- The sad news this week: singer Park Bo-ram who auditioned in Superstar K2 in 2010, died after found unconscious in sink in bathroom of one of her friend's house. She was 30.
- My interested article this week was Ma Dong-seok/ Don Lee and Ye Jung-hwa will be married next month.
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=372346

Korean variety crime shows are making a comeback, but they really cannot compete with real life.

Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter and “best friend” was charged this week for bank fraud for alleging stealing $16 million from Ohtani’s bank account to pay gambling debts. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in federal prison. The scheme is unbelievable: Ohtani’s American agent, financial advisors and accountants were all stone walled by the interpreter who asked for access to the account for tax and estate planning purposes by saying Ohtani wanted to keep the account “private.” But no one went directly to Ohtani with a different interpreter to get to the bottom of this account. The bank fraud, with the interpreter posing as the baseball star to bank employees to wire transfer funds, shows how trusting people can be with untrustworthy individuals.

But that is not the top fraud story of the week. CBS News reported a top Vietnamese property tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated $27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, the chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade.

"The defendant's actions... eroded people's trust in the leadership of the (Communist) Party and state," read the verdict at the trial in southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City. The scam now amounted to $27 billion — a figure equivalent to six percent of the Vietnam's 2023 GDP. The figure dwarfs even the amount that FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried who was recently convicted of swindling his customers out of an estimated $10 billion.

feel like a kindergarten teacher today one man in his forties drips snot and asks for a tissue the other lost his overalls
third man is scared of the scanner
im kinda sleepy dunno what to write

The Premiere of Lovely Runner this week reminded me of how good Kim Hye-yoon was in Sky Castle, unlikeable but sympathetic characters are difficult to play and she nailed it.

Also, this years Best Actress (TV) nominees are an absolutely solid bunch, i would have replaced Lim Ji-yeon with Han Hyo-joo though, she was fantastic in Moving.

Thank you to the DB Staff for this week's post picture of Chae Jong-Hyeop from Unlock My Boss, which I'm currently watching 😍

Happy weekend Beanies and keep Beaning On!

Allow me to elaborate a bit on the convention I went to last week, because something beautiful happened to me there. For those who did not read last Open Thread: I cosplayed as Mad Hatter, with two friends as Alice and Red Queen to keep it all Wonderland. I got the crazy idea a few months ago, joked about it to my friends, things escalated as they took me seriously and here we are! 🎩🐇❤️

Rather than copy a specific version, we decided to pick some colours and specific symbols for our characters as a starting point and go from there. The queen had lots of red hearts, a huge collar made of heart cards with layers of skirts in red, black and white. Alice wore a blue dress with dashes of white, flowers, flamingo’s, clocks, rabbits. Mad Hatter is far out of my comfort zone. His clothes are dapper and the colors tend to somewhat stand out. Despite knowing better, I was scared that I would be ignored, or worse, mocked.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Shortly after arriving, the convention staff photographer asks to take a picture of us three. Another professional photographer follows in his footsteps. An infamous Inuyasha cosplayer known for photographing cosplayers does too. Years ago he photographed another cosplay I did. Our picture is among many others on the official facebook page of the convention and we managed to track down the other professional photo as well. 📷🤳🏻👀

One vendor liked the picture and gushed about how kind the three of us were. I cannot remember her, but we clearly left a positive impact and impression, which makes my heart swell. It was probably just a polite greeting or some praise on her work, but it must have meant a lot to her. Moral of the story? Despite my many brushes with rejection in the past, people really do like and remember me better than I believe.🥰

P.S. I’d rather not share any pictures to protect our privacy, which is why I opted to describe the cosplays instead. However, I did take some pictures of my outfit and posted them on my fan wall for those interested.😁

In The Midnight Studio this week Han Bom was upset by Ki-joo's one word replies to her messages. Very relatable.

When I used to receive "hmm" and "k" in response to my long winded messages during our dating phase it used to drive me crazy. Not that he has learned to communicate any better now. It's just that now I have learned to distinguish the varied meanings of "hmm" in his messages.

