JayBee Buggy's Nest

Season's End - My Thoughts [MLP]

jaybee_bug — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 03:32:40 GMT

Hmmmm well. I just posted saying I don't use this LJ anymore. But eh, there's a post I wanna do for an episode review, so might as well dump it here.

Before we jump into it, just wanna say these are initial reactions-- I might change my mind after further mulling or rewatching, who knows-- and also, this isn't spellchecked or anything.

So, finally have seen the hotly anticipated season finale. How was it?

Eh.

It was OK. It had its pros and cons, to be sure. We'll start with the pros.

I really enjoyed the first half. The whole everypony-switches-their-cutie-marks-around thing was cool. Just a really cool idea, and fun to watch. It was nice to see Twilight flat-out despairing for a while, feeling overwhelmed and convinced she couldn't fix it, because that's definitely a reaction folks can have, and you don't want your heroes always perfectly confidant. It was nice to see Spike bucking up her spirits, because it showed what a friend he was, and how his role is important too. And it was cool to have each of the Mane 6 singing. :D

Once they solved that problem, though, the episode kind of felt like it . . . drifted from that point. The climax of the episode had already been reached and the rest was spent on all the princess hoopla. It felt like kind of an anti-climactic way to end it.

Other cons. Well, OK, kinda related to my point above, not much seemed to happen in the episode. Obviously there was no major villian to overcome in this episode, no huge foe to defeat. That doesn't mean it still can't be good, of course-- the season 1 finale didn't involve a major foe to defeat either and was still good. But, well, it felt like a bit of an uneventful episode to me.

I think part of that was because there were so many songs crammed into the episode it burned time that otherwise could have been spent on plot. I mean, I love the songs in MLP, don't get me wrong!, and they were all very good songs. But boy, there seemed like a lot in one episode, maybe too much for one ep to handle? Maybe it's just me. (All that said. Celestia got a song of her own. In anyone's books that must be considered a good thing.)

OK, and now for the elephant in the room. Or should I say the alicorn? To explain my thoughts on Twilight going alicorn will require a minor digression I guess.

When I first heard of how popular My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was among older audiences, I was very curious, but still a little reluctant to watch it myself. Curiosity eventually won out, and it took me a few episodes to warm up to it. The main reason for my reluctance was because of how incredibly girly it seemed. But once I got past the name of the main character, Twilight Sparkle, and I got past how cheesy the intro music seemed, and I got past the fact it was about a bunch of colorful talking magical ponies, I realized it wasn't mindless frilly fluff. It had real substance to it. A lot of substance, in fact. Unlike a lot of stuff (shows, toys, etc.) aimed at young girls. Here was a show that took something that seemed exceedingly, exceedingly girly, and yet it still managed to be a show all about breaking all sorts of stereotypes (Break ALL the stereotypes!). And a show that was truly good.

But here's the thing that makes it a little more complicated. MLP is a show for a toy company. And that defines one of the basic tensions that I've always perceived to exist in the show. There are two forces at work here-- the folks in charge of writing, acting, animating, etc. the program, and the desires of the toy company, who are the "bosses" of these content creators. In an ideal world, the relationship between the two is mutually beneficial and perfectly hunky-dory, I guess, but they don't always have exactly the same goals. Let's be honest, of course their goals or preferences are going to differ at times.

Hasbro as a toy company is of course going to push for what they think is going to sell product, what they think young girls want most. And unfortunately this means pushing for the same, tired stereotypes that have been culturally constructed and have existed for a while now. On the other hand, the show's crew have clearly been working hard to make a quality program that breaks that mold. I can think of no better example than Season 2's season finale.

OK, so Hasbro wanted a royal wedding episode with a new pretty pink princess pony and her handsome stallion husband. And what did the folks making the show do with that basic requirement? They somehow managed to make an awesome two episodes out of it. Princess Cadence was not some pathetic helpless character waiting to be rescued by her Prince Charming. She was strong, and had some character to her, and she was the one singing about coming to her fiance's rescue. The episodes were about two equal partners, when they combined forces, being more powerful than the sum of their parts. The episodes were not just about a wedding and all the wedding preparations and all that fluff; they were packed with awesome villains and action. The episodes had substance to them, characters with actual personality and motives, intriguing plots both action and character-driven (about friends, family, AND romance, not just romance), and were just overall high-quality. Everybody wins. Hasbro gets their wedding and their pony princess, and the rest of us get an excellent story that doesn't teach young girls that the only thing that matters is growing up and finding their prince.

This basic tension is something I think has always existed in the show and you see it every episode more or less. Usually they do a fantastic job not letting the requirements/desires of the toy company compromise the integrity of the show. (And I'm not trying to villianize Hasbro, by the way. I don't think they're creatures of pure evil. I think they're a corporation trying to sell toys, and they're naturally going to go for what sells. Those are simple facts. It's true I dislike corporations for doing that, but it would be too simple and extreme of a statement to call them flat-out evil for that. After all, they've allowed the show creators great artistic freedom in making a great show. There are plenty of positives for Hasbro, and that can't be forgotten.)

