Now Page Up
I have a new page up: Now. Enjoy responsibly.
I have a new page up: Now. Enjoy responsibly.
One of my mother’s uncles, Adam Schuch (pronounced “shook”), was a cryogenecist who worked on nukes, post-World War II. I never met him, or I don’t remember meeting him, really. Either way, I found a few photos of him floating around online, and some other textual references to him or his work. Some of the … Uncle Adam Schuch, Cryogenecist
Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV Nyx Ulric and the Kingsglaive, the special forces of King Regis, protect the kingdom of Lucis and its crown city, Insomnia, from the attacks and deceptions Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt and his military empire, Niflheim. That’s too many unusual proper names for a one-sentence summary, but whatever, because the movie was damn … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 32
A few months after using a static document for the front page of this here domain, I’ve reverted to a standard dynamic page. It looks the same, but without the “this is a static HTML document” disclaimer at the way bottom. I discovered that the WordPress plugins had a hard time updating, I couldn’t preview … Index Page Silliness
Ingredients Soup 2 large carrots 1 yellow onion 2 sticks of celery 1 head cauliflower 1 head broccoli 1 tbsp salt (or to taste) 1 tbsp oregano 1 tsp pepper 4 tsp of bullion powder or paste or 2 cubes (chicken or veg) 3 tbsp butter 5 cups water Cheese Sauce 6 tbsp butter 3 … Recipe: Paleo Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Soup
Belle (2021) An unassuming Japanese high school student becomes a singing sensation in a virtual reality world, but gets caught up in finding the identity of the virtual world’s mysterious Beast creature. When people talk of of remakes of older stories, in this case Beauty and the Beast, this is the direction movie makers should … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 31
Squatting, as in the Holy Grail exercise move, that is. From the article, “Do You Really Need to Back Squat?”: Watch Naudi’s Video on the Back Squat HERE Watch Naudis Video On how he suggests How to Deadlift [ed. – link is to a private video] While Mike and Naudi have different training methods, their … Squatting Isn’t Everything
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, Part 1 Jolyne Cujo, Jotaro’s daughter, is framed for murder and ends up in prison. As expected, epic Stand battles abound, and it’s fascinating how Shō Aimoto made it this far without the Stand trickery and lore getting stale. The swamp search that lasted a few episodes illustrates an aspect … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 30
Almost. It’s more like The Web Is Fucked. I’m not really up or down on swearing so much, but having harsh language in a post title crosses a boundary with me. Anyways, from the linked site: I’m not saying you should avoid all social media – that shit’s pretty much impossible these days and is … The Web Is Flucked
Love, Death + Robots A series of animated science fiction shorts. As usual, most of these stories were more action and horror than science fiction. Some individual reviews: “Zima Blue” – An enigmatic artist reveals his final piece. This wasn’t just the best of the entire series, but one of the greatest actual science-fiction short … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 29
While watching RazörFist’s stream of the new Halo Infinite game, I realized how not-great the subtitle UX (user experience) was. It ranged from serviceable but awkward, to slightly confusing, to unreadable. Good video game dialogue and subtitle UX should (in rough descending order of severity): Have good color contrast, size, and line length The subtitles … How to Create Good Video Game Subtitle UX
Order of the PenTriagon is the first of two books about the peaceful aftermath of an alien presence on earth, two youngins damaged by the vaccine deployed worldwide to combat the disease the aliens brought with them, and a prophecy of a future warrior to battle said aliens (I think I got all of that … Book Review: Order of the PenTriagon by Jill Domschot
Cowboy Bebop (2021) Let’s get this out of the way, first: this was bad, to no one’s surprise, but I gave it the ol’ three-episode college try. The original 1998 series was storytelling perfection and accepted as such by a wide margin of viewers and critics, so any kind of reboot is not only unnecessary, … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 28
Ingredients 8oz sugar-free dark chocolate 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/2 cup of Stevia or natural sweetener 1 pinch of salt 1/4 tsp ground pepper (optional) cocoa powder for dusting Directions 1. If your chocolate is in bar form, chop it up into tiny pieces. I’d do it if it’s … Recipe: Spicy Grimdark Chocolate Rocks
Creed 2 Creed fights the son of his father’s killer, Ivan Drago. Rocky IV was a big staple of my childhood, so it was neat to see Dolph Lundgren in the role again, even though he wasn’t a huge part of this particular movie. I also liked that Viktor, Drago’s son, wasn’t as cartoonishly villainous … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 27
I wouldn’t quite call this exposition as much as it is the backstory for Rosalina, but you don’t know the story’s protagonist is actually her until later. The player is also not required to read the book to understand the world of SMG, since all of that is communicated as the game progresses. Still, it’s … Super Mario Galaxy’s Storybook
