1199 Pity Him.

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I’ve never been much of a cook. I can make something out of a book, but if you want innovation I am not your man. Much like with painting I’ve never truly been able to wrap my brain around cooking. I can ape the motions, but that’s about it. My father’s mother was much more of a kitchen artist. She just kind of threw things into other things and then it was food. Not a lot of measuring tools. I guess that’s what practice and experience can do for any skill though. From the outside it still looks a bit like magic.

I apparently still have Harvest Moon for the GBC. The instruction book isn’t in the box, but I suspect I still have it hidden away someplace. I think it’s kind of the gem out of the pile of old handheld games I’ve got here. There’s also Spiderman GBC, Lemmings GBC, Blaster Master Enemy Below GBC, Brain Games GBA, Sonic Advance GBA, Super Mario Brothers Deluxe GBC, and Metal Slug Advance GBA. I barely played these when they were new. These were mostly purchases made just to have a new thing before I moved on to something better. I actually really wanted Metal Slug when it came out, but then I realized that I kind of hate Metal Slug games after about one level. Sometimes I forget this and almost buy another, but so far reason has won out. Sonic Advance is kind of a similar thing. I’m compelled to buy old style Sonic games, but they actually kind of suck. The only one I ever really liked was Sonic and Knuckles, but that’s mainly because it made you feel like you were cheating when you played the older games with Knuckles. I actually tried to play that Sonic RPG that came out for the DS a few years ago. Since Bioware had a hand in it I thought it was a safe bet. I was wrong. It was boring and I felt like I wasted my money. Luckily I got it on clearance, so I only wasted a little of it. (I’m pretty sure I still have it if you’re a big time Sonic fan. The game is actually well made, I just found that I don’t care about STH, or his friends, and subsequently couldn’t buy in to the story.) Different strokes and all that.

I’m thinking about getting rid of Disgaea 1 and 2, La Pucille Tactics, and the other one that’s a similar kind of game whose name I forget. The main character puts ghosts into things. I actually really love the DS version of Disgaea. The PSP version of 1 nad 2 are okay 2, but the bottom map screen really improved the play for me. The fact of the matter is that I’m never going to sit down and play these games on a console. Someone should enjoy them though. They are really excellent tactics games with an insane amount of content to play through. I think I still have a guide for LPT too. I really love the art for the series as well. Particularly the protagonist of LPT. If you know what she looks like that shouldn’t be a surprise.

I’ve been “watching” some of those animated Marvel movies on Netflix while I’ve been sorting stuff. It is surprising how mediocre they are. As I’ve said before, DC does animation right, and Marvel does live action right. I guess that’s just how it’s going to be for a while. I mean the stories are good and pretty true to the source material in most cases, but it looks like TV animation for the ones I’ve seen. The Doctor Strange movie managed to do something that is pretty rare. I actually skipped to the end after getting a ways in to it. I just wanted a little closure, but wasn’t willing to subject myself to any more of the movie to get it. It was just boring to me. This coming from someone who generally enjoys tedious activities. I couldn’t stick with it. On the other hand I liked the first Ultimate Avengers movie and Planet Hulk was kind of compelling too. Of all the Marvel movies I watched ultimate Avengers was the only one where I’d actually read the comic too.

Anyway, I’m really tired right now. I think I might be getting a cold. I’m going to sleep for a bit and see if it helps. Hopefully I can wake up in time to tweet the comic link…

63 Comments

Why would they charge him extra for having Carol over his place? Is the cost of appartments on a per head basis?

Is this an American thing?

That’s what I’m wondering as I have never heard of charging ‘per head’ for a rental appartment here in Oz.

It is pretty common in America and Canada to add a charge for each person living in an apartment. There are also occupancy laws that vary from state to state. You can see some other readers have also replied to these questions below.

so.. does this include utilities and services then? The rental sector in UK is much smaller and there is very little rental property built for rent, most is converted older property or family accommodation built by municipal authorities.

I lived in an apartment in Houston for a while and the shared utilities (laundry room, phone switchboard with a fixed number of lines for the building, fixed choice of tv channels etc) drove me up the wall.

Another thing the owners and occupants have to deal with is parking spaces. The covered ones are especially coveted. In TX, shade means cooler cars when you get in (even though they’ll still be about 100 degrees inside), and less trouble with “gifts” from migratory birds.

There was also the one time I had a 12 gauge slug put a massive hole in my windshield. In hindsight, I should’ve reported it to the police.

Don’t shoot straight up in the air, people. What comes up, MUST come down, even when it comes to guns.

maybe depends on the lease agreement?