That brings us (finally) to alicorn Twilight. Once again we have something that clearly is a wish of the toy company. I believe MA Larson put out a tweet saying the team chose to make Twilight go alicorn, and it wasn't "forced on them by Hasbro." Well, it may be true they chose to go the alicorn route. But there's no denying Hasbro also very much wished for this turn of events. This was a huge plus for these guys, the chance to make a new princess toy. Like last season's finale, it's an element that could potentially be mindless "girly" fluff-- taking the main character and making her "destiny" to become a princess. And the job of the team is, as usual, to take this and somehow make it something with substance and awesomeness.

Did they?

As frustrating at this is going to seem, I think it is STILL too soon to tell. If we judge based just on this season finale, then no, they failed, IMO. It felt very surface and shallow and her friends all accepted it so darn FAST, and suddenly wham, bam, thank you m'am, I've got wings and we're off to our coronation. And, apparently, Twilight knows how to FLY ALREADY as seen in the last few seconds of the episode (WHAT?! No flying lessons?!)

But, BUT. We've been told that future episodes will further explore the whole "I've suddenly got wings and a princesshood now" thing. Specifically there was a tweet from one of the writers (amy keating rogers I think?) that said they considered this episode part one of three. So we do have to reserve our judgment still.

And that kinda sucks, because the next season won't be for a while, but these guys have definitely earned some faith and some patience! So while I found the season finale a bit 'meh,' that doesn't mean I expect the next season to be bad.

OK then. tl, dr; first half was really enjoyable and I was feelin' it, second half I was not really feelin' it, guiz. Great music as usual, a little too much in one episode though. And also, I don't think the fandom is going to end/the show is going to suck in the future, it just wasn't the strongest of finales.

G'night!

Guess I'll leave a forwarding address =P

jaybee_bug — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:58:30 GMT

Hello, lads and laddies. I don't live here anymore. These days I'm hanging out at twitter https://twitter.com/jaybee_bug or DeviantArt http://jaybeebug.deviantart.com/ or, uh, your mom's house. Yeah. Don't you know? LiveJournal isn't for cool kids anymore.

(Haha, I'm just kidding.)

Cheers,

-Jay

Pokémon Black/White 2

jaybee_bug — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:51:58 GMT

Which Pokemon Villain Are You?
Hosted By theOtaku.com: Anime

I'm really excited about the sequel to Pokémon Black/White, soon to be released in the US. Sometime in the fall I believe. I really loved B/W. I haven't enjoyed a Pokémon game that much since Red/Blue. I mean, Black/White actually had PLOT to it. A good one. With actual compelling CHARACTERS. With folks who were your friends, not just some 2-D character that's supposed to be your rival. And there's a zillion other things and I could go on and on but I won't.

In summary: All hail Lord N, man I want to play the sequel, and if you tell me any kind of spoilers for the game, I will ****ing hunt you down. ;)

CUPCAKES! (Lemon edition)

jaybee_bug — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 21:03:23 GMT

After my 'baked bads' cupcake/muffin experiments, which yeilded less-than-entirely-tasty-treats, I felt like making some normal cupcakes that actually were meant to taste good. If for nothing more than to prove to the people who had to endure taste-testing the last ones that I can in fact make decent-tasting ones as well. XD But also this was made for a special event.

So, I don't even recall where I found these recipes (sorry), I just know I grabbed them online somewhere. I crawled around a lot of places looking for something that looked good, and ended up using a cupcake recipe from one site and a different frosting recipe I found elsewhere. Anyway, here is the recipe I pieced together (again, I altered this from other recipes, I do not claim to own it):

Lemon Cupcakes

CUPCAKES:
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 tbsp plain yogurt
2 tbsp lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine salt
1/2 cup buttermilk (at room temperature)

FROSTING:
1 tsp lemon zest
3 tbsp butter (softened)
3 cups confectioner's sugar (sifted)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
dash of salt

Directions:

PREHEAT OVEN TO 325 F.
YIELD: ~a dozen cupcakes

1.) Beat butter until fluffy; add sugar and beat again until fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Blend in eggs, one at a time. Add lemon zest, juice, and yogurt.

2.) In a seperate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then gradually add flour mixture to the wet mixture at a slow speed, alternating with the buttermilk. Beat the batter until it is smooth.

3.) Use an ice cream scoop to distribute the batter into muffin tin lined with cupcake liners. Tap the tin to dispel bubbles.

4.) Bake on the center rack for ~25 minutes. Insert toothpick in center of cupcakes; when it comes out clean cupcakes are done. (Note: Tops will not turn golden when cupcakes are done; cupcakes will be pale yellow, with possibly a golden ring around the tops) Allow to cool completely before frosting.

5.) Mix lemon zest with butter and cream well. Blend in half a cup of sugar.

6.) Combine lemon juice and water and add to creamed mixture gradually, alternating with the remaining sugar. Beat after each addition until smooth. Pay attention to the consistency. If needed, you can adjust the mixture-- if the mixture is too runny, add a little more sugar; if it is too thick, add a little more liquid. (Lemon juice: water ratio is a 2:1 ratio) Stop when you've reached a good spreading consistency.

7.) Blend in salt. (Now? Why now? I don't know why the recipe waited until the end to add the dash of salt. Eh, whatever.)

