Filmic Friday 3

Movie: Fist of the North Star

Format: ? I didn’t notice.

Happy Belated Birthday to a friend of mine. It was his night to pick our pain and he chose Fist of the North Star.

Not the anime.

Not the manga.

The live action movie with Malcom McDowell.

What a ride! I can’t tell you what happened in the movie because it somehow made less sense than Crackerjack 2: Hostage Train, but I will say that the special effects get an A- from me because they were awesome. The acting, however, gets about a B because it’s ridiculous and so is the writing.

Fist of the North Star was a manga for a long time. I heard something about ten years? I don’t actually know. All I can say is this: whoever wrote the script for this movie must have been ordered to cram the whole thing into one movie that zipped by at the speed of two pizzas and a cake. That’s not very long in a room full of hungry people.

That being said, it was a great time to be had by all – watching heads explode, great prosthetic work on a broken jaw, and a spine being forced nearly all the way through a chest. I still don’t really know what was happening because it’s a fustercluck of a film, but it was really fun. At one point, the main character (a white guy they’re trying to pass off as Kenshiro…) pokes a kid in the head and cures her blindness. Also, that kid’s brother is Rufio from Hook, so that’s awesome.

There’s music that seems to be grabbed from other movies (I think it sounded more like music pulled from other movies’ trailers…), some pretty ok camera work as long as no one’s fighting, good lighting, interesting ideas (post-apocalypse complete with acid rain!), and it’s not long enough to be boring no matter what happens.

The most tension we get is when the love interest (who none of us first-timers realized was a love interest until 2/3 the way through, is the only Asian actress in a movie based on a manga, and is named Juliet, if my ears can be believed) was dragged into the obligatory room full of gears and fire by the annoying guy with belts on his face. Even then, we knew so little about the woman that it was hard to have any real attachment.

I should probably mention why our birthday friend chose this movie.

Leon “Vader” White is in it.

For those of you not in the know, last week (the week we watched this movie), we also learned that Vader, a popular wrestler from the 1980s & 1990s, passed away. He was an amazing big man, capable not only of amazing power moves and feats of strength, but also shockingly graceful for a man who was 6’5” and nearly 400lbs. We were heartbroken, since the man was amazing. If you didn’t watch his wrestling, he was in an episode of Saved by the Bell [Boy Meets World] as the bully’s dad, an episode of Bay Watch (I think), and in this movie, Fist of the North Star.

I don’t quite know what to say about Vader, to be honest. He was amazing. He was one of the toughest guys to lace up boots. And shockingly forgiving – if someone broke my orbital bone with a cowbell, forcing me to shove my own eyeball back in its socket the way that Stan Hanson did to him in 1990 at the Tokyo Dome, I probably would have killed him. Instead, Vader popped his eye back in and finished the match. And apparently he forgave Stan, even though he lost most of the vision in that eye and had to have his nose entirely reconstructed. He made jokes about the whole thing at the Hall of Fame ceremony in 2016, when he inducted Stan himself.

I hope Stan inducts him this year.

RIP, Leon “Vader” White.

No pain, brother. No pain.

RIP Leon "Vader" White 5/14/1955 - 6/18/2018

Thursday Art Walk 3

I love my cat, guys.

Really, I do.

But she's a real pest when I'm trying to photograph things, especially since I'm not a trained photographer (photography classes happened during band/chorus in high school, and I didn't want to muck about with digital photography in college when I could be learning about writing...).

"Helping"

This is the first piece of artwork I've made that's ended up framed in my house. I'm proud of it. It's how I see the world without my glasses, tbh...

Wet on wet watercolors, Arches paper.

"Mountain Sunrise 1"

It's the best shot of a bad lot, among the cat and bad lighting and not knowing how to avoid glare.

That's all for this Thursday, guys.

Go Enjoy CREATE Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 3.2 (TW - death, suicide, murder)

This is late, I know.

Also, this isn't going to be a common occurrence here, but I feel the need to place a trigger warning of sorts up here. The world is harsh, and sometimes, it can be a lot to handle. This week, I'm covering death in wrestling. Well... not exactly covering. Just giving a rundown. And it's bleak. If talking about suicide, murder, and other kinds of traumatic deaths will cause you distress, then please, don't force yourself to read this. I'll be back to complaining about my lack of artistic talent later on Thursday.

I just felt the need to get this out.

This is one of the hardest things I’ve written and looked at in a while. As many who watch wrestling are aware, there’s a lot of death we, as fans, have to deal with. It seems like anyone can go at any moment – that’s just the nature of a “sport” where the performers have to meet certain physical, mental, and emotional requirements every day in order to make a living. This week, we lost Leon “Vader” White. I’ll talk more about him specifically on Friday, but for now, I will say only this: he passed early, at 63 years old.

Professional Wrestling has something of a reputation for deaths – the wikipedia article on premature wrestler deaths is 346 entries long. I’ve done the dirty business of digging through it for everyone else, and I’ve compiled the top 10 causes of premature deaths in wrestling. I also looked up the article on premature American football deaths as a point of comparison, since both are very physically demanding activities with a reputation for injury and mayhem.

