I live!

The rumors are indeed true, my friends. I have returned to the land of milk and honey and surfboards, and after four very full and exhausting days I have finally gotten a good night's rest.

Such stories I shall share with you! The very firmaments of your mind will boggle at my possibly-not-as-interesting-as-I-think-they-are-but-still-fairly-entertaining stories, gasp at the surprising twists and turn, and nod your head approvingly as the countdown to my ascension into the pantheon of obscure and semi-famous demi-gods drops one digit lower.

Alas, that time has not yet struck the clock (the stories, not my death). If you can but hold for one day longer, I shall begin my stories of wonderment then. For now, I must make my way back home from the land of my girlfriend's family and begin the process of acclimating myself back into society at large.

So for now, adieu.

Daily Haikus - Christmas Break Edition

Rollercoaster rides
Replaced with Christmas lighting;
Winter wonderland.

Sorrow‘s burden lifts
With the company of friends.
Raise a glass once more.

Terror in the night;
I should not have driven home.
Rain comes down in sheets.

Innovative thought,
Exploding every which way;
THIS is theatre!

I want to tap dance
So I can do the number
From ‘Holiday Inn.’

A fun house mirror,
Sorting through old photographs.
Is he truly me?

Daily Haiku - December 16, 2012

Each one put away
Triggers three more taken out;
"Comic Book Constant."

Home for the Holidays

Almost every year since I moved out to California I’ve gone home for Christmas. Usually it’s the week spanning Christmas Day, but this year I ended up coming out a week early due to a second run of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson we’re putting up on the 27th and 28th. This turned out to be rather fortuitous for a number of reasons.

First off, it allowed me to finally make it back to my friends’ Christmas party for only the second time ever, and I stayed up until 3am catching up with friends and drinking delicious hard cider. Plus, they got me these totally bad-ass pint glasses.

[Try not to be too jealous.]

Secondly, by the very nature of it not being the week of Christmas, people are freer to meet up for coffee or what have you. Usually Christmas break ends up being a clusterduck of trying to relax while also cramming in as many trips as possible to see everyone who is in the area. Invariably people get left out because everyone has their own families and friends to catch up with, but coming in a week early has really opened things up. As such not only am I going to see both my parents, my sister, two sets of cousins and at least a half dozen friends, but I’m ALSO going to have a few days to sit at home and do nothing beyond cataloguing my immense comic collection. Not bad if I do say so myself. :D

[This is half of my collection.]

Daily Haiku - December 13, 2012

Pastrami revealed:
You're just a shaved beef hotdog.
You don't fool me, pal.

Daily Haiku - December 12, 2012

Dark room, empty stage.
Applause, laughter, more applause;
Life of the comic.

I'm a Little Late to the Party

Last night I finally finished off the first season of Battlestar Galactica and jumped straight into season 2. I had watched a smattering of episodes when it first came out years ago, but quickly fell off the wagon as I’m not really a TV person and we don’t have access to the basic networks, much less cable. Fortunately my roommate owns the entire series on DVD and my girlfriend had expressed an interest in seeing it, so I lucked out into getting to watch what has been, so far anyways, a great series.

The only reason I’m at work today is that I got too tired to keep going by 1am. It’s the third night this week we’ve been up that late gorging on BSG and were I not heading home tomorrow for the holidays, I’m fairly certain we’d grind through all of Season 2 over the coming weekend. The following clip from Portlandia (another series my girlfriend got me hooked on) sums it up perfectly:



My girlfriend has also gotten me into an old, rather quirky BBC series called Black Books, starring Dylan Moran, who by coincidence showed up in L.A. to do a show at Largo the other night, which we went to see. He’s a very funny guy and I’m planning on spending some time today browsing YouTube for more of his work. Oddly enough, I think he’s only the second comic I’ve ever gone to see, the other being Eddie Izzard, which is probably a trend I need to extend. I like funny things. There are lots of funny people. Ipso facto, I should go see more funny people.

Daily Haiku - December 11, 2012

An Ode to Panda Express Orange Chicken:

Orange Chemicals,
Masquerading as flavor,
How I love you so.

A New Age of Technology

On Black Friday, I got up early and hit the local Verizon Wireless store in the hopes of snagging myself a heavily discounted Samsung Galaxy S3. Unfortunately, Verizon was the only carrier not to put the smartphone on sale, but I went ahead and got it anyway. I'd been living in the stone age for too long, and it was time to start cooking with fire.

Honestly, the only reason I hadn't switched over earlier was cost. My new phone bill is almost double what I used to pay and I'm still not entirely sure it was worth the price. That said, I'd been sitting in the upgrade sweet spot for a while and it was as good a time as any to pull the trigger. In one fell swoop I got:

(i) internet access in the palm of my hand (which was incredibly helpful when traversing Portland last weekend); and

(ii) a portable music player that could hold all my music; and

(iii) the ability to save myself the hassle of carrying around my digital camera (the built-in camera on the S3 is just as good).

Now don't get me wrong, it's not all roses and sunshine. As mentioned above, switching over to a smart phone can drastically raise your monthly bill (about +$40/month for me) and it tends to make folks more antisocial. But assuming you can afford the cost and have the willpower to turn off your phone when hanging out with friends, I highly recommend you pick up a smartphone.

Any day now I expect to start pontificating about the cold, dark days when I tried to get by with a phone that only allowed for simple texting. Texting! What are we, animals?! *scoff*

Daily Haiku - December 10, 2012

Wrap, fold, tape, repeat.
Scribble cryptic clues on top;
Gifts are so much fun.

L'évolution

Who just unlocked food and animals? This guy, right here! BOOYAH!


[click image for larger version]

Artists you should know: J. Slattum and Sienna Morris

While in Portland we stopped by the Saturday Market and ran across two exceptional artists who I wanted to share with you. The first is J. Slattum, a surrealist painter whose work intially caught my eye with it's color palate and then with the beautifuly bizzare subject matter. I don't have enough wall space as it is, but I'm sorely tempted to purchase a piece or two anyways. I highly suggest you check out his gallery and consider doing the same.

Root of Good Intentions	Intuition

The second artist is Sienna Morris, who created a style of painting she calls 'Numberism.' Instead up using strokes to paint with, she draws in numbers that realate to the subject matter. For example, in the picture on the left below, 'C25H52,' the wax of the burning candle is drawn with the chemical formula for Paraffin Wax, C25H52, and the flame is drawn with a temperature map of the flame in Celsius, ranging from 800°C – 1200°C. The second picture, 'Schrödinger’s Cat,' is drawn with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. It is a fascinating intersection of science and art and well worth your time.

C25H52	Schrödinger’s Cat

(Re)Learning a Second Language in 2012

Thanks to a private elementary school education and the foreign language requirements in high school and college I have compiled something close to fifteen years of French, but have very little to show for it nowadays. Lately though I’ve decided to have another go at it in an attempt to find a more productive way to spend my down time at work, and also because my girlfriend is a Francophile. Okay, it’s mainly because of the latter, but having something to do at work is also nice. :D

The initial plan was a two-pronged approach which involved (i) having all future emails between my girlfriend and I be written in French, and (ii) making flashcards for new words as I went along and studying those later in my spare time. The first part worked fairly well, with me using a combination of my retained knowledge of the French language, WordReference to look up new words, About.com to help with verb conjugation, and Google Translate to make sure it actually read properly when translated back into English. The second part? Not so much. I’ve never been particularly good at studying on my own, and that habit apparently hasn’t changed with time.

And that’s when Reddit once again came to my rescue. In response to a post that I no longer recall, someone mentioned and linked to a site called DuoLingo. Duolingo is a free site that helps you learn languages (currently offering Spanish, German, French, and Protugese) through a points/rewards system found in most video game these days. Lessons are broken down into sectional quizzes which can be completed for points, which in turn level you up and open newer, more difficult lesson to conquer. The desire for rewards and perfection are an excellent motivator to go back over the lessons until you’ve got them down perfectly.

I’ve only been using it consistently for about the last week but I have to say I really enjoy the system and think it does an excellent job in teaching the language. If you’ve ever considered learning one of the aforementioned languages or just find yourself bored and looking for a way to pass the time, you could do much worse than checking out DuoLingo.

Daily Haiku - December 7, 2012

A glass of wine falls,
Blooming roses on the couch;
Unwelcome garden.

Daily Haiku - December 6, 2012

I’m always amazed,
Using peroxide on ears;
So much wax in there!

