Thursday Art Walk 206

Well, today has been a weird day. I was woken up around 2AM by a chilling cacophony from what I could only assume were vile hellspawn at the time. It started as a mournful howl and then devolved into whining and cackling. It was almost certainly a pack of coyote or coy-wolves in my backyard. Thank goodness my cat is an indoor cat, because if she had been outside last night... we'd never find her.

It was a deeply upsetting experience and I couldn't sleep afterwards.

Mostly I couldn't sleep because they wouldn't stop celebrating. I don't know what they were celebrating, but boy did that racket sound... jubilant.

But you're not here to hear about my messed up sleep schedule and the potentially fatal wildlife that doesn't belong in this area.

You're here for Art!!!

Here we see Dedbert Attacking a Stack and exploring his literary side!
"Dedbert v Books"; colored pencil on computer paper; 2019

 And since I don't want to be disingenuous, here's a photo of Dedbert's real-life Squishable counterpart, Dedbert. Yeah. I didn't bother to change his name. Don't ask me why I changed his eyelids but not his name...

The real live Dedbert having a cup of coffee on my desk, exhausted from a long night of coyotes and snow...

Hopefully, I'll manage a nap at some point, so that could be fun (especially since I had a weird hallucination as I was falling asleep on the couch this morning...). I should probably also brave the gross stinky chamomile tea, to be honest.

I might have to talk about the other tea I tried on Sunday (as well as talking about the tasty noodles I made recently!!!)

I think that'll do it for me, today!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 206: Halloween Havoc 2000

I love Halloween Havoc. It's one of the best ideas for a PPV, especially for professional wrestling, and I have no idea why WWE doesn't just make it their own. They've gleaned most of the good stuff from WCW already, so why not the best PPV?! They have a busload of Halloween-ready characters, last I checked (Finn Balor, Boogeyman, Asuka...)!

Here's what a Halloween Havoc should look like.

And then I watched Halloween Havoc 2000.

Strong contender for "worst poster ever"

I'd be willing to bet this garbage is why we don't have Havoc in WWE.

This was a trash pay-per-view. Just garbage. They didn't even have a Halloween set! Just one spiderweb curtain that no one in the crowd could see.

Though there were a few good matches!

The card went like this:

