Draginon

Not a recipe but a kind of hack I had to do. I had gotten a lobster, it was presteamed so I just had to reheat it, but I didn’t have a cracker or a chef’s knife to help open it so I resorted to using a can opener and a butter knife. It worked wonders since I’d never tried to do lobster at home, I’ve done it at Red Lobster, and I got the majority of the meat pretty fast. I didn’t want to bother with the body/head meat and deal with serious cleaning for a tiny bit of meat so I did just the claw, knuckle and tail. Probably took about 20 minutes from first getting it out of the oven to final cleaning to make sure no shell was on it.

Still kind of watching Dragon Ball GT. The fight scenes don’t enthrall me like they used to as a teen so I end up zoning out during fight heavy episodes. I got through the first three sagas (Black Star Balls, Baby and Super 17) and only have the Shadow Dragons saga left. My order for these sagas have to be Shadow Dragons, Baby, Black Star Balls and Super 17. They did have one ‘filler’ episode between Baby and Super 17 where the gang participate in the World Fighter Tournament (I might’ve butchered that) but it’s considered part of the Super 17 saga but I think it was much better than the saga as a whole considering the only thing I liked from the saga was the ending of the fight when Android 18 comes in to assist Goku in stopping Super 17. This was also the shortest saga so that says a lot about it when it felt longer than the other sagas. Once I’m done with this show I’m moving on to something more intellectual that I hope will entertain me better.

Not bad enough to get my day bad but enough to get to me. The best analogy is the penny where by itself it’s worthless but you get enough of them together and you get a happy meal or something that has worth. One of those was my mother’s micro aggressions and insults towards me. We were going to Jack in the Box since she wanted onion rings and the conversation turned to food advertisement and I mentioned there was one where it was very obvious the guy wasn’t actually given a burger because of the way he was holding it and the way he bit in was like biting air. She turned it around to criticize the way I hold my burgers. My way of holding it? Thumb on the bottom bun and fingers on top, which is the normal way to hold it. She treats it as me holding it upside down and my elbows sticking out even with my head. This might seem like small potatoes but remember my analogy earlier, stuff like this gets to me more and more these days.

There’s good news for us PS4 players, you can crossplay where you can transfer your save file, get the graphical updates for free and only have to pay for Yuffie as DLC.

You might want to wait for the PS5 edition to drop since it’s going to have improved graphics and performance along with a new episode focusing on Yuffie showing what she’s up to during the Midgar story.

Playing the 5th and 6th Ace Attorney games and periodically going back to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla when new stuff drops. A new festival season starts this week so I’m going to see what it entails once it starts. I’m hoping it’s better than the stuff from Yule since I’m getting restless for Ireland, Paris and Discovery Mode since the river raids didn’t cut it.

Got distracted from Colour of Magic for a few days but I finished it yesterday. It wasn’t a LOL funny for me but I did get a few chuckles out of it and appreciated the jokes I did get the reference to. Twoflower was a little groan worthy at the beginning but he grew on me by the end. Rincewind was very enjoyable the whole time. Luggage... it was hit and miss for me but I will say when Rincewind ended up on the airplane in the dragon chapter and Luggage appeared it felt like a horror movie moment and I had to reread a few sentences just to make sure I was reading it right. I won’t give my thoughts on Death since I’ve heard He’s not his normal self in this book and He starts being the Death everyone loves in the next book but solidified in Mort. I was surprised by the lack of footnotes in the book since even I know how famous Pratchett is for having footnotes and there’s only one here and I think it was just to explain the seasons. I hope the rest have way more than that to justify the whole being famous for them. Well onto The Light Fantastic and see how Rincewind survives his cliffhanger to end up doing more ‘adventures’ on the Discworld.

