It Started with a Journal

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.

( Spoilers on Game Night. )

( Spoilers on Annihilation. )

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. ( Recipe for spiced chickpea salad. )

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 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 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. ( Jade: 'You have the best crazy dreams.' )

You know those people who only see food as fuel, and not something wonderful and delightful? I wish I were one of those people. :/ The diet/exercise thing is going well so far, but I don't know how long I can keep it up. I haven't really given myself an exercise break, because I'm afraid that by stopping one day, it's a slippery slope and I'll go immediately back to my old bad habits. Food wise, I've been mostly good, but do allow myself to cheat here and there -- not big cheats, but I'm not trying to be perfect, which I know wouldn't be sustainable.

Also, I've decided that once a month, I'm going to allow myself to make a treat of any kind. I enjoy baking, but baking is pretty much always involving something non-healthy. And I've decided once a month, THAT'S OKAY. It will be part of my strategy to keep up the healthy stuff long-term. I can't have NOTHING to look forward to making! Right now, I'm trying to decide between an Oreo roll cake and "easy" croissants; croissants is leading atm. I think every day about making them, lol. I figure having to go through the trouble and work of making them (or whatever my cheat item is for the month) is part of the "payment" for being allowed to eat it!

The headlight situation has been semi-resolved. There's apparently some kind of fuse (or whatever the real name is... I'm using fuse because I can't remember) that connects the headlights to the battery (or something). Lexus has determined that that fuse isn't heavy duty enough, and isn't strong enough to provide the needed wattage to the bulbs, causing them to fail prematurely. The problem is, the fuses are on way, way, WAY backorder. For now, they've replaced the lights, so I have working headlights, but at some point (in the distant future, apparently), I'm going to have to take the car back in, at which point they will replace the fuses and also give me a new set of headlights (the ones in the car now will be removed to be used as loaners for someone else in my situation). The only issue is that the extended warranty on the fuse thing has an expiration, and it will likely expire before the new fuses are available. Now, it seems obvious to me and likely any reasonable person that it's not MY fault if the part needed to fix the issue is on backorder, so this veiled implication that I might somehow be responsible for the cost of the fuses/lights after the warranty has expired is bullshit. The consultant I spoke with said he was "fairly sure" that because I reported the issue before the warranty expiration, it would still be covered... but that is not sure enough for my liking. I hope I won't have to throw a fit at some future date if they try to make me pay for it. :/

I liked Black so much I actually ordered it on DVD. Netflix can't be trusted to keep what they have on the docket, in the future. I got it on eBay knowing that it wasn't an official version (which doesn't seem to be available), but given the availability of HD these days, I wasn't too worried about the quality. It claimed "excellent English (subtitles)," and that was actually my biggest concern. I did test a few episodes, and I was satisfied with that part. I suppose I should rewatch the whole series on DVD just to make sure none of the discs skip and such.

Right now, I'm actively watching four things, which seems like a lot, though if I think of back in the day when we used to watch TV on a network's schedule, I probably watched more.

1) I'm Not a Robot: Two more eps posted last night, but I got home late for work and decided to save them for today, because two more eps will post, so I'll have a total of 4 to mainline all together.

2) Travelers: This one is interesting enough to keep me going, but I also have significant issues with it. ( Spoilers! )

3) Forest of Secrets/Stranger: This is a really good show that is more about the plot than the relationships -- or at least, I don't care about the relationships, if they're trying to go there. However, because of the lack of that element, it's not always the easiest to watch. It's like eating roasted Brussels sprouts... delicious and good for me, but not the only thing I want to eat.

4) Good Morning Call: Pretty much the opposite of Forest of Secrets, lol. This is pure mind candy... not even the good kind of candy, like Swedish Fish or Aero chocolate bars. This is more like the leftover junk candy from Halloween that you're forced to eat because you're desperate and other people have already eaten all the Twix and Snickers. It's a Japanese drama, and they are at least 10 years behind Korean dramas in look/feel/plot/acting/everything. This one was made in 2016, but it reminds me strongly of Boys Over Flowers in almost every way. I almost never find the Japanese actors attractive -- this guy is ok, but needs a new hairstyle -- and Japanese isn't pleasant to my ears (like mainland Chinese accents, but for different reasons), but this one has a super GP premise so I endured the pilot and will likely endure a few more. Nothing has been so offensive yet that I can't go on, at least. The plotline is basically a rip off of It Started With a Kiss, with some stuff changed. It's interesting, though, because Netflix actually had a hand in producing this one. That's probably why it has multiple seasons, and why, from what I've read, S2 ends poorly. >< Ugh, American television ruins everything. (I might not even watch S2 for that reason!)

