beast-mode-on

[beast-mode-on]

End of Listening Challenge.

This was actually really fun, and I'm gonna do more stuff like this. Its really interesting the different places in their careers the artists were at (given the arbitrary selection of the third album.) Like, most of them were before their peak, in some cases (like Weird al) decades before, but that's not the case for everyone. Also, Spotify sucks at showing chronology of albums, if I do something like this again, I'll make sure to check with a different source, cause I got some of these wrong.

Maladroit - Weezer: 9.5/10. Weezer is one of my favorite bands ever rn. They just can't do any wrong. That being said, their third album is technically the Green Album, but Spotify shows the Blue album not as their first for some reason, which hides the fact that their best album was also their debut. Maladroit is pretty much quintessential Weezer. Dookie - Green Day: 9.4/10. Arguably Green Day's best album. I wouldn't say that (I think its American Idiot, which was later), but it is really good, I mean, just the right amount of variety and cohesion. In Utero - Nirvana: 6/10. Nevermind is just better, there's some good stuff on here (especially Heart Shaped Box) but this is past their peak. Dare to Be Stupid - Weird al Yankovic: 7.2/10. This is two decades before his best stuff, but it holds up pretty well, the first like five songs are solidly great (I'd heard most of them,) two of the later ones is obsolete (as in he made multiple very similar but much better songs later (This is the Life - First World Problems/Don't Download this Song, Cable TV - UHF/Syndicated Incorporated)) and I don't understand the point of one of the others, but yeah, holds up pretty well all things considered. Ok Computer - Radiohead: 5/10. IDK, I'm not a huge Radioheadhead, I probably shouldn't have picked this one, it feels like the kind of modern art display which isn't clever but thinks it is, but maybe that's just what Radiohead sounds like, IDK. Siren Song of the Counter Culture - Rise Against: 8.2/10. Solidly great Punk Album, with an amazing Non-Punk song in there as well. Toys in the Attic - Aerosmith: 8/10: Again, arguably Aerosmith's best Album, though I'd contend it's Get a Grip, almost 20 years later, they changed surprisingly little in 20 years, I guess Aerosmith is Aerosmith and it works on any generation. The Serpent is Rising - Styx: 9/10 I need to listen to more Styx, they may be the Weezer of classic rock. I've known that they do weird stuff, but in a list with albums from Weezer, Queen, and Weird Al, this is by far the weirdest thing on here, at it fucking works. I need you to listen to this thing all the way through. It ends on the Hallelujah Chorus. Its a fucking Classic Rock album that ends on the Hallelujah Chorus. Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi: 7.5/10: Some people have serious trouble listening to Bon Jovi for extended periods of time. That's fair, Bon Jovi is quite literally all the same and they've never seen the intensity knob. That being said, this is by for Bon Jovi's best work. Queen II - Queen: 6.1/10: Its Queen, they were working up to the good stuff. On the Border - Eagles: 9.25/10: There is no bad music by the Eagles. Life on the Murder Scene - My Chemical Romance: 2/10. IDK if this is a case of early MCR sucking or if live MCR just sucks, because most of these are live versions, and it sucks so bad. Dude Ranch - Blink-182 - 3/10 Just one more album bro. Quite literally, their next album is Enema of the State, which is one of the albums of all time. You can hear all the elements almost there, but they just don't quite come together. Streetlife Seranade - Billy Joel: 4/10. No extra comment. Keep Me Fed - The Warning: 7/10. This is their most recent album, they've got room to keep rising, but its all pretty good.

I'm not a huge fan of the fact that this list only includes one release from the past 5 years, so this month's challenge is to listen to 100 songs from 2019 or later, which sounds like a lot, but is on average 3.3, which is fewer songs than I listened to per day for April's challenge. I will not give thoughts on 100 songs, but I will select a top 10-20.

Also, I'm no longer on hiatus.

[beast-mode-on]

Cooking Journal.

Lentils, black beans, cabbage, butter, spices, pot = delicious.

But now for what everyone actually wants to see: Zapiekanka. (Polish street food, a French Bread Pizza.)

First: Acquire a loaf of Fr*nch Bread i.e. a baugette, but not a hard one. Walmart sells them for 1 dollar.

Slice it in half and then lay it on a sheet pan. Slice the slices in half to do more flavors at once.

Preheat the oven to 400, or higher if you want more crispy.