Professional Wrestling: (out of 346 deaths)

#10 Diabetes (1.16%)

#9 Heart Disease (1.73%) and Pneumonia (1.73%)

#8 Complications (3.18%)

            surgery taking up over 70% of these “complications”

     Murder (3.18%)

#7 Injuries, in-ring (4.05%)

           in-ring heart attacks accounted for over 35% of in-ring fatal injuries

#6 Overdose, non-suicide (4.91%)

             some of these were accidents, bad prescriptions, or partying too hard.

#5 Organ Failure (5.49%)

            heart failure accounting for over 42% of organ failures

#4 Suicide (7.52%)

               while 50% are not specified for method, the method most mentioned in the article was via gunshot at just under 27% of suicides recorded.

#3 Accidents (8.38%)

             Car accidents account for almost 69% of all fatal accidents in wrestling

#2 Cancer (11.56%)

          The most common cancer people in professional wrestling seem to face is leukemia (15% of cancer deaths), followed by liver cancer (12%). The liver cancer can likely be linked to the hard partying that is rumored to go on backstage and on the road. Also, it seems that many professional wrestlers develop alcohol dependencies to deal with the loneliness of life on the road and to dull the pain of accumulated injuries.

The #1 cause of death among professional wrestlers is Heart Attack.

When you have a business full of big men, you’re going to have a lot of heart attacks. It doesn’t matter if it’s muscle or fat, if your neck and biceps are growing wider, your risk of heart attack dramatically increases. Add to the bulk the fact that many wrestlers are stuck in cars or on planes for far longer than most people, and you have a perfect recipe for heart attacks. That’s not even counting how many have been smoking most of their lives.

Here’s what I got from the football pages (472 deaths):

#10 Organ Failure (0.85%)– all heart failure, from what I saw.

#9 A 4-way tie among Cardiac Arrest, Medical Complications (especially surgical), Falls, and non-suicide Overdoses at 1.48% each.

#8 Drowning (2.12%)

#7 Heat Stroke (2.33%)

#6 Cancer (2.97%); more cases of leukemia as than other one form of cancer (21% vs the average of 14% per cancer category).

#5 Heart Attack (3.39%)

#4 Suicide (3.6%); the only specified methods were hanging and gunshot, which were equal at about 17% of the suicides each.

#3 In-Game Injuries (8.05%), especially head or neck injuries.

#2 Murder (9.75%)

#1 Accidents (41.73%). Most football players seem to perish in terrible accidents – car and airplane crashes can take out whole teams at a time.

I don’t think there’s anything to be proven from this, only a realization that all sports, all activities are dangerous.

Are there behaviors that can be corrected in professional wrestling? Yes, absolutely. That’s one of the reasons things like “wellness policies” and team buses and the “Young Boy” system exist – to make life on the road easier for wrestlers so they don’t wreck their cars, get into fights, or overdose alone in a hotel room. There’s still room for work, though.

I just felt the need to understand what’s going on in wrestling.

I was lucky enough to miss the early 2000s, when people’s heroes were dying left and right, it seemed. I haven’t discussed any particular deaths here, since it’s all a bit much for me right now. Hopefully by next week, I’ll be ready to talk about more good things about wrestling. Because there are good things.

So many good things.

There’s the All-In Show, there’s NXT Takeovers to talk about, there’s looking back at great wrestlers who are gone but can never be forgotten (especially when really good new guys in NXT are absolutely basing their current gimmick off of them…), there’s New Japan, Ring of Honor, Kaiju Big Battel!

The world of wrestling is not as bleak as it seems in the sudden absence of Big Van Vader and Bruno Sammartino, two enormous names in the business who made this strange ballet of violence what it is today.

And there will be more who rise to the challenge of changing the business for the better.

There are people like Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, and Aleister Black, after all.

In spite of the world, my friends

Go out and enjoy something.

FC

Wednesdaymania 3.1

There will be an update this week - it just might be later tonight, since I'm working on it, and it's a doozy.

It's also really depressing, so if you're not mentally prepared to deal with the topic of death in wrestling, including murder & suicide, do not read it.

I'm sorry ahead of time if it's a bit too heavy.

Go Enjoy Something
FC

Talk About Tuesday 3

You know, you never realize how important gender diversity is in writing until you have to find creative ways to differentiate among three different male characters without giving any of them names. Seriously. I have a receptionist (it's a men's gym in the 80s - I don't know that they'd have a female receptionist), a medic (again, men's gym), and a young man who will one day become a masked pro-wrestler called Yokai Gonzo. I wish I could make one of these guys into a lady, but it just won't work with the time, place, and story.

My real problem right now is trying to figure out a way to move the story forward without getting stuck in the scene. My notes for this part of the story look a lot like this:

- baby yokai wanders into gym all beat up and thirsty, tries to get drink
- receptionist is freaked out by all the bruises
- medic doesn't buy lies that bullies did the damage
- technically, they were bullies, just the grown up kind
- somehow this ends up with baby yokai living in the gym & getting his first mask
- maybe the owner decides to hide him?
- i don't know what i'm doing.

Brilliant notes, I know :P

In spite of the challenges, I *will* finish this story. I promise.

Go Enjoy Something
or maybe make something?