You might care to explain this for non-US readers. European and UK leases are usually just a matter of rent and duration. The landlord can’t accept a tenancy which amounts to legal overcrowding, and will require someone to be responsible for the rent and bills, and sub-letting is usually excluded (note that this is not the same as taking on a room-mate who doesn’t sign the tenancy) but otherwise the tenant can do pretty much as they please.

US states have lease agreements for a per head deal (it’s supposed to be for safety and legal reasons, but it’s really to squeeze more money out of the tenant). Basically the landlord or superintendent will charge the tenant extra if they believe a tenant has somebody living there (living there usually is beyond 3 days and nights, but it varies based on the landlord and/or company) without notifying the leasing office. That’s what is going on here, Carol believes that with how much she is coming over the super will believe that she’s starting to live there.

So, Sonic Adventure for the DC… What else do you have left for it? Including the console.controllers/etc if you do.

For what it’s worth, I have two controllers, two VMUs (or is it three?), a keyboard adapter, the VGA adapter (though it’ll be mostly obsolete by now), and a third-party light gun. I don’t have the console or games anymore. Just the peripherals. I’ll have to look and see if I have the cables. As much as I miss the DC, I’m not going to invest in another one.

Pretty much all of it is great shape, though you might need to change the VMU batteries.

I enjoy cooking, it’s fun. What’s really fun is when the people you cook for enjoy the meal you’ve prepared. When I was young, my family practically lived in the kitchen and only went in the living room to watch TV. My Mom let me make breakfast and lunch when I was twelve and I liked experimenting with different foods; I still do.

I like cooking. My daughter likes cooking.
My son can burn water. I’ve seen him do it.

Pity him.

Fear him.

I’d slap him, personally. How do you not get through life without knowing how to perform the basic culinary actions!? I can understand if someone isn’t able to bake, but to not to proficiently use a skillet, griddle, or grill? Shame on him!

I don’t understand what half of those words meant….

I can cook stuff without burning it sort of (most of the time), but cooking is something i could care less about.

I mostly get herbs and spices and add it to things i half ass cook and it tastes fine, why bother with more then that?

I don’t even have to stay with what i’m cooking,or set an alarm. I wander away and just come back when it feels like it’s time, and my food is almost always perfect. Very rarely does it over cook and never by much.

I strongly recommend crockpots for people who can’t, or don’t like to, cook. Or casseroles. When you ape the motions, is edible food the result? Then it’s good enough.

I love my crock pot. Great for those lazy weekend suppers, get something started around noon and it’s ready by the time your hungry. Great for pulled pork. Just use your pork of choice (either shoulder or loin depending on what you can easily obtain) add some onions, half a bottle of your preferred Barbeque sauce and let it cook. An hour before you want to eat, pull it, add the other half of the barbeque sauce and blammo! Delicious.

I dunno, maybe improvisational cooking _is_ magic, as far as I can tell. I can teach pretty much anything I know how to do, except for that. Because I don’t know how I acquired the skill and I don’t know how I do it. I moved out of my parents’ house and discovered that if I got out pots and pans and made cooking motions at the stove with knives and spoons, ingredients were transformed into meals that I, my housemates, and other friends liked a lot. But it was another fifteen years or so before I worked up my nerve to try cooking from a _recipe_. (Because if I was improvising, being surprised by what I wound up with was okay, but if I started off knowing what I was trying to make and how it was supposed to come out, that meant it was possible to do it _wrong_.) Even now I have trouble resisting the urge to tinker with a recipe I intended to follow, and add Glennish touches to it. And when I Google how to make something I have no clue about, I’m more likely to skim a couple recipes then go off to improvise using what I’ve just read as a loose framework instead of following a recipe step by step.

(I’m slowly learning that I need to take notes while I improvise dishes I plan to share, in case somebody asks me for “the recipe” later.)

This is where anyone her who bakes gets to jump in and point out how “cooking” and “baking” are different skills. (AFAICT, to improvise _baking_ you really do have to actually _understand_ baking and already be good at it. The times when I do follow a recipe step by step are usually those rare times when I try to bake something.)

In musical improvisation I often don’t know what notes I’m going to play next until my fingers move, but I can still teach the skill of improvisation because I remember what I had to learn to get the hang of it. With cooking, I have no idea where to start because I didn’t consciously learn, so much as discover I could already do it. And when the process for my earliest dishes included, “I tasted it and realized it needed a red spice so I opened all the jars of red spices and sniffed them until I found the one it needed,” how do I teach that process?

