If I Were To Say "Missing"

You Might Reflect Upon Our Recent Coverage Of Thomas Dolby

And the opening to "One Of Our Submarines", which begins with 

"Missing  Missing  Missing

Missing  Missing  Missing

Missing  Missing  Missing"

     Before the song proper starts with "One of our submarines is -"  Art!

     That would be far too easy and straightforward for the blog, wouldn't it?  And indeed it is, because this Intro is nothing to do with either Tom or British submarines of the Second Unpleasantness.

     Then again, if you were cinematically literate or as old as the hills, you might wonder if we're not talking about the film "Missing", the 1982 iteration, which deals with a missing South Canadian citizen in the Chilean coup of 1973.  Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon star, the latter absolutely nailing it in a straight dramatic role, which you might expect after seeing "The China Syndrome".  Art!

     But no! that's not what we're whanging on about, either.

     I did cheat a bit with that title, it should really be "Missing: The Other Side", which I've mentioned in passing a few times lately, it being another K-drama of the fantasy genre, with a fair dash of comedy thrown in, as well as more than as a soupçon of schmaltz.  

"Missing: The Other Side": Again with the Korean ghosts.  This one follows a protagonist who stumbles across a village in the hills that nobody else, apart from a grumpy old man, can see.  It is populated by the spirits of those whose body has never been found, and until their remains turn up in the real world, they stay there.  Our hero can see the village because, unknown to him, his mother is one of the spirits.  A second season is due, hurrah!  Art?

     That's what I wrote waaaaay back in November of 2022, and until recently I'd not bothered or remembered to go back and check Netflix for it, the result of old age and gin.

     Well, I am now into Episode 5 of Season 2, which is rather a commitment, because each episode is just over an hour long, and there are 14 of them.

     The plot recycles that of the first season, except in a different location.  Kim Mook, the wide-boy with a heart of gold (played by Go See) suddenly realises he can see the spirits of the 'missing' again after a two year hiatus.  Art!

     He's not best please by this recurrence, as it was quite traumatic in the first season, since - that heart of gold in play again - he felt obliged to find the missing and have them move on, in supernatural terms.  He and his partner in crime (literally) Mr. Panseok Jang (played by Huh Joon-Ho) go to see if they can see Duon village, the previous location where the spirits resided.  No go.  Art!

     They make a great comedy pairing as they are diametrically opposed in everything.  Backing them up are their third partner in crim, Lee Jong-Ah (played by the delicious Ahn So-Hee), who is far more grounded and technically competent than either of the others.  Art!

     Thanks to this being Season Two, none of the above have to take great pains or time to explain to Detective Shin Joon-Ho about how the spirits of the missing are appearing to them again, he's already on board with this.  Cuts out reams of un-necessary exposition.  Art!

Played by Shin Dot

     The setting for this new village of the half-way souls is not in the countryside but an abandoned industrial complex, which automatically makes Conrad wonder what's going to happen if it gets torn down and redeveloped? but that's probably just the property-valuer in me.  ANYWAY the trio have already solved a very old murder, and a very recent one, which must help Shin's prospects of promotion.  Art!

     That is 'Captain Kang', whom is the glue holding the spirit community together, and it's because she used to command a fishing vessel if you must know.  The hub of this community is the supermarket she runs, and regularly provides food for all in a very mumsy way.  Conrad very interested in the dishes she serves up.

     There is also a complication in that a woman who has recently gone missing, leaving her 14-year old daughter behind, might have been an old flame of Wook's, meaning he might be a father.  Mighty me!

     This recipe of police procedural, the supernatural, bickering banter, spiritual salvation and Korean cooking seems to hit home in the peninsula, but Conrad rather hopes they stop at Season 2, and that Hollywood keeps it's hot sweaty dollar-obsessed paws off it.  Art!

I'll have you know Wook won a 'Brave Citizen Award'

     I was going to bang on about Hangul and 1905 but then that's the whole Word Count for the day hit and exceeded.  Maybe tomorrow.

The Mathematics Of Mild Madness

I shouldn't complain, as this always generates content for the blog, but ONCE AGAIN the tracking algorithm on Blogger has been at the cooking sherry first thing in the morning.  The figures are ridiculously high.  Art!

     Yesterday's figures, for your information, are about x10 what they might be on the very best of days.

     Last year it was Singapore that skewed all the figures, despite it not being present on the Blogger World Traffic Map.  Art!

     Same again for 2025.

     See?  Entirely absent of Singapore, which ought to show up in bright green, thanks to having so many eager visitors.  In fact it ought to be visible from orbit, so green would it be.

     Also, props to the Russians - we will grace them with their correct appellation for once - who dare to read BOOJUM! and defy the reign of Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks.

Have The Rains Ceased?

Conrad is asking because I am now confident of being able to walk into Lesser Sodom without the hole in my toe leaking go-juice into the dressing.  Yesteryon, when I was definitely not walking down to Royton - we will grace them with their correct appellation for once - the weather was bright and breezy, no rain to be seen.  Today?  Today is miserably overcast and wet, not to mention windy, so all that rain is travelling horizontally.  Let's see if it stops in the next 20 minutes.  Art!

     There you go, the AI Art Generator apparently does not know what 'horizontal' means, so I tweaked it a tad.

Our Journey With Bernie

Continues, if a little interrupted, as I couldn't find the picture to go with FPG trading card #79, which has such a ridiculously long title I'm not going to bother with it.  Instead, say hello to #80 "Taking No Chances".  Art!

     No blather about what medium was used or how the charcoal and lobster-bisque coloured acrylics needed to be thinned out with oil of eucalyptus for the vellum to take the pigments properly.  This, Bernie, is the way.  Not sure if silver bullets might have been a useful fallback.  Art!

     This might need the victim's co-operation, to be fair.

Remember Her?

Conrad has decided this is the pronoun of choice when referring to the asteroid 2024 YR4, because he can, and it's more immediate than 'This' or 'It', and besides it personalises an impersonal lump of granite.  Art!

Thar she goes

     If you recall, various non-pundits, ignoramii and doomsayers were all afuffle, thanks to it have as much as a 3% chance of impacting Earth in 2032.

     We've seen this syndrome before.  A Near Earth Object turns up, a rough orbit is calculated and the Cassandras all throw their hands up in the air and begin wailing.  Over time, more accurate data is calculated and the chance of an impact vanishes, whereupon the whiners all slink back to their lairs and hope people forgot about it, until the next time.

     As with this one.

     The new data now suggests a 0.28% chance of impact, or less than a tenth of the original calculation, and in fact NASA are having a sweepstake as to whether it hits the Moon.  Only 1% probability so far, and it may get smaller. 

     Watch this space*!

Finally -

Better get the haz-mat suit and oxygen supply ready, those rains don't appear to have stopped or even be slacking.

*  Do you see wh - O you do.