Saturday Casual Gaming 248: Nonogram Wish Stone

In Which I Play A Story-Heavy Puzzle Game!

The mobile game Wish Stone Nonogram from GameFox is a free-to-play puzzle game where you fill in images based on a set of numbers along a grid. I've covered a Nonogram style game before in Nonograms Katana, but this game is quite different in that it has two modes: Story and Free Play. I have only played the Story Mode, so far, but I understand that the Free Play mode gets quite massive...

Yes, that's a city on the back of a flying whale.
Yes, that's important.

Throughout the Story Mode, there are four major parts, each represented by a different character: A King, A Princess, An Adventurer, and what looks to be An Archaeologist. Each character advances the story along via several 5x5 boards of puzzles (25 puzzles per chapter). I believe there are nine or ten chapters per size of each game (10x10, 15x15, 20x20), and each is incredibly detailed. You're literally building the chapter's image with each puzzle solved!

It would seem that this version of the game had not yet introduced the Archaeologist character I have on mine!
You make the image on the right out of different puzzles you solve. This is the King's first chapter rendered in 10x10 tiles!

The story so far has been a tragedy. I'm nearly at the end of the Princess's part of the story and things have gone horribly wrong. It's a standard Monkey's Paw-style plot, but with a great deal of pathos and madness and love and loss and it's really quite engrossing! Who knew the reader would love a game where you get to read a short story after playing a bunch of fun levels?

Speaking of the levels...

So you start the game with 10 hints. I've only used one and that was absolutely by mistake. You have 10 errors you can make per level, after which you start the level over. Errors are marked with a red X, and you can fill in empty spaces with gray X marks. Interestingly enough, you can place X's in error with impunity. Gray X's also appear, filling in gaps, when you place all of the tiles correctly in a row or column. As you can see from the example above (somewhat), the game is pretty simple. Where you see a black number, that's how many filled-in tiles there are in a row or column. Multiple numbers mean that there are spaces between runs of filled-in tiles. In a 10x10 puzzle, you'll usually be thrilled to see 10s or 9s because they're usually pretty easy to fill in. Especially 10s, which you literally just fill all the way in.

You solve your puzzles and eventually get your next chapter or character, learning more of the story as you go, and it's lovely.

The art is beautiful, the fantasy music that plays in the background is pleasant, and there is something addictive about playing these games! I have enjoyed every GameFox game I've downloaded, and while sometimes the ads, which appear between puzzles, can be annoying, I'm just glad that they get paid for their free game. So much effort goes into these interesting games that it would be awful if they didn't get paid.

Wish Stone is definitely a game I strongly recommend you download and play, if you have some time to sink into a story-driven puzzle game, like fantasy, and your fingers aren't too large. If you have sausage fingers, however, you're going to want to invest in a fine-tipped stylus or something, because 25x25 and 30x30 puzzles are brutal on the ol' fingertips...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 248: Night And The City (1950)

In Which Noir is En Vogue

Fun Fact: The director, Jules Dassin, is also the man who created Rififi,
one of the most beloved Noir films of all time.

I'm a huge nerd. You may have noticed this about me. I am a huge silly nerd who loves huge silly things like movies and comics and books and wrestling. So of course I'm going to love a movie based on a book about a guy getting involved in wrestling.

The story of Night and the City follows the life of Harry Fabian, an American living in London. He has big dreams but he's also never met a get-rich-quick scheme he didn't fall for, and that's dangerous in the seedy underbelly of London's nightlife. Working as a club tout (basically a con man who drums up business for a particular club, in his case, the American club his girlfriend sings at), Harry dreams of being somebody in the world.

Preferably somebody who doesn't have to live life on the run.

Harry's girlfriend, Mary, is an honest, hardworking woman who has dreams of her own but has put them all on hold waiting for Harry to get himself together. She genuinely wants him to be happy, but where he sees untold riches in a suspiciously low-priced share of a greyhound track, she sees the truth - he's been taken for a ride yet again.