FC

Fiber Monday 3

Oh man. I blew it this week - I've been working on so much other stuff (and getting distracted) that I neglected to do more than a row on the scarf. I have, however, started on a massive and time-consuming fiber-based project: Pandora's Skein.

See, a few years back, I was handed a few sacks (read: enormous garbage bags) full of yarn. One of these sacks had another bag in it, the kind they use for pillows or polyfill. In this bag, there was, supposedly, a POUND of blue yarn (at least, I think it was just a pound. Having held up the contents for extended periods of time, I think they were underselling). This yarn is a nice blue color - like a light cobalt, almost - and I'd love to use it in a project or three.

Unfortunately, it's in the worst, most tangled mess of a skein I have ever laid eyes on. I literally can't unravel it without pulling the only free end I could find through the body of the skein over and over. I'm sure there's an easier way than what I'm doing. I probably either can't afford it or don't have room to do it or am just dumb.

Regardless - here is the monster skein in all its shaggy, nonsensical glory, with a size 8.5 boot in front of it for scale.

Yes, that's a clothes hanger behind it.

It's hard to tell, but that's all I've managed to pull from it. It's not much.

May your own fiber endeavors be much easier than mine, and as always

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Survival Sunday 2

Green Curry

So we have one more ramen recipe after this, guys, but this one’s the other half of what the SO and I made a couple weeks ago. My bowl was for the genmai ramen, his was a green curry. Again, both were from the Umai Crates we get monthly.

This one was ridiculously simple, making for a great last-minute dish.

Dump the ingredients in a bowl (the noodles & flavor pack), then add 150ml (about 5/8 cup) water.

Microwave on high 5 minutes

Add sauce, mix, serve.

Those are his beloved Freddy Finger chopsticks. Yes they're based off of Nightmare on Elm Street. Yes they're from Loot Crate. No, they're not sharp. Nor are they microwavable. They are, however, perfect for cooking with!

According to my SO, it had a nice minty taste, delicious thin noodles which were surprisingly dry but “insanely” easy to eat, and it had a wonderfully sour, spicy smell. “Who knew vermicelli went well with curry?”

That’s all for this week on the recipe front.

Your spice of the week is:

Garlic Powder!

Again, grabbed this off of the Google. Hope there are no issues.

Does it seem like there’s a theme? There is! Come back next week to see the third spice, and the week after that we’ll make something with them!

Garlic powder (not garlic salt) is basically ground up dehydrated garlic. It’s strong, both in scent and taste, but it tends to cake easily, so store it somewhere dry if you can. When it gets caked, it’s not bad, it’s just harder to measure out.

It’s also everywhere and in everything, it seems like!

That’s all for me, this week, folks.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 2

Saturday Casual Gaming

Game: Squid Ink

Platform: PC

Type: Casual, Clicker, Upgrades

Created by Lollygag Games

This game is fairly straightforward – you wave your cursor over colorful, adorable squids to gain ink to upgrade your squids so you can get ink. It’s the squid version of that 90s anti-cocaine ad. You start off with a tiny squid and only black ink, but as you go on, you get bigger and more colorful squids and ink, all of which can earn you in-game currency (shells) and premium currency (doubloons). Best of all, the doubloons are free in-game so you don’t have to spend money. (which begs the question of why there are even two currencies...)

The levelup process is ridiculously fast early on. Within five minutes I was level 51 and hauling in millions of ounces of ink per second.

Really, there’s not much to the game, it’s just a relaxing, flash-style game with squids, ink, seashells, etc.

One of the squids is a knight. His name is Sir Cephalopod. I hadn’t yet got him when I started writing this entry.

It’s really just a very cute, relaxing game. All of the squid designs are cute, the way they change sizes based on how much you upgrade them is cool, and the ocean sounds are kind of soothing and fun.

Sorry if this week’s gaming post is too short – there’s just not as much to say about a cute game of squid ink collection as I thought there’d be!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Update – while playing this game I unlocked a powerup called “Magic Massager”. It’s a Hitachi wand. Wtf, game…

https://www.kongregate.com/games/LollygagGames/squid-ink

Filmic Friday 2

Movie: Under Siege

Format: VHS

The VHS bin has struck again. When our host rolled the first time, he went out to the box and checked what he’d landed on. In an unprecedented move, he returned and rolled a second time. He got the same number. That’s awfully hard on a 20-sided die. Very, very hard. We were told this was to give us a choice, as there had been a themed movie extravaganza earlier this year involving the lead actor from this movie.

Under Seige is a Steven Seagal movie.

With Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey.

And it’s as amazing as that sounds.

Three words for you: Busey in drag.

This movie is pretty aptly named, I guess. There’s a navy ship. It’s under siege by bad guys. Steven Seagal has to kill them all. It’s shockingly violent in places. I say this as a legitimate fan of action movies. All I can say is that there’s a bandsaw death and it was pretty shocking (not too bloody, though – there’s hardly any blood in this movie where people shoot each other with automatic weapons).

