LadyCrimson

Today I continued my unhealthy binge-watching of Korean dramas and films, had a nice dinner, tried to learn how to differentiate (by ear) and pronounce Korean double consonants until I tossed my hands up in the air for the night. Romanization of Korean pronunciation is about as helpful as tossing a drowning person a dish sponge. I've been trying not to even look at such since I think it would lead to bad habits. Now time for sleep.

Bad Guys (via Netflix) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3914520/ Overall a pretty decent thriller/crime k-drama series. This is one for those who aren't interested in any sort of romance emphasis in their series. The first two episodes are good and build a lot of interest, and then there's a few crime-episodic episodes, with one very bad episode that has this older female actress in a role that is like nails on a chalkboard. I pretend that episode doesn't exist. But it revs up again quickly and becomes very interesting re: the backstories and characterizations of the "bad guys" team with a satisfying ending, imo. All four of the male leads are awesome. ============================================== Misaeng (Incomplete Life) (via Netflix, also on DramaFever) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/ BEST 20 episode drama series I've seen in quite a while. No action, almost no melodrama, no romance, just a series about interns/employees lives in a giant office corp. It almost instantly captures your interest and never lets go. Great dialogue and quiet character moments. Fantastic acting and character studies/growth. The last episode does get a little far fetched/silly but still. Hubby liked the first 4 episodes a lot but he had to leave town for a few days - he remarked he'd watch the rest on his own later (which he did) - this from someone who hates subtitles. ====================================================== Descendants of the Sun (on both Netflix and Dramafever) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4925000/ This is more the romance-drama type style so I won't bother to talk plot. Two male leads (bromance) in a "special forces" military and a couple women (one a doctor/surgeon, one an army doctor), so the main drama comes from difficult jobs = difficult relationships. Usual dry humor, some cheesy moments, bad guy isn't all that bad - but with decent characters including a large cast of good supporting roles. I liked "Goblin" a lot more but this one was good enough to watch all the episodes.

A song to listen to while staring at the rain. A more "pop" tune that makes me toe tap to the chorus every time. ...I barely know what k-pop/k-music is, btw. I don't keep up with or even regularly listen to any music now - I just hear stuff I like in games or TV/movies and that's all I get exposed to anymore. Seems like there's always one or three tunes from every K-drama I watch that I end up liking a lot.

If you mean family tree type of stuff, that's not possible, since there are literally zero records of my natural birth parents. My birthday is not even my real birthday, it's an age-estimate by the adoption agency. (edit: not knowing my real age is also something that irrationally troubles me, at times, off and on ) My adoptive grandfather traced his family line many years ago, but it has no meaning to me at all. I have, however, idly considered DNA tests just out of curiosity if I'm even "full-blooded" Korean. For all I know, I'm quarter or half Japanese, as well, or something.

Totally this. So much so.

LOL - yeah, I know that can be a thing. I very rarely drink myself as well. I just don't like alcohol at all (taste or effect), never have. I don't like tea either, but at least that I could drink for politeness. I definitely rebelled a ton when I was in my teens, heh. For myself I think it has more to do with social discomfort that leads to far more self-isolation than even my introversion might account for. When I was a kid looking for P/T work and calling people for interviews I'd then show up and almost every single one would say something along the lines of "Oh, I didn't realize you were Asian, you have zero accent over the phone" and I would think to myself "what does that have to do with anything." There's tons of that sort of thing, in both directions - you know ppl mean nothing by it but it's such a disconnect since I don't view myself as Asian and such comments take me aback at times...then I look in the mirror and go "oh yeah". I never became comfortable with that aspect, if that makes any sense. I've never "wanted to be white" in terms of my skin, there's nothing like that for me - I like my face - but it gives me a feeling like I don't (socially) belong to anything. Saying I'm Korean on a government form (where they're trying to get demographic statistics) feels like a lie, even tho technically it isn't. It's hard to explain. But saying I'm white would also be a lie. Hence identity crisis. Altho, crisis isn't really the right term. It's just ... trying to figure out why I feel such disconnects in the first place and what might help to make such have less impact on my mental state of being. I mean, do all my likes and dislikes etc = the sum total of my (emotional) identity? Or is there something more. What/why is racial culture important to identity for so many people. I don't know. Maybe I can find out.

