Jeffrey's Thoughts

Free Guy Review

Warning: This review contains spoilers of the movie

I am a fan of Ryan Reynolds and his movies and he did a solid job in this one. The premise of the movie was different and I enjoyed the special effects and the game aspect. It was similar to a Grand Theft Auto game, but he was a side character. I’m not entirely sure if that is true since I haven’t played GTA before. The main villain was also played quite well. He was funny yet pretty serious about not letting the public know about how the game was built. I feel like a lot of the problems could’ve been avoided if he licensed the software and went through the correct channels. Obviously people enjoyed playing the game and without all of this drama, they would’ve liked playing the sequel.

Since I watch Twitch streams, it was cool to see some of the biggest streamers talk about the game and Ryan Reynolds. It would’ve been even better if Imaqtpie was one of the streamers. He’s not as popular as he once was, but he’s still one of the few streamers I continue to follow. I wonder if the buff Ryan Reynolds was played by him in a buff suit or if it was played by someone else with some CGI or if it was him with CGI. The message of the movie was rather uplifting and I was glad that I watched it.

How do you like living in [location name]?

I moved a few times in my life. I moved when I started college, I moved when I started my first full time job, and I moved when I got a new job. One of the common questions I get from people that I haven’t talked to in a while is “How do you like living in [location name]?” There are several trains of thought that go through my mind when I try to respond.

One is that this person doesn’t know me very well because I think that I can live in most places perfectly fine, especially since I don’t do much. I can’t really say this to them because that’s somewhat rude and they made an effort to socialize with me.

Second thought is that this person is interested in the setting surrounding my apartment. I say something relating to the public transportation or the weather or how accessible the food is or whether it is nice to walk around, etc.

Third thought is that this person is interested in the apartment that I’m living in, so I should tell them about the layout and amenities of my apartment.

Fourth thought is that this person is engaging in small talk and is not interested in my answer, so I should say something brief and change the topic.

Fifth thought is that this person is genuinely interested in learning more about this location. In this scenario, I try to think of this person’s interests and describe how this location offers or lacks opportunities to pursue those interests. I rarely answer this way.

With these thoughts running through my head and the person staring at me, I alternate picking between thoughts two, three, and four and hope that this response is good enough.

But then, do I enjoy each place I’ve lived the same amount? No. I’ve spent varying lengths of time in each place so I’ve become attached to some places more than others. Do I have a favorite place I’ve lived? No. I don’t have a favorite *anything*. If I’ve ever told you I have a favorite something, then I’m either lying to you or I’m using that word loosely to seem more relatable. Are you even living life at this point? That’s a good question. I am wandering through time waiting for things to happen and hoping that I do not bother or offend anyone. Definitely wouldn’t make for a great biography, but hey, I’m just a normal guy doing normal things – nothing to see over here.

Dating or Relationship Advice that I’ve received or heard

1. You have to greet the person when you see them

I think that this advice is generally valid for interacting with people – not necessarily for the relationship context. I received this advice when I was in middle school and it seems to have held up throughout the years. I thought I would get more pieces of advice from my friend, but this was all I got during that time.

2. You have to be interesting

I was at work when I overheard a story one of my coworkers was telling another coworker about her dating experience. This advice wasn’t exactly what she said, but it was the basic gist. To my knowledge, the background was that there was a guy my coworker met through a dating app and they seemed to get along decently since he was willing to make her food, clean her apartment, take care of her dog, etc. but she ended things since she didn’t find him very interesting.

3. You should be yourself

This is a very common piece of advice in media and it is most likely valid. I don’t remember who I heard this from, but I’m sure that this advice worked for them. Personally, this type of advice leads me down two trains of thought. One is that I do not really know who I am so “being myself” doesn’t really mean much – like I get that I shouldn’t try to act like someone else, but what if that is a part of my personality that I haven’t displayed that often. Two is that I’ve been myself for my whole life. Has that helped me in my dating and relationship history? Remains to be seen – there is a lack of evidence since I have not dated anyone before.

4. You should put on your dating profile that you are six feet tall.

I understand that guys do put that they are six feet tall on their profile, but those people are most likely a bit closer to six foot. I feel like starting off with a white lie is not a great way to start anything. Also, I don’t think I have a personality or confidence of a six foot person – not that I think that my personality or confidence would change if I were six foot. It’s more like that’s just not who I am.