And Harry knows it. He knows she's the brains of the outfit and he can't stand it.
He feels like an utter disappointment. He just wants to be the one who holds her up,
not the other way around.

Meanwhile, Mary has become friends with the attractive artist next door, Adam. Adam lends Mary money when Harry drains her dry, but he genuinely seems to want Harry to succeed, too. Adam should know what it's like to be a creative mind that's been stifled - he's a working artist waiting for his big break, and that's an especially difficult thing for a sculptor. Paintings are easy to sell to people - they're portable and they don't shatter into a million pieces when dropped. A sculpture is a genuine luxury, fragile and expensive. Still, Adam is doing well enough for himself that he can help his friends and he can afford to burn dinner.

"Harry's an artist who hasn't yet found his art. That's bound to frustrate a man."

The club where both Mary and Harry work is owned by Mr. Nosseross (whose name is so much fun to say) and his shrewd and disloyal wife Helen, who is also Harry's ex. They are fairly dismissive towards Harry's dreams and schemes, mostly because they've heard it all before, but also because Mr. Nosseross senses something is not quite on the up-and-up between Helen and Harry.

And when you see Nosseross, you'll suddenly know what Maury Chaykin
was going for in his portrayal of Nero Wolfe in 2001/2002 on A&E.

One day, while touting for Nosseross's club, Harry comes into contact with Gregorious, a retired Greco-Roman Style Professional Wrestler, who is hurling insults at the in-ring antics of the most famous Pro Wrestler in London, the Strangler. What awes me is that Gregorious is being played by one of the all-time greats in professional wrestling: Stanislas Zbyszko! Now, if Zbyszko sounds familiar and you're in your 30s or older, you probably remember Larry Zbyszko, who was this man's pretend son. Stanislas is a magnificent actor in this movie, and you can absolutely buy that he's a strong man who's lead a hard life and is disappointed that his son, Mr. Kristo, is a slick promoter who will not give his other son, Nikolas, a shot in his promotion.

Everything Zbyszko does is believable in this film, and he very nearly made me cry at times.
Also, it's hard to believe it, but apparently he really loved experimental cinema and would often
go to movies with Jules Dassin, the director. He also formed a close relationship with Widmark,
the star (Harry!), which makes me unbelievably happy! What a cast!

Helen sneakily helps Harry secure funding to create Fabian Promotions, where he plans to run a show with Gregorious' son Nikolas, but since part of his funding is with Nosseross, who is very unhappy with his wife running around with his tout, he has to go and secure the services of the Strangler. All of this serves to infuriate Mr. Kristo, and I'm leaving quite a lot of the story out because you have to watch this movie!

But Nosseross and Kristo won't be the only ones furious with Harry by the end of this...

Something horrible ends up happening which seals Harry's fate. In the span of an afternoon, Harry goes from having it all to being on the run.

Because Kristo ends up putting a £1000 bounty on his head.

The last act follows Harry in a much more frightening version of his introduction. We meet Harry running through London, and Harry ends up running for his life through London at the end of the film. All of Harry's one-time friends in the London Underbelly see him as a payday, now. There's nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

My god, the ending is bleak and heartbreaking (especially if you watch the American version). You know how it will end pretty quickly, but you don't want it to. You don't want things to go the way they do, but, as is true with most Noir films, the end is an inevitability.

If you are looking for a good movie that isn't spoiled by sappy sentimentality, then absolutely pick up Night and the City. Heck, if you just want a taste of what 1950s Pro Wrestling may have been like, check it out! If I remember correctly, the actor playing The Strangler was also a Pro before he went to acting! We watched the Criterion Collection release, and I strongly suggest getting hold of that one for a wonderful viewing experience. It was in our local library system, so if you're on a budget, fret not, and check your library!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Thursday Art Walk: Happy Thanksgiving 2019!

It's a day for giving thanks!

