Once upon a time, some crazy folks got together and agreed that it was time to "See Them Aliens" which are clearly, obviously, absolutely being held on a secure base in the Nevada desert called "Area 51". These people, these heroes, had a very simple plan: Get a bunch of people together and storm the base - after all, the heavily armed guards couldn't possibly shoot everyone, could they? And if they ran like prepubescent ninjas believing it, they could possibly even dodge the bullets! Genius. Foolproof.
Now, you, too, can join in on the fun if you missed out with Area 51 Raid Simulator by PinkPsychic. This idle simulation game has multiple endings, branching paths to greatness (or abject failure, that's an option too), and a shocking amount of depth. Especially since the game is essentially a bunch of buttons and menus.
It is.... incredibly simple.
Depending on how you spend your time leading up to the Raid, you might end up being the leader of a cult, being the coolest guy your friends know, being a memelord, or something else! I don't know if there's a millionaire ending, but I'd love to get it at some point!
This game is downright addictive, too, so if you're looking for a ridiculous time-waster, there you go: Area 51 Raid Simulator has you covered.
If you're a film fanatic, you've probably seen Scarface before, so nothing I tell you will surprise you. If, however, you're a novice to modern film and you don't know anything about this movie, the buckle up, because it's way more than just the originator of a thousand pop-culture references.
This is a really, really good example of how the movie plays, too!
So Scarface is the story of Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant who comes to America to make a living. That sounds great, right? Except Tony Montana is a killer before we ever meet him. He's a hit man. He's a con artist. He's a very bad man. But you can't help but want to see him succeed, despite the fact that he is, by the standards of most moralities, quite evil.
Yes, he only somewhat values human life. Yes, he sees nothing wrong with selling or even using drugs. Yes, he has no respect for the law.
But he loves children. He really wants to be the father he never had. He wants to have a wife and babies and to love and be loved.
He's just utter garbage at that part, though.
See, Tony Montana loves kids, but he loves money just as much, and money is much easier to come by in 1980s Miami.
I'll spare you the total overview of the movie and skim past his uneasy relationship with his mother. I'll skip past the strange relationship with and overprotective streak he has for his sister. I'll even skip over his doomed friendships and partnerships over the years. I'll just say this: If Tony wants, Tony takes.
Including his first boss's cokehead wife.
Tony's story is one of violence - every facet of his life is bound up in violence from the moment he steps off the boat to the moment he steps off the mortal coil.
There's one particular scene where that stands out - his first drug buy gone horribly wrong.
And while we never see quite what happened, we do know that it's about as horrific as it can be.
So what makes Scarface a good movie? Everything. It's a beautifully written story that is so tight and twisted you'd believe it was 100% true if you didn't know better. It's a fantastically directed film where the camera is always where it should be when it should be there with lighting and sound design to match. The score is exquisite and compliments everything perfectly.
It's a masterwork.
And then there's the acting, which is intense. Pacino is both comically over-the-top and deadly serious as Tony Montana, and he drags every single other person with him to their best possible performances. It's amazing to see.
So if you were on the fence about seeing Scarface, I can assure you, it's a spectacular film. I can also promise you that, despite being an intensely violent film, it's not anywhere near the level of a modern crime film. There are buckets of blood, but nothing feels like it's... icky. When there is blood, it serves its purpose, no more, no less.
So, it's been a long week so far, and I'm already tired, but I shall continue on!
I have finished the first three days of Inktober. I made a book. I did more bubble art. I finally managed to watch the first episode of Dynamite. It's been a good, if very busy, week :)
More bubbles!!!
The bubble project is coming along nicely, and while I'm sorry that I didn't get any better shots of it, I am really pleased that it's so far along. It's just under halfway done!
You know what I did finish this week? I made a sketchbook. I know, I've already bragged about it once this week, but now that I've used it, it bears repeating :P
My tiny, tiny hand for creepy scale...
I made the sketchbook for just one purpose: Holding my Inktober art for 2019.
Yes, I wrote the title in pencil. Yes, I'll ink it later.
