Loki's Blurty Entries [entries|friends|calendar]
Loki

[ userinfo | blurty userinfo ]
[ calendar | blurty calendar ]

In Which a Creation Is Birthed & Moves Are Discussed [29 Oct 2011|11:38pm]
So, you guys know those Cover Versions cooking things I've done lately (actually, you Blurty folks wouldn't have seen them, what with the way Blurty hates embedded video)? Well, I've made a decision about them. Friday, I purchased a domain (three of them, actually), and registered with Squarespace to create a site. My site. And to prove to myself that I'm committed, I'm moving this blog there. Happily, there's an importer tool that lets me keep all my old posts and comments and such, so it's a simple matter. It's pretty bare-bones now, but I intend to add to it.

So yeah. Big things. The first three episodes (two of which has already seen the light here, but are now tuned up and HD and have new posts) are live right now as I type.

So what now? Well, now, if you want to read my blog, you can go to http://www.lokified.com or www.coverversions.tv.

And that's that.

See you in the kitchen.

-Lucas
Proxy Champignon,
Master of Brainthinking
3 comments|post comment

[20 Oct 2011|11:06pm]
Sorry, Blurty folks. I knew I was behind in my cross-postings from Blogger, but I just realised that I'm nearly 2 months behind. Should I just post a glut of things?
1 comment|post comment

No matter how many times you sling a cat against a wall, it ne'er really stuns them. [26 Aug 2011|09:24am]























































1 comment|post comment

MyPad [23 Aug 2011|10:39am]
Soooooo, I got an iPad 2*. And it's awesome. Some thoughts:

+The touchpad is far easier to type on than I expected, so much so that I'm debating getting the Bluetooth keyboard I had planned on. However, I am quite glad I splurged the $5 on the ThinkGeek iPhone stylus last year, as the iPad screen is a magnet for fingerprints. You don't notice when using, but the minute you turn it off, it looks a mess. I've ordered a screen protector but it has not arrived yet. I could have bought one for 17.95 when I bought the iPad, but why, when I can go to eBay and get three for the price of a pack of gum?

+Screen is preeeeetty. It's not quite as sharp as the iPhone 4's retina screen, but 720p movies look awesome. And the video taken/video out is 1080p, which is nice. The screen size is it's downfall with some of the apps, though. Before I got an iPad, I grumbled looking at the prices of iPad apps being $3-$12 as opposed to $0.99-$4.99. "Why not just get the smaller cheaper apps and use the 2x button to blow them up?" Well, I'll tell you why, past Lucas: it looks awful. I actually tested it on an app-by-app basis, and most of the apps got deleted (especially my photo manipulation apps. I only kept e universal ones like FilterStorm and Halftone). Basically the only little apps I kept were the GeoDefense series, Facebook, Instagram, and trip view for the trains.

+Speaking of the apps, there are some that I could not have expected I would love, Flipboard being chief among them. Clipboard amalgamated your Instagram, twitter and Facebook feeds into magazine-style pages, opening links and pictures, while showing individual tweets like vox pops (which, in a sense, they are). It remains the best way to view Instagram on the iPad. As the aforementioned cost-change, I** basically allocated myself $50 as app-upgrade money. I bought the full-sized Plants vs Zombies, Tilt To Live, GarageBand, iMovie, BlogPress (which I should have sprung for way earlier, even on the iPhone, because it's exactly the mobile blogging experience I wanted), Fruit Ninja, and a few new games like World of Goo and bit.trip Blitz. I also used some skullduggery to get the US Netflix app, which allows me instant streaming on Wifi (I'm not dumb enough to do it on 3G). Lots of great looking apps like Infinity Blade, eBay, X-Men Arcade, and Kindle are universal/have free iPad versions, so no drama there. Kindle, by the by, finally completes the cloud experience I want: I'm reading Snow Crash at home. I read a bit of it on my iPad on the way to work. Then while doing 45 minutes of laminating at work, I read 20 pages on my iPhone. I get home that night, wirelessly sync my Kindle, and it knows just where I was. Beautiful. Also, I got the Marvel & Comixology apps, and they're great, with a ton of free content, but the REAL win was my shelling out $8.49 for the ComicsZeal app. Let me say this oncely: IT LETS ME READ MY TOTALLY-LEGALLY-GOTTEN CBR & CBZ COMICS ARCHIVES. So now I have the entirety of StarMan, Batman: KnightFall & classic Deadpool on my iPad. My cup runneth over.

Some caveats:
-This is a very specific caveat that may only apply to me. I watch a lot of video podcasts. On the iPhone, I was able to start a podcast playing, then minimize it, then double-tap menu, slide to the left and hit play again, but this time in audio-only mode. This was a great way to extend battery life, or to multitasking and send messages/browse twitter/do something I needed my eyes for. The iPad can't do this. That's because the iPad has decided to split the music and video menus in order to give a slightly richer experience for both: audio now gets an iTunes style UI, and video gets a menu of movie posters. I like the new layouts, but it's cramping my style a bit. However, this has led to a strange feeling: walking to the train station, with my iPad in my bag and my headphones plugged in, listening to music I had no control over sent me rocketing back to my Walkman/Discman years. I didn't want to change the song, partially due to the fact that I would have to open my bag and take the device out. This is the opposite of my iPhone/iPod feeling, where I hated putting the device away, because I'd always want to see the songs and channel surf if needed. I find myself listening to songs I haven't heard in ages and some I don't recognize. It's a good thing.