"Thanksgiving 2019"; colored pencil, Sharpie, and crayon on legal size printer paper; 2019

Happy American Thanksgiving, people! I'm grateful for everyone who has ever clicked on this blog, even if you were looking for someone else. Thank you!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 248: Wrestling Is Awesome

In Which I Like Wrestling

So last week kind of was a bummer on the wrestling front with Cornette and all of that badness. And yes, there's badness this week with the news from ROH firing their women's champion while she's concussed and spilling the tea on her ridiculously crap pay. Yes, there's badness this week with Corey Graves maybe having beef with Mauro Renallo and Dave Meltzer.

But I want to talk about things that don't make me sad.

It's cloudy and I have a sniffle. I don't want to feel bad. I want to feel like wrestling is awesome.

And it is!

Wrestling is still awesome because the bell-to-bell is awesome. The promos are awesome. The shows are awesome. In spite of the crap people keep giving each other, wrestling is still, as it has ever been, awesome.

So first of all, I haven't watched Powerrr since the Cornette awfulness, so I cannot speak to its continued quality of both wrestling and promo work on the part of the wrestlers, but I have to commend Nick Aldis for his cool head and strong presence in the face of a really bad time. He provided a classy face to a very unclassy problem and he's really good about that. tl;dr: Cornette bad. Nick Aldis good.

Secondly, I hear that the NXT guys are really getting popular when they storm RAW/Smackdown, so that's pretty great!

I also keep seeing good stuff from MLW Fusion, though it's been a while since I've watched any. I've been pretty distracted lately, and I apologize for that. I'm sure I've missed some awesome matches, especially since they just created their women's division!!!

Speaking of women's divisions, holy cow I'm loving what I'm seeing from AEW's shows. This week's Dark episode was dominated by the Big Swole/Shanna match, and it was pretty spectacular. While Big Swole was clearly the better wrestler of the two, Shanna has a lot to offer in the ring, and I'm excited to see them both work more with other wrestlers.

I love Leva Bates. I love the Librarian gimmick. Leva is maybe not as dynamic in the ring as many of her contemporaries. Do I think she's a bad wrestler? Not at all. She could definitely work on her flow of movement, but that will come as she wrestles more often. It's been a while since she's had regular matches after all. On a character level, however, I don't know if anyone else is as good at filling her role as Leva is at being The Librarian. It's adorable, it's awesome, and she's great to watch. RIP The Librarian after her match vs Awesome Kong. And Peter Avalon worked perfectly in that moment :) Great match.

I hope the Inner Circle aren't mean to Leva. They did kidnap her, after all...

...

I'd be down with suddenly-evil Librarian Leva. After all, Jericho has written a book...

The Trent vs Pentagon match was insane. I knew Trent was a great wrestler, but I didn't know just how toe-to-toe he was with the best there is out there. If Scorpio loses to Jericho (which I feel would be a probably bad move, but I've been wrong many times) then I could absolutely see Trent becoming a champ. This roster may be too loaded with greatness. It's mad.

I wish I could say the Kenny match vs Jack Evans was amazing, but sadly, since the internet in my town is notorious, we ended up with an overall 12 minute delay for that match and missed the finish. I will go back and watch that match again today, but for now, I will have to tell you that what I saw was still mindblowing, and if you haven't watched this week's AEW Dark, then do it.

So yes, wrestling is still awesome, and pretty much every company out there right now (even IMPACT!!!) has something incredible to offer. Definitely go on a hunt for the good stuff and try a little bit of everything. This is a good time to be a fan of the sport!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Talk About Tuesday 248

In Which I Blather

It's super nice out, right now. Calm and sunny with that powdery November gray-blue sky, this is a truly picturesque New England day! It's not even cold, either, at a balmy 45℉ (7.2℃). My mother has cut up the gourds she had sitting on her table for Halloween, and the crows have been grateful for their bounty - and shockingly quiet, too! Usually, when the crows get food, they're obnoxious about it, crowing for hours and calling down the seagulls, who bully out the crows and eat everything. Maybe this is the year they've taught their young this lesson early, and they'll stop the seagull mob?

