Thursday Art Walk 211: Work In Progress!

I'm having a mixed-bag day, but it's largely positive. I'll get my whining out of the way first:

We were supposed to get, at most, a dusting of snow last night. It's three more inches I didn't want to worry about, instead. Ugh. Whatever. It's just snow and we're coming up on a few 40+℉ (4.5+℃) days. This too shall pass.

Because of the snow, however, I could not make my breakfast sammich, which I was looking forward to all nigh. Boo. I can make it later, I guess. Ah well. It's just an egg sandwich. It's not the end of the world.

I stepped in brownie crumbs while wearing fresh socks, so now I get to smell chocolate all day, but it's tainted by sock-smell. Weird, but I can work with that.

On the other hand!!!

I found a really fancy wooden crochet hook I was sure I'd lost forever! I've been looking all over for the little bugger, and I finally found it. Finally, a hook I don't feel weird about using with my pretty silk yarn...

I also got to kiss my cat on the bridge of her nose and she purred! Kitties!

She's so darn cute!!!

I discovered that I can now lift a hardwood chair over my head with no problem - a big deal for a weakling like myself!

I got to take a shower and it didn't go cold halfway through - that hasn't happened in months! Uh, the warmth maintenance, not the shower. I absolutely bathe more than once a month. This got weird fast...

Also, I managed to finish the basic lineart on one of the most bizarre pictures I've ever begun drawing in my life. Also, I'm pretty proud of how on-point the main focus looks:

Does this not look like Luigi? Because it's supposed to look like Luigi...

I have more shooting hotdogs to draw, and a couple of other interesting background elements, but this is a pretty decent pencil sketch, if I say so myself!!!

I think that'll about do it for me - I'm gonna go see a stove about a possible sammich!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 211: Sumo and Pro Wrestling Updates

It's sumo-time again! It's time for the Haru Basho, the spring competition, in Osaka, and it's been pretty wild so far. Unlike the Hatsu (opening) Basho in Tokyo in January, there hasn't been an overabundance of injury and blood, but we're short a Yokozuna now. Kisenosato retired after the Hatsu Basho, where he made a disappointing effort.

Sumo is different from Pro-Wrestling in a lot of ways, though there is plenty of crossover (two rank-named gimmicks in particular come to mind: Yokozuna and Rikishi). Firstly, Sumo isn't "worked", which is when a match has a set outcome and neither opponent is meant to harm the other for real. Sumo is a "shoot". It's a real sport with real fighting and no scripted storylines. It's the only combat sport I follow.

In Sumo, the opponents stand across from one another behind a pair of lines in a circular ring on a raised clay platform called a dohyo. The goal is to force your opponent to either touch the ground with his hands or to leave the ring. It's a vertical version of amateur wrestling.

Yes, Sumo wrestlers are very, very big (usually), and yes, it can be a little comical on occasion to see two enormous walls of meat slapping each other in a little ring, but then you see their faces. These men are determined to win their bout. They are serious. They are intense. They are deadly.

I had my reservations about Sumo when I first started watching. I didn't think I'd enjoy it. I thought it would be boring. How interesting can two men slapping each other in a circle be?

Hakuho smoking someone out of the ring

Pretty interesting, it turned out, because I arrived just as Hakuho began his rise to dominance. He was a punk. He was undefeatable. He was intense.

And then last Basho, the unthinkable happened. Hakuho lost. He was defeated several times! I'm thinking this may relate to both the loss of his beloved father in April of last year and also because he is taking on Japanese citizenship (which will cause him to lose his Mongolian citizenship). He's under a lot of stress as a top-ranking Yokozuna at only 34 years old, and his insane fame may finally be getting to him. Also, it's easy for a man who's 6'4" and nearly 350lbs to develop illnesses, I'd imagine.

Regardless, Hakuho has become one of my top 3 Sumo guys and that's largely because he's a freight train in the dohyo.

Tochinoshin

After Hakuho, I have to say my second favorite Sumo wrestler to follow is Tochinoshin, a Georgian wrestler (the country, not the state). Maybe it's because he kind of reminds me of Nicholas Cage (we had very bad internet the first time we saw him, so Z & I just kind of... that's what we thought of when we saw him, so that's what stuck!), or maybe it's because he is a man-beast, but Tochinoshin has been consistently fascinating to watch. He's been struggling lately, though, between injuries and illness, and it's been a strange time for this Ozeki-ranked wrestler.

