Survival Sunday 203: Improving Instant Noodles

One of the things I've done on here more often than anything else, I think, is dressing up instant noodles. Here are a few ways Z & I have spruced up instant noodles (like the little square bricks of ramen you can pick up at the supermarket!).

This was a fairly plain ramen that we added a lot to!

One of the things you can do with ramen is dress it up. This bowl only came with some powdered ramen soup base and the noodles. We added some chicken bacon (delicious), frozen corn, scallions, an egg, and then some store-bought gyoza on top! First, I boiled water on the stove, then I added the corn & bacon to cook into the ramen. Next came the scallions, which Z cut into nice, big, grabbable pieces. Then I added the noodles & floated the egg on top of them, where the water cooked the egg perfectly. I believe we also seasoned this (honestly fairly bland) soup base with some curry powder, garlic powder, ramen pepper, and soy sauce!

This and some pepper were the whole of the ingredients in the next dish.

It was some sort of a red miso soup. I did my best to eyeball things, but...
It would very much behoove you to get a ml measuring cup when you're dealing with products from other countries.
It turns out that 3 servings of this soup base plus the udon needed maybe 5 cups of water instead of the 4 or so I used?

I say this because that soup? It's the consistency of gravy.
And it's incredible.
On second thought, just use the 4 cups if you find this product.
The thicker, richer texture is perfect with a mass of udon and an egg!

You may have noticed at this point that we add eggs to most of our ramen. The reason for this is twofold: 1) we saw people doing this in videos of ramen shops in Japan, and 2) I really like eggs.

Obviously, if you can't or don't eat eggs, you can add whatever you like to ramen! Before I added eggs, I would sometimes add torn up slices of deli chicken or any other lunchmeat we had in the fridge. Had I had more tofu growing up, that would've been my go-to, I think. You can also add different sauces and seasonings to ramen to completely change the flavor. If you don't have much of a budget, just grab a couple packets of red pepper flakes next time you're at a Pizza Hut - they go great in cheapo ramen and help boost the flavor while knocking off some of the salt content.

Soy sauce, sriracha, and even mustard can really change a dish - try weird things. The best part is that most grocery store ramen costs less than a dollar a brick, so even if you botch it, hopefully it won't put you too far into the red.

My mother does something else with ramen - she doesn't use the flavor packets from the ramen she buys. Instead, she adds pre-made alfredo sauce or tomato sauce to hers and has a cheap lunch between jobs. I legitimately enjoy the flavor packets (well, after amendments are made, like dumping half the spice cupboard in there...), so that's not really my style.

What do you guys like to do with your cheapo ramen? Do you have anything special you add to it? Have you tried turning it into yakisoba? (I am actually planning on trying that some time...) Let me know in the comments, eh?

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Saturday Casual Gaming 203: Card Hunter

Card Hunter is a D&D style RPG game where you're playing yourself playing a Dungeons & Dragons style game with a nerd and his overbearing jerkwad brother while the nerd (your DM) fails at flirting with the pizza delivery girl. I'm sure the tofu & pineapple pizza is supposed to make you dislike your DM. I'm also sure I'd probably like it. I'm weird like that.

Available on Steam & Kongregate, this game was made by BlueManchu, AchieveZen, Farbs, & FlaxativeCH back in 2014 (on Kongregate, at least). I've recently started the Steam version for giggles, and since I had forgotten how the tutorial levels worked.

You start off with three premade characters who you play, miniature-style, on a board. Your cards dictate whether or not you can move or attack or block, and they make the difference between your dwarf fighter kicking butt or just loafing in a corner while your mage murders everything.

The game does a great job of explaining everything to you, but if you like D&D but you also like trading card games, this is an amazing hybrid!

I mean, miniatures with cards! What could be cooler?!

The only quibble I have is that their premium accounts are on timers. You can't just be like "here's a hundred bucks, stop pestering me and give me the good loot". You have to basically resubscribe every year. Or week. Yikes.

I guess that's only a quibble because I'm cheap.

Regardless, I appreciate the use of pizza as a premium currency, lol. You're bribing the DM for good loot with pizza, which, when I was a DM, probably would have worked like a charm...

For everything else, there's in-game Gold.

I have been having fun with this game, and I hope you do too!

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Filmic Friday 203: Toys (1992)

Back in 1992, Robin Williams made a movie that go widely panned. I did not see it until recently, and... I don't get it.

Toys is great!

