I honestly didn’t expect that by 2025 I’d actually learn how to cook. It still feels a little surprising to say out loud, but somehow I really did pick it up.

Maybe I really do have some talent for cooking

One night last week, I tried making cola chicken wings at home. They didn’t look especially impressive, but they tasted genuinely good. The color was a bit off because I didn’t have dark soy sauce. The seasoning pack I bought only came with light soy sauce, so the final dish was missing that deeper color it should have had.

Then last Friday I invited one of my close friends over to my place to try my cooking. I made shrimp, cauliflower, and tomato scrambled eggs. The shrimp and cauliflower were both first attempts for me.

The cauliflower actually turned out pretty well and tasted good. The shrimp, though, is harder to praise. I think maybe I messed up the ingredients I paired with it. The flavor itself was okay, but the color came out too dark. I had added dark soy sauce, and when I stir-fried it the heat was too high, so it basically darkened too much. Luckily the taste was still decent. In the end, we finished all three dishes.

As for tomato scrambled eggs, that one is easy for me now. I can make it without any pressure at all.

Sharing some cherries

A couple of days ago there was that 298 yuan cherry deal, and I didn’t manage to grab it. I had originally wanted to buy some for my girlfriend, but after missing it, I didn’t rush to find another deal because cherries have still been fairly expensive lately. Even so, compared with last year, the market still feels a little different.

Today she said she wanted some, so I checked around and found a price that seemed acceptable: about 100 yuan for 5 jin of 2J cherries. That felt reasonable enough, so I ordered two boxes.

One box is being sent directly to my workplace. My coworkers are always sharing food with me, and I’ve honestly felt a little bad just accepting it all the time, so I figured I should buy a box and share it with everyone.

The last time I took the initiative to treat everyone was on my birthday, when I bought 10 drinks and spent about 160 yuan. My coworkers were almost embarrassed to accept them, but I told them it was fine since they’re always sharing snacks and food with me too.

A drama that was actually worth recommending

Lately I’ve really been enjoying what I’m watching.

Punishment 2 has been especially satisfying. I’ve had this blog for a long time, and I almost never talk about TV dramas, so that alone says something. This one really is well made, and to me it’s much better than the first season. I’ve already recommended it to a lot of people.

Two comments from viewers stuck with me:

Without someone like Mayor Hong, there would never be someone like Liu Tianye. Where is fairness, really?

If you were Liu Tianye, would you choose twenty glorious years or a lifetime of mediocrity?

Those two comments really make the whole character feel more complicated. If you were in Liu Tianye’s position, it almost seems like this kind of choice is the only possible way to change your fate. But once you go down that road, it also feels like there’s no way back—you just keep making one wrong choice after another. Otherwise, maybe the only alternative is to keep surviving at the very bottom for your whole life.

Keeping the updates going

This year, the main goal is simple: keep updating.

After all, server costs for four years plus the domain renewal add up to a decent amount of money. Since I’ve already paid to keep everything running, I might as well keep using it to record life properly.

The general direction will still be the same: life and tech.

But there will probably be more about life and less about tech, because that was the reason for starting this blog in the first place—to keep a record of everyday life.