Speaking of Sumo wrestlers' faces, though, that brings me to my third favorite wrestler:

Takayasu has the best facial expressions, hands-down.

Takayasu is an Ozeki like Tochinoshin. He's got a great form, he's dynamic to watch, and he's willing to get a little battered if it means taking someone down. The best part of his matches, though, are his facial expressions when he's presented with his fat stacks of money when he wins. He's the most expressive wrestler, and I really respect that, unlike some big guys, he's rarely out of breath after a short match. Recently, we watched him have a two-minute match. For reference, most sumo bouts we've watched last between 10-50 seconds. Ten to fifty seconds, guys, and he held a much bigger man still for over two minutes. Amazing. And then he got the money. Wow.

Regardless, Sumo is a lot of fun. Z & I follow YouTuber Kintamayama for our Sumo fix, since he's got a great sense of humor and is also good at letting you know what is really happening during a basho. He gives background on some of the wrestlers, he tells you what's wrong with someone when they're failing, and he keeps you up to date on everyone's ranks! He also explains what a lot of the moves are, so that helps a lot!


***


Unfortunately, now I have to move on to the Pro-Wrestling portion of today's blog, and also unfortunately, it's not a happy one.

This month, there were two surprising and upsetting deaths. The one most people have heard of is King Kong Bundy, who was a major wrestler in both WCW and WWE. He was a mountain of a man - 6'4" and nearly 460lbs at one time! - and surprisingly nimble in the ring. He was one of the best big men in the 1980s whose name wasn't Andre, and I was always impressed with the way he took command of any interview he was in. He was clear, he was quick, and he was always, always mean. The man was a consummate heel.

A Young King Kong Bundy ready to bring the pain.

Bundy, whose real name was Christopher Allan Pallies, was 63 years old.

The other death this month may surprise people, because you wouldn't associate this man with wrestling unless you're a huge nerd for in-ring action.

Luke Perry.

Yeah, the actor.

Why would Luke Perry be included in this somber company? Well...

Right: Luke Perry. Left: Jack Perry, aka Jungle Boy

Luke's son Jack is a Pro-Wrestler who recently signed with AEW. It's never going to be easy to lose a parent, just ask Cody Rhodes, but to lose your dad when you're 21 is especially saddening. My heart goes out to Jack & his family.

I'm going to leave links to a match from each King Kong Bundy and Jungle boy here:

King Kong Bundy

Jungle Boy


Now, please,

Go Enjoy Something
FC

Talk About Tuesday 211

My cat is staring at me from the window sill right now. I think she's annoyed that I have coffee but I didn't share my half-and-half. Of course, as soon as I typed that, she proved me wrong and is currently sleeping next to me now... wow. Cats be strange, folks :)

Anywho, it's Tuesday again already, which means I get to blather on and on about real life nonsense!

Like the fact that we had another storm (wintry mix) the other day, followed by a day that was almost 50℉ (10℃), and today we're back to right around freezing again. At least it's sunny. It's actually quite beautiful out today.

We've had a lot more wildlife this year than usual! Beyond the coyotes I told you guys about and the massive influx of ducks, we've had more raptors in our skies than usual (I expect ospreys and the little hawks, but we've also had some big hawks flying around and maybe even a falcon or two!), and we've had a cute Barred Owl camping out in our back yard. I think one of the new raptors hawk-blocked him while he was hunting mice the first time my mother saw him!

So we've got coyotes, owls, hawks, falcons, songbirds, ducks, gulls, pigeons, doves, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, and deer lately. We still haven't seen the bobcat again, so hopefully he or she has returned to the rural mountains where they belong.

Aside from weather and wildlife, things have been pretty quiet around here. I baked bread (Survival Sunday 210), I ate noodles, I snuggled with the cat. I drank too much coffee and not enough water. I read bad fanfiction and good fanfiction. I discovered a blog called Sheikah Plate. I watched The Beast from 20000 Fathoms at my local library. I watched some... not great movies with Z & our Film and Editing Friendo. We're going to make a trilogy of bad movies before I talk about the first two...

I haven't been keeping up on reading or writing. Ouch. I'll have to get back to work on that! On the plus side, I've actually started a document for the Butters Ridge idea. I just don't quite know how to open a story that's basically a domestic drama about an artist who ends up working as the gimmick-maker and Title Designer for an up-and-coming Indie Wrestling Promotion...

