Talk-About Tuesday 9

Today is one of those days where I just can't get into the groove. I woke up in a rainforest hot & humid room, grumpy and poorly-rested, and nothing improved for hours. I'm still in a pretty foul mood. I do not like the soundtrack of my morning to be a Hoarders: Buried Alive marathon at full blast, but that's life. Sometimes mornings suck.

I nursed my coffee for a while, but all good things must come to an end, and when I finished, my morning resumed its suckage.

The cat is currently wandering the house, meowing at family members, and being adorable.

Here she is getting all of the love & cuddles the other day.

I got to write more on my dumb summer book today, though, so there's that. We're up to 938 words! I hope to have at least that much more by next Tuesday. I'm not going to give you more quotes yet, because I'm still at the grocery store. The annoying lady had just left.

Writing is so much fun. I forget how fun it is when I'm not writing, but it really is just as rewarding and entertaining as drawing or crochet. It's pure creation at its core. Fiction is a lot of fun especially, since you're building the world up from scratch, even if it's based on reality! You are deciding every part of a whole universe, the rules within it, the people populating it, the landscapes and colors, the language, even the morals.

It's heady stuff.

I'm also getting a bit back into Dungeons & Dragons, surprisingly. It's been a while since I felt that siren call to write a campaign or roll up a character. I miss playing Bards (fun utility characters, bards), and creating dungeons or fortresses. I have a Resident Evil book for 3.5e, and I've been meaning to make a Resident Evil campaign...

I do have the dice sitting right there.

Maybe that's what I'll do later today before heading into the 90+ degree heat to die for a while...

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC

Fiber Monday 9: Finale 1!

So, it's come to this.

On a day when it was already 85℉ with 53% humidity and both rising, we have come to the end of the massive purple scarf. Also, le chat is quite melted today.

She's near the AC, so she's absolutely zonked.

That's right, guys, we have finished the scarf!

So how do you finish a project in crochet?

What follows is my best attempt at making this work:

So you've finished your project and are at the end of your last row?

You want to end at the end of a row on a project like this. I haven't yet found a pattern that calls for finishing in the middle of a row or round, but I'm sure they're out there. I've learned that rules in crochet are pretty fast and loose, since the end result is the important part.

Pull that last loop waaaaaaay out. It will help form our weaving tail.

I apologize for the quality of the photos. My phone has been... stubborn as of late. But yes, you want to make one more chain, as though you're going to turn and resume the project. Since I'm basically out of purple yarn, this project is DONE, but you can continue ad infinitum, so long as you have the supplies and patience.

Had to move the project to the couch - I have a no scissors near the laptop rule.

Now, you want to clip the yarn that leads to the ball, not the yarn in the loop itself, so be careful and take notice of what you're doing. Once you've done that, tug on the loop to pull the tail through the knot. Do not tug the tail - that would unravel the whole project if you tugged long enough!

Wow. Color balance much? But yeah, you want the resultant knot to look like this.

With your knot set, it's time to grab a smaller hook than you've been  using or a yarn needle. Every one of my yarn needles (I've had about a dozen, both plastic and metal) have gone walkabout, so a snagged my trusty B hook for this. You want something that'll grab the yarn without deforming the stitches you've already put together.

You do not have to buy hooks like this if you don't want to. I just like this one.

You can slip your hook up into the first stitch after the knot, grab the yarn and pull it through!

ugh. camera. why.

So, you do this along several different stitches - whichever ones strike your fancy, really. I try to do a step pattern from the edge towards the center, moving down a row every few times. It might not look right at first. Try it again and again until you find a way of doing it that appeals to you!

At some point, I find it useful to add a knot somewhere along the way, just for stability (in case some of your weaving comes out).

I'm going through the v-shape at the base of a stitch here, do it wherever works for you.

I'm sorry it's blurry. I've just paused in the middle of pulling the yarn through to make a loop.

See? Loop. And this is the clearest of 3 attempts. Yikes.

Pull your tail through the loop to make a tiny knot.

And then you continue weaving until you have no tail!

And that's it! No more scarf project!

