Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

The delightfully different, fabulously freaky, and wonderfully witty Will Wood:

Thanks! They were a little crumbly, I think I over cooked my curds. I have taken steps to ensure that won't happen again (I was debating whether to insert a fiendish chuckle here or not, so I'll just put a small one, mwahaha). I got a sous vide cooker from ebay ($40), so I'll be able to heat the milk with extreme precision for specific time intervals. My daughter really wants to be able to make garlic cheese curds, like the Vampire Slayer curds from Face Rock Creamery out of Bandon Oregon. I just want to be able to make squeaking good curds. I think that once the curds pass muster, they will definitely have to be poutined (can you conjugate poutine?). Have you made poutine before? Do you have a poutine gravy recipe that you like?

I made homemade cheese curds! They're about 70% of what good cheese curds should be, but I'll definitely figure out how to get perfect squeaky, buttery, delicious fresh curds.

Fun topic! 1. John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. So good, on so many levels. 2. The Magician, the 1958 film directed by Igmar Bergman, starring Max Van Sydow. The attic scene with Von Sydow walking alternately in complete blackness and pools of light is one of the best scenes in any film. The trailer spoilered below has a cheesy voice over, but you can see what a visually remarkable movie this is. 3. Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and the western remake of it, A Fistfull of Dollars. I like a Fistful of Dollars better, but just a tiny bit more. 4. Pee Wee's Big Adventure. A Modern retelling of the Odyssey. 5. The Terry Gilliam 1989 Adventures of Baron Munchausen. A comically absurd fairytale, visually beautiful and just a fun movie. Check out how close to the Gustave Dore illustrations Gilliam cast the role of the Baron:

One more look at the titlepage for the book with what appears to be a Square Soft type black wizard with a blaster on the cover:

@platnumkid, @teknopathetic and @Oltux72 Spoilered below is the image that Platumkid pulled from the youtube vid, with some sharpening and some layer blending modes applied, also spoilered are some guesses as to what that title page says.

Hey ho, I just inherited a Cameo Silhouette 2 from a neighbor, and holy crap, it's amazing. I've always liked Papercraft, and I've been handcutting spray paint stencils for almost 20 years, so imagine my delight to get a machine that can do all of the tedious hand-cramping cutting for me. I was thinking it would be nice to have a place on the nicest forum on the interwebs, that also happens to have some of the nicest, smartest people too boot, to share tips and tricks about using these fabulous cutting machines and share projects too. It was my birthday recently, so I got a bunch of Cameo Silhouette supplies. I got Orical 651 permanent adhesive vinyl, some Heat Transfer Vinyl, and a Cb09 blade holder, which makes cutting a dream. It came with 15 blades and cost less than the Silhouette premium blade. I made my first iron on tonight, using black Heat Transfer Vinyl, and it's looking pretty good! It's reflective vinyl, so I definitely would do the text differently next time (the subtracted letters get hard to read when the vinyl is catching the light). Here's a Portrait of the Artist As A Young Dog: I also made a miniature zoetrope that's built completely out of 110 lb coverstock. The precision of the Silhouette Cameo makes it possible to create a precisely engineered spindle between the zoetrope and the base so that it can spin perfectly. If anyone is interested I can post the files for my zoetrope, it's pretty slick. What all have you guys been up to with your Cameo Silhouettes / Cricuts?

Just finished Cixin Liu's short story collection "To Hold Up the Sky". It's very interesting reading science fiction with a cultural bias that's decidedly foreign. It makes the disjunctions of the stories even more alien feeling when characters are operating under different base assumptions. How they view the nature of the conflict and respond reveal these biases, and it's fascinating stuff. Also, Liu writes hard science fiction, he is a master of taking far fetched propositions and figuring out how they would all work. He also keeps a thoroughly understandable human scale, and when he really gets going his prose sings with the ring of poetry. All the stories are at least good, but three of them in particular are phenomenal. Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming, The Sea of Dreams, and the Mirror are 3 of the best science fiction stories I've ever read (especially Mirror). Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming is set in the near future where the Russian forces are sympathetic and the Nato forces are somewhat stock villain types (but in a realistically depicted self-decieving kind of way). In Sea of Dreams he has some fun calculating how many blocks of ice you could turn the ocean into, and has fun with the consequences of that idea. But Mirror is just flat out great. I'm not going to spoil anything, just do yourself a favor and read this story. It's so good, the plot of the story perfectly parallels the theme, and it's an answer to why the Purely Deterministic view of reality should make everyone wake up with the cold sweats. I'm probably going to read The Three Body problem next, but who knows, I might read another Garrett PI before I venture into the deeper waters.