Here's our delightful schedule for the next week:

• Wednesdaymania this week is going to be... something? I don't know yet. For all I know, I'll be watching some wrestling today. If not, I'll look some stuff up tonight. I also need to talk about this month's sad wrestling deaths :(
• Thursday may have me drawing some more lineart. I like lineart.
• Friday has the unique distinction of me not knowing what I'm going to write about this week... I know there are movies we've watched that I haven't discussed, but I don't remember which ones right now.
• Saturday is going to be about one of the most ubiquitous forms of gaming around today, but I won't tell you which... Also, it may be late, since I'll be going to a book sale in the morning. Sorry, brahs and babes.
• Sunday is a mystery, even to me! Maybe I'll bake again on Thursday? Maybe I'll make rice that isn't burned? Maybe I'll even try something from the Sheikah Plate? Who knows! It'll be a surprise.
• Monday we'll work on kitty some more. I'll probably just make the ears, but if that's too little, I'll also work on the mouth/muzzle. Maybe I'll even take more pictures of my kitty to make things cuter!
• And finally, next Tuesday, I'll be blathering on some more!

I should try to find something new every week to talk about, but let's face it, I'm a lazy bum and will not do it for love or money. :P

Maybe I'll talk about the 1995 version of The Wind in the Willows on Friday...

And maybe I'll actually get some reading done with Gun, with Occasional Music.

Final note - Z has become obsessed with the Enjoy Something Links I have today, so blame Z for getting this stuck in your heads :P

Now Go Enjoy Something

FC

Fiber Monday 211

I've continued work on our sweet amigurumi kitty this week with its tail being the focus. Hopefully, you'll all be able to keep up on this and you don't make the same mistake I made, which is the same mistake I keep making...

I forget to read the pattern before I stitch.

Here we have my magic ring with six stitches in it! So far so good!

And here we show the magic ring cinched shut with my six single crochet stitches forming a lovely base.
Excellent.

Aaaaaand I botched it.
Instead of following directions, I went ahead and sc2 in each sc to make a round of 12 sc.
This is wrong.
I had to pull all 12 out and start over from the first 6.

There we go - if slightly blurry. This is the (sc 2, 2sc) pattern I wanted.
We should have 8 sc per round, not 12!
Our kitty is not a fluffbutt, apparently.

Now, obviously, it's not the end of the world if your cat has a chunky tail, but I'm trying to stick as close to the pattern as possible for this project. If I make more kitties, they'll be much more varied in appearance!

I did take the liberty of making the pink tip of his tail 8 rounds tall, then attaching my Main Color.
He's got quite the pattern, eh?

16 rounds later, we have a tail!
The tail is supposed to be 22 rounds long, counting the foundation 6sc.

I think that tail is looking pretty good, if I do say so myself. Next time I make a kitty, I'd like to make its tail much longer. Maybe make it ridiculously lanky, too... we'll see!

Regardless, all that remains now is to finish the ears & muzzle, stuff, sew, and present. I don't know how many more weeks that'll take, but we'll see about that, too!

Hopefully you guys are having a good time following along with this amigurumi experiment. I'd love to hear any suggestions or comments you may have!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 210: No-Knead White Bread

If you're anything like me, you're a carbovore. Bread is delicious. Yeasted bread is extra delicious. Unfortunately, yeast is an intimidating microorganism and I've been scared of it ever since I tried to make mini white bread loaves and only succeeded in making nice-smelling bricks. That was years ago.

But I think I've cracked the code, guys!

I'm a big fan of King Arthur Flour. I live in the Northeastern USA, so it's one of the more prevalent brands one can get ahold of, and I dig that it's basically employee-owned. Proselytizing aside, it's good flour, and the website is an amateur baker's dream. They have recipes for bread that do not include the most difficult-to-master part of baking: kneading.

I have never been able to tell when I've kneaded that dough properly. It's just not a rhythm I've mastered, and I don't have the time, money, or ingredients to go botching batch after batch until I've got a wall of inedible wheat-bricks in the backyard, waiting to break the mice's teeth.

So finding this recipe was a miracle to my texture-incompetent soul.

No-Knead Crusty White Bread, you have saved my bread-poor baking skills. I can now make at least one kind of bread!

I halved the recipe, so I got two little loaves!
Yes, I marked them 1 and 2...

So how did I do this?