-iPads need a powered USB port or an AC outlet to charge. All my back-of-PC USBs are full. But, using only a file, a hacksaw, and an XtremEMac iPhone dock, I macgyvered a solution:





(also check out my sweet CM Punk background)

So I love my iPad. Once again I have become one of those guys, but frankly, it's been happening often enough (laptop, kindle, iPhone) that I may need to accept that I am one of those guys.

-Lucas
Proxy Champignon,
Master of Brainthinking

* Tanja and I had agreed that once we zeroed off the credit card, we'd reward ourselves with something bought with cash. One month away from our goal, she couldn't wait, and she bought hers. Then I got mine. :D
** read: Tanja
1 comment|post comment

[23 Aug 2011|10:39am]
Soooooo, I got an iPad 2*. And it's awesome. Some thoughts:

+The touchpad is far easier to type on than I expected, so much so that I'm debating getting the Bluetooth keyboard I had planned on. However, I am quite glad I splurged the $5 on the ThinkGeek iPhone stylus last year, as the iPad screen is a magnet for fingerprints. You don't notice when using, but the minute you turn it off, it looks a mess. I've ordered a screen protector but it has not arrived yet. I could have bought one for 17.95 when I bought the iPad, but why, when I can go to eBay and get three for the price of a pack of gum?

+Screen is preeeeetty. It's not quite as sharp as the iPhone 4's retina screen, but 720p movies look awesome. And the video taken/video out is 1080p, which is nice. The screen size is it's downfall with some of the apps, though. Before I got an iPad, I grumbled looking at the prices of iPad apps being $3-$12 as opposed to $0.99-$4.99. "Why not just get the smaller cheaper apps and use the 2x button to blow them up?" Well, I'll tell you why, past Lucas: it looks awful. I actually tested it on an app-by-app basis, and most of the apps got deleted (especially my photo manipulation apps. I only kept e universal ones like FilterStorm and Halftone). Basically the only little apps I kept were the GeoDefense series, Facebook, Instagram, and trip view for the trains.

+Speaking of the apps, there are some that I could not have expected I would love, Flipboard being chief among them. Clipboard amalgamated your Instagram, twitter and Facebook feeds into magazine-style pages, opening links and pictures, while showing individual tweets like vox pops (which, in a sense, they are). It remains the best way to view Instagram on the iPad. As the aforementioned cost-change, I** basically allocated myself $50 as app-upgrade money. I bought the full-sized Plants vs Zombies, Tilt To Live, GarageBand, iMovie, BlogPress (which I should have sprung for way earlier, even on the iPhone, because it's exactly the mobile blogging experience I wanted), Fruit Ninja, and a few new games like World of Goo and bit.trip Blitz. I also used some skullduggery to get the US Netflix app, which allows me instant streaming on Wifi (I'm not dumb enough to do it on 3G). Lots of great looking apps like Infinity Blade, eBay, X-Men Arcade, and Kindle are universal/have free iPad versions, so no drama there. Kindle, by the by, finally completes the cloud experience I want: I'm reading Snow Crash at home. I read a bit of it on my iPad on the way to work. Then while doing 45 minutes of laminating at work, I read 20 pages on my iPhone. I get home that night, wirelessly sync my Kindle, and it knows just where I was. Beautiful. Also, I got the Marvel & Comixology apps, and they're great, with a ton of free content, but the REAL win was my shelling out $8.49 for the ComicsZeal app. Let me say this oncely: IT LETS ME READ MY TOTALLY-LEGALLY-GOTTEN CBR & CBZ COMICS ARCHIVES. So now I have the entirety of StarMan, Batman: KnightFall & classic Deadpool on my iPad. My cup runneth over.

Some caveats:
-This is a very specific caveat that may only apply to me. I watch a lot of video podcasts. On the iPhone, I was able to start a podcast playing, then minimize it, then double-tap menu, slide to the left and hit play again, but this time in audio-only mode. This was a great way to extend battery life, or to multitasking and send messages/browse twitter/do something I needed my eyes for. The iPad can't do this. That's because the iPad has decided to split the music and video menus in order to give a slightly richer experience for both: audio now gets an iTunes style UI, and video gets a menu of movie posters. I like the new layouts, but it's cramping my style a bit. However, this has led to a strange feeling: walking to the train station, with my iPad in my bag and my headphones plugged in, listening to music I had no control over sent me rocketing back to my Walkman/Discman years. I didn't want to change the song, partially due to the fact that I would have to open my bag and take the device out. This is the opposite of my iPhone/iPod feeling, where I hated putting the device away, because I'd always want to see the songs and channel surf if needed. I find myself listening to songs I haven't heard in ages and some I don't recognize. It's a good thing.

-iPads need a powered USB port or an AC outlet to charge. All my back-of-PC USBs are full. But, using only a file, a hacksaw, and an XtremEMac iPhone dock, I macgyvered a solution:





Soooooo, I got an iPad 2*. And it's awesome. Some thoughts:

+The touchpad is far easier to type on than I expected, so much so that I'm debating getting the Bluetooth keyboard I had planned on. However, I am quite glad I splurged the $5 on the ThinkGeek iPhone stylus last year, as the iPad screen is a magnet for fingerprints. You don't notice when using, but the minute you turn it off, it looks a mess. I've ordered a screen protector but it has not arrived yet. I could have bought one for 17.95 when I bought the iPad, but why, when I can go to eBay and get three for the price of a pack of gum?