So

Seagal is a chef on a navy ship that’s being retired, and seeing the captain, you wonder how the ship is even still running, since the man would have probably been retired about a decade before this situation presents itself. The two days from retirement trope holds true – don’t get attached to the captain. It’s also captain old guy’s birthday! So Gary Busey’s character is angrily ordering people to plan a surprise party for him involving live music and a stripper cake with a Playboy Playmate (Miss July 1988, according to the characters).

The band leader is Tommy Lee Jones dressed as a combination of Jesse “the Body” Ventura and Paul Ellering (seriously, look him up, he’s a badass). And he plays the harmonica in a weird tiny band that in no way requires an entire troop deployment helicopter, but they’ve brought “catering” with them too, despite the ship having a shockingly unsecured and hazardous kitchen (that’s where the bandsaw death occurs, among others).

Seagal and his chefs are shown as close-knit for all of twenty seconds, dancing around and insulting each other in some of the worst Louisiana accents I’ve heard outside of a Maine classroom. I’m pretty sure Seagal isn’t from Louisiana. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s a Jewish/Lutheran boy from Lansing, Michigan. Regardless, this is the movie where the screaming “RYBACK” clip they’ve used on Botchamania comes from. Because Seagal’s character is named Ryback.

This is one of Seagal’s early movies, so not only is he under a thousand pounds, he’s also willing to lose the first fight scene he’s in! He loses because Busey wants everyone to report to the same place at the same time for a party, (Gee. That couldn’t be a trap.) and Ryback does not want to be told he won’t be cooking for the captain, since the captain doesn’t eat if Ryback isn’t cooking.

Ryback loses a fight against a bunch of military dudes loyal to Busey and they imprison him in the meat locker. There’s no evidence that the meat locker is actually refrigerated. They couldn’t afford dry ice, I guess… The rest of the first third of the movie is just Ryback trying to convince a very, very stupid navyman to let him out of the locker. Even after they hear live fire, the kid is told by the bad guys that it’s just firecrackers (which are illegal on a navy ship, last I knew, since points of ignition are heavily regulated), and he just believes them until they straight up kill him for no reason.

Kid’s dumb enough that he would’ve been the easiest patsy in the world, but no, let’s kill the stupidly loyal kid, but leave the chef with no personnel file untouched.

In the meantime, Gary Busey is entertaining the troops in a terrible drag costume and falsetto, parading around the mess hall with a couple of beach balls stuffed under a cardigan. He shows up at the captain’s quarters in this getup and that’s the last thing the captain ever sees. My god. Poor man.

Busey and Tommy Lee Jones are working together, and later it’s revealed that Busey is bitter that everyone in the navy can see that he’s legitimately insane, but Jones was a contractor for the CIA who’s pissed that the nation that used and abused him eventually tried to assassinate him. Somehow, Jones and Seagal’s characters know each other.

Also, Ryback was a Seal. Surprise.

While trying to take back the ship with nothing but a knife and his prodigious face, Ryback finds some dead guys in the mess hall (the bed guys were the band and catering, so the ship was overtaken in moments, because I guess the Navy sucks at repelling boarders?) and also the stripper cake that we have been told Miss July is supposed to be inside.

She was handed a bottle of Dramamine by Tommy Lee Jones and took about six. I’m no pharmacist, but that sounds like it would just kill you, not knock you out hard enough that you only wake up when a fake cajun bumps into the cue music for you. We do get to see her boobs and she’s wearing a thong, so there’s that at least.

Unfortunately, we’re stuck with her for the rest of the movie.

She was not in the original script – Seagal wanted boobs.

You can tell.

Sadly, she’s not the least competent character – that prize goes to a young guy with infinite faith in Ryback but zero talent with guns.

There’s a scene where Jones & Busey try to drown a bunch of guys in the lower decks, some older dudes are locked in a room, and Seagal begins to gather his forces (starting with the old guys). The old guys stop the water from flowing into the area with the sailors belowdecks, but no attempt is made to actually set them free until they start hijacking their own guns.

Meanwhile, the US government is actually trying to figure out a way to save the ship, the CIA admits fault, and it’s all really boring. And stupid. They give up after one attempt. Seriously.

Jones apparently wants to nuke Hawaii. Why? Because, again, the government tried to kill him.

The movie eventually ends with a lot of explosions, Seagal rips a guy’s throat out with his bare hands, and then he rips Tommy Lee Jones’ eye out before dumping him into the controls. Then Seagal jumps in a fighter jet and shoots down the nuke, I think? I got bored, to be honest.

All in all, though, this is a fantastic movie, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants a dumb fun action movie with a hint of boobs.

I give Under Siege an I-Beam Death out of 5

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk 2

I got lazy this week. All I have for you are is a photo of my cat, who decided to crawl into the sink while I was trying to brush my teeth.

She crazy.

Sorry for the laziness!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Wednesdaymania 2

Yesterday, news that the WWE has released pro wrestler “Big Cass” hit the internet. Release is, of course, a fancy corporate term for “fired”, but since wrestlers operate under contracts, firing is not really a thing in the WWE (unless it’s for a storyline, then they’re fired). Rumor has it that the reason Cass was let go was that he had “major heat” backstage. That’s as good a topic for a post as any, am I right?

So what is “heat,” in a pro-wrestling context?

