Cheese

In addition to the giant jar of sauerkraut, we've got this a humongous bag of grated cheese in the fridge that my housemate's dad gave us. I'm used to putting cheese on bagels and sandwiches. But that really wants sliced cheese, not grated cheese. I guess you could use grated cheese if you had to, but it would be messier and more difficult. So what do I do with the grated stuff? It's something of a conundrum.

I tried melting it onto my rice. (Sometimes they have these pre-cooked microwave rice cups over at the university's food bank, and Davis students can get them for free.) Add in some beans and a little splash of hot sauce and it's a reasonably nutritious meal.

Then I started just dumping it into my ramen cups. And frankly, I'm surprised I didn't think of that sooner. Cheesy soup is tasty soup. The cheese melts right into the hot broth and it's nice.

Maybe I could put cheese in oatmeal? I have some plain oatmeal that needs flavor. Hmm, or I could put it on top of my macaroni and cheese to make macaroni and cheese and cheese. Or I guess I could buy some tortilla chips and make nachos.

Hey, I wonder if sauerkraut tastes good with cheese on top.

Sauerkraut is pickled cabbage. It's sort of spicy like regular coleslaw, but with the briney vinegar taste you get with pickled things. Traditionally it's used to complement meats like sausage and whatnot.

I had a mind to pick up some sauerkraut at the grocery store today to go with those little microwave sausages. But all they had were these enormous two-pound jars of the stuff. I mean, they're still cheap even buying the big jar, but I ask you, what am I supposed to do with two pounds of sauerkraut, hmm? It's pickled, so it's not going to go bad, but even so--that's overkill, that is. Come on.

Anyway, cabbage is a good source of vitamins, I guess.

I changed my mind. I still don't like roast turkey. I was thinking, "Well, it's basically just chicken," except when I tried it, I remembered I don't actually like roast chicken either.

Sigh. Maybe next year, I guess.

But hey, yams, right? Gotta love those yams. The pineapple is a nice touch. Oh, and good pumpkin pie this year.

It's Thanksgiving weekend. That means I'm home for the holidays! It's nice to spend time with the family. I walked in the door, climbed up the stairs, and was greeted with a hug, a glass of milk, and a tray of warm, fresh-baked brownies. <3

Oh, and a dog. But I dodged him.

Thanksgiving is all about the feast. You're supposed to stuff your face with huge portions of turkey, yam, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, I don't actually like all that stuff. Except for yams. Those are good. Oh, and pumpkin pie, I guess, although it's not as good as apple or blackberry or cherry or lemon meringue or key lime or strawberry rhubarb etc.

This year, I've decided to try to stop disliking it. I know the culture as a whole loves that Thanksgiving crap, so there must be something to it. If so many people like it, it can't be all that bad. And it's tradition. May as well get into the spirit of the thing.

Honestly? I find it hard to strongly dislike foods. If I try something and don't like it, but know that there are a lot of other people who love it, I can't fairly say it's terrible because it is clearly (and literally) a matter of taste. For a long time, I didn't like beef, so I didn't eat beef. Then a couple years ago, I decided to stop not-eating beef because protein is an important part of a balanced diet and it's good to eat a variety of different foods. So now I'm cool with beef. No big deal, really, just a matter of looking for what other people see in it. Mostly it tastes meaty, like meat. *shrug*

Turkey's not all that different. It's just chicken with fancier plumage. And mashed potatoes are just potatoes. If you put butter on them, they taste like butter. I don't really know about the cranberry sauce--I wouldn't normally put berries on my roast chicken--but it's traditional, I guess.

Apparently the dog sleeps on the couch now and he's trying to use me as a pillow, so I suppose I should get out of his way.

Well, I could have a cup of ramen, or I could have a can of beans. Or both, I guess. I dunno, I just felt like drawing them fighting.

Berries

Raspberries. Raspberries are great. If I had to pick a favorite berry, I would go with raspberries. They're basically awesome in every way. Drawback? The price. Raspberries are expensive. You don't get good value for your dollar. So they're nice, but they're a luxury.

