Month: February 2015

Why So Mad, Trolls?

So I read my news and people are angry. I watch my videos and people are angry in the comments. I exchange some tips on forums I am a regular on and others are mad because the correct use of the oxford comma. Which got me to thinking.

If so many people are angry then why is there very little being done about it?

People feel safe to say things behind the keyboard then they would face to face with someone. Although I never really understood that.

I will never say I am a tough guy, but at least I understand how the joints work normally and how they work when someone is trying to pull them in a way they are not meant to ever bend. Does that make me tough? No, that makes me sore with knees made of candy corn depending on the day. I have given some punches and taken a few or more so what is the point of everyone thinking they need to be so angry while on the internet. Does trying to play the tough guy get you some kind of discount at the local supermarket? Do barbed insults lower the utility bills? Is there some kind of magical machine that turns randomly spouted hate in to some viable energy ready to lower your electric bill?

No?

Then what is the point?

We have ourselves an information superhighway capable of talking to people on the other side of the world with a couple of finger twitches and can find groups of people with our same likes to talk with and still grow our social abilities. Why don’t we just enjoy what we have and if you have to say something to someone clearly wanting attention ask yourself this.

“If I say this now will I be happy I said it tomorrow and ok to show it to people I care for and respect?” If the answer is no then it is not the best idea to say it. I am not perfect on this either, but a moment may happen many just shows the trash in the spirit of whomever you are dealing with.Just my thoughts, it was on my mind for a while.

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100 posts !

So when I started this project I was a soda drinking, overly serious human being with a propensity for projects. I still am in every sense, but I know how sometimes I can be just a little too serious. When in culinary school some people thought I actually was either a vampire or a cyborg. I kid you not when girls were scared of me because I reminded them of something out of Bram Stoker. I don’t tan much and the whole being up night and day and seemingly everywhere at once made fore some parts scary and quite exhausting. In any case thanks for being by and watching this little project grow.

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Thanks everyone for reading. More will be coming. I also will be doing more writing soon. From here we will be going to a schedule I will most likely stick with for the remainder of the year. Three posts weekly. Just doing progress updates and recipes often can be two posts a week and I think a third will just be at my limit now that I am getting some steam doing these posts and interacting. So starting from the beginning of March we are going for it all and I hope everyone enjoys what they do on their own special projects. Although I am not perfect with my interactions I hope we all can grow with this.

Have a good one folks.

Also, I just had to be as big a dork with the picture as possible :p

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Enchilada Casserole

You will need the following ingredients to fill one deep baking tray/casserole dish.
2.5 lb 75/25 Ground Beef
1 lb Beef or Pork Chorizo
1 White Onion
1 can Refried Beans of choice or 1 1/2 C homemade Refried Beans
4 cups dried Rice
1 bunch of Cilantro leaves
1 cup grated Cheddar
Garlic and Chilies to season
Your Tortilla of choice. If 12 inch you will need about a dozen. 10 inch you will need close to 15
1 pt finely diced Salsa or Enchilada Sauce if you want

So first you want to get your rice going 6-8 cups of water (out with six and keep the other two off to the side just in case it needs it. Due to variances between rice when farmed it is not impossible to hear of or have happen. While this is going on chop up your cilantro, grate your cheddar, chop up your onion, and get your beans warm. After your rice is cooked take it out of the pot and let it cool for a moment.

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So toss your chorizo, beef, and onion in to the pot on medium heat until the onions are soft.

When it is almost done you can toss your cilantro in with your rice and whatever seasonings you wish and give that a good mix.

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At this point you may want to preheat your oven to about 300 F. It doesn’t take me that long and while that is going it is time to take our baking tray out and begin construction on each burrito just as soon as the meat finishes.

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As you can see we get more then just meat or cheese. You can also see from the shadow that my kitchen lighting needs some work.(oh well no fancy foodie pictures here what you see is still good enough to eat) A spoonful of meat, a spoonful of rice, a half spoonful of warm refried beans and a heavy pinch of cheddar before being rolled up. Prep for the baking tray if you want is to spoon a little bit of your sauce or salsa in. Finely diced salsa was on heavy sale so I just grabbed that. If you make it or buy it you will need about a pint.

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Almost a dozen big ol’ beefy burritos before saucing and cheese on top. If you do not want use all your sauce do not feel the need to with thinner sauces you may find a little less works or some people really like theirs saucy. In any case play it how you wish to play it as you can see below mine is a little drier.You can tell this will definitely get you full in hurry. Dress up the top with some more of the sauce and the remainder of the cheese before being put in for 20 minutes.

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You want it in the oven long enough just for the cheese to melt and the tortilla to absorb some of the liquid. This makes 5-6 servings and does really well in the microwave after being kept in the fridge.

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Card Game Thoughts 2 – Project Hero

So to start for titles the thoughts are either Dreamers or Dream chasers in either case a card back has been designed I like it it is simple it has some color and your eyes catch it if you see it on a table. This is a basic design though and I will ad more details, unless I feel like it needs an overhaul this will be where the back of card looks like. Many card games have a brown background which I like because other colors showed well the red, yellow, and purple design. I remember red and purple from the face paint of kabuki actors and I thought it really worked well as a combination against each other as long as it wasn’t all red and purple.