Identity crisis in progress: I don't know how many ppl here recall this, but I'm what they term a transracial adoptee - a S. Korean adopted by white parents, who grew up in an extremely white social environment. I've always had some ... identity? ... issues regarding this. It's not at all uncommon a thing. If for some reason you want to know more about that aspect, you can sift through the Donaldson Institute's 2009 report on the issue. https://www.adoptioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2009_11_BeyondCultureCamp.pdf Or for a briefer insight into the topic, there's the NY Times article that uses the Korean adoptee perspective. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/09adopt.html Anyway, I apparently fit a lot of reaction time-tables as other adoptees and after a lifetime of ignoring and being convinced my racial background/heritage had no relevance to my life, I now find myself wanting to dive into it more. It's almost as if I suddenly feel like I have no idea who I am and a lot of old stuff is bubbling to the surface. I'm becoming rather emotional about it. For many in my shoes this seems to mean a journey to their birth country and/or trying to find birth parents. The latter is not available to me since I was a foundling orphan with no parental records at all. The former is something I've never seriously considered because I feel I would be psychologically unstable re: trying to visit S. Korea when I have a Korean face but no Korean background (language, culture, whatever). Every time I opened my mouth, it would be obvious. I would have to say "I don't understand" a million-jillion times (eg, a taxi driver immediately speaking Korean/assuming I'd understand) and feel oddly unworthy every time I had to say it, if that makes any sense. Or, what if I ended up not wanting to go back to the US and suddenly finding myself hostile to my own white-adoption background (which would be a no better situation/result). Or perhaps it'd all be great and I'd be rid of this "identity crisis" and have the best peace of mind I've ever had, by finally being able to meld all these..things...into a whole. It's scary not knowing what my reaction might be, and I'm not sure how brave I am/will be, in the end. Also, depending on what my actions may be over time, how will my (white) husband react. I doubt he's ever thought about going to Korea (or anywhere in Asia) in his life. Would he go with? Would I want him to go with and if not, would he be ok with that? Sigh. But I think I'm going to start with learning Korean. So if I do ever work up the nerve to go to the land of my birth, I can at least have that one big insecurity/stressor be gone. This is going to take a while....

Had a break from Final Fantasy XV for a while, watching a lot of TV/films instead. But the Prompto DLC will be out next week and the recent trailer for it made it look tons better than the previous Gladio-based DLC. So I may spend some time checking that out. Then it'll be a long wait for the Ignis DLC in Sept. Still looking for a new game that might catch my specific gamer-OCD tendencies on fire while also catering to the fact that I've become a lot more of a casual gamer in other ways, but in the meantime at least there's lot of great non-game entertainment to catch up on!

^ Oh, I love Alien and Aliens (but not the further sequels...)...and anything similar if it's well done. By now it's all fairly predictable, like I said, but I do like such movies. The only problem is most movies like that aren't well done. I was just hoping, because of the cast list, that "Life" would be one of those rare exceptions.

Goblin: The Lonely and Great God ...wanted to see this because of Gong Yoo (the lead in Train to Busan). May not be the sort of fantasy/drama series most here would like but yeah...it was great. The dry humor and bro-mance between the Goblin and the Reaper were my fave parts, but even the melodrama captured me. Past life mysteries/tragedies, romantic tragedies, atmospheric camera work, a fantastic soundtrack, a lot of plot threads all weaving together to make for quite a moving and satisfying 16 episode journey. Although I personally could've done with about 15-20% less emphasis on "chrs stare into each others eyes for super long moments" romantic scenes and a little more emphasis on the drama/humor. Still, absolutely loved it. Also, the one humorous scene that referenced Train to Busan caught me by surprise and was absolutely hilarious.

"Life" (2017) With the caliber of actors in it, I was expecting a little something more. I mean, I did expect an Alien-like sci-fi/horror pic that would feel comfortably predictable but decent. The first half of the film is ok/does fine but it falls apart at the end. And what was with that in-your-face omnipresent/ominous soundtrack. Really rather overdid it with that.

So many sub-forums to this forum now. Since I don't allow perm-cookies, every time I visit I have to re-click that little + sign to hide most of them...which is fine. It's just funny to me - there were so few sub-forums when I first came here so long ago. Time flies/creates change and all that. About to eat dinner and rent/watch the movie "Life." Warm summer evening...relaxation...the good life.

I saw that double-monitor/one screen earlier, from elsewhere. On the one hand, it's kind of appealing because you can, in essence, use it like two separate 1080 monitors (something on one side, another thing on the other side), whilst also removing the monitor-edge borders of a game stretching across two monitors. But on the other hand, I can also picture a lot of potential (tech) headaches as well that I'm sure I'd end up griping about constantly. Plus I like having three monitors and in that case I'd rather have them separated and moveable etc. Still...one of those "horrific yet oddly appealing" things.

Ah....found it. DramaFever website. Awesome. Now to immerse myself.

So I've been binge-watching the Korean drama series "Man to Man" (via Netflix) the past couple days. The episodes are extra long, around 100 minutes each I think. The first episode felt like 45 minutes of "last week on" with the way it tried to show the history of the main character in these very fast-cut, narrated scenes but after that the show has a more normal scene-format and becomes less confusing/more solidified. The mixture of cop-mystery-drama, action, comedy, and occasional anime-like reaction-shot moments (chr. blinks their eyes and they add "boop boopboop" noises) is rather charming, if a bit off the wall and silly. Is there any other way to watch more such shows (legally) on the internet? I noticed Amazon Prime links to a site that showcases Asian action movies, these days. Maybe something like that, only for Asian TV series? Or would I have to just take stabs in the dark and buy whole series that are available on DVD instead.

