The sun is rising

 

A reddish sheen that can only be seen at sunrise. 

This was at 7+ in the morning. Not exactly sunrise, I know...but shall we just say that the sun continues rising till noon? :P

A super taxi

So I’ve been watching Taxi Driver.

The title is reminiscent of Time Taxi, a Japanese drama that I watched quite long ago. Both are about special taxis. But the difference ends there.

Time Taxi takes the passengers back in time. In Taxi Driver, however, the taxi is simply a reinforced vehicle, and a group of people in a taxi company are using it for their revenge-on-call service.

Watching the first episode, I felt like it was like Batman (they have a bat-cave! :P ), but with a team which has some people like Professor Agasa (read: inventions!) Lee Je Hoon plays the lead character, the main taxi driver and the one who does all the fighting with the bad guys. Then there is the CEO of the taxi company, who founded the whole revenge service. The others in the team are one hacker (I saw the actress, Pyo Ye Jin, in What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim and liked her a lot, and I liked her here too!) and two mechanics/inventors (these two are technically mechanics because they maintain the taxi, but they also do things like reinforcing the car...which is why I said there are inventions!). All of them are victims of crime in one way or another, so they banded together to help other victims get revenge.

It started off a little boring, and I must say that it had its ups and downs. Some parts were funny and/or interesting, especially where our hero takes on different roles in their revenge projects. Basically they will have clients who have been hurt by people (always criminals), and these clients will call their “revenge taxi” service and tell them their story. Then there is some silly video game thingy where their client decides whether to go ahead with their revenge (what’s more, the cost is not communicated upfront...it’s ridiculous how none of the clients ask about that!)

Anyway, the basic description for this drama would be “ridiculous fun”. There are so many ridiculous things that I will just name the basic few that we always see: The hero is all-powerful and can beat up an infinite number of opponents when needed, but will sometimes get beat up by one lone person. The good guys jump straight into life-threatening situations without any backup plans, and rely on pure luck to stay alive. The bad guys do things without any good reason, except to appear more evil.

Some good things are that the cases don’t happen one by one...they actually overlap (like they should...since one bad guy won’t wait for the other to get caught before they make their move!) I also like the prosecutor who is chasing after these revenge service team. And of course...the most “fun” part is seeing Lee Je Hoon transform into different characters (dorky teacher, money-loving employee, gentleman gangster…) for their different projects.

All in all, from beginning to end, it was fun and interesting at times, but had me groaning from time to time. So, nice but not that good.

Happiness

Happiness is collecting all three books in a trilogy! 

And a cute Pikachu with them :P  

This time, the theme was "animal" which I had done before, so I am taking this theme given by a friend instead.

The different faces of nasi arab

Remember the nasi arab from Al-Haura that I blogged about before?

After trying the roadside stall, I once ordered the restaurant set via Grabfood (when there was a discount :P ) The lamb set was too expensive, so I ordered the chicken one. I forgot to ask for the thigh part, and I remember being disappointed when I opened the box and saw that they had given me chicken breast.

But the chicken breast was quite tender, and with the chilli sauce and the soup, it was not bad at all. And of course the portion is larger than the one from the budget stall. And as you can see, they included a bit of salad.

Then the other day I saw that they have the nasi bajet stall in Sg Ara too! (on the outer road outside the Lavender apartments...going towards the main road) So I did a drive-through (luckily the road is a not-so-busy one, with two lanes), and bought two packets, one chicken and one lamb. From the previous purchase, I had found out that one packet was not really enough for two meals, though rather big for one meal. So two packs should give me three meals!

(Side note: I don’t know how many stalls they set up, but I have also seen one on the road from Sunshine Square to Giant...on the way to Jalan Tengah passing by Affin Bank. It would be quite hard to stop there though!)

This time the lamb was unfortunately quite tough. I had a hard time chewing!

I was happy that I got the chicken thigh though… but where’s the skin? :P 

Both packets came with one onion ring and a piece of green chilli. The green chilli for the chicken set is hidden (and kept warm :P ) under the chicken.

Another thing is, does it seem that the chicken set comes with more rice? It is likely because chicken is cheaper than lamb! I think that if I were to buy the nasi bajet again, I might just take the chicken set because it would be “safer”; I wouldn’t have to worry about the meat being tough!

Char...ka-chu!

A long time ago (in 2015 to be exact), my father went to a toy expo in Kuantan and sent me this photo.

It’s a Pikachu wearing a Charizard suit!

It looks so cute with its cheeky look… I wanted one immediately.

Six years later, I finally got my own cheeky Charizard-wannabe Pikachu!

I found it on Shopee, and the reviews all said that the received Pikachu looked exactly like the picture. (Usually I am hesitant about buying plush toys online, because each one is slightly different and the one I receive may not look as nice.)

And I even bought two... because there was an RM1 discount if I bought one, but a 10% discount if I bought two. And I knew that WW would want one too! (after the discount, each one costs about RM15)

I took both out for a quality check. (and to choose mine :P )

They are definitely slightly different!

