12 February 2019

Shop It: 200ml Water Bottle

There’s nothing better than a well written piece about a product someone loves. I’ll point you to Molly Young’s collection at New York Magazine, where she highlights products like dry shampoo, her favorite notebook, and a Japanese Soylent replacement. Or take a look at this recommendation for Rohto Cool eye drops written by Or Gotham. Spectacular!

 As is my wont, I find myself recommending certain things just from the reviews themselves — a dicey proposition for my reputation, I know. Still, once in awhile I come across a product so wonderful I feel the need to push them upon the world. This series of posts are about the things that are me-tested and I can’t shut up about.
While I have purchased three or four aluminum water bottles in my life , I have rarely used them except as decorative items. Carrying a tall bottle just never fit my lifestyle. However, when I went to Tokyo last year, I stumbled upon a magical item: the 200 millimeter water bottle from the Tiger Corporation, aka a Baby Tiger.

The typical water bottle size is double that, at about 475ml, or 16 ounces. These babies are small — we nicknamed them "Baby Tigers" for a reason — barely the height and width of a regular sized iPhone and can slip into a large pocket if necessary.

Now, some have asked what’s the point of such a small drink container? 200 ml is about 6.5 ounces, or a smallish coffee.  Unless you need to down drinks Big Gulp style, this is a perfect size for an espresso based drink. The Baby Tiger would probably not work for your daily consumption of water, but as a coffee/chai/tea/smoothie receptacle, it’s fantastic. And while there are various flip open lids and the like available, I prefer the simple plain lid that keeps the size factor slim. Plus did I mention the whole thing is incredibly cute?

The bad news is that the 200ml size is generally only available overseas, and while there are some available on Amazon an eBay, they'll need to be imported. The alternative is to try an eight-ounce soup cup, as Tiger has these for sale Stateside. They are also a tad cheaper, as my pistachio green soup cup cost $21, versus $26 for a 200ml Baby Tiger. However the soup cups are chubby and not as easily thrown into a bag. Also, eight ounces is 236 ml, so a tad bigger than the magic 200ml number. In sum: go small(er) with the thermos and expect big results in return!

30 December 2018

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2018


So I made this brand spanking new Stuff I Consumed spreadsheet, to track everything I consumed — inclusive of books, movies, TV shows, music, games, podcasts, and events — and then promptly didn’t really update it as I got lost in the swirl of traveling and, um, not updating. So I find myself scrambling to figure out how many books I read and how many movies I watched in a nod to Fifty Fifty, even if we had retired it for this year. In the end, I watched approximately 62 movies and read 22 books, a far cry from last year. Still, on with the recommends!

BOOKS: Despite starting strong with a string of good books earlier this year, I really faltered down the stretch. I can still readily recommend The Girls and Annihilation — which I endorsed in my lone 2018 issue of Cool It Now — and I can add to that two more. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen was fantastic, and I liked it much better than The Refugees. I also enjoyed Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, a two-book companion graphic novel set about the Boxer Rebellion.

And then there’s my long time friend Dhonielle’s solo debut, The Belles, which came out in February and has a sequel, The Everlasting Rose, coming out in March. It’s a thrill to see friends publish, especially people that you were friends with way before the writing thing. The Belles hit the New York Times Bestseller list right out of the gate and deservedly so!

MOVIES: I feel like I missed almost all the major “good” movies this year, so much so that I just made a list of things to catch up on for the beginning of next year. So Burning, Shoplifters, Roma, First Reformed, The Rider, Skate Kitchen, Wildlife, The Favourite, Shirkers, I’m coming for you!

I changed my film rating system from A-F to 1-10 and ended up with only four ten-score movies: Avengers: Infinity War, Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and A Star is Born. Clearly three of those four were auto tens and A Star is Born blew me out of the water. I wanted to drag my sister to go see it on the big screen but she just wouldn't go with me! Ultimate sibling fail.

There were only six movies that netted a nine and they were Go-Go Sisters, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, All the President’s Men, First Man, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, and this lovely Japanese movie I saw on an airplane, Kako: My Sullen Past. Still, to be honest, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend any of these for everyone as they seem pretty genre specific.

Of course, I’ve dedicated my life to watching every remake of Go-Go Sisters so I guess I’d recommend that, but only if you are open to teenage tales that’ll make you cry. So far I’ve seen the original Korean Sunny, the Japanese remake, and Go-Go Sisters twice on the big screen on two different continents. Plus I watched 1995’s Now and Then for research. My favorite remains the Vietnamese version.

