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Four things make a post
Apr. 9th, 2026 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scaramoucheThe Merrily We Roll Along pro-shot with Jonathan Groff is up on Netflix US, and I managed to watch about 2/3rds of it using a VPN before I called it a night, but the next day when I wanted to resume watching, the platform recognized the VPN and refused to let me access it. BOO! HISS!
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At a family gathering, some cousins who are just a little younger than me got into gushing about Heated Rivalry together, and I admitted that I knew of the show but didn't watch it because it's not really my thing, but I knew enough to help keep the convo going. At one point I asked, "Is Hudson Williams biracial?" despite fully knowing that he is. Megafandom osmosis, what do.
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I donated blood yesterday, which I've been kind of doing regularly for the past few years, and has gone well for me so far (though it did take one instance to figure out that it's better for me to have a heavy meal after donating, instead of before), yesterday was the first time that I got SO tired that when I got home I passed out as soon as I hit the bed. This is normal, as the interwebs says, but at the time I felt weirdly guilty-panicky, like I wasn't allowed to feel sleepy, but I now realize is because I was conflating it with the danger of going to sleep with a concussion.
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As someone who mainly remembered Ryan Gosling via The Nice Guys and Young Hercules, and was otherwise not that interested in him as an actor, Project Hail Mary has been a boon and a bane, and what do you MEAN he's known for his roles of stoic men who don't speak much but bleed emotional and/or physical pain through every pore. He's a funny little guy! Always has been to me! Then I watched Drive and Blade Runner 2049 and was like, oh okay I get it. I also forgot that was him in First Man. It also makes his scenes opposite Chris Evans in The Gray Man, uh... a little unfair. (ILU Chris, sorry.)
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At a family gathering, some cousins who are just a little younger than me got into gushing about Heated Rivalry together, and I admitted that I knew of the show but didn't watch it because it's not really my thing, but I knew enough to help keep the convo going. At one point I asked, "Is Hudson Williams biracial?" despite fully knowing that he is. Megafandom osmosis, what do.
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I donated blood yesterday, which I've been kind of doing regularly for the past few years, and has gone well for me so far (though it did take one instance to figure out that it's better for me to have a heavy meal after donating, instead of before), yesterday was the first time that I got SO tired that when I got home I passed out as soon as I hit the bed. This is normal, as the interwebs says, but at the time I felt weirdly guilty-panicky, like I wasn't allowed to feel sleepy, but I now realize is because I was conflating it with the danger of going to sleep with a concussion.
+
As someone who mainly remembered Ryan Gosling via The Nice Guys and Young Hercules, and was otherwise not that interested in him as an actor, Project Hail Mary has been a boon and a bane, and what do you MEAN he's known for his roles of stoic men who don't speak much but bleed emotional and/or physical pain through every pore. He's a funny little guy! Always has been to me! Then I watched Drive and Blade Runner 2049 and was like, oh okay I get it. I also forgot that was him in First Man. It also makes his scenes opposite Chris Evans in The Gray Man, uh... a little unfair. (ILU Chris, sorry.)
Book Log: Asian Folk Tales and Legends
Apr. 8th, 2026 06:55 pmscaramoucheBooks in the old unread pile: 7
Asian Folk Tales and Legends, retold by Suzee Leong and illustrated by Arif Rafhan, is a children's book that I got when I was missing my childhood folk tale books and hankering for more regional stories. The book is what it says on the tin with simple retellings, mayhaps too simple even though it is a children's book.
That said, it's a decent mix of East, West and South East Asian retellings of folk tales, some of them familiar like the stories of the naming of Melaka and Singapura, new-to-me stories of trickster characters of various regions, romances that end tragically with one or both members of the romance turning into a plant or geographical formation, truncated stories about Hua Mulan and Badang (though I would expect all of them to be truncated, but these particular stand out because I know how long the originals are), and as a surprise of some modern stories like Hachiko. It's fine, I'll probably look for something better later.
Another book from the old unread pile I started to read but stopped was a colonial translation of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, which I couldn't get past the first few pages. Something about the translation itself and the footnotes kept throwing me, so I've reshelved that, though it's very unlikely I'll come back to it unless my future self has a hankering for the Kedah Annals.
Asian Folk Tales and Legends, retold by Suzee Leong and illustrated by Arif Rafhan, is a children's book that I got when I was missing my childhood folk tale books and hankering for more regional stories. The book is what it says on the tin with simple retellings, mayhaps too simple even though it is a children's book.
That said, it's a decent mix of East, West and South East Asian retellings of folk tales, some of them familiar like the stories of the naming of Melaka and Singapura, new-to-me stories of trickster characters of various regions, romances that end tragically with one or both members of the romance turning into a plant or geographical formation, truncated stories about Hua Mulan and Badang (though I would expect all of them to be truncated, but these particular stand out because I know how long the originals are), and as a surprise of some modern stories like Hachiko. It's fine, I'll probably look for something better later.
Another book from the old unread pile I started to read but stopped was a colonial translation of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, which I couldn't get past the first few pages. Something about the translation itself and the footnotes kept throwing me, so I've reshelved that, though it's very unlikely I'll come back to it unless my future self has a hankering for the Kedah Annals.