HALVED RECIPE INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water (I just ran the tap until it was hot, but not painful, you can use a thermometer to get it to 105℉/40-41℃ if you want!)
• 3 1/2 cups flour (just all-purpose is fine, since bread flour will make it a little tough...)
• 1/2 Tbsp salt
• 1 packet instant or active dry yeast

That's it. 4 ingredients. No butter, milk, or sugar. This is not an enriched bread of any sort. Now, I personally think that adding a hint of honey or butter might improve the flavor, but it's good on its own! Honestly, it has me wondering how it would be with different kinds of flour...

Anywho, the directions are behind the earlier link, so I'll just give you my basic step-by-steps!

My ingredients and most utensils assembled.

Not pictured are the mixing spoon, baking sheet, parchment paper, and plastic wrap...

Here we have our flour in the bowl!

Flour + Salt

Flour, Salt, Yeast. The dry trinity of breadmaking.

I added the water and began stirring. The water should be bathwater warm!
Mine might have been a little cooler than it ought to be, but it could also be that my house was too cool.

Eventually it formed into this sticky ball!

I wrapped it and left it to sit for the correct amount of time.
I even gave it extra time.

I should mention that after I left it to sit for a while, I forgot to take photos of it when it rose and when I put it in the fridge. If I do this again I'll: A) Take more/better photos, B) leave it in the fridge overnight for more sourdough-flavor, and C) make the full batch!

Something else I'll try next time is actually doing the "heat the water pan in the oven during the preheat" thing and then pour in water from the teakettle right before I put the bread in! This time, I just put the hot water in the pan, put it in the oven, formed my loaves, slashed them (2 could have used better slashing skills, I think...), and set the timer...

My loaves are prepared to enter the oven.

Proving that I did the 450℉ preheat & bake like I was told to!

Now, I'm pretty sure that a combination of weather and inexperience made sure these little guys didn't rise too much, but they looked good, smelled great, and tasted wonderful!

I mean, look at the color on loaf 1! Loaf 2 kinda reminds me of a trilobite, and that's cool.

Honestly, though, this bread was easy. I could probably do this again no problem. I would love to try the bucket-technique they mention in the recipe proper. I would love to do more baking, in the future, and King Arthur does seem to have the goods! If you're wondering what happened to these dense, crusty loaves, well...

Z and I demolished Loaf 1 over the course of an hour. My parents are slowly working through Loaf 2. The longer the loaves sat in a ziploc, the less crunchy they were, but that was also good. I like a nice tough crust. Makes me feel like a vegetarian T-Rex. Uh... that's not weird or anything, is it?

I also would like to mention something... nerdy.

One of the ideas I'd had for Survival Sunday was to tackle some of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild recipes during the month of November, which is Zelda Month, according to YouTuber PeanutButter Gamer. Then I found Sheikah Plate - a blog where an awesome microbiologist in Utah is doing exactly that. And much better than I could. Like... wow she's good!

That being said, if there's any interest in the idea of me trying to make recipes from this video game, feel free to let me know in the comments! I think I might try a different method than her for "salt grilling"...

Anyway, that'll do it for me, today!

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 210: Idle Harvest

Every so often, I'll come across a game with "Idle" in the title, and it'll take more effort than I think it will. This is the case with Idle Harvest, a game by Tetronomics. This Kongregate-based game has a fun art design and simple music and cute sound effects. It's very, very obviously trying to sound like a combination of Stardew Valley and an SNES game, so it gets props from me.

The game begins with a cutesy pink-haired girl telling you that you're "way cuter than the carrot told her", and it just gets stranger from there. Essentially, you have money-laundering demon-crops which are being used to support a slowly growing adventurer's guild. They set up shop outside of your farm, and every day in game is used to build up the town, improve businesses, and/or just earn a boatload of gold. My personal favorite character right now is Dijon, the Rogue. He's the builder for the town and makes shops for all of the other characters. The pink-haired girl, Avery, helps you harvest Strawberries and you harvest carrots. I haven't gotten very far (I'm on Day 5 or 6 right now), but it's already been a lot of fun!

It's hard to find pictures of this game on Google...

Your crops are arranged in tetronimos, just like Tetris, only you place them at will, rather than having to place what falls. You start with one carrot in a 3-brick L-shape, and eventually, you can buy strawberry seeds in a 3-brick line. You can rotate pieces so they fit better. The rocks in your field can be removed slowly by either clicking rapidly or holding down your mouse button for a set amount of time. If you fill all empty spaces in your field with crops/sprinklers, you get a production bonus. The little sparkly blue dot flying around the screen is a pixie, and if you click it, it will give you gold!