I thought it had been ages since I last really updated, but I'm not that behind, whew. I guess it just feels like it, because it seems that a lot has happened since mid-Aug.

One big thing is that I got Lasik surgery!! YES A LASER CUT MY EYES AND I'M STILL HERE TO TALK ABOUT IT! ( All the deets. )

Seahawks vs Green Bay... I don't... I can't... what an embarrassment. Does the team have an "off" switch when they play games on the road? They're 0-4-1 this season with 2 TDs. TWO. WTF. Our offense is offensive to me. Not that the D was that great this game, either. I realize Earl is gone, and that was always gonna hurt. I expected them to lose this game -- they were playing at Lambeau, they've been shitty on the road, they were coming off a big home game, Green Bay has been trending up, etc. But JFC. Oh and they snapped an 85-game streak of not losing by more than 10 points.

Almost as bad as the team doing poorly was the crapshow they made of my fantasy football games this weekend. I managed to squeak into the playoffs in both leagues with a 7-6 record (go figure; I have a whole different cast and play entirely different people, but still managed to get the exact same record). One game is now an impossibility to win, unless Ezekiel Elliot gets like 70 points ON HIS OWN, while the other one will take monster games from LeGarrett Blount and Julian Edelman tomorrow night, which, given my luck with these things, they will not have. UGH.

I even drafted Eli Manning with the intention of playing him in place of Russell Wilson. I don't how he'll do tonight, but it certainly can't be worse than how RW played today, good gravy. I didn't end up playing Eli because I felt that I was not being fair to RW or the team coming off a good game, and I would feel really bad if Eli was horrible (very real possibility) and RW was amazing, for multiple reasons.

Next season, I am not drafting ANY Seahawks in my fantasy football leagues unless it would be absolutely ridiculous not to (like the next SEA player is miles above the next-best). It's too fucking stressful. Every week, I end up not playing FF the smartest way because I have to consider stupid shit like "feeling guilty" if RW has a good game. If I have no Seahawks on the roster, it won't matter who I put in; I just have to pick the best players, and the Seahawks doing well or poorly won't affect my FF games (well, other than when my opponent has a SEA player, of course).

==============

I was felled this last week by some kind of cold or flu or whatever the hell. This one was brutal. When I got sick in New York, it was like a little baby cold compared to this one. That one I was completely over with in less than two weeks, and never even got to the really bad symptoms. This time has been the mother of all viruses. (And how annoyed am I to get sick twice in such quick succession??) I'm still not fully over it, but am on the road to recovery. A few days ago I was like, LET ME DIE, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I don't even know how/where I got this thing. And if it's the flu, eff you flu shot for not covering this strain.

Oh, and even better? Aunt Flo came to visit. So I had to deal with that on top of body aches and hacking my lungs out.

On a more positive side note, have you heard of Thinx? It's period underwear, to put it bluntly. It's my second month using them (I have a full cycle set), and it's official, I love them. jade_okelani is a fan as well. You can read this article to learn more; I've read several like it where women tried to use them as their ONLY source of protection, and I think they're nuts. Or their cycles must be quite different from mine.

( More TMI. Seriously, I am very frank in here, so don't click if you don't wanna know. )

==============

I have accomplished the feat of finishing two of my many WIP K-dramas. I finished High School: Love On, which was okay, and Coffee Prince, which was better than okay but had the most boring and annoying side pairing of all time. I've also watched a few more episodes of Oh My Venus, which has gotten to a super angsty part, and I have no idea where they're going to go from here. It's quite disappointing, actually, that it started out so lighthearted and cute and has now brought us to this. Sigh. Henry Lau is still the best part of the drama. Also? Much of it seems to hinge on the viewer finding So Ji-sub brutally attractive. I mean, he IS attractive; he's just not THAT hot (to me).

