Shopback - website recommendation

I have been thinking and changing my choice of websites to recommend. At first I thought I would recommend websites for Singaporeans, since this is where I live currently and these websites are (mostly) only usable in Singapore. Then I thought again and now I have decided to change to whom these recommendations are aimed at. Instead of Singaporeans, these website recommendations are aimed at expats who are new in the country or have lived here a long time to did not know about these sites.

First I want to recommend Shopback!

My Lady Jane - book review

I just finished reading My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows. It is a five hundred pages long book, but does not take very long to get through. This review will contain spoilers, but I also write spoiler-free reviews on my Goodreads page!

To read the spoiler-free review, click here.

New Recommendations

Ever since I compiled my App Recommendation List into one post I have felt done with recommending apps. Though since then I have found new gaming apps that I really like and will perhaps do recommendations on in the future. For now I have decided to do a new recommendation series - websites!

There are a lot of websites out there in the World Wild Web... World Wide Web. Some you stumble upon to stay a few minutes and once they have been shut down will be forever forgotten. Other you revisit daily, perhaps even hourly. I have found some that I always have up in a tab so I will never forget them. They all serve me a purpose and because they do, I felt I could share them with my readers.

I will start of with another post for the first website I recommend. As before I will try and do one a month, maybe even two since I already have so many in line. Last time I was almost up in a year of recommendations. We will see for how long this will go on!

If you find a recommended website that you like or have another website that is similar to the one I recommend, feel free to comment about it. I am always on the look out for new and better updated sites to use.

App Recommendation List

From June 2016 to April 2017 I made an app recommendation series. I tried to make one every month, but I only made nine out of the eleven I had planned. Half of them are games, and the other half have mixed use. Click read more to see the complete list with links to the individual posts.

Recap & Thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2

I am so disappointed in this movie! The first movie was great with original characters and interesting plot, but this... The plot seemed to waver and the introduction of new characters felt unused. Though I enjoyed a continuation of Star-Lord's story, I did not like where it was going.

Spoilers ahead.

Alien: Covenant - movie review

Being a fan of the Alien movies made me believe I would enjoy this movie much more than I did! There were some moments where I completely forgot which series I was watching and other moments when I sat laughing because of the ridiculousness they try to make scary.

Minor spoilers ahead.

Event Horizon - movie review

Have you heard of Warhammer 40K? If so, then I highly recommend watching Event Horizon. Though it has not been an official statement, this movie is speculated to be a homage to the Warhammer universe.

One Season Series

I watch a lot of series. I am a season-swallower and can re-watch a series many times if I find it interesting enough. There are a few that I can not let go off for some reason and others that I watch and then come back to after a longer period of time. I am so sad so many series are left to die after only one season, leaving the watcher, aka me, to wonder what happened in those fictional lives. Since most series end the last episode of the first season on a cliff-hanger it leaves me in so much pain not to know what happened next!

Citymapper - app recommendation

Citymapper

Free.
Available on Google Play and App Store.
Developed by Duolingo.
Official website.

Food Reset

In my last post I mentioned a food challenge that I am doing for 28 (more or less) days of April. It was made for February. I got it from a blog called Blogilates which I find really inspiring and helpful. Since I am not very good at going to the gym I thought I would try to start doing pilates at home. It is actually called POP Pilates, since you are doing it to pop music. The instruction-videos are easy to understand and short enough to do one, two, three and sometimes four in a row. It makes it a lot easier to build your own schedule.

The challenge I was talking about is the 28 Day Reset Challenge. It is not a diet - it is a way to get to know what your stomach can handle, which is great for me since I am dealing with IBS. At first I thought it was a scam, like so many of these things are, but the course is free (but of course there are two pdf files to purchase with, I assume, more developed instructions for both the workout and the food) and I can adjust it to fit my own needs. I decided to do the challenge after a good thinking-it-through, with my own conditions and rules. I removed the processed food category, mostly because I do not eat that normally and if I remove that I would probably collapse. The rest I try to stick to, which is difficult for a person who is used to a glass of milk every morning. Instead I drink juice and water. I am switching from white to brown rice. We bought a lot of vegetables the other day. I am surprised to find myself enjoying the challenge, it requires me to try new things that I have not eaten a lot and I mostly cook my own meals which John has done for a very long time.

