOOONG AGO. Especially since they had regular game nights! People would be so freaking bored of those games! I mean, they should have had REAL adult games, like Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, things like that. Or for pete's sake, at least Cards Against Humanity, Cranium, etc! Life and Monopoly, are you kidding me?!?! Ugh, I was super disgusted by that. Also, the predictability of the "twist" and/or "twists" was kind of frustrating, as was Jason's epiphany that his brother was scummy after all, and therefore could impregnate Rachel with a clear conscience! Ugh. See, this is making me sound like I hated it, and that's not the case at all. I enjoyed myself. I loved the scene with the dog (though seriously Jason, why would you try and clean up a white dog covered in bloodstains by pouring water over it onto someone's carpet?????), the scene where Rachel is performing surgery on Jason, etc. I think I was just... expecting a lot from this movie, because I am a board game lover, and also a big fan of the two leads.

I was really enjoying this movie, surprisingly, right up until the end. And then I was like WTF???? People found it "thought provoking"? I found it stupid and predictable. It was interesting/awesome, though, to watch an action movie that had an all-female cast. And the horror elements were very good; it's what horror should be, rather than the crap movies like Winchester try to feed us. I find Jennifer Jason Leigh to be very wooden in her acting, but it sort of worked for the role. I haaaaaated Gina Rodriguez's character. I know they had to had someone like that, but damn, I was glad when her character bit it. Tessa Thompson looked very familiar, and now that I look her up, I realize where I know her from -- Westworld. That said, I apparently also saw her in Veronica Mars, but I don't remember her from that. Tuva Novotny is interesting, because I thought I recognized her as one of Bridget Jones's BFFs or something, but apparently she's a Swedish actress that I don't actually know at all. Her American English was really good, so I'm even more impressed with that now. I'm so over Oscar Isaac. I don't know why he gets to be in everything now, but he does nothing for me.

I'm on season 4 of The Great British Baking Show, and I feel meh about it. I've been intercutting it with episodes of Portlandia. I enjoyed season 1 and season 3, but the even numbered seasons seem to be more boring somehow, or the bakers aren't as good/exciting to watch. (Season 4 in particular seems to be full of people who I'm like, how did you even get selected?!)

I have made one vegetarian meal so far, but it was spread out over like four meals, so I'm cool with that. (Plus I have soooo many leftovers.) I made the spiced chickpea wraps with tahini dressing from Thug Kitchen, but instead of wraps I made it into a salad instead, and it was soooooo good.

Spiced Chickpea Salad

for 1 serving

Ingredients:
- 1/4 portion of spiced chickpeas with tahini sauce, recipe from the Thug Kitchen cookbook*
- 1/4 of a medium-sized head of lettuce, chopped
- 1/2 avocado, cubed
- feta cheese crumbles (I used a sheep's milk French feta)
- cilantro leaves, to taste
- a boiled egg, halved

Method

1) Place the lettuce onto a plate, then top with chickpeas, a generous drizzle of tahini sauce, avocado and feta. Garnish with cilantro, if desired. For extra protein, add a boiled egg, halved. (I also had some leftover ground bison from when I made the copycat In N Out burger, so a couple of times I put that into the salad, too. Which technically made it non-vegetarian, I know.)

The salad is very versatile, so you can add or remove whatever you wish. I do think the feta adds some necessary saltiness, so if you skip that, you might find the dish a little bland and will want to add some salt or other salty element.

* I had some extra stuff in the fridge that I threw in with the chickpeas that I don't think are absolutely necessary additions, but in the interest of full disclosure, I also added: half a chopped green bell pepper, 1/3 cup of diced onion, and maybe about 1/3 of a cup of already-grilled onions.

February appears to be a lost month on the diet/fitness front. I'm still doing what I think is a decent amount of exercise daily, and food wise I'm making better choices, but I'm still having trouble with portion control. I have not made the progress this month that I wanted to, and that I made in the first month. March is also going to be tough what with my trip to New York (and I have no plans to curb my diet there), but I'll try to get back on track.