Slice and apply toppings. Classic is mushrooms, cheese, and ketchup, but also anything that tastes good on pizza or would be really weird on pizza. I recommend pickles.

Mine are mushroom, onion, pickle, and radish and also mushroom, onion, pickle, jalapeños, and the red chile sauce I made for enchiladas.

Top with cheese.

Bake in the oven for like ten minutes and then broiler on for like two. Too long and the tops of the bread will burn, this is more of a concern if you have light toppings though.

Let rest, and enjoy.

[beast-mode-on]

I watched two movies this week.

The first: My Cousin Vinny 7/10. Really funny, not a whole lot to say about it.

The second: Fight Club 9.79/10. By far the best movie I've watched in a while. I would say more, but you know...

I have 6 albums to listen to in the next two days, and I gotta read a book.

In other news, I will be dropping off Tumblr almost completely until next week, as well as all other social media platforms for probably longer.

[beast-mode-on]

Cooking Journal: Whatever Pasta

Pasta with whatever canned or frozen veggies you have on hand is always a good quick meal that's easy and can make a lot of portions.

In this case, its half a box of pasta (shells,) a big can of tomatoes, and a bag of frozen peas, took like 20 minutes total, and only one pan, surprisingly good with some spices and salt sprinkled on at the end. Like three or four servings from that.

[beast-mode-on]

The Game I'm Making

The game is called Wonderlanders, and I am giving the following pieces of information.

This is the main character of the game. Their name is Scout (if you can tell me the reference, you get a prize) they're originally from our world and they do not have an assigned gender (like Undertale).

This is a workaholic slug. The shirt stain is from salsa verde.

Do with this as you wish.

[beast-mode-on]

The Game I'm Making

The game is called Wonderlanders, and I am giving the following pieces of information.

This is the main character of the game. Their name is Scout (if you can tell me the reference, you get a prize) they're originally from our world and they do not have an assigned gender (like Undertale).

This is a workaholic slug. The shirt stain is from salsa verde.

Do with this as you wish.

[beast-mode-on]

Overall really good week.

I watched The Breakfast Club, its a classic but really only like a 7/10 (and that's keeping in mind that I ranked Hoodwinked 6/10.) Like the premise of five highschoolers are locked in close quarters until they inevitably have conversations and realize they're really more similar to each other than different and leave eternally changed is good, and the dialogue and stuff is mostly really good, but I feel like it needed a full thirty minutes or so more to breathe, like none of the characters got satisfying closure to me. Oh, and there's the homophobia. And the weird segment where the goth girl gets a makeover and they play it like she was ugly before and is outstandingly pretty after, which like ew, but even if I accepted that as a valid premise, I would argue she's less pretty afterward. Also, I must have missed something, because there's seemingly no in movie reason why its called the Breakfast Club, like the nerdy guy with Generic Nerd Burnout Syndrome called it that at the end, but the only reason I can think of for why is because the movie was called that. TL;DR, good premise, less than stellar execution, leaves me feeling like I want the exact same thing, just done better. I keep having an idea for a story to do that, if I can make it a short concept, I'll write it I guess.

The albums will be listened to, this... I swear (I am infinitely frustrated that the meme I want for this does not exist).

[beast-mode-on]

Cooking Journal 3:

To use the rest of the sauce I made yesterday, I made a big pan of food loosely inspired by chilequiles. I fried the rest of my corn tortillas in a little oil (tear them in half first, make sure not to burn them, it can go really fast if you get it hot enough.) I put this on top of rice, beans, half an onion, and two Poblanos, and topped with the rest of my sauce. I put it in the oven for ten minutes.

[beast-mode-on]

Cooking Journal 2: Post Mortem on Veggie Enchiladas.

I cannot emphasize enough how little the fillings matter when you drench everything in this much strongly flavored sauce*, you could probably include just about any food that you want to get rid of, as long as its in bits, I probably won't bother setting aside specific things for the filling in the future. But I do enjoy specifically cooked spinach and mushrooms as a flavor combination, I think I'll just use that for other things where it can shine a little more. Butternut squash (which this was my first time cooking) is a great filler. The sauce itself needed something to sweeten it, and should have been more liquidy, a lot of it cooked off, as did a good deal of spice (I'll do more spice in the future‚ but it turned out about how I would imagine most people wanting it.) To this extent, I think adding a little bit of canned tomato might help. I think a version of this as Chilequiles would be the absolute bomb.

* It absolutely matters if you are using store bought sauce or if you didn't coat both sides of every tortilla and then pour more on top.