Together with The 28 Day Reset Challenge you are supposed to add a workout schedule. The meant-to plan is the PIIT28 - it stands for Pilates Intensive Interval Training and each workout is completed within twenty eight minutes. I have not done a lot of pilates, or workouts for that matter, so knowing what it stood for I understood it would be too advanced for me. Every month she makes a workout calendar which you can get by subscribing to her newsletters. So far I have found the mail inspiring and motivational, so she does not spam my inbox. Though I still think the monthly calendar looks too tough for me I chose to do the Beginner's 2.0. It is a lot more my speed and my flexibility, even though I am still too scared to try the headstand. I also take two days break (skipping one day of total body workout) to not fatigue myself way too much. I tried doing this calendar throughout February but it was too much and I could not keep it up. Now I am back at it, changing it to work for me and I am going for it! Luckily this month started on a Saturday so I could get used to the food challenge before starting with the workout as well.

Wish me luck!
And join me.

Horrible Horror

Ash and Steve came over last night. They arrived around half past seven, but they could not remember our unit number. My phone had decided to be silent so they wandered around the sixteenth floor for twenty minutes ringing doorbells. The unfortunate thing is that our doorbell does not work and has not since we moved in here. John and I actually do not like doorbells so it has worked for us. Mostly people knock on door when they is no answer to the bell. Our friends did not knock and it was only luck that I checked my phone to see their desperate calls for me to open the door! It was a bit fun, but I saved them from the corridor only three minutes before John got home.

We ordered pizza from Dominos. The first choice was Papa John's but apparently they did not deliver here. Dominos is good though, that is our usual choice. We decided to play a game of Love Letter before the food arrived and we would start the movie. We got as far as explaining the game and play one round before the food was at our door. We abandoned the game and cuddled up in the sofa. John had made a classic Swedish pizza garlic sauce, but with a bit too much garlic for me, and Ash and Steve had bought Everyday White wine. It was simple, just like an everyday wine should be I guess, but I found that a slice of lime boosted the flavour.

Movie spoilers ahead.

The plan was too see a horror movie, but even though the first movie, 10 Cloverfield Lane, had been classified as horror, it really was not. The movie was slow, nothing really happened and after just thirty minutes we decided to stop. John fast forwarded and in the last few minutes something finally happened. ALIENS! Nobody expected that. It turned out this was a prequel to Cloverfield which none of us had seen. If you like psychological thrillers then 10 Cloverfield is for you, but do not get your hopes up.

We switched to The Girl with All the Gifts, a movie I have wanted to see for as long as it has been out. It was clearly a zombie movie, even though they called the zombies 'hungries' for some reason. I guess because they ate people, but that is literally what zombies do so why change the name for something that can be made fun of? We started calling them hangries, because they were hungry and angry zombies. The plot had potential and the movie was see-worthy, but I had some complains. There was a moment when a story was being told by one of the main characters, the backstory of the clever children that were born from infected mothers, and a character was walking through a hospital following a scary sound. The scene was really good and it felt like it led up to something, but it did not. It was really disappointing. The woman found a man with a straitjacket chained to the wall by his ankle. She looked at him and shot him. That was it. They could have done so much more with that scene! I would have wanted to see one of those mothers with a grotesque open wound from the throat to the vagina. The story was that the children ate their mothers from the inside. That would have been the top of the movie, to see one of those mothers, still alive (well, dead alive... zomibe alive... sorry, hungry alive... geez). From that point to the end I was just sad that it did not happened and perhaps that is why I did not like the ending. It ended with one human still alive, the girl with all the gifts had brought more of the hungries clever children and they sat down to have a class. To teach things. To learn things. Nothing zombie scary at all. Why was this movie a horror movie?

Honestly, if you want to watch a really good zombie movie, you should definitely see 28 Days Later.

It was close to midnight when the second movie ended. Ash and Steve called a taxi and excused themselves a bit too much for not helping cleaning up after us. It was not much to clean. We did not mind, but we appreciated their concerns. John and I stayed up for another hour, talking, calming down after having guests and watching a movie. Then we went to bed, fell asleep and even I slept until half past eleven this morning. Yesterday was a good day!

Duolingo - app recommendation

Duolingo

Free.
Available on Google Play & App Store.
Developed by Duolingo.
Official website.

J'apprends la langue Française, mais je ne suis pas si bon.
I am learning the French language, but I am not so good.

