CJ

If they're like me, they're wide awake, and have been for the last two hours, despite it being vacation time!

Oy. o_o

Here's a random thought that occurred to me recently and seems like a good idea to post about at 5 in the morning. You know what you don't see much of in humor-based comics, web- or otherwise? Stand-up comedians. Which makes a lot of sense, when you think about it. After all, for the characters in comics, the stuff that makes us *LOL* and *ROFL*, or even *ROFLMAO*, will generally elicit a glare or a roll of the eyes, maybe a chuckle at best. So try to imagine the level of humor required to make such jaded characters laugh long and hard. Now try to imagine actually setting it to paper.

You can't, can you? Which is probably just as well, since it would probably cause an adverse reaction with regular mundane humans like us. Along the lines of aneurysms and head explosions (a medical problem with a medical solution!), I'm sure. Hence, why we don't see many comedy clubs in humor-based comics.

In fairness, I've seen one comic try to use a comedy club as a setting for a storyline (I forget the name, sorry, can't track it down), but somehow the strips in question managed to be less funny than the surrounding strips. Even dabbling into the realm of anti-funny. Which made for a bizarre experience, since the comic characters were finding the material hilarious, and I was left thinking, "Wait...that was a joke? For real?" This might actually illustrate my theory perfectly, as the humor content was probably SO GREAT that it looped around and came off as stupid instead. Maybe....

...and this is why I don't post at 5:45 in the morning much. :-D

Off to NYC tomorrow to visit family, back Monday, then off next Thursday to Washington, D.C., to visit Dan and Alicia. Gonna be hectic, but fun times. Plus, time off work for almost two weeks is always good. :-)

Picked up Punch-Out! for the Wii this weekend, after much skepticism. I had never been really good at the original (I always got stuck at Bald Bull, not sure if it was the first or second version), and the preliminary screenshots I saw were not especially awe-inspiring. Of course, showing off King Hippo is not the best way to illustrate the graphics of your game, since the guy's basically a fleshy snowman with arms and legs. And still shots REALLY don't do the game justice. After seeing a few videos of it in action, I decided to go for it, and I'm glad I did; this is a REALLY good game. Same solid gameplay as the original NES game, and they did a terrific job on the 3-D models of the boxers. Your opponents are definitely the stars of the game; they're just oozing with personality, from the charmingly pathetic Glass Joe to the encouragingly arrogant fighters in the upper echelons.

Also, I think this is the most politically incorrect game made by Nintendo I've ever seen. :-D Granted, the series as a whole likes its nationality stereotypes (the original arcade Punch-Out had an Italian boxer named Pizza Pasta. Yeah.). But now that we have the technology for fully-animated cut-scenes, we get to see Indian boxer Great Tiger flying around on a magic carpet, see croissants flying out of French boxer Glass Joe when he gets knocked out, and watch Canadian boxer Bear Hugger drink maple syrup out of a jug and have salmon fly around his head when he's dizzy. So, yeah, a little bit of craziness. ;-) Although, along those lines, one of the nice touches is that all of the fight music is variations on the classic fight theme, only remixed to match the instrumentation or type of music from the home country of the boxer is associated with. The game features all the boxers from the NES game, minus Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream, but that makes sense, since Tyson kinda sorta completely fell from grace, and nobody ever liked Mr. Dream. Also has two boxers from the SNES version, Bear Hugger and Aran Ryan (I think Bear Hugger was also in one of the arcade games), and two new boxers, Disco Kid and the SECRET FINAL BOSS!!!1!!one

Favorite boxer so far has to be Aran "YA DON'T LOOK IRISH!" Ryan, though. It's a genuinely interesting fight, since he stays out of your reach except when he's delivering a punch, so he's the first guy you have to actively beat to the punch in order to get anywhere. And at some point between games he evolved from a fairly pedestrian re-hash of an earlier boxer in the SNES game into a (literally) frothing-at-the-mouth psychotic obsessed with fighting. In case his quote wasn't a big enough clue, he's Irish, natch. Yeeeeeeah. Least they didn't give him beer to drink. Probably because Vodka Drunkenski Soda Popinski stole it.

Super Punch-Out Aran Ryan
Wii Punch-Out Aran Ryan

Finally, if what I'm reading about the game right, this is the only sports game I know of to feature perma-death. :-) Apparently, after you beat Career and Title Defense mode (same boxers with different patters/weaknesses), the game enters Last Stand mode, where three losses will result in Little Mac retiring, at which point Career Mode becomes locked until the save file is restarted. I think this ultimately boils down to having just three chances to get to the secret final boss; Exhibition mode can still be played when retired, and there's plenty to do with that. Still, an interesting way to end the game.