The Return of the Revenge of the Son of Kickstarter

Man, I just can’t escape Kickstarter. I was perusing Reddit, as I am want to do, when I stumbled across an AMA by Ryan North (he of Dinosaur Comics fame), who mentioned he was kickstarting a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book of Hamlet starring the artistic talents of every web-comic in the known universe. Well, I happen to like all of those things so I immediately threw down my $25 for a copy and started emailing friends about it.

While not my first Kickstarter, it is the first book I’ve backed. My five previous endeavors have included two board games (Nothing Personal and Heroes of Metro City), a board game accessory (The Official Settlers of Catan Gaming Board), a computer game (FTL: Faster Than Light), and a musical (Super Sidekick: The Musical).

I rarely wander the site on my own, which is probably for own good, instead finding my way there through secondary sources, either one of my friends or one of the websites I frequently visit. I clearly lean heavily towards gaming in its many forms, but Kickstarter offers so much more than that. Its top-level categories include Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film & Video, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater.

If you’ve got a bit of cash to throw around and you don’t mind waiting for results (turn-around can be up to a year or more depending on the type of project) you might go nose around and see what you can find.

The Portland Trip

For our two year anniversary my girlfriend and I decided to hit up Portland for an extended weekend. And while the weather was fairly crappy (rain, heavy winds, temperatures in the high 40s/low 50s) we ended up having a great time nonetheless. This was due in part to the awesome apartment we rented through airbnb.com and the massive amounts of delicious food we gorged on during out stay. I don’t believe I’ve talked about airbnb before so let’s rectify that now, shall we?

This is the second time I’ve used airbnb to book a trip, the first being back on Labor Day for a trip to Santa Barbara, and I can’t say enough nice things about the business. It is an amazing alternative to just booking a hotel room for your trip, instead allowing you to book space in a personal residence, be that an apartment, house, tree house (Santa Barbara), castle or whatever someone has available and is willing to offer. And generally speaking the cost is comparative but you get so much more out of booking a personal space.

Case in point: instead of some generic, moderately comfortable bed and a bathroom with minimal amenities, we got a full blown apartment with an opulent bed, a full living room and kitchen and a full-sized bathroom. Even better, it was located smack dab in downtown Portland, a mere two blocks from the light rail system, dozens of restaurants and major tourist attractions. The owner greeted us on our arrival, offered suggestions on where to go and what to eat, and was immediately available should anything go wrong (which it didn’t). If you ever find yourself planning a trip to Portland I highly recommend you check out her place on airbnb.

As for the food, my own complaint was that I didn’t have a stomach large enough to allow myself to eat non-stop for the three days I was there. But barring that genetic shortcoming we did what we could to eat like kings.

Saturday:

On Deck Sports Bar & Grill (lunch): we hadn’t planned on going here, but apparently 3-5pm is a dead zone for restaurants in Portland. Those that cater to breakfast and lunch close at 3pm and those that do dinner don’t open until at least 5pm, if not later. That said, both the burgers and the buffalo chips were solid options.

Andina (dinner): Our first real chance at sampling the Portland cuisine, Andina offered up a wide selection of Peruvian fare and excellent cocktails. I got the Bistec Novoandino (filet minon) and my girlfriend got the seasonal special which was some sort of seafood potpie, filled with lobster, crab, scallops and every other delicious thing from the sea. We finished the meal with their plato de crema quemada, three tiny pots of crème brûlée in walnut, chocolate and rum flavors. I highly recommend an evening here.

Sunday:

Screen Door (brunch): If you are looking to only eat once a day, this would be the place to come. Both I and my girlfriend got the chicken biscuits with gravy, which while massive and delicious weren’t even the most eye-boggling dish on display. One table over I saw a young woman delivered fried chicken and waffle, which included THREE fried chicken breasts the size of the one on my plate, skewered to an equally massive waffle by a steak knife. MADNESS. But back to my dish; the gravy and fried chicken were delicious and had a great deal of heat to them, but my chest almost immediately began to lodge a protest with my brain. While good eats, I think I’d have to leave at least half for leftovers in the future.

Voodoo Donuts (snack): Meh. Donuts are donuts. But it was fun to see all their crazy concoctions on display.

Le Pigeon (dinner): This was the fanciest meal we had while visiting and was a culinary tour de force. We got the five-course Chef’s tasting menu, which was comprised of (1) seared Foie Gras with truffle, pumpkin bread and quince, (2) Potato Gnocchi with lamb ragu and chimichurri cream, (3) duck breast with broccoli, epoisses fondue, currants and mushrooms, (4) Beef Cheek Bourguignon, and (5), Foie Gras Profiteroles for dessert.

It was the first time I’ve ever had foie gras, and while not bad, I don’t think it’s something I’ll try again. Especially in dessert form. :P

Monday:

Pine State Biscuits (brunch): This was my favorite stop on our trip and I only wished we could have gone there more than once (or that I was hungry enough for more than one sitting). Unlike Screen Door that overwhelmed you with food, PSB gave me just the right amount of food in its signature dish, The Jimmy. The portions were perfect as well, with the biscuit, fried chicken, bacon, egg, and cheese all contributing equally. If you go nowhere else in Portland, go here.

Karam (lunch): Another unexpected stop, we had been aiming to get to the oft praised Bunk Sandwiches, but it turned out they closed at 3pm, so when we got there at 2:58pm they had already shut down. Instead we hit up Karam, a Lebanese & Syrian restaurant, where we feasted on hummus, kibbee, falafel, kafta kabab, and chicken and lamb shawarma. It was a hearty meal that sustained us all the way back to Los Angeles.

Daily Haiku - November 29, 2012

Late packing for trip
Cleanly fold or cram it in?
Wrinkles it is, then.

The Value of Self-Experimentation

I was proffered (Scrabble, anyone?) a link last week to a fascinating article entitled "The Value of Self-Experimentation." It's a fascinating article in and of itself, but more importantly, it contained some hopefully useful insights into my poor sleeping habits.

I knew that in a wide range of animals, including rats, a laboratory result called anticipatory activity is well established. If you feed a rat every day at the same time, it will become active about three hours earlier. If you feed it at noon, it will become active about 9 a.m. I had been eating breakfast at about 7 a.m. and waking up about 4 a.m. I had essentially found that humans were like other animals in this regard.

Not eating breakfast reduced early awakening but didn’t eliminate it. In the following years, self-experimentation taught me more about what caused it. By accident, I found that standing helped. If I stood more than eight hours in a day, I slept better that night. That wasn’t practical—after trying to stand that much for several years, I gave up—but the realization helped me make another accidental discovery 10 years later: standing on one leg to exhaustion helps. If I do this four times (left leg twice, right leg twice) during a day, even in the morning, I sleep much better that night. More recently, I’ve found that animal fat makes me sleep better.

Interesting stuff, yes? When I was doing my own experimenting I tested the effect of a number of sleeping agents (melatonin, generic sleeping pills, Nyquil) along with external elements like a humidifier, when I went to bed, when I stopped using electronic devices, and so forth and so on. After about a month of trying different combinations of all these variables I was still averaging about 3.5 hours of sleep a night, a rate that I still sustain today.

So my first step is pushing back breakfast until 10am. I figure I’ll give that two weeks and see if that has any noticeable effect on my sleep habits. And then maybe I’ll start branching out into some of his other suggestions. In the meantime, I think I'm going to start browsing the archives of Tim Ferriss' blog (he of the aforementioned article).

Daily Haiku - November 27, 2012

TV marathon,
Battlestar Galactica;
This is REALLY good.

Daily Haiku - Thanksgiving Edition

So many red wines;
How do you keep track past five?
Too drunk to recall.

-------------------------------------------

Stupid mama bird,
Why must you crap on my car?
It can’t hurt your nest!

-------------------------------------------

Fallen leaves line streets,
Sent aloft by passing cars:
Autumn’s vibrant snow.

Thanksgiving Round-up

I ended up staying with my girlfriend’s family for the entire weekend, and I had an absolute blast. The entirety of Wednesday (5pm-10pm) was spent drinking 11 (12?) bottles of red wine with six other people, of which I partook of a solid 14 glasses or so. This is impressive both because I’m not normally a fan of red wine and because I don’t really drink that often. The clear winner of the evening was the first wine we tasted, which I believe was an Ass Kisser from Rocland Estates (waiting for confirmation) was a 2010 A.S. Kiken from Reverie Winery.