• Natural Born Thrillers (Mark Jindrak & Sean O'Haire) vs The Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman & Rey Misterio with Konnan) vs The Boogie Knights (Disqo/Disco Inferno & Alex Wright); 10 minutes of great tag team wrestling, though Disco is still terrible and O'Haire wasn't really able to shine and why they took Rey's mask off I'll never understand... [Thrillers maintain tag titles]
• Reno (who?) vs Sgt AWOL (who?!) for the Hardcore championship, which lead to a few funny lines about running out of tables and the impossibility thereof, but otherwise was a garbage match with very little interesting about it. I mean, the most interesting part was that AWOL came out at the end of the Tag match to clear and set up the ring... which sucked.
• The Misfits In Action (Lt. Loco & Cpl. Cajun) vs The Perfect Event (Chuck Palumbo & Shawn Stasiak) which was actually a pretty decent match that still felt boring because literally nothing was on the line and the announcers weren't paying much attention.
• The Filthy Animals (Konnan & Tygress) vs Shane Douglass & Torrie Wilson dressed as Wonder Woman, which was also a pretty meh match because Torrie & Tygress were... not very accomplished wrestlers at this time and the leadup was... dumb. "The Franchise" gimmick sucked. It really did. Konnan was great because he's Konnan.
• I know what a First Blood match is, but even after the half-hearted explanation from the commentary team, I have no idea what a First Blood DNA match is. Beyond stupid, that is. It's David Flair vs Buff Bagwell and it's terrible. David Flair could not wrestle his way out of a paper bag and looked seriously uncomfortable with his crimson mask in the end. Yikes.
• I hate watching kickboxing. I hate watching Ernest "the Cat" Miller. I hated the garbage Worked (fake) kickboxing match between The Cat & Mike Sanders. It was awful and a full 8.5 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Also, The Cat's theme on the WWE Network has to be the biggest Rib (joke) I've ever encountered. It's as garbage as the Cat's wrestling.
• Mike Awesome (with a That 70's Guy gimmick) vs Vampiro (before Lucha Underground) was actually a pretty darn good match. Mike Awesome was a pretty good wrestler, and when he was sober, so was Vampiro. They had a pretty great match that made me feel like I could actually finish this PPV without a migraine. Solid moves on both men's parts, good chemistry in-ring, and some truly mad moves to the outside. Also, I believe a fan got walloped by the security guys, so... that was entertaining.
• Gen. Rection = Hugh Morris, and I don't like him at all. I don't like his wrestling. I don't like his personality. I don't like that life has been cruel to him, though. I feel for the guy. I just don't like watching his matches. Watching him fight and somehow beat Lance Storm was not entertaining, though it did end up making me feel like the Cosmic Brownie I'd just eaten was truly Cosmic, since Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Mr. I Love America himself, was hardcore representing Team Canada here. What.
• Somehow, Jeff Jarrett vs Sting wasn't the main event. Thank goodness. There would've been riots. It is one of the worst gimmicky matches I've ever seen. Literally every incarnation of Sting appears to fight Real Sting (in his Crow gimmick), and it's intolerably stupid. At one point another Crow Sting pulls Real Sting through the ring, and Real Sting comes back from it. The only way this match would've worked is if Real Sting had defeated Jarrett at the end, but... it's 2000 WCW. Of course Jarrett won. And of course no one liked it.
• Next we have Booker T vs Scott Steiner, and it's bananas. It's not a good match, and it's made worse by being called by his brother Stevie Ray, who was never much of a talker. Stevie is still a better commentator than Mark Madden, who was horrifically bad. Of course, WCW being what it is, this anticipated (?) match ends in a disqualification, which is a lot like how things end with big matches in WWE these days. Why is this big name match not the main event? Because Booker T wants Goldberg to destroy the tag team Kronik at the end of the PPV. Why? I don't know. I doubt I'd understand even if I had watched every episode of WCW up to this point. It's dumb.
• Speaking of Dumb! We have the double-Bryan tag team Kronik (Brian Adams/Crush & Bryan Clark/Adam Bomb) trying to take down Goldberg, who has already lost his streak and the company are stupidly trying to build anticipation with a new streak, which... okay, people still love Goldberg, and he's still Goldberg so he's still impressive, but... you can't catch lightning in a bottle twice.

wtf why is Duggan on Team Canada?!

This was not a good idea if they were gonna have Sting lose.
Only have someone fight off the past if they're going to win.
Seriously.

The Bryans here are supposed to basically be guns-for-hire but I don't know who "hired" them to beat Goldberg?
There was some fun buildup for this match where Kronik try to get the Nevada Wrestling Commission to DQ Goldberg based on his neck injuries from a previous fight, but aside from that... meh.

My least favorite part about this whole Pay Per View has to be the commentary. Now, Tony Schiavone is a good commentary guy. He gives decent play-by-play, he's got a great voice for broadcast, and he knows what he's talking about when he's given a job to do. He's at his best, however, when he's put with another good talker, like Bobby Heenan. He's not given a Bobby Heenan to work with here.

He's given Mark Madden and Stevie Ray.

Mark Madden is an insufferable buffoon on commentary at the best of times, and this is not the best of times.

Stevie Ray is not a commentary guy. He's a wrestler. He's a great guy, but boy does he not belong behind a desk and on a microphone for an entire Pay Per View.

The commentary, therefore, is terrible.

I think my favorite part of this PPV, however, was desperately looking for the Young Bucks, because they were at this PPV and talked to Rey afterwards. I never saw the Bucks, but it was a heckin good time looking for them in the mass of 7500+ people who were in attendance at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Now, why does this venue sound familiar?