Anyway, I'm out. Ciao!

So, if and when I'm put in charge of writing a sitcom, I'm going to make sure it has a laugh track. With one subtle difference. Once per show, instead of laughing and cheering, the show will hit a spot where nobody laughs and all that can be heard is a single heckler. And after a few shows of this, one of the actors will break character and rant at the heckler for about a minute while the other actors either try to calm him down or stay in character. Then, after about a minute of this, a quick visual blip and then everything's back to normal like nothing ever happened. I would watch a show that implemented this.

...and probably stop watching two or three shows in, since I don't think I've consistently watched anything on TV since college. *shrug*

Went to the Allentown Art Festival this weekend in Buffalo. In addition to picking up a few items which caught my eye, I had a turkey leg. Turkey legs are awesome. They're like corn-on-the-cob, except that you get more bites per square inch of food-real-estate, and it has the added benefit of not being a vegetable. It's also like a parfait, in that there are layers, but instead of ice cream and fruit, you get meat and meat, so it's awesome.

Just thought I should share. :-D

http://jolenetekondou.mybrute.com
Not really a game...you have no control over your character outside of design and choice of opponents. Can't choose how they grow, or even how they fare in battle. Still, somewhat entertaining way to waste a few minutes a day. :-)

Relevant to my interests, as well as anybody who's wanted to smash their phone into a fine powder over the last few months:

http://consumerist.com/5256770/federal-judge-shuts-down-car-warranty-robocallers

We'll see how this fares, I guess. Makes me happy right now, though. :-D

The Finnish dubbing of Digimon, where the enthusiasm of the voice actors is infectuous!


The commercial for the Atari port of Joust. I thought the Zelda commercial that featured a guy in black screaming "ZELDA!" and enemy names for thirty seconds was insane, but I was wrong; that was TAME in comparison.

Picked up Top Gear Season 10 this weekend, which has the Botswana episode. :-D :-D :-D

Went to Pearl Street Brewery in Buffalo for the first time on Saturday. Best onion rings I've ever had, and I've discovered that I like stout beer better than standard beer, or at least I like their oatmeal stout better than regular beer, anyway. I'm starting to think this is just me finally developing more of a taste for beer, but whatever. And they named this beer "Street Brawler". How could I resist? ;-)

This video's been around for a few months, and it seems NBC is working to pull it from Youtube, but the guy makes a great point and is definitely worth a view: Everything is amazing, nobody's happy

Also, I only found out about this recently, but apparently Russell Crowe is portraying Robin Hood in the next Robin Hood movie. The one picture I've seen (and the only one I think is available) pretty much looks like General Maximus stumbled into a Renaissance festival (see here). A tad ridiculous-looking, at least in my opinion. It's silly to make a judgment based on one picture, but I was thinking that it wasn't a good start. Note the "was". Because after doing a bit more research, it turns out that Crowe is friends with Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea, and that Doyle has been cast as Alan-a-Dale (spelled in some articles as Alan O'Dayle, heh), and that's awesome enough to outweigh Ren Faire Maximus. Free pass, I say. And it does not matter how appropriate or inappropriate he might be for the role. :-D Besides, if nothing else, Crowe will probably have a better English accent than Costner's non-accent. ;-)

Saw Slumdog Millionaire this weekend. Definitely worth a watch, although I'm not sure I'll be in a huge rush to see it again anytime soon. Got one of the songs stuck in my head, but it's a groovy one, so it's all good. :-)

Spent the better portion of Saturday sorting through 2 years worth of junk mail and semi-unimportant documents, and put our shredder to the ultimate test. And now I have real estate on my desk again! Huzzah!

Further, won my family's Easter egg-cracking contest, which is also groovy. :-D And taking a day off work tomorrow, which is cool, too. :-)

So, while at Buffalo this weekend, I started playing Castlevania III on Virtual Console. And I managed to get even further in it than when I had a working NES, past the second stage of Dracula's castle (always got stuck either right before it, in the aquatic ruins, or the phantom ship, depending which route I took). Which is awesome! I certainly didn't look too awesome doing it, mind you! No, definitely had a few epic failures. Understandable in Dracula's castle, since I hadn't ever done those stages before, but still a bit on the stupid side.