As for the actual Thanksgiving dinner, I went ahead with the Broccoli-Cheddar soup, which was a hit, and the Butter Knots that my cousin Katy has made for years in Buffalo. The recipe for them is listed at the end of this post and I HIGHLY recommend you give them a go.

The rest of the day was spent drinking more wine, grazing on leftovers, and catching up with friends who made guest appearances during the evening.

Friday morning I woke just before 7am and drove off into the lovely, dense fog of Huntington Beach to find the local Verizon Wireless store so that I might finally enter the era of smartphones. Sadly, Verizon was the only carrier NOT putting the Samsung Galaxy S3 on sale (boooo!) but I went ahead and got it anyway. It came loaded with tons of apps, none of which I know how to use, so I’ll be spending a good chunk of today online researching them and playing around with the phone.

Friday evening turned into a culinary wonderland, as my girlfriend’s parents treated everyone to dinner at Old Vine Café in Costa Mesa. A bevy of four-course tasting menus, with a specific wine paired to each individual course. I went with the Comfort Tasting Menu which included the following:

First
~Seasonal Greens, Hearts of Palm, Artisan-Cured Ham & Crispy fried Artichokes Tossed in Creamy Tarragon Dressing, garnished with Aged Pecorino.
~Paired with a 2010 Domaine de Bernier Chardonnay, France

Second
~Porcini Mushroom Macaroni & Creamy Artisan Cheeses.
~Paired with a 2007 Dragani Montepulciano D'Abruzzo, Italy

Third
~All-Natural Australian Lamb Meatloaf with Sauteed Spinach & Peppercorn Demi Glace.
~Paired with a 2004 Chateau Jean-Pierre Gaussen Bandol, Bandol France

Last
~Pear & Cream Cheese Tart with a Savory Pate Brisee Crust.
~Paired with a N.V. Törley 'Fortuna' Doux, Hungary

It was AMAZING.

Saturday was spent reading, playing board games and watching both ‘Brave’ and The ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’, the latter of which I highly recommend you seeing when you have a chance.

Okay, that’s it for today. The recipe for the butter knots is below the cut. I’ll have more interesting tidbits for you tomorrow.

Let Me Feed You the Food of My People

As Thanksgiving is almost upon us (how the hell did that happen?) I thought I’d share with you a family recipe that is near and dear to my heart. I don’t recall the origins of this particular dish, but it is something that my father has been making, without fail, since I was but a wee lad. As far as I know it doesn’t have a proper name and is only referred to as the ‘Green Jello Dish.’



Now this side dish isn’t for everyone. I would go so far as to say that it isn’t for anyone, but clearly there are a few well-refined individuals out there who can appreciate the subtle combination of flavors this dish has to offer. Having been force fed it for most of my 33 years, I can say with great assurance that you’ll eventually get used to it. Love it, even.

THE GREEN JELLO DISH
(approximately, as I apparently don’t have the recipe on file)

3-4 cups of shredded green cabbage
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1 15oz can of Crushed Pineapple (drained, with juice set aside)
1 3oz package of Lime Jell-O
1 cup hot water
1 cup cold water (which includes the saved pineapple juice)

1. Make the Jell-O like normal.

2. Combine the Jell-O, cabbage, carrots and crushed pineapple in a ring mold.

3. Refrigerate until firm.

4. Watch your friends eye the dish warily and then opt instead for an extra helping of mashed potatoes.

------------------------------------

This year I’m actually doing Thanksgiving with my girlfriend’s family, which has left me scrambling for dishes to make. Apparently all the standard sides and desserts are already taken care of so I’ve had to think outside the box.

I’m going to fall back on one of my favorites, a Broccoli-Cheddar soup recipe from Cooks’ Illustrated. I figure both soups and broccoli aren’t normally featured during Thanksgiving, so doubling up is unlikely. Plus you can use it in place of gravy!

Beyond that I’m kind of at a loss. I can have another go at Cooks’ Illustrated Blueberry Pie, or I could hunt down a roll recipe of some sort. Right now I’m looking at these two, but my cousin Katy has a kick ass recipe I’m hoping she’ll be able to get to me by tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Daily Haiku - November 19, 2012

Dental Hygienist,
Stop stabbing me in the gums,
This ain't no knife fight!

Daily Haiku - November 15, 2012

I watched ‘Rear Window’
Come on, put a ring on it!
Lucky invalid.

Daily Haiku - November 14, 2012

Skating on the ice
Is like puberty again:
Awkward and risky.

Daily Haiku - November 13, 2012

It’s really not bad,
Unable to sleep at night;
More time to daydream.

To Sleep Perchance to Dream

Sleep is a funny thing. Some people are really good at it while others, like myself, seem to have been stuck with the short end of the stick. For whatever reason, I only average about 3.5 hours of sleep on a given night and rise with the dawn, one of the many reasons I’m a big fan of overcast, cloudy days.

This hasn’t always been the case, however. I’m fairly certain my personal predicament kicked in about August of 2005, right after I had a really rough case of mono (5 days of no sleep and no food). Years later after I had moved out to California and tried a bevy of prescription sleep aids and herbal remedies and blood sacrifices I finally got around to going in for a sleep apnea test. The results?

“This young man slept extraordinarily well.”

LIES. I slept like crap, though the report insists otherwise. In fact, I went back through my emails looking for the report and stumbled across a recounting I sent my father.

“I had no time-telling device with me, so I won't know how much I actually slept until my doctor got the results [ed: 7 hours and 6 minutes] , but I had no less than four distinct dreams before the study came to a blessed end. The first three were all the same except for minor differences. In all three I suddenly found myself somewhere in or around the hospital late at night wondering how I got there. I would eventually make my way back to the sleep study room to find out what was going on only to wake up. The second time this happened was annoying; the third was beginning to piss me off.

The cake though was the final dream, which once again had me wandering the hospital (electrodes and trailing wires still attached) but this time it was during the day and populated. I couldn't leave the hospital because there was still something that needed to be done in regards to the sleep test, but I couldn't figure out what. I finally found a clock and it said 11am, then 1pm and I thought I should call my boss and let him know I was going to be late. So I plunk myself down in a chair in the lobby and call the office, getting what must have been a temp, who picked up the phone and didn't acknowledge me for a good twenty seconds as she was knee deep in her own conversation with another co-worker. I ask for Francisco and she puts me on hold. As I'm waiting Francisco suddenly sits down in the chair across from me, cell to his ear. I have a little 'WTF?!' moment and then tell him I'm going to be late. He says not to worry and hands me a sheet of paper. It turns out that I, along with two other people, have had our hours reduced due to the strike and my new schedule for Monday and Tuesday (the only one's that I see clearly) are now 2pm – 5pm, so I actually haven't missed anything at all.”

It is rare that I can so clearly recall the contents of my dream; I can count on a little over one hand the number of times this has happened. Suffice to say this experience contrasted sharply with the report I was given. I still don’t know why I’m so bad at sleeping, but after seven years by body has gotten used to it, so…c’est la vie.

Anyone else out there have interesting sleep habits?

Apple Picking and Piglets

My girlfriend and I drove two hours out to the country yesterday to go apple picking and to see piglets race. The apple picking was a success, the fruits of which (har har) I shall be feasting on for the rest of the week. It was exactly as I hoped it would be--lush, forested country-side in very cold weather with friendly people milling about. Also a giant serving of apple pie drowning under a mound of vanilla ice cream.

Sadly, the piglet racing wasn’t up to snuff, with just two normal looking miniature pigs running most of a tiny loop before stopping terrified by the screaming of small children. To be fair, my disappointment was probably due in large part from giving ourselves an unattainable bar by watching YouTube (I love how Word was upset I didn’t capitalize the ‘t’ initially) videos of miniature potbelly pigs being adorable. Case in point below:



This of course led us down the slippery slope of related videos that soon had us watching other miniature pigs, cheetah cubs, hedgehogs and baby huskies. By the time we left for the orchard we had this impossible image of perfectly groomed tiny pigs being adorable just for us. I attempted to lessen my guilt and disappointment by feeding the two racing pigs some corn before I left.

On the way back I made my girlfriend play the soundtrack for Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me again, which I highly recommend you listen to if you get the chance (you can find it on Spotify). I heard it the first time back in January when we drove out to the Grand Canyon. Very funny stuff from an actor I didn’t really know that much about or particularly cared for before now. I would love for him to do another run though so I could see it live.

