Show Length
48 Episodes
My Ratings
Theme Depth: ★★★★1/2
Uniqueness of Plot: ★★★★★
Acting: ★★★★★
Technical Elements: ★★★★★
Genres
Mystery & Suspense
War & Espionage
Action & Adventure
Comedy
Drama / Angst
Historical
Cast
William Chan (Fo Ye – Zhang Qi Shan)
Zhang YiXing – LAY (Er Yue Huang)
Ying HaoMing (Ba Ye – Qi Tiezui) ~ LOVE HIM SO MUCH! ❤
Zhang Mingen (Lieutenant Zhang) ~ Great actor!
Zanilia Zhao (Yin XinYue)
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*WARNING – THIS FILM (AND POSSIBLE THIS REVIEW) COULD BE TRIGGERING FOR ANYONE SUFFERING FROM ISSUES WITH SUICIDE. IF THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THE TOPIC WOULD CAUSE ISSUES FOR YOU, PLEASE MOVE ON AND CHECK OUT LESS-HORRIFIC DRAMAS. LIKE IT STARTED WITH A KISS!
Show Length
Movie (about 1.5 hours)
My Ratings
Theme Depth: ★★★★★
Uniqueness of Plot: ★★★★★
Acting: ★★
Technical Elements: ★★★
Genres
Mystery
Crime
Angst
Horror
Show Length
10 Episodes
My Ratings
Theme Depth: ★★★
Uniqueness of Plot: ★★★1/2
Acting: ★★★★
Technical Elements: ★★★★
Genres
Mystery
Crime
Action
Drama/Angst Continue reading
The Queen is NOT amused. In fact, I’m pretty down-right Pi**ed (pardon the language). After all the trouble I’ve had, I thought it pretty necessary to update all future China-Travelers to the dangers of buying/using Apple products here.
I don’t remember if I told you all this, but Lawrence the Laptop has had another revolt. He attempted going on strike via a broken LCD screen; I cut him off at the start via a nice HDMI connection to my television. Unfortunately, he laughed in my face and promptly refused to work without the HDMI connection. No need to get into it, it was a whole thing.
So last November, I bought an Ipad 2 during China’s version of Black Friday. I’ve had an I-Pod for several years, which lasted pretty well and I figured I’d give their tablet a try. YES, I checked and it is a legit Apple I-Pad; had it tested by the real Apple Company in Zhengzhou (it’s on the apple website as a legit seller).
WRONG! BAD! Stupid Olivia!
Price: 1800 RMB (approx. $300)
Review: The price was a little expensive for my tastes (almost all of Apple is), but I figured it was worth the bargain. Apple products in China tend to run a bit pricier than products in America. Go figure given that they are literally produced about 10 miles away in the city I live in. They have their own personal runway at the international airport they ship so many Apple products out of here. Yet we still get charge at least 50% again as much as American buyers. So, I had to wait until 11/11, China’s Black Friday shopping day to pick one up from Hong Kong.
Initial Purchase: Semi-Good; Semi-Problematic
Review: The first shipment I got was not too terrible. It came with the charger, a cover, a screen protector, and ear plugs, pretty sweet all together. The I-Pad itself was unmarked and undamaged, it seemed like everything would be okay.
It worked for about 2 hours, and then problems started. The swiping part of the screen wasn’t working. It would stall up, like the screen was locked. You could go up about half an inch and down about half an inch, but otherwise nothing was happening. Buttons wouldn’t click, etc. So we tried turning it on and off again (the answer to most issues), which revealed that the lock screen was not working either. Once again, I couldn’t swipe from the screen saver to the unlock screen. When I did finally get to the lock buttons, it froze and wouldn’t click them. Tried a hard reset and several other options, nothing worked.
So we called the seller and sent it back. They kept it for about two weeks and finally sent me a new version. This one seemed fine, so life moved on.