+Screen is preeeeetty. It's not quite as sharp as the iPhone 4's retina screen, but 720p movies look awesome. And the video taken/video out is 1080p, which is nice. The screen size is it's downfall with some of the apps, though. Before I got an iPad, I grumbled looking at the prices of iPad apps being $3-$12 as opposed to $0.99-$4.99. "Why not just get the smaller cheaper apps and use the 2x button to blow them up?" Well, I'll tell you why, past Lucas: it looks awful. I actually tested it on an app-by-app basis, and most of the apps got deleted (especially my photo manipulation apps. I only kept e universal ones like FilterStorm and Halftone). Basically the only little apps I kept were the GeoDefense series, Facebook, Instagram, and trip view for the trains.

+Speaking of the apps, there are some that I could not have expected I would love, Flipboard being chief among them. Clipboard amalgamated your Instagram, twitter and Facebook feeds into magazine-style pages, opening links and pictures, while showing individual tweets like vox pops (which, in a sense, they are). It remains the best way to view Instagram on the iPad. As the aforementioned cost-change, I** basically allocated myself $50 as app-upgrade money. I bought the full-sized Plants vs Zombies, Tilt To Live, GarageBand, iMovie, BlogPress (which I should have sprung for way earlier, even on the iPhone, because it's exactly the mobile blogging experience I wanted), Fruit Ninja, and a few new games like World of Goo and bit.trip Blitz. I also used some skullduggery to get the US Netflix app, which allows me instant streaming on Wifi (I'm not dumb enough to do it on 3G). Lots of great looking apps like Infinity Blade, eBay, X-Men Arcade, and Kindle are universal/have free iPad versions, so no drama there. Kindle, by the by, finally completes the cloud experience I want: I'm reading Snow Crash at home. I read a bit of it on my iPad on the way to work. Then while doing 45 minutes of laminating at work, I read 20 pages on my iPhone. I get home that night, wirelessly sync my Kindle, and it knows just where I was. Beautiful. Also, I got the Marvel & Comixology apps, and they're great, with a ton of free content, but the REAL win was my shelling out $8.49 for the ComicsZeal app. Let me say this oncely: IT LETS ME READ MY TOTALLY-LEGALLY-GOTTEN CBR & CBZ COMICS ARCHIVES. So now I have the entirety of StarMan, Batman: KnightFall & classic Deadpool on my iPad. My cup runneth over.

Some caveats:
-This is a very specific caveat that may only apply to me. I watch a lot of video podcasts. On the iPhone, I was able to start a podcast playing, then minimize it, then double-tap menu, slide to the left and hit play again, but this time in audio-only mode. This was a great way to extend battery life, or to multitasking and send messages/browse twitter/do something I needed my eyes for. The iPad can't do this. That's because the iPad has decided to split the music and video menus in order to give a slightly richer experience for both: audio now gets an iTunes style UI, and video gets a menu of movie posters. I like the new layouts, but it's cramping my style a bit. However, this has led to a strange feeling: walking to the train station, with my iPad in my bag and my headphones plugged in, listening to music I had no control over sent me rocketing back to my Walkman/Discman years. I didn't want to change the song, partially due to the fact that I would have to open my bag and take the device out. This is the opposite of my iPhone/iPod feeling, where I hated putting the device away, because I'd always want to see the songs and channel surf if needed. I find myself listening to songs I haven't heard in ages and some I don't recognize. It's a good thing.

-iPads need a powered USB port or an AC outlet to charge. All my back-of-PC USBs are full. But, using only a file, a hacksaw, and an XtremEMac iPhone dock, I macgyvered a solution:




(also check out my sweet CM Punk background)

So I love my iPad. Once again I have become one of those guys, but frankly, it's been happening often enough (laptop, kindle, iPhone) that I may need to accept that I am one of those guys.

-Lucas
Proxy Champignon,
Master of Brainthinking

* Tanja and I had agreed that once we zeroed off the credit card, we'd reward ourselves with something bought with cash. One month away from our goal, she couldn't wait, and she bought hers. Then I got mine. :D
** read: Tanja
post comment

Martyrdom & Love [14 Aug 2011|04:30pm]
This is a post that (like the next-to-previous) has been in my head for days, but thanks to my putting on Coupling late last evening, I have a way of introducing it:
Here.
I watched this bit with Tanja, who then turned to me and said "Do men actually think that way during sex?" and the answer was, without hesitation: "Absolutely."

Insecurity. It destroys me.

So anyway, the post I wanted to write was about a White Stripes song. It's off their Icky Thump Album from 2007.

The narrator begins by mentioning a girl he saw exiting the zoo with a bunch of her friends. "16 and six feet tall", as he describes her. She trips over her high heels, and he catches her, saying that "Maybe these ruby shoes are a little cumbersome for you." Nice. It was off the cuff, but it impresses her. He admits himself that he was shaking and nervous and that he blurted this answer out without thinking, just "talkin' junk". But this impromptu conversation gets him her number, and he calls her a few times, but each time he's less cool, less interesting, has less to say. "My dumb-luck-fake-confidence was getting weak" he laments. So at the end of the 2nd or 3rd call, he breaks up with her, saying that there can't be any future for them:

"I could stay a while/but sooner or later I'll break your smile
And I can tell a joke/but one of these days I'm bound to choke
And we could share a kiss/but I feel like I can't go through with this
And I bet we could build a home/but I know the right thing for me to do
Is to leave you alone"

My original thought was that this was douche-like, that he's saving her the bad things he might do, but the more I listen to the song, the more I feel I understand. He loves her (or at least, the idea of her), and as such can't bear to disappoint her with the idea that he's not as cool as she might think. He knows he'll fuck it up eventually. He'll say something dumb, and she'll think less of him, and it's all downhill from there. He admits that it looks (and maybe is) cowardly and "a lame way to live" but he's powerless, and he hopes he appreciates the pain he's avoided giving here. That he's "A Martyr For My Love For You".

