Happy New Year

The Lunar New Year has started, and this year is the year of the Cat for Vietnamese people. My Dad says this is the only animal that differs from the Chinese, for whom this is the year of the Rabbit. In any case, I managed to buy a Chinese New Year barbie doll from last year, because I liked her hair style and her dress. However, when I look at the doll in the package, she has this weird dented face. It reminds me of the original 1959 Barbie doll in the bathing suit, whose eyes are so weird. Not sure I will keep it.

Meanwhile I saw the new Missing film, which is the sequel to Searching from 2018. They even reference the previous film as something that teenager June is watching on her computer. It has a different actor playing David Kim, though, framing Margot's disappearance a real life crime, and John Cho merely being the actor who played David in a ripped from the headlines film. Kind of a meta reference.

Then June watches her mother leave for a vacation with her new boyfriend Kevin Lin, who is hinting that he's going to propose. June doesn't care, and she just spends her "emergency money" on parties with her friends while her mom is gone. Only when her mom never shows up at the airport does June begin to worry and call for help from a lawyer friend and the cops. However, given that the vacation trip is in Colombia, the FBI say they don't really have jurisdiction to investigate, so June decides to hire a local man to go the hotel to get security footage from the security cameras. The investigation spirals on from there, with many twists and turns about secrets and past aliases/identities. I liked it mostly, but felt that the movie upended things too many times. It was interesting commentary on true crime obsessions, though. I prefer my murders to be fictional, not real.

Midseason Shows

New shows have been premiering lately and I've tried them out. Will Trent's lead is somewhat interesting as a dyslexic character with a cute dog, but am not sure I can handle him, Angie, and other people all having backgrounds in foster care with horrific experience with sexual abuse. I think that Mark Paul Gosselar's Paul character was just in 2 episodes, and won't be recurring, but you never know. I haven't read the books either.

I watched the new Night Court, and the new judge seems to be trying too hard. Maybe she'll settle down once we're in a new routine. Seeing the old sets is kind of charming and nostalgic, and there were some funny jokes with the joke names on the board. I didn't remember the episode that Abby referenced with the pool ball, but I found it explained on Screenrant. So I watched the episode on Freevee where Harry quits being a judge for a while, then Dan talks to him in the pool hall. That's a fairly deep cut that a casual fan won't remember. I'm not sure how much they will reference the past, and just rely on people being able to rewatch the old show.

Rian Johnson's new mystery show Poker Face will premiere soon, but I'm not sure I like the ads for it. It doesn't seem to be a whodunit, but more like a Columbo.

Puttering Around

I'm very happy to hear that Everything Everywhere All at Once is starting to win awards, as a picture and for the cast members. I think Stephanie Hsu deserves more recognition for her great performance. I hear that she and other EEAAO cast members will be in Disney's upcoming American Born Chinese show. I hope that will be good too.

I saw red carpet photos from the Critics Choice Awards, and I think I have a similar dress to Stephanie's orange Valentino gown, but mine is purple. It's also shorter and doesn't flatter me that much. I'm trying to figure out how to alter it to make it look better on me. I found some fabric on Etsy that matches the color pretty well, but I'm not sure if I should make it longer or add a train like she has. Still figuring out my sewing machine and how to alter dresses to fit me. I found some nice patterns at Joann's but never have any time to sew.

Meanwhile, in my cooking, I've been trying to get a crispy skin on my catfish like my mom used to make, but the skin seems to peel away from the flesh instead. I am able to pull the bones out fairly easily after cooking, at least. Also trying the leftover catfish in my Canh Chua soup.

New Beginnings

I recently tried a recipe for a garlic cream sauce, starting from a roux, and I thought I was doing great. Then I added cheese and looked away for a minute. When I came back, the sauce had "broken" with the butter separating from the other ingredients and leaving an oily mess in the pan. I tried to fix it with half and half, and it came together for a little while, only to separate again. So I put it in a tupperware in the fridge for later, to see if I could fix it when I had more time. Somehow, the cold turned it back into sauce again. I just don't get why sauces are so finicky. Usually the problem I have is that the slow cooker makes sauces that are too watery and thin, and I struggle to thicken them with cornstarch. It's just too hard. I guess I'll have to stick with store-bought sauces.

Anyway, the new year is here at last. As I said, Sherlock Holmes is public domain now. Yippee! I hear there's a lot of celebration on social media about homoerotic possibilites, but boo to Moffatt trying to make another season of Sherlock. He's never gonna give you Johnlock slash; he's only gonna queerbait you, and he's a hack at writing mysteries. Fuck him.

I've officially cancelled Netflix again, and hopefully I won't have to renew again to see Knives Out 3, if they have a theatrical run, like they did for Glass Onion. Oh, Quantum Leap is back too.