That title says “Static Index Page” in Spanish, in honor of it being the Day of the Dead, of Jill getting her blog back up, and of me starting to read her new book. She often posts Mexican music and language, and is Catholic, so it seems like all of these things are related. The … Página de Índice Estático
Spoilers ahead. I will also note that I read Dune many years ago, but have since forgotten much of it. Yes, I plan on reading the series again soon. “DUNE?” More like, “DUDE, call a plumber.” Score: 9/10 The Frank Herbert’s literary sci-fi classic was previously adapted for the large hypnosis machine movie screen with … Review: Dune, Part 1 (2021)
Time Bandits A young boy with neglectful parents helps dwarves time travel throughout history, escaping the owner of a map they stole. I watched this a lot when I was a kid, not realizing how non-kid-friendly it was. I mean, his house burns down and his parents combust right in front of him at the … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 26
It turns out the woman’s iconic face from Converge’s Jane Doe album cover art is a real woman’s face, and that woman found out 20-ish years after the fact and posted on Instagram about it. Converge’s vocalist, Jacob Bannon, who also did the artwork, responded: “Just to be clear: This is definitely one of the … Jane Doe Lives and Has a Face
I created what I think is the best workout playlist, using the most anal retentive criteria imaginable. 1. The songs shouldn’t take longer than 5 seconds to get going in some manner, and there shouldn’t be more than 5 seconds of silence, feedback, or any fadeouts at the end. This eliminates a lot of songs, … Behold! The Best Heavy Metal Workout Playlist
The map below is inaccurate, as AllTrails’ UX for recording hikes sucks. There’s no easy way to “stop” the hike recording, and “pausing” the hike recording restarted it after a certain time for some reason, so the app recorded me driving home. Encountering these hiccups in a process annoys me both as a user and … Photos: Deer Lakes Park Blue Trail Hike
From the article “Tech Workers Rebel Against a Lame-Ass Internet by Bringing Back ‘Geocities-Style’ Webrings“: Take Linvega’s LowTech WebRing as an example. A given site connects to two other sites, which connect to two more sites, forming a closed-loop: a ring. Users tout the format as something more like wandering through a neighborhood, reinfusing cyberspace … Decentralize Your Internet
There has to be one millionaire on earth, doing absolutely nothing of worth, who can look into the sorry state of home printer tech. You don’t even have to really get involved—just toss some cash to some engineers and programmers and have them figure it out. They’ll do a Kickstarter or something and pay you … Someone Needs to Do Something About Printers
Expendables 2 A group of for-hire mercenaries race to find a stockpile of Cold War-era refined plutonium before the villain, named Vilain, does. I think every 80’s and 90’s action movie guy was stuffed into this, maybe even more than the first one, so it kind of makes it fun in that regard for middle-aged … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 25
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Say what you want about George Lucas, but the man knows how to world-build. Despite this, lot of folks criticized this movie as unnecessary, because you could start with Attack of the Clones and still get Anakin’s necessary character arc. The prequel Star Wars movies were about … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 24
My Hero Academia, Season 4 This represented a little bit of a departure from previous seasons, because the big battle came early on, and someone actually died. There’s a decent pop rock song in the filler storyline of the school talent show. But really, the soap opera of MHA continues as soap operas do: you … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 23
The Wolverine Wolverine in Japan. This film was in the middle of the cinematic X-Men franchise getting a little more mature, and it shows here, especially in the dialogue. It would appropriately crescendo, perhaps a little too late, with Wolverine’s sendoff in Logan, but this was the solid beginning. X-Men: The Last Stand The third … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 22
Easy-to-understand part of a lecture on the ideas. A little bit too Platonic for me, but it can get one on the path of breaking away from purely material causes for things. If there’s a meta-force, not necessarily supernatural, but an in-between level between pure classical physical space and that supernatural domain, then material methods … How Matter is Formed and Other Consciousnesses
Escape from New York Not sure why I think this, but I consider this a sister film to the original Mad Max. They came out roughly the same time, so there was a similar cultural context, at least when the final rewrites and filing occurred. Also crazy to note that the depiction of vector graphics … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 21
The rewards for the Kickstarter were sent out, so I jumped it to the top of my reading list. Hawthorne’s prose is playful. It seems like a lot of the sci-fi emerging out of the retro-futurist, first stages of the industrialization of electricity (whatever you want to call it) had a bright, optimistic bent. How … Photos: The Cosmic Courtship Hardcover