Oh, and what Skelepunk said about aping the motions being good enough if the result is food you like, and what XMinusOne said about watching other people enjoy food you made — these are spot-on. And I’ll take it on faith that crockpots are good for folks who can’t cook or don’t like to, but I’ll note that they’re also good for people who do like to cook. Especially for things like chili.

Or roast. I’ve created a beautiful bison roast with just coffee and a few spices. So I’ll concede the crockpot point.

If cooking is magic, baking is alchemy.

“If cooking is magic, baking is alchemy.”

Okay, I officially want an apron that says this. With corresponding pictures.

Looks like Thomas has a victory through incompetence. I’d love it if I had a Carol cook for me. My last several relationships, I did all the cooking because the girls I dated were terrible cooks.

Another on the fly improve cook here even though my forte and love is baking. As somebody already mentioned earlier, there is no on the fly improv baking. That takes a bit of planning and experimentation. I still remember my biggest baking blunder – chocolate biscotti – I had used way way waaaay too much cocoa powder, chocolate chips and dipping chocolate.

As for the chilli, the secret is just decent ingredients and slow cooking, though some of those recipes sound more like veggie soup than a chilli. ^_-

Ah, cooking. My Dad was a Chemical Engineer and the youngest of four motherless children. He learned to fend for himself pretty early, having three older sisters wanting to get on with their own lives, not babysitting a little brother. I guess my Granddad was a pretty good cook in his own right, and being a mason and working a bunch of odd jobs, got through the Great Depression keeping food on the table for a family of five, but wasn’t always home often enough to cook for them all. My Dad’s attitude was that cooking, even from a recipe, was a chemistry experiment, and the kitchen was his laboratory. He loved cooking for himself or all of us until not long before the end.

Mom came from a variety of cultures, but she was effectively an orphan, passed from relative to relative. During the depression in the hills of West Virginia, food could mean something from a can (she never had access to a real refrigerator until she was a teenager) but more often meant killing a chicken and using everything but the squawk. In really hard times, she and an Uncle would hunt or trap squirrel or possum. Her Aunts taught her to cook on wood or coal stoves with cast iron and porcelain pots and pans. Later, she shared an apartment that had a gas stove. She feared the gas more than the wood stoves, and always had electric stoves after she and Dad got their first apartment. Somewhere, I think from a roommate or a landlady, Mom learned to cook Italian. She was an excellent cook and could make the most base ingredients sing.

Dad’s philosophy was, as soon as a kid was tall enough to reach the top of the stove and mature enough not to burn himself, he learned to cook. My oldest brother was a trained chef (didn’t like the heat, got out of the kitchen) and I love eating at his place. My middle brother isn’t afraid the stove, but he usually isn’t too inspired. He can do breakfast better than my wildest dreams, though. My baby sister learned to cook after she got married and had a kid. I guess Mom kind of let the kitchen thing slide with her. I suck at making breakfast (my eggs never come out right and can’t make a proper omelet to save my life) but I can make just about anything else. Roast a chicken? No problem. The plan for my chili is under the previous episode’s comments. I modified recipes stolen from Mom and a few cookbooks until their authors wouldn’t recognize them — but more than edible. I’m not afraid to take meat, veggies and sauce in hand and improvise — stir fried random is my specialty. A former girlfriend cursed me, saying I wouldn’t marry until I found a woman who could cook better than I could. So far, I’m still looking. Sorry for the wall of text, but food is something about which I am passionate.

Oh, cast iron, right. Thanks for reminding me.

I bought a few pieces specifically to use over wood fires when camping, but of course I had to season them first, and then try them a few times on the gas stove to get used to them …

… and I haven’t touched any of my other pans in the decade and a half since. (Pots, yes. Pans/skillets, no, just the cast iron.)

The cast iron dutch oven is nice, even if it works a little better buried in the coals at the edge of a campfire than it does in the oven at home (it’s still the best way to do roasted vegetables but a covered glass baking dish does almost as well at home); the cauldron was disappointing because it’s so thick that it takes forever to eat up (but hey, it’s sturdy enough to feel safe hanging it over a fire from a tripod); cast iron skillets are the real prize. A cast iron skillet gets better the longer you use it unless to goof badly enough to really screw up the coating, metal spatulas are actually good for them, and if you _do_ wreck the coating you just burn it off, re-season the skillet, and you’re back in business. Forget about Teflon — cast iron is the way to go.

I had no idea I would like cast iron so much when I bought it. I really thought I was just going to keep it in the camping kit.

Seasoning the cast iron didn’t work too well for me. It tasted pretty good, but it was tough as all get-out. Perhaps you could recommend a good tenderizer?

Seems to me like at least part of Carol’s pupil should be visible in frame two. Is that just me?