I legitimately do not understand why this movie got crapped on.

Look at this. This is what this movie looks like.
It's like if someone filmed a Willy Wonka film on the set of the old Windows background!
You know the one - with all the rolling grass!

Also, it's technically a Christmas movie.

It's quite the bizarre opening.
Ballet, a living Christmas tree, Santa on a plane...

I tend to like movies that take place around Christmas, tbh. There tends to be either an innocence that appeals to the child in me, or it's magical, or it's adventurous. Toys is an innocent movie, which considering there's kind of a sex scene in there and people talk about very adult things and anatomy, is a strange thing to say. The adults in this movie are adults, but the whole movie is about toys, play, and innocence. It's about growing up without losing yourself in the misery of adulthood. It's about letting children be children. It's...

It's miserably prophetic of our current military industrial complex.

So.

What is Toys?

Toys is a Robin Williams movie from 1992 about a toymaker who dies and leaves his company to his brother, a war-obsessed general (played by Michael Gambon). Gen. Leland Zevo has very little patience for his nephew, Leslie (Robin Williams) and... unique niece Alsatia (Joan Cusack), and instead wants to create war toys (guns, tanks, etc). That is about as un-Zevo-toys as you can get, but he wants it anyway. Now, he's a bit bananas because he never got to 4 stars, which his father (Jack Warden) has never respected him for, so to give himself a boost, he comes up with an evil plot (because it's a 90s/80s film that someone came up with in the 70s and it shows) to basically replace the big expensive military with cheap, mass-produced toys.

And he wants them piloted by kids who think they're playing video games.

Now, I haven't even gotten into how awesome the factory is, how hilarious LL Cool J is as Michael Gambon's son Patrick, or how Leslie grows up because he falls in love with Robin Wright's Gwen Tyler, but wow...

Our introduction to Robin Wright's character in the duplication room is freaking hilarious!

There's a lot to this movie.

Like... a lot a lot...

This movie has so many good actors! Arthur Mallet, Jamie Foxx, Debi Mazar...

It's really a great group of people.

And set designers - that's a miniature Manhattan!

And prop designers! Look at all of this!

So, basically, I love this movie and everything it represents!

It's the story of a good man going to war, more or less, because in the end, Robin Williams' Leslie Zevo has to take on the armies of evil war toys that his uncle has produced in order to save not only Zevo toys and its legacy, but childhood itself.

Because kids would've been used to pilot these things into war zones.
...
We just call them drones now.

The fight scenes at first seem quite incongruous, but they're very natural to the storytelling. Of course there's a war in the toy factory. There's a mad general in charge. It could go no other way. Where there are guns and people who have been told they should use them, there will be war, whether anyone else likes it or not.

So yes, in the end the childlike innocence of the toys overcomes the guns and bombs of the wicked armada, but... Leslie has been forced to grow up. The toys have become weapons themselves. The innocence has been lost.

Even Alsatia faces terrible change.

But life returns to some semblance of normalcy afterwards.

It's...

it has a pretty dark outro, if you're paying close enough attention after all.

This movie has never deserved to be crapped on. It's a movie about adults behaving like kids to force kids to behave like adults. It's a movie about innocence not only lost but twisted into a shameful, weaponized thing. It's a movie about love and hate and how none of those emotions are simple or easy. It's a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously because it knows itself and doesn't have to pretend to be an opus.

It's a quintessentially 1990s film.

And it makes me want a lot more of Yolanda & Steve...

Go watch Toys.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

PS: Sorry I couldn't find a music video version of that song that didn't suck...

Thursday Art Walk 203

I drew another picture of my Squishable, Dedbert for you guys!

"Sushi Night"; colored pencil on printer paper; 2019

I'm really enjoying using him as a model for art this year! Even though sometimes he looks less than thrilled. I promise you, though, he's very happy to be near the tuna sashimi, salmon roll, oshinko, and rice with umeboshi :)

(also, woo, I'm up to 400 words on my main story... only 2600 left to catch up!)
(uh... 1500 to catch up on the backup story...)
(writing is hard)

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Wednesdaymania 203: Watch Wrestling

Let's take a moment to calm down the speculation and instead focus on where one can watch wrestling these days! I'm only linking to free things, so don't worry about getting your credit card out unless you desperately want to throw money at companies right now.

WWE has shows on USA and E!, as well as on their own network and Hulu.