Fist of the North Star Post-apocalyptic 80’s kung fu, with a really dated English dub; Full movie here, with a protagonist so badass, he walks through a building as it falls on top of him, and tables randomly explode when he’s ready to fight. There probably wouldn’t have been JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure if this wasn’t … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 20
…because it’s probably not aliens that are involved at all with this—it’s all large-scale electromagnetic stuff. I am not for or opposed either way to aliens being at least covertly mucking around; my beliefs aren’t based on what I can perceive and understand. Aliens would be a good story to come across in reality, but … I’m Not Saying It’s Aliens
A.I.C.O. Incarnation A schoolgirl learns she’s not who she thinks she is, and it involves a quarantine zone that resulted from a berserk experiment to create artificial organisms. What’s with trained special forces soldiers who look like Teen Vogue models? At least some series’ lore would explain it away as cyborgs or trained-at-birth/crisis situation scenarios, … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 19
It was the only remaining account I had, besides the one at Goodreads, that was vaguely social or collaborative, that I didn’t really use all that much. I had a few small, personal JavaScript and CSS projects on there that I moved to the UX portfolio page. I don’t code all that much any more … I Am Off GitHub
Well, almost a 15k. This wouldn’t be so bad if I had planned and trained for it; I had originally intended to do a 5k. My wife’s gym organized a casual weekend run at the Westmoreland Heritage Trail. You could do any length of a run, from a 5k (I think shorter than 5k, too) … I Accidentally Ran a 15k
I took my son out on a hike at a local park. Here are some photos. We had an off-path companion for a few moments: This tree had a strange, ugly vine wrapped around it: Pit stop: I really like this one. The sun is in the top center, right in the opening of the … Photos: Spicebush Trail Hike
There are unrelated songs that have been brought to my attention as of late, which are unrelated except for similar experiences when I first listened to them. The first is the title theme of Solstice, the buff wizard 3D-ish puzzle game for the original Nintendo. I played this right when it came out, at 12 … The Call of the Solstice
Except for browser cache clearing, whenever I come to a storage clearing experience, the results range from lackluster annoyances to infuriating. There’s always something the UI doesn’t provide either during the actual cleansing process, or worse yet, before storage gets filled up, as a preventative measure. And there’s experiences like this that are so openly … Storage Space Woes
Mob Psycho 100, Season 1 An unassuming middle-schooler, Shigeo Kageyama, has superpowers that go into overdrive when he’s irritated enough to reach 100%. The anti-shonen shonen series: Mob has no interest in using his powers for world peace, or being the best, or other such lofty nonsensical goals. His greatest struggle is probably running to … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 18
Ingredients 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese 1 oz cream cheese (or 2 tablespoons) 1 cup almond flour 1 egg 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp Italian seasoning 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder Directions 1. Pre-heat oven to 450F. 2. If you don’t have almond flour (I didn’t, when I made this), you … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Almond Flour Pizza
“No, do it like this. Damnit, Susan! You’re a woman! You’re supposed to know how to use these things!” Indulge me in something personal here. I grew up near the Golden Triangle, slightly west of Boston, along the Route 9 corridor in the meaty part of Framingham and Natick. It’s one of the largest shopping … In Memory of Shoppers’ World
Note: this is for those of us with an air fryer, obviously. Ingredients 1/2 lb tail-on large shrimp 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup shredded coconut 1 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp paprika 1/4 tsp onion powder 1/4 tsp salt Directions 1. I used thawed and towel-dried shrimp for this, since it’s easier to coat and … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Coconut Shrimp
Not that I did a whole lot on there. I had a bunch of videos, the most important of which were albums from bands in my former life, and albums from others that weren’t uploaded there. I’m not a prophet but I can read the writing on the wall (archive): We also work to make … I Am Off YouTube
Especially if they are televised “experts”: Every time there’s a national disaster, a gigantic event, a shooting, a breakthrough, really any news at all, you can rely on television news to find an expert. Some of them know quite a lot about what happened, what will happen, and why. But when it comes to a … No One Knows What Will Happen
Celebrity book clubs and reading lists are hokum. They don’t select or read the books they promote; it’s all contracts between agencies and publishing houses. Similar things can be said about politicians when you see a bookshelf behind them, because it’s true (via Vox Day): Books by the Foot, a service run by the Maryland-based … Politicians Don’t Read Books
Sometimes you simply have to say “yes,” without further explanation, and let people conclude things on their own.