My big downvote? Minding the Gap, which is a documentary that is getting lauded everywhere but I found mostly unwatchable and not compelling in the least. Nice skate scenes though. But overall, bleh.


TELEVISION: I finished ten TV series and most of them were so-so, but I really loved The End of the F***ing World (again), Succession, and Maniac, which we haven’t even finished yet. A special shout out for Jean-Claude Van Johnson, which was a nostalgic, and unexpectedly fun, delight.

Oh and if you’re looking for some Taiwan/American romcom, Netflix is carrying A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities, about two women who swap locations. It’s not for everyone but the Taiwanese cultural stuff and overall FOB-ness is spot on and hilarious.

GAMES: I bought a Switch this year, mainly to play Overcooked 2. I’ve been afraid to jump into more games because well, I’m bad at regulating my time with games. So more on this next year. In the meantime, for iOS games I can wholeheartedly recommend Antihero, Polytopia, and Soul Knight, the latter of which is a free-to-play rogue like dungeon crawler that works seamlessly for local co-op. High recommend for all three! And although I’ve yet to play it on any platform I’ve bought it on, Stardew Valley for iOS dropped and I can’t wait to get into it.

EVENTS: I didn’t get to that many events this year, but did see Katharine McPhee on Broadway in Waitress and then an absolute highlight of the year, Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour, which is now showing on Netflix as a concert film. My friend offered me two free tickets that morning and a few hours later I was out in the rain, singing along to Tay Tay!

PODCASTS: As for podcasts, I already gushed about Night Call, and I’ll add Shedunnit to the list, "storytelling podcast that unravels the mysteries behind classic detective stories.” I had been following Caroline Crampton’s No Complaints newsletter and her podcast was a real thrill. Plus I’d like to push my cousin’s podcast, APT 504, which is Ashley and Emily talking about their pop culture and celebrity obsessions. I also love their tagline: "It's time for pillow talk.”

03 August 2018

It's a Small Book After All

It’s a throwback, a Stuff I’ve Been Reading column! Well, actually, it’s just a Stuff I’ve Bought collection because while I’ve been reading, it’s more interesting to look at what I picked up in New York recently. It’s rare nowadays that I bother with physical books, unless it’s used, graphic, or a friend’s book. Everything else is digital because nothing beats the portability of a Kindle.

[Note: This is the last post I'm going to bother italicizing titles of movies, books, TV shows, etc. It's just too much work to highlight and italicize things. But just know that I have now learned how to italicize properly, thanks.]

However, I grabbed a handful of stuff in New York because I figured I’d never see them again. My stroll through Williamsburg took me to Book Thug Nation and the new-ish McNally Jackson there. Overall, I bought the following:


Masculinities is Cindy Crabb’s interview with men about well, masculinity. Which is interesting coming from the Doris creator, as Crabb's zine was a defining feminist zine. Personally my attention span nowadays for men talking about masculinity is low but if Crabb’s asking the questions, I’ll read the answers. Also snatched up issues #56 and #58 of Cometbus, because I always get Cometbus if I see them. And then a real throwback, as I saw Ayun Halliday’s East Village Inky on the rack and it brought me back to years ago when I interviewed her about Zinester’s Guide to NYC. Hello 2010, hello East Village Inky, still going strong with issue #58!

Also at Book Thug, I got a copy of The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa, which explores why architecture caters mainly to only one of the five senses. (Spoiler: it's sight.) It promises to be very interesting. I realized most of the used books I buy are old ones about buildings or traffic -- or personal essay collections. Eyes of the Skin should dovetail nicely with this mini-book I got at the Whitney gift shop, Confessions of a Poor Collector, which was a speech Eugene Schwartz gave in 1970 about his rules, discoveries, and principles of art collecting. Despite it being only thirty-nine pages long and costing $18, it seems like an excellent purchase already. I hope to be a budding art collector. But you know, not really...

The other area I tend to hit up in bookstores is graphic memoirs, especially little pocket sized ones. I grabbed Trying Not to Notice by Will Dinski and Square Comix #16, by Ian McMurry, neither of whom were familiar to me. If it’s physically small and the pages are filled with cartoonified images your quotidian life, I’ll probably buy it. And since I have aspirations of making a similar type of book myself, I picked up Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti at McNally, which condenses Brunetti's cartooning instructions into a short (and small) book. Perfect!