This last weekend [personal profile] adelagia and I attempted to go to our favorite seolleongtang (beef bone broth) place in Federal Way for lunch, but it was PACKED, so we were thwarted, which was realllly disappointing. I had been so looking forward to it. (Also, the owner there recognizes us, and we haven't been in awhile, so I wanted to get 'credit' for going!) Instead we had to go to the taqueria next door, which actually turned out to be pretty delicious (our server recommended the carnitas, which is what I got). Still, I have this thing where, if I look forward to eating something, and then I end up having to eat something else, it's just not as good an experience. So that was a bummer.

Then adelagia and I went to 85°C Bakery for a drink and to do our Korean homework. We both wanted to get the matcha latte, but they only have it cold. WTF? So I got the taro milk latte instead with 1/3 sugar, and it was fine but nothing spectacular. (We had been warned off the pastries by my cousin and his wife, because they said the stuff was super greasy. It looked fine in the cases, but an egg tart cost $1.80 and I decided that the cost plus the calories I didn't need made it verboten.) While waiting for our drinks, it seemed like the staff would yell out "Fresh bread!" like every 5 seconds. Sometimes it sounded like my name, and then I would crane my neck to see if my drink was ready, only it never was. Instead someone had ordered like a dozen taro milk smoothies and that's why it was taking so long. Anyway, so we did our Korean homework, and INEVITABLY, whenever we do this in public, whether at Midori or elsewhere, we end up sitting next to Koreans and have to be embarrassed by our rudimentary knowledge/attempt to learn their language. /LE SIGH I mean, at least in Federal Way, we're sort of in Koreatown so it's not that unusual. But the fact that it even happens at Midori is like -- just our luck.

After that we went to noraebang by ourselves for a bit, and we tried out some new BTOB (and for me, Sungjae) songs that we actually ended up being fairly pleased with! So we have some new ones to add to our repertoire, which is nice. I wish I were better at memorizing lyrics, but I'm terrible at it. Meanwhile adelagia has all these long raps memorized, it's crazy.

After that it was time to meet [personal profile] slitherhither and her daughter for dinner! We tried a new place called So Moon Nan Jib, and it was really good! The gamjatang was recommended to us, so that's what I got, and it was such a pleasant surprise. First of all, the portion size was HUGE for the price. Second of all, despite being called "potato soup" in Korean, it was actually mostly pork neck (delicious tender meat). There were maybe two chunks of potato and the rest of it was all pork, lol. It was strongly flavored with perilla leaves. What's funny is that there was a side dish that all the adults loved, and the first waitress I asked insisted that it was spinach, but it was clearly not spinach. I've made a similar error before, at a different Korean restaurant, and theirs was crown daisy, I was told, so I thought maybe that was the case again. But the second waiter I asked looked it up on his phone in Korean, and in English it was rapeseed herb (유채). Which I've never even seen in the market before, but it was super yummy as banchan.

Also, my finale for this post is the crazy dream that I had last night.

It started with my having to go on an international business trip, to China or somewhere. My flight was in the morning, and before it I went to work. There was a team meeting, and I followed my boss M. into the room, and seated at the table with everyone else was my dad. I was like, WTF? And I knew M. had to be planning something (not bad), but I didn't know what.

Then I realized that I did not account for travel time or getting to the airport two hours in advance, so my flight was going to leave in SIX MINUTES. I was like, "Oh shit" and someone was like "You can make it, just go right now," so I took a taxi or a shuttle or I don't even know what, and I got to the airport. But then I was in the bathroom, and there was someone who wouldn't stop talking to me, and I couldn't just leave because it would be rude, and then my forehead was bleeding and I had to take care of that. So then I got to the gate, and I had somehow only gotten there a few minutes late, but my coworker S. was there, and I was like, "Did you get them to hold the plane???" And she was like, "No, I wish." And the airline people were like, "Sorry, wish we could have delayed the plane, but we couldn't." And S. was like, can you put her on a flight for tomorrow? (There was never any resolution to that.) And then M. was there, and he was like, "Why would you go to work on the morning of your flight..." And I was like, I don't KNOW. And he was disappointed in me, and S. was disappointed in me, and I was DISAPPOINTED IN MYSELF. So stressful!