Blackberries. The problem with blackberries is they have a very narrow sweet spot of ripeness. Either they're overripe and too gross and mushy, or they're underripe and too tart. It's hard to find any that are actually ripe. They work okay if you mix them with something else, like in a pie or as an ice cream topping, but they aren't great for eating on their own.

Strawberries. They have that annoying stem on top. You have to do extra work with strawberries. Either you cut the stem off or you eat around it. Either way, you can't just pop em like you can with other berries.

Blueberries. There's your happy medium. Cheaper than raspberries, less work than strawberries, and more reliable than blackberries. Unfortunately, they are not as delicious as raspberries.

So blackberries are nice for pies, raspberries are a treat, strawberries are a project, and blueberries are a general-purpose berry-of-all-trades.

Grapes are nice too. They're like reverse blackberries: great to eat by themselves as a snack, but you can't really combine them with other things.

About ice cream

I used to have a favorite flavor of ice cream. It was strawberry.

Nowadays I'm not so sure anymore. Strawberry is great, but there are a lot of other great flavors, too. I like lots of different kinds of ice cream. I'm not sure I have a favorite.

Chocolate is definitely overrated. Of the "big" flavors, it's probably the one I'd rank the lowest. I like chocolate, but chocolate ice cream has never won me over. Neapolitan is fine--the vanilla and strawberry balance it out nicely. And fudge is great. It's hard to go wrong with a fudge ripple or a hot-fudge topping. As far as chocolate chips...eh, it works better in cookies than in ice cream. The problem with chocolate chips is that they mess up the whole texture of the ice cream with their little crunchy bits. Nuts have the same problem, unless they're like a topping, and they're all bunched up together, in which case it acts like more of a crust, y'know?

Now, mint chocolate chip, that's a strong contender. Mint ice cream on its own is fairly bland, but the chocolate chips complement it superbly. Of course, you still have the problem of the chocolate chips messing up the texture, which is why the best mint chocolate chip ice cream has the teeny tiny chocolate chips. More like chocolate crumbs, really.

And there's sort of a whole genre of ice cream with what I think of as the "fruity" flavors. Strawberry, orange, peach, cherry, etc. They taste like fruit. Which is...good, I guess. I mean, I like fruit?

I've lost my train of thought.

Does this bother anyone else?

So the five colors of Magic walk into an ice cream parlor...

Red: Could I have a sample of the lemon sherbert?
White: Anyone want to share?
Black: I'll be wanting a sample of that one there.
Green: Hey guys look, they have a giant ten-scoop special!
Blue: If we each ate two scoops, that would be about 30% cheaper than ordering separately.
Green: Screw that, I can totally eat ten scoops by myself. Let's do this.
Red: Hmm, the strawberry looks good too. So does the mint chip.
Green: Just go with the one that feels right, dude. You got this.
Black: Another sample please.
White: Blue, you wanna split a sundae?
Blue: Hmm, okay, sure.
Black: I'll try that one now.
Red: Hey Green, I bet I can finish the ten-scoop special faster than you.
Green: You're on!
Blue: You're just going to get headaches, guys.
Black: Hmm, nah, lemme taste this one now.
Red: Screw you, blue!
White: There's no need to be rude.
Black: How's that butterscotch ice cream? Any good?
Blue: I think we should go with the vanilla, White. It complements both the fudge sauce and the nuts.
Green: Ten scoops of chocolate, please. Chocolate is the best flavor.
Black: Can I taste that chocolate?
Red: Give me one scoop each of chocolate, butterscotch, strawberry, Oreo fudge ripple, peanut butter waffle, Neapolitan, rainbow sherbert, coffee fudge, green tea, and that "flavor of the month" thing.
White: Vanilla sundae please. And an extra spoon.
Black: I still haven't decided. Can I try that green tea ice cream?
Blue: You two can't seriously be eating ten scoops each? That's absurd.
Green: Jush waff uth! Um nom nom...
Black: Well all these flavors are great, but I'm already full. Thanks for the free ice cream, suckers.

