I enjoyed the first episode of Soundtrack #1 this week...not. Because it's @!#$% Disney+. I realize that I am just a guy writing a comment on a drama site (although the best one!) before the crack of dawn, and not the guy running the damn company, but with a Korean diaspora of nearly 3M in North America, it's seems commercially sensible to, you know, go after that market.

Currently, there are more than 10 million active COVID cases in South Korea (20% of its population). The country has waved the white flag and surrendered to any tighter restrictions due to this surge.

Like most of the rest of the world, SK has decided that it cannot longer put life on hold after two years. The squeezed middle merchant class has caught with increasing debt and revenue shortfalls.

Arirang News reported that in 2021 marriages hit an all-time low (192,500, down 9.8% from 2020). A survey indicated that less than 2 in 10 single people went out on a date during the pandemic.

Divorces went down to 102,000 (down 3% from 2020) as long court shutdowns may have been a factor. The greatest increase in divorces were "silver separators," couples who have been married for more than 30 years.

It seems a highly industrial but steeped in tradition culture of South Korea is at a cross roads. It has accepted divorce without the prior stigma. But it also has a trend against marriage as being a required rite of passage. I wonder if this latest massive surge of COVID cases will drastic effect on the 2022 statistics.

My sister and I are slowly re-watching "When The Camelia Blooms"

I like it much better now than when I first watched it (im slightly less cynical now, than i was three years ago)

Gong Hyo-jin is so pretty and its hard to believe she's almost 10 years older than her leading man here

Are the other sites not considering Pachinko a Korean/Japanese (Asian? Technically isn't it an American production?) drama? There are no signs of subs there. Idk if I need more money to afford all the subscriptions in the world or to have lesser streaming services for everyone's peace.

Unholy glee accurately describes my anticipation of the Great Meeting- chaebol grandfather and the chicken shop parents......I am a roiling, boiling pot of chuckles at the possibilities #abp

Male Test Cricket championship - oh ho ho

Female Cricket World CUP - ohhhhhhhh

And i have ordered a bit too much from amazon - I threw much expired food that i need to be taught a good lesson. Mother Earth will take care of that and i happily accept it.

World water day - who pays attention to it? More than half of world population don't even have proper drinking water and privileged class with their own 1st world problems - heh - rest assured - storm is building up - Mother Earth doesn't discriminate - Everyone gonna get their own fair share justice.

Hey--so have any of y'all tried searching one of your favorite shows from the last five or six years on the site and then reading the comments in the recaps or the pre-show casting news? I just tried it with Signal and it's pretty fun to see what everyone was thinking at the time lol :)

Finally I understand those mean kdrama moms.

I don't know the guy, but every time my best friend talks about her boyfriend I want to put 1m wons (is that a lot? Is that enough?) in an envelop, call him and tell him to leave my bestie alone.
I've never talked to him and my friend has told me only a few things about him and their relationship, but that man sounds awful. Like deserver of a kimchi slap kind of awful.

I really need to talk to my bestie about this because I need to know if that man is really that bad.

Tbh, sometimes I feel like even my bestie doesn't like him. Something is off.

I hope we can talk soon.

Beanies on the OT! I wasn’t really planning on writing anything here today, but then I realized HIGHLIGHT just released their new album this week. They did some live performances over the past 24 hours, and I’ve fallen into that rabbit hole and it must be shared with the rest of the interwebs! So my fan wall will be a steady stream of live performances today and tomorrow, probably. I already posted their entire album. LOL :). I’m asking for forgiveness now because all my other Highlight beanies have left DB for a while.

Also, I’m still enjoying 25-21, Business Proposal, and started Soundtrack #1 (yay for VPNs). And don’t forget PACHINKO starts today on AppleTV+ and Youtube. Sheesh, I’ll be watching 4 shows on 3 different platforms (and how are none of these on VIKI)? VIKI better step it up because I’m worried they’ll be left in the dust.

And middle school drama has taken over my house with my daughter’s best friend is interested and texting a boy so persistently, it’s interfering with her friendship with my daughter. Best friend was called out on it by all her friends and her brother (at a very public dinner with the family). Best friend’s mother is (I don’t want to say controlling, but she’s controlling—lol), so I’m just waiting with my popcorn for the fallout. Which, hopefully, will be better news for my daughter who feels slighted every day. I’m fine if this girl likes this boy and wants to get to know him, but do it on her time, and not when Science Olympiad state competition is a couple weeks away, and your project isn’t done and my daughter is doing all the work. (Thankfully, math genius and my daughter are still getting along splendidly on their preparation for their own Science Olympiad event. And her other best friend and her are doing well on their event for state too.)

Speaking of math genius…

The math problem (just a couple of 8th graders in the 10th grade math class):
Daughter: I slept in math class today.
Me: Why?
Daughter: The teacher was going over something I already knew how to do. I could do it in my sleep. LOL. I’m at the back of the class so just laid my head back on the ledge behind me and slept.
Me: What was math genius doing? (Since I’m pretty sure he knows how to do whatever they were explaining.)
Daughter: Oh, he was sleeping too. We’re both at the back of the class so no one sees us or cares. But he laid his head on his desk with his arms around it.
Me: Can’t the teacher see you?
Daughter: Probably, but I don’t think she cares what we do if we just make good grades on the test.
Me: You’re probably right. Did you have a good nap?
Daughter: Oh I did, I got to sleep in band too. I laid my head on the tympani. I guess I was just tired today! It’s a good thing I’m in the percussion section so I have something to sleep on!
Me: It’s a good thing none of your teachers cared!

Moral of the story: I never slept in class, so this is crazy to me. Don’t sleep in class...

Have mainland Chinese production companies EVER made a decent romantic comedy? I have now "watched" about 7 (watched,that is,with the fast forward button perpetually pressed.) All of them have featured a reputedly brilliant, stoic, badly acted male character being condescendingly charmed by a girlish, slightly ditzy badly acted female lead who talks to herself in self-doubting voiceovers. What's funny is I have a pretty good Chinese-American friend who immigrated from Beijing in the 1980s. Like me, he's a slightly bumbling, comic, self-doubting type (if we were women, you'd call us ditzy). This friend is married to a stoic, razor sharp Chinese-immigrant businesswoman who speaks to him very condescendingly--so an exact gender reversal!
Anyway,back to Chinese romantic comedies--my theory (hardly just mine) is that the only good popular culture from authoritarian regimes is the underground, subversive type But maybe there are some C-Drama counter examples?

Happy weekend Beanies and keep Beaning On!
Maybe it is age, maybe I am out of shape, but weekend trips seem to demand more recovery time now than they did before the pandemic!😅 I had cleared my Monday schedule to dial things back a few notches and catch up on my weekend shows, so that I could wake up on Tuesday feeling totally refreshed and ready to take on my chores...

My godson fell ill on Sunday night and of course we had to take care of him instead. The chores and episodes were still there on Tuesday, minus the promised amount of sleep and rest. As a night owl I am horrified to admit that I was asleep before midnight a couple times this week. I have no high hopes for a healthy sleeping pattern in the making, but pining for your bed is an interesting feeling.🤭

I haven't posted here in a longggg while.
Just had to comment that the OT screencap looks new~~
Hari & her archaeopteryx!! ^^

Hey so random question (and maybe the fan wall is a better place to ask this?) but does anyone know what the picture is in the banner at the bottom of the website? There's like five people with angsty expressions, one of whom is holding a gun... does anyone know what it is from?