Hubby did the work 60-80/hrs a week thing for several years and then crashed and burned. Took a year off. He's self-employed now (with one company he works for, 99% of the time) @ maybe an average of 30/hrs a week (it's a pretty cushy situation...) and yeah .... he's been very happy. They keep trying to get him to work full time as a "real" employee and he keeps shying away from it. Going up to the other house and hanging out up there this summer is going to be some fun, especially now that the shower/bathroom is fixed/improved. Although he's now considering that he may not want to actually retire up there. Decisions, decisions. Make up your mind, sweetie. At any rate - man we need to go camping again, even if just "car camping" at some lake. It's been so long. Sounds awesome, hope you have a ton of fun.

I need an obsessive-nature intervention. And this is after already deleting 150GB. Every game I play a ton/for months, I have this problem (KOTOR2, 7 Days to Die, FONV, etc). I now have three 2-3TB external HDD's just to dump-store all this kind of stuff + any other videos/photography/media/general downloads and docs and system backups and .... once in a while I *do* make a half-hearted attempt to clean something out, but you can imagine how that goes. Delete 50GB, add 100GB more. Why bother. Weren't PC's supposed to help make our lives simpler/faster? Uh-huh. For me at least it probably made things worse. :D

Hadn't heard of that one yet, thanks. Could be priced anywhere from $600-800 maybe? Hm. A little high for my tastes but I can keep it in mind. :D

I've been back for a little bit. Although "back" is a relative term. I drop in once every few weeks or once a month maybe.

1 - I'm also an Intel slave since the beginning of time. I've never been fond of AMD. It's probably not entirely rational, especially these days, but there it is. 2- I haven't liked the gaming performance reviews of the Ryzen. 3 - I'm still not even using 1440 at the moment nor do I do any frequent, mega-cpu-intensive non-gaming tasks

I'm still an Nvidia slave so the last GPU I bought was the 980ti. Didn't bother with a 1080ti (yet) since I (still) haven't built a new rig. I was ready to last Xmas but then I bought a PS4 instead + 2nd house stuff to the tune of $20k, so now maybe next fall or early winter. Anyway, I was originally going to get the i7-6700k because it seemed fine for my modest personal needs and likely to last me another 5+ years, with the way I "PC" these days....but maybe I should go with the 7700k now? I have no clue. Longevity is my main concern, not uber-power/overclocking. And by the time I might care about 4k, CPU's (and GPU's) will have gone through 5 more cycles anyway. So would the 6700k still be fine for someone like me?

"18 cores" sounds good in theory (although from that posted video I guess it may not be as cool as it sounds) but I can't see myself ever wanting to spend that much on a CPU for a home PC, ever. Even if it also baked and served me cookies.

^ Last speeding ticket I got was when I was around 18 I think. I used to be a terrible driver. Then I became a decent driver. Now I drive like my mom used to. I'm bored and decided to clean out the photos from my cheap/old Powershot camera, which is what I use 90% of the time these days. Hauling around the DSLR/lenses all the time got old, especially when I now just take snapshots that I forget I've taken 10 minutes later. So they sit in the camera forever etc. Anyway. Two cat pics: My uber 3 screen/desk setup! (haha) I'll eventually buy another 27" monitor to replace the horrible 19" one on the right. But for now..."it works, whatever." That phrase is kind of my motto these days. There's so much "blue light" being tossed at my eyeballs now, tho, that I had to buy some amber clip-ons to wear when sitting there for more than 15 minutes. And yes that's a cheap cloth "greenscreen" in the corner. "It works, whatever." (edit - the TV's a 40", in case you're wondering. Good for the PS4)

I feel like this is becoming the norm. with most "AA" or "AAA" or whatever it is, gaming. Not specifically re-packaging, but the "games as service" model. Trying to squeeze as much as you can from a single game, for years. I find it all rather disheartening, but then I also worry that type of thing is going to leak into all software, including operating system software. That'll be fun.

Today I came to the Obsidian forum. Also I'm about to head out to grab some late lunch because my stomach is rumbling. I lost 12 pounds 5-6 months ago and have kept it off, but my brain keeps wanting to eat so those last 8-10 pounds still hang around. Oh well, whatever. At least my middle (where all excess weight goes) no longer looks like a loosely packed sack of russet potatoes. Maybe a tightly packed bag of mini-red potatoes. Been pretty busy, out of town a lot, lots of time with the hubby (we read each others minds 90% of the time now, which is hilarious), the cat who never shuts up or leaves me alone for a second. Same ol' same ol', basically.