[beast-mode-on]

Before someone notices, Dude Ranch is usually listed as Blink-182's second album, with Enema of the State as their third, but Spotify counts Buddha as their first album (technically a "demo album"), so I counted from there.

My Neighbor Totoro, 9/10

This is not my first Ghibli film, I'd watched three (Spirited Away, 8/10, Howl's Moving Castle, ?/10, and The Boy and the Heron, 7/10) and while I liked all three of those, My Neighbor Totoro was the first one that really clicked for me and I was fully certain that I saw what the appeal is supposed to be. Its utterly delightful, literally just a cozy slice of life about a family moving to the country and then meeting the giant spirit of the forest (Totoro is like 50% Korok, 50% Snorlax, its awesome.) The listening challenge is going slower than I wanted, but I'll get done by the end of the month. I've listened to some of these part of the way through, and I'm gonna want to go back and relisten to parts before I give my thoughts on some of these.

Here's my progress so far: In the order decided on, not listened to or released. Maladroit - Weezer. Dookie - Green Day. In Utero - Nirvana - Finished. Dare to Be Stupid - Weird al Yankovic - Finished. Ok Computer - Radiohead. Siren Song of the Counter Culture - Rise Against. Toys in the Attic - Aerosmith. The Serpent is Rising - Styx. Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi. Queen II - Queen. On the Border - Eagles. Made to be Broken - Soul Asylum. Dude Ranch - Blink-182. Streetlife Seranade - Billy Joel. And cause music isn't dead: Keep Me Fed - The Warning. New thing coming tomorrow.

[beast-mode-on]

Cooking Journal 1:

This is the thing I hinted about on monday, but I ended up not starting it yesterday. The idea is that every time I make a full meal for myself, I document it, that way I can keep a record for myself for future cooking endeavors. I'm doing it on tumblr because I find it easier to write stuff straight onto tumblr than to most other places. Today I am making enchiladas. I've made enchiladas before, but I've never made the most important part of the enchilada (the sauce) from scratch before, but I found a good recipe (for sauce) that I've wanted to try for a while, and I'm making it. The first step in making the sauce (which my recipe source, which I will link, calls red chili sauce, but most Americans know as enchilada sauce) is to acquire Guajillo and Ancho chiles, for which you need to either use the internet and get them shipped or go to a Mexican supermarket. I did the latter. Then I toasted them a little, till they just barely started to smoke. Transfer them to a cutting board and deseed them (before getting to far, put a kettlefull of water going for the soaking step) and I just tossed the stems and seeds into the pan I cooked them in and then threw them out (I'm not washing the pan though, cause I'll use that to make the filling and I'd like to keep any residual flavor.) Once deseeded, the chiles go into a bowl to soak in the boiled water from the kettle for about ten minutes. (Note: make sure to put enough water in, some will evaporate.) This is the first time I'm using this blender, so I'm taking this time to wash it.

The soaked chiles go in the blender with cumin (essential), garlic (which I can't taste in this particular mixture, it'd be better to use fresh roasted), red pepper flakes (which he says in the video could work, but next time I'mma grab one of those other dried peppers at the supermarket, its truly not a great element,) some salt, a little bit of sugar, a dash of El Yucateco (at some point I'll make a version with actual habeneros, I think that would utterly serve,) tiny bit of vinegar/lime juice for brightness, cilantro (as expected, cannot taste) and a little under 1.5 cups of the soaking water and blend the heck out of it.

And that's the sauce. I got 0.8 liters, or 3 cups. If you were making a lot of it, you might be able to concentrate some of the flavor by using a small amount of water and soaking multiple rounds in it, but I don't really know. I didn't need most of the water for the sauce. Next up is the filling.