Playing Ace Attorney Duel Destinies and just encountered a joke that made me snort. It’s one of those ‘My goodness Nintendo’ jokes that you don’t expect from a family friendly gaming company (yes this game is more for adults and is rated M but that’s for the graphic nature of the death in the final trial). The joke kind of goes like this: Aura: Her respect as a co-worker wasn’t all that I wanted! The Judge: Hmm... Then what did you want from her? Phoenix: (...Did you really just go there, Your Honor?!) What made it funnier is that during all exchanges with Aura it’s hinted that she was in love with the victim of the retrial and the judge is being such a naive cinnamon roll not to notice the subtext.

Got a bit of a holiday right now on account of weather. Off since Thursday until Wednesday because of snow and how cold it is. Here’s how crazy it is with the cold, it’s in the single digits and is colder than it was when I was up in Illinois for New Years and it was cold enough to snow up there so that says something. Here’s another comparison, when it was in the 20’s there a sweater/hoodie was enough, here you need to bundle up in the same temperature range! When I was up there I only wore a heavy coat one day the entire time there but here it’s crazy to go out without bundling up like the young brother in A Christmas Story. How can the 20 degree range be warmer up north than in the south???

Doing a bit of a binge of Dragon Ball GT. Don’t know how people can watch an entire show in one sitting since it’s a pain to sit through a couple hours of a show, let alone 5+ hours, without a break. At least GT has the saga structure going for it to know when a logical break should be but I still have to break after a few episodes since a show like Dragon Ball can have a fight last 5 episodes and nothing else will be happening, though it’s been a while since I’ve seen GT but I think the entire back half of the Baby Saga is just one continuous fight and the last 9 or 10 of the Shadow Dragon Saga is one fight. At least this show is shorter than both DB & DBZ were.

Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, both the original 1925 silent version and the 1942 ‘definitive’ version. If you love old school slapstick then give this film a shot since it’s hilarious. This was my first actual Chaplin film I’ve ever seen but I had seen slips of some of his work before this. I have to agree that his voice doesn’t seem right for the Tramp at all. I read a little on Chaplin and it’s sad how his career went after he made The Great Dictator to the point that Orwell accused him of being a communist because of his stance to fight fascism speech in that film. That almost sounds backwards since typically people accused of communism are also considered fascist so I don’t understand Orwell’s thought process here but considering Orwell’s list also named Michael Redgrave, Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn and George Bernard Shaw as communists in more inclined to think he was being senile or was doing a case of “I hate these people so they MUST be communists”

Got around to finishing Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan. I was not having a good reading time from October through December so I only finished yesterday. It was interesting but felt very grounded in the 80’s. I can definitely see how he went from Conan the Barbarian to WOT since I kept thinking it reminded me of what I imagine a Conan book might be like, never read or watched anything Conan so I’m only guessing here. However I was kind of bored at times reading it. It was only 350 pages but it felt about 50 too long. Here’s how bad the boredom got, sometimes I only read 2 pages before closing it again. I’m not sure how much Harriet edited it to make it publishable but I think she should’ve done another pass just to tighten it up just a smidge. Well I was hoping Dawnshard would’ve been sent by now but now I know I’ll still be waiting another couple months so I’m going to go play in Sir Terry Pratchett’s sandbox for a little bit with The Colour of Magic.

Watched a few international films lately. Ringu, Le Ballon Rouge, Torment (Hets), Crisis (Kris), Port of Call (Hamnsted), Thirst (Törst) and To Joy (Till Glädje). The last five are early works by Ingmar Bergman and they were fascinating to watch since watching them right after each felt like seeing life evolve since we start with a high school senior going into the world (Torment), a naive kid who sees the world as it is in the city (Crisis), a young couple that have a rough patch before marrying (Port of Call), a marriage that’s on the rocks before the two decide to give it another chance (Thirst) and a marriage that was starting to get a second chance but tragically ends before that can happen (To Joy). Next up is going to be five films by Yasujiro Ozu: Early Spring, Tokyo Twilight, Equinox Flower, Late Autumn and the End of Summer.