Runaway Weekend

It feels like this weekend ran away. I did not have all the time that I needed to do everything I wanted to with John. Still, we did some really cosy and good stuff.

Yesterday we went to the gym. John woke up at twelve, since I woke him at not a minute before or after, and I wondered what I could say to make him want to head to the gym with me. To my surprise I only had to ask the question and we were off. It was a short visit since my breakfast had been four hours earlier and I was getting really hungry, but it was a good start of the day and it felt good sitting at the hawker stall in gym-clothes. In the evening we saw Passengers and really liked it. We both had some issues with the story, since nothing really happened, but it was great in a visual sense and of course the hot actor/actresses were a big part of it. It is a recommended movie, but not one we would like to see again any time soon. Feels like it would be getting worse for every time you see it, so it is a one hit wonder.

Today we ate homemade pancakes for lunch and headed down to the pool. The sun was still in the sky so we spent a few hours there. When we got out of the pool to dry we stuck around just because it was nice and John said something that stuck in my head. Looking out over the area it looked like a live animation of a concept art. Kids were running around the pool, women lay sunbathing, mothers played with the younger children, fathers taught their sons how to swim, young couples (like ourselves) were cosy in their selected corners. It was idyllic. This is where we live now, it is surreal and yet... very real.

For dinner we took the short walk over to Holland Village. I have been talking about Cha Cha Cha many times in my posts, and if you are a new reader and interested you can search for the name in the search bar to the right. We sat down inside our favourite Mexican restaurant, keeping near the AC and far away from the humid evening air. We decided to order something new from the menu this time: I had the meat taco which was just three corn-flour tortillas and a plate of ingredients to make my own tacos. It was a bit messy and not as good as I had hoped. John had the combo which contained an enchilada and a taco mixed together, but it looked like miniatures. We do not talk much while we eat so we managed to walk there, order, eat and leave in under an hour.

Before we went home we stopped by Pet Lovers Centre. Ymir has been growing into a large cat and the medium sized house + scratching post we bought a year ago looks tiny under his big body. The small scratching posts are not the best option for him and so he has started climbing one of the kitchen chairs covered in fabric. At PLC we bought the largest scratching post we could find and brought it home. At first we carried it together, but then John tossed it over his shoulder. We placed it in the middle of the room and started taking of the plastic. The strange thing is that PLC assemble the houses and scratch posts after they have been plasticised. We had to unscrew the only screw to remove it. The cat sat a bit away from us while we did this, looking rather sceptic at what we had brought home, but then I scratched with my fingernails on the rope and he came running. He loved it! It was such a great joy to watch. He ran around using it as a platform to jump onto, climbing around it like a tree and there was no doubt that it was the best buy for our cat ever.

To finish off this weekend we watched Alien vs Predator. John had seen it before but this was my first time. I really like the first two Alien movies and recently started reading the comics about them. This movie was superb! The movie is intelligent, funny, exciting and terrifying all at once - and it ended with girlpower. I absolutely loved the ending. I could not sit still and be quiet, I had to sit up straight and raise my fist into the air like a cheesy cheese. I screamed at the screen when characters were being stupid and I cheered for the predators and the only good human in the crew. Such a blast. Now I want to have the second book in the comic series.

John Wick chapter 2

Spoilers.

We went to see John Wick chapter 2 last night. First movie was really good and I remember screaming out during the action scenes. Naming the second movie chapter 2 made it seem like a continuation of the story. The start of the movie was just that - the string had been tied. John Wick made peace with the lesser Russian mafia group. It could have been the end of the movie right there, but obviously it was not. I was sad to see that gorgeous car getting wrecked, but they gave us a hint it would be restored (in 2030). The car never made it to the screen again.

Moving up from the lesser criminals we step into the business of the big bad twelve. This was a bit unclear to me since I had no English subtitles (in Singapore, all movies have Chinese subtitles) and I could not pick up every word spoken (due to a small hearing problem). The second fight scene felt like an homage to the first movie's most memorable scene. I recognised the moves, where the bad guys would pop out and the scene was almost exactly the same. At first I was pissed! Was this really all they could give us? Nothing new, just the same scene in another setting? It was okay, the upcoming fight scenes were exciting enough, although afterwards only one move stood out and could be remembered, namely John Wick killing two assassins with a single pen.