The cat is curled into a tight, sleepy ball on the couch, her face buried in her paws as she breathes in blessed silence. I'm so glad her surgery went so well and that she's not having too much trouble breathing. I'm pretty sure she's got a cold, though :(

Fiber Mondays for the next few weeks should be a little interesting, since I'll be working on a lot of crochet projects for friends, family, etc for Christmas, and... uh... some of you read this blog, so I'm gonna have to hide your goodies from you :P

That being said, I'm working on something big in filet crochet, and that has been taking up a lot of time. Once I finish this project as a proof-of-concept, I'll make another version for the blog!

As for NaNoWriMo, I've completely failed, though I did end up with a fairly decent first chapter out of it...

Here's the week in a nutshell:

• Tomorrow I'll talk wrestling, and there's a lot to cover, from what I hear.
• Thursday should be a nice lil art day!
• Friday I'll be telling you about a cool noir film I watched
• Saturday will maybe be that nonogram game...
• Sunday will be a pasta day!
• Next Monday I'll show you my dino progress
• Next Tuesday we'll reconvene for the blather!

I'll probably work on my dinosaur a little more today, since I got up to round 25 done last night, which is cool! I may also work on the big project a bit...

I also need to work on some writing, so that'll be another goal in the next few days. I'd like to get more than 800 words down a week...

That's gonna be all from me today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday 248: DINOSAURS!

In Which I Make a Deceptively Large Amigurumi

So while trundling around les internets on my phone, I found this pattern for an amigurumi dinosaur and thought "that's heckin' cute! I should make one!" And here we are...

Here is a pile of yarn

The first thing I had to do was decide what color to use. I had the most teal, so that's what I chose for the body. It's a very old skein of Caron Simply Soft, I'm pretty sure, so if you've got some to destash, this might be the project for it! After selecting my yarn, I made my magic ring and crocheted the first five rounds of the project.

Due to camera shakage, we're gonna have some blur. Sorry!

I'm only going to take photos every 5 rounds because not only does this person want to sell copies of the pdf (which if I had money, I'd buy it, because this is a stinkin cute design and the name of their website made me smile - stringydingding!!!) they also have photos on their website, so I don't want to usurp their material. This is going to be purely a progress blog for this project :)

Round 10 with small black buttons for eyes!

I'm out of safety eyes now, sadly, so I cannot give this dino proper eyeballs, but these black buttons are pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Also, hello Star Wars pants in the lower left corner...

Round 15, side view

This head is already pretty huge. That's a 4.00mm hook for reference, and this recliner has arms almost as wide as one of my thighs, so... it big.

It real big.

This is gonna be a honkin huge dino!

I'm so excited to get more of this adorable plush finished!

That's gonna be all from me!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 247: More Noodz

In Which I Try More Umai Crate Noodles

So, you know how adding stuff to noodles usually means good things? Uh.... unfortunately that didn't work out very well this time :(

Left to right: Healthy ramen, Tanuki Soba, and Canadian Bacon

We've never had too much luck with the health food ramen with the guy on the package - it's usually pretty bland. Tanuki soba, on the other hand, is usually really good! I mean, it's soba, so what's not to love?

And this kind had both crunchy puffs and fried seaweed! Score!

It was easy enough to prepare the soba, since that's just an "add hot water and let sit" kind of cup. I was a little annoyed that you can't see the fill line on this one, so I probably added a tiny bit too much water. Also this is maybe the second or third time we've received this kind of Tanuki Soba alone, so... not the most adventurous of Umai adventures...

I set about 2.5 cups of water to boil in a pan on the stove, ladling out enough to cook the Tanuki once it was hot enough. Then I set to work with prepping the healthy ramen so that it absolutely wasn't. My partner tore up the Canadian bacon and set it marinating in spicy sesame oil and the last of our soy sauce.

A simple marinade but one that smelled incredible!

Then I cracked some eggs into the water with the noodles and let those cook before dumping in the Canadian bacon. I should've added in the marinade, but hindsight is 2020...

The noodles cooked up fine, and I added in the flavor packet, but... it didn't really smell like much of anything.