There’s a few different meanings to heat, and they’re all related to where it’s happening. When you’re a bad-guy character (a heel), and you’re in front of the crowd, getting heat is the thing to do. That means you’re making the crowd not like you and cheer for your opponent. It’s possible to go too far, though. Look at the crowd’s reaction to Jinder Mahal – that’s an example of “shut up and go home” heat. If you look at a masterful heel, like Ric Flair (he was absolutely a heel back in the day before he was everyone’s tipsy grandpa), you’d see crowds that hated him and loved him in equal measure. That’s good heat. You want that kind of heat. You want the crowd to buy tickets to see you, even if it’s to see you get beaten to a pulp by whoever the good guy (or face) is.

There are levels of heat, like with a chili pepper. There’s no definitive unit by which to measure the heat, but there are names for the threshholds.

Good Heat gets a heel “over” - it means that the crowd loves watching them. Some masters of good heat have been Ric Flair, Rick Rude, and the Rock.

Bad Heat gets a heel dumped on by the crowd. They don’t want to see them. They’re still going to watch the match if they like the face/good guy, though. Bad Heat is what Jinder Mahal brings to the table. Weirdly enough, it’s also what Roman Reins has, so… that takes us to our next level.

Shut Up and Go Home Heat is what happens when the crowd loathes the match or the wrestler in question. I’d argue that a Jinder/Reins match has that heat. Prince Iaukea had this kind of heat with me – I do not like watching his matches at all, regardless of who else is in the ring.

Nuclear Heat is what happens when things either go to far (like if the wrestler has legitimately injured another person or if they’ve done something heinous in real life or if they’re so terrible in the ring/on the microphone that people want them gone). For me, the Nuclear Heat guy today is Taichi from New Japan, who I wish would stop wrestling. Seriously, the only things I like about him are his valet Miho Abe and he pimp ass opening. And then you realize he’s going to wrestle. Ugh.

None of these levels of heat are what get people fired. That’s the other kind of heat – backstage heat.

Backstage Heat is what people call the tension and dislike that surround any particular person when they’re not in the ring. Basically, it’s interpersonal problems that any other company would either try to resolve or just fire the problem. In wrestling, it’s more complicated because sometimes the guy with the worst heat backstage is the guy who’s making you the most money – Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan were notorious in the heat they got backstage. Sometimes, though, the heat is too strong, and out a guy goes. This is what’s happened to Big Cass, from what I hear.

It would explain why the cameras would always make it seem like his entrance video said “Big Ass” instead of Big Cass…

That’s been Wednesdaymania for this week, folks.

Go Out There And Enjoy Something!

(Maybe NJPW Dominion 2018… that is a very enjoyable show)

FC

Talk About Tuesday 2

I’ve been working on the story of Yokai this week. I’m not going to give too much away, but it’s one of three different stories I’m working on involving professional wrestlers. One is the story of a young man who is coming up in the business in the 1990s, his trials & tribulations, and eventually his success in Japan. The second story follows the same character, Yokai, in Japan after he’s retired from wrestling and runs a local izakaya (that’s a bar/restaurant) with his partner Dave. The third is about another wrestler named “Mac the Rack”, a journeyman wrestler who has held steady positions in a few companies over the years, training a kid who doesn’t want to be a wrestler.

I have a job interview today, so I’m going to have to be brief about what I’m busy with.

So far, with what I’ve written, a young Yokai has wandered into a small town gym for a sip of water and attracted a lot of attention, since he looks kind of like someone ran him through a meat grinder.

I’m having issues with punctuation and dialog – mainly, I don’t know where the punctuation in dialog goes, and I’ve been told many times that I do it wrong.

I’ll be working on that.

I think that about does it for this week’s update on writing.

If you’re looking for a book right now, I’d always suggest grabbing a copy of Grady Hendrix’s “Horrorstör”, which is about a haunted Ikea-like store. It has one of the best covers I've ever seen, since it looks like an Ikea catalog!

Go Out and Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday 1.2

Confession: I didn't work on the project much until this morning when I was drinking my coffee and watching someone play Dark Souls Remastered on YouTube. I did, however, manage to slam on over 25 rows of single crochet! I also changed out my blue hook for one in a gold tone because I think my blue hook went walkabout 😐

In other, unrelated news, while I was walking to a discount store nearby to pick up some fuel for NXT Takeover this past week, I saw something in a small patch of lily of the valley that I have to share with you guys.

Guys, that's a puffball fungus, I'm pretty sure. If you're a gardener or horticulturalist and you know how big lily of the valley plants are, you're probably a bit... weirded out by how huge that fungus is.

It's the size of a cantaloupe, guys. It's the size of a good-sized cantaloupe.

If I don't update, that thing spored off and my home town has become The Last of Us IRL.

Go Out There and Enjoy Something
just don't get zombified by fungus...

FC

Survival Sunday & Spice of the Week 1 (Genmai Ramen)

The S/O and I get Umai Crate, which is a subscription service which sends you a box of ramen and other delicious soups or noodles every month. We made a couple packets recently, so I decided to record our experience.

I had the Genmai ramen, which was a delicious mild sesame broth with brown rice noodles.

Oh hey, there's a caption button!