Granted! You find yourself suddenly transported to an arctic plain, before you is a 10 ft diameter hole, cut through the ice, and through that hole you can see the churning, electric blue sub-freezing waters. You then notice that you are holding a rope in your hands, that trails from your frozen fingers into that gaping hole. Your breath plumes before you as you pull the rope. An icy sense of dread steals over you as you begin to suspect what is attached to the end of that frozen rope. With muscles straining, you pull with one final mighty heave and a 6ft x 2ft x1 ft block of ice slides up and out of the hole. Inside the crystal clear ice you see a grandfather clock, it's hands most definitely frozen in place, and also a note from the Nightwatcher that reads "You have approximately 43 minutes to contemplate your future actions before hypothermia sets in, best of luck old chum". Your bane is that you now have two left hands. I wish that things were different.

Yeah, I'd pick the stipend too unless I could make my own country on my island, then I would declare sand our national currency and we'd all be rich (until hyper-inflation sets in).

The list is quite extensive, I'll just give you a brief sampling of the things I don't know: Esparanto (but that just puts me in a similar condition as 7.399999 billion other articulate hominids) Why they make so many different types of triscuits. I thought the whole point of a triscuits was as a uniform base for a variety of different hourederves. How to spell "Or-Derves", I should just refer yo them as finger foods, see I don't know why I chose to type a word I don't know how to spell, so that's another one. The primary export of Bhutan to Vanautu (I could look it up, but in this I am content in my ignorance). How if the universe is the sum total of the material world, and it's expanding, what is it expanding into? Or is it like a smoke ring, blown from the big Bang, stretching, attenuating and becoming less and less dense and ergo less substantial. And if that's the case, is the Universe really just like the puffed smoke from the caterpillar in Alice In Wonderland? Each puffed ring formed and fated to spread out and fade, to be replaced by another in a never ending succession of bangs and fades? Why the US and Great Britain still aren't using the metric system. I don't get this at all, but at my age I would hate to say goodbye to my old friends the dram, the hogshead, the hectare, and the peck. The weight in nanograms of the average louse egg. Ick, I actually don't care to know this one. Why people like Henry James, I've never understood this. The turn of the screw gets built up as a classic Gothic horror story, but it's really quite dull (in my opinion). Why you would ask me an open ended question that serves as a flimsy pretext to rant and gripe. How to make marscapone. It would be nice to figure this one out. That's one of those depends. I think some very good books have been written by people interested in Sociology, but in the main it has always seemed like one of the softest of the sciences. And there have been some profoundly weird theories that have been pursued down the darkly mirrored corridors of Psychology (especially by the pioneers of psychology), but I think the study of the mind is intrinsically interesting and as long as it's not some dull article about selective bias, I would prefer to read articles about Psychology. I like the idea of the mind holding itself as an object of thought, it has that recursive quality of a tailor sewing his own clothes or a barber cutting their own hair that I find appealing. OK, your turn for some questions if you're game: Which do you prefer Psychology or Sociology? Which do you like better: bagels, English muffins, crumpets, buttermilk biscuits, or wheat toast? Has your tongue ever been stuck to metal when it was below freezing out? How do pronounce the word "rather"? As "Raw-ther" or so it rhymes with blather? Do you have a song stuck in your head, and if so what is it? (I have chopsticks stuck in my head). Which would you take: one million dollars, a $25,000 stipend per annum for the rest of your life, or an island in the Seychelles?

Here's another WOT comic: Nobody likes a gloater Moridin.

Very interesting, you are right about that, balefire doesn't burn someone out of the pattern it just makes it impossible for the Dark One to capture their soul after they die in time to transmigrate their soul into a new body. But there is possibly another way, and given Elan's preoccupation with finding a way out, maybe he'll give it a go on the next turning of the wheel. Quote from Theory land spoilered below: Seems like all he would have to do is enter Tel'aran'rhiod in the flesh and then Balefire himself to join in true oblivion the dead Heroes of Legend who are killed in the Dream and the wolves who are killed in the Wolf Dream.