And here we see the contents, which indicate three finished drawings! I mean, it's the third, so it stands to reason, but c'mon!
Day 1's prompt was RING, and while I wanted to make every prompt relate to Spook Patrol, I knew that wouldn't work. No one in Spook Patrol really wears rings...
So I designed a ring.
The faces of the skulls would be the same metal as the band, but the eyes would have garnet or obsidian in them and the domes of the skulls would be made from pearls!
Day 2's theme was MINDLESS, and since I didn't have it in me yesterday to draw a zombie, I instead drew something equally mindless:
MÓ§th loves Candle...
But today's theme was BAIT, and so I present to you: Bait from the Spook Patrol.
I promise, this all makes sense in context.
There are only supposed to be four people in the photo. There are five. House '93 is an audio recording from a haunted house. The copy of Evangeline, the photo, and the necklace (which is a cowrie shell) all came from the house the recording came from. The only person who could have sent all of these is dead.
Spencer, who received this package and its vaguely sinister note, is thus drawn back to a house he swore he'd never return to. Of the six kids who went in, two are dead, one is missing, one is insane, and one is dying. The last one is Spencer, and even he is not unscathed.
So, I have two major things to talk about today: AEW's new show starting tonight, and what on earth is this garbage going on on WWE?!
For those not in the know, tonight marks the first ever episode of Wednesday Night Dynamite, which is the name of All Elite Wrestling's new tv show. TNT will be running the show live at 8/7c from DC. It's probably going to be insanely cool! I am super excited, but also disappointed that there's no way to watch the show without having a TV subscription. I might be able to watch it from my folks' house, but I won't be there tonight, so I'm going to have to find another way to view it somehow...
Regardless, tonight is the night when WWE has some new competition. Which you'd think would mean they would up their game and become much, much cooler and better.
Instead we have not just one stupid storyline where a married wrestler cheats on their wrestler partner and is a terrible human being.
We get two.
Yay.
Because we all wanted to see Bobby Lashly shoving his tongue down Lana's throat.
Ew.
Seriously, that was just kinda gross, and that's coming from someone who legitimately enjoys a little drama with their wrestling (I've grown to like the manipulative cattiness from Brandi Rhodes, for instance, since it's true machination and not just "Mean Girls" bullpucky). I mean, I don't get what the problem is in WWE with people having proper, happy marriages? Historically speaking, when they run these sorts of storylines, the people end up splitting up for real! I mean, the worst case of this was when Chris Benoit ended up traveling with Kevin Sullivan's wife, Nancy. If you want to know how that ended up, spoilers: very, very, VERY badly.
I'm not saying anything bad will happen here with either the Kanelis thing or with the Rusev/Lana/Lashly thing.
But at best we'll all be annoyed for several months before Vince gets bored and ditches both storylines, and at the most realistic worst, we'll all have to endure the endless divorce proceedings.
So much for a women's revolution...
But back on the subject of AEW on TNT!
I don't know the full card for tonight, but I understand that there are several matches being advertised:
Kenny and the Bucks vs Jericho, Ortiz, and Santana - I know nothing about Santana and Ortiz, but this match is likely to become a bloodbath, and with Kenny's weird behavior on BTE lately, I wouldn't be shocked if he turns full heel during the course of the match, making it four-on-two by the end. I hope I'm wrong and that Kenny is kind of going for an "Okada With Balloons" approach to his madness.
Nyla Rose vs Riho - Oh, I cannot wait to see this match, and I'm not picky about how I see it. I like how Nyla presents herself. I like how tough and scary she is. I like how Riho moves. I like how she knows exactly how to work a crowd and the ring. These women are going to positively destroy each other in that ring, and I would be satisfied to see the Women's Title on either one.
Hangman Page vs PAC - Please, please, please give Hangman a win? I really love the dude and I would be thrilled to see him get his own back after this losing streak. It's time.