09 June 2018

The Games We Play

Is this just becoming a recommendation blog? Sure looks like it! It’s been awhile since I’ve recommended some iOS games -- the last ones were Lost Frontier and Guild of Dungeoneering -- so here we go, more phone games...

 Antihero ($2.99)
This gem of a game has kept me entertained for long hours as I suffered through some bad fried chicken in Bali. In Antihero you play as a master thief, and your goal is to pilfer the city before your opponent does. You’re aided by urchins, thugs, gangs, assassins, and other fun fellows, all speaking in darling Dickensian accents. The campaign is a delight and playing against another human has the potential for great back-and-forth while using differing strategies, depending on the map. I couldn’t recommend Antihero enough and I’ve gotten two people hooked on it, neither of whom have ever played an iOS game before!

Teeny Titans ($3.99)
What happens when you combine Teen Titans with Pokemon? You get figure collecting and battling, all wrapped up in the delightful animation style of Teen Titans Go!, which appeals to all my sensibilities. I’ve recently just started watching the show and while the game itself isn’t all that difficult (or long), it is a freaking blast to rip through racks at the in-game figurine stores to find the rare one you’ve been searching for.

The Powerpuff Girls: Flipped Out ($2.99)
Arizona-based developer Grumpyface has kicked out a bunch of Cartoon Network properties and between my experience with Teeny Titans and this Powerpuff Girls game, I’m sold! Besides using Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup at their butt-kicking cutest, Flipped Out has an innovative flip mechanic that allows you to instantly turn it from a horizontal fighting game into a vertical match-three one. It’s really so smooth and a little bit genius. Throw in pickle collecting, the funny assortment of Powerpuff villains, plus super solid gameplay and I may just have to get all of Grumpyface’s games!

Death Coming ($1.99)
While I’ve barely started this one, the pixel art alone drew me in. You play as Death’s assistant, using semi-omniscient powers to drop things on people or bait them into unfortunate deaths. The goal is to kill the little people on-screen and it’s a freaking delight! While I do agree with some of the reviews that cite eventual frustration—and some tiny finicky controls at times—the game is unique enough, and the art so lovely, that I can recommend it for the killer in everyone.


Miracle Merchant ($1.99)
I’m actually pretty bad at solitaire type games like this but Tiny Touchables, who made Card Crawl, has always won me over with its personality-infused artwork by Thomas Wellmann and its simple yet deep mechanics. If you like a touch of math, and am into mixing potions for an imaginary apothecary, Miracle Merchant is the game for you!

30 January 2018

Five...Plus More

A listing of recommends and things that have caught my attention lately...

1) The End of the F***ing World. Best show I’ve seen all year. It’s a mini-series on Netflix about two dour (and destructive) teens. Think reverse Moonlight Kingdom. With just eight twenty-five minute episodes, The End of the F***ing World is the perfect binge watch.
2) Miami Heat “Vice” jerseys. They’re beautiful, that’s all.

3) Shinsuke Nakamura. Somehow I went deep on WWE superstar Nakamura, a Japanese import who has the most interesting style and entrance music I’ve ever seen. While I haven’t paid any attention to pro wrestling since I was a teen, diving in on Nakamura — and his backstory and growing US fanbase — was a nostalgia call of sorts. Also, I did a little look see at Asuka, another Japanese import who just won’t the woman’s side of the Royal Rumble (which Nakamura did for the men).
4) Echo Fox. I have been playing League of Legends for about a year now. “Playing” is an understatement, but that’s okay. Originally my friend just got me on-board so we could follow the eSport, but now I crave hour long sessions of LoL. Anyway, I’ve thrown my support behind Echo Fox (based on logo alone), which just happens to be owned by ex-NBA player Rick Fox. League games are weekly and I’ve not only been following Echo Fox but also signed up for a fantasy team of LoL players because why not?
5) Danny Chau, “Chau Down: A New Orleans Food Diary.” It wasn’t the food talk that captured me, but Chau’s reflections about his immigrant family. Specifically this, from the beginning:
"My brother’s first meal in America was a piece of fried chicken. It was specifically the aroma wafting within the car that he remembers so fondly, the smell of something completely foreign. That was his first memory of the States, a Proustian moment so vivid even our cousin retells the story as though it were her own. My dad’s first memory of America was of the giant mosquito that bit him just as he opened the airport doors. Two generations, two different perspectives; one rapt by the newness of it all, the other acutely aware of the challenges ahead. I was two years away.”
6) Night Call. A new podcast from Emily Yoshida, Molly Lambert, and Tess Lynch, three ex-Grantlanders whose old podcast, Girls in Hoodies, was brilliant. Their chemistry is unparalleled. The debut episode starts with a discussion about shower rat and then segues into Paddington 2 and Black Mirror, which is exactly as to be expected from "a free jazz blend of pop culture theory, internet fascinations, and venture down a plethora of half-baked conspiracy theory rabbit holes."