One thing I have to point out is that the expendable henchmen wore ski-masks. They removed their person so it would feel justified to kill them. The first movie did not do this, it is what made the scene so gruesome and terrifying. Putting masks over their faces made it look like a video game. The cool John Wick, ruthlessly killing the men working for the big bad guy, looked like a teenager going through a first-person-shooter. It was sad, it was unworthy.

With so many people getting killed I was glad to see at least one good death scene. The murder John Wick was supposed to commit turned out to be a strong and strange feminine power-move. The lady knew she would die and chose how she would go. It was a beautiful scene and I fully approved of her choice. She looked like an angel with wings of blood.

The dialogues were few and far apart, and frankly they did not lift the story. The amount of fighting felt too much with so little to go on. I was confused for parts of the movie, not understanding why some people tried to kill him. They made it easy to understand in the end though, setting a price on his head which anyone could claim - even I would want to kill him for that kind of cash. It was a set up for the next movie, but it felt like an excuse. He was just trying to retire! At least he had company from his nameless dog, looking like Will Smith in I Am Legend.

I must say that I did enjoy the movie, despite all the things I have just said about it. People who enjoy action will do too. Unfortunately I felt like the story was not coherent and I can barely remember the characters. It was not what I had looked forward to see, but I did enjoy it never the less. Watch the first movie and then go see the second with no expectations. That way, you can not be disappointed.

Alien Path - app recommendation

Alien Path

Free to play.
In-app purchases.
Available on Google Play & App Store.
Developed by appxplore.
Official website.

My player ID:
k7XA88MRn1

SkEye - app recommendation

SkEye | Astronomy

Free version.
Available on Google Play.
Developed by lavadip.
Official website.

SkEye Pro

Cost $8.17.
Shows comets.
Satellite tracking.
The complete NGC.
All stars up to mag 10 are rendered.

The Echoes of Love - book review

The Echoes of Love is a romantic novel slightly over four-hundred pages long. It has two main characters; a woman named Venetia and a man called Paulo. The story plays out in Venice, so if you would forget about that just think about the main characters name - she is literally named after the city.

The only good thing I can say about this book is that there is a story here! It is hidden behind four-hundred pages of nonsense. For most part of the book we follow the perspective of Venetia, but occasionally we switch over to Paulo and those chapters (more like two to five pages) are worth reading, mainly because we get to know the character just a tiny bit.

There is not much good in this book. It is about a woman who falls for a man but during the first half refuses to accept this because of her past. She got her heart broken by a man who's baby she was carrying and lost. Fast forward ten years. Venetia falls for the well-known playboy. He is creepy and demanding. She is mean and cold-hearted. One scene struck me as unsafe; she wants to go home from a party, he wants to take her. She thanks him but does not want to be escorted, yet accepts his company while she tried to find a taxiboat. Of course she does not and then agrees to join him on his boat. Total stranger. She even accepts a drink which he pours at the boat to calm her down after a pathetic fall! My mind was screaming rape warning but that never happened. He was a sort of gentleman and drove her home and just as she is getting of the boat he grabs her arm and looks her in the eye and demands that she is going to have dinner with him. EVERYTHING in that scene says stay away from this man. Yet she dosen't. Despite having the appropriate thoughts about a man demanding a dinner from her she still meets him later and falls for him. I wonder if she only falls for his looks because the personality is downright despicable.


Not only did the weak story move ever so slowly forward but everything was described into the smallest detail. There is a long description about her apartment; all the way to the bathroom and the tub sitting under the window. One page was for describing how she looked when she woke up in the morning; the hair, the eyes, the arms, the light, the slowly opening of the eyes, the colour of the eyes, the sheets, etc. I had to skip certain pages to survive the endless descriptions over places not important to the story!

The most unbelievable thing the author did was focusing so intently on eyes. I am not kidding you when I say that every time Venetia looks at Paulo his eyes will be described. I found twenty different kinds of blue throughout the book, many mentioned over and over again. The worst thing is that his eyes change colour all the time! I first thought it was because of the lightning and that yes, in the dark blue eyes can appear like midnight-blue and yes, in sunshine they can appear like sky-blue, but in the same scene in the same lightning and room his eyes still managed to drastically change to three different kinds of blue! And I barely remember what the rest of him looks like.