Use: Final Product
The final I-Pad I got worked fine soft-ware wise. Sometimes it would randomly shut down songs or the internet would stop working, and none of the VPNs like it at all. Otherwise, it was great and I was happy.
Hard-ware wise, the screen cracks like crazy. Literally, press to hard on the screen when punching a button and the whole screen cracked. I put on a super duper safety case on it intended for toddlers, took it off and the whole edges were broken. I asked the computer fix-it people and they said it sounds like I was sent a re-furbished model that had a cheap screen put on it. The screen supposedly should not have cracked like that, but they verified the computer was really apple so they think the screen was just replaced with a cheapo version.
I was not happy, especially knowing it takes 300 RMB to fix the screen. Furthermore, they admitted that if the top screen breaks the second lower screen there may be no fixing it at all?!? 0_0 Don’t you think that’s something they should have told me about before I bought the I-Pad? I did a ton of research into I-Pads, I asked questions, and this never came up.
ERROR: Blue Screen of Death
Anyways, along I go using my ipad for about 5 months, when suddenly the screen goes blue and the whole thing just shuts off. Black. Off, no charging, no connecting to the computer, no nothing. Reset doesn’t work. Plugging it in to the computer doesn’t work. It is dead as a doornail for no apparent good reason. No warning, that would be too nice. Just stops in the middle of a show. Takes with it my calendar, contacts, messages, photos, videos, notes, everything. So off I go to the computer store to have it fixed.
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““—Isn’t this how it starts? You have a cause you believe in, a cause worth dying for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing innocent people for.” Continue reading
Show Length
20 Episodes
My Ratings
Theme Depth: ★★★★★
Uniqueness of Plot: ★★★
Acting: ★★★★★
Technical Elements: ★★★
Genres
Mystery
Crime
Action
Drama Continue reading
Show Length
21 Episodes
My Ratings
Theme Depth: ★★★★★
Uniqueness of Plot: ★★★★
Acting: ★★★★★★
Technical Elements: ★★★
Genres
Mystery
Crime
Action
Drama Continue reading
Of course, I just loved the chemistry between the two male stars – they bounced off of one another spectacularly. The straight man kept throwing off oddly perfect comedic moves, and the funny man would have strokes of gentle sincerity that worked perfectly. It helped that I loved the entire rest of the cast as well. They characters, their personalities, the collection – it all just worked for me. I usually have at least one character that I’m less fond of, but here I really loved them all.
I also appreciate (as I’ve said many times before) the fact that the romance wasn’t the ENTIRE story here. It was a side story that flowed perfectly into the rest of the film and only added to the comedy and action instead of detracting from it. It wasn’t something that sprung upon our heroes at first sight either, there was at least a little foundation for the romance making the story require less of a “leave your brain at the door” feel . . .
2014
Air China (China Air)–International and Domestic (2 flights ~ IAD to PEK and PEK to CGO).
My university paid for and arranged the flight tickets, so I have no idea how that process went down. We just got the e-ticket confirmation and got ready to go.
The best part of Air China though came on the transfer from United to Air China in Washington, DC. You can read all about the horror story with United here, but long story short I accidentally checked the carry-on bag that had my passport in it at the request of United. Upon realizing the issue, I spent 2.5 hours being given the run-around by United as to where my suitcases were and how to access my passport. Finally, I abandoned the idea of getting any help from them and went to the Air China desk. I was instantly directed to the manager (it took about 4 minutes from reaching the busy counter for them to get me through to someone who could help ~ great timing), to whom I explained the issue and asked if they could tell me when they received the suitcases from United so I could find my passport in them. The manager informed me that the plane would be leaving shortly, but that if I went ahead and checked in and went through security, she would personally bring the bags to my gate (since the bags had been through security I couldn’t touch them, but she would let me point to the pocket where it was).