Daily Haiku - Weekend Trifecta (November 12, 2012)

Gone to pick apples
Crisp bite from wind and fruit both
Autumn in country.

-----------------------------------

Scents from the kitchen
Mirepoux sautéing in oil
A sublime perfume.

-----------------------------------

James Bond as old dog
New tricks with old repartee
It was pretty good.

Pears

3 pears v.2 by Susan Murtaugh

Man, I forgot how good pears were. Such a unique flavor and texture. I kinda just want to eat the other two I have right now. In the mean time I guess I'll just browse the internet for pear-based goodness.

And lo, ask and you shall receive; two more recipes to add to my 'To Bake' list:

Pear, Cranberry and Gingersnap Crumble

Pear Clafouti three ways

Daily Haiku - Double Feature - November 7, 2012

I wake in the dark,
Reach for her who is not there;
A long night awaits.

-------------------------------

“Victory!” cries dawn,
“Awake, and greet the new day!”
Another four years.

Mortality

Instead of sitting in front of my computer waiting for the election results to come in I decided to finally watch "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," which I had rented a number of weeks ago.

If you have not seen "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" yet and are planning to, stop reading now.

The story takes place in a world where Earth is doomed to be destroyed by an asteroid in a number of weeks. Dodge (Steve Carell) has his wife leave him at the beginning of the film and heads out to find his old high school sweetheart. His unexpected companion on this adventure is his downstairs neighbor, Penny (Keira Knightley), who is trying to get back to her parents in London.

Unsurprisingly, over the course of their shared journey they fall in love and by the end of the movie they’ve professed their love to each other. This happens moments before EVERYONE DIES.

This is easily the closest a film has gotten to turning me into a blubbering fountain of tears as far back as I can remember. While I thought there might be some chance that they’d go with the happy ending and somehow have the asteroid averted, doing so would have simply ruined the movie in my opinion. The whole reason it ends up being such a beautiful tear-jerker is because of the tragedy. They just found each other and then the world literally ends in an absolutely terrifying way.

I desperately wanted to drive down to my girlfriend’s apartment and tell her I loved her and just hold her for the rest of the night, and in retrospect that would have been the right choice as I only got about three hours of sleep before the nightmares woke me up.

Death is a very scary thing to me, and as such I rarely think about it. I don’t have any belief in an afterlife or reincarnation, so what I get is what I’ve got. Nor have I had anyone close to me die yet so I’ve been insulted almost entirely from the concept. It’s hard to imagine how I would deal with the knowledge of my own looming demise, but I suspect I would be more in step with Penny than I would Dodge, who in the final moments manages to find calm, acceptance, and joy in what little time he got to have with Penny.

The movie is a great reminder to cherish what you have and to let those you love know it. If you’re looking to have a good cry I highly recommend watching the film, though not alone. At the very least you should have a pet nearby that you can pick up and squeeze.

I highly recommend a corgi.

‘MERICA, HECK YES!

Ah, Election Day, the day where half the country gets really angry and the other half gets really happy. If you happen to be a fellow American, I wish you luck in your candidate of choice, as long as that choice is the same one as mine.

If you’re outside this great country of ours, don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.

In the meantime, here’s the most recent episode of Epic Rap Battles that everyone will be able to enjoy:

The Wayback What Now?

Short term memory
Why you no work like you should?
Bad memory, bad!

More from the Wayback Machine

It’s always interesting to see what you’ll find digging through old files. Case in point, I found an old website I made for fun back in the day when I was playing around with HTML. It was a spoof on a brewery company, replete with a full array of beers and even job openings.



Sacrilege Beer
'Jesus turned water into wine. We did him one better.'

A smooth tasting lager, Sacrilege entices your senses with its robust flavor and just a hint of nutmeg. Our best selling beer to date, Sacrilege is bound to appease even the most discriminating of palettes.

Steel Gauntlet Beer
'Nothing brings the color back to your face like a shot from a steel gauntlet.'

Steel Gauntlet doesn't pull any punches. Its wickedly potent taste will wake you up and then knock you back down. Its power comes from its special blend of ingredients, including a unique added shot of jalapeno pepper.

Murkwood Drought
'Any thicker and you'd be eating it with a knife and fork.'

Using an old family recipe straight from the swamps of the Mississippi, our Murkwood drought is so stout its actually been used as syrup for pancakes on occasion. Nothing is better for when you just want to sit back, watch tv and vegetate for hours on end.

Hemlock Ale
'Sure there are a few permanent side effects like blindness and loss of hearing, but we dare you to find a better brew!'

Other beer companies like to play it safe and stay away from contents that some folks, say, the FDA, find dangerous, but we like to push the limits at DU, so if you're a real man (or woman), then try to survive...HEMLOCK ALE!!!

Didactic Conveyance
'We don't know what the name means either, but after you have one you won't give a damn.'

Not even the folks here at DU know what exactly goes into this beer. At the end of every brewing session we take what we have left over and mix it together with some other odds and ends. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always different.

DESTRUCTION OF GOD
'Oh, shit.' -God

The sole reason behind the creation of the Depleted Uranium Brewing Company, this beer came from a promise made between two good friends on a car trip to the amazing bar/restaurant Brickskeller. To learn more, check out the whole story in the Company Info section of our website. Oh yeah, this beer is the fucking bomb yo!

Daily Haiku - October 31, 2012

I’m percolating;
Ideas bubbling up.
Drink deep and awake.

Daily Haiku - October 30, 2012

Found some old writings;
Impressed by the quality.
Where did this skill go?

Brian's a funny man: Part Deux

One more from Brian.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

ATTENTION: Whoever put chocolate pudding in the copier.

On Tuesday, December 3, an unknown individual or individuals inserted a cup of Jello brand chocolate pudding into a copier in TCS West. The cup was placed in such a way that the next time an attempt was made to copy a document, the cup exploded. Some people may appreciate practical jokes, however, this is entirely inappropriate behavior at the office. It might have seemed funny for someone else to open up the copier and find chocolate pudding, but this prank took the copier offline for nearly two days. When the pudding cup exploded it allowed pudding to move through most of the machine’s internal components, requiring the entire copier to be stripped and cleaned. It also mixed with the toner, created a sticky sludge that forced the replacement of several key parts. In short, this so-called prank cost just over $2,600 in replacement parts and technician time.

The copier is a shared resource that benefits everyone working here. To disable it in such a fashion is an affront to all of the hard-working people who require the regular or irregular use of the copier. Steps will be taken to protect company assets if these activities continue. This includes a potential ban on pudding. Please be more considerate of your co-workers and understand that we are a team, working together toward a common goal.

Thank you for your attention.

Brian's a funny man

I have a friend name Brian. Actually, I have a number of friends named Brian, but this one in particular is especially talented at written humor. More than once I’ve suggested that he submit some of his work to The Onion and quit his day job as a consultant, but to no avail.

Anyways, while I was looking for photos of myself as Martini Jesus to no avail the other day, I ran across a couple of fake workplace announcements Brian had written years ago. They were just as amusing as I recalled them being so I thought I’d share them here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

BEAR ALERT

As many of you know, there have been a number of recent reports of a large dog-like animal, possibly a bear, in the Torrance area. Authorities are continuing to search for the animal but have not been able to track or trap it. We want to provide the safest working environment possible and so have provided the following tips. Feel free to share these tips with family members or friends who live and/or work in the Torrance area.

• Do not purchase or consume honey until the animal has been caught.
• If possible, have meat delivered to your home instead of carrying it from a grocery store to your car and from your car to your home. Bears have highly acute senses of smell and could break into your car because of the smell, even if you have removed the meat.
• If you discover a bear in your car do not attempt to remove it yourself, and do not give it the keys. You may want to take a picture, though.
• Bears are excellent climbers and large bears have the strength to uproot trees that are too small for them to climb. Do not climb a tree to escape a bear. However, bears are not good diggers. If you have access to a shovel, you can dig a hole to hide in. Be sure to leave a hole for air. Do not attempt to dig through pavement.
• Bears are not as easily confused as dogs. If a bear charges you, throwing a ball is unlikely to distract it.
• If you are attacked by a bear, playing dead can be effective; the bear may leave you alone entirely or at least not cause critical injuries. It is not wise to play dead in the middle of a street.
• Examine the size of the bear that is attacking you. Is it a cub? If it is a cub you are probably bigger and stronger than the bear. You may be able to extract yourself from the situation by throwing the cub away from you. Throwing the cub at another human is not an effective way of protecting your community.
• Bears are not as reliant on sight as humans, but blindfolding an attacking bear will give you a better chance of escaping.
• If you encounter a hibernating bear, do not attempt to wake it up. You can tell if a bear is hibernating by opening its eyes and observing the level of pupil dilation.

