Masochistic Watch

To be fair -- and because I'm slightly masochistic when it comes to SF -- I watched Three-Body, the Chinese 30-episode version of Netflix's 3 Body Problem that I so disliked. I preferred the Chinese version, as it seemed to have less finger wagging and more story (I found out later it's also more faithful to the book.) The gender of one of the main characters was flipped, and there were a lot more characters in this one. It still proved rather disheartening. It's also very slow and doesn't get to the point as quickly.

I have a problem with much of the technology in both versions, and they're basically the same, so I had to sit through that. One particularly unpleasant scene in the Netflix version reminded me stronghly of a horror movie on a boat (Ghost Ship, if anyone cares) and I came away thinking that it was not really original. The scene was repeated in the Chinese series with everything practically identical, so it must be from the book. Finally there's a scene with a police officer shooting a nuclear device that is so beyond what would actually happen if that were done that I cringed a bit. Okay, that's all my gripes.

On the upside, the special effects were more interesting and involved in this one. You get a true sense of the antagonist, but also why they got there. There's one character who annoyed me from the start (the cop) and ended up being my favorite of the entire cast. I also found it startling that they basically criticized so much of the communist movement in China during its fledgling years; I never would have thought they'd get this past the censors.

I'm on the fence as to if I want to recommend this story in any form to anyone, but I'm glad I got another perpective on it. If you don't mind all the gripes and the depressing aspects, it's available to watch on Viki.com.

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Stuff

After finding this Caron one pound skein of lovely peach yarn in my thrifted lot I raided my stash for two cakes of Mandala in Pegasus, which matches it perfectly. For practice and hand therapy I'm going to make another Worth Street Afghan with this free pattern , but this time I'll use the yarn that was recommended for it plus the one pound skein. I'm not quite ready to do the vintage/recycled linen quilt I had planned (still a bit too nervous about the idea), so I'm going to use some color therapy and make a quilt from these thrifted green fat quarters. I considered doing another Yellow Brick road patchwork pattern, but I might go with a split rail fence like this one.

Journal Find

This is a page from my 2010 poetry journal. My handwriting isn't the best, so I'll transcribe it: If my heart survives to tell all the secrets kept inside it will be an abalone shell in which the beauty did reside. But I think I will always be lost to the tides that rage in me . . . humbling and polishing . . . I don't write many self-portrait poems, but this one isn't too embarrassing. A bit overly dramatic, but the girl I was eleven years ago went through some tough times. I'm in a much more peaceful place today.

Watchable Farce

The k-drama Undercover High School is a series that brings a handsome spy to play a student at an elite private school where a legend about billions of gold hidden there persists. It's more silly slapstick comedy than anything, but has some surprising romantic and dramatic moments, too. Seo Kang-joon is one of my favorite Korean actors, and this is the first series he's made since finishing up his mandatory military service. He plays Jeong Hae-seong/ Jeong Si-hyun, an NIS agent who infiltrates a snobby elitist school to hunt down the gold. There are four urban legends connected to the treasure that he has to figure out, all under the too-watchful eye of his homeroom teacher, Oh Su-Ah (Jin Ki-joo) whom he eventually discovers was his elementary school love Oh Bong-ja (there's a lot of name changing in this series.) The hunt for the treasure is the highlight of this series, but the romance between the leads is cute, too (and not as taboo as you might think, given that...

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