Me: OK, there's a gap here between the platform I'm on and the one I want to fall onto, that any videogame character who isn't a Belmont would be able to clear without needing to jump, but Belmonts fall straight down after walking off a ledge, so I'd better be careful to jump. (presses Jump)
(Trevor Belmont walks off the ledge, falls straight down the gap, and dies)
Me: ...OK, we'll try again, I'll be jamming on the jump button as I approach the edge, here we go, 1...2....
(Alucard walks off the ledge, falls straight down the gap and dies)
Me: ...so maybe I can't jump here because of the low ceiling? But that can't be right, because the game usually ignores the ceiling during jumps....
Mark: There are stairs right there. Why aren't you using them?
Me: ...because that'll take two seconds longer. *sigh* (takes stairs)

The MOST epic fail, though, came during the Clock Tower level, which I did pretty well with, up until I was coming back down using Grant.

(Grant knocked off ledge by Medusa Head, falls into a pit and dies)
Me: OK, it happens, I'll just get that 1-up again....
(Grant falls off ceiling while trying to climb along it, falls into a pit and dies)
Me: Riiight, forget that, let's just move forward, hold left as soon as I re-spawn....
(Grant re-materializes right on the edge of the starting platform, takes two steps, falls into a pit and dies)
Mark: Did you just die three times in the last five seconds?
Me: ...well, it IS Castlevania, right?

Whee. :-)

Attempted to make "CILANTRO-chipotle tilapia" today. Didn't quite work out as hoped. I saw the recipe in a magazine while I was waiting to give blood at the Red Cross a few weeks ago, and I thought it looked interesting enough to be worth a try. Thing is, I must have copied it down wrong, because the proportions of the ingredients seem WAY out of whack.

For 4 filets (I was making 2):
1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp chopped canned chipotles in adobo sauce
1 tbsp water
1/2 tsp cumin

Yeah. 1 1/2 cups of cilantro. I think that's almost two of those small bottles' worth. Between the water, vegetable oil, and the sauce presumably would have come with the chipotles, there wouldn't be enough to make it moist, let alone stick to the fish. Had to fudge the amounts greatly to something that might make sense. Even with 1/8 a cup of cilantro and the remaining ingredients in the originally listed amounts, it just tasted like cilantro, albeit very sludgy cilantro. Definitely nothing to recommend trying it again. This WAS my first time broiling a fish however, and the fish itself came out fine, so that's something, if not terribly impressive.

Another problem was that, before shopping for these ingredients, I wasn't quite sure what a chipotle was; a bit of research shows it's a type of pepper, but up until I checked, I was completely unaware of the fact chipotle was something that was discrete and quantifiable. Based on how I'd always heard it used, I just assumed it was an adjective. "What are you making?" "Fajitas, chipotle-style!" "How are you doing today, man?" "I'm feelin' chipotle!" *thumbs up* Needless to say, I didn't bother to look into the matter ahead of time; I just went to the Wegmans, trusting that they would have it in the Mexican/international foods section. Why wouldn't they? Chipotle! It's pronounceable, people have heard of it, that should be all that matters, right? Right? Yeeeaaah, no. For the first time, Wegmans failed me (for Mexican stuff, I mean; I still don't know why you can't get Korean BBQ sauce there). So I spent a bit of time wandering the store, wondering what other locations they could conceivably have put their canned chipotles in adobo sauce. And what was adobo sauce, anyway? Wasn't he that big guy in Double Dragon? In the end, I settled on substituting some chipotle salsa. And it might've worked, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their insane amounts of cilantro.

I'll also note that in shopping for these ingredients, as well as Friday dinner, I did my part for the environment by buying exactly six small items which somehow necessitated four bags. :-P Also, on the way home, I was behind somebody who had decorated their care with lots of painted-on slogans. "Looking for love? Look within," "Forgive!," and so on. What's funny is that under the "Forgive!", there was a stencil of the Batman logo. Yeah, I don't think those mesh well. Never really figured Batman as much of the forgiving type. I mean, he could forgive, but that wouldn't bring back his parents.