I hope you guys enjoyed this project. I'm planning to do a slightly more in-depth project in the coming week, though it'll be far smaller.

Stay tuned for a washcloth project!

Go Enjoy Make Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 8

After the glorious pierogi of last week, we're going back to basics. This week I'd like to talk to you about sandwiches. They're fast, they're easy, and pretty much anyone can make one. You take something you want to eat and you put it between two slices of bread. Or you just put it on one and fold it in half like my mother does with butter sometimes. I prefer to do that with peanut butter, myself, but we all have our own tastes.

This week's quick & easy food is a little harder to do for vegans & gluten free people than for people who can/choose omnivorous lifestyles.

We're going for grilled cheese, my friends.

Now, obviously, there are cheese & butter substitutes and even gluten-free bread, but they're all more expensive than and rarer than plain old cheese, butter, and bread. I feel for you, friends. I feel for you. It's not exactly fair.

I don't have any experience cooking with butter substitutes beyond margarine, and my experiences with vegan cheeses have been... iffy at best, to be honest. I live in an area that does not seem to understand lactose intolerance or veganism, though people have really latched onto the gluten free thing. They're just... most of them aren't suffering from gluten intolerance. I think of the dozen people I know who buy gluten-free everything, only two have a legitimate reason. One has Hashimoto's, the other may have Celiac. The rest of them just watch Doctor Oz.

Don't get me started on that bullshit. We'll be here all day and I'll absolutely hurt feelings.

Anyway, that divergence aside, let's talk about making grilled cheese.

Remember how I made the garlic toast in a previous blog in the toaster oven? You can absolutely do that and do away with the butter or butter substitute entirely. It's the easiest way. You just have to watch for it and it ends up a bit dry. You toast the sandwich halves separately (as in, one on the left, one on the right, or do it one at a time, depending on toaster oven size) with the cheese side UP. Do not melt the cheese facing DOWN or you will cause a fire. Trust me.

I may or may not speak from personal experience. It was a long time ago. My memory sucks.

Today, however, we'll be preparing the grilled cheese the way my family has for generations - in a frying pan, on the stovetop, with mustard.

You don't have to have mustard, guys, I just love it.

Ingredients (such as they are):

• Butter
• Bread
• Cheese (any kind will do, believe me. Pick your favorite[s])
• Mustard (optional)
• Cooking Spray (especially if you're paranoid about sticking like I am)

We only had one slice of cheddar, so I used American as well.

I strongly recommend assembling your ingredients ahead of time when cooking. I never used to do it before I started this part of the blog, but now that everything's right there, it's about a million times easier to cook fast. I'm not having to run across the kitchen or get Z to reach things on the top shelf for me while I'm trying to fry eggs or something. Yeah, we'll fry eggs on here at some point, I think. Good stuff.

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Spray down that pan. You don't really have to do this if you've got butter & a nonstick pan, but I like to, just in case I miss a spot with the butter or it all soaks into the bread. That's a real problem when it's 88℉ with 88% humidity. The bread soaks it up and just... burns instead of toasts. Blech.

I literally could not get the phone to focus...

2) Butter one side of one piece of bread. If your butter is too hard, just put the cheese back in the fridge and let the butter soften. I should note that if it's really hot and muggy, like it is here, now, leaving your butter out will stain your cupboards unless you leave it on a plate or a very thick paper towel or napkin. Then your cupboard will smell like rancid butter forever. Not pleasant.

It's hard to tell right now, but I promise you, it's slathered in buttery goodness.

3) Set the bread, butter side down, in the pan. Do not turn on the pan. Now get that mustard on the naked side of the bread and spread it out.

My mustard kind of exploded on the bread on slice two, so I was busy trying to clean that up instead of taking photos. Sorry.

4) Add your cheese on top of that mustard.

It really does help to overlap the cheese. The darker one is cheddar, the lighter one American.

I'm going to take a moment here to discuss the differences among cheeses. American melts in that delightfully plasticky way that coats everything thoroughly, and it does it quickly. Cheddar takes much longer to get to the semiliquid stage, so the American will mostly act as a glue here while the Cheddar kind of mellows along. Mozzarella has its own way of melting, also plasticky, with a great pull. That's why pizza is so good. Swiss melts slowly and gets more pungent but less bitter as it does so. Softer cheeses melt faster, harder ones slower.