Cody Rhodes vs Sammy Guevara - Here's a match that really shows what they mean when they keep saying that "wins and losses matter" at AEW. There are consequences if Cody loses! If Cody does not win this match, he loses his title shot. Sammy Guevara could go from being that new guy who showed up in a panda mask that one time to being the first guy in line for a title match against Jericho! Also, both of these guys are fantastic wrestlers, so this match will be awesome.
MJF vs Brandon Cutler - MJF is probably the best heel in the business right now. He's so good at being a bad guy that I literally cannot follow him on Twitter or I think my head would explode (I'm very easy to emotionally manipulate when it comes to wrestling, which is both a blessing and a curse). Brandon Cutler is a really, really nice guy. They're both good wrestlers, and with such a truly diametric opposition of attitudes and approaches, this could be a really fascinating match.
I look forward to seeing who wins and loses, how the matches go, and who the new Women's Champ is going to be!
Happy October 1st, everyone! It's the first day of Halloween :P
It's also a gray, drizzly day here at the Blanket Fort. It's 56℉ (~13℃) with 85% humidity. The sky is one solid gray dome against which some very confused trees are waving their branches, dotted hesitantly with fall color. The cat is asleep in a blanket fort of her own. I'm on my second cup of coffee and got my first uninterrupted 6 hours of sleep in over a week! Hooray!
Today being the first of October, it's also a very, very special day, if you're an artist.
It's the first day of Inktober, a month-long art challenge where participants draw one image a day (using ink!) based on a set of prompts!
I participated last year, but I found it difficult to keep things straight in my head because I was also covering previous years' prompts. Not so this year! I'm doing 2019's prompts, and I'm going to do them with an art project I completed this morning.
Meet Inkpad:
That's right, I made my own Inktober Sketchbook!
I've never bound a book before today, and it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but with a little effort and a lot of wasted string and thread, here it is. I took 20 sheets of legal size printer paper and folded them in half to form 5 different quires (and yes I looked that term up and probably still used it wrong). These were then sewn along their edges and then together to form the actual book itself. The edge was then covered in washi tape because that's what I had.
Here's what the Prompts this year are:
Ring
Mindless
Bait
Freeze
Build
Husky
Enchanted
Frail
Swing
Pattern
Snow
Dragon
Ash
Overgrown
Legend
Wild
Ornament
Misfit
Sling
Thread
Treasure
Ghost
Ancient
Dizzy
Tasty
Dark
Coat
Ride
Injured
Catch
Ripe
I have no idea what I'm going to draw for each of these but the plan is that I'll draw each prompt, then post them on my Twitter every day before collecting the ones I've finished so far that week on Thursday (while also updating you on the bubble art!).
Aside from that, however, I'd also like to keep you up-to-date on what I'm doing this week (in addition to Inktober)
Tomorrow I'll be writing about AEW, the nonsense I'm hearing about with WWE, and my desperate excitement for new wrestling on TV!
Thursday Art Walk will be more bubbles plus three days of Inktober!
Filmic Friday will be about Scarface
Saturday Casual Gaming is proooobably going to be about a very silly Idle game I just played.
Survival Sunday might be something good - we'll see lol
Fiber Monday should be the end of our Pumpkin Spice Set, which will be nice. I already have ideas for what to make next, leading into Halloween :)
Next Tuesday we'll reconvene at the blog for more updates, lol
So that's the next 7 days!
If you guys have any questions or suggestions for things to do on here, please feel free to leave a comment - I promise, I don't bite, and I try very hard not to be a butthead.
The continuing adventures of a crochet set made to look slightly pumpkin-y
It is unbelievably beautiful today. The sky is that fabulous September Blue (hilarious, since it's going to be October - er - Inktober tomorrow), there's a firm and fridgey breeze, the leaves are starting to turn, my house smells like apple cider, and my feet are freezing. It's perfect. It's all of 51℉ (~10.5℃) with 43% humidity out there. I'm wearing my fuzzy Star Wars pants and thick socks. I'm hunting for one of my sweaters. I'm in heaven. This is the kind of weather I thrive in.