Umai Crate always sends these helpful pamphlets with their noodles

We forgot to add corn this week :|

I like to crack an egg into mine, so the broth thickens as the yolk (which I prefer to have firm) slowly dissolves into it.

both the spoon and the chopsticks came from Umai Crate, too!

It's just a simple white egg. Any egg will do. Also, more stix from UC.

If you can't tell, that's me holding a slowly cooking yolk out of the water.

The froth is from the egg white

This would probably go better in the next section, but I'm lazy. That's the broth.

It came with a bunch of sesame seeds in the broth, which was nice, since I was about to go grab our sesame seeds, which I try to keep on hand, and dump a bunch in.

The noodles have just softened - soggy noodles aren't as good, in my opinion.

A completed bowl of genmai ramen! It was amazingly subtle & delicious!

There’s not much to say about the process of cooking up instant noodles, to be honest, but this is as decent a segue as any into the other part of my new cooking updates – the Spice of the Week!

This section is here to encourage people in trying new spices and building up a spice collection. There will be herbs and possibly other ingredients here, too over time, I’m sure.

This week’s spice is: Onion Powder.

Thanks Google...

Not to be confused with onion salt, onion powder is nothing more than ground up freeze-dried onion. It adds a powerful onion flavor to anything you add it to, and it helps punch up soups and other noodle dishes. You wind up with a stronger chicken flavor if you add it to chicken noodle soup. Just be aware that it can get overpowering quickly, so add it only a little at a time (like, pinches of it, not scoops or dumping a bunch on) until you get the taste the way you like it.

I understand that some people may not like onions, or they may be allergic, so I’m just going to put this here: In no way am I telling anyone that they absolutely have to own any spice or whatever I’m talking about. These are suggestions for people, especially those just starting out, to slowly grow a collection of ingredients so they don’t have to run to the store every time they cook. You don’t need any one of these to be a good cook. Just because I like something doesn’t mean everyone will, and just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean everyone else won’t.

I mean… I don’t like lobster, avocado, or cilantro, so clearly my tastes aren’t the same as the average.

Now, go out and enjoy something!

FC

Saturday Game Day 1

I did warn you that titles were subject to change :P

Game of the Week: Pokefarm Q

Long, long ago, I heard of a game called Pokefarm on the internet. It’s a simple fan game, but not anything like the actual Pokemon games I’m used to. They came up with their own Pokemon designs, their own professors, their own world, really. Eventually, as all things tend to do, things went awry and the site split up like icebergs struck by global warming trends, and something new was revealed.

Pokefarm Q is the resurrected idea of a forum-based community surrounding a Pokemon game. It’s basically what it says on the tin – you farm Pokemon. Remember that old episode of the cartoon where Ash wound up on the Miltank ranch? Ever wanted one of your own? Now you can! And it’s absolutely free!

I’m not going to say much about the forums, since I never use them, but as a very casual player, I can tell you, it’s engrossing. You start out by making your trainer card (are you a boy, a girl, or gender-neutral?) and picking a name (I’m Tenleybean, y’all, come visit), and naming your farm (mine’s called Peacevale). Then you’re given the opportunity to pick your starter. And here’s where the game begins to show you what you’re getting into – you can start with any starter from any game. Wanna start with Pikachu or Eevee? Do it. Do you Liek Mudkipz? Do it. Do you wanna be a basic bitch and start with Charmander, Bulbasaur, or Squirtle? Do it. And do it with the knowledge that you will be able to get all the other starters at some point.

After you get your starter, you can start adopting eggs at the lab with Professor Holly. She’ll have an array of eggs at the ready. You have a party of up to 6 eggs at a time. They won’t tell you what they are until they hatch. Really, the game will hold your hand through the starting months – I’ve just lost New Farmer status (which they mark on your profile/name with a Bulbasaur bulb). You gain ranks by hatching and trading (yes there’s trading) and adopting Pokemon, which unlock special currency, special modes, and more.

Then there’s the complex badge system. You can, eventually, go talk to a Jirachi named Ravyne (who I’m pretty sure is also one of the Mods, but again, I don’t use the forums, much). This Jirachi will take the gems you gain from your Pokemon hatching and turn them into badges which give you bonus XP when hatching and leveling specific types. You can only fully construct these badges by evolving Pokemon. All of this is conveyed in a manner so hyperactive and incomprehensible that the page automatically translates Ravyne’s suger-hyped speech into plain old English (or whatever you’re using for a language, I’d imagine).

If you’ve gotten bored with the old Pokemon, fear not, they have Fakemon to make you happy here, too. There are puffballs that evolve into spiders, something that looks like a cross between a Deerling and a Houndoom, more foxes than you can shake a stick at, and colorful snakes that you’ll be super jealous of other people owning.

Now, this blog isn’t supposed to just be me telling you how to play a game, but here’s the basics – you click buttons. That’s how you play. You click on a berry to feed your Pokemon (which grants them XP), you click on people’s names to visit their farms and click berries to feed their Pokemon. You click a button to go fishing, where some dialog pops up now and then to set the mood for you before you click another button to reel in the Slowpoke, Carvanha, Surskit, Magikarp, etc. Yeah, you can catch Goldeen, Slowpoke, and Carvanha with an Old Rod, which I dig. Also, you don’t battle these caught Pokemon, you chuck rocks in their faces and then beg their forgiveness with bait (please don’t run, level 12 Slowpoke, Tenleybean needs you!) before you pelt them with your free balls.