I really like cheese guys. I really, really like cheese.

Right.

Recipe.

What number are we on again?

5) Reverse the process with your other slice of bread: Mustard first, set on the cheesy slice you've already got in the pan, butter the top.

We're about to make the magic, folks.

6) Turn your heat on LOW. You don't wanna burn these babies, and they'll burn fast. I usually cook things higher than I tell you to. That's because I don't mind burned toast. I like it, even, because I'm probably a psychopath. Who knows.

Huh. I guess I did keep it fairly low. Bear in mind it's been a couple weeks.

7) Keep an eye on your grilled cheese. I'll admit, this is more of a Toasted Cheese than a Grilled one, but I don't like to mess around with my mom's griddle and I don't have one of my own. Her griddle goes over two burners and is solid cast iron. Intimidation city. Yikes. But seriously, keep an eye on them. I'll show you the stages of delicious here:

That's nice and lightly toasted on that side, but some of the butter is still liquid. It'll need another couple seconds.

Flipped it a second time. That's a good amount of toastiness!

I like to squish mine. Not everyone does. You don't have to.

Ah, perfect. Just this side of too crispy!

8) When the color is right where you think it looks good, turn off your pan and plate your sandwich. This may take several tries. I don't recommend trying to slide it out of the pan with gravity. Bread bounces. The floor is hungry. Again: personal experience. Just try to nudge it or lift it out gently with a spatula or something.

The steam really messes with the camera, man.

Now you can eat your delicious sandwich! I strongly recommend having a grilled cheese with whatever you've got that's fruity in the fridge. For optimal sick-day recreation, enjoy with orange juice in front of the Price is Right.

That's how you make a stove top grilled cheese!

And now for the Spice of the Week:

Behold the nutmeg

Nutmeg is kind of a dangerous spice. Too much of it can, in fact, make you very sick or even kill you. Mostly, it's used in things like Pumpkin Pie, where you use a very tiny amount of it. It pairs very well with Cinnamon and Cloves (we'll talk about cloves another time, guys, I'll only say this: don't smoke clove cigarettes, that is no bueno).

There's not much more I can say about Nutmeg beyond the caution to only use what a recipe calls for, because I am a freak who doesn't like pumpkin pie.

I think that'll be all this week, class.

I leave you with a picture of the cat, who was annoyed that I was pestering her while she napped.

Go Enjoy Make Something!

FC

Casual Gaming Saturday 8

Game: Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms
Publisher/Developer: Codename Entertainment Inc
Platforms: PC (Steam), Android, iOS

I'm a huge nerd. If you guys weren't already made aware of this by the fact that I started a blog about video games, bad movies, and wrestling (among other, more domestic pursuits), then you probably weren't paying much attention. But the fact remains - I'm a huge, dorky nerd.

When I was in middle school, one of my friends told me he wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons. We met at his house and ate pizza and drank soda until we were a barely coherent mess, drafting up bizarre characters. We had a drunkard Githyanki monk, a very unlucky demi-human fighter with her own superhighway between the afterlife and this one (raise dead is not cheap), and my rather foolhardy human sorceress who wound up with an 18 in Charisma. We were not hurting for spells at all.

Our DM was a wildcard. Some weeks it'd be the usual orc slaying, but others found us literally marching through the hells as a favor to a god of chaos and madness. On one of the more bizarre trips, we wound up with Bob. Bob was a psionic cow. Bob had milk that could raise the dead, but at a cost. Whoever was brought back would be temporarily transformed into a chicken. That'd be too normal if it was just a chicken, so of course, the chickens were fully sentient and breathed fire.

Fire was kind of a theme with our campaigns... I found an infinite wand of fireballs that recharged each day, a teapot that would pour out lava when heated, and eventually, Bob psionically dominated a freaking dragon.

Hell rued the day we showed up. None of the demons were sad to see us go.