What are your experiences Beanies.

Happy Friday, Beanies! This was a crazily hectic week and my head hurts a lot, so I needed something to cheer me up. Thankfully, I've got it – after a freaking month and a half LYN is back online streaming! The nature is healing and all that... For better or worse, such a long break meant he was far more into chatting than singing, so there's no good performances of new OSTs or anything like that. He kind of tried with a few, but just couldn't get into the mood, I guess. So boy gave up and kept talking... and talking... for 5 hours. What an unparalleled stamina wait, that sounded wrong somehow...

Aside of many fun stories – he was supposed to have a cameo in THE LEGEND OF SHEN LI, but that didn't happen (schedule conflict?) and now I'm devastated (gimme my xianxia demon Ning-ge, dammit!) - he also had the time of his life disciplining fans, which is always the funniest show ever. Like where else do you find an idol who would casually threaten to high kick you for overstepping boundaries? I'm just afraid some people would still find that quite tempting... He needs to think of other, scarier options. And hire more bodyguards, since his current ones doesn't seem to keep up with rapidly growing thirsty crowd paparazzi. More drama-related fun stories tomorrow in news segment because I'm lazy rn.

Now to the music – wasn't sure what theme to choose this time, but his silly goose antics gave me an idea – funny performances. Boy, does he have a lot of them, I might need to spend more weeks on this alone...

Speaking of xianxia – he may dislike the genre, but he's surely not averse to fantasy filters. Fox demon one looks quite good, ngl. Song doesn't sound happy though, and title - “Deep” - kinda confirms that. But you'd never guess from his mood, not to mention him blaming mic for messing up the pitch again – shameless, shameless huli jing!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgBBIfkWaYo

Another one from the same day – sugar high incidents happens often in that house, I see. What's with the lightsaber? And then flowers?! That's his own song – from his still the only one full album, called “Like you very much” or something along the lines. How dare he say that and “for real” while looking straight into camera! Man's flirt cells are all over the place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJAcSnoio2A

What an apt title lol. How that's not his song too? Absolutely no one suits the description better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHmeuYji-2Q

We've heard this before but such, ahem, performance deserves another glance. Kinda seems like there were liquids things stronger than sugar involved... Look at boys joining the madness, they rarely do so! Title is “The song of Liangzhou”. Btw, is that Emily The Corpse Bride on his shirt? *squints*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsiFMlj_otY

Dear Beanies, there are five spam / bot posts on the Fanwall today. I have replied to all of them by mentioning db-staff to enable them to delete the posts and take appropriate action against the accounts.

In case any of you come across such posts or comments in any thread. Kindly report them immediately by replying to the same with @db-staff or sending an email to db-staff dot com.

Thank you! Let's make (and keep) DB our safe space. ♥️😍

I purchased some Lotte choco-pies this week! Been at least 10 years since I last had one. They have branched out into 'premium' flavours since I last looked at them. I resisted the bannana and matcha ones, and very conservatively just got the cocoa flavour. (In a box of 12! so I will enjoy them for a while..) I see them occasionally in K-dramas, but mostly I think they don't need to advertise, because Marshmallow! Did anyone else have any fun snacks or excellent Korean food this week?

K-movie night last night. Another Hong Sang-soo film named 'In Our Day' (2023). His films are definitely an acquired taste but it's a taste that I have definitely acquired. I've seen 14 of his films. Who needs superfluous things like plot, anyway? This is the second of his films where Kim Min-hee gets to explain why she no longer does mainstream films. And this is his second film that focuses (at length) on a cat.

Jang Dong Yoon should have been nominated for his portrayal of Kim Baek Du in Like Flowers in Sand. His acting was extraordinary, authentic, and completely embodied without any scene chewing or flash--it's the type of acting that is so seamless and so natural that it is hard to overlook as it doesn't seem like acting. However, JDY's Baek Du was a truly memorable character. I would like to give him all the flowers for this role even if Baeksang board didn't nominate him because this type of acting should be acknowledged and encouraged.