I think I’m straddling between Surviving and Struggling. I hit a bit of a mental wall yesterday at work and it took me a couple hours today to get something simple done. I don’t know if I can make it to the end of my work contract at this rate. In minor badness some people on YouTube keep arguing with me on a genealogy related video for using the geographic term British Islands/The Islands, this was me just saying it in reference to my heritage of my family coming from England, Scotland and Ireland making me a child of the British Isles, and they are now acting like I’m putting Ireland down and all but saying I’m not worthy of my heritage for using a common geographic name that’s even defined by Merriam Webster to refer to those islands by that name.

My dad had talked to me earlier and he talked to me about something that really hurt me inside and broke some of the trust we had. Pretty much it was the discussion on me moving out because I’m to the point I can’t stay with my mother anymore and he talked about him and her moving to The Villages in Florida, it’s a retirement community north of Orlando, when they both retire and he wants me to move with them. His solution to getting me to live there is to use the “he can’t live on his own” excuse because he pretty much told me he believes I’m physically capable of living on my own but not mentally. You have no idea how much it hurt to hear him say that last bit to me. Now I wouldn’t mind living in Florida, Orlando itself is more my speed, but I’d prefer living back home in California than continuing living under their roof, which for him was more a master bedroom to myself when I would rather have my own place and not an attached living situation.

I’m about to go on vacation on Tuesday and I’m frankly not really looking forward to it. It’s mostly stuff that doesn’t excite me that much (going to Orlando area) and the non theme park options are limited. My mother wants to do the following: Go to Give Kids the World: not my cup of tea at all. Kennedy Space Center: I’m on the wall here since it’s an hour from the hotel and I really don’t feel like driving on vacation. Busch Gardens and Sea World: been there so I don’t mind but Busch Gardens is an hour away and both parks require getting there early to get a parking spot. A couple different restaurants in the area including Disney Springs: I don’t mind this since I like the places involved. Going to the Disney outlet stores: I hate doing this. She does this on every trip to Florida and it’s so annoying to go. One of the two is hard to get a parking spot at and the other is awkward just to get to. The only thing I have planned is going to the nearby Barnes & Noble to pick up ROW and read that when I can. It’s usually hard for me to read on vacation but this one might be dull enough for me to justify reading.

I’m doing a double feature of Halloween and Halloween 2018.

I’ve only read the first Dresden book and I’ve already bought the next two volumes and the first short story collection. Planning on reading the short stories when they take place between the books. Can’t wait to catch up with it but it’ll probably have to wait until I finish with ROW and Dawnshard since I’m currently reading a Robert Jordan that you can tell was written in the 80’s and reads like it.

I took my time reading Evil Thing: A Story id That Devil Woman. I can read these books in one sitting but Cruella isn’t something I wanted to read in one sitting. Her reason for becoming evil is interesting in this interpretation. All the previous villains were evil because of their parents and it’s half true here since she just wanted her mother’s love but her mother wasn’t interested in any relationship with her, she just wanted the money the father left to Cruella, and after Cruella’s husband died the mother was concerned about Cruella’s sanity, mostly because of the social appearance, and when Cruella told her about the coat her mother was actually horrified. What also made this book interesting is it’s written as a memoir, so we get Cruella’s thoughts, but the afterword also shows that the author herself went to Hell Hall and the way that’s written it makes me wonder if the story is supposed to be contemporary or if Cruella has been locked up in there since the 70’s, when the film came out. Now onto something new and I wanted something with no strings attached ie a stand-alone, so I’m going to read Warriors of the Altaii.