It's where Double or Nothing is going to be held!

I, for one, am very much looking forward to seeing the Lucha Brothers (who recently signed with AEW, from what I understand) and the rest of AEW tearing this venue up during their PPV!

I'm also looking forward to more news and more people signing!

Maybe KENTA?

Maybe Kitamura? (Okay, hopefully not Kitamura, I'm not much for beefy brawlers like him, but I still wish him the best since he's not with NJPW anymore and he's been recovering from that crushed leg!)

Maybe Dean?

This is an exciting time to love wrestling, I have to say!

That'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

[And yes, that's 3 YouTube links]

Talk About Tuesday 206

It's Tuesday again! And I've hardly written in my stories. That should be changing this week, though. Hopefully I'll have positive updates there for you next week!

The weather where I live has been completely bananas! Last week, we had subzero temperatures  (Fahrenheit) and snow, snow, snow. So far this week, we've hit the 40s and a touch of rain. The obvious joke here would be that it's great weather for ducks, but we saw more of our little flock last week than I have this week! We had 30 at one point! Not this week. I've seen 2. TWO!

Complaints about the weather aside, these last couple of weeks have been extra cool for my gamer brain with the release of the incredible Resident Evil 2 Remake and the release of a strong contender for "worst written series to make billions of dollars" - Kingdom Hearts III. KH3 looks lovely, but it also makes no sense and relies maybe a bit too heavily on the plots of the movies it lashes itself to. I'm not saying people shouldn't like it. I'm just saying that the storyline is a massive barrier to entry if you have to have played literally every game in the series to understand it.

Sorry about the mini rant!

Here's the (hopeful) schedule for week 6 into 7:

• Tomorrow I'll be talking about some of the wrestling news I've acquired in the last week or so!
• Thursday I'll have at least one drawing for you guys!
• Friday will be about a movie I saw at the local theater a couple of weeks ago
• Saturday will have me talking about another casual game I've been playing
• Sunday will have me blabbing about food again :)
• Monday will be the start of a new project!
• Tuesday will be more blather :)

So, that's what I'll be up to over the next seven days!

Today, I'm going to go see Z, and after I get home, I'm going to start gathering info on various wrestling stories for tomorrow. If I have a chance, I'll also write some more on my stories (yay, Trevor is off the truck!)

I might start writing the Butters Ridge story in a notebook rather than on the computer, just so that I can write it on the go. Maybe that'll be the one that gets more done? I don't know.

Alright, friends, I've got to greet the day. I'm only 1 cup of coffee deep in the day and still in pajamas. I should get working on that...

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC

Fiber Monday 206: Kirby Complete

It's been six weeks that we've worked on Kirby, and I have to say...

Uh...

I'm sorry.

I'm very bad at embroidery and...

Yikes.

I sewed in the first eye without photographing it, sorry!

And I counted wrong to get to the next one (again, sorry)
You'll see what I mean, soon!

Here we go, eye #2 going in!

And this is where I realized they weren't going to match.

But I persisted, because pulling out those stitches would have sucked

Now, after I finished the first pass, I went back over it with the same yarn
filling in gaps and finishing the eye.

And here we go, pulling the tail through the body and clipping it off.

As you can see, my second eye started too early.
I should've given more space between the two.
The mouth was done in the same way, btw
Stitch a line, then go back over it to fill in gaps!

Kirby chilling over my snipping scissors

Kirby chilling in front of my second cup of coffee!

He is kinda growing on me, you know? I like that he's so happy, even if he is lopsided and his feet aren't set up to hold him up!

I'm looking forward to doing more amigurumi in the future, and I hope I get better at faces!!!

That's all for me today, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC

Survival Sunday 205: More Hot Pot!

I'm really fond of these hot pots we've been getting lately. This one, I think, would be pretty simple to replicate, since it was a soy sauce and yuzu pepper based, I think that you could actually whip up a soup base for this.