5. You should show that you are passionate about something

I feel that this is similar to the advice about being interesting. Unfortunately, I do not think that I am passionate about anything, at least not enough to talk at length about it. One of my biggest hobbies is to read manga and even amongst my manga reader friends, I forget so many of the details of the characters or the plot to the point where I sometimes forget why I brought up the conversation to begin with.

6. You should go out and do activities you are interested in and meet people that way

This seems to be a generally valid piece of advice in order to socialize with people since you are doing something you are comfortable with and are likely to find like-minded people. More recently, I haven’t had the motivation to do this. Also, when I do activities like exercise or volunteer, I don’t really have an urge to socialize with people. Even in social settings, I don’t really care to strike a conversation with strangers. I think that this fact is the most likely detractor that is setting me back – but that’s just who I am.

7. It would help if you had a mansion and 10 million dollars

I am definitely attempting to accumulate more money, but I am quite far from this. If this is what it took to be in a relationship, then I’ve seen more millionaires in my life than I can count. I agree that having access to money can be beneficial in multiple aspects in life, but this is not easily attainable by me and I’ll have to revisit this piece of advice much further down the line.

Feel free to comment with more pieces of advice

Cutting Onions

As a person who cooks most of his meals, I have cut a bunch of onions. However, I don’t usually eat a full onion in each meal. The remaining onion, I put in the refrigerator for later use. Through my experience, I am more likely to cry when I cut the non refrigerated onion than when I cut the refrigerated onion. After looking online, it seems like other people have come to the same conclusion.

So, if you wanted to cut onions without crying as much and you stumbled upon this blog post and did not see any of the other tear prevention techniques for cutting onions in various other websites, then I can tell you that chilling your onions is a valid strategy for onion tear prevention.

Love Hard Review

Warning: This review contains spoilers of the movie

I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw a post about this movie and how there was Asian representation. So, I was like “Great, I’m Asian. I watch movies. I gotta support the people.” After a couple weeks, I turned on Netflix and started supporting.

The movie is a romantic comedy. I generally like romantic comedies and this is no different. Slightly different premise than the others that I’ve seen in the past, but umm definitely hits the same sort of themes. There’s a girl who falls in love with a sweet, caring guy and then they meet up together and there is a bit of a shock. Through various interactions during the Christmas season, they realize that they are a good fit for one another even though there was a lot of trickery and dishonesty. And of course it ends with a happy ending.

Overall, I thought the movie was ok. I didn’t expect too much from the movie, so I can’t really rate it poorly. I saw the representation, the main characters acted pretty well, and there were some funny moments. Harry Shum Jr’s character was so over the top with being the center of attention, that was pretty funny. Also, Jimmy Yang’s character was a solid dude – like really bad at making an initial online dating profile, but very perceptive and knowledgeable and quick on his feet and witty. I’m not sure if he was the one singing or not, but the scene where he sings “Baby it’s cold outside” as a duet with Nina Dobrev’s character and he modified the lyrics… the song was great and the singing was splendid. Not sure if the movie was trying to have a message (I know it was trying to have a message / moral – I’m being sarcastic, but I wanted to say I’m being sarcastic just in case it wasn’t clear from the words I am typing), but this made me want to watch some more holiday themed romantic comedies.

One thing I don’t really understand about the movie is how is this girl able to fly across the country to meet a guy with the guy not knowing about it – like she had his address.. he must’ve given it to her, right? Also, the photoshop of Tag was way too quick – literally instantaneous. That must’ve been saved on his phone just for this occasion.

I enjoyed Jimmy Yang in Crazy Rich Asians, I enjoyed him in this movie as well, looking forward to seeing him in other movies as well.

“People Like Her” Review

Spoiler Alert – This review contains content that could spoil the book for people who have not read the book

I first heard about the book People Like Her from watching a YouTube video about great books to read by the YouTuber Jenn Im. I’ve followed some of her stuff since it was recommended to me by the algorithm and for the most part, her videos are decent to watch.

This book is about a couple named Emmy and Dan and their lives while Emmy tackles being an Instagram famous. I read a summary of the book before reading it and there was a comparison to Gone Girl, which if I recall Gone Girl correctly, People Like Her does have some similar elements.