The hood can actually be taken off...but it needs some ear-twisting :( Plus the Pikachu doesn't look as good without the hood!

Venusaur: Oh no, two highly-cheerful brats are here to annoy me...

the tag

The back of the tag actually says "For sale in Japan only". Are they selling it anywhere now that we cannot travel to Japan?

I like 2PM!

Not too long ago, I wrote about watching Junho… Anyway, since I have been watching 2PM videos, Youtube has also started recommending me their videos, so I have been watching some here and there. After watching a few talk shows with the group, I find that I really like all the members!

I just discovered Over 2PM, which seems to be a variety show just with 2PM members. Sounds good! :P (I have no idea why the name is “Over 2PM” though). I found out from MyDramaList that there had been a season in 2018, and now they are airing a new season in 2021. Looks like there is a new episode every month?

Anyway I have watched four episodes so far (from the new season), and I am really liking Wooyoung! In the second episode, he was in a team with Nickhun, against Jun K and Chansung. The last segment was an obstacle course. Nickhun and Wooyoung were losing in points, and they needed to win this segment to beat the other team. Wooyoung says to the other team (who were starting first): “It’s okay if we lose, but it’s not okay if you guys get hurt, so be careful.” Then he adds, “So go slowly!” Keke...

The fourth episode was Junho’s welcoming party, to celebrate his discharge from the military. They tricked him saying that Wooyoung was filming elsewhere and couldn’t make it to the shoot, and placed Chansung as a fake cameraman. They made a video call to Wooyoung, and he said that he was in the car, since they were on their break. Then he says that he has to go and continue filming, so he steps out of the car, still in the video call... and walks right into the Over 2PM filming set. Here you would expect him to walk over to the others, but no, it’s not the end! He continues talking over the phone, acting like they weren’t there and he was just passing through to find his own filming area. He even goes out and makes a whole round to come back into the set again, saying something like “I think I’m at the wrong set”, etc. Totally unexpected, even to us viewers who were in on the trick!

Since I have mentioned three members more in the last post, here’s some “new” discoveries I’ve had on the other "lesser-known" (to me) members.

Jun K said something in an interview that I really liked. The interviewer asked what song/performance they would most like to forget about. While some members did actually give examples, he vehemently said that if they wanted to forget about it, they shouldn’t mention it! How true. :D

As for Chansung, he keeps laughing in such a good-natured way, like he's really having a lot of fun. He still can't beat Junho's smile though. :P

So that’s why I say I like all the members now! But...I think I like their variety show appearances more, rather than their songs. (sorry guys :P ) Most of their songs don’t seem to suit me that much!

Psst...I can recognize all members now! :P (probably that goes without saying after all I've written…)

Trilogies

I hate them! Because then I need to get the next instalment... :P 

So I am over the moon when Fzah sent me three books to complete two trilogies! :D

I read Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 for the first time in French, because I found the book in a French library. I liked it a lot, and when I saw it at a Big Bad Wolf sale, I didn't hesitate to buy it.

Recently, I discovered The Secret Speech during an online BBW sale (because it's MCO, the sales are online now), and found out that it was a sequel. So of course I bought it! After reading it, I found out that the Leo Demidov series was a trilogy...

I also bought Rob Sinclair's Sleeper 13, and after enjoying the read, discovered that it was also part of a trilogy.

(At the same time I also bought Sandrone Dazieri's Kill the Father, which I mentioned before here.)

Now I can't wait to read these three books...I need to figure out a way to ration myself! :P

A dark corner

Because this week's theme is dark!

I tried to take a photo with the lights off, but I think this photo looks better because we can see the contrast between the bright and dark areas.

Indoor exercise

This week's photo theme was architecture (again! I've already done it twice). So I am taking a theme given by a friend instead: Exercise.

This is a good exercise for MCO!

Before I took that photo, I also had another idea of taking a "mountain-climbing" photo, since it is a form of exercise too! So I had Duffy climb my sofa. :P

(I intentionally left more empty space at the bottom of the photo, so that it looks like Duffy is high up...didn't really work though.)

Unfortunately it doesn't really look like mountain-climbing...I wanted the hand to reach up higher, but it couldn't without me holding it. I guess we could say that Duffy is waving to us for a photo right before reaching the summit! :P

Two out of three

Have you heard about how a job can be two out of three: good, cheap, or fast? (If you haven't, I think you can find it easily online.)

Well, a demo can have two out of three: content, clarity, or speed.

If you want all the content to be explained clearly, you shouldn't expect the demo to end quickly.

If you want everything to be explained clearly, and the demo to not take up too much time, then you need to sacrifice content.

If you want all the content, and still want the demo to be over quickly, then bye-bye clarity!

(This is a semi-rant after several episodes of managers exhorting us to finish our demo within the allotted time, while allocating the exact same amount of time to each team, without caring what each team has to demo!)