Useless recipe story and unappetizing photo at the bottom. Ingredients 8 bacon strips (thick cut, preferably uncured) 4 1/2 c of fresh broccoli (about 3 heads) 1 c Parmesan or Romano cheese 3 c chicken (around 2.5 lbs) 1 c heavy whipping cream 1 tbsp butter Salt and pepper, and any other spices you’d like … Recipe: Jay’s Paleo-Keto Chicken
The Secret of NIMH Leading with the best, again! But not just the best of the batch, but the best of all time. Don Bluth’s all-hand-drawn masterpiece about a widowed field mouse, her sick son, and her discovery of super smart rats who figured out how to use (steal) electricity, and their Amulet of Concentrated … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 17
Ideas like “informed consent,” “weighing all the options,” “be yourself,” “never hide what you are,” assume an allowable range of opinions and expressions. Some things are just not permitted, culturally; it’s always been that way, universal to human societies. But through our powers of observation and simple logic, and appreciation of a larger cultural context, … Don’t Think Too Much If You’re British
Interesting experiment, where some guy formed a crater and its rim companion using electricity, water, and silica. Reading up on craters, they seem to be formed by explosions of the impact bodies’ immense kinetic energy on the surface of larger bodies (planets), not the mechanical impact of the body itself. That’s the official explanation, anyway, … Electric Crater Experiment
In addition to references I’ve come across online, I’ve had a few folks independently mention the incoming solar minimum to me. It brought to mind this fascinating series of rambles from Eric Dollard. The first part appears to be filmed by a turtle, while the second half was edited by someone with tachypsychia. Everything before … Solar Minimum, 2020 Edition
From a news roundup article at Anonymous Conservative linked in Vox Day’s “The charade of success”: I always thought it bizarre Erik Prince walked into the CIA, fresh out of the Navy SEALs, heir to a billionaire fortune, as comfortable in a high-society soiree at a five star restaurant as he would be hip deep … The Limits of Ability
Pokémon Detective Pikachu Deadpool, but for kids: Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool and does Pikachu’s voice, and has pretty much the same dynamic, but without the penis jokes and wanting to kill Baby Hitler, etc. Otherwise, a forgettable cast, and there was that one scene near the end where somehow the protagonist went from one of … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 16
Anon The video record (people’s eyes record everything and everyone’s basic personal data is visible) of a spate of murder victims is replaced with the murderer’s point of view, so the investigator protag doesn’t know the culprit’s identity. Investigator-protag coincidentally comes across a woman who does not have any data. Hazard a guess as to … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 15
White Chamber Closed this one out after twenty minutes or so. I didn’t want to endure a full movie of a half-naked woman trapped in a hi-tech cube. Torture sci-fi is the worst. Coherence A dinner party goes awry when a comet passes by and they start meeting replicas of themselves down the street. So … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 14
One of my sister’s recipes. I could just call this cauliflower salad but it doesn’t sound as fun as “fake potato.” I used an avocado-based mayonnaise. It still has canola oil in it, but not as much as normal. There are better avocado-nnaises out there but they can get awfully expensive. Ingredients 2 lbs of … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Fake Potato Salad
2047: Virtual Revolution It felt like this was trying to be one of those litRPG stories in cinematic form. Or Blade Runner with updated tech. Pass on this. The Colony (2013) Paint by numbers zombie smash and grab, in an arctic-weather apocalypse. Also pass on this. Sunshine I watched this while I was high on … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 13
The 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage was earlier this week, but this isn’t directly related. A grant of suffrage privileges implies a claim ownership places on the grantee, by the state appratus. The state enters into an agreement with the voter that he casts his vote free of coercion or accountability, and in turn the … A Quick Thought About Suffrage