That bit always threw me, until I thought about how "martyr" can mean someone who chooses to destroy himself so that an idea can continue. In this case, it's the idea of Cool Him and Lovely Girl & Their Super Cool Relationship that he felt he was unable to maintain. This is such a deep and abiding self-doubt and insecurity that my heart goes out to him.For I have been there. But frankly, I was never even cool enough to start the conversation.

**edit**
Allow me to explain a little so my meaning is clear: in my current relationship, I am loved, and confident, and many other good things, despite my occasional (much-discussed on this blog) bouts of insecurity and self-pity. Left to my own devices, I am a lobster in a tank, eating myself until I can barely move. I'm saying I sympathise with the song's narrator. Or rather, I did, at one stage, knowing that situation myself.

And funny enough, while I was writing this, a Kaiser Chiefs song came on:
I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it without you.
But it wouldn't be very good.
Indeed.

**Second Edit**
In discussing this with Tanja and how it actually wasn't me saying that I "jumped aboard" with the first girl who "gave me the time of day", I remembered another poitn I had wanted to discuss about the song. When I re-evaluated the song, I had an inkling of an idea. Everything from the moment the narrator catches the girl to the end of the song... is in his head. He imagines saying something cool, but then further imagines how hard it would be to keep up that image, to the point where he'd need to exercise control and end the relationship. So this is him justifying and saying that he is right to have said nothing, thus affirming his self-image and framework and saving himself.

Which, as Tanja put it, is really sad.
post comment

[14 Aug 2011|03:35pm]
I was playing Fallout: New Vegas this morning on my laptop. I had my iPhone on the speakers. I got a series of songs that I felt fit the western vibe of the game very well. I present those songs to you here:
The Raconteurs - The Switch & The Spur

Mark Lanagan - The Man In The Long Black Coat

The Dead Weather - So Far From Your Weapon

The Joel Plaskett Emergency - Written All Over Me


Hate Then Love - The Dears

Yeah. The last one doesn't quite match, but the next song that came on was Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" and that sort of broke the mood.

Anyhow, I'm still really early into New Vegas, but I'm finding it much easier to be a bastard in this barren Western-style world than in the Capitol Wasteland of Fallout 3. Shooting & looting are a higher preference.
post comment

Music Blog, Part 1: Locking Down Black Snow Birds [14 Aug 2011|02:42pm]
(the first in a 3-part series... that I will complete today. So maybe it shouldn't be cut into 3. But I want to, because the topics are different. like a lot.)

So. Right. This is a blog I had an idea for ages ago on a turbulent train trip to work in which I ended up on the wrong train, and had to jump off the train at North Strathfield and promptly forgot about it. Yes, it was the same day I made a comic about.

The train of thought was inspired by one of many PennPoint episodes where Penn Jillette talked about his feelings after seeing Paul McCartney in concert in Las Vegas. All of these had some interesting things to say, including whether an artist should respect your memory of their previous work (like Paul does) or not (like Bob Dylan), and if Sean Lennon looks frighteningly like his father (he does). The one that got my attention, though, was where Penn discussed "Blackbird", which admittedly is not one of my favourite Beatles songs, and how it's always difficult to describe poetry using prose. To sum up (though I recommend you watch all the videos), he said that people have long posited on the meaning of the lyrics of Blackbird, whether it was a personal story, or whether it was about X or Y or Civil Rights or whatever. Essays have been written (including blogs by The Beatles Complete On Ukelele, which is incredible and you should read/download all of their stuff like I have) trying to contemplate and dissect meanings from this poetry.

Then Paul McCartney came out 34 years after the song had been written and said it was about American Civil Rights.

Right.

As Penn said, him saying what he meant by the song locks down the meaning. It cements the meaning, making all other meanings false, to a given value of false. Well, rather, it makes those other meanings into mere "interpretations" and the stuff of first year university essays (I still say Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher is a metaphor for brother-sister incest, you bastard professor). Admittedly, you could argue about the myth of the Auteur, and that the creator loses control of the work of art the moment it is released into the public, making all interpretations as real as the next until examined (sort of a Schrodinger's Song).

It's a theory I subscribe to, specifically due to the fact that I seem to be ridiculously easy to influence through music. A sad song can ruin my day. Seriously.

Anyhow, I reflect upon something I read in the liner notes of Barenaked Ladies' Greatest Hits album about the song "What a Good Boy". If you ain't heard it, go here for the video. The writer of the song explained in the notes that the song was "a young man's mediation on gender roles", but he had been sent so many interpretations and meanings for the song that were incredibly beautiful and transcended his original intention that he would prefer to let the song mean "whatever you'd like it to mean."

Sniff.

Oh, right. Snow. That Red Hot Chili Peppers song off of Stadium Arcadium. That day at North Strathfield, after I had watched Penn Point, and jumped off the train, this song came on. Now, I don't know if you know this one. I wouldn't have, had Tanja not gone through her "I must own all of the albums" phase of Chili Pepper liking.

Read the lyrics. They're here. Or watch the video.