I hurried on ahead and made it to the gates with no time to spare. They were actually holding the plane for us to run ahead, they had my passport in hand already when I got there, suitcases were on the plane, and I was escorted through all in about 10 minutes. The entire interactions with them (outside of security) only took about 25 minutes, so much more satisfying than the 2.5 hours with United where I hadn’t gotten anywhere. The flight attendants / employees were amazingly gracious about the whole situation, and everything was far less stressful than my experience with United had been.
Carry-On ~ 21″ x 15″ x “7 at less than 11 lbs.
Checked ~ 62″ linear (70 lbs for First/Business; 50 lbs for Economy)
On international flights, First/Business Class customers get 2 free carry on bags, and Economy gets 1. We were each carrying on us a carry-on bag, a full backpack, and random odds and ends (I was lugging a pillow in a suction bag, a book, my drink, etc.). Luckily, we did end up checking our carry-on bags clear through for free due to United’s original lack of space in their compartments. United wasn’t actually going to pay for that later (DC United didn’t want to pay for what Denver’s United had promised to cover), but after we spoke with Air China, they called up a manager who worked it out and got the carry-ons checked clear through—another area where Air China pulled through when United failed.
On international flights, First/Business Class customers get 2 free checked bags that can weigh as much as 70lbs each; Economy customers get 2 free check bags weighing 50lbs or less each.
Boarding was a little touch-and-go, perhaps through no fault of their own. I already described the whole thing about boarding in DC, the rest of which went pretty well. The poor flight attendant guy didn’t realize that I was packing a couple layers of clothes (trying to save on weight 😛 ) and attempted to give me one of the seat belt extenders. He really was very discreet about it all, and was attempting to be kind. When I showed that I didn’t need it though, it got him flustered, and our trip went a little downhill from there. It probably didn’t help that he later accidentally walked into the bathroom on me when the lock didn’t quite click correctly or that the bad turbulence made him and me crash and spill my drink on me. Honestly, I don’t think he could have handled it any more pleasantly than he tried to do and none of it was his fault. It really just wasn’t our flight 🙂
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2014
United Airlines (United)–Domestic (1 flight) from DEN to IAD.
My university paid for and arranged the flight tickets, so I have no idea how that process went down. We just got the e-ticket confirmation and got ready to go. I will say that when I got to the airport, I had’t had time to check my baggage weight. Since I was there all night, the attendants at the Check-In counter allowed me to weigh my bags on their scales while no one was in line. They also looked up our flight information during off hours because we were concerned about when we had to check our luggage.
First/Business Class: 70lbs and 62 linear inches per bag
Economy: 50lbs and 62 linear inches per bag
You can find all the rules here, but generally you get a personal item (I always make it a backpack because it counts as a purse but is bigger), a carry-on, and 0-1 checked bags. United pretty much screwed us on this one though.
There were three problems with how they handled everything. First of all, everyone was charged $100 per bag for all second bags. However, their website states that the same flight should charge $25 for the first bag and $35 for the second. It should only cost $100 for “oversized bags.” We did not have oversized bags (remember, I weighed them on their scales). This means they cheated each person out of $40. NOT OKAY.
Second, The deal is usually that if you are flying internationally (and we were), all airlines honor the baggage requirements/allowance of the airline with the longest flight (if tickets are all bought together–not separately). For contracted airlines, this is often a rule. For unconnected airlines, it is typically a courtesy. We were flying Air China, which allows 2 checked suitcases for our international flight. United refused to abide by the traditional courtesy even after we explained that we were all moving to China and needed the expected courtesy extended. They were very uncooperative.
Third, United attendants in Denver agreed that United would pay for our carry on suitcases clear through to our final destination. However, when we reached the transfer point in DC, they suddenly didn’t want to stand by that promise and we were looking at additional charges from Air China because United had backed out. It was only after we spoke with Air China, that the Air China attendants called up a manager who worked it out and got the carry-ons checked clear through—another area where Air China pulled through when United failed. Read on for the rest of that debacle.
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
Language Translation
Deceptively Blonde 