The book is written in English but since it is in Italy everybody speaks Italian of course. This I understood at the very beginning of the book and yet some characters need to first have their sentence written in Italian and then translate what they say to English right after. Are they meant to speak both languages? No, it is just for you as a reader to enjoy learning very specific sentences in Italian if you wish. It was truly annoying and I really did not like having it interrupt my reading.

At the end we finally discover the secret, the mystery of the book. The book ends. There is no further explanation what happens to their romance. There is a short scene when they reunite in the end and they look at each other (he has very blue eyes indeed) and then it ends. There is no understanding what happens after the dark secret has been revealed. Some feelings are mentioned but everything feels abandoned. It was not a very satisfying end to this very boring book. I was glad to be done with it and finally pick up a good book!

Made by TotalyMoo/John

Stevesassin's Creed

Greetings and salutations, blog readers! Let me share with you a tale of Steve, movies, food and more Steve.

Steve who, you ask? Good question! He's a by-product of Ellie befriending Ash from our mutual chat group - turns out she had a boyfriend. Or well, has a boyfriend.

Regardless, he's a great guy, albeit a bit unusual but very, very likeable. So when Ellie fell sick on the day of our planned Assassin's Creeed movie pre-screening, I decided to bring him along for the ride instead. Solid choice all round, we had fun.

Before the film we ate at a food court in a mall called Wisma. Not sure what the actual stall was named but they had, uh, black pepper hot plates? You got semi uncooked food on a plate and whilst it heated one had to mush things into a form digestable by an infant. Good stuff.

The movie itself was as expected - not an Oscars winner by any means but definitely worth seeing. I smiled throughout, people around me laughed in French so I am unsure if they enjoyed it or not. At least we had popcorn, and nachos. The latter sucked. Who salts their nachos?! Although this is the same country that does sweet popcorn, so I guess it's not that weird.

And that, my friends, was my Wednesday.

On another note: my boss (Antoine) has been here for a week now working with me. Lovely fellow. Super French by all means but in the best of ways. I'm truly happy to have such a hard working and supportive manager, it really does make the job exponentially better. Not that he'll ever read this, but thanks for the visit Antoine!

Star Wars - Rogue One

Yesterday Rebecka and I (John) saw the new Star Wars 'middle movie', namely Rogue One. Since it's still a super fresh film and I'd rather not spoil anyone, I'll talk completely in vaguer terms and avoid any plot points - this is not a review.

What I can say is that it was absolutely GREAT! I'm not a huge Star Wars fan. Sure, I like the movies, but I'm definitely no die hard nerd that live and breathe the universe. It's just a cool sci-fi series. Yet I, and many others, host a sense of investment in these epics. There's a story to be seen through and after roughly four decennia on air, Star Wars finally managed to fill a big, big hole: how did the Rebel Alliance manage
to get their hands on the Death Star plans, and why is it such a big deal?

Rogue One sets out to answer both of these questions and does so in a splendidly action filled and intense fashion. Prior to release it was said to be a 'darker' movie, less of a hero's journey and more of a war movie; and honestly it managed to do this perfectly without feeling preachy, cheesy or pushing the limits.

One got to see darker sides of one's previously flawless heroes, as well as humanizing aspects of the Imperium that has acted out as a ubiquitous bad guy with no other aspirations than being simply evil.

Something that made me exceptionally happy was the addition of a droid that had some kind of human(esque) personality. Being a fan of the game series Knights of the Old Republic and its amazing character (err, droid) HK-47, it was great fun to see the movies borrowing its sense of witty remarks and off-beat comic relief - albeit a bit more safe for the family than HK's rants on ways to kill us... meat bags...

Pacing wise they managed to introduce a varied and interesting cast without spending more than half the movie on their backstories and why one should care; yes I'm looking at you every DC movie released in the 2000's. I was actually surprised how much they managed to cram into two hours without anything feeling dragged out or abusing exposition.

With that the movie actually had more than enough time in the final act to conclude in an absolutely stunning finale and a hugely satisfying end. Once again, I won't spoil, but I left the cinema with a massive smile.

After the overly safe and lukewarm The Force Awakens, Rogue One managed to revitalize my faith in Disney and their purchase of the Star Wars IP. I'm looking forward to more 'in-between' movies that pad the release schedule, with a sprinkle of modest hope for the eigth entry not going back to what's tried and true.

80 Days - app recommendation

80 Days

Cost ~$4.
Available on Google Play and Steam.
Produced by inkle Ltd.
Official website.