Felt the need to go to work Saturday for a few hours to get caught up on a side project, but not before having lunch with Allen, Mary, and Mara at Thali of India, which I'd never been to. They had a lunch buffet, which was remarkably good, especially the chicken makhani. It then proceeded to declare war against my stomach for the remainder of the afternoon. o_o So, might need to be more careful next time I go back there. :-)

Saw Watchmen this weekend with friends. I hadn't fully read the comic prior to it, but I had a basic understanding of what was going on and what was going to happen. But I have to say it far exceeded my expectations for what they could pull off with the material. The movie is VERY reverential to the comic, from what I've read of it; scenes and lines are practically verbatim. About the only thing that bothered me about the treatment was the increased brutality; the original comic isn't light on the grit, but the movie seems to add it in a few places where it isn't warranted (first Nite Owl/Silk Spectre fight scene comes to mind). The actors did a fine job with their respective roles, I think. Among fans of the comic, it looks like it's a love it/hate it type of movie; while I'll leave it open for debate as to how good it really was in the broad scheme of things, I do seriously doubt the stars are/were ever going to align in such a way that we would've have gotten a better film out of this comic. That may be an argument not to have attempted it in the first place for some, I don't know, but I didn't regret the three hours in the theater, personally. :-) Definitely earns it's R-rating, pretty much for all possible reasons. Which is why it was weird having an eight-year old sitting right behind us. Oy. What gives, parents? Yeah, this was probably a case of not doing the research, but still, letting your kid sit through it all will probably give them nightmares. o_0

Shep, I tried the peanut-ginger sauce recipe you provided and it was delicious. :-D Made it for Sunday dinner with the Buffalo crew; we kept it as just a dipping sauce, since it was my first time making it and we didn't want to force it on anyone if I botched it. ;-) But it was pretty popular with everyone, from what I saw. I declare the experiment a success, and shall add the recipe to my repertoire. Thanks again for posting it! :-)

For my board gaming/card gaming friends: you may want to look into a card game called Dominion. I wasn't immediately sold on it the first time I played it, but the concept's grown on me a bit since then. Basically, you start off with a small deck with treasure cards and victory point cards. The basic goal is to add as many victory point cards to your deck as possible, which can be bought each round based on the treasure that's in your hand. Each turn you draw a new set of 5 cards from your current deck, and you can buy victory point cards, treasure cards with higher values, or action cards that can be played during turns, all of which are added to your deck. Action cards have a large number of effects; some let you draw more cards into your hand, others let you take more actions, some give you more treasure to use for buying things that turn, others let you attack other players and defend yourself from them, and so on. The interesting part is that there are 25 types of action cards, but only 10 are randomly chosen to be in play during a game. As such, a strategy that works in one game might not be available in the next. Anyway, it's a pretty easy game to learn, although it definitely requires some experimentation before you'll be able to figure out what works and what doesn't. I do look forward to trying it again next gaming night. :-)

Well, not quite last week, and not quite horror, but the movie "Coraline" was pretty good. Probably not too important to see it in the theater, but I'd say it's a must-see at some point.

Food preparation/cooking results:

Strawberry lassi: Strawberry yogurt mixed with sugar, water, ice. Outcome: So-so. I think the problem was that I used strawberry yogurt instead of plain yogurt and mixing fruit in after. End result was a bit too close to how the yogurt originally tasted. Drinkable, certainly, but sort of made me question what the point of turning it into a drink was.

Beef bulgoki: Beef mixed with Korean BBQ sauce, pan fried with cut carrots. Outcome: Success. I had been thinking of making rice, but I completely forgot until I started eating. Kind of a necessary component. It wasn't dweji bulgoki, but still pretty tasty. A greater variety of vegetables would probably help.

I think my next course of action will be to try to make my own sauces, since that seems to be the weak point of a lot of things I try to make. Wegman's sent out a magazine that has what looks like a pretty simple recipe for mole sauce; kind of based on pre-made salsa, but might be a good place to start. I'd also like to try making lo mein, so I'll table that for later.

Last night, I won a game of Settlers of Catan.

Allow me to repeat myself: I WON a game of SETTLERS.

Ahem...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHYESYESYESYESFINALLYHAHAHAWHO'SHOUSE?RUN'SHOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!

...that is all.

Back from Eric's son's first birthday party. Pretty good time, although I do tend to feel like the odd-man out among his friends, largely because I didn't go to Clarkson University like everybody else. Owen's apparently a big fan of Elmo; Alicia made a cake for him in the shape of Elmo's face, with a separate cake for everybody else. Which is great, except Elmo ended up looking like a victim from a John Romero movie. It kind of makes me realize that it's a bit disturbing to give a kid a cake with their favorite character on it, only to expect them to messily devour it. "Are you finished with his cheekbone? Here, let me cut out his left eye for you!" Maybe when I have a kid, the first birthday cake will be his least favorite character, or an effigy of his arch-enemy (unlikely, but I'm not ruling out the possibility, kids grow up really fast these days). Or maybe that's even more disturbing...eh, whatever, that's getting WAY ahead of myself.