This should have alerted me to the coming meal.

The flavor packet in any ramen should smell like something, but this one was just... vaguely sweet/salty smelling. It should have been strong enough to smell without stuffing my nose into the foil packet.

Sadly, even spicy curry, ramen pepper, and garlic powder could not save this ramen :(

The healthy ramen was, without a doubt, the most disappointing ramen I've had that didn't come from Wal-Mart.

It had absolutely no flavor, the noodles were limp (despite cooking for less time then they should have!), and the broth was basically taupe-colored water. We had to add salt.

At least the eggs were fantastic, though! Possibly the best eggs I've ever scrambled into ramen!

As for the Tanuki Soba? It was fine.

The Tanuki soba still had that nice buckwheat flavor with a dashi that, while not the strongest, was still flavorful and pretty decent. And the veggies were really pleasant, too!

So basically that was a bit of a flop of a meal :( That's too bad, since I was looking forward to the flavors.

As a consolation for the middling-to-disappointing fare from this blog, here's a picture of my cat in full snuggle-drunk blep mode:

yeaaaaaaaah, them's good tummy rubs....

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 247: Little Idle Monsters

In Which I Play A Fun Little Idle Game!

I was going to do a review of a nonograms game (it's an art game) this week, but the game is still unfolding and there's a shockingly deep story, so instead, I'll be telling you about a gem of a game called Little Idle Monsters from developer Junjo, who you may recall from earlier reviews I did of their Farm Rush and Farm Idle games!

A simple concept, yet still lots of fun!

So the basic story of  Little Idle Monsters is that you're the bad guy and you're summoning hordes of critters with your magic deck of cards to terrorize the townsfolk around you. You draw cards from your deck, building fear in the hearts of your enemies. Fear is your currency, here, and you use it for everything from building up your creature arsenal to building up the dread you cause to conning the deck into letting you pull multiple cards at once to training your monsters to cause mayhem and slaughter the uppity peasants.

All against an adorable SNES/Sega-style background!

The game is pretty simple to play - click on the deck to deal cards faster, click on highlighted buttons to purchase upgrades, click on the town button to raze the villages and outposts.

Which is really quite fun!

If you're looking for a way to release some frustration without causing real-world harm, definitely give this game a play on Kongregate or mobile, since it's available on the app store now!

So yeah, give this game a play, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 247: Dolemite 1975

In Which He's Bad. So Bad.
But his movie is very fun!

So I saw Dolemite Is My Name, and it got me thinking about blaxploitation movies and how studios basically forgot they existed after the 1970s. It also got me thinking about

Because I had to know 

Dolemite, the 1975 film whose mad genius creator, Rudy Ray Moore, was the source for Dolemite Is My Name, is everything I'd hoped it would be. My god, Dolemite...

Did I understand everything that was happening at every second? Heck no. Did I have to understand every word spoken or every action taken to understand Dolemite and what it stood for? Not in the slightest. Dolemite is a celebration of a film and it's impossible to watch it and be bored. Confused, certainly, but not ever bored.

How can you be bored when there's a very strange yet very cool man surrounded by beautiful women who know Kung Fu?

How can you be bored when there's a preacher who is also a mob boss?

How can you be bored when Rudy Ray Moore is... hold on, I'm looking up at that poster and what is even happening there?! Where is the lady in pink kneeling? Where are her legs? The lady in green is holding onto the barrel of Rudy's pistol, which looks like a shrunk-down sniper rifle! Where is that thing firing? Were the Hardy Boys in the 2000s copying Rudy's shoes on this poster? What is happening? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

Awesomeness. That's what's happening.

Dolemite is awesome.

But what's the story?

Well... this is a lot of inference on my part here, but from what I could tell, Dolemite is a folk hero tale where a man who is kind of a pimp (?) is released from prison because his madame found evidence that he was set up by the cops to take the fall on drug charges. He comes out to a world much changed from when he went in, including having had his own club stolen by the villainous Willie Green (D'Urville Martin). The movie follows his quest to get his club back and seek revenge on the crooked cops and Willie Green.