Because of finishing off two of them, I allowed myself to start a new one -- "Hello My Teacher" aka "Biscuit Teacher and Star Candy." It stars Gong Yoo and Gong Hyo-jin. Gong Yoo is the primary male lead from Coffee Prince that I ended up really loving, and Gong Hyo-jin is the female lead from Master's Sun. She's another one of those actresses who gets a lot of work and critical accolades, and I don't understand why. To me she's basically Korean Maggie Gyllenhaal. Anyway...

Synopsis: Na Bori is a 25-year-old woman who desperately wants to be a teacher at the high school she was expelled from, so that she can work with her high school crush, young art teacher Ji Hyun Woo. However, the only thing that enables her to get the coveted job is by signing a contract to essentially babysit Park Tae In, a 20-year-old troublemaker who starts attending the high school, of which he quickly becomes the king.

I'm sure I found it when looking stuff up on High School King of Savvy. Anyway, Gong Yoo plays the troublemaking high school student. :D I've only seen the pilot, and so far I'm "meh" on it. It seems to have all the stereotypical characters you'd expect of a K-drama, as well as flight-of-fancy fight sequences and such. I suppose such things should be expected, given that it aired in 2005. The content and the format (it's in 4:3 aspect ratio, *shudder*) shows its age. I'll give it a few more episodes to see if Gong Yoo and Gong Hyo-jin can somehow work their magic.

I'm sorry to say that I'm in a general state of blah. I shall go through why that is, one by one.

1) The Seahawks losing. ( :( )

2) Plumbing issues. ( Why does my house hate me? )

3) Problems with my right thumb. ( Woe. )

Good news and bad news, but mostly good. The bad is that my cold symptoms are worse than ever. I always think, okay, I should be able to get over this in a few days, AND I NEVER DO. This is why I hate getting sick... it always seemed to linger and linger and linger. I always wake up with a sore throat because it gets so dry while I'm sleeping. When I'm awake, it doesn't feel so bad. Now it's all about the congestion. Ugh.

Now for the happy stuff.

1) My new computer has shipped!! It was originally estimated to ship *next Friday*, which is really rather ridiculous, but still, way to lower my expectations then overdeliver, HP! If only my friend akscully could learn from you.

2) I have tidied up my entire workspace at home in preparation for the new arrival. :D Long overdue, of course, but whatever. It got done finally.

3) One Direction’s ‘Happily’ gets an acoustic makeover and it’s ridiculously AMAZING - For once an over-the-top headline is actually quite accurate. It is ridiculously amazing. TY adelagia for letting me know this existed!



4) Another TY to akscully, for sharing this gifset:







Larry's face in #3...

And finally:

5) Three guys' reaction to the Red Wedding. I know, I know, this was ages ago on GoT, but I haven't seen this vid before and it's one of the best reaction vids I've seen. Usually the reaction vids are of girls who are freaking out while the guys in the room look all stone faced; these guys lay it all out there. LOL. It starts when the wedding itself begins, so the real "action" starts around the 5-minute mark.



"I don’t care. I don’t even care now. I’m completely dead inside."

Yeah, I'm sick. It's got to be just a cold because I don't have body aches or anything like that; if my throat wasn't sore I'd be feeling pretty normal.

I know where I got it, too. Monday night I had dinner with J. and R., who I haven't seen in over 15 years (CRAZY). We were pretty good friends in college, though we did have our moments of tension (such as when R. decided she couldn't be friends with me because I was too boy crazy. lOL! Which was probably true, but also, judgmental much?). I'm just really bad at keeping in touch with people. If they don't live within 30 minutes of me, or participate in fandom, it's just too hard to keep that friendship going. Anyway, J. and R. are really good friends, so when R. was called by one of her Jewish friends in Seattle to perform a bris on her new baby (R.'s a physician, not a mohel ;) ), R. came up to stay with J. and we all got together for dinner at the Vios pub (downstairs from Third Place Books!). Had a great time -- R. is exactly as I remembered her, though I think we are all more mature and have more perspective now (I hope) -- but J. mentioned that she had a sore throat. We all shared dessert and I thought R. and I avoided eating the parts J. touched but apparently I was not successful. GRRRRRRR.