Remember that if you see a bear on the ****** campus you should not approach the animal. The bear is undoubtedly confused and disoriented, and it may become hostile if approached. Call security and wait for the authorities to respond. If you have a steak or other food, you may toss it toward the animal to keep the bear in the area so that it can be captured. Note that ****** vehicle warranties and most insurance companies do not cover deliberate collision with a bear, so do not attempt to run it over.

We will follow this up with future communications to keep you appraised of safety concerns in the Toyota campus area.

-The ****** Campus Safety Team

Halloween Costumes

Halloween is almost upon us, and our party last Saturday was probably the best one ever. I rarely dress up for Halloween, but this year my core group of friends decided we should go as the cast of Archer and it kicked ass, as you can see below.



I went as Ray Gillette, "an openly gay intelligence analyst and one of the few competent members of ISIS." I shaved my goatee down to a moustache and used a spray aerosol to temporarily dye my hair. The jacket I got at a thrift store, the tie and tie clip at a military surplus store, and the cigarette holder at a costume store. I think it ended up being a fairly decent replica (except for the hair).





Historically I think I’ve really only ever dressed up for Halloween when I’ve been dating someone, and my choices have been interesting to say the least. The other two incarnations I can think of included Red Lobster, an internet meme involving a corgi, and Martini Jesus, for whom I sadly was unable to find a photo of anywhere. *sad trombone*



Barring any other ideas, I think next year I’ll go with my original plan for this year, Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.

Daily Haiku - Weekend Edition (10/26)

I don’t like red wine
But tried a flight just in case
Nope, still don’t like it.

----------------------------

Halloween Party!
A bevy of cool costumes
And tons of sugar.

----------------------------

I don’t want to clean
So many dirty dishes
One more day won’t hurt.

Daily Haiku - October 25, 2012

The wind howls outside,
Trumpets announcing the Fall.
Time for my pea coat.

Let me introduce you to a friend

One of my old college buddies, Paul Dunford, has started up a website, 'Illustrations From An Imaginary Children's Book,' to show off his artwork.

While I am clearly biased, I think his artwork is quite lovely, and I've taken a special liking to Victor, an owl who has become a reoccurring staple in his work. My favorite piece feature him is below.



"Reginald Cumberland was startled to discover an owl in his tea. The owl was startled to discover that Sir Cumberland didn’t have the decency to knock before coming in."

The quote is mine. While I'm sure Paul has his own stories in mind, I've started creating my own splinter world in which Victor lives. I think that's very telling of a person's artistic output, that it immediately fires to life the imagination of others. I look forward to seeing more illustrations from him in the hopes that I can use them to further flesh out my imaginary world.

As a bonus, if you happen to find a piece that catches your fancy, most of Paul's artwork is available for purchase here: pauldunford.imagekind.com

Daily Haiku - October 23, 2012

Waking next to her
The world still dark and sleeping
Quiet, silent joy.

Daily Haiku - October 22, 2012

I made a pizza,
The cheese was very subpar.
Mozzarella snob.

Daily Haiku - Weekend Edition

Soft Pretzels are great
So why must you butcher them
T.G.I.Fridays?

----------------------------

Run my zombie friends
Our human prey escapes us
Cardio is key

----------------------------

Car alarms and dogs
Nature's other wakeup call
Thank you kind neighbors

Rewritten Lyrics – “Touch My Brownies”

As I may have previously mentioned, one of the things I like to do when I get bored is rewrite lyrics to songs. Rarely do they ever get past that initial stage, though I did try to record this one once and I’ve got another song for which most of the music video has been shot. But since this one isn’t like to see the light of day I thought I’d share it with you.

The original song is “Touch My Body” by Mariah Carey, a karaoke version of which I've imbedded below in case you want to try and sing along.



[Note: My lyrics would kick in at the 17 second mark in the video]

I know that you've been waiting for it
I'm waiting too
In my imagination I’d be cooking for you
I’ve got the oven preset for
Three hundred and two
And my KitchenAid is ready
For whatever I’ll do.

Daily Haiku - October 18, 2012

What if the red eye
Found in many photographs
Denotes a demon?

The Great ShakeOut Evacuation Drill

Or, 'The Trials and Tribulations of Being Floor Warden'.

-------------------------------------------------------------

From: Me
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 10:42 AM
To: A crap-ton of people
Subject: Holy crap, there was an earthquake!

AND MOST OF YOU DIED.

Your theoretical mother and I are very disappointed with the majority of you. Were you still among the living we would point out that the safety area for our building is actually out in the street as opposed to right next to the Admin Building, where most of you were tragically crushed by falling debris.

For those of you that DID survive, your theoretical mother and I are docking your allowances for the next year and a half to help pay for all the funerals. Shame on you for not letting your less knowledgeable siblings know where to safely stand.

Also, would it hurt you to pick up a phone occasionally? You’re breaking your theoretical mother’s heart.

Love,

Your Metaphorical Father Figure

Daily Haiku - October 17, 2012

I've no idea
What to write about today.
I want a corgi.

What I'm Cooking - Pork Loin

French-Style Pot-Roasted Pork Loin, to be exact.



Sadly, the recipe came out fairly bland for me, but I would be willing to make it again with some modifications. The pork loin is double-butterflied and then salted, sugared and the insides littered with a small amount of browned, thinly sliced garlic. To bump the flavor I'd probably throw in some rehydrated cranberries, some finely chopped nuts (walnut, perhaps?) and some sort of spice.

The exterior is coated with pepper and herbs de province, which I didn't have at the time and replaced with a regular Italian blend. That might have been part of the problem, but I can't imagine the difference in flavor would explain the blandness of the dish. Nothing really needs to be changed here.



The sauce was also fairly tame, with garlic, onion, apple, thmye, parsley, chicken broth and a bit of white wine thrown in for good measure. I'd add more of the cranberries here and maybe some cinnamon or nutmeg? I'm not sure.

Regardless, it was fun to make, which is half the reason I cook in the first place, so I'll give this another shot at some point in the future, but for now I'd look elsewhere if you've got some pork loin laying about the house.

Might I recommend the exquisitely delicious Ginger Ale Marinated Pork Loin? My only suggestion is instead of straining the broth at the end, puree it all together and thicken it up with flour or cornstarch or what have you. It's DELICIOUS.

Daily Haiku (Double Feature) - October 16, 2012

Oh, dearest pork loin
Whom I spent so much time on
Why are you so bland?

----------

Using a dolly
Does not negate injury
When moving boxes.

And speaking of which...

Yesterday, one of my Facebook friends posted about a video contest Buitoni is holding through October about Men in the Kitchen:

Ladies, does your guy know his way around the kitchen? Guys, do you whip up meals that make women weak? Submit a video that shows how a guy can turn an ordinary meal into an extraordinary one with BUITONI® pastas and/or sauces for your chance to win $10,000!

I pounced on the idea and sent my roommate a rough sketch of what I thought would be a dynamite submission and he said we could do it. I fleshed out the idea more today and am really excited about it. The contest caps the video length at 60, so it shouldn't be too arduous a task. I just finished fleshing out the original idea further and am waiting to hear back from my roommate. Hopefully I'll have something to show you all in a week or two!

Daily Haiku - October 11, 2012

Autumn has arrived.
Jackets are pulled from storage,
Tea begins to steep.

Unused Ideas

I'm a fairly creative guy. I come up with ideas all the time, but I’m terribly inconsistent when it comes to following through with them. And while I still hold out hope that I’ll eventually get most of my ideas solidified and posted on YouTube, I figured I’d share them in the meantime as someone else will probably find them amusing.

