I am too lazy to sort
This was my big art project for last year — a selfie a day. I’m not sure it worked out very well. Someone told me that it should’ve been in the same place every day. As you can see, I did it wherever and whenever. I missed days. I used cameras attached to computers from my iPhone to my iPad mini to my laptop. It was ridiculous.
You can see the whole thing on my Flickr album.
Here we go again back at the bookstore. Maybe I should’ve had one of my resolutions to avoid it as much as possible, or better yet, the resolution should be to watch, read, or use whatever I buy from there within a week. I still haven’t read a majority of what I hauled in last year. I think that I am addicted to spending money and accumulating junk. Sounds like a plan for another resolution for next year.
Fighting Elegy directed by Seijun Suzuki
Step-by-step Tai Chi with Tiffany Chen
I’ll take some time to look over my 2017 resolutions to see how well I’m keeping them. I’ll try to keep this to every fortnight. Perhaps it will be my new series for blogging this year — one of my resolutions!
Health
I had some Sun Noodle ramen in the freezer so I made some ramen this evening. It was some kind of shoyu ramen with chicken. I threw in a soft boiled egg. It was a cooking adventure!
Cooking. Me cooking. I am a mess, because I am an amateur. There’s a lot to juggle to make dinner especially if you are hungry. You have to get everything to cook within minutes.
It was the first time I had 3 burners on the stove going. And I also had the pressure cooker going.
Let’s start with the pressure cooking an egg. I usually steam my eggs after I found out how easy it is to get to the proper cooked state. Hard boiled is just about 6 minutes. Soft boiled? I put it in for 4 minutes, but I think it should be slightly longer. When I peeled it, it came apart. It wasn’t a perfect egg, but it was perfectly soft boiled.
Next the chicken. I fried it. But I suck because I used a regular frying pan. I don’t think I got the oil hot enough. After breading it, I dropped the chicken into the pan cooking it on each side about 5 minutes. When I took it out and sliced it, the chicken wasn’t done. In it went again. I over cooked it. But it’s okay. It’s fried!
The noodles. These are great noodles. I bought the “kaedema” style which is just a smaller package of ramen. I think. The way to cook the noodles is to just get a pot of water boiling, drop the noodles in, and cook for about 5 minutes. Maybe more or maybe less. I got it done enough that I pulled it out of the water early and let sit for a bit in a strainer waiting to go into the broth.
The broth. It’s a combination of store bought chicken broth and my very own mushroom vegetable broth. I made it in my pressure cooker! I just combined both in a pot and brought it to a boil. I added 1 tablespoon of shoyu (soy sauce), a dash of mirin, and a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce. Pepper to taste.
A word about the chili garlic sauce. Scrumptious! It’s my favorite flavor to add to a soup, because it always seems to make the broth so better.
Mmm. Mmmm. Good.
I’m going to keep cooking ramen especially. I just need to use those fresh noodles from Sun Noodles. They are the best.
Natalie Portman portrays the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie. It was a film about the first lady in the months after the assassination of the President, her husband, in Dallas. It is an account of the widow making her husband’s legacy mythic. It is a story too sad a tragedy.
As I watched it, I felt for America. Not because of the Kennedy assassination, but because of Trump. The film portrays the institution of the White House and the Presidency with reverence. It builds it up as an American myth. It is ours as Americans because we can be so much better than our selves can be. That’s what she said they strived for. Now we’ve got Trump and a First Lady that can not barely match the majesty of the past First Ladies. We are ridiculous for electing them.
3 of 5 stars.
I do this every year because I usually watch a lot of the movies that come out in the theatre. It’s my list of best films watched where I ponied up money to see in a darkened auditorium. Once again, these are based on the 4 or 5 star film review. Now whether those stars hold up, it is left to myself to see sometime in the future. But more often they slip. There are only very few I still admire. Those would be the 5 stars films. I don’t think I have any this year. O, well. Onto the show!
La La Land. 4 stars
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. 4 stars
The Handmaiden. 4 stars
Kubo and the Two Strings . 4 stars
Star Trek Beyond. 4 stars
That’s it.
And if I would say it, The Handmaiden is my favorite. Most likely because of the eroticism in it. But it was really well made and it was a surprise when I saw it.
New Year’s Resolutions are lame. You will break them by the January 2nd if not before. That being said I’m writing out my New Year’s Resolution in order to be transparent. How long will they last? It is up to me. I need to work on my perseverance.
Health
Exercise
In order to get healthy, I’m gonna have to get off my butt and do some exercise. I got an Apple Watch to help me track it, but I need better metrics.
Professional Life
Personal
Last trip to the bookstore of 2016. I went just for coffee like I always do. This time I didn’t get decaf; I went regular which I have done a couple times during this Christmas break. Maybe I won’t get the jitters. Maybe I will, but at least I can sleep on my couch.
I bought movies. I doubt I finished the last set from the last time I bought movies at B&N. Maybe by the end of 2017 I would see these films.
High and Low directed by Akira Kurosawa. BluRay
The Mermaid directed by Stephen Chow. DVD
Love and Friendship directed by Whit Stillman. DVD
I don’t think I ever linked to Nogizaka46 Japanese Wiki entry. By the end of 2017, I need to know a smattering of Japanese in order to read this.
Manchester by the Sea is like many indie films. It deals with death, going back home, reconciling relationships, and morose characters.
In this one, it follows Casey Affleck’s character who comes back to Manchester by the Sea to bury his brother. He had left the town because he found that it reminded him of his dead children. He left his wife there. He comes home to help his nephew become the man of the house. Affleck’s character doesn’t like dealing with these things, but he grows a bit to handle the pressure. He must become a better person for his nephew, and he must become human again.
Like many indie films, this one flits from one vignette to another to highlight Affleck’s character. It also uses flash backs to show us that he wasn’t always so remorse. It was the town that made him such, and returning to it will help him heal. The town is a third character. Each scene makes us follow Affleck’s character. He is who he is because of the town.
I’m sure I’ve seen many films like this one before. It had all the hallmarks of indie-ness. You’ve seen one then you’ve seen them all.
3 of 5 stars.