There are three basic forms of currency - gold (for crops, shops, and picks), blue gems (for most other perks), and Time Shards. Time Shards help you build and improve shops & crops and also are used to buy potions from Rosemary's Apothecary. Everything is pretty easy to figure out, since Avery & Dijon walk you through everything early on.

This looks like a fun little game, and I look forward to continuing my Idle Harvesting journey!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 210: The Favourite

This one's been a long time coming, folks.

The Favourite is "the best film about rabbits you've seen this year" according to the person who runs the theater Z & I saw the movie in.

She's not entirely wrong.

Rabbits feature heavily in this on-the-surface-costume-drama-but-secretly-insane movie, especially since Queen Anne, one of the three main characters, was obsessed with them.

She did keep them in her bedroom and name them after her numerous deceased children, after all.

So what is this bizarre creature about?

Actually... yeah. It's about this. This is the movie.

The movie is about the two women in Queen Anne's life - Lady Sarah (on her knee) and Abigail (on the floor). Anne is mercurial and disinterested in leading England, which is at war with France. To put things plainly, however, the movie is best described, I think, like this:

Queen Anne is 100% bananas and takes on too many lovers at once in both Lady Sarah (who has basically been leading England for her) and Abigail (Sarah's cousin and apparently much freakier than Sarah). Meanwhile, the men dress badly and race ducks.

Sarah helping Anne through an episode in the halls.

If you've ever wanted to come out of a movie feeling slightly insane, this is absolutely the film for you, and that's a good thing. You come out of this feeling like Anne - who do you trust? What is justice? What is love (lady, don't hurt me)? The rabbits are everywhere. You're drowning in them.

The movie begins with Lady Sarah basically carrying England through its war with France, since Anne neither understands nor cares for the war. She just wants to give Sarah a palace in the woods. Sarah's husband is the leader of the armies, after all, and she wants Sarah to have a safe place to live (where they can visit without anyone noticing that they're much more intimate than was acceptable). Meanwhile, Abigail is arriving via crowded coach, looking for work, and being constantly abused, harassed, and otherwise horrifically mistreated.

Abigail becomes a scullery maid, but eventually she ingratiates herself both to her cousin Sarah and to Queen Anne by finding a way to help alleviate Her Majesty's gout pains.

The sympathy you have for everyone quickly dies, however, because everyone in this castle is completely insane.

And dangerous

One moment, we're being treated to the light, funny romance between Sarah and the Queen and the next we're shown that everyone and everything exists purely to be disposed of at the will of the wealthy. If ever there was a film to make you despise monarchy and the rich, this'll do it. Seriously - racing lobsters to see which one you'll cook, shooting doves for fun, having corpulent men dance naked to be pelted with rotten fruit, screaming at children for practicing chamber music... it's brutal.

Even things that should be fun have a mild edge of "what the heck is happening here?!"

Now, I've mostly talked about the three strong female leads. What about the men?

... Is that guy on the left one of the clockwork automata from Doctor Who?

The men are largely ineffectual, abusive, or scheming. If they're not racing ducks and being gentle, daffy fellows, they're chasing down women in the woods or trying to destroy servants unless they spy on the Queen for them. They also all look like they're emulating the enemy - look at that floof and tell me it's not French. Seriously. That's some Sun King nonsense right there...

Eventually, a rivalry develops (okay, it's pretty much instantaneous) between Abigail and Sarah over Queen Anne's, culminating in Abigail making Sarah freaking disappear temporarily. The war between the two is lost the second Sarah isn't in the picture. Not even a lifetime of loyal and supportive service can win back the Queen at this point, and Sarah is so clumsy with blackmail (having never needed to resort to it) that she gets herself evicted from the castle and ejected from Her Majesty's life.

Even then, it's not enough for Abigail, who has gotten the Queen to allow her to marry above her station and become a Baroness. She completely destroys Anne's confidence in Sarah by accusing her of embezzlement. Anne doesn't really believe this, I don't think, but has Sarah banished, nonetheless.

Which Sarah takes surprisingly well, I feel.

The movie ends with one of the most insane and trippy sequences I've ever seen outside of Twin Peaks.

Actually, this movie does seem like what would happen if David Lynch wrote a costume drama...

If you'd like to watch the trailer for this mad genius film, click here.

I cannot recommend this movie enough, and if you don't believe me, than believe the BAFTAs - it won seven.

Now Go Enjoy Something!
FC