DreamChasers back card

Coming to win conditions as it stands now there will be a couple ways to win : decreasing the enemy leader’s hp to 0 or fulfilling a win condition on one of a dozen cards, but they will not be the easiest more working for theme decks and will most likely will be used by more competitive minded people. There are ways around it and even ways to disarm the win condition cards. I tried to make it so that if you like the sneakier method or the straight up battle method there is a couple ways you can do it. In the case that time is up because players lives too then it will be the leader who has lost more hp and not the total which sounds hard to grasp I admit, but it can also be explained like this.

Leader A starts with 5000 hp and Leader B starts with 3500 hp. When time is called A has 3500 left while B has 3000 left since A has lost a total of 1500 versus the opposing Leader only losing 500 then Leader B would be the victor.

Oh Yes and there will be abilities that you can use each leader has one and they cost hp to use. Each one will do something different and will have different amounts of hp to begin with the average is about 5000 while the highest is ten and the lowest is 3500 so it depends on the length of the rounds and your play style to dictate how to proceed. The leaders I tried to really make even so their would be no one above all others and if you use the abilities and never take a hit you are still losing hp so you can defeat yourself that way if you rely on them too much. The field is not yet set as there are couple variations I am still tweaking with I don’t want things to need massive warzones like mtg can sometimes morph to.

All of these things may change depending on ideas or brain waves if I catch any.

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Roasted Corn and Bean Salad

For this meal you will need the following for this:

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1/2 a bunch of washed Spinach stems
1/2 bunch washed Cilantro stems
1 can or 1 1/2 C Golden Corn cut from the cob
1 can Pinto Beans or 1 1/2 C Cooked Pinto Beans
1 can Black Beans or 1 1/2 C Cooked Black Beans
1/2 Bunch Green Onion, Chopped
1/2 Medium Diced White Onion
Chili powder, Salt and Pepper to season
Vegetable Oil to saute

Now this can give 2-3 servings or with a good guacamole make a great layer in a dip which was the fate of mine tossed on some tortilla chips with a small grinding of cheese. Happy days are here again because I mad a nacho plate I can eat without wondering how thick my blood will be due to all the cholesterol. Sarcasm is showing, sorry.

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First get your Corn in to a pan and with just a couple drops of oil on medium heat and leave it alone except to shake it as it begins to color and develop those tasty sugars and flavors so essential later. If you like it a little spicy you can add some chili powder to the corn to give it a lovely little zing adding to the Jalapeno at the end.

While this is cooking organize all of your stems and the Green Onions on to the nearest cutting board of choice and go to town on them like its the last day of the guillotine’s career and your trying for his job. Both Spinach and Cilantro stems should be chopped finely before using and made sure to remove any brown parts before ginsu-ing it up. Doing so will give you a nice little flavor as well a notice able crunch that will hold up to the remaining cook time rather well giving everything more aroma and a larger cast of flavors you will be able to notice in the end product. Once again, perfection is only for those who do not understand the word. We are working to build flavors so if you feel that you will enjoy a bit of fresh Cilantro to be chopped then go for it. In the picture you can see a few leaves. I added mine to give a little more aroma barely a teaspoon in the grand scheme though.

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Next turn the heat up a little higher and (medium high now) toss your crunchy bits in to the pan. If the corn is stuck then you can add a couple small drops of liquid it does happen in some pans, DO NOT WORRY! A teaspoon of liquid can be used to help maneuver everything in to form again if you absolutely have to when you see it, and if you do not mind waiting a minute the liquid given off from the stem choppings can save you here as well. Next are beans, drain and add to the pan as after a couple minutes for the stems and the corn to exchange greetings. (3 tops)

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After warming everything up take it all out and let it cool for a moment. You may notice that we have some brown colored bits in pan from the cooking of natural sugars well we will be dragging those out of the pan with a simple Onion. Medium Dice works well, think about the size of the face of a penny for general-ish dimensions. Low heat here for a few minutes (4-8 depending on the variables).

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We want to caramelize the sugars in the onion instead of browning them that we do on medium heat with the corn. Caramelizing at medium heat will give you a different flavor profile and texture then at low and if you do not believe me then try it yourself. Once they have been softened and given a sweeter aroma you con toss the whole salad in to warm up and taste test before plating. If you want to season do it now or hold your peace.

Here is the finished product around a center of refried beans topped with green chilies chopped in to rings. It was delicious.

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Work in Adobe Finally Improving

So in my Youtube project I finally gotten a very basic grasp on the basic cropping and stretching functions which I am kinda surprised took me this long to get. The good news after everything finally clicked that the videos look a lot better and just watching some of my older works to this point. It is nice to see all the progress and even from the old videos I used to do, and I might be doing some card game videos soon which is where I started when me and my friends did a group channel. I also spent a little time making a new banner for my channel. Its not something I am happy with though so back to the drawing board. Views are slowly working their way up and I am getting close to a total of 200 views. Hopefully, I don’t have a voice like a Novocaine if i do then it is something to work towards or sell recordings as sleeping aids. It is still fun to do so the project will continue, and hopefully if all goes well we can get it going to a respectable number and continue having more fun.

