August 9, 2023

199 - Life Update 🌓🔥🍗

Hey there, !

FILL IN THE ANNUAL SURVEY PLS - results next week :)

I'm a bit late with it but, y'know, c'est la vie. It is what it is. Send it.

Let's go:

1. It's giving waxing half moon 🌓 in terms of mental health. It's been a rough couple of weeks but we're coming out of it a bit better. Managing people and clients and getting hella work done and all of it altogether has been hectic, but it's getting better - always onwards and upwards.

2. I'm getting ready for my traveling era for this winter - Thailand, UK, US - all of it's coming up. While I'm gone there'll be some redux posts - I think the first time I'm reposting old content after 4 years at this newsletter - so maybe we'll see whether I've actually progressed in any of my thinking. I'm hoping to use the time to actually think about things as well, away from everything. Maybe that's the thing that people need by leaving where they come from - to just have time to think and replan and understand who they are by being away from their environment. Ugh, past Vince you were so judgy of this exact thing. How we grow.

3. Here are my top 5 flags based on a discussion I had at trivia two weeks ago:

   1. - Seychelles - LOOK HOW PRETTY IT IS!

   2. - St. Pierre and Miquelon (belongs to France, but is just off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada) - It's so epic - it's got a ship, and then 3 other flags which represent the other colonies, but each of THOSE flags are also so awesome.

   3. - Bahrain - It's simple, it's pretty, and is a bit different. There's nothing like an easy to read flag that looks vaguely threatening.

   4. - Marshall Islands - I seem to like some non-standard flags that are on a diagonal because they're more aesthetically pleasing. It's like...a sun? With a sunset and sunrise (apparently, according to Wikipedia). Pretty!

   5. - Reunion - apparently, this one is an unofficial flag of Reunion called Lo Mahaveli and is based on a volcano with sunbeams. We love it.

4. A very restorative weekend away hanging out near the beach, near a firepit, cooking some lovely food for some lovely people - little moments of joy:

   

   We made s'mores! Delicious.

5. Collected reviews of fried chicken places I've been to recently:

   1. Marrybrown: 6.5/10 - kinda mid - the chicken is juicy, but the batter was not good texturally. It came off as one whole piece rather than with lots of cracks and fissures - so it wasn't as crunchy as I wanted. The onion rings were surprisingly good though!

   2. El Jannah: 8.5/10 - generous servings, crunchy skin and a different kind of herb blend than I've had before - which I really dig. The gravy they serve is really good, and I actually like the fact that they give you 'mixed pieces' so they don't waste chicken. Nice place - could do better with some of the drier pieces.

   3. Buza Chicken: 8/10 - a Korean Fried Chicken place in Melbourne Central that serves this WONDERFUL soy smoke flavour that I've never had or seen before. Thank you to Audrina/Saxon/Lauren for bringing me there because it was honestly such a lovely fried chicken I would never had gone to myself!. I couldn't really tell whether the chicken was okay though, so it's an 8 - I was too enamored by the smokiness from the sauce :D

6. Unfortunately, the upshot of moving from reddit -> lemmy is that instead of wasting my time on reddit, I waste it on Instagram Reels instead. It's a black hole of content, honestly! It takes all my damn willpower to just jump off it and go to sleep at night - I really need to find better ways to control this somewhat addiction. Maybe a week in Thailand with limited internet will help...

Chat soon :)

Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!

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✔️Real Life Recommendations

1. Miss Peony (牡丹小姐) - written by Michelle Law, and performed / subtitled trilingually - English, Cantonese and Mandarin. It's a quintessential Chinese-Australian play - with the issues with communication between native Canto and native English speakers, the broken language, the struggles with identity; all of it comes together in a really wonderful way. The story is of a 2nd gen Chinese-Australian girl who needs to win a beauty pageant to help her grandma pass on to the next life; what a classic story, eh? Highly recommended - it plays in Melbourne til Aug 20 - so go see it if you can!

   

2. Monster - directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, who also directed Broker (which I loved) and Shoplifters (which I haven't watched yet). I'm digging the aesthetic of the 'simple story well told' vibes of movies that I've watched recently. The way the story unfolds to try to illustrate who the monster really is; whether it's a person, or society, or maybe nothing at all - a really tender exploration of humanity and best efforts misunderstandings. Everyone's just so human in trying to do what they want to do I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's part of MIFF - there are a couple of showings still on, so try to catch it before it's gone!

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🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway

1. People in 1920's Berlin Nightclubs used to flirt via pneumatic tube - because of course they did! The best and the brightest technologies used to help people get laid :D

2. Ideas aren't getting harder to find and anyone who tells you otherwise is a coward and I will fight them - with a title like that who wouldn't click on this! A good reminder that the 'things we know' aren't always guaranteed things we know - there's always more to discover in the world.

3. Rating horse emojis (requires Twitter) - a throwback to when I had insect and parachute emoji ratings - here's one about HORSES.