7) The Girls, Emma Cline. I completely missed this 2016 literary hit, but have read it now and it’s great. Ostensibly set around the Manson Family murders, Cline’s multi-million dollar garnering debut book is better than expected and it’s really not about the salacious hook at all.

8) Jada Yuan. The New York Times was looking for someone to travel to their 2018 places to go, one per week for a year. They found her! Margot and I were speculating who the NYT might pick and Margot wasn't far off. Yuan is a half-Asian, a writer (mainly of celebrity profiles), and of a nice medium age. Let's all follow Jada on her adventures!

31 December 2017

Stuff I've Been Consuming: 2017



I bought forty or so books this year, starting with Kiersi’s Shy Girl & Shy Guy at the beginning of the year and ending with The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin during the last week of December. Two finds: A huge coffee sized book, Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, by my longtime favorite Julia Wertz. And also a book published in German, Kunstblut, by Alexandra Kleeman. I’m always gonna get a Kleeman book, even one I can’t read, but the fabulous cover also dovetailed nicely with the colors in my house, so it’s really a decorative piece.

But let’s not bury the lede here, in 2017 I read 45 books and watched 85 movies. Yes, that’s right, I almost made 50/50 this year! Of course, clearing the marks would have been nice, but this is the best I’ve done on the books side in years. But enough self congratulations for a job not quite done. Let’s just get to it, shall we?


BOOKS: I started off the year on a fast pace, jamming in about a dozen books in two months. I was sure fifty was gonna be reeeeeal easy. Unfortunately I slowed down a lot in the coming months and it wouldn’t be a lie to say that I haven’t quite finished all of these books. But anything I went over 75% or so on, I’m counting. To be honest, some of these books were just great so I’m savoring them.

I’ve already talked about my three books in three nights binge reading of Anne Patchett. But I also wanna throw in recommends on Dom Casmurro, I Am a Magical Teenage Princess, Sour Heart, all of the The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (I had only read the first one or two before), and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which has been twenty years in the waiting from Arundhati Roy.

And who would I be without plugs for friends’ books such as Malinda Lo’s A Line in the Dark,  Cindy Pon’s WANT set in a near future Taipei, Maurene Goo’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us, and Dhonielle and Sona’s follow up to last year’s debut, this one is called Shiny Broken Pieces.

Something I wasn’t into, the highly acclaimed and recommended series by Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicle. I finished the first one, The Name of the Wind, and wanted to love it, but was really just annoyed at Kvothe’s over-competence in everything. Maybe I’ll try the series again since I would love a fantasy world to obsess over, but this wasn’t it. Also, I read most of Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series, which my YA book club is super into. I’m a little more "eh," but they do get better as they go, and are quite addictive.


Speaking of book clubs, I joined a local young adult book club in 2017, and they were probably single-handedly responsible for pushing my book numbers higher this year. I spent many a Saturday night cramming in the monthly selection just so I could show my face at the next day’s meeting. And I love how everyone in the book club are voracious readers, with plenty of recommendations, and geeky interests to share with me. Thank you Children's and Young Adult Literature Book Club: San Diego! Also, the selections they picked were often not ones I would have naturally gravitated towards, so overall the experience was a very interesting insight into what mainstream YA fans are into.

I think I’m gonna have to give up the fifty books goal next year, although I’m considering just high diving into this year’s Tournament of Books, and going straight down the eighteen book list. Basically the other key to success this year was to just read read read, who cares if I was in the mood or liked what I was flipping through, just keep going!