Just prior to doing this post ( I schedule ahead so I can have different things on here and not throw myself in to a tailspin on the draw) Luckily, there are so many indie games out there that I could do it for the rest of my days so there is plenty of fish in the pool to draw from and with a better recording program which I love (Loilo) things are much easier and although there are still a couple problems to work out we are getting further then we have before.

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Blessed Bath Salts – The Saltening

So I am getting nervous. I have found some containers for the bath salts and luckily due to a friend sending me an Amazon gift card I can get a couple set up. The Blessed Bath Salts will not be on sale yet I would like to get some small places carrying it first after a couple more things. Setting the packaging up and getting some of the last parts together is a big step and it means it is the start of getting the word out. Now this means I will be working on this a little bit more, and my other projects will take a slight hit. That is okay my kind of working enjoys that form of chrono-chaos. Often times the reaction can be more potent in the positive then the original action. I am also way too caffeinated to do so much thoughtful typing.

So what makes my product different. First, I use natural ingredients. Tea, extracts, salt, water, herbs and honey or sugar. If you have kids or anyone else you do not trust around more chemically laden fare all this will do is give someone a hankering for a drink. Second, when I say natural I mean natural no chemicals to make it last longer, and it lasts long enough I had actually tested the aroma after a full year and it still held the aroma needed for a warm relaxing bath. Last, but by no means least is value. I am not one to sell things for exorbitant prices. Everyone could use a relaxing bath sometimes. Some people may not want it except for once in a while and we can accommodate that it will be a blessing to those who may find themselves needing a nice lift. Parents, Career trend setters, people allergic to other chemicals found in other bath salts this is something that will be for you. No fancy colorings in the salt no stabilizers needed.

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A page for the salts will be coming soon to Facebook as it stands. I want to make it look nice and there will be a post here on the blog to tell of it’s creation so good luck in your projects and have a good one.

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What is ugly?

So I had something surprising happen. I was riding on the bus one day going to work. I was caffeinated, the sun wasn’t in my eyes and I didn’t have a headache. That wasn’t the surprising thing though.On the bus we had made a stop to pick a few people up and the first person on was lady with glasses, curly red hair, some weight and a manga. I say some weight because that is exactly what it was. I usually just kinda sit back and relax during the rides. Get a good zen going, but just down the steps from the back of the bus there were these two kids. One with a design that said “cool story, now make me a sandwich, babe” in white block letters against a black background. His friend next to him wore enough red, yellow, and green to make me think he wanted to be a traffic light when he grew up. Just before I go any further I use the term kid somewhat loosely as they seemed to be in their late teens.

She was slowly moving her way back before she was in a seat adjacent to me. Me snapping out of blissful zen actually made me realize the difference the manga in her hand one I had been familiar with. Got a conversation going which she seemed to enjoy the subject and the conversation began to find its way around the nerd turnpike of topics before a comment just outside of our conversation caught my ear.

“Now the fat bitch is hanging out with another cracker.” Turned my head automatically I think it was at such speed that I cracked my neck.

She actually told me that they have been saying that to her every so often not to worry about it. The statement was wrong on so many levels and it bothered me a little explaining that she was not an overweight female dog in a heat nor was she unpleasant and that I was not a cracker. I was big enough to be considered the entire saltine box. Which got her to laugh and she got off at her stop a couple minutes later after a little more small talk. The kids shut up because they never had to deal with someone with a minimum of one brain cell over what they were sporting around between them (that would be 3 for those bad at math) Which really got me to think about beauty.

I think about beauty in the art snob sense when it means having to draw them up as a picture or etc. More then my actual doodling or something simple then I normally work with. Everyone has positives and negatives me included. I have been told my dark eyes are good and my smile is not my face has caught to many things at high speeds and that is okay. If I want to show off my best features I won’t be smiling, but still happy or use something more focused on my eyes. Everyone has those positive features and maybe you fell down a tree one day and hit every branch on the way to the bottom there is still something. In my personal opinion it is lacking all positive looking features that we can call someone ugly. Here is what the dictionary thinks.

1ug·ly

adjective \ˈə-glē\

: unpleasant to look at : not pretty or attractive
: unpleasant to hear
: offensive or disgusting

Seems pretty simple. But there are some that may think that everything that does not fall in to a small select group is unpleasant so let us dive deeper in to the word unpleasant.

un·pleas·ant

adjective \-ˈple-zənt\

: not pleasant or enjoyable : causing discomfort or pain
: not friendly

I am going by the most popular definition according to Merriam and Webster. Everyone should really check out the first meaning. Not pleasant or enjoyable : Causing discomfort or pain. Here is where people use the word incorrectly because I have had a lot of uncomfortable and painful experiences, but I have never had met a person who causes me discomfort or pain flat out by just looking at them. Let it be known that the language of stupidity is one I try to forget, and do quite well until properly incensed or energized like a rabbit on a coffee run. So instead of telling how someone’s negative traits suppose we think for a moment and wonder what is a positive one of that person. Then maybe less people could be hurt by erroneously chosen words.

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