You can also buy balls and bait with in-game currency, called credits, which you get for, you guessed it, clicking on people’s Pokemon to feed them. This includes your own. You can be as self-centered as you like and you’ll still advance.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed seeing are the new ideas that this group has brought to Pokemon. Besides the Shiny Pokemon we’ve been enjoying since that Red Gyarados in the Lake of Rage, they’ve come up with Albino, Melanistic, and Delta variants. Albinos are, of course, white or washed-out pallet variants of the normal mons, but if you have an Albino variant who also hatches as a shiny? Then you get a Melanistic (black or darkened) version! As for Delta, I’m not clear on that one, since I’ve only seen the name once on someone’s field where all of their Pokemon were surrounded by a colored outline. Very odd.

Besides the awesome variants (god, I want a melanistic Ninetales…) they have also come up with their own Mega Evolutions for various Pokemon. Their Mega Druddigon is fascinating. You have to earn the mega ring doing certain tasks (viewable in the Party tab), but after that, it’s a matter of scouring up, buying, or earning Mega Stones.

Scouring is one of my favorite aspects of this game. You select up to three Pokemon in your party or fields, you send them to one of several locations (Ocean, Volcano, Desert, Forest, etc), and they come back in a couple hours with swag. This might be stuff you can dress up your Pokemon with for one of the many contests the site runs, or it might be berries, or it might be evolution items, mega stones, credits, currency, boxes, or they might come home empty handed. Different Pokemon have different preferences – Your female Squirtle who prefers Spicy berries and hates Sour ones and has a Sassy nature may love the Ocean and hate the City, but another identical Squirtle may love the City and hate the Volcano.

The boxes you sometimes find while scouring are a crapshoot – you don’t know what you’re gonna get. You will, however, get something. It could be the second type of currency, gold Poke, or it could be more dress up accessories, or evolution items, etc. But you’ll always get something. And since they’re free, it’s awesome. Also, you can sell anything on the Marketplace tab for credits.

There are three currencies: Credits (which you earn via interactions), Gold Poke (which can be earned through missions or found in boxes), and Zophan canisters, which are the only thing you have to pay for that I’ve found, so far. These canisters are used for premium content, which, yeah, makes your life easier, but you can also earn the premium content through missions, I’ve found. The only reason to buy canisters is to support the site itself and keep the forums open.

I haven’t even begun to touch on the humor of this game, the deep lore, the great illustrations, but that’s what the link is for – you should definitely check it out for yourself!

https://pokefarm.com

Happy Gaming, everyone

and pay poor Tenleybean a visit – he’s lonely.

https://pokefarm.com/user/Tenleybean

Filmic Friday 1

Movie: Hostage Train

Format: VHS Screener

What even the heck was this.

So, every Friday night, my friends and I all sit down and watch a movie together. Sometimes it’s chosen by one of us (I may or may not have chosen Gymkata last time I got to pick…), sometimes it’s provided by the cinephile whose house we watch movies in, sometimes it’s an episode of Mystery Science Theater.

Sometimes, however, we break out the bin of random VHS tapes from the thrift store and roll for it.

This most recent evening, one of my friends rolled the purple 10-sided die and landed on a bizarre screener copy that had two films on it (and therefore two numbers he could have hit). The two films in this case were Night of Abandon and a Judge Reinhold vehicle called Hostage Train.

I’m told we’re lucky he landed on Hostage Train.

I’m sure we were, but still, it was… something.

If you’ve never seen a screener VHS tape, I’ll walk you through the experience. First, we put the tape in the VCR (if you’ve never seen a VHS movie, I’m speaking Greek to you, but if you have, you probably either have a warm feeling of nostalgia right now or a sharp stab of annoyance that anyone would remind you of the movie-devouring device that would clog up space for your gaming consoles until DVD came around and made things simpler…). When the tape started up, it presented us with the usual movie previews, but there was a twist!

Now, I’d never seen a screener before, so I was unprepared for the gelatinous green cgi film lot which popped up and gave us an Amazon Trail style flying tour before alighting on the Republic Pictures’ unused cgi logo. After this came a tsunami of advertisements for different films.

- The movie we were going to watch: Hostage Train (which had a bunch of explosions in the trailer, so we were getting excited to watch big dumb fun)

- A Gary Busey vehicle called, of all things, Lethal Tender

- Night of the Demons III, which we were told was a pale comparison to the first two Night of the Demons movies, but at least they had one actress in common, unlike Hostage Train…

- Night Falls on Manhattan (which I don’t remember, and my notes only include the title)

- A very artsy trailer featuring David Duchovny and a typewriter and lots of erotic overlays which turned out to be the trailer for the other film on the tape: Night of Abandon. Something about prostitution and journalism?