My interpretation is that it's Anthony Kiedis having writer's block and relying on drugs to (initially) spark his creativity, despite knowing the dangers they pose, because he needs "more than himself to rely on", and that he enjoys the black-and-white morality of the addict: I need more, therefore I will get more, I am not accountable because it's not really me ("all my tracks/will be concealed").

I don't know if that's what he actually meant by the song, but that's what I think. And that matters, for a given value of matter.
post comment

Rules to live by (at least, in the kitchen) [14 Aug 2011|02:12pm]

Original photo to be found here, by @grahamhancock, production wizard and camera guy at Revision3.
1 comment|post comment

First Class [11 Aug 2011|10:15pm]
Saw X-Men First Class tonight. I piratified it, as I couldn't drag Tanja into a cinema when it was out (I worry that Captain America will suffer a similar fate).

I liked it. I liked it a lot. But the moment it was over, my brain fell upon it and started nitpicking. And I'm not talking the nitpicking of one who knows the source material, which I am. No, this what story-nerd stuff.

***spoilers, kind of***

Like how I felt that Michael Fassbender did an excellent job as Eric Lensherr, but was a terrible Magneto. The moment he put on the helmet and started speechifying, I stopped believing the character. Admittedly, the speechifying was always the most Bond-villian-y part of Magneto and it's the least realistic. Yes, less realistic than moving metal with one's mind.

This is kind of par for the course for each character. I'll say "I liked the portrayal of this person/character" but then when I start to think about why I liked them, I realise that they didn't really have much to do in the film, so as such, their actions have no explanation, like Mystique or Angel's turns to evil, or Havok, who was basically a blaster, who, as a side-effect, had blond hair. I liked Hank McCoy, but his furred Beast make-up looked silly. Though, as with Magneto, just about any vaguely comic-like version of Beast is going to look silly. Moira McTaggart was an unrelated American character, who frankly, could have been anyone.

Anyway, I keep telling myself, I liked it! Damnit, why can't I enjoy it. What's wrong with me? If I enjoy it, why can't I just enjoy it?
2 comments|post comment

A new scale for a new century. [30 Jul 2011|01:04pm]
After doing some yardwork (which involved hacksawing off the ends of trees), I took off my hoody and shoes in preparation for showering off all the leaf-gunk. I took my iPhone out of my pcoket and briefly checked Twitter in case someone had replied to me. They had not, but I spotted a tweet from @punky_and_me with the word "Amazeballs" on it, a word I had used in a tweet the previous day, so I was intrigued and clicked the link. It was a link to the mobile page version of a blog post featuring amazing claymation art from Etsy. I really liked one part, so I went to leave a comment. Tapped "Leave a comment". I typed my comment into the field on the mobile version of the comments page. It asked me what ID I wanted to used, I choose my Google ID then pushed "post". I was then taken to the non-mobile-web version of the comments page with a suddenly-blank comments field. I dutifully retyped my comment, and filled in the Captcha, which was something like "Cohardleb", then pushed "post". However, in the time it took for my finger to go from typing to "post" my iPhone autocorrected "Cohardleb" to "cohabitable". The page then spat me back to the comments page, where I had to carefully re-enter a new Captcha, aptly "RitardSm", then pressed post again. I was the redirected to a Google log-in page where I needed to enter my email address and password. Then hit submit.

Finally, it posted. This whole thing took 7-9 minutes of frustrated pecking at my phone. For one two-line comment.

I reached a 6.5 on the Tanjabraun Scale of Anger-At-Technology (similar to the Rounsaville scale for measuring racism).

So far, in this dimension, the only event which has caused a full 10.0 Tanjabrauns was a left-ward swipe on the trackpad of a Sony Vaio laptop being interpreted as "back" on a browser, in which sat a 10-page blog post that it had taken the better part of 2 hours to write.
1 comment|post comment

All my mornings should end up as comics. [21 Jul 2011|08:55pm]
Brought to you by my trusty Moleskine Storyboard Notebook!
2 comments|post comment

Cooking Sunday: White Chocolate Blondies [17 Jul 2011|01:26pm]
This recipe originally came from a Revision3 podcast (now sadly cancelled) called Food Mob. It was an interesting show, with very cool recipes, but it had a flaw. The chef, Niall, would be cooking on the fly, and was a bit haphazard with measurements. Often what he would use would differ from the show notes on the website. The show notes themselves would often omit necessary steps and ingredients, or worse, list an ingredient, then never mention it in the instructions. As a result, to get a working recipe, you had to watch the show repeatedly, take notes, compare to the recipe in the show notes, and work out something yourself through trial and error.

This can be frustrating.

But here's one I've adapted from Niall's version and made multiple times. Fair warning, this is a very rich desert. Goes great for bake sales, but if you ate a whole batch to yourself, you might explode. And we wouldn't want that.