There are Kung Fu hookers, slightly terrifying sex scenes, the aforementioned mob boss preacher, and car chases galore. There are squibs (the blood-filled explosive caps used to simulate someone being shot) going off left and right, seemingly missing footage which might be the result of the camera running out of film at inopportune moments, and absolutely atrocious lip syncing (in the club), and above all...

There is Dolemite.

Rudy Ray Moore is not a good actor, but you love Dolemite nonetheless because everyone in the movie believes in him. It's hilarious, it's fun, and it's absolutely a movie you should see at least once in your life, and once you see Dolemite, you begin to wonder what its sequel, The Human Tornado, is like. You wonder what the blaxploitation Saturday Night Fever film Disco Godfather is like. You wonder if you can get hold of Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son In Law so you can show your friends...

It's an addiction.

A really, really fun addiction.

An addiction with some very attractive women involved...

 As a final note, I'd like to point out that the intestine-pulling scene in Dolemite Is My Name is apparently a running joke where, since that moment abruptly ends without the intestine-pulling or anything else in the movie. Rudy is doing... something? to D'Urville, grunting and gripping, and then suddenly, we cut over to Jerry Jones who gives his iconic "God damn, Dolemite," and fires his pistol into D'Urville to take the heat off of Dolemite.

Also, I just realized that his hat is very clearly crocheted...
Future Fiber Monday project?

So in conclusion, GO WATCH DOLEMITE!
You will not regret it!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Thursday Art Walk 247: Trying New Things

In Which I Try A New Style

I first wish to say: I am not abandoning the bubbles. Today's experiment was due to the music moving me, and bubbles aren't a very cyberpunk style. Besides, I'm thinking of playing around with some of the more modern art movements anyway, and I might even delve into total abstractism or impressionism! Ooh... I'd love to paint an impressionist scene...

I should paint next week!

Anyway, here's my base sketch:

For the swirly designs, I just basically randomly moved my pencil around the page in continuous figure-8s.
Then I drew on the bird and the tree!

From here, I had some decisions to make. Did I want this to be bold or not-so-bold? Light or dark? Full color coverage or let some of the paper breathe?

I settled on a combination of crayons and colored pencils!

I maybe should have kept my swirly patterns down, because I ended up coloring until quarter past three. The base sketch was done by ten this morning, so... yeah. Five hours of coloring.

That right there is why art costs money, my dudes.

I also kept a directed pallet: browns go on the tree. Orange on the beak/feet/leaves.
Yellow and orange on leaves. Blue and violet on the background (and the eyelids).
Green on the outer bird. Pink on the hat. Pale colors on the face.

It's hard to photograph this image, but I'm pretty darn proud of how it came out!

Look at his lil face!

Okay, that'll about do it for me today - I'm ravenous, and I haven't had coffee since this morning...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 247: What year is it anyway?

In Which I Talk About Wrestling's Inability to Behave on Occasion...

By now the world has become fairly aware of the unfortunate taint of racism in the wrestling world. From ACH (Jordan Myles) and his T-Shirt Controversy to the uncouth comments from Jim Cornette or the blatant racism of 1990s D-Generation X, it's very, very frustrating sometimes to enjoy wrestling.

First, I'd like to say something about the ACH Controversy. The shirt was racist. It's blatantly a minstrel-show kind of design and anyone who "doesn't see it" either doesn't know what a minstrel show was or they're in denial. ACH has announced that he has left WWE and I wish him the best of luck in finding a more sane/sensible platform to get himself out there in the world. ACH is a brilliant wrestler. Yes, airing his grievances against Jay Lethal did more harm than good to himself (Jay, of course, works for ROH, not WWE), but when you are being targeted by a racist image used to promote you (and therefore denigrate your good name) your emotions tend to be running high.

So ACH has left WWE. And rightfully so. No one should be expected to just... deal with the kind of racism that environment has historically had.