I'm cooking a full butternut squash, I'm not using all of that for the enchiladas, because that much squash is too much filling alone. About half will go in the filling, the other half we'll save for later. I pan seared small chunks in a little oil to the same tenderness I like carrots, just barely fork tender. Then after removing the squash to a container (where about half will stay) spinach, which goes very quickly, I used a full 10 ounce bag, and cooked it until it went down to about a fifth of the original volume, or when it stops rapidly losing volume. While the spinach cooks, cut the mushrooms into mostly pretty tiny bits. Put more oil in to cook the mushrooms, until they lose about half of their volume. Recombine all three into the pan in about roughly equal volumes (using all of the mushrooms and spinach.) And preheat the oven to 400 while you microwave your tortillas. With supermarket corn tortillas, there is no way that they will survive unless they are reheated. At this point, I've got my big pyrex casserole dish, and I'm going to pour some of the enchilada sauce in. Each tortilla should be dipped and rubbed around with the sauce on the bottom of the pan before filling (spatula or spoon, or honestly your fingers are really the best for portioning it out) and rolling. My pan makes 10 enchiladas in two big rows going from long side to long side. The last few will have to be sauced with a spoon. You could make an additional one for the end, but I like to just dump excess filling there. Then put more sauce all over the top (remembering that they're en-chil-adas, the sauce is the king here) and top with cheese. I shredded like 2 oz of colby jack, that will probably be too little for most people, but I think its good to have some spots without cheese on there. Then put it in the oven for a while, until everything looks good and the sauce is browned. And its delicious, who would have thought. I need to figure out what to do with the rest of the sauce though.

[beast-mode-on]

Cooking Journal 1:

This is the thing I hinted about on monday, but I ended up not starting it yesterday. The idea is that every time I make a full meal for myself, I document it, that way I can keep a record for myself for future cooking endeavors. I'm doing it on tumblr because I find it easier to write stuff straight onto tumblr than to most other places. Today I am making enchiladas. I've made enchiladas before, but I've never made the most important part of the enchilada (the sauce) from scratch before, but I found a good recipe (for sauce) that I've wanted to try for a while, and I'm making it. The first step in making the sauce (which my recipe source, which I will link, calls red chili sauce, but most Americans know as enchilada sauce) is to acquire Guajillo and Ancho chiles, for which you need to either use the internet and get them shipped or go to a Mexican supermarket. I did the latter. Then I toasted them a little, till they just barely started to smoke. Transfer them to a cutting board and deseed them (before getting to far, put a kettlefull of water going for the soaking step) and I just tossed the stems and seeds into the pan I cooked them in and then threw them out (I'm not washing the pan though, cause I'll use that to make the filling and I'd like to keep any residual flavor.) Once deseeded, the chiles go into a bowl to soak in the boiled water from the kettle for about ten minutes. (Note: make sure to put enough water in, some will evaporate.) This is the first time I'm using this blender, so I'm taking this time to wash it.

The soaked chiles go in the blender with cumin (essential), garlic (which I can't taste in this particular mixture, it'd be better to use fresh roasted), red pepper flakes (which he says in the video could work, but next time I'mma grab one of those other dried peppers at the supermarket, its truly not a great element,) some salt, a little bit of sugar, a dash of El Yucateco (at some point I'll make a version with actual habeneros, I think that would utterly serve,) tiny bit of vinegar/lime juice for brightness, cilantro (as expected, cannot taste) and a little under 1.5 cups of the soaking water and blend the heck out of it.

And that's the sauce. I got 0.8 liters, or 3 cups. If you were making a lot of it, you might be able to concentrate some of the flavor by using a small amount of water and soaking multiple rounds in it, but I don't really know. I didn't need most of the water for the sauce. Next up is the filling.

I'm cooking a full butternut squash, I'm not using all of that for the enchiladas, because that much squash is too much filling alone. About half will go in the filling, the other half we'll save for later. I pan seared small chunks in a little oil to the same tenderness I like carrots, just barely fork tender. Then after removing the squash to a container (where about half will stay) spinach, which goes very quickly, I used a full 10 ounce bag, and cooked it until it went down to about a fifth of the original volume, or when it stops rapidly losing volume. While the spinach cooks, cut the mushrooms into mostly pretty tiny bits. Put more oil in to cook the mushrooms, until they lose about half of their volume. Recombine all three into the pan in about roughly equal volumes (using all of the mushrooms and spinach.) And preheat the oven to 400 while you microwave your tortillas. With supermarket corn tortillas, there is no way that they will survive unless they are reheated. At this point, I've got my big pyrex casserole dish, and I'm going to pour some of the enchilada sauce in. Each tortilla should be dipped and rubbed around with the sauce on the bottom of the pan before filling (spatula or spoon, or honestly your fingers are really the best for portioning it out) and rolling. My pan makes 10 enchiladas in two big rows going from long side to long side. The last few will have to be sauced with a spoon. You could make an additional one for the end, but I like to just dump excess filling there. Then put more sauce all over the top (remembering that they're en-chil-adas, the sauce is the king here) and top with cheese. I shredded like 2 oz of colby jack, that will probably be too little for most people, but I think its good to have some spots without cheese on there. Then put it in the oven for a while, until everything looks good and the sauce is browned. And its delicious, who would have thought. I need to figure out what to do with the rest of the sauce though.