White Chocolate Blondies

THIS IS WHAT TO DO:
  • Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
  • Take your butter out of the fridge. It'll be hard as a rock, so you can do this ages before, or, if you're stupid like me, you can put it into a ziploc bag, wrapper and all, and dip that bag into some hot water until it softens. Alternatively, you can put a baking tray with an inch of boiling water on the counter and rest the base of your metal mixing bowl in that. Did I mention you'll need a big metal bowl? You'll need a big metal bowl.
  • take your big metal bowl (see? Told you.) and dump in your brown sugar. When your butter is soft enough (and you'd better hope it is), put it in with the brown sugar.
  • Now comes the hard part. Get a wooden spoon or flat spatula, and mix the butter and sugar together, creaming them. It'll take some muscle. Don't use a whisk. Don't use an electric mixer. Both will just make a big mess and you'll spend half your time trying to pick the mixture out of the mixing-device-beater-tool-tong-thing. Think of this as character building, and reminisce about the last RPG character you made and how awesome they were until the game got boring.
  • Now once your mixture is well blended and there are no lumps of butter in it, it should look like this:
  • Add your flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda to the wet mix, get your spatula, and mix it all together again. It'll separate out into little globs, but keep mixing. It'll get smooth again.
  • Break the egg into the bowl and mix again. You arm might be tired at this point. Switch arms. Seriously, you could hurt yourself.
  • Once you've mixed the egg in, spread a handful of walnuts onto a chopping board. Oh, crap, did i forget to put walnuts on the list? You need walnuts. Write that down. So. the walnuts. Spread 'em out like this:
  • (the picture is actually two handfuls) Run your knife through them, chopping into little bits. You could use a food processor or a mortar and pestle. Listen to your heart. Pour your chopped-up walnuts into the mixture and stir them in again. You thought you were done with the stirring? No, no, is no done.
  • Get your vanilla pod.

  • Slice the pod lengthwise and use your knife to scrape out the speckly stuff inside. Into the bowl with it. Stir thoroughly, making sure all the speckles are spread around.
  • Measure out your chocolate chips. I use white chips, but really, you can use whatever you like. Into the mix with them and stir for the last time, I promise. The mix should be really thick by this point to where you can stand the spoon up in the bowl with no trouble, to whimsical effect:

Or you could fantasize about the world's unhealthiest lollipop:


Ahem. Anyhow.
  • Get your pan, and lay down some baking paper. Scoop your mixture onto it, and flatten it down to about 4cm thick. Make sure there's baking paper between the mix and the pan, otherwise it'll stick.

  • Into the oven with it. 20 minutes. Open the oven door, and poke a skewer into the middle. If it comes out wet, give it another 5 minutes.
  • Take the tray out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes, to let it settle back down (I didn't know what the opposite verb for "rise" was). It ought to look like this:

  • As soon as you can, use the paper to lift the whole thing out of the pan and set it on a cutting board or tray. Peel the paper edges away and let it breathe:

  • As soon as you can (again), chop the whole thing into squares and carefully lift them off the baking paper onto some paper towel (if you do this too soon, they'll fall apart. Judge it). The reason for the rush it that the blondies will leak butter as they cool. The last thing you want is that butter sitting on the paper and making the bottom of your squares soggy. You may need to move them carefully onto new paper towels a couple of times. Once they've settled, you're done! You can dust 'em with icing sugar, but really, they're fine on their own. See?
1 comment|post comment

What I Got (continued) [09 Jul 2011|12:39pm]
WATCHING \aleph \!\, Forgot to mention a few more podcasts. \aleph \!\, Despite my dislike of their myriad of convention shows, iFanboy is still going strong since leaving Revision3. Their shows on Frank Miller and Starman have been my favourites lately. \aleph \!\, LifeHacker is one I've been trialing, and is nothing but good so far. It's basically tips on how to streamline and nerd up your life and work, such as making a cord-free office, making an emergency lamp out of a tuna can, or a laptop bag out of your hoodie. \aleph \!\, PennPoint is handy because when I watch it minimised, it's like listening to a radio show hosted by Penn Jillette. One of the few podcasts where video ain't necessary, which is good when your battery is low, or you have Twittering to do.

APP-ING \aleph \!\, I've been leaning away from iPhone games lately, using my phone much more for media and web-based stuff, though one has grabbed my attention: ShapeShift may look like a Bejewelled clone, and maybe it is, but it's highly addictive. My only gripe is that it's not timed, but turn-based, and you don't get any bombs (the only things that'll stop a game) until at least 8-10 minutes of gameplay. So until that point there is absolutely no challenge. It's also a battery-suck. \aleph \!\, I've also been playing a bit of Fruit Ninja, since they updated and added Arcade mode, which really changes up the action, adding power-ups and rewarding you for creativity. \aleph \!\, I've long been a user of Words With Friends, sometimes running as many as 20 games at a time. This has become its downfall, though, as the sheer number of games combined with an instant rematch after each win or loss has rendered the joy of winning obsolete. As it doesn't matter, then my motivation for playing is lost. \aleph \!\, I've branched out into its cousin, Hangin' With Friends, but it's not grabbing me as much. The random nature of Hangman means you either get the word straight away or you have no idea and flail about getting things wrong. I therefore don't feel accomplished when I get something, I just feel lucky. \aleph \!\, Social-media-wise, SoundTracking has been my latest download. It's free, and it is to music what Instagram is to photos. You can have to grab what's playing around you (handy in bars or music shops) or grab what's on your iPhone and post it with a comment. The big honking downside? Nobody's using it. At least, no one that I know. That means the service only exists to post songs to Facebook, Twitter, etc. Without the rich community that Instagram has, I don't think it'll stick with me long. \aleph \!\, Speaking of Instagram, it's become one of my primary ways of interacting with my social networks. You guys think I tweet a lot? My Instagram feed is 2-3 times as full. However, my love of skylines and clouds has gotten me tons of likes from people I don't know, but annoys the crap of people I actually know. So swings and roundabouts. \aleph \!\, Speaking of Apps, I still can't find a good blogging app for iPhone that'll let me post photos to Blogger the way I normally do, and it shits me.

