Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #435

Anne: And the craziness has not ended! These last two weeks have pretty much took away my much needed sleep. I would never have thought that my job would involve me rushing documents with quality at 3am Saturday morning to take care of lot release issues. At this point, I might as well find a job where I am expected to take care of these things. Maybe I'll get paid more...well...probably not as the industry is contracting.

Besides my lack of sleep, there is also a work issue that has been bothering me for weeks. Although today, I'm wondering if I am an idiot because I haven't been in lab for so long that I've forgotten how to do stuff. Sigh...at this rate. One of my younger team members will forbid me from getting anywhere near lab instruments in case I mess something up. Ah... how ridiculous is it that I am now at the end of this point in life!

It's almost like me being on the other side of the parent/child abyss. Now I'm rolling my eyes inside my head at the "problems" of a six year old. Of course I don't let what I'm thinking show on my face. It would be very disrespectful since in his little world, losing the little bag of "wooden" tools that he made from from the cardboard tube was VERY distressing. 

On the one hand he's a still very babyish. On the other hand, he's a sly little fox who when I confront him about doing something he shouldn't be doing, his favorite reply these days is "I can't help it. My brain is making me do this stuff. I can't control it." Inside my head, I'm thinking... hm...how did a philosophical debate became an excuse that a 6 year old is using to shift blame to an "separate" entity. 

Anyway... with all this stuff going on... I did manage watch quite a few shows. The problem is that I got sucked into the Singapore crime drama's on Netflix, and ended up only watching a couple of the shows that are currently on air.

 

Royal Rumours

Jeremy Tsui's new drama resembles a bit of last year's drama, The Autumn Ballad, at least in the "battle of the sexes" theme that thread through the plot. I didn't find the The Journey of ChongZi interesting enough to continue, despite the male lead. I do have to say that Royal Rumours is quite a nice bland of humor, historical drama, silliness, royal intrigue, and romance. 

Hua Liu Li is the daughter of a General who has so much military power that her entire family is under threat by court officials who fears that they might rebel. She is called back to the capital as a "captive" to help keep her parents in line. In order to keep up the pretense that she is not a threat, she acts frail and weak and empty headed. Even though she can have a silent conversation with her maid when other people are around.

Then there is the ML, Ji Yuan Su, the Crown Prince, whom was her penpal when she was younger. She pretty much randomly started writing to members of the royal family, and I guess he was the only one who returned her letter. He knew her real character when she was younger and can't believe that as an adult she is completely different from her letters. He, in his role, pretends to be a carefree prince who is rather cruel and heartless. 

And then we have some really incompetent assassins. A prince who is super confident, despite not having much to be confident about. Two servants who are being affected by their masters' relationship. A secret power who is really trying to assassinate Hua Liu Li. 

My favorite thing about this story is that we get both sides of their personality. The one they put out in public, and then their real personalities when no one is watching except their must trusted servant/family. The internal conversations are hilarious, but you have to pay attention. They are quite fast and a bit dry. 

I haven't gotten very far, but even at episode 7, it is super cute and super funny. This humor is more of those inside jokes that you tell your friends and giggle behind your hands. The more I watch these two people, the more I like them. They are both playing with each other, trying to second guess each other, trying to win against the other, but finding each other interesting and can't help but seeking each other's companion. I am looking forward to see where this go.

Taxi Driver 2

This second season of Taxi Driver has taken the a much funnier route than the first season. And episodes 7 and 8 dealt with a woman who is trying to get her sister out from a religious cult. Strangely enough, I just recently watched the documentary on the Korean cults and the leaders that ran them. (If nothing else convinces you that there is little difference between all the human beings in the world, watching the repeat of criminal behaviors around the world clearly demonstrates that very little separates us but distance. These innate characteristics of human behavior cross every human boundary.) So our Taxi Driver basically conned a con man by using his own tricks. It is a little funny to see a Christian religious cult leader praying for help from a shaman. I LOVED it!

And how can he still be so hot in this outfit? 

I didn't start the next two, so I will have 4 episodes in reserve in case the show doesn't close a story in two episodes. Can't wait for to watch this weekend!

Romance of  Twin Flower

I also start this...because of Ding Yu Xi. I've always liked him since Tiger and Rose. And this sort of started out like that and even has the feel of it. I just can't understand why the twin? At first I thought it was like a time travel or travel into a novel type of thing. But the start was just her being rescued after falling off a cliff. She woke up with no memory, and not understanding where she was. She found herself married to a husband who doesn't like her...actually she found herself in a manor where no one liked her...and in a city/town where her reputation was so bad that almost no one liked her. 

To everyone else around her, including her husband, she woke up with a completely different personality. I'm only at episode 7, so I'm still not quite understanding what is going on. Except she wants to divorce her "husband" and go out to open a business. It is quite interesting because I'm trying to figure out what is going on with her identity. Not only me, even the FL doesn't know what is going on... With a general who is her childhood friend who keeps wanting her to hit him. 

This is it for this week. So many, many new shows have aired recently. I haven't even pressed start for most of them. I have given up any hope of catching up. At the most, I only hope that I have time to watch the ones that I really like.