Unfortunately, I also have a fairly hellacious cold that has made my ears clogged and crunchy, my nose sensitive and stuffy, and my chest prone to causing an obnoxious cough. Also heartburn, because now that I'm not in my 20s any more, heartburn has become more or less my constant companion. It's totally not from overdoing it on coffee. Totally not at all.
So of course I had to spend all morning hooking along and making them patterns up so that I will have a completed Pumpkin Spice Set eventually!
I finally ran out of the original orange skein! The scarf was about 20" long at this point, so I knew I'd have to add in the other orange skein!
I sipped at my cocoa and continued adding row after row until about ten minutes before I started typing - from 8:30AM to noon, I worked on the scarf. It will be some time before it's 100% done, but I can do that during the week :)
Three and a half hours of work provided this section of scarf! That skein is about the same size as a bigger skein of Red Heart Super Saver, so there's your scale, lol.
I'm never really alone when I work in the mornings, since I always have the kitty to keep me company, and today she was nestled in her bed, making the biggest biscuits and purring like an engine until she was completely conked out. It was truly precious.
And so it is that I leave you with an image of that kitty, sound asleep, nestled in a fluffy bed with a built in blanket fort.
So, I have a couple of wooden chests in my room. One of them is my old pine toybox, which has my GBA and some old art in it (as well as a couple of childhood novels). The other is my Hope Chest, a very thoughtful gift from my parents on my 18th birthday where I keep most of my home-making supplies until I have my own place. This is where I've been storing some cookbooks from the 1980s - including a very, very weird box of recipe cards that used to stink of musty cigarette smoke.
It's also, unfortunately for me, where I keep my huge bubblebutt TV and VCR (and my partner's N64).
It's so, so heavy. This picture was taken after I'd moved the TV off of the chest and put it back up.
So I moved some stuff around, put some things deeper in storage, and brought out my box of cards, a stack of McCall's Cookery magazines and a binder called McCall's Cooking School, and I'm going to share these with you today.
Here's my box of recipes!
As we all know, the 1980s were all about making food look as unappealing as possible. It's one of the reasons I love looking at old cookbooks and recipes. Not only are you going to get a devastating dose of gelatin-based foods, you're also going to be slapped in the face by weird photography where they black out the background and cast heavy shadows over your food.
It's very unsettling...
I got the nasty musty odor out of my cards by storing a baggie of coffee grounds in the box inside my Hope Chest (which is lined with cedar). That eventually ditched the stink. Then I was just left with the weird recipes.
Some seem very nice, at least.
The magazines... I'm not entirely sure where they came from? All I know is that, in person, their covers are haunting.
The meat substance in the lower right hand corner, for instance, is upsettingly shiny, and I have no clue what that white stuff is supposed to be.
And just to prove it's not from some ancient, bygone era, it's just from 1983.
The binder is in amazing shape, especially when you take into account the fact that it's older than I am. I don't think anyone ever used it.
And it's a very heavy-duty binder!
See? This one's just from 1986. Which was 33 years ago. Oof.
Some of these things actually look pretty good, even if I don't like pecans.
Other things... Not so much.
And the writing can be downright weird at times.
The "some seem really good, some seem terrible" trend continues in the box of cards, too.
Probably tasty, but doesn't look very appetizing for an appetizer...
And yes, for some reason, they have a tiny section on the proper preparation of game, like venison and pigeon...
Which brings me to my reason for bringing any of this up and nearly herniating my spine rather than just asking for help like a normal person.
I want to cook from these books.
Really, really want to.
And I want to make some of the weird stuff, too.
So I was thinking that maybe I could start making up a spreadsheet of what's available, then I could maybe roll for it? I feel like mastering these foods (obviously, I'd have to cut out the game dishes unless someone wanted to provide me with fresh game meat, which I'd, obviously, be very intimidated by...) would make me a better chef.
Also, I kind of want to make weird stuff and watch people eat it.
Because I'm a weirdo.
So let me know in the comments if you're interested in seeing what I can do with some fairly dated and occasionally borderline-racist cookbooks and bizarre recipe cards from yesteryear?