So today I re-watched the fifth season of Lost. Also, I had ramen for lunch, I launched a new trope page, and I arranged to go visit a couple of potential places to live for next year. 

Lost is okay. It's kinda weird because you can tell they were making everything up as they went along, especially early on. But by this point it seems like they figured out what was going on. I think the show, overall, was better towards the tail end because of it. It bothers me how lax all the characters are about gun safety, though. I mean, at least three or four people died because nobody in the entire show could be bothered to pay attention to basic precautions like "Look at what you're aiming at before you shoot."

Ramen is also okay. Cheap stuff, but it's a meal.

So today was pretty uneventful.

Now that I've finished The Dresden Files I decided to re-read it because seriously. I chomped through Ghost Story again between last night and today, and now I'm going back to Storm Front. I haven't decided which book is my favorite. I guess you could say I never had a favorite--never really felt like I needed one. Aye?

Apparently I'm supposed to write some essays and stuff for next week. So that's also a thing. I've set aside some time tomorrow to do some work on that. Tumbling some ideas around in my head for my myth/legend/folktale rewrite. The story of John Henry from the machine's point of view? The story of Persephone via Persephone's diary? Hades's diary? Or maybe through the letters that Hermes might have delivered back and forth between the characters during the crisis? Who knows.

Didn't do anything terribly interesting in class. Statistics discussion was boring. English, we talked about some erotic poem about a flea. Myths & Legends was some lecture or other. All pretty mundane. I had noodle soup for lunch and ramen for dinner.

Weather's getting hot. Very sunny. Much better for biking than the cold and wind, though, of course.

Watched the newest episode of The Legend of Korra on the Nickelodeon website. Bolin is funny in a Woobie sort of way, but Tenzin didn't show up at all. At least the airbender tots got a scene.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I did today.

Today was fairly uneventful.

We formed up into groups of three in my writing class. Next week we're going to do some draft-looking-at or something. Gotta have something to work with by Saturday night. Should be doable.

Talked about Proto Indo-European stuff in Myths & Legends. Shared cultural roots leading to similarities in mythology and folklore, blah blah blah. And we watched a video of a Welsh folktale called "King March" about a king who's embarrassed to take his crown off because he has horse ears and it looks very silly. Only his barber knows the secret, but the barber is bad at keeping secrets, so he whispers the secret to the ground. Except then reeds grow from the spot, and the local piper uses the reeds to make a new pipe, and when he plays the pipe it whispers the secret to everyone. So the king is embarrassed but it turns out everyone still respects him and nobody laughs at him, and it's a happy ending.

We're still on Henry V in Lit class. Not my favorite Shakespeare play, I gotta admit.

For Plant Science we had a lecture on soil. Stuff about soil composition and saturation and...stuff.

Played some Beat Hazard to pass the time. Finished a few random tracks. Some 38 Special, some Beatles, a little Taylor Swift, a couple of the built-in ones. *shrug* Got 37/47 achievements in that game now, which isn't too bad if I may say so myself.

Watched this week's episode of Game of Thrones. I am pretty sure it deviated from the book, but the spirit is the same. It's a good show. I like it.

Went to Wal-Mart for groceries. Restocked on bread, milk, dried fruit (it's not as juicy as fresh fruit but there's less pressure to eat it immediately), and all that grocery stuff. Had a bowl of soup for dinner.

Currently reading Side Jobs, which is the Dresden Files short story anthology. I like it. Also got around to catching up on The Legend of Korra which I also like. Good stuff.

And that's what I did today.