Not particularly bad day but need to kind of vent about it. My mother is currently figuring out stuff to do on vacation in November and the stuff she wants to do I’m not really looking forward to. We were going to do a western Caribbean cruise but it was canceled of course and she still wants to do stuff in Florida. The stuff she’s suggesting are: 1. Visit Give Kids the World for their Christmas light decorations. I’m not looking forward to this because it kind of makes me uncomfortable. I mean kids being seriously ill or disabled make me uncomfortable that I don’t like being around them. I don’t mean it in a bad way but there are things out there that we don’t like being around and this is one of my things. 2. Going on a gator swamp tour boat. I’m surprised she wants to do this since every time we’ve gone to Florida I jokingly suggest it and she gives a big no. It’s not really something I would choose to do on vacation but the one she’s suggesting to do is pretty off the beaten path. 3. Visit Key West. She keeps wanting to have this be a day trip but in order for it to be one we would have to leave the hotel in Orlando at 6AM, be down there around noon, spend a couple hours there and then drive back to the hotel sometime in the evening and that’s if there’s no traffic in Miami. I’m not going to make myself tired for that type of trip and I’d prefer doing this as a cruise port but she doesn’t want to do that option at all. overall these three things just make it the opposite of a vacation for me. It’s not fun or relaxing at all. I don’t know what else she wants to do but honestly I’d prefer just staying at the house and read Rhythm of War instead since I don’t know if I’m even up for making that drive right now. It always seems like when it’s a ‘her’ vacation the majority of the time it’s stuff that either bores me, is the opposite of my interests that she thinks I like (she always wants to do stuff related to war and battlefields but I hate that stuff) or it’s an uncomfortable experience for me.

Any foods or drinks that are traditional/cultural to your family but you don’t make that often despite liking it? For me one of the big ones is a classic cuppa. Part of my ancestry is English and a classic cuppa is English Breakfast tea with milk and something to sweeten it a little. I tend not to do this because I don’t often have milk at home and when I go out the few times I’ve asked for milk for my tea I’ve either been given creamer or cream or they give me a giant glass of milk that requires using a straw so I don’t make a mess.

Finished Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The main story was good but the additional stories were hit or miss, like the side quest missions were mostly miss but there were some that were funny or heartbreaking, the Cult story was fun but it was too easy to accidentally kill members before finding the clues, the Atlantis story was a pain with one of the bosses, Legacy was a good three parter and Fate was quite the slow burn since it didn’t pick up until the third part. I played as Kassandra since she’s the canon character and her acting is much better than Alexios’. I played her as the mercenary with a heart of gold for the most part. The environments were beautiful but very copy and paste after awhile. I gave up doing the question marks since about 80% were military camps, forts and caves that had variations on three designs that made them very repetitive. Greece was also way too big compared to Egypt in Origins. To show how big it is I spent a day doing Discovery Tour in Origins but spent a week for it in Odyssey since it’s more spread out and a couple require swimming to islands which wouldn’t be a problem if they let you have a boat or if a fast travel was available on said islands. Otherall I say Odyssey was a nice game but you leave it with a feeling of not wanting to do it over again. I’m thinking to do FFXV next but I seriously need a break from gaming for now.

I watched Dance, Girl, Dance directed by Dorothy Arzner. This was a pretty good film with some good laughs from the burlesque show and beautiful dancing courtesy of Maureen O’Brian. Arzner is a great director with an eye for what works and what doesn’t. It’s sad how little she is talked about considering she was one of the first female directors, the only woman in the Director’s Guild during her career, pretty much invented the boom mic and was an open lesbian. I would love to see more of her films.

I finished Uprooted by Naomi Novik yesterday. Interesting story that was surprising how it went. I liked that it was a story where you kill the antagonist with kindness since those are more satisfying to me than killing them with fire, in a duel, exploding them or anything involving violent ends. Doing an easy read next with the newest Disney Villains book Evil Thing: A Tale of That De Vil Woman.

That’s the thing, my job involves looking at a computer screen most of the day and before those lights were installed my migraines were very sporadic and could never figure out a trigger causing them but I knew what made them worse once I got one, those being light and heat. A few years back I had a bad migraine happen to me. It was just enough to be closing your eyes for an hour or so and a coworker gave me an Advil and it went away... for an hour before it came back like a truck hitting a brick wall. I was out of commission almost the entire day after that. It sucks when you have to work while being stuck with a migraine. A mild case is fine but when you’re at the point where you can’t keep your eyes open or your head up that should be used as a reason to go home early.