First up, a board game spoof of the following scene from “Walk Hard,” which itself is a spoof of “Walk the Line,” both of which are worth seeing:



And now the spoof:

[Joseph walks into Brian’s dinning room, where Brian, Jeff, Donovan and Jen are playing]

Joseph: What are y'all doin' in here?
Brian: We're playing 7 Wonders and you don't want no part of this shit.
Joseph: You're playing 7 Wonders?
Brian: Yeah, 'course we are; haven’t you played before?
Joseph: No, Brian. I haven’t.
Ben: Come on, Joseph! Play the game!
[pulls out an open chair next to him]
Brian: No, Joseph, you don't want this. Get outta here!
Joseph: You know what, it probably doesn’t play more than four. I don’t want to kick someone else out.
Brian: It plays up to seven people!
Joseph: Well, it’s probably really difficult to learn, huh?
Brian: I can teach you the rules in about five minutes!
Joseph: Oh, okay... well, I don't know... I don’t really want to commit a couple of hours to a game right now.
Brian: You can finish a game in thirty minutes!
Joseph: It's not gonna make me wanna buy expansions, is it?
Brian: The expansions make the game even better!
Joseph: Sounds kind of expensive.
Brian: It's only $35 on Amazon. And I already own a copy!
Joseph: [at a loss and out of excuses] Hmm.
Brian: You don't want to play it!
Joseph: I think I kinda want to play it.
Brian: Okay, but just this once. Choose a wonder.
[holds out remaining wonder boards]

---------[additional ending]------------

[Jen or Susie walks into Brians’s, where Brian, Jeff, Donovan, Jen and now Joe are playing]

Jen/Susie: Hey guys, what’s up?
Joseph: We're playing 7 Wonders and you don't want no part of this shit.

--FIN--

Daily Haiku - October 10, 2012

Creativity
Not made real is lost to all.
Go forth and share it!

Renga: 100-player laser pointer game

While waiting around Saturday night for 10:50pm showing of "Looper", which I highly recommend you go see, my girlfriend and I stumbled across the grounds of IndieCade 2012.

IndieCade (i.e., International Festival of Independent Games) is:

"the only stand-alone independent-focused game festival in the nation. It is open to the industry and to the public. Events include a festival workshops, keynotes, and family-focused activities, meet-and-greets with game creators, hands-on gameplay with a GameWalk, live games, Night Games and numerous social events."

One of the night games they had running when we got there was a fascinating project called "Renga". It is a 100-person cooperative laser pointer game, wherein the players are collectively building a spacecraft and then protecting it from various enemies and natural hazards. While I have no idea how the programming actually works, actions in the game appear to be based on the intensity of the lasers (i.e., the more pointers focused on one point of the screen triggers an action there).

Initially players are harvesting resources from asteroids for use in building their space ship, which involves walling in floating elements (e.g., storage, engines and shields) and then connecting them to each other, all under a time constraint. Once time runs out, the ship spends a round being bombarded by outside forces, which can be destroyed by hovering laser pointers at specific points around them. If they survive the whole cycle is repeated, with the players eventually reaching the final boss stage.

It looks like a lot of fun and I'd love to get a chance to try it out with a bunch of friends. Check out some videos below of the game in action.

Daily Haiku (Double Feature) - October 9, 2012

The sky is not yours.
The clouds you proffer are dark;
Seek the sun behind.

--------------------

The heavens are not yours alone.
The clouds that you sustain above,
Whose dark crests bloat with discontent,
Shall blot both self and neighbor.

Take heart from clear blue skies about,
Seek friends to calm your troubled mind;
Or find some sheltered, private place
And weather all til sun shines down once more.

[I really like the first stanza but the second one feels 'meh'. I couldn't find the right words for it, but it felt weird just having the first one by itself so I went with what I had.]

What I'm Cooking

So I finally got around to making this dish, which I've been sitting on for almost a year. It's full title is "Sweet & Savory Wild Rice Dressing w/ Hot Italian Sausage, Orange, Dried Cranberries & Hazelnuts", which doesn't quite manage to cram all the ingredients in there, but it's impressive nonetheless.

I'm afraid I've no pictures to share at the moment, but please take my word that it both pleasing in taste and sight. What's not included in the title is the onion and fennel, the latter of which makes up the base flavor of the dish. It pairs quite nicely with the sausage and the orange juice and cranberries do their part to sweeten things up a bit.

The dish is fairly easy to make but please note it'll be at least an hour and a half before it's ready to eat. The recipe suggests 55-65 minutes in the oven to cook the rice, but after 65 minutes my dish was still full of liquid, so you may need to cook it for another 10-15 minutes depending on your oven. As such it's not great for whipping something together on a weeknight, but it's fine for the weekend and the leftovers make for good lunch material.

Daily Haiku - October 8, 2012

Preparing dinner--
Chopping, sauteing, baking;
The best sort of work.

Daily Haiku - October 7, 2012

Bemoaning your fate
When it’s a lovely day out
Means you need a walk.

What Dreams May Come

I think the dream started as something else, but when I became conscious of it there was a group of us planning to go to the cottage in Maine. My mother and sister were there along with about a half dozen friends. Some of us had already traveled some distance and were waiting for the rest of the folks back home to catch up.

Suddenly we are on a beach, which I assume is somewhere in Maine due to the rocky shore and cold water. Some of us are swimming in the water and then I notice there are pink jellyfish everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. Fortunately they aren’t the stinging kind, and as soon as my focus changes they are gone again.

I turn to look out at the ocean but it appears we are actually on a lake, as I can see forested, hilly land not too far in the distance, with a small clump of trees much closer. And then I notice the tide receding. Quickly. And I started screaming at everyone, who had inexplicably started walking towards the far side of the now empty lake, that a tidal wave was coming. But as soon as I started yelling I could see the tidal wave coming in, and there was no chance anyone was going to make it to safety. Instead, I start yelling for them to run towards the small clump of trees, in the hopes that hiding behind the trunks (they were big trees) will at least protect them from the initial brunt of the wave.

Time kicks into slow motion as we make a desperate bee-line towards the trees. I see the trees crack violently and begin to fall towards me as they are hit by the tidal wave. But then the wave isn’t actually there yet and it’s some sort of shockwave that is leveling the trees and setting them aflame. With the slow motion still in effect, I’m sidestepping the falling trees as they hit the ground, and then the shockwave hits me.

I’m in a helicopter. I’m a grizzled veteran; what the demo-man from Team Fortress 2 would be if he were real. I knew the pilot from an earlier, possibly semi-connected dream. I know he’s a bad guy and responsible for all this somehow so I sabotage the helicopter to make it crash and grab a parachute to make my escape. But as I get ready to jump out of the helicopter I find that he is already landing in a gas station in the midst of a metropolis filled with skyscrapers.

Knowing an explosion is still imminent I sprint from the helicopter and down the rest of the block, turning the corner just as the helicopter explodes behind me. I’m suddenly in a warehouse district and someone else is now traveling with me. We go into the nearest warehouse where dozens of people are hard at work welding metal for some unknown purpose. We are looking for our secret contact here that was in the same earlier, possibly semi-connected dream, but he no longer works there. Our secret military team is no more.

Disavowed?

Daily Haiku - October 4, 2012

This lucid dreaming,
The reward for broken sleep,
Worth the cost to me.

Daily Haiku - October 3, 2012

Two weeks and no sign
Now I have to pay for it
Why, Hangover 2?

(The annoying part is I watched all of 10 minutes of it before turning it off because it was so bad. If I'm going to pay for a lost rental I'd at least like it to be a good movie)

Borderlands 2: A Brief Review

Having now spent a little under 33 hours playing Borderlands 2 since it came out two weeks ago I feel like I can comfortably throw my opinion into the ring.

Opinion: Great game, you should buy it, but getting friends together to play may be a hassle.

If you played the first Borderlands, everything you loved is still there with loads of new content fleshing out the lovely cell-shaded world. New areas, new creatures, new players, new (and old) NPCs—it’s all there. And as a bonus they’ve thrown in an engaging storyline, which I felt was rather lacking in the first iteration. I think the improved plot has added a lot to the game, but if you’re just looking to shoot things in the face, you won’t be disappointed. And while I haven’t engaged in co-op shenanigans yet, I’m told they’ve dumped Gamespy and its ridiculous issues and networking players together runs much more smoothly now.

And this brings me to my only real issue with the game, which was also present in the first one. While Borderlands 2 is ostentatious meant to be played with friends, it’s incredibly hard to actually make that happen. First, you need to find time that you and three of your friends are all free, and then you need to make sure you all have characters that are the same or very close in level. Obviously playing with just one or two friends can make scheduling easier to organize, but the bigger issue is the level problem.