Nah. Her pupil/iris is pegged out to the right, and her hair is covering the right-most part of her eye.

Her hair and eyes are pretty huge. That’s a lot of real-estate to hide your eyes in.

A little off-topic. I just heard about a movie called Watership Down that has really triggered my curiosity. The thing is, I don’t want to spend the $40-$60 it would take to buy it from Amazon just to see it.

I may get the book, but I’m mostly curious who else has heard of it. Only heard of it! I think I’ve had enough spoiled about it watching the video that introduced it to me.

That’s an old movie. I’ve seen it on YouTube as an upload at least once as a suggestion.

I was looking for it on Youtube yesterday. I kept finding things that weren’t the original movie. I gathered it is older than I am. It has the same kind of feel as other animated movies from the era.

I did at least find an opening sequence. Can’t remember if it was for the TV show or the movie. I was very surprised to find that Andrew Lloyd Webber did some of the music. (He put together the Broadway version of The Phantom of the Opera. I’m sure there are others.)

I would recommend the book over the movie.
It was compelling when I studied it at school, though it was pretty sad for me.

Yeah, after “The Secret of NIMH” vs “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH”, it was kind of hard to judge how these two works would be.

NIMH, in print vs on-screen are similar in only a very few ways. So much so, I suspect Don Bluth liked the characters, but didn’t really like the story, maybe? I really do think he just took the characters and adapted them to his interests. That’s as far as the movie is based off of the book.

I hope the parallels between NIMH and Watership are obvious, even if the similarities are just little critters with fur and big teeth. I mean, what else have we got to make comparisons with? An American Tale?

Fievel vs. Fiver. vs Timmy. Fight!

Ha, yeah I couldn’t get very far into the Sonic RPG for the same reason: I just hate those characters now. I loved when they didn’t talk. Those were good times. The only thing that took me at least a short way into the game was the fact that they gave you options for Sonic to say, and one of those options was always an asshole response. They even WARNED you to not use those too often because you might miss information by pissing people off. Well fuck it – Amy and Tails never gave me any interesting information. I always kept them pissed, because if they’re finally gona give me the choice to say shit to them, then I’m gona take it.

Anyway, in that list of GBC games: were you getting rid of those? ‘Cause I tried to buy Mario Bros Deluxe awhile back, but two purchases in a row got me two games that didn’t work, for some reason. I didn’t try for a third, but I still kinda want it.

I’ll sell Mario Deluxe for sure. I haven’t tried it since I put it back in the box, but it was fine last I checked. I don’t remember if it has a battery backup or not. If it did there’s a good chance it won’t save anymore.

Hmm…the ones I bought just straight up didn’t work. Hadn’t thought about the battery backup not working if I managed to find a working cart. Did GBC games really die that easily? I still got saves in old GB carts like Zelda.

It’s kind of random. My old Zelda cartridge still saves, but pokemon red through crystal won’t save anymore. That’s the tragic flaw of those old battery saves. Sometimes the battery was superior… and sometimes not so much. It’s actually not that hard to fix if you have a couple of the right tools, but it can go awry. Plus, especially with the GBC games, it’s easy to tell if they’ve been repaired. Not a problem if you’re going to actually play them, but it does bother some people.

The most amazing item I have that still saves is my NES Final Fantasy cart. Sucker was doused in a basement flood and it still works – original save intact. I guess you’re right…some just have better batteries than others (and I guess they can fit a bigger one in bigger carts? Perhaps that’s it.)

Anyway, I’ll take the chance that the thing doesn’t save anymore. What’s your asking price?

How about $15 and I’ll cover the shipping?

On my second read through after a long hiatus, so I know my comments are waaaay too late, but sometimes I have to reach out. I get what you mean about cooking. I find a good recipe, and I can follow it. It might even occur to me to add a few extra spices or some extra veggies.

But there is another breed of human being that can look at all the leftovers, stuff languishing in the freezer, the pantry, and they work magic. Making something from what is, to all us Neanderthals clinging to our recipes, ostensibly nothing. Half a can of tomato paste, old rice, half a bag of flour tortillas, a dusty jar of Tikka Marsala, and all the veggies at the bottom of the bin that have been there so long that it’s all sprouted roots; they can take it all and use it to open a frigging curry takeout shop. Lord knows, Mom did her best at teaching me “The Art of Scrounging,” as she called it, but genetics is always a factor, and Dad had all the culinary skill of an improperly baked brick. Between the two, I suppose it could have certainly turned out worse.

Hmm. Now I have to ask Mom if she thinks she can figure out a book teaching people The Tao of Gastronomic Propitiation. Better names?

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