Even though the book premise is not something I would automatically be interested in, the writing was very approachable and easy to read. It was also cool to read the book with a number of different perspectives. The book jumps between Emmy’s POV, Dan’s POV, and Jill’s POV as various events occur. From an early point in the book, it was clear that Jill was planning on doing something to Emmy, but it was not clear to me what she was going to do and what she set up. Also, it took a really long time for me to figure out why Jill even was obsessed with MamaBare (Emmy’s Instagram handle) and why Jill wanted to enact revenge. When it was finally explained, I was in shock… like are you kidding me? Jill’s daughter Grace was having a tough time taking care of her baby since the baby cried a lot so Grace looked into cosleeping and whether that was a viable option for her and the baby. Apparently during a MamaBare meet up, Emmy mentioned that cosleeping had helped her when she was raising her daughter Coco. In Jill’s opinion, that meeting convinced Grace to actually cosleep with her child EVEN THOUGH Grace had researched this topic extensively and saw numerous pros and cons about cosleeping. After one cosleeping session, Grace’s baby died and her family was devastated and was not able to recover from the trauma. Obviously this is a horrible thing that happened, but like the literal first article I found about cosleeping was that NO ONE should EVER cosleep with their child, especially if they are under 6 months old – the recommendation is to room share.

Anyways, I thought that the book was an enjoyable read. I finished the book in roughly 2 weeks – half of which I think I finished on the first day I checked the book out from the library. I think that this book illustrates how scary it can be when you or a loved one gets famous or is in the public eye for an extended period of time. It’s tough to live a life under the microscope, especially when your brand and livelihood is to be and act a certain way. Also, I think that raising children is pretty dang tough and it is even tougher if they are rowdy and crying all the time. Like even the least fussy babies take a lot of time and attention.

Massawa Restaurant Review

I recently at at Massawa in NYC. A friend mentioned that this restaurant had some good Ethiopian food and I was down to try it. I hadn’t had this cuisine before and from looking at YouTube videos and pictures online, it seemed like a different experience than what I’m used to. The restaurant was pretty far north in Manhattan, like it is in Harlem. The place didn’t have too many people when I first showed up at 1 pm, but more people started coming in after I sat down. The restaurant embraced the digital menu to the next level by allowing you to order and optionally pay through your phone. We ordered a couple of Ethiopian beers, one of which was called Cold Gold. Pretty cool name – I thought it tasted like a Heineken. We also ordered some food. We got Ful as an appetizer and Tsebhi Beghe (Lamb) and Vegan Sampler as the entree.

The food was pretty tasty. The first few bites of the Ful was good, but when the various spices and vegetables got mixed together, the flavor was even better. There was a perfect number of toasted pita in order to finish the bean dip. The Lamb and the Vegan sampler was great too. There was so much injera which was nice because we could mix and match the various flavors. The Lamb, both lentils, and the split peas were my favorites on the platter. At first it was a bit odd to not use any utensils for the whole meal, but after a while, I got used to it and we were given wet wipes afterwards so that took care of my messy hands. Super filling, probably because of the amount of injera we ate, but I enjoyed the experience.

Violet Evergarden Movie Review

I opened Netflix to continue watching the Hometown Cha Cha Cha kdrama when I stumbled across the Violet Evergarden movie. It reminded me of my time at work in 2019 when my coworkers and I stayed after work to watch the Violet Evergarden TV show. The show was pretty emotional and I enjoyed watching her grow and learn more about herself and the world and use her letters to bring people closer together. So, I had to watch the movie.

The movie has a few different time periods, one time period is slightly after the TV show ended and the other main time period is a generation or two after she was alive. There were a lot of familiar aspects to the movie – Violet still loved Major Gilbert very much and longed to be by his side while she continued to work at the post office as a doll / scribe. The main customer Violet had in the movie was a terminally sick young boy in the hospital. Violet was kind enough to write a few letters to his parents and his little brother even though he didn’t have much money.

There were a few scenes that highlighted how much Violet continued to grieve for Gilbert, such as visiting his mother’s grave and gazing deeply at some brooches at a festival stand. After some investigation into an undelivered letter, the President of the postal office and Violet were able to track down the Major. The Major made a new life for himself and he continued to live with the regret that he failed his people and failed her. He was so ashamed that he couldn’t bear to face her and cast her away, similar to how Violet’s customer cast his family away when they visited him in the hospital. However, through the power of the written word, Violet was able to reach Gilbert’s heart and reunite after a long time apart.

I thought the movie was good. It was very similar to the TV show and the music and animation and the dialogue were basically the same style as well. It was crazy that the Major was actually alive. I am not sure what the plot of the movie would’ve been if he wasn’t in it, but I was not expecting him to be alive and well. It made me think that this was a cop out since she could’ve moved on with her life. But I’m glad that she was able to be happy in the end. The way that she is able to understand and communicate feelings and emotions to other people when she lived without for so long is amazing.

FBoy Island Review

I thought that this show was pretty funny at first. The host and the contestants didn’t take themselves too seriously and it seemed like a parody of some other dating reality tv shows. However, it got more serious and dramatic throughout the season. One odd part of the show was the eliminated contestants were banished to a section of the island for an extended period of time. The fboys had it pretty bad – hopefully that was just for tv and that they actually had decent food to eat and stuff. That must be true since there would be no way the first eliminated fboy would be able to survive just eating coconuts for a few weeks. It was also a bit annoying to watch how each of the girls knew that someone was not good for them but still kept them in the competition. This is probably similar to what happens in real life, but in so many of the solo camera shots, they were questioning if so-and-so was here for the right reasons etc. It was clear that the male and female contestants had things to work on such as their openness to others, communication, commitment, among various other aspects and it was cool to see the people recognize their faults and try to grow. Whether or not the growth stayed after the show, I’m not sure, but it made the show more watchable. I think the way the prize at the end was handled will make it a bit tough to have additional seasons. Unless they make changes, like how Too Hot to Handle made changes, I am unsure whether the fboys would be as willing to participate on the show, besides to have a chance to be at a vacation like resort and have the opportunity to date an attractive woman. But being self proclaimed fboys, they are supposedly already able to date a lot of attractive women so that probably isn’t too much of a draw. At the end of the show, when the girl chooses an fboy, the guy has the choice to take the money or to share the money. However, in the finale of the first season, the fboy who took the money couldn’t even use it the way they wanted and it had to be donated to charity. Like if the same rules apply in another season, all the fboys are going to share the money and then break up after the show – there’s literally no reason for them to spend all this time on the show and then end up with no money at all. I’m not saying that they should’ve given him the money, but the fact that the details about the compensation for this dating show was murky until the last moment was not great. Overall, I enjoyed watching the show, but it wasn’t my favorite dating reality tv show.

Shang Chi Review

I recently watched Shang Chi in movie theaters. It was pretty solid. I didn’t have too many expectations going into the movie. I did read good things about it beforehand, but I felt as though some of the comments were simply because it was an American movie with Asian representation. While watching the movie, I was surprised with the amount of Mandarin Chinese they were using. Like I definitely expected the movie to be completely in English. I was able to understand some of the Chinese which was cool and obviously the subtitles were there for assistance as well. There were a bunch of fight scenes in the movie so that was great. Some of them had a lot of CGI, and others had a lot of choreographed sequences. I enjoyed them all. I thought that the movie felt a bit rushed. Like it could have let the scenes breathe a bit more. I read some comments about the movie saying that there wasn’t a love interest, but I would say that there was a strong friendship. Also, in the first part of the movie, Sean was the one who told Katy’s grandmother that he was just friends with her, so if the character wanted to be a relationship, then he would’ve done something different there. There was definitely a strong sense of family and community with this movie. Those are definitely themes that are prevalent in Chinese culture so it makes sense why it appeared here as well. The little comedic moments were a nice addition to the movie. I don’t think these moments were necessary since the movie wasn’t that serious, but it seems to match the characters’ personalities.

I don’t have a great memory so I am not sure where this movie would rank in terms of Marvel movies, but I don’t think it was the best Marvel movie that I’ve seen. I would say it was in the middle. I definitely think Deadpool, Black Panther, Spiderverse, and some of the Avengers movies were better. But, I’m glad I watched the movie and I’m looking forward to seeing more of these characters in the future.