My theory is that the recipe would consist of garlic, a little ginger (maybe even pickled?), a ton of soy sauce, some yuzu (or lemon/lime rind/juice), pepper... I'd like to try to make some hot-pot soup from scratch at some point.

Anyway...

Here are our hotpot ingredients:
Sliced daikon (white disks), green bell pepper, endive (spears in back), bacon, carrots, broccoli rabe, and green beans
Three servings of liquid soup base, three servings of powdered soup base (for later), three servings of noodles
A tube of daikon-based dipping sauce

This is the package for the hot pot sauce.
I have no idea what it says, to be honest.
I should learn more Japanese!

The delicious salty noodles we ate with the soup!

The dipping sauce - it was surprisingly lightly spicy, pleasantly sour, and it really brought out the flavor in the veggies!

Here's what the soup looked like with one serving of liquid base & water (1 sachet : 1 cup water)

3 sachets of liquid soup and 3 cups water, sitting over high heat to get it nice and bubbly for the veggies!

I promise, everything except the bacon is in here.
We put the daikon & peppers in first
then the endive
then the bag of rabe, carrots, & beans
I broke the beans in half to make them easier to eat
but I missed a few

We left the bacon to cook down a little and we wanted the daikon soft
It took a loooooong time because I didn't turn the heat up high enough!

This hot pot called for us to have some broth but mostly veggies and to leave the rest of the broth in the pot!

After we finished (most of) our veggies
I popped back into the kitchen and tossed the three dry sachets into the pot with the broth.
I'm guessing these contained dry soy sauce and a bunch of other seasonings
This part would definitely be a place to experiment with!!!

Finally, I added the noodles to the pot and boiled them together with the new soup.
When it was all done, I brought the whole pot out and added the noodles to Z & my bowls.
I still had a bunch of veggies left, so I took less noodz.
The noodles were delightfully salty and firm!

I hope to experiment more with hot pots in the future - they're a fun way to get a whole meal out of a single pot, after all! This one was a delicious experience that I'd love to replicate. It really hit the spot with both of us, since we're still a tiny bit under the weather!

Now, I have a few brief questions for you, oh internet void:

Is there anything you'd like to see from the cooking segments more often? Should I bring back the spice of the week? Am I being clear enough with how to make things?

I guess that'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 205: Idle Breakout

Game: Idle Breakout
Developer: Kodiqi
Tags: Block, Clicker, Idle, Incremental
Format: PC (Kongregate)

I play a lot of idle games. Like, a lot. A LOT a lot. And most of them just... aren't really that different from one another.

Idle Breakout is a different Idle Game.

So, you guys know Breakout, right? Basically Pong but with only one player and a bunch of bricks instead of another paddle. Score points for breaking bricks. Well, Idle Breakout is breakout without a paddle. Or rather, it has paddles, they're just surrounding all the bricks in a box. So you're watching balls break bricks and progressing through levels. I suppose you could literally just leave things as they begin and go out to dinner while your game plays itself, but where's the fun in that?

This is Breakout on Atari

This is Pong, which is Breakout's dad.

Breaking bricks earns you "money", which you spend on upgrades like new balls, different kinds of balls, improving your ability to break bricks yourself by clicking on them (I don't do much for manual clicking anymore, after you have about 25 balls, it's almost pointless!), or improving your balls' speed or power or special abilities.

This is what the first level looks like, and with only one v e r y s l o w ball, it takes forever to get to level 2.

With more balls, things can go pretty darn fast!
Also you get random ball facts every once in a while, though I can't vouch for just how factual these are...

Now, eventually, you'll hit a level where you don't have a bunch of smaller bricks but one large golden one. These gold bricks are the heart & soul of the Prestige function, which can help you level up your balls faster or otherwise improve the gameplay by starting over with gold currency. The gold currency can be spent to give you cash bonuses every level you beat (making improving your balls faster), increasing the base speed or power of your balls, increase the maximum number of balls you can have at once (you start with a max of 50), or ... get a laser. I haven't done that yet. I'm still working my way through the earlier bonuses!