20 Things You Can Do with a Potato

1. Cook it and eat it
2. Cook it and don't eat it
3. Put eyes and a nose on it and make a Mr. Potato Head
4. Cut it in half and make a stamp thingy
5. Leave it in the fridge, forget about it until it rots, find it again when it starts to smell, then throw it away
6. Use it as a baseball and see how long it takes for it to explode
7. Get three of them and practice juggling
8. Keep it as a pet, like a pet rock, except a potato instead of a rock and you have to throw it out when it starts to rot
9. Plant it and grow more potatoes
10. Plant it, forget to water it, and end up growing no potatoes
11. Make a potato battery
12. Use it in your Chell/GLaDOS Portal 2 cosplay outfit
13. Make a potato gun and use it as ammo
14. Get a sack of them and use it as ballast for your hot air balloon
15. Carve a jack-o-lantern face on it for Halloween to save money on pumpkins
16. Use it as a prop in a period piece about the Irish potato famine
17. Give it to an enemy as a crappy Christmas gift to save money on fruitcake
18. Sketch a still life of it
19. Prop up a wobbly table
20. Throw it at something you would normally throw a rock at, except you ran out of rocks so you're using a potato instead

Bottled water is water

Okay, so I've been buying gallon jugs of drinking water instead of using tap water because water is actually really cheap as it turns out, and it's convenient to be able to keep a jug in my room instead of going to the kitchen and pouring water into a cup and bringing the cup back after I finish drinking it. It's slightly more expensive in a jug, but really not by a lot, like, just pocket change, so I don't mind paying a little extra for the convenience.

But anyway, I go to the store, right? And I grab some water off of the shelf and I notice, huh, the caps on some of these bottles are different colors. Guess what? There's like three different kinds of water.

The hell is the difference?

They're all bottled in the same plant in Georgia. It says so on the label. And apparently the spring water is from a spring out in the mountains (okay) whereas the other two are from the Sacramento Municipal Water Supply. So it's Sacramento tap water, pretty much. Okay, hold on a second. Sacramento water supply. Bottled in Georgia. Sacramento water supply. Bottled in Georgia. Something is not right here. Do they expect me to believe they took water from Sacramento, shipped it to Georgia to be bottled, and then shipped it all the way back? Is there any damn sense in that? Use the water from Georgia. Don't waste money shipping tap water from one end of the country to the other. Is there something wrong with the Georgia water? Is it poisoned with Georgia Disease or something?

Anyway, I bought one of each because they were all the same price and it's not as if it's going to go bad. So I tasted them and they taste exactly the goddamn same. Seriously, it's just water. They're identical. So why do they even have three kinds? It's a load of bull, that's what it is. Why do I even buy this stuff? I should just keep one and refill it.

This post has a title. It's something to do with Pokémon again.

I've been having this problem with hot pockets where they don't cook properly in the middle. Let me tell you, getting to the center and discovering that it's cold is disgusting.

Anyway, remember when I ranted about the problems with the Pokémon games? I was talking with Ravi about it on Twitter, so I thought some more about it. The solution I came up with: instead of picking one starter out of three, you should be able to pick multiple starters out of a pool of...a lot more than three. Like, you get two or three starters, and they can be, like, any basic Pokémon. So instead of starting with Torchic, I could start with Numel and Spoink. Instead of starting with Totodile, I could start with Elekid and Teddiursa. Instead of starting with Bulbasaur, I could start with Porygon and Seel. See, now that would be cool.

I mean, Dungeons of Dredmor does it. You pick seven skills at the start, out of like 40, and you level them up as you go along. It's just like Pokémon ought to be--a team of seven that works together to...well, I guess this is a dungeon-crawling roguelike game instead of a JRPG, but other than that, it's a lot like Pokémon.

Hey, that's actually a great idea. I should make a Pokémon mod for Dungeons of Dredmor. I could have a skill represent a Pokémon that's in your party.

So there could be a Pikachu skill and you'd start with Thundershock (single-target voltaic damage spell, chance of stunning) and level up to get...what moves does Pikachu learn? Thunder Wave (stun a single target for 2 turns), Quick Attack (teleport a short distance and attack), Thunderbolt (stronger version of Thundershock), Evolve Into Raichu (passive stat boosts), Thunder (even stronger voltaic attack with AoE damage), Surf (short-range AoE attack). And you could start with a "Light Orb" item that gives a voltaic damage buff.