On the topic of the WWE, let me transition into stating this: D-Generation X, and HHH especially, have a history of being disgustingly racist. From the infamous blackface segment to HHH using the Iron Cross (Nazi symbolism!) as his most recognizable symbol and straight up telling Booker T, a far better wrestler, that "Guys who look like (Booker) don't win championships" (and then proceeding to beat him!), it's just undeniable. You can cry "it was a different time" all you want, but I was there in the 1990s and early 2000s and guess what - we knew racism was wrong. We knew Blackface was not ok. We knew that saying crap like HHH said wasn't okay. We knew better. He knows better.

So the environment maybe isn't exactly the best for people who aren't white in WWE...

There are other places to go, but after what Jim Cornette said on NWA Powerrr yesterday, I don't think that ACH will be entertaining the NWA as a new home anytime soon...

And... as soon as I looked that up, I now have some breaking news.

Jim Cornette has left NWA.

Whether this was under his own power or because he was asked to leave by Billy Corgan or Dave Legana is unkown right now, but yeah.

No more Jim Cornette.

I feel slightly bad about this, because while Jim said something inescapably racist, he has had one of the best minds in the business. Unfortunately, his personality is such that he's quite like the dwarves at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia. Jim Cornette is for Jim Cornette, and that's all he's there for. Which sucks.

I hope that whoever they get to fill the recently vacated announcer's chair, they're as cool as pretty much everyone else on NWA Powerrr.

Now I'm going to go drown my sad in Sumo.

Go Enjoy Something.
FC

Talk About Tuesday 437

In Which I Am No Longer Sick

Well... that's a bit of a mistruth - I still have a slight sniffle, but I'm no longer flush-faced and miserable, so that counts as a win in my book!

It's another gross, gray day here in the Blanket Fort. It's around 35℉ (~1.5℃) and vaguely wet outside - it can't decide whether it's just cloudy or raining or... snowing.

Yeah. It's trying to be winter. Already.

Anyway, here are my plans for the week:

• Tomorrow I'll talk about wrestling!
• Thursday will be a glorious day of doodles
• Friday I'll talk about Dolemite and how it differs from Dolemite Is My Name
• Saturday I'll talk about a cute mobile game I'm playing
• Sunday I'll talk about some kind of tasty food
• Monday I'll talk about what I'm making and how I learned to crochet
• Next Tuesday I'll blather about life, the weather, etc

So, that's been my week - a day with a crummy cold followed by a day with, at worst, a slightly runny nose and itchy eyelids. I actually crocheted quite a bit yesterday, but I was in no mood to show it off.

Also the cat accidentally released a poop on the stovetop when no one was looking (poor thing), so that was gross. Don't worry, I cleaned and sanitized.

I'm kinda bummed that I missed out on Parasite and hanging out with my partner and friends yesterday.

That's life, though. I would've felt awful if I'd made them sick!

Yeah, that'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

[EDIT] Apparently I NEVER POSTED THIS?! Geez...

Fiber Monday 247: Uh....

In Which I Have A Cold

I'm sorry, guys, I woke up at noon today and I feel like I got hit by a snotty truck, so there will be no Fiber Monday this week. I'll show off what I've worked on next week, okay?

Sorry again!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 246: White Bread

In Which I Bake Some White Bread!

I know I've baked white bread on here before, but I did a video this week to go along with it!!! The video is embedded at the end, so if you need to skip the blog, feel free to just watch the nearly 8 minute long video at the end!

As ever, it's is wise to assemble your ingredients ahead of time - this recipe called for:
Flour, sugar, yeast, salt, butter, and milk!

This is what you might call a "fortified" bread because it has milk and butter in it. Unfortified breads use water. So this bread had some calcium in addition to any vitamins from the flour :)

The first step was to take about 2.5 cups of the flour and mix it with the yeast.

Once my yeast was mixed into the flour, I measured out my milk, a tablespoon of butter, some sugar, some salt, and plopped them into a saucepan on the stove to heat. The optimal range for my yeast was 120-135℉ (48.9-54.5℃), so I took out my mother's cooking thermometer and kept an eye on the temperature!