I stole this from a horrible recipe blog—again, one with so many ads that it crashed both Chrome and Firefox for me. It was actually a fritter recipe, but I had tried it a few times as such, but they end up being too delicate. You really need gluten to make it bind like they … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Stuffing Rice
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets From the same director who did the mostly excellent The Fifth Element, so the setting is envisioned as a colorful whizz-bang future. Being based on a graphic novel series didn’t hurt, either. This was going pretty good until the trashy Rihanna strip tease scene. A-list celebs cameos … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 12
John Carter Very ambitious offering of a story based on the excellent Barsoom book series from Edgar Rice Burroughs. The worldbuilding was nicely executed but the plot wasn’t anything unusual, but I have to give Disney credit (ew) where it’s due for making it what it was: a strange, action-filled pulp adventure. Hitchiker’s Guide to … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 11
The final boss(es) from my favorite game. I had trouble finding a decent-sized version of both the three-tier statue and Kefka, so I cobbled this together from three different images: the statues, the sun and sky background, and the crazed Kefka himself. The images are from the iOS version of the game, so the pixels … Image: Final Fantasy VI Statue of the Gods and Kefka
Investigation finds doping cover-ups in weightlifting If you found some doping and cover-ups going on, that means there’s a ton of it that is still being covered up. It’s probably everywhere at the professional level, but it’s only investigate if someone with a lot of money makes someone else with a lot of money angry. … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 35
The setting doesn’t have to be medieval period, but shouldn’t be technologically advanced. There is a mostly undetectable Functional Magic source that we’ll call tellura, since it comes from all around the earth. A rare number of people, called tellurics, are born with the ability to sense tellura more fully, and utilize it. Think of … Someone Steal This Video Game Idea: High Fantasy Open World Magic Puzzler
If you’re a working stiff like me, you will have seen a printout of the moral alignment chart tacked up in the break room somewhere, assuming your co-workers have a base level of humor. The printouts feature characters from a fictional universe (I refuse to use the word “fandom”) and the characters’ perceived alignment. If … What Is God’s Moral Alignment?
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising MHA has great animation values in the first place, but this movie added to it with some richer scenery and fight dynamics. You know something’s going to happen when a group of superheroes in training are away from their mentors on a remote island, with a “what could go wrong?” … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 10
Metal/jazz drummer Sean Reinert, died last January. He played on my favorite album of all time, Cynic’s Focus, as well as other runners-up albums, like Death’s Human and Aghora’s self-tilted. I first heard his playing at a local show in Northborough, I think at the Trinity Church. As is the standard procedure at punk and … Sean Reinert Tribute
Hawk, the Slayer I don’t know how this got greenlighted, and I don’t know how Jack Palance fell into getting involved. He probably owed someone a favor. A few funny moments here and there, but a stock, poorly-executed, sword and sorcery plot with the most non-reactive protagonist since Dar from The Beastmaster. You can watch … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 9
Around Thanksgiving one year, Seth (Buzzgrinder editor) came up with the idea of “foodifying” band names, and the resulting graphics we used for the post are below. I did the Photoshop work to screw with the band logo’s, and most of the band name bastardizations were mine. Had a hard time figuring out who Lunches … Punny Band/Food Names
This is ambiguous for a reason. Those of you who hold the proper awareness and bias would be able to understand the details. The moving images we’re seeing seeing didn’t come out of nowhere. All the opposing sides were previously hedged away from each other by geography and a veneer of civility, which began to … How It Goes
Attack on Titan, Season 1 One of the only kinda-horror series that I can tolerate, and actually enjoy. The setup with the titans is pretty basic and not a lot is spent diving into their lore; most of this first season’s runtime exposes the structure of Paradis’ military and military police. Humanity here is not … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 8