But this isn't about my weird initial forays into the world of D&D, no. This game places you in control of some recognizable characters (though, to be honest, I didn't read a lot of the Forgotten Realms series, so I only really recognized the RA Salvatore characters of Bruenor and Jarlaxle). You level the characters up, click on enemies, and gain gold and equipment as you progress.

I won't go too in-depth on the characters, but I will say this: Bruenor and Jarlaxle are hilarious. Bruenor is your grumpy grandpa who just wants all these problems to disappear under his boots. Jarlaxle is a Millennial. I kid you not, the drow is absolutely a Millennial, and it's glorious.

Right now, and only until August 6, 2018, you can try to unlock characters from the infamous Wafflecrew from the Dungeons & Dragons internet show "Dice, Camera, Action". I'm in the midst of trying to unlock Diath Woodrow during this Midsummer event. Why specifically Diath?

Because I'm a ProJared fan.

And Diath Woodrow is ProJared's character.

And the only reason I decided to play this game was because he was so tickled that his character was in the game!

Actually, I'll let him tell you all about it!

So yes, I chose it from a fan's point of view. It combines all my favorite things in life: idle games, D&D, and possibly the biggest nerd on earth.

Now if I could only get past the major boss blocking that sweet Diath action...

This has been the Filthy Casual
Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 8

Movie: Double Down

Format: Digital (I think?)

By: Neil Breen

There are no words.

There are no goddamn words.

You guys thought the 70s Captain America was bad? No.

Mind, the movie isn’t Pocket Ninjas levels of stupid – it’s just…

Nothing can describe a Neil Breen movie.

Breen defies description.

And he’s making a new one.

Awed poetry aside, we watched Double Down last Friday, and it was certainly… something. It played out the way movies do, with moving pictures and sound and credits, but… it was not like any other movie I’ve seen.

No one knows where those quotes came from.

In my lifetime, I’ve had the dubious honor of viewing roughly half of this Las Vegas filmmaker’s oeuvre. Most of the movies follow the same basic pattern: Neil Breen plays a Marty-Stu protagonist who is trying to save the world somehow and succeeds based on some truly shaky science or straight-up magic.

This movie is no different.

I’m going to try to explain Double Down’s plot, such as it is, but bear with me if I get… off track. The movie induces a state not unlike post-dental surgery haze.

Neil Breen is playing a man named Erik (I think), who is a god-tier hacker who wants to stop all the wars or something to that effect via… well… terrorism, to be honest. The guy is shown dumping anthrax into what’s probably Lake Mead, thus killing the entirety of Las Vegas, but no one dies. Just lots of fish. We’re already getting lost here, aren’t we?

So Breen wants to stop bad things from happening using three or four laptop computers that are never, ever turned on, about as many ancient flip-phones, and two Direct TV satellite dishes clamped to the trunk of his car. Which he lives out of. Also, he seems to exclusively eat tuna out of a can. Actually, he tells us this in the ETERNAL VOICEOVER. The whole movie seems to be narrated. Badly. By Breen.

Yes, that's three phones. He uses one to steal a car, later...

Come on, dude, that's just upsetting.

Breen had a girlfriend he wanted to marry, but the government wanted to control him so they assassinated her? I think? Someone offed her. The red dot was hovering on his face briefly, so I opt for the idea that she just wanted out by whatever means necessary, because that scene contains the only emotive acting either of them show in the entire movie.

EMOTIONS!

Also… ech.

Nothing about this is good. Oh god... [except the editing here, that is awesome]

I’m sorry you had to see that. Btw, are you enjoying the edits and screencaps my Film & Editing Friendo grabbed for my? Thanks Film & Editing Friendo! These are tops!

Breen’s character is maybe hallucinating the whole movie, because he’s got his dead girlfriend in a body bag and now she’s a skeleton. Except that sometimes she’s supposed to be back to life because he goes running into the desert every time there’s hair spilling out of the body bag. I wish I was kidding.

Neil, that's not how a dakimakura works...

And suddenly, there’s a subplot about a magic rock that he tries and fails to cure a kid’s brain cancer with. Spoilers, she dies and there’s no impact in the rest of the movie.