Did anyone see the eclipse that happened on Monday?
(The only reason I remember it happened on Monday was because Lovely Runner premiered on Monday and it featured an eclipse which I commented on haha)

I didn't know about the eclipse until the morning of the event. From my location, I only saw a crescent, not the totality and I saw that much due to strangers sharing their glasses with me.

Even though I don't have much faith in humanity, there's minute moments when I have to admit there are some good ones out there.

Sidenote: while I didn't experience a total eclipse, I did experience the temperture drop. It made me think of when the dinosaurs went extinct. Random? And yet that's exactly what came to mind because I think I saw that after the asteroid it, it got cold and dark(er). I feel like this post had a plot twist haha

Maybe y'all thought it would a nice reflection on an event and then I ended with extinction. Sorry haha

I know logically korean actors must have bad experiences or not like projects they've been apart of but they would NEVER admit that but I couldn't help but wonder what projects would make which actors feel that way about it.

This came to mind when I saw Kristen Stewart say she hated her Charlie's Angels movie and also how there's that meme or knowledge about how nobody hates the Twilight movies like the cast hate the Twilight movies.

Happy Friday Beanies! It feels like Kdramaland is in a lull, hopefully only momentarily. Meanwhile, I am binging The Interest of Love which, somehow, I missed ( was it a Covid blur, or were there so many other dramas to watch that it slipped by me?) I’m on ep 8 and I’m liking it quite a bit. The bank setting with friends, lovers, rich VIP families, and working class families with misfortunes is done well. Yoon Yeon Suk too, he’s always hot and understated.
Another fun watch for the past few episodes is super model Hye Jin in Milan for fashion week as an honored guest of Dolce and Gabbana after formerly working as a model for them. (My Little Old Boy, one of the segments for 3 weeks).
Crossing my fingers for a sunny weekend!

Does anyone know when Hong Rang will be released on Netflix?
I don't get DIsney+ so I haven't seen Impossible Heir. I am having serious Lee Jae Wook withdrawal symptoms.

Back home from a hubby-lead birthday visit to New York City to see our son and his bride. The whole trip was saved by an email request from our hotel to upgrade us to a a river view. We were a bock away from the Pier 11 hub of all ferries. Not only could we walk to the hub, we could spend time watching East River boat traffic into the night. We celebrated hubby's 70th and enjoyed all things NYC: bagels, great Asian food plus Eataly.
Yes we felt the earthquake (seriously for two geologists just a little bit of shaking) and had a wonderful time sharing eclipse glasses with lots of people along the Hudson River.
Great to be home catching up on all the dramas I missed!

Community Watch Schedule: for Our Blooming Youth

I am putting it out here as a reminder; Post 6 is coming up tomorrow (please scroll for the schedule and host beanie's page)
 
Post 1 (Episodes 1-2): Midnight – 14-15 March
Episode 1 & 2
Post 2 (Episodes 3-4): Minnie – 21-22 March
Episode 3 & 4
Post 3 (Episodes 5-6): Claire – 28-29 March
Episodes 5 & 6
Post 4 (Episodes 7-8): Unaspirated – 04-05 April (Covered by @Sonai)
Episode 7 & 8
Post 5 (Episodes 9-10): Cera – 11-12 April
Episodes 9 & 10
Post 6 (Episodes 11-12): Claire – 18-19 April (@claire2009)
Post 7 (Episodes 13-14): Minnie – 25-26 April (@minniegupta1)
Post 8 (Episodes 15-16): Midnight – 02-03 May (@midnight)
Post 9 (Episodes 17-18): Unaspirated – 09-10 May (@jls943)
Post 10 (Episodes 19-20): Cera – 16-17 May (@seeker)
 
 
We are kicking some chairs with this! We beanies are loving it. Come join the fun :-) Please feel free to share your thoughts on the episodes we have already watched.