Case in point: the last time I emailed my friends for co-op we had characters who were level 24, 23, 18 and 12. And since this is the first run-through of the game for all of us, people didn’t have much of a desire to stop playing their primary character until everyone was caught up. I suspect once everyone has finished a run-through of the game on their own, it’ll be much easier to get co-op up and running with new secondary characters.

Daily Haiku - October 2, 2012

Eating Doritos;
Forgot they were delicious.
I ate them all? Crap.

Daily Haiku - October 1, 2012

The Buffalo Bills
Are breaking my heart again.
Curse my loyalty.

Daily Haiku - September 30, 2012

I awoke to find
A giant head next to me;
Darkness and blankets.

[Seriously though, it was freaky. I tried to take a photo but my poor digital camera doesn't have the ability to extend the exposure long enough to get a good picture in the dark.]

Daily Haiku - September 29, 2012

The moon is so bright,
A spotlight for half the earth.
Do not miss your cue.

Grandparents: Part 1

Of my two sets of grandparents, I knew those on my mother’s side the best. This was in part because they were around longer than my father’s parents were and because when we did see them, we got to see them for longer periods of time.

Our most frequent visits took place at the cottage in Maine, during the summer breaks from school. We’d usually be up there for two weeks, wherein I’d get to play Spite and Malice with grandma and do the occasional fishing trip with grandpa. If not there, we’d visit my grandparents at their seaside home in Georgia, and later when they had retired, in Florida.

Before all of this though, my grandparents traveled quite a bit thanks to my grandfather’s work as a pastor. They went from Pennsylvania to New York to Puerto Rico to Tennessee to India to Alexandria to Georgia (U.S.) to California and back again to Georgia. Having been fortunate enough to travel overseas a bit myself, I would have loved to have heard their stories.

They raised four kids (three boys and one girl) over this span, each five years apart, with my mother being the youngest of the group. My grandmother briefly performed with a traveling vaudeville show. They lived near Albert Einstein while my grandfather was a graduate student at Princeton and would often see him about town. My mother shared one of my grandmother’s memories of him:

“She once saw Einstein walking down the street eating an ice cream cone and walking with one foot on the curb and the other in the street and he was obviously enjoying bobbing up and down as he went from the higher curb to the lower street.” Oh, Einstein, you so crazy!

Sadly, both of them passed away before I was mature enough to have obtained an appreciation for my family history, so I only learned of their adventures second-hand through my mother and her older brothers. My grandfather left us in 1998 during my first year in college and I didn’t make it down to the funeral. Four years later my grandmother passed away as well, but not before I had a chance to visit her one last time with my family.

She was in her 90s by then, and was in a lot of pain. She was on medication at the time, but it could only help so much. When the pain got bad enough she would disappear momentarily, as if someone had switched the radio to a different station. I distinctly recall during that last visit when we had a meal at the retirement home dining hall, and she suddenly began playing Spite and Malice with her silverware. It only lasted a moment; she mentioned something about needing more hearts and then she was back, with a quick wink of the eye to assure me she was okay. She was a strong woman and clearly didn’t want anyone to worry about her.

I don’t know for sure when, or if, I’ll have children. While marriage is becoming a more realistic concept for me, children are probably still a long way off. But if there was ever an argument to make for having children sooner rather than later it would be to ensure that they would have a long time to get to know their grandparents. I was fortunate my grandparents were around for as long as they were and it would be a shame if my children weren’t afforded the same luxury.

Daily Haiku - September 27, 2012

Carmageddon Two
Just seven hours away
Begone, 405!

Slow but steady wins the race

The Peach Cake comic is still actively being worked on, but I'm being terribly distracted by Borderlands 2. It fortunately does not contain that "one more turn" hook that Sid Meier's Civilization series does, but it has still managed to eat up a great deal of my spare time.

In other news, I just finished the sixth book of the Temeraire series, Tongues of Serpents. If you're not familiar with the series, think British history during the Napoleonic wars, but with dragons. It's as awesome as that sounds, though the series has the strange trend of all the even numbered books being decidedly void of action. That's not to say they aren't good, just not as action-packed. Having said that though, this book was easily my least favorite of the series. Not only was the action lacking, there wasn't anything particularly interesting going on to fill the void. Hopefully the next book will get things back on track.

Also, SECRETS. Hopefully I'll have something exciting to tell you in the next week or two.

Daily Haiku - September 26, 2012

Three sets of twelve reps
Pull, release, pull, release, pull
Is it over yet?

Daily Haiku - September 25, 2012

Breakfast Burrito
Why do I keep eating you?
Thy name is Regret.

Daily Haiku - September 24, 2012

Change comes regardless
So take the reins and lead it
Lest you go awry.

Daily Haiku - September 20, 2012

Thinking of grandma
And playing Spite and Malice.
Gone too soon, too soon.

The links that bind

Earlier this week my department finally started upgrading the office computers to Windows 7 and Office 2010, which by the way is crazy weird coming from the 2003 version, and in the process I lost all my Firefox bookmarks.

The greatest of these losses were the recipe links, but a number of them came from blogs that I regularly follow so it shouldn’t be too hard to find them (I hope). I also lost my web comics, but since those get visited on an almost daily basis it wasn’t hard to repopulate them. That said, it was still a bit of a scare so I figured I’d take a moment to list them here in case of future catastrophes and also because they are awesome websites and you should visit them.

Web comics:

Battlepug: Fantasy series co-starring a giant Pug.
Buttersafe: one-shot random stick-figure humor.
The Order of the Stick: Fantasy Stick-Figure series.
Girls With Slingshots: Rauncy, funny ladies series.
Guilded Age: Fantasy series.
Gunnerkrigg Court: Fantasy/Steampunk series.
Muliplex: Series about folks working in a movie theatre.
Next Town Over: Steampunk western series.
Penny Arcade: One-shot geek/nerd humor.
PVPonline: Geek series.
Questionable Content: Good stuff. About 20-something crowd.
Scary Go Round: Those brits do some damn good webcomics.
String Theory: Crazy scientist with black eyeballs.
The Abominable Charles Christopher: A softhearted snowman with beautiful artwork.
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: He is a doctor and a ninja.
The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: If superheroes were less heroic.
The Trenches: Co-produced by the PVPOnline and Penny Arcade folk, dealing with video game testers.
xkcd: Science/math one-shots.

Food Sites:

David Lebovitz: A famous dude who knows food.
Foodbeast: General food news site.
Macheesmo: Food recipe blog.
Serious Eats: General food news site.
Smitten Kitchen: Food recipe blog.
The Pioneer Woman: Food recipe blog.
What We're Eating: Food recipe blog, though it's rarely updated these days.

Daily Haiku - September 19, 2012

Filing Room is clean,
But still as full as before.
Who keeps adding stuff?

Daily Haiku - September 18, 2012

Chewy sandwich roll
Stop squeezing out your filling
Every time I bite

What we’re playing: Kill Doctor Lucky

I like the concept of Kill Doctor Lucky. Essentially it’s the flipside of Clue; instead of trying to hunt down the murderer you ARE the murderer, attempting to knock off the good old Doctor. But while the idea is funny and original, I think the execution of it falls just short, which is why the game has only seen play five times in the ten months that I’ve owned it (three times when I first got it and twice on this previous Sunday).

Here’s how the game works. You’ve got your standard Clue-esque board made up of a house filled with a variety of rooms and hallways. Doctor Lucky is randomly given a room to start in and then begins to wander around his house in a predetermined pattern. Meanwhile, the players are attempting to kill him, which required them to be both (a) in the same room as the good Doctor, and also (b) out of the line-of-sight from any other player on the board. If such requirements are met, the player can attempt to off the old man, but the other players have an opportunity to stop him/her from doing so.



How does this all happen? Each player starts the game with a hand of six cards, pulled from a deck that is broken down into four categories: Move cards, Room cards, Weapon cards, and Failure cards.

Move cards: you may move yourself or the Doctor a number of spaces equal to the amount listed on the card (1, 2 or 3).

Room cards: you may move yourself or the Doctor directly to the room listed on the card.

Weapon cards: for each attempt on the Doctor’s life, you may use a single weapon card to increase your attack damage. Some cards do more damage when used in a specific room (i.e., Bad Cream is normally worth 2 points of attack, but if used in the Sitting Room it is worth 5).

Failure cards: when another player makes an attempt on Doctor Lucky’s life, the remaining players may attempt to thwart him by playing failure cards (value ranges from 1-3).