READING \aleph \!\, I've been digging through the pile of books I've had since Christmas and cleared a few off my list. \aleph \!\, I finally took the plunge and read The Gunslinger by Stephen King. Despite high hopes, I did not like it. I found the language too florid and the characters inscrutable, taking actions I did not understand and they did not explain. I was waiting for the actions to make sense, but no one gave any explanation for what they were doing apart from it's "what I must do." Great. Thanks. \aleph \!\, One I had no preface to was iBoy by Kevin Brooks. It's a kid from the housing projects outside of London who has an iPhone hit his head from a high height and gets superpowers. Yep. Initially it's just an internal processor and all the knowledge of the InterWebz, but then it extends to a personal forcefield, electrical powers, telekenesis and, well, whatever the plot demands from the scene. No upper limit or explanation is given for these powers, and he essentially runs around beating up gang members until the finale, which by that point I did not care about. It was not a good book. \aleph \!\, The third volume of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, and the series is starting to bug me. It tends to alternate between wonderful, funny and interesting stories, and then perhaps one issue in three will be terrible. It's inconsistant stuff like that that I want to push through to get to the good stuff. Example? A sentient police dog that Spider castrated during a riot seeks revenge upon him. It's exactly as bad as it sounds. But the rest is so good! Argh. However, I am tempted to try the Spider Jerusalem Experiment. For one day, from early morning to late at night, to watch television. To do nothing but watch free-to-air television. Take it all in. I think it'll either result in some amazingly interesting blogness or my brains running out of my ears. \aleph \!\, I have 8 or so issues of The Word sitting waiting to be perused. i should really do something about that.

LISTENING \aleph \!\, I've found a cheap CD shop (10 CDs for $50) near my work, so I've resupplied my musicness. Here's a list because I couldn't be bothered keeping up the format of my own blog entry:
There! That'll do it. That should give you something to do for a bit.
post comment

Organ Size. [08 Jul 2011|06:11pm]

I understand this lighter is meant to be bawdy and ribald. I understand this. But it is fundamentally incorrect, even within the confines of its own joke logic.


The idea behind this comment is as follows:


The skin is the largest organ in the body. This is fact. The assertion the joke makes is that the gonads of the lewd-lighter-holder are in fact larger than the entirety of a normal human’s skin, usurping the claim of Largest Organ Evah.


HOWEVER.


If the fanciful-lighter-holder truly had a set of gonads that large, said brobdingnagian gonads would be covered with skin. Thus adding to the skin’s overall area to the point where the skin is STILL the largest organ on the capricious-lighter-holder’s body.


Unless:


a) The quirky-lighter-holder’s brobdingnagian gonads are in fact skinless, and thus would be prone to infection, rupture and, well, falling out... OR


b) The humorous-lighter-holder’s brobdingnagian gonads contain within them yet another skin-equivalent in mass through density (potentially due to being made of some sort of organic metal).

In either case, it would be a serious medical condition and should not be the subject of a whimsical cigarette lighter boast.


I’m Lucas, and Things Like That Shit Me.
1 comment|post comment

What I Got (Watching) [06 Jul 2011|09:38am]
New look blog! Or at least, until I decide to change it again. The background seems to be the hardest thing to decide on. So expect further changes, as I am indecisive.

I've had all these posts rushing around in my head, so I'm going to try and combine them into a rapid-fire short-form-list of what I've been watching/reading/listening/Apping.

Is Apping a word? It is now.

Warning. Excessive linking ahead.

WATCHING \aleph \!\, With my longer commute, I've finally been delving into things I've had on the HDD for months, including Transformers Animated, Justice League, Teen Titans, and Transformers Prime. All are highly recommended, for different moods. T:A is arc-based, like Justice League, so it's great to watch the stories unfold when you can watch 3 or 4 episodes in a row. TT is much MUCH more episodic and far less serious (they even have a special Japanese version of the awesome PuffyAmiYumi theme song as a signal that it'll be a silly show). Transformers Prime is as if Beast Wars, War For Cybertron, and the Transformers film series had a crazy LAN Party/threesome which made beautiful shiny robotic baby, and then had it raised with the G1 series as a nanny, which is a strange image and I want you all to forget it. Thing is, I know the first half-season of ALL these shows are not the best. Persevere. They will Grow The Beard. Promise. Also, seeing all these awesome shows has made one I previously loved look a bit shallow. Batman Beyond was always my favourite of the DCAU, and compared to Justice League, frankly most of it seems a bit shallow (but I could listen to the theme song all day long). Oh, and the first season of Batman: The Animated Series sucked. Like a lot. \aleph \!\, At home, since we've run out of Castle, Modern Family, & Community (which we still love), and Big Bang Theory, Chuck and 30 Rock (which we're starting to wane on, due to Flanderization and Seasonal Rot), we've been looking into movies. The arrival of Netflix Instant streaming into our house caused an evening of Emma/How To Marry A Millionaire (which showcased examples of Politeness Judo & Ship-To-Ship Combat in the former and MegaNekko in the latter). It's also caused me to find the Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic. It's also caused an overabundance of choice, which has led to occasional BSOD moments when deciding what to watch. Happily, there's always Firefly. \aleph \!\, My podcast watching has slowed ever since I took a few weeks off watching Podcasts while trying to sort out my music library. Then they piled up and suddenly I have 14 episodes of FrameRate, 10 of NSFW, 42 of the Totally Rad Show and 17 Diggnations. Funnily enough, I was about to keep up with Destructoid, Appjudgment, Death Battle, and Bytejacker due to their shorter run times. Though Bytejacker is now on hiatus, which makes me sad.\aleph \!\,\aleph \!\,

Oh, crap, that took 34 minutes to write. I might need to pick this "What I Got" thing up later, as I must get ready for work.
post comment

My Game of Thrones Review. [02 Jul 2011|08:36am]
Filmed early in the morning at Parramatta station. I say "awesome" a lot.

http://youtu.be/qOtPk3-X8e0
post comment

Huge Huge Huge Reductions! Never Pay Full Price Again! [21 Jun 2011|10:26pm]



1 comment|post comment

Belonging [16 Jun 2011|10:30pm]
Nearby my new office, amid the office buildings and shopping centres, there is a tiny corner. See? Here it is on Google Maps.