Ooh, this is a gold mine. Let's think of some more. How about Caterpie?

String Shot: Knockback effect.
Evolve into Metapod: Passive buff to defense.
Harden: Brittle buff that boosts block chance and magic resistance.
Evolve into Butterfree: Passive buffs to some stats.
Sleep Powder: Puts enemies to sleep in a 3x3 square.
Stun Spore: Stuns enemies in a 3x3 square.

Abra!

Teleport: Carbon copy of Froda's Jump Discontinuity.
Evolve into Kadabra: Passive stat buffs.
Kinesis: Carbon copy of Psychokinetic Shove, except nerfed because that spell's overpowered.
Confusion: Targeted damage spell that has a chance of confusing.
Evolve into Alakazam: Passive stat buffs.
Psychic: Targeted damage spell that also debuffs.

Magikarp!

Splash: Does nothing.
Keep splashing!: Also does nothing.
Tackle: Does a normal attack.
Flail: Does a small amount of damage to enemies standing near you.
Evolve into Gyarados: MASSIVE STAT BUFFS
DRAGON RAGE: MASSIVE FIREBALL
HYPER BEAM: MASSIVE DAMAGE

Ditto!

Transform: Gives you a random effect depending on what Pokémon you transformed into.
(And that's his only ability.)

I might actually do these. I should probably include starter Pokémon if I do, though.

Bulbasaur:

Vine Whip: Carbon copy of Skatha's Roots.
Leech Seed: Damage over time spell that deals damage and heals you.
Evolve into Ivysaur: Stat buffs.
Razor Leaf: Projectile attack that deals slashing damage.
Evolve into Venusaur: Stat buffs.
Solarbeam: Projectile attack that fires in a straight line and pierces opponents.

Charmander:

Ember: Carbon copy of the fire wand attack.
Evolve into Charmeleon: Stat buffs.
Rage: Timed buff that boosts your power, crit, and counter.
Evolve into Charizard: Stat buffs.
Flamethrower: Projectile attack that deals conflagratory damage to a single target.
Fire Spin: Snares and deals conflagratory damage over time.

Squirtle:

Bubble: Deals a small amount of damage and has a chance of causing knockback. I don't know what kind of damage you get with water. Asphyxiative, I guess.
Water Gun: Single target damage spell.
Evolve into Wartortle: Stat buffs.
Skull Bash: Single target close-range knockback attack. Gives a short temporary defensive buff.
Evolve into Blastoise: Stat buffs.
Hydro Pump: Projectile attack that causes knockback and deals heavy damage.

And of course there would be bonuses to resistances, positive and negative, based on the Pokémon's types.

Yeah, this might be my new modding project, since the Phyrexiamancy thing never quite worked out. Hell, here's a couple more.

Weedle:

Poison Sting: Chance of a damage over time effect on melee and ranged attacks.
Evolve into Kakuna: Stat buffs.
Harden: Same as Metapod.
Evolve into Beedrill: Stat buffs.
Rage: Same as Charmeleon.
Twineedle: Attacks twice. Also, passive buff to piercing damage and crit chance.

Pidgey:

Sand Attack: Single target debuff.Gust: Single target damage spell. Chance of knockback.
Evolve into Pidgeotto: Stat buffs.
Wing Attack: Short-range AoE attack.
Evolve into Pidgeot: Stat buffs.
Whirlwind: Copy of Psychokinetic Shove, but more damage, and with a cooldown.

Diglett:

Dig: Digs one square into a wall.
Evolve into Dugtrio: Stat buffs.
Tri Attack: Does a mix of conflagratory, hyperborean, and voltaic damage. 
Earthquake: AoE damage.
Fissure: Lots of targeted blasting damage.


...I'd better stop here or I'll be up all night.

I like mac n' cheese. It's nice because it's like a mix of pasta and cheese, and I like pasta, and I also like cheese. It's also cheap and easy to prepare. A simple meal that I eat pretty often is mac n' cheese (with hot sauce), beans (with hot sauce), and a pickle. That hits most of the major food groups, and all of the components are cheap and non-perishable, so I walk away with both a full belly and a full wallet. Value!