Remember to keep your flame/heat low when heating milk on the stovetop.
Burned milk smells nasty as heck.

We're  not quite there yet in this shot...

By the time the heat was right,the butter was melting nicely!

Now came the messy part: I had to mix the milk mixture into my flour/yeast mixture! Time to feed them bread bugs!

And here we see my slurry coming together.

After the initial mix, I added more flour until the dough would accept no more.

As seen here.

At this stage, I had to knead, which is my least favorite part because I can never tell if I'm doing it right and no one was around to ask :| I'll say I did alright, since, spoilers, the bread was pretty good!

Basically, you sprinkle down some flour on a surface and flour up your hands, then you flatten your dough slightly, fold it, flatten it, turn it a bit, repeat folding, flattening, and turning your dough until it... feels like dough, I guess? Sometimes it takes longer than others.

Then you grab some cooking spray - I learned the hard way not to trust myself with oil - and grease the inside of a bowl, deposit your dough lump, and cover it. Leave that puppy in a warm area of your house (like next to the stove or heater). It's best to use a damp towel to cover the dough if you're in a dry house. Otherwise, stick with plastic wrap or whatever you use in its place.

Once you've waited a while and your dough looks twice as big as it did before, deflate it by putting your fist in the middle and pressing down. It will fart on you a bit. That's fine. then you just... gently shape it back into a ball. At this point, you can divide your dough if you're making multiple loaves. How you do this is up to you, but if you have a big knife and some flour on your counter, that's probably the best way. I don't recommend clutching the dough ball with one hand and eyeballing what "half" is while gently slicing away at it with a dull paring knife...

Which is what I did.
Which is why they're uneven...

Let your new twin blobs rise again. I like to leave them on the stovetop while I preheat the oven to 350℉(175℃), but here's a word from the wise: don't leave plastic wrap near the vent at the back of your stove, because it will melt from the heat. Thankfully I caught it early, but I still had to switch it out for some damp paper towel!

Also, grease yourself some loaf pans while you're waiting.

Once your balls have expanded - and yes, I've got the sense of humor of a crass child - you can shape them into loaf-like shapes. My mother's cookbook recommends gently patting and pinching your dough into the shape you like or rolling it out into a puffy sheet before rolling it up. I may do that one day just to make cinnamon roll or cinnamon raisin bread... mmmmmmm.

Anyway, once your loaves are assembled, let them rise again. Another ten minutes or so. Then it's time to bake bake bake! Slide those pans into your oven and bake them for anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes! They may take longer or shorter depending on their size, moisture content, and the weather. You'll know they're done if they make slightly hollow thunking sounds when rapped with a wooden spoon.

Remember to toss them out of their pans when you get them out of the oven and cool them on wire racks so they don't keep baking in the pan! Also so that the bottoms don't get soggy...

Behold! White Bread!

Now, the reason these loaves have an odd marbled effect on their tops is because I spilled probably 4 Tablespoons of canola oil into the initial bowl and had to dump it out, blot it, blot the dough, and generally just made a mess. It did not change the flavor of the bread, so I must've done just well enough that it didn't botch everything lol!

Regardless, these loaves were gorgeous, and when eaten, they were firmer than your average storebought loaf (which I really like, especially for eating warm with butter!).

Have some Glamour Shots!

If you want to know how I did that, I just basically carefully slashed the top of the loaf as it rose.
I used the same dull paring knife I'd used to separate the loaves.

The final slice of bread nestled in its sandwich bag.
I miss it already...

Would I recommend white bread as a beginner's bread? Absolutely. Am I spectacular at baking it? Nope, but it sure tasted alright! You'll probably have just as much luck as I've had, so go for it! Find a recipe online and bake away, brother!

Remember: Start your baking experiments with as few ingredients as possible, work your way up, and don't get too frustrated if you mess up. Timers are your friends, so are thermometers, and you don't need too many appliances to make good food. You've got this.

That's all from me for Today!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC