Jeffrey's Thoughts

Welcome to Sandal-ri Review

I got sick recently so I wanted to watch something while I was recovering. So, I opened up Netflix and remembered that a girl on a dating app mentioned that her brother was recommended “Welcome to Sandal-ri”¹. I started watching the show and there were some familiar cast members. The main lead, Ji Chang-wook, was in a few kdramas I’ve liked in the past and similar story with a couple of the main supporting characters, Kim Mi-kyung and Lee Jae-won².

The story is about a village in Jeju island called Samdal-ri and a complicated love story between a guy named Cho Yong-Pil and and a girl named Cho Sam-dal. Their mothers were best friends and they had both of the children on the same day. While chatting about the future, they promised that they would raise each other’s children as their own and that the children were soulmates bound to get married together. However, a terrible accident occurs that severs the the mothers’ bond for good.

The kdrama skips from present to past frequently, but it is mainly set in present day Korea where Cho Sam-dal is a reputable photographer that is preparing for an important exhibition for a fashion magazine in Seoul. A couple scandals emerge that rock her to her core, causing her to flee back to her hometown. The drama slowly reveals the pain that she and the two families have dealt with throughout the years and how Cho Yong-Pil and Cho Sam-dal work together to mend their families’ relationship and to clear her name.

I thought that this was a solid kdrama. The cast was well picked. I thought that the girl playing the younger sister of Cho Sam-dal was so pretty. There were a bunch of great shots of the ocean and the sky and the landscape. I’ve seen at least a couple kdramas about Jeju Island and this one had similar focuses – a focus on protecting the environment, a focus on haenyeos, a focus on fresh seafood. One thing I appreciated about this kdrama over the others was how the story kept tying back to this Jeju Island village. I feel like the others touched on a surface level or snorkeling level of Jeju Island culture, but this one went a bit deeper. I thought that this kdrama would be a bit more funny and lighthearted, but there were a lot of heavy topics. Perhaps that is part of the reason I was so invested in the story and why I finished the sixteen episode series in two days.

Now that I’m looking at the receipts, the brother actually recommended “Castaway Diva”, so that might affect the review haha ↩︎
Now that I’m looking at these actors’ IMDb pages, I mistook a bunch of the actors. I thought that Ji Chang-wook was the guy from “The King” kdrama, but that was Lee Min Ho and I thought that Lee Jae-won was the guy from “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay”, but that was Oh Jung-se ↩︎

Singles Inferno Season 3 Review

Seasons 1 and 2 were entertaining, so when season 3 dropped, I had to tune in. The people in this season were very attractive, and some of them had really fun personalities. One of the guys, Gwan-hee, basically carried the entertainment value of the whole show. The other guys had some love interests, but they were rather straightforward, liking one or two of the girls. Gwan-hee was weighing his options between basically all the girls until the very last episode. Even though he got on the girls’ nerves, he was charismatic and effortlessly bantered with the girls. Even though he was the main character of this season, I think that Jin-seok and Min-kyu were my favorites out of the guys. It was unfortunate to see Ha-bin and Won-ik get so little air time. I’m sure they are good people and what not, but it seems like they got overshadowed by the other members of the show and was not able to develop a strong connection with any of the girls. Maybe the production crew did them dirty, but they seemed more boring than I would’ve thought.

In this season, I think each girl had a good amount of air time and developed a love interest. It’s too bad that there were multiple girls going for the same guy, but I feel like in dating reality TV shows, that’s bound to happen. I was surprised to learn that so many of the girls were Miss Korea contestants.

With this season so entertaining, I find it hard to believe how the producers will be able to top it next season.

Superpower idea – putting food in your stomach

I’ve had this idea for a while, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could put food in your stomach without having to eat it or use a tube. You grab the food, and then open your belly like a locker room locker, and then put your food in. Maybe this power should be called having a locker in your belly 🤷‍♀️. Anyways, it would be pretty convenient for eating faster or just storing things in general

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani Review

Warning: This review contains spoilers of the movie

Earlier this month, I was talking to my coworkers about an Indian movie that I saw recently called MRP, which is an acronym for Most Responsible Person. I thought it was a funny and over-the-top movie with this fat software engineer trying to find a suitable marriage partner. My coworkers had not seen this movie, since they don’t know the Kannada language, I also don’t know that language – I just read the subtitles. So, one of my coworkers recommended Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, which translates to Rocky and Rani’s Love Story. I didn’t come in with much knowledge – just the fact that it was a romantic comedy.

I thought the movie was interesting. There were tons of funny parts, mostly surrounding the main character Rocky. He is such a good character. He is lighthearted, caring, attractive, upbeat, and optimistic person. Rani is more of a normal career woman type of character. I thought that she was ok, but Rocky’s personality and uniqueness really made the movie for me. This story had multiple love stories. Rocky’s grandfather and Rani’s grandmother had a brief love connection a few decades ago, but they decided to not pursue it because they didn’t want to break up their families. Rocky reached out to Rani to reconnect them and during those meetings, they also developed a love connection. There were ups and downs due to differences in individual values, family values, and societal values, but they were able to overcome them at the end.

The first third of the movie was pretty entertaining, but the movie got relatively serious afterwards. There was a progressive theme of women empowerment and promoting individualism / what makes you happy versus a conservative theme of doing what’s best for the family and following the orders of the head of the household. At times, it seemed that Rani was forcing her values onto Rocky’s family. The intentions were good, but in general, I do not think it is correct to do so. Obviously if people are being disrespected and are abused, then you should speak up, but there needs to be some grace about how you go about it. The movie did a good job at the end to try to reconcile the differences in values and reach some understanding between the families.

Would I recommend this movie? Sure. I thought it was a good movie. A bit long, like 2 hours 40 minutes. The sets and costumes were elegant.

One thing that I thought was coincidental was that I had a separate conversation with my coworkers talking about marriage and the role of the immediate family. I prefaced my opinion with the fact that I’ve never been in love. I said that if I ever wanted to get married and my family did not approve of the girl, then I may try a little bit to convince them, but I would ultimately respect their decision and break up if it came down to that. And vice versa if the girl’s family didn’t approve of me. Some of my coworkers thought that this was crazy, but then again, I haven’t been in love so perhaps I just didn’t have enough perspective. This movie had this scenario twice in the movie. The grandparents broke off the love relationship when they were young and already married and Rocky and Rani pursued the love relationship and convinced both their families. In the end, the families were convinced they were a good match, so they got married.

Superpower idea – picky eating

What if it was possible to eat food and choose which nutrients get absorbed into your body? Like if a meal has 40 grams of salt, you decide that you only want to digest 10 grams and then the 30 other grams get discarded. This would be more of an individual superpower, but it would be pretty helpful for people trying to maintain their health.

Olive Garden Review

I’ve been going to Olive Garden for a while now. I used to go more often when I was younger, so I recently felt the urge to go back again. The spot near my parents’ place was relatively busy for a Friday night based on the wait times. I realized that was because they closed half of the dining area. Perhaps they didn’t have enough wait staff to cover the full restaurant. Eventually, we got seated, and the menu was smaller than I remembered. They also didn’t have a menu of specials – just the normal menu. I was upset that they didn’t have my favorite mushroom ravioli any longer. The food we ordered was fine. The calamari was pretty good. Both the sauces were tasty and combining the sauces tasted good as well. I didn’t expect there to be that many pieces, to be honest. Some of the plates were dirty, so the waiter got us new ones. I was too excited and got full on the bread and wasn’t able to order extra soup or salad. I also wasn’t able to finish my entree. I felt really bloated when I left. One thing that was a bit odd was that the manager kept walking around to tables, letting customers know that she was the manager and giving people her business card. I’m not sure what a restaurant manager does, but this was a first for me.

I don’t plan on going back to Olive Garden any time soon – I miss the old Olive Garden.

Ways to peel a clementine

I was chatting with some people the other day when we stumbled upon the conversation of peeling a clementine. I know, pretty exciting stuff. I wanted to show off how kooky / crazy I was, so I mentioned that I sometimes peel clementines with a chopstick. They didn’t believe me. So, this post is dedicated to some alternative ways of peeling a clementine.

I’m going to be rating each approach on 3 different categories: speed of peeling, cleanliness, difficulty of approach

1. Cutting the clementine like an orange

Speed: Fast

Cleanliness: Varies depending on where you cut

Difficulty: Easy

2. Peeling the clementine with a knife

Speed: Medium

Cleanliness: Clean, I peeled the whole fruit with the knife, but you can choose to peel with your hands after the initial cut

Difficulty: Easy to medium

3. Peeling a clementine with a chopstick

Speed: Medium

Cleanliness: Clean-ish, still peeling most of the fruit with your hands

Difficulty: Easy to medium

4. Peeling a clementine like normal

Speed: Medium to fast

Cleanliness: Depends. Usually, my nails get a bit dirty

Difficulty: Easy

5. Peeling a clementine with a spoon

Speed: Medium

Cleanliness: Clean-ish, still peeling most of the fruit with your hands

Difficulty: Easy to medium

Results

For me, using a utensil to start the initial peeling step is useful because it lets me keep my thumb slightly cleaner, and it doesn’t add very much time. For others, they don’t really care about their nails getting dirty, so peeling by hand is the preferred approach. I enjoyed the ease of cutting the clementine like an orange and may do it in the future as my preferred approach, assuming I have the utensils around.

Note: You can choose to use the utensil to peel the entire clementine instead of switching to your hands, but that adds a lot of time

Readers’ suggestions

6. Peeling a clementine with your teeth

Speed: Slow

Cleanliness: Clean, but the peel tastes bad

Difficulty: Medium

Imperfecto review

I went to a Michelin star restaurant today with my family because I won a push-up competition. My brother, dad, and I competed to see how many push-ups we could do in a row and I completed 57, my brother completed 56, and my dad completed 33. So, I decided the prize would be to eat at Imperfecto.

My dad and I arrived early, so we walked around the neighborhood for a bit. It’s pretty close to George Washington University, and the people and the buildings looked friendly. Our reservation was early so when we entered, there weren’t very many tables filled. The server was attentive and knowledgeable about the menu and we ate well. My brother and his wife were not impressed by the taste of the food, but agreed that the restaurant looked stylish, the food presented well, and the service solid until the restaurant started filling up.

Here’s what I ate:

Story idea – plants that whine

You know how household pets like cats and dogs whine for food when hungry? What if plants did the same thing? Wow, would we live in a noisy world or what? What. I am not very good at raising plants, so I know that mine would be regularly whining for water. But I could imagine large plots of land with a variety of different plants all crying out like a choir full of babies. If plants could talk, the world would definitely do more about climate change than what we are doing now, haha.

September 24th, 2023 – Uber rides

This weekend, I went to a friend’s wedding in New Jersey, and in order to get to and from the venue, I took a couple of Uber rides. I don’t usually talk to the driver, but these two drivers were initiating the conversation, so I was fine with chatting with them. The vibe of the rides was very different.

The first ride to the wedding was really upbeat and positive. He was excited to hear about everyone’s success stories. He seemed to love his job and enjoyed waking up every day to drive someone new and hear of more exciting stories. The one story he told me was of a passenger who played blackjack on cruise ships and was successful enough to pay for their two children’s college education. Even though the person counted cards, since he was so generous to the workers, the cruise ship was ok with playing there.

The second ride was leaving the wedding reception. We initially talked about Indian weddings since he noticed that I was wearing some Indian style clothing and because he was Indian. Afterward, he started asking me about my relationship status and my relations with women. Since I don’t have much experience in that category, he started talking about his experience. Apparently, “there is a lot of pussy” in America. Additionally, he mentioned that Dominican girls have really nice asses. I asked him how he knew and he told me that he had sex with a Dominican girl just the other day. However, this specific girl didn’t want him to touch her titties since they were fake. He suggested that I should get out there more and have sex. He also mentioned that there was an event called Hobocon (I wasn’t able to find it online, but I was told it was a convention in Hoboken). He mentioned that there were a lot of scantily clad ladies at this convention and that I should’ve seen it.

I don’t stop by New Jersey very often, but based on these two rides, I would say that there are definitely a lot of interesting people and activities.