A Golden Brick.

Now, bearing in mind that you can always click bricks to break them faster, the gold bricks can be quite the challenge! They can take forever to break if you haven't improved your balls or click power, and that's kind of annoying, but it's all based on customization and self-direction here, so there's that.

My only complaint is that unless you turn the "effects" button on, you can't have the benefit from Plasma Balls.

If you're looking for something retro and neat, Idle Breakout might be for you! Also, a game of breakout where having to pee won't destroy you is nice :P

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 205: Turbulence 3

Where to begin...

This movie has exactly one thing to do with the other two Turbulence movies:
They all take place on planes.

This movie makes 0 sense, kind of ties in to Supernatural in a weird-but-stupid way, and literally could never take place today. This movie is from before 9/11, so the airport scenes are completely insane.

Here's the story to this madhouse of a movie:

Marilyn Manson ripoff Slade Craven (whose name I already have major issues with as far as Metal names goes) is having a going-away-tour on a freakin jet, so a horde of Goths (who are apparently the same as Metalheads) go through airport security, who do not require them to take out their piercings, remove their spikes, check their wallets before going through the only scanner in a large airport, etc. Basically, the shitty security is just setting up for a stupid scene later.

This is not in LA. These are not Metalheads. This is not an airport.
This movie lies constantly.

Do I know why there's a scene that starts by focusing on people's mouths talking slowly?
No.
Is it important?
Also no.

So Slade's ridiculous and frankly stupid as heck concert is being played on a jet, and it's somehow being live-streamed over the internet. In 2000, which is when the movie was being made, despite being released in 2001. It came out in May, so they didn't know, but yikes.

Her skull keeps trying to bust through her fact the whole film.

 The movie follows several groups of people through several locations with pretty minimal overlap. Group 1 included the web-tv "station" who are live-streaming this ridiculous nonsense (presumably at 120p or something ridiculous). There's a camera guy and a reporter lady on the jet with a bunch of hidden cameras, and a creepy producer guy and his put-upon assistant in a big cinderblock building painted stupid colors.

See what I mean about Wannabe Manson?

This shot was so wobbly I can only assume it was a camera mounted on a rolling chair or luggage.

Group 2 is the Band & Craven, who are... dumb.

Group 3 is the bunch of fans on the jet, and they're... pretty interesting actually. We have a media major who wants to be a reporter, a ditzy girl who's super into the music, and a rocker guy who has more guts than everyone else in this movie.

Spoilers, these two are together by the finale.

Group 4 are the pilots. Don't worry about the main pilot. It's the copilot you want to follow. Because...

He's evil Rutger Hauer.

Group 5 is the FBI played by Joe Mantegna and Gabrielle Anwar. Anwar's character is after Nick Watts, a hacker played by Craig Sheffer.

Angry FBI Stereotype Joe

Perky Hacker Stereotype Anwar

Trying to be metal but hitting bad Country vibes instead.

Here's where things get dumber.

The plot isn't revealed until most of the way through the movie after several agonizing musical numbers, but here it is:

The plane is being hijacked by Satanists (Hauer and the skull-face reporter lady) aided by a guy who is a lookalike for Craven. They want to fly the plane over a church in Kansas (Supernatural connection, I guess) and crash it, killing everyone in front of 10 million people. Why? Because evil. It's stupid.

Fake Craven sucks.

Somehow he's even less creepy and terrifying than real Craven.

And Real Craven is locked in a Jiffy Pop Room.

The movie ends with the hacker dude almost hacking the plane kind of (using Real Craven as a proxy), and they safely land.

See what I mean about Real Craven being terrifying?!

Anywho, this movie is awesome and amazing and I hooted and hollered my whole way through!

Also, the band's stage kinda looks like an MST3K set, so I dig that.

If you've got a chance, go watch Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal for yourself. It's a riot!

Now Go Enjoy Something!
FC