Might try making strawberry lassis (lassies? lassi?) tonight, and will be preparing steak to try my hand at some bulgogi tomorrow. Should be interesting.

Jury duty selection tomorrow morning. Oy. Petit jury, not grand (sorry, Mara, wasn't aware of the distinction when we discussed earlier). First time doing this, so it'll be a trip, I'm sure. Or not. *shrug*

OK, cooking log for this weekend:

Saturday lunch: Reuben sandwich. Corned beef with mustard and monterey jack, grilled. Had a leftover sandwich from Friday when I forgot work would provide lunch for us, so the folks mentioned I should try this out. I was a bit skeptical, because I'm not a fan of grilled cheese, and I didn't immediately see the distinction, but this turned out really good. Keeper.

Sunday lunch: Cheese enchiladas in mole sauce, take two. Managed to keep the sauce from being sludgy by using a strainer, but the end result was runny instead. Plus my enchiladas all fell apart, and I made too many of them, and they didn't taste all that great this time around. May have to wait a while before I revisit this one.

Super Bowl: Taco dip. Layer of cream cheese, layer of chili, thin layer of onions, layer of cheddar cheese, microwave until top layer is melted. Horrible for you, but delicious. Definitely a success. Wish I could've made it for the Super Bowl party out in Buffalo, but with me having to work support tomorrow and not being able to take the morning off, I didn't think it was a good idea to play around with nighttime travel and/or losing sleep because of it. *shrug*

Everybody who feels the Transformers movie defiled your childhood? Everybody wringing their hands over how the G.I.Joe movie is going to turn out? I now feel your pain.

They're making a live-action movie based on King of Fighters.

WTF. Seriously.

Actually, I'm more confused about why this is being made in America. I mean, I love the series, but I don't think the series ever got the kind of traction here that it did in other countries; I've seen countless Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat machines in my life, but only one King of Fighters cabinet ever. The plot sounds completely non-sensical, but it looks like they're keeping it confined to characters from the Orochi Saga. And K'. And Alba. And Chae Lim (what? No Kim Kaphwan?). Maggie Q as Mai...that fits pretty well actually. Ray Park as Rugal...wait, really? Darth Maul? Toad? Snake Eyes? That's the guy they're getting to play Rugal? I kind of wish I was actually sitting in on it when that casting decision was made.

Of course, the last thing I thought was going to be completely horrible was Warriors Orochi (the crossover game between Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors), and that ended up being much more awesome than either of the most recent outings by both series (Dynasty Warriors 6 and Samurai Warriors 2). So I could be wrong. I could also be a reincarnation of Genghis Khan.

Not the sort of videogame-releated media news I was expecting to see today. Still hoping they someday do a Sly Cooper animated series, or a Phoenix Wright anime. Although apparently an all-female opera group in Japan is doing a performance based on Phoenix Wright. Which kinda boggles the mind. *shrug*

I usually avoid memes, but I like the idea behind this one, so I'll participate in it.

Meme from redrose3125:

"The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. It will be about or tailored to those five lucky "victims."

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- what I create will be just for you.
- it'll be done this year
- you have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a poem or story. I may make something all craft-y like. I may cook you something and mail it to you - though probably only if you live on this side of the globe. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you!"

If you sign up, and I need to send something through the mail, I'll message you about getting your address.

As a late New Year's resolution, I've decided to try making a new recipe every weekend I'm here in Rochester.

First attempt: Cheese enchiladas with mole sauce; a pretty simple combination, and not super-healthy, but tasty. Had it in a small Mexican restaurant once; haven't really encountered it elsewhere, for whatever reason.
Outcome: Edible, with potential. The cheese enchiladas came out great; monterey jack worked just fine for the cheese. The sauce...not so much so. The recipes I found online mostly suggest making your own mole sauce, but since I found a jar in the store, I figured I should try that. Thing is, it came super-concentrated, and needed to be distilled with water. Except I had to find that out online; the jar didn't have any information regarding preparation or ratios or anything. So I dissolved it best as I could, and thought I did a complete job of it, but as I found out after the fact, apparently I needed more water, since it came out really thick and grainy. Taste wasn't too bad, but it was the entirely wrong texture. Lesson for next try; I still have over a half a jar left of the concentrated sauce.