- A movie where Peter Weller apparently gets laid a lot more than I feel comfortable remembering called End of Summer

- Lots of cgi spaceships and people running down the same corridor because of evil science and bad, bad germs called Ravager. It had the dubious honor of the best line of the night: “You’re either the Hunter… or the Huntee”. Yes, Huntee. Not Hunted. We were beside ourselves.

- PRICED FOR SELL-THROUGH: They had way too much Highlander the series crap, which meant that they were trying to sell a bunch of single-episode VHS tapes for $14.98 in 1997. They even offered a sweepstakes for a trip to Paris and a walk-on role in the show, 10% discount offers on the Highlander catalog (that existed?) and finally, an ad for the brand new, exciting DVD format!

- Suddenly, the s/o and I start flipping out. The theme to WCW Thunder was playing under an advertisement for tons of crappy VHS tapes. Much miming of shirt-ripping was had.

- A 5-tape collection of Stephen King movies: The Stand, Cujo, The Langoliers, The Golden Years, and The Night Shift Collection. Remember, this was 1997.

- A pretty cool looking documentary called hype! Which was a chronicle of grunge for $19.98

- Yet another copy of It’s a Wonderful Life, which I like well enough, but I have seen it more times than I’ve had Christmases, so I’m on a break with it…

- Angel Baby was an Aussie indie film that looked… dumb.

- Horror music was playing, Hollywood Native Americans were talking, a guy found a dog in a hole, and it turned out to be a weird boy-and-his-dog-fight-pollution-and-corrupt-government-officials movie called Legend of the Spirit Dog or something like that. What even… I’ve seen Segal movies that made more sense than that trailer.

Finally, after 25 minutes, the movie began.

The opening was basically static white credits on a black background intercut with people in fatigues moving ammo boxes with C4 spray-stenciled onto the lids and boring dialog. Eventually, Judge Reinhold showed up, taking photos of a vaguely European guy with a receding hairline and a ponytail who seemed to be giving the orders.

I got bored for a while, then explosions happened.

I could probably give you a rundown of this movie if I really, really tried, but we talked over the whole thing, got annoyed by the title, which is a lie, the train is not a hostage. The hostages are taken from the train and stowed underground, where we sit the whole time. There’s a helicopter scene, some explosions, and a very uncomfortable third act where Judge Reinhold is covered in soot and looking… a bit too Al Jolson for my tastes.

Things in this movie’s favor:

- We see a lot of lingerie & boobs

- The explosions we get are huge and fiery

- The attempts at action are terrible and hilarious

- There is a Czech lady who kicks ass and looks great doing it, her accent is pretty good, and she looks like a million bucks. 10/10 would watch her in other films. Unfortunately, she’s not in any other US movies :( She was a fantastic villain. Much better than the actual villain, who was (spoilers) Michael Sarrazin, not the vaguely European guy with the aforementioned bad hair.

Things that were not in the movie’s favor:

- It’s a sequel to a different action movie (Crackerjack [1994]) with no one from the original cast, a different director, and nothing to do with one another. Well, there was a flashback to the wife in the first movie getting blown up.

- For a movie called Hostage Train, they don’t spend much time on the train.

- Nothing in this movie works that way in real life. We’d all be dead if cops were this incompetent, we’d all be dead if they had attack helicopters at the ready, we’d all be dead if this movie’s world was ours.

- No one in this movie except the Czech lady could act. Sorry Judge. That was bad.

- She was the only one who didn’t seem drunk.

Things that made me laugh:

- At one point, the explosions shift position slightly as the camera pans, making it very, very obvious that those plumes of ridiculously orange fire were not happening in the shot.

- I hated everyone and whooped when they died.

- There’s a torture scene with an intensely douchey rich guy and the Czech lady. She was having such a great time pulling his teeth out and he was speaking awfully clearly for a guy with a set of pliers halfway down his throat…

- Judge Reinhold’s face. It was never in the right expression for any scene.

- When full boob-nudity showed up, one of our number was in another room and we just hollered “BOOBS! ACTUAL BOOBS!” until they came back. Just in time for her to be covered up again. (If you know who I’m talking about, please keep it to yourself. No names here :) )

Overall, I’d give the experience a 8/10, but the movie gets a D.

For a more in-depth review of the actual movie, check out one of the many people who’ve reviewed it, like the Cinema Snob:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73bVz86FGnk

That’s all for me, but if you wanna watch a bad movie with big booms and at least one shot of boobs, then… I dunno. I guess you can watch Crackerjack 2: Hostage Train (which says Crackerjack 2 NOWHERE ON IT).

Go out there and enjoy something!

FC

Addendum:

If any brave souls want to check out these films mentioned here, I’ve compiled the IMDB listings below

Hostage Train (Crackerjack 2)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119317/

Lethal Tender

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119520/

Night of the Demons III

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116073/

Night Falls on Manhattan

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119783/

Night of Abandon

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114248/

End of Summer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116200/

Ravager

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119984/

Highlander the TV Series

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103442/

The Stand

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108941/

Cujo

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085382/

The Langoliers

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/

The Golden Years

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381218/

Nightshift Collection

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2028526/

hype!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116589/

It’s A Wonderful Life

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/

Angel Baby

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112362/

Legend of the Spirit Dog

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119515/

My condolences if you decide to seek most of these out.