But the stress was not to end. I was then on the freeway, but driving like... a bike? Or some kind of open-air vehicle that was low to the ground. I was using my cell phone and it flew out of my grasp and slid to the end of the edge of the freeway. I was like, "Oh please don't fall over, please don't fall over..." but of course, it did. (The freeway was apparently like Rainbow Road in Super Mario Kart, where it's like, thin and suspended with no edges.) The phone slid right off the freeway, only by the miracle of dream mechanics, I was somehow now on the lower freeway road where it landed. I drove quickly toward it and swiped it up while leaning over. And I was totally exhilarated by my success, thinking, "Yessss, I got my phone! And there's not a scratch on it!" Only... it happens AGAIN. It flew right out of my grasp and fell off the edge of the freeway again. And then I was zapped to the new location below, and I could see it falling... falling... right onto a car, which caused it to veer, and then an 18-wheeler crashed into the car, and then it was a chain of events that couldn't be stopped. So basically I caused a huge accident involving everyone on the freeway. And I was like, OH SHIT.

And then it was the aftermath, and the cops and everyone were there to help with the cleanup, and I found my phone, only was shattered into pieces and I was super sad. Suddenly adelagia was there, and she was like, "In cases like this where you've lost personal property you can get them to reimburse you $22." But I was just scared that they would trace the root cause of the catastrophic accident back to me, because they would find the shattered remnants of the phone and take it as evidence, and then they'd see that it was my phone and that I'd been texting just minutes before the accident. And then I finally thought to ask a police officer, "Was anyone hurt??" (I know, this chain of events in my subconscious doesn't make me look great, lol. I like to think that my non-dream self would not be that callous or cowardly, but who knows.)

And then somehow adelagia and I were in a grocery store or something, only I no longer had a car due to the accident, and we had to drive a shopping cart home. Literally there was a driver's seat and a passenger seat in this shopping cart, we we "drove" it to our destination. And by "home" I meant adelagia's place, where apparently we were going to stay the night before we went on a trip the next day (what trip this is, I'm not sure). And her place wasn't even her real place, but some place in my dreamscape, because in the dream her room was like, in an attic and we had sleeping bags. We were chatting so the lights were still on, but then there was a knock on her door. We were immediately frightened, and we didn't dare move or make a sound, because we were basically like, but the only people we ever hang out with are RIGHT HERE, so who could that be?! And since we didn't answer the doorknob started rattling, with the person on the other side trying it, and that freaked us out even more because WHO DOES THAT? Oh, the person I'm looking for isn't home, so I'LL TRY THE DOOR AND SEE IF IT'LL OPEN. We were both freaking out, but since it was her place I made her be the one to get up and check it out...

And then I was at an outdoor picnic with a bunch of friends and family, and Sungjae was there, because he was part of this gathering, naturally. He started eating spicy drumsticks, and everyone was like, ohmygod how can he take it, that is soooooo spicy! And I was like, I can do it. And he was skeptical, but then someone said, "Hey, she won this contest in Britain." And I was like, "Yeah, I'm the English champion, you know." (Which I myself did not know until that moment, but it was real as soon as I said it.) Before I started I was like, "We're allowed to take off the skin, right?" And there was a ton of it, so I took it all off. Then I started eating a drumstick, only it was covered thickly with rice, and after three bites I was like, "Ohmygod, I'm already full, how am I even going to do this?!" WHY WOULD A DRUMSTICK BE COVERED WITH RICE, THAT IS CRAZY TALK. Anyway, I worked at it and worked at it, and finally I was down to the last few bites, and I swallowed it down. Sungjae gave me a fistbump, and our hands linger, and on that happy feeling I woke up, lol.

Date: 2018-02-27 09:04 pm (UTC)
sporky_rat: It's a rat!  With a spork!  It's ME! (Default)
From: [personal profile] sporky_rat
When I ended having to do portion control, a scale was helpful. (I used it only for meats and that sort of thing - veg was unweighed and it was 'all I could stand to eat' since I can't eat avocados.)

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