View Larger Map
Yeah, it’s there, but you can’t see it. That’s because this place was willed into existence.

That little laneway corner thing? Someone nailed a roof on it, stacked some kitchen counters and cabinets and a few camp stove burners, then started piling things up, stacking things around, and making coffee.

This is Circa.

As anyone who follows me on “the Instagrams” knows, I have been sneaking many a photo of this place. That’s because there is so much to see in this small space. There are old timey bicycles nailed to the walls, there is a hatrack with a top hat, a flat cap, and whatever the hell the owners and baristas wore to work that day. There are wine crates full of books about anything from graffiti (I had a leaf through Banksy’s Wall & Peace) to ballet & photography. There is an inlaid mother-of-pearl backgammon set. There is a record player and a stack of 45s. The cakes they made in-house that day sit in a kitchen cupboard on the wall. The menu is written on butcher’s paper & stuck on the wall.

The three guys who run the place are hard at work, but are constantly talking with customers both regular & drop-in. Though the walls are concrete, they’ve built windows and painted them with seaside vistas. The music playing is a far cry from Cafe Del Mar or any Chillout mix. It’s James Brown, Ray Charles, soul and funk from the 70s, and even some US. It comes either from some of their records, or it’s one of the guys’ iPhones plugged into a dock by the door. The music is usually good enough that I take off my headphones when I enter, which is unprecedented.

Today, I sat at the back of the place and had my coffee & listened to the owner chat with a woman who had come in. She mentioned that she had brought them more books (including some comics from the 90s), and that she was happy to print them up some cards to give to people. This woman was not affiliated with the cafe, she was just a regular. She then started talking about which pork roast was best, then segues into how, “Yes, Lisa, it’s a wonderful, MAGICAL animal.”

Hearing it, it made me want to be a regular too. More so than at any other cafe I’ve been to.
post comment

Meet the Meat. [13 Jun 2011|06:28pm]
*Warning: This post not for the squeamish or puritan vegetable folk*

I was just intimidated by a piece of meat. Tonight, I'm making Aussie Berko. At Marrickville, I asked the butcher for 4 pieces of beef Osso Bucco (the shin piece). Those 4 pieces came to a kilo and a half due to two of them being enormous. As part of the recipe, I have to brown the pieces in the casserole dish before it goes in the oven. These two pieces are so big, I have to brown the meat in two batches. I then take the meat out to rest while the veggies cook. As it was resting, I glanced over at the topmost and biggest piece. And it grossed me out.

I'm not that squeamish, not really. Admittedly, I don't like things that stick to my hands while I cook (like egg or mince or flour or things like that) so I rinse my hands a lot. But this? Okay. I'll try to explain.

Osso Bucco, or shin beef, looks like this. That is fine. But this piece had been badly cut, which meant that in addition to the central bone, there was a second half-piece of bone stuck to the bottom. This second piece was belled outward, so it was most likely fron the end of the bone near the joint. You know what else is near joints? Tendons. Ligaments. Things that look like tubes or straws. So after I'd browned the meat, I took off this second piece of bone and there was a reddish mess of tubes and I nearly gagged.

Yes. I understand meat comes from an animal, an animal that was once alive. I get that, I understand that. For some reason though, that just hit me.

The meat is now in the oven. I shall conquer my moment of fear by consuming it in a delicious tomato-dark beer sauce.

....or I might cut that bit out and leave it on the side of my plate.

On an completely unrelated note, last night, while making Sausage & Zucchini Carbonara (a future Cooking Post), I was zesting a lemon overzealously, and manages to drag the zester across my thumb. Here it is after a day of healing (it bled like a mofo). Today Tanja and I stopped in at Caketown to pick up something, and chatted with the guy who runs the place. As he handed us out purchase, he noticed I had a bandage on my thumb, and showed his own thumb, which had a cut a few days old on it, and said we were in the same boat. "No," I replied. "Lemon zester." He made a face, turned away and threw his hands up all in one motion (which was a thing to behold) and declared "Eyargh! That's why I work with pastry, not with meat! Ugh!"

So I got to feel tough.

Edit: A post-script. The meal turned out to be so bad as to be inedible. The meat was tough, even near the bone, and the broth, which is usually rich and flavourful was bland and tasteless. Clearly, I should have gone with my gut instinct and backed off. So the whole pot (meant to be two nights' dinners) went in the bin. I'm further frustrated because Tanja is always hesitant to have this dish, as stews are not her favourite thing. The first time she had this, she did not like it. The second time she did. This time, I had to convince her to have it for dinner. Which then failed spectacularly. I don't think I'll get to make it a fourth time. [glum]
1 comment|post comment

navigation
[ viewing | most recent entries ]
[ go | earlier ]