Minh Nguyễn
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minhnguyenofficial.bsky.social
Minh Nguyễn
@minhnguyenofficial.bsky.social
27 followers 14 following 340 posts
Dutch, likes the Oxford comma, ikigai is helping people, and writes HTML in Notepad.
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One of my favourite products from France is the rice from the Camargue region, which France took from Indochine and then cultivated in this southern region.

I used to buy them from the brand Taureau Ailé, but lately cannot find it in the French supermarkets anymore. And now I know why: cheapflation
Riz de Camargue : ce que cache Taureau Ailé | 60 Millions de Consommateurs
Ne vous laissez pas piéger ! En rayon, Taureau Ailé joue sur la confusion et fait grimper les prix avec un riz d’origine… italienne.
www.60millions-mag.com
This week I watched "Left-Handed Girl", the solo-directional debut of Shih-Ching Tsou, who is Sean Baker's usual collaborator in writing and producing. I like how in my Letterboxd stats of 2025 I now have her and Sean Baker side-by-side under my most-watched directors.
Was visiting Beaune in France the other day and tried to introduce "Beaune jour!" to the locals, but it didn't really catch on.

Pity though. I was planning to sing "Beaune in the USA" next.
The difference in upbringing becomes apparent when me and my girlfriend see a wasp floating on seawater and struggling to lift off.

Her: "Let's drown him to end his suffering!"
Me: "He can use my swimming goggles as a platform so he can lift off once his wings are more dry."
We had been spending a week at the Southern French town Agay. The name reminded me of a recurring sketch from Little Britain, in which Matt Lucas played the "only gay in town".

I spent the week looking for the one gay of Agay, but was unsuccessful.
Made up a new code word for when we need to be discreet talking about my girlfriend's period:

Piri-piri
What I never understood about this song is why they so enthusiastically exclaim "Oh yeah!!" after posing the question "Would I lie to you?"

It sounds like a confession and confirmation.
Charles & Eddie - Would I Lie To You
YouTube video by CharlesEddieVEVO
www.youtube.com
Visiting Dijon. Lovely charming beautiful city.

The only surprisingly disappointing thing is that our hotel restaurant doesn't have any mustard!
Today I've learned about a website performance metric called Time to First Byte (TTFB). I started to introduce it to communicate the ETA of when a meal is supposed to start.
This morning it was announced halfway my train ride that the train will discontinue its journey due to an accident. So I lost time on catching a train back home to pick up the car.

In these moments I wish I was Batman, so I could just call the Batmobile to come to my location.
More information about the feature:
dwresults.com/loop-it-or-l...

Discussion about removing it that goes nowhere:
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answer...

Naming your product Loop is quite problematic, because when I search for "Teams remove Loop" it results in posts about Teams stuck in a reboot loop.
Just wanna rant here about MS Teams, because Microsoft's support/feedback system blocks constructive resolution.

This month they have rolled out a new "feature", which add loops to every Teams channel. These are impossible to remove.

STOP ADDING NEW FORCED FEATURES AND STOP PUSHING CO-PILOT, MS!!
Finally I watched "Nemurubaka". Well, watched is a big word as I left after 40 minutes. It's from the same director who made "Baby Assassins", which I really disliked. The premise of his latest film made me decide to give him another chance, but then concluded that his films are really not for me.
Another one I liked was "Kagi", which I saw as part of a retrospective of classic director Ichikawa Kon. It's from the '50s, so there is a lot of unintentional humour in there. But beneath it all is an intriguing story, supported by just as intriguing characters and Kon's good filmmaking skills.
Then I saw "Good Luck", which is a film by and for lovers of film. An indie director is invited to a film festival in Beppu and meets an actress there. Half of the film is jokes about tourism and the other half is a bit of "Before Sunrise". Even though I hate the latter, I liked this.
The poster of my next film "Aimitagai" gave me a bad feeling. Fortunately, it was not too bad. And while there were many clichés, the film did film its own voice eventually and I liked how it nicely came to an end.
Next I saw the doc "Ainu Puri". As the title suggests, it is about the Ainu, the indigenous people of the Hokkaido island in northern Japan.

It's a very strong contender in the recent films and documentaries about oppressed indigenous communities, like the Sami, Kurds, Zapotecos, Palestinians, etc.
I spent 14 hours at the Camera Japan festival today! 😱

My first film was "Kaiju-yarou!", about a man who had lost his childhood dream of being a kaiju film director a long time ago. But then at his tourist board job he gets the chance to make a PR film for his town.

Goes a bit over the top but 💖
I suppose that is a sign of rising authoritarianism.

I once compared the current headlines from our countries with two friends: Mine (Netherlands) was about a scandal in which a CEO earned 20x more than his employees, Greek was about fatal car crashes, and a Slovak one was about quality of honey.
Finally I saw "Boku ga Ikiteru Futatsu no Sekai" about a CODA, but unlike that Hollywood film from a few years ago the main role here went to an actual CODA. Heartwarming story, which was well directed, though sometimes does border on the preachy side... just for a bit.
Next up was "Sato-san to Sato-san", which is my favourite of the festival so far and also made it to my top2025 list. It's talks about relationships but in a way that it is "Marriage Story" without the Hollywood bullshit. The writing and themes are closer to reality and characters endearing.
Then I saw "Shini Sokonatta Otoko" about a man who meets a ghost, who asks to help him so he can finally rest. It had its moments, but also failed to impress me.
Afterwards I saw "Maru" by Ogigami Naoko. She is one of my favourite Japanese directors, but unfortunately this was a bit disappointing. It still provised good commentary on the art industry though.
At the Camera Japan festival today I saw the heist film "Angry Squad". It's from the director of the cult hit "One Cut of the Dead" and brings a similar kind of inguinity to the genre. It also has more heart than others of its ilk.