He has a shootout with invisible people at one point while wearing a vest that I’m pretty sure could get him arrested since I know this guy hasn’t earned a single one of those medals…

I'm preeeety sure there's a law about this...

After a while, the CIA or FBI or… honestly, it’s unclear… decide that they need the guy who’s actively setting up and causing terrorism for stupid & shaky reasons to do them some favors and give him, apparently very bad, instructions to kidnap/murder some people.

It’s a common misconception that he murders the wedding chapel couple, but we see them drugged out on a lawn where he leaves them. By the way…

IT WAS THE WRONG DAMN COUPLE!

The correct couple have already killed themselves because they know that Neil Breen is coming. Neil also kidnaps some other dude we’re supposed to get stoked about, but the dude is mumbling the whole damn time.

Uh... pay attention to that fake-ass beard...

Eventually, and arbitrarily, we come to the ridiculous climax of the movie where a group of bad guys are trying to have a shootout with Breen and these assholes:

They're never properly explained, to my knowledge. WHO ARE YOU?!

There’s one last really fantastic scene in this movie during the shootout, but I’ll let someone who is much better at describing this madhouse of a film do the show & tell.

So that’s Double Down. A film made almost 100% by Neil Breen, who would like us all to forget that he’s something like a real estate agent or something like that.

It’s a great movie to watch in a group. Do not attempt this film alone. Do not. Also, if you’re an editing guy, like Film & Editing Friendo, he has discovered something. By trying to go through the movie to get random screenshots (because he’s awesome like that), F&FF has discovered that exactly every five minutes, there’s a random stock footage shot of Las Vegas and the desert. Every. Five. Minutes.

Thank you so much for sitting through that movie, even in randomized bursts, Friend.

Also, just to plug the madman behind these weird-ass movies, Mr. Breen has a new movie coming out called “Twisted Pair”

Remember what I said about all his movies being about him basically having a weird messiah complex?

Yeah.

Expect a blog on that one some day :P

I leave you with a film rating of a tuna can out of 10.

Seriously, guys, only watch this with people you can trust.

Here’s a nice song to close out your day (possibly unrelated, but I’ve always liked it)

Now, Go Enjoy Something!

FC

[All screenshots were got for me by my friend except the poster, that’s from imdb]

Thursday Art Walk 8

It's 86° with 64% humidity. I've turned on the AC and the cat very much appreciates it. Today, I tried something with my psychedelic art, but I don't quite know how to feel about it.

Also, I'm thinking of making a logo for the blog in a similar style. I'll see if that's what happens or not...

"Pixel-Perfect Acid Drop Mapping"; Permanent Marker on card stock; 2018

Why "Pixel-Perfect Mapping"? Because that's how I made it. I like to do this thing where I start at the center and use words to map to each dot.

North (or Up): A, E, I, M, Q, U, Y
East (or Right): B, F, J, N, R, V, Z
South (or Down): C, G, K, O, S, W
West (or Left): D, H, L, P, T, X

So by using the words "PIXEL-PERFECT ACID DROP MAPPING" I ended up going:

W16, N9, W24, N5, W12, W16, N5, E18, E6, N5, S3, W20, N1, S3, N9, W4, W4, E18, S15, W16, N13, N1, W16, W16, N9, E14, S7

Now, that doesn't always work, based on space, so I wrap around the picture when I hit an edge. You can see somewhat where the marker began to bleed on the edges (since they were perforated and marker loves fibers).

Then again, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I plan on making more weird psychedelic droplet art.

The next one might be called something like "Bad Lava Lamp Trip" or something like that :)

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 8 (strong language edition)

It's been another tough week in wrestling. Brickhouse Brown died, came back to life, and then died again. Nikolai Volkoff passed at 70 (not exactly a surprise, but sad all the same), and Jerry "the King" Lawler lost a son - Brian Christopher - suddenly and terribly.

Remember how I said suicide rates among wrestlers seemed weirdly high? Yeah. It happened again. Maybe. There's an investigation underway.