I left this comment on a recent post over at Jill’s blog: I have a theory* that we’re not really designed to hold opinions on large-scale events and the players involved. It has nothing to do with level of intelligence, it’s really a curse of information technology (starting with the telegraph) combined with our natural … It’s Entertainment All the Way Down
I created a page of all the stories I’ve posted here at jaydinitto.com—really just the “Story” category archive page. The default is to show an excerpt of the post on archive page, but I wanted to show the whole post content. Unfortunately, that’s not a option in the WordPress admin console, and WordPress’ miasma of … How to Show Full Posts on WordPress Archive Pages
Edit: I retitled this as “Part 7.5” because I had two Part 7 review posts. I can’t count. 2012 Total apocalypse p0rn to cash in on the 2012 Mayan calendar nothingburger. Totally implausible equality fingerwagging speech near the end; dude would’ve been tossed off of a glacial cliff if it happened in the real world. … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 7.5
In Soviet Russia, glasses move you! The very last scene of Tarkovsky’s Stalker has Monkey reading a book while a voiceover (presumably) announces what she is reading, which is a poem. She then closes the book, looks at the three glasses atop the table next to her, then uses telekinesis to move the the glasses. … Stalker (1979) Final Scene Explanation
The topic of the Ship of Theseus experiment came up in the last few days, from two sources independent of each other. Why not post about it? My solution involves three different concepts of ships that exist simultaneously, which we will call Rose, Sina, and Maria. Ship Rose is the concept of Theseus’s ship as … Ship of Theseus Paradox Solution
Taken from this video. Be sure to use non-frozen cauliflower; I used frozen and I think it had too much water—see the wet spots on the parchment in the photo below. Still pretty good, but a fork was needed. Ingredients 2 cups grated cauliflower 1 cup grated hard cheese (parmesan, romano) 1 egg Directions 1. … Recipe: Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Don’t take this seriously; I’m just having some fun in an “unreasonable jerk” kind way, here. Most of these were inspired from IMDB’s top list, but their popularity isn’t necessarily why I won’t watch them (there’s a number of movies I do like that are on that list). These movies listed I hear/read too much … A List of Movies I Refuse to Watch
As I Lay Dying gets their own post because I got a lot of halfway decent photos of them, and they were a pretty good live band. This was the summer before they released Shadows Are Security, their third album—or their second album with their signature sound. They weren’t too far into their career but … Photo Dump: As I Lay Dying at the Purple Door Fest (August 23, 2004)
I read Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales, cover to cover, and this story was the only one that wasn’t dark; in fact, it’s rather wholesome in a feuding siblings kind of way. It’s pretty telling the view of the world held by the Brothers Grimm, and probably most of Germany, if didactic literature for children had … Grimm’s The Four Skilful Brothers
I tried this specific recipe before but lost the link, and it took every brain cell and mouse-click finger energy to refind it. I’ll link back to the original recipe because it’s not bad as far as recipe sites go: there’s not a million ads and a novella of words to scroll past to get … Recipe: Whole Roasted Cauliflower
Gluten-free and no-bake. I stole this from somewhere. I’m not a food photographer, either. Ingredients 1 cup oats 1/2 cup chia seeds 1/3 cup sunflower seeds 1/4 cup honey 1/2 cup nut butter (peanut. cashew, almond, etc., preferably no sugar added) 1/4 cup coconut oil 1/3 cup protein powder (chocolate or vanilla) 1/3 cup chocolate … Recipe: Nut Butter Oatmeal Protein Cookies
This isn’t vanity—I was really checking my squat form, and it’s not the greatest. You’re supposed to go down far enough to “break parallel,” meaning your butt should go lower than your kneecaps so that your thighs angle down. I only have 230 lbs in the first video; my PR is 250 but even without … Rare Video Footage of Jay in the Wild
Back when I had Facebook, the Classical Art Memes page was one of my favorites. Below is a jd.com original.