[beast-mode-on]

My Neighbor Totoro, 9/10

This is not my first Ghibli film, I'd watched three (Spirited Away, 8/10, Howl's Moving Castle, ?/10, and The Boy and the Heron, 7/10) and while I liked all three of those, My Neighbor Totoro was the first one that really clicked for me and I was fully certain that I saw what the appeal is supposed to be. Its utterly delightful, literally just a cozy slice of life about a family moving to the country and then meeting the giant spirit of the forest (Totoro is like 50% Korok, 50% Snorlax, its awesome.) The listening challenge is going slower than I wanted, but I'll get done by the end of the month. I've listened to some of these part of the way through, and I'm gonna want to go back and relisten to parts before I give my thoughts on some of these.

Here's my progress so far: In the order decided on, not listened to or released. Maladroit - Weezer. Dookie - Green Day. In Utero - Nirvana - Finished. Dare to Be Stupid - Weird al Yankovic - Finished. Ok Computer - Radiohead. Siren Song of the Counter Culture - Rise Against. Toys in the Attic - Aerosmith. Finished. The Serpent is Rising - Styx. Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi. Finished. Queen II - Queen. On the Border - Eagles. Made to be Broken - Soul Asylum. Dude Ranch - Blink-182. Finished. Streetlife Seranade - Billy Joel. And cause music isn't dead: Keep Me Fed - The Warning. New thing coming tomorrow.

[beast-mode-on]

Ok, I'm a serious Jack Black fan, but before today I hadn't watched Nacho Libre, that has now been corrected. I liked it, but its not his best work. 7/10, largely because the love interest is characterized pretty much only as "ooh, hot nun, but oh no she's serious about being a nun" and the romance only serves as a very lazy way to advance the plot which doesn't seem necessary given the other characterization elements.

Also I started a listening game where I listen to the third album of 15 music artists (I don't listen to full albums normally, the third thing is arbitrary, so I don't have to choose). Its fun, more thoughts when I finish.

[beast-mode-on]

End of quarter!

Yes, that's right, its been a full quarter of a year.

First things first I did watch two movies: Everything Everywhere All at Once and Rango. Which I think in terms of pure quality are surprisingly evenly matched.

Everything Everywhere is essentially existentialist (a philosophical stance long time viewers may remember I vibe with real hard), it was very well thought through from a philosophical standpoint and it shows. Its also funny and heartwarming. 9 out of 10.

Rango is a story about making an identity for yourself, and its an animated western with a car chase scene that uses both Flight of the Valkyries and the Blue Danube, which is fucking epic. Its also funny and heartwarming. 9 out of 10.

I finished Earthbound, finally! 8 out of 10, only losing points for having certain really frustrating mechanical choices around randomness. Awesome story, great design, lots of really fun stuff there, but its also from 1995 and it shows, play Undertale first and if you love that, play Earthbound.

I read a solid 4 books in three months, and watched a full movie every week for that period.

Other things this project has helped that I haven't really documented yet:

Getting off reddit (I switched to Lemmy which is much better) completely and drastically cutting my Youtube consumption.

Eliminating most apps from my phone and cutting my usage drastically (low score of weekly average 26 minutes a day.)

Cooking almost completely vegetarian at home.

Doing more regular cleaning and laundry, including reducing the amount of my wardrobe I'm using to reduce laundry burden.

Going forward I am going to keep the movie and book challenges going, but I'm going to up the ante to two books per month. I am also going to start telling yáll things about the game I'm working on. Also, I really want to start tagging my posts consistently on my main blog, so I'mma do that. Also I want to do a musician of the month in my final post for every month going forward (we'll see about this one.)

So far, I can confirm that this is a value add endeavor. I highly recommend it to anyone. For reference, look up CGP Grey's video Your Theme, and quite literally start at any time (its such a flexible framework).

[beast-mode-on]

Well guess what, spending time with family, driving two hours, and then baking pies for a fundraiser doesn't leave one with a whole lot of energy.

Monday, monday I will post a retrospective on the quarter year I've been doing this project. This will include two movies, because I missed this week.

Then posts will be on mondays.

[beast-mode-on]

Bumping this till tomorrow cause busy is busy.