So today I'd like to post a few videos of these men, just so you get to experience their awesomeness. I was never really a fan of Brian Christopher, but that's because I only ever saw him after Vince McMahon got a hold on him and made him the lesser half of Too Cool opposite my main man Scotty 2 Hotty! Had I seen his primo heel work in Memphis, I'd have probably liked him a lot more than the hooting, screeching man-child he played in WWE.

First up, we have the venerable Cold-War Heel Nikolai Volkoff:

Nikolai Volkoff''s real name was Josip Peruzović, and he was a Yugoslavian/Croatian (Croatia was part of Yugoslavia when he was born, it seems) weight lifter in his youth. He eventually emigrated to North America via Canada and worked for Stampede Wrestling before Vince McMahon decided he needed a Cold War villain. Despite the fact that most people who emigrated from Bloc countries weren't exactly thrilled with the USSR, Volkoff took the Russian gimmick and ran with it. The man was still singing the USSR anthem a few years ago.

I can't say he was the most electrifying wrestler on earth, but that's not what made him so popular, anyway. Wrestling skill rarely seems to have made people popular in the 1980s (cough *HOGAN* cough). It was all personality, and the man had personality in spades. I mean, I love that he eventually got into it with his former tag team partner, the Iron Sheik (oh man, you gotta check him out) and Sgt. Slaughter at Survivor Series 1990 because he was suddenly pro-west and a defector! I'm not 100%, but if the Soviet Union had officially dissolved in 1991, then I'm pretty sure we all knew it was coming in 1990...

Regardless, he eventually became a sympathetic heel, basically trapped under Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase's thumb and poorly treated. That sad-sack gimmick was the last one he had in wrestling besides his brief returns in Gimmick Battle Royals, his Hall of Fame ceremony in 2005, and other shows playing his old gimmick.

He seems to have been a gentle man, though perhaps a bit behind on the times on occasion.

He will absolutely be missed.



Brian Christopher Lawler may have been best known as the annoying member of Too Cool, but he was also a fantastic heel in his father's Memphis territory of wrestling:

Brian Christopher, like many wrestlers, fought his personal demons constantly. He wasn't always successful, and unfortunately, they may have defeated him in a jail cell at 46 years old.

It's frustrating, looking at his Wikipedia page, because it says so little about his work before the WWE. Yes, it's hard to get hold of most of the old Territories' tapes, but his gimmick in the WWE just shredded what you can see here from being a great whiny chickenshit heel to being a human baboon with goggles and possibly one of the best themes in WWE history...

We'll see if there are further developments in the sad tale of his passing, but I, for one, have seen too many suspicious jail-cell hangings to rule out anything hinky from having happened. I'm not saying he was murdered. I'd never go that far unless there was evidence. I'm just also saying it's possible that suicides are allowed or encouraged in some cases. However this case turns out, the world has still been robbed of a fantastic wrestler and wrestling personality.



I have, I'll confess, never seen a Brickhouse Brown match, to my knowledge. This is a crime and a sin against wrestling, and I'm going to rectify it as soon as I can, because my god, the man was a genius. He's also another tragedy of wrestling, because if wrestlers were guaranteed health insurance, he'd probably still be alive. His prostate cancer was survivable when diagnosed, but because he did not have the money to pay for lifesaving treatment, he was given painkillers and died a slow, horrific death. But tell me again how America is the greatest and most advanced nation on Earth...

Anyway.

Brickhouse Brown was one of those rare wrestlers who got started in the business with no training, but eventually, he was trained by some of the best and became an NWA Tag Team Champion. The biggest tragedy of the story, I think, is that Vince didn't hire him, because if he had, then I think that he'd have been as big as any African American wrestler could have been in the WWE.

Then again... if you watch even the preview of his shoot (real-talk) interview, you may see why Vince passed him up... Maybe don't do what he did to Harvey Wippleman (even if he probably deserved it...)

In conclusion, we had a hell of a week, losing three seriously awesome guys in one week. Actually, it was in a span of about 24 hours. They all died on July 29th. I should point out that pretty much every other time that's happened, it's been because of a terrible vehicular accident. This was a sad week.

But their memories shall forever live on.

My god. I have to do something less depressing last week :P

Go Enjoy Something!
FC