MOVIES: Despite watching 85 movies, and reading that 2017 was a great year for film, I can’t say I saw that many amazing things. Nothing I was even super passionate about, now that I look over the list. The seven straight-A films were: 20th Century Women, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Lady Bird, Logan, Mon Mon Monsters, OJ Made in America, and Thor Ragnarok. Taking out the two Marvel movies -- albeit legit non-fan goggles good ones -- and we’re at a mere five A-ranked films. Add in the A-minus movies and we’re looking at only maybe a dozen films I really truly liked. Recommends: The Babysitter on Netflix, which was just hilarious, so fucking hilarious. Actually that’s like my top recommend for the year for an unexpectedly fun throwaway movie full of useful quotes and high rewatchability.

For some reason the past couple of years I've been seeing my favorite movie of the year in January, and this year was no different, as I saw Mike Mill's 20th Century Women pretty early on. I need to rewatch it though to confirm my love for it. But I fear it was like Lady Bird, which I really really admired -- it’s no coincidence Greta Gerwig was in/behind two of my favorites -- but I think I still liked Beginners better so it’s hard to be as passionate about 20th Century. And oh yeah, I almost cried watching Sho Tsukikawa’s The 100th Love With You, which is a contemporary Japanese romcom that involves time travel. I can’t tell if it was the plane watch that got me so emotional, but I think it would have hit me the same either way.

As for disappointing films, the list this year was long. Very long. I went through a stretch of such horribly disappointing (much hyped) films that I thought I was going to have to take a movie break to cleanse myself. There was a back-to-back hopping of Dunkirk and The Beguiled that almost killed my friend and I. Dunkirk was fine, but not anywhere near great, and thank goodness there was nobody else in Beguiled with us because we were trashing it as we watched. Loudly. Sorry Sophia, Beguiled was just awful, and I ranked it my worst movie of the year, which is saying something since I also saw the new Pirates.

Also, this year I volunteered to help program for SDAFF, San Diego Asian Film Festival. From March until November or so, we watched a ton of shorts, and some features -- that I didn’t always count on the sheet unless I theatred it. Through this process, I actually did find a film that I super loved. It’s a twenty-seven minute short but so packed with genius that I couldn’t stop showing it to anybody within range. So yeah, my favorite film of the year is Makoto Nagahisa’s And so we put goldfish in the pool ／そうして私たちはプールに金魚を. Luckily for you, you can watch it right here right now, just click on the link!

TELEVISION: Just like last year, I started tracking the TV shows I was watching. Actually, with so much television, it’s almost just as fruitful to track the series I wanted to watch but haven’t dived into yet. Can you believe I haven’t seen Sherlock S4 or Orange is the New Black S5 yet? I’ve been waiting for the right binge moment I guess. Some of the things I did want to watch but haven’t gotten around to yet include Legion, Preacher, the revamped Twin Peaks, Mr. Robot, Broadchurch, and The Keepers.

However, there were some great things I saw this year, namely finally getting into The Wire, which I spent most of January running through -- I skipped S2 because I read that was okay to do. I also loved Brown Nation, Riverdale, American Vandal, The Young Pope, Attack on Titan, and Terrace House: Aloha State. In fact, getting into Terrace House in the fall of this year is contributing directly to my wanting to go live in Japan next year. “A love worth dying for…."

Also I have to push two series I just crammed in December: Alias Grace and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Sarah Polley adapted Margaret Atwood’s book into a miniseries, writing all six episodes herself, and Alias Grace is better than Handmaid’s Tale to be honest. I haven’t actually finished Handmaid’s but I’m gonna just take a swing and say that Alias was better. And then there’s the insanely delightful Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino of Gilmore Girls fame. And well, I’ll stop right there. “Of Gilmore Girls fame…” should be enough of a recommendation.

Absolute trash: 13 Reasons Why. Sorry, if you liked this show I’ve already judged you. It's problematic on just about every level and I couldn't even finish hate watching it. And I wasn’t very high on Dear White People either, which was exactly like the movie: the title was the best part with everything else being pretty disappointing. I quit a lot of shows this year actually.

Anyway, here’s to going into 2018 like Lenny Belardo... what a fantastic opening credits scene right? And here's the Young Pope "you'll never forget" track: "Recondite" by Levo.

If you've read this far, you're clearly interested in my new and revamped Stuff I'm Consuming spreadsheet, which is not only much more detailed and customizable, but also about to have some fancy auto-stats once my spreadsheet wizard gets done with it! Try out a beta version!

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