On a given player’s turn he or she may take the following actions:

1) A free move (1 space); must happen before attacking the Doctor.
2) Play any number of move cards; must happen before attacking the Doctor.
3) Play any number of room cards; must happen before attacking the Doctor.
4) Play a single weapon when attacking Doctor Lucky (if in the same room and unseen by other players).
5) Draw a card (if no cards were played turn and an attempt was not made on the Doctor’s life).

There’s more to it than this, but I think it’s enough to give you the basic gist of the game. The problem is the game only works with a very select number of players. The box states it works with three to seven players, but having attempted it with three, four, five and six players I can tell you it only really jelled with five. Less than that and the game ends very quickly; more than that and the game drags on (because it’s almost impossible to be out of sight from the other players to attempt to kill the Doctor). And even with the two five-player games we played Sunday, the second one dragged on. :\

Again, I really, REALLY like the concept of the game, but it just doesn’t work well enough to get repeat playtime in my group, so I can’t recommend picking it up yourself. Still, if you get a chance to play it, I’d certainly give it the old college try.

Daily Haiku - September 17, 2012

Release Day issues
Why can’t I play Borderlands?
Curse you, computer!

(P.S. If you are stuck in the .NET install/fix loop, try running the Steam executable file as the Administrator. You can do this by right clicking on the file and choosing the ‘Run as administrator’ option. Worked like a charm for me.)

Daily Haiku - September 16, 2012

Recovery time
The day after the wedding
Pass me the aspirin

Daily Haiku - September 14, 2012

You'd better thank her.
Ignoring all her hard work?
Inexcusable.

Daily Haiku - September 13, 2012

I dreamt of earthquakes
The world crumbled around me
What life lies below?

Food + Redditt = Delicious Hilarity

I love to cook. I also love Reddit. Fortuitous then that there are subreddits allowing me to meld these two wondrous joys into a single delicious entity, not unlike chicken and whatever chemical compound Panda Express has passed off as ‘orange sauce.’

One of the relatively newer subreddits, FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUD, attempts to combine the humor of rage comics with recipes, usually to hilarious effect.  I threw my hat into the ring ages ago with one of my favorite recipes, Ginger Ale Marinated Pork Loin (this is the actual recipe, not the comic), but then never followed up even though I had a great time making the comic.

I'm finally getting around to rectifying that oversight with a peach cake recipe, but in the interim I thought I'd share my original creation, as I'm very proud of it.  Due to the sheer size of the image (475x5920) I'm just going to link to it, instead of imbedding it into the blog. 

Daily Haiku - September 12, 2012

Board games can be fun,
But frustration not so much;
Let’s play Find the Zen.

Daily Haiku - September 11, 2012

Curse you Louisville

The bane of bar trivia

You’re not that big, town.

Long term time travel--worth the trip?

I admit my opinion may be limited by my practical nature, but it seems to me that going way back in time (i.e. years or more) would have a LOT of downside.  Say I want to go back to before Apple stock went crazy so I could cash in and become a millionaire today.

For the sake of this argument, let’s go with January 2003, where the stock was still selling for about $7.50 per share (roughly 1.14% of the current value of $660) and that you had enough money back then to make it worthwhile (in reality I would have only been able to buy about 300 shares, netting me a meager $195,750 pre-taxes).  Now I just have to wait a decade and I’ll be set for life, assuming I don’t cash out earlier.  What could possible be wrong with this scenario?  I’m glad you asked.

Having now set things in motion you merely have to relive the next ten years of your life.  Now this is great if those ten years sucked and you’re happy with anything or everything potentially changing, but if life was pretty sweet you’ve got some problems.  Namely, you’re burdened with ten years of memories that never happened.  Trying to duplicate those years to properly set up and maintain all the relationships and experiences that you accrued over that time seems really difficult.

Imagine accidently referencing some shared experience or some personal piece of information someone hadn’t told you yet.  Say you’re talking to your future girlfriend or wife, and mention some little known fact from her childhood that she told you years into the relationship.  It would be really creepy, right?  Maybe it would freak her out and ruin your chance to have that relationship.  Now it’s always possible you could excuse it as being confused or a strange coincidence.  But what if it kept happening on and off over the months or years?  That could damage or completely ruin friendships that you had come to cherish.  Just not worth the risk to me.

Short term time travel has a much smaller risk-reward ratio though and I would totally go back a few months in time (even more than once) in an effort to tweak my choices for maximum awesomeness and/or moderate financial gain. 

So in closing, if anyone has a time machine I can borrow I really appreciated it.  

Daily Haiku - September 10, 2012

Thinning out the herd
Digital files fall in droves
Sub-par memories.

A Brilliant New Idea!

Many months ago, one of my friends passed me along this link:

http://www.lambentstew.com/webblog/miniproject/steamanalysis

Basically, somebody wrote a script to analyze your Steam account information and throw lots of interesting stats in your face.  For example, I’ve logged 494.8 hours in Sid Meier’s Civilization 5; my total time played while logged into Steam is 1572.50 hours; and I’ve never played 37.7% of the games I own through Steam (43).

Now, those last two factoids are actually wildly incorrect.  According to Steam I’ve never played any of the Half-Life series, nor have I played any of the first six Grand Theft Auto Games.  In some cases this is patently false, while others are half-truths (there are a number of games I originally bought and played outside of Steam, and then later repurchased as a digital copy through Steam for convenience).  There’s also the matter of DLC (downloadable content), which merely adds to a preexisting game rather than being something completely new.

Having said that, it was surprising to manually go through and see how many games I haven’t played, or have played for less than an hour (32 in all).  To rectify this embarrassing situation, I plan on spending one hour on each of these games and then sharing my thoughts with you.  I shall call it, “One (Hour) At a Time.” 

My History of Theatre

The earliest memory I can recall of acting on stage was an abbreviated version of “The Phantom Tollbooth” which we performed in middle school.  The only line I remember having, described a punishment that involved picking away at a mountain of salt with a sewing needle. 

I recall going to an acting camp sometime later in middle school with one of my best friends at the time, but I don’t remember any details beyond not showering for the entire week because they were communal and I was embarrassed to be seen naked.

Fast forward to senior year in high school when I finally got into one of the main stage productions (I had been in one or two one-off shows at school, but I didn’t feel like those really counted).  Admittedly, my inclusion into “The Will Rogers Follies” that year probably had something to do with the majority of the senior class boycotting the show due to drama with the drama teacher (shocker, I know), but one does not look a gift horse in the mouth.

When I got into college I became a lot more prolific, having decided to major in Theatre (alongside Computer Science), and it’s at that point when I actually started my education in the craft.  While I had taken Theatre Arts for four years in high school, I discovered very early into my college education that I hadn’t actually been taught much over the last four years. 

This was made apparent when I went back to high school that first year to see some of friends perform “Little Shop of Horrors.” With only a few months of classes under my belt, I could already see all the glaring problems and shortcomings with the performance onstage.  I wanted to take everyone aside after the show and explain about subtext and motivation and tactics and all the other wonderful nuances about acting that made it so wonderful.  But I did not.  I congratulated them on a great performance and made my way back to college. 

Over the course of my college career I did about a half-dozen shows, and worked tech on about the same number.  And though I never managed to be a particularly good student I did manage to graduate with my BA and weasel my way into an internship up in the Poconos (Pennsylvania) for eight months. 

It was here that I got my first glimpse into the professional actor’s life, getting to live and work side-by-side with professional actors, whose stories of living in New York and traveling on national tours were filled with drugs, sex, humor, wonder and enough adventures to fill up a single life three-fold.  I had no desire to live job-to-job though, and was content to stick with community theatre after my internship was over and I returned to Virginia.  Perhaps it was not as crazy a lifestyle as those held by the professionals, but I’ve had my own share of stories to tell and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

I spent the next four years in and out of the community theatre scene in Northern Virginia, right up until I left for California in 2006.  My final huzzah was one of my favorite experiences, “Disney’s Beauty & the Beast,” in which I got to play Fishmonger, Wolf and Salt Shaker as part of a wonderful cast of characters.  I made a ton of friends during the run, and had I not left I’d probably still be in constant contact with all of them today.  But I did leave, and in doing so unwittingly started a six year drought from acting which was only recently ended with my performance in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.” 

But that’s fodder for another post, and this one has already run on longer than I had intended, so I’ll leave things here for today.