Moridin would have been protected from the taint because of his bond to the dark one. Rand severed Asmodean's link to the Dark One, at which point Asmodean was subject to the taint. Moridin never experienced the taint, but used the dark one's power directly when he channeled the true power which probably had an even worse effect upon his mind then the taint, going by dark Rand's food spoiling effect and his visible dark aura after accessing it just once. Rand's epiphany on Dragonmount is the moment he became the true champion of the light, the matrix of light overlaying the barbed hooks of the taint piercing his mind negated his madness, and was a gift of his enlightened state. When Moridin's body awoke, the mind inside that body was Rand's. This is where you get into the metaphysical gray area about what actually happened, but I think we have enough to go on to make an informed guess. Each individual is a thread in the age lace, when Moridin and Rand's balefire crossed at Shadar Logoth, their threads became interwoven. Moridin could draw Rand into his dreamshard even though Rand's dreams were warded. Rand saw Moridin's face, similar to how he would see Perrin and Mat's faces when he thought of them because they were ta'veren. But as proved by Rand's ability to access the true power, his affinity for Moridin was much stronger than with either Mat or Perrin, almost as if their threads had been spliced together. Another interesting bit is that at Shayol Ghul, the barrier between the world and world of dreams was weak enough that Perrin could talk to Nynaeve, implying that in that place thought had a truly creative capacity. Moridin was captured in the trap of Calindor, Rand was wielding Saidar, Saidin, the true power and possibly the force of creation itself (the light, as evidenced by the blinding flash of light). At that moment, and with the power of thought as creation (which he possessed in Moridin's body as seen by his ability to light his pipe just by thinking of it lit) , it is well with the realm of possibility that Rand merely had to will his mind to be swapped with Moridin's. Just having read the entire WOT again, one thing that bothers me is that Moridin/Ishamael/Elan's stated goal of wanting to be freed from the wheel of time and to cease to exist could have easily been achieved without championing the shadow, tormenting Rand, etc. He could have just shot himself in the foot with balefire and the problem is solved, Poof, no more Moridin. Oh well, it wouldn't have been a good story that way, but just goes to show he didn't think his position all the way through.

Here's a quick little WOT comic.

Aww shucks, that's mighty kind of you. I can disqualify myself because I have teenage daughters, and I've been told in no uncertain terms that referring to going to the bathroom as "going pot-pot" moves me as far as possible from that nebulous and ever changing place that Cool resides. I nominate @Ookla the Blighted, cuz us grumpy old guys have lots of wisdom, you just have to tease it out of the rants and gripes.

For all you hopeless romantics out there, who hasn't dreamed of being seranaded by a man suspended from a helicopter while you're water skiing, or vice versa: You'll have to click the link, but the small effort required is more than worth it.

The Way of Kings - 7 Oathbringer - 10 Mistborn: The Final Empire - 3 Hero of Ages - 8 Bands of Mourning - 10 Secret History - 10 Warbreaker - 10 The Emperor's Soul - 9 Sixth of the Dusk - 5 Hurt SotD, heal SH

Granted, the Nightwatcher pulls out her smartspanreed and draws a quick picture for you and Rosharan texts you the following: Your hands are now lobster claws and you have an itchy nose that would feel better if you could just pick it. C'est ls vie. I wish for a magical effect of some kind that occurs when I snap my fingers.

Got my copy of The God Is Not Willing, and boy did they ever do a bang up job at the warehouse fitting my shipment to the proper package. No, your eyes don't deceive you, verily that is a 4' x 2.5' x 6" box to accommodate my 2 books. The tetris warehouse wizard used 8,640 cubic inches of space to ship my 107.5 cubic inches of books. Brilliant! We're having Thanksgiving early this year, the feast is tomorrow, so I plan on reading this after our repast until Hypnos veils my eyes with tryptophan laden slumber. Life is good, and it's even better with rice krispie treats!

Checked out Sweet Silver Blues by Glenn Cook based on a recommendation from @Ammanas . It's the first book in the Garrett P. I. series and it was really good. It's a hardboiled detective story set in a fantasy world, kind of like Raymond Chandler crossed with Piers Anthony (on one of Piers Anthony's good days). The story is good, the analogies are novel and fun, the mystery is compelling and fully explained, and the characters are great. Garrett, the human beer swilling detective, teams up with a Dark Elf vegan bruiser named Motley Dotes, consults an oracular animate corpse known as the Dead Man, and stays just one jump ahead of all the various factions that are tangled up in the plot who want to rub him out. Also just read Dashiell Hammett's first novel, Red Harvest and though it was good, I have to say I liked Sweet Silver Blues better. I think I'm tired of books that lionize anti-heroes.

I've only watched the first episode, but even with my expectations set incredibly low by the trailers, I was still surprised at how disappointing the first episode was. As I feared the tension is cranked up to eleven, and there are just some completely bizarre alterations to the story that add nothing except unnecessary canned drama. The detailed breakdown review is spoilered below. All that said, I'm looking forward to watching the next two episodes. I feel at this point that I can't be anymore disappointed than I already am, so I really have nothing to lose except a couple hours.

Sure thing, I've got a backlog of paintings to do but Kaladin is in the queue. I'll let you know when I start working on his portrait.

You might try some Roger Zelazny, his Chronicles of Amber series was an earlier incarnation of the Eastern mysticism inspired magic of the Wheel Of Time (similar but different), and the first 5 books are really good. Also, his sci-fi quasi spiritual tale of super beings that are somewhat incarnations of Hindu deities on a colonized planet, Lords of Light is great, and Jack of Shadows is a bizarre romp in a truly dark and strange world, with interesting magic that is of the well described but unexplained variety.

During almost every character POV, and especially in Nynaeve's chapters, there is invariably a point where the character's internal "little voice" tells them that they are doing the opposite of what they think they are doing, it's basically how Robert Jordan rights out characters' self doubts.