An anime-only special post! Cowboy Bebop Leading with the absolute best! There’s a reason this is rated 8.9 on IMDB, 8.9 on TV.com, 100% and 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, 4.9 on Google, etc. A haphazard crew of bounty hunters try to make it in life and space. They’re not terribly great at their job, they … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 7
It’s a terrible show, but I spotted Stairwell posters in the background of the “Ted Mosby, Architect” episode of How I Met Your Mother. It’s unusual because: 1) I like the band, 2) they aren’t well-known at all, 3) even though they aren’t well-known, it still hard to find any reference to them online, and … Stairwell Posters in “How I Met Your Mother”
I’ve just published a new design of this blog. It’s not finished, so bear with me for a few days while I tighten things up. WordPress still doesn’t have a robust, native sandbox environment, so sometimes you have to put things into production in order to fix them. More details to come.
Not my blog, but blogs in general. From a post by an old friend: That’s why I think it can return to the slow and steady blog world, when we realize we don’t need to consume 1000s of bits of content every day to feel full. Open up our bookmarks, or type a URL into … The Return of the Blog
Spoilers, etc. Looks like I was wrong about Rey being a clone, but how it turned out is actually much more conducive to how I thought the film, and maybe the recent trilogy, should have gone. The movie itself was…good. The pacing was unique, at least for Abrams. There were some scenes where it felt … Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Sort of Review, and How it Should Have Gone
Rian Johnson, director of Episode VIII, really painted the franchise’s storyline into a corner. There was a lot of burning away, literal and narrative-wise, what was thought to already be established: “The Force and the Jedi are like this, which isn’t what you thought it was. Heh.” This is the fashion of things after Disney … Star Wars Episode IX Predictions
Consent culture, like everything, has hidden qualifiers. That’s just the reality of language, especially activist language. There’s plenty of forces in modern life that actively work against our consent, like taxes, but very few people would bother to frame that as an actual issue of consent. I suppose there is at least a choice: we … Death and Not Taxes
Posting some more recipes on here for the next few days. This is probably the best virtual place to keep them for me: I won’t lose them and I won’t have to patronize horribly-designed and ad-infested recipe sites. Ingredients 1/2 cup nuts (salted or un) 2/3 cup coconut flour 2 tablespoons psyllium husk powder 1 … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Rosemary Bread
Posting some more recipes on here for the next few days. This is probably the best virtual place to keep them for me: I won’t lose them and I won’t have to patronize horribly-designed and ad-infested recipe sites. Ingredients 1 lb of grass-fed ground beef 1 small onion 1 cup of sliced mushrooms 4 slices … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Hobo Casserole
Posting some more recipes on here for the next few days. This is probably the best virtual place to keep them for me: I won’t lose them and I won’t have to patronize horribly-designed and ad-infested recipe sites. Ingredients 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (or bacon fat, if you’re the non-vegan version) 1 head of … Recipe: Keto-Paleo-Vegan Spiced Cauliflower
In reality, it does mean something, because meaning requires both a communicator and receiver. It’s more accurate to say Tolkien didn’t intend for the trilogy to be anything other than a story. Not all stories have to be intended to be deep or symbolic; I share Tolkien’s distaste for allegory. With allegories, I’m always of … The Lord of the Rings Doesn’t Mean Anything
As posted on Goodreads. Total dreck! Who greenlighted this book? The author commits every cardinal sin of basic fiction writing: breaking the 4th wall, using the first person, using second person, hand-waving, telling instead of showing, archaic dialogue tags (“said Bilbo”). Some offenses the more advanced reader will notice, like no plot twists or shocking … Review of The Hobbit
You can’t subscribe to Instagram users unless you have a third party website produce an RSS feed for the account you’d like to follow (Instagram doesn’t publish feeds natively). My RSS generator decided to make you pay for their service, so I’m on the lookout for a free one because I’m cheap and have zero … Instagram Sucks Unless You Use It
Posted on Goodreads. This is more of a review of the series than the final book. Spoilers ahead. There’s two hurdles with steampunk fiction: the gadgets (and to some extent, the fashion), and the alternate history. The former challenge is a highly visual concern and doesn’t lend itself immediately to the prose format; it’s more … The Society of Steam Series Review