The nice thing about pickles is that most fruits and vegetables go bad quickly, but pickles obviously don't. So I can keep a big jar of pickles in the fridge and eat the pickles over, like, a month or so, and I get the vegetable vitamins and whatever, but I don't have to worry about them spoiling. Also, pickles are pretty cheap, so it's good value.

I like bagels. There's nothing quite like a nice toasted bagel with cream cheese. Cream cheese, of course, is the universal bagel spread--it works on all kinds of bagels. Some kinds of bagels don't really work with some kinds of spreads, though. Like, I often put peanut butter or Nutella on raisin bagels. I wouldn't do that with an onion bagel. That just wouldn't be right. And an onion bagel is good for making a traditional deli-style sandwich with meat and cheese and tomatoes, but a raisin bagel would be too sweet for that.

These days I eat more bagels than regular bread. There are a couple reasons. For one thing, a bagel sliced in half is bigger than two slices of bread, so a single serving is more filling. But a loaf of bread also contains more servings--there are six bagels in a bag, but, like, I dunno, ten sandwiches worth of bread in a loaf, or whatever. So instead of having to eat ten servings to finish a bag, it only takes six, and since I finish them faster, they're less likely to get stale. I count that as an upside. Also, it's faster to make a bagel than a sandwich. If you're just adding cream cheese, it takes half the time compared to adding both peanut butter and jelly. So that's upside too.

Anyway, here's a picture of a bagel.

Dammit, I went and got dinner from the food cart again. It's the smell that does it, I swear. And the location. I'm always walking past it around 6:00 PM on my way to the bus station from class, and it's always several hours after lunch when I'm starving. The sneaky bastards. They do it on purpose, I swear. They know. >=(

The gyro is a dollar cheaper than the rice plate and about equally filling, though, so it could be worse.

I got a B+ on my Sociology midterm and an A+ on my Engineering midterm. So that's nice.

When I walked out of the house this morning, I put my hands in my pockets and realized that I had a glove in my left pocket and no glove in my right pocket. This is a terrifying thing because it means that one of my gloves fell out of my pocket. So I spun around and looked on the ground behind me, but I didn't see anything. This is also terrifying because it means one of my gloves fell out of my pocket and I have no idea where it is. Now, the ideal situation is that it fell out of my pocket when I tossed my jacket on my bedroom floor. But by this point I was halfway to the bus stop, and if I turned back, I'd end up missing the bus and have to bike to campus instead, and even then I probably wouldn't have time to comb through the bushes searching for a missing glove.

So all day long I'm at school and I keep putting my hands in my pockets, and every time I do, I feel the empty space in my right pocket and I'm grimacing because I have no idea if I'm ever going to see that glove again.

I had a cup of soup for lunch. Clam chowder. Heated it up in the microwave at the MU and sipped it on my way to my Sociology lecture. It tasted like clam chowder. Those little soup cups are nice because I can heat them up in the microwave at the MU and drink them while I'm walking to my Sociology lecture. Bought a plate of rice and spicy chicken from a food cart for dinner. It tasted like the sum of its parts. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't very good value either...seven bucks and it's mostly rice and lettuce with a little chicken. Tasted fine, but I'd rather have the value. This is why it's better to pack a lunch. If you don't pack a lunch and you get hungry, you have to buy food on campus, and the value is so much worse. One bagel sandwich at the CoHo is like $2.50, but you go to the grocery store and that same price will buy you bagels for a week if you're willing to spread the cream cheese yourself.

I'm on the fifth Song of Ice and Fire book now. I just finished the part where King Joffrey forces Robb and Arya Stark to duel to the death. I can't believe Arya would cut off her own brother's head, just like that. Did not see that coming. Oh, sorry, I guess that's a spoiler.

Anyway, I got home and my other glove was on my desk. Phew.