I have purchased the new PC after days of hemming and hawing (akscully can attest to this). I ended up going with a compromise solution once I realized it was possible. I customized a base HP PC with a 4th-gen processor, building it exactly like the one I wanted with a 3rd-gen processor. Due to a coupon code I used from Chase Rewards I was able to make it cost (marginally) less than the 3rd-gen version, and with that being the case my brother said to opt for the 4th-gen, so that's what I did. Final specs:

- 4th-gen Intel Core i7-4770 processor quad-core [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
- 16GB RAM (2 DIMM)
- 3TB hard drive
- Blu ray reader/multi-DVD burner
- Graphics card: 4GB Nvidia GeForce GT640

If I let myself think about it more I'd probably keep changing my mind, so I finally had to just make a decision and stick with it.

In ridiculous news, I had a bill from my healthcare provider for $7.88 moooooonths ago. I was going through all the dizzy spells and what not, so I put off paying for it (though I had already paid much-higher bills from earlier), because I figured other bills would be forthcoming and I could just pay them all at the same time. Except that did not happen. It was like the only bill for months, and I'm an utterly ridiculous person and kept forgetting about it, even after several reminders. And yes, I did keep thinking that I would have another bill at some point and could pay them together. Finally, after coming back from LA, I got a notice that the bill had been sent to a collection agency. And I also got another bill for $0.95. That's right, $0.95. So I called my healthcare provider and said that I wanted to pay for the $0.95, because clearly I needed to do it right away or it wouldn't be done, and I didn't want THAT to eventually be sent to the collection agency as well. That's when she found out about the $7.88 I was delinquent, and she said that she would pull it out from the collection agency so that my credit score wouldn't be affected (I didn't even THINK about that. Ridiculousness #2, if my credit score got negatively affected due to freaking $7.88), and I paid for that. Hopefully nothing will go wonky with the system or something and it doesn't actually affect my credit score. :/ Anyway, I said, well what about the $0.95, I don't want that to haunt me later. And she was like, "Oh, I think they've already forgiven that. I mean, they usually forgive really small amounts. I'm surprised the $7.88 got sent to the collection agency instead of just being forgiven." So ridiculousness #3, that if they regularly forgive small amounts, that that amount wasn't forgiven. HONESTLY.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a SORE THROAT. Nooooooooooooo!!! jade_okelani has somehow transmitted her cold to me through the Internets! It's feeling better right now, I can barely tell it's there, but it doesn't feel fully normal. Please please please do NOT let me get sick. That would be intolerable.

Well, I have gotten akscully sucked into The Vampire Diaries and Damon. Muhuahahaha. True to form, she is now AHEAD of me and has started watching S2. I'm going to wait until 2 more episodes have aired so I can put the first 7 eps on a disc and watch that way. Meanwhile, Project Get Jade Sucked Into Merlin is moving ahead slowly, though not the runaway success of Project Get Akscully Sucked Into TVD. She just finished watching episode 5, and her comments make me and akscully giiiiiiiiggle. She said she loves Arthur's expressions. LOLLLLLLLLL she doesn't even KNOW.

Last night, had a fantastic dinner at Spring Hill with corianderstem and leiliaxf. Such good food and company! We may try to do the fried chicken dinner in February, so that'll need to be booked soon. :D Tonight -- Mistral Kitchen with belcantin, a fellow mod at food_porn!

I'm trying to decide between AAA roadside assistance and Allstate Motor Club roadside assistance. :/ At about the same level of cost, these are the differences: 1) Towing - AAA is free up to 5 miles; Allstate gives a $100 benefit toward towing; 2) Lockout - AAA gives $50 toward lockout service; Allstate gives $100; 3) Out of gas - AAA, you pay for the gas; Allstate, $100 benefit; and 4) Tire change - AAA, free; Allstate, $100 benefit. If I'm getting it just for towing, I suppose I should go with AAA. But lockout service is actually the only thing I've actually used! So I don't know which to get. >< What's your vote???

I'm working on another Merlin story, but there's also a Damon drabble I've been thinking about (yes, they should just rename the show to Damon).