Impact! is on Pursuit and, interestingly enough, Twitch!

Ring of Honor has its own network, but it's also on Sinclair broadcasting (and the Charge! network).

New Japan Pro Wrestling is on its own network, but it's nearly impossible to watch on TV in the US unless they're crossing over with Ring of Honor and they send someone like Taichi over. If it's Taichi, you can afford to miss it.

Lucha Underground is a little up in the air, but you can catch it on El Rey.

AAA is... well... if you're dedicated to lucha and love AAA, you probably already know how to find it. I have to say that the last few Triple Manias haven't impressed. Sorry. Also, it's almost impossible to watch it weekly here in the states (there are places you can flip on the tv and watch, but it's not a far-reaching show here).

CMLL is another lucha promotion, (which I think has finally surpassed AAA in consistent quality, sorry AAA,) but unless you're catching it attached to New Japan, it can be a bit difficult for US-based (especially Northeastern US-based) viewers to get a hold of episodes. It's easier to find CMLL on YouTube, especially when they team up with NJPW.

MLW is a primarily YouTube-based company with an amazing roster and wonderful production value. If you're interested in watching Konnan get his world rocked by Low-Ki, or you want to see how Teddy Hart & the new Hart Foundation are doing, then here you go.

Defiant Wrestling is a cool company that popped up before What Culture had its huge breakup. Uh.  You're gonna want to go learn about that on your own. It was bad. It was very bad. The wrestling on Defiant, however, is very, very good. Check it out.

NWA isn't quite a wrestling promotion, but it does have its own show! If you want to follow one of the oldest and most prestigious championships as it tours the world on the waists of some of the best wrestlers in history, you can find it here, courtesy of the guy from Smashing Pumpkins. What even is wrestling.

Finally, we have AEW, which is not currently on tv, hasn't had their first official show (though I suppose All In was their unofficial start, wasn't it?), and isn't finished building their roster. They can be found (officially) through here and here.

Alright, that'll be all from me today - I hope to do another list like this next week where I talk about different places to go for wrestling reviews, discourse, and just fun chat!

Go Enjoy Something!
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Talk About Tuesday 203

My god am I behind on writing.

It's the third week of 2019. I should be rapidly approaching my third thousand word. Nope.

I'm around 300.

One of my supporting characters won't get off his rented truck.

But hey - writing can be messy sometimes! At least I remember everyone's names and motivations and I know where we're headed in the plot.  I don't, always ...

I dug up an old pair of Steampunk goggles I used to use as sunglasses. They're actually kind of helping me get into my main character's mindset, since she writes about a Steampunk detective. I've missed Jay and her growling bad moods and her weird obsessions.

I've missed writing.

Now if only I could make myself keep up... I'm probably going to have to put myself on a stricter schedule. No more sleeping past 10AM this year! I'll need to start setting up a workspace just for writing, too. It'll honestly likely just be a tv tray downstairs in the morning while I write...

The only other thing I'd like to say is that Resident Evil 6 is bad and the studio that pooped it out should feel bad. What the heck have I been watching on ProJared's Twitch and YouTube channels...

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Fiber Monday 203: Kirby pt 3

I never did locate a darker pink yarn for the feet, so I've moved on to the arms this week! Both arms are identical to each other, so I'm only showing you one.

One of the things that is driving me batty about this amigurumi is this:
everything is written in odd numbers.
The arms start with 3 sc. THREE.
I'm used to the old "multiples of 6" progression scheme...

The next step is to make 3sc into one stitch, then sc in each stitch around (5 sc total)

3 sc in one stitch, sc around (8sc)

I'm pretty sure I've missed a photo...
The progression is bizarre.
5 > 8 > 9 > 11 > 13 > 15 > 15.
What even is this.

It makes a cute little thumb-cover, tbh.

It even has the kind of dip-shape that my thumb has from knuckle to tip!

Conclusion: Kirby's arms are all thumbs.
Kirby = clumsy.
It's science. You can't argue with that.

In case it isn't obvious, of course I'm being silly here. Kirby can't be all thumbs. He's a semi-amorphous blob of devourment. If anything, he's all stomach.

Regardless, here's the pattern again (I skipped the feet, and I'll go back to them next week :P)

After we finish all of Kirby's limbs, I'll show how I stuff it and then we'll do our best to sew it together. Yikes.

It's not gonna be pretty, guys.

Making his face will also be unpretty.

I'm not an embroiderer.

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