8.) Liberally frost completely cooled cupcakes (I just spread it on with a butterknife, if you wanna put it in a large ziploc bag and pipe it on, or do even fancier stuff, knock yourself out). If desired, sprinkle a little lemon zest on top.

I needed two dozen cupcakes so I doubled this recipe. They came out great, (I had enough batter for exactly 25 cupcakes) very good lemony cupcake, but I think next time I'll try adding a bit more zest and juice to make them even more lemony. The frosting, meanwhile, came out AWESOME. I added an extra teaspoon of zest (& a little extra liquid) while I was making it. It tastes perfect.

A note on 'zesting' lemons: Make sure to get enough lemons. Because, um, you may stand there and get an entire lemon done and lift up the grater and think, "That's ALL?!" ;) I went through 11 small lemons with this recipe, and it's the hardest part, because you've got 11 slippery round objects you're expected to grate without injury. ^_^" Only grate the outermost part of the peel, the white stuff is bitter-tasting I am told. Also, Meyer lemons are supposed to be the best, but they don't seem to be in season right now so I used regular lemons-- it still comes out great, though.

Last but not least, pictures! Well, a picture:

Yaaaaay, eat them.

Chumsgroup

jaybee_bug — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:52:28 GMT

Does anychum remember when our happy little haven was pure and beautiful?

I remember. (By the way, bonus points if you already know what that flag colour means) I remember a time when I could work in the Chumbucks factory without fear of on-the-job injury!

Back then, we had such dreams. Oh, such dreams. But what now? Broken windows. Flaming factories. What can a chum do?

Stand with me, chums!! Let us rise up against hotdog tyranny once and for all. Let us take our Chumsgroup back, free of hotdogs and dancing computers! ARE YOU WITH ME?!

Baked Bads, Take Two (aka, I don't think you're meant to bake with gummi worms)

jaybee_bug — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:15:58 GMT

I've run into a couple YouTube videos since my last attempt, where I found, not surprisingly, I was not the first to attempt this sort of thing. One intrepid soul used real live mealworms in his version. I admire the authenticity and bravery, if not the wisdom. ;)

I also learned there was apparently a recipe that could be found on Equestria Daily, as seen in this video. As everyone seems to be calling these muffins Baked Bads, I will use that name as well. However, since my goal has been an edible version of these muffins, I will call my specific recipe attempts Not-So-Bad Baked Bads.

Some notes on my last attempt and how it changed my plans for my second attempt:

*I ditched the idea of it having a chocolate base (does not go well with lemon juice) and chose a standard muffin base

*I stuck with muffins, didn't try for a cupcake recipe. Although there admittedly are advantages to cupcake frosting (I still may later try a grey-colored frosting with 'hair' and 'worms' poking out), muffins ARE cooler. I'm so sorry for ever doubting that, I don't know what got into me, please forgive me Derpy XD

*I don't know if there was something wrong with the original recipe I used last time, but I'm pretty convinced those cupcakes were undercooked. Maybe my oven wasn't hot enough, maybe I mixed the batter too much, who knows. I ran my oven a bit hotter and was careful not to overmix this time though

Anyway, recipe and notes follow.

Not-So-Bad Baked Bads

Yield ~ 1 dozen muffins

Ingredients:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 3 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup sour (lemon juice)
* 2/4 cup soda (cola)
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup potato chips, crushed
* 1/2 cup wheatworms (gummi worms, cut into fourths, or mini gummi worms)

Directions:

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Line muffin tin with baking cups.

2.) Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, potato chips, worms, and salt; mix well. In a different bowl, combine lemon juice, soda, oil and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once to the wet ingredients; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy.)

3.) Fill cups 2/3 full.

4.) Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (be careful to poke muffin and not gummi worm). Cool before removing from pan. CAUTION: Gummi worms will be very hot and will take longer to cool than the rest of the muffin.

My Cooking Notes

The new and improved cooking walk-through, now with pictures!

So I got all my dry ingredients together, and then I thought I'd try large gummi worms instead of those mini sour ones I used last time, I would just need to chop them up a bit.

Which is as fun as it sounds. I figured fourths was probably small enough.

The last time I used Ruffles, but they were unpleasantly chewy, so I thought I'd try a different potato chip brand this time to see how it fared.

Throw 'em all in a bowl and mix 'em good.

In this recipe I use even less cola and lemon juice than last time, which makes me sad. But I didn't want to change the dry-to-wet ingredients ratio-- the only other option was to make a bigger batch, and thus feel like you got to use more cola and lemon juice. But I'm doing a small batch because this is experimental, yo.

Mmmm . . . tasty.

Seriously, kids, don't forget to only fill the cups 2/3rds full, there needs to be room for muffin expansion.

One of the videos I mentioned earlier in this blog entry placed one gummi worm on top of each muffin before baking, instead of mixing it into the batter. I thought, oh, cool idea, I'll put a gummi worm on top of some of them. Good idea, right? RIGHT?

. . .

Nooooooooooo. Bad idea. STUPID idea. Daaanag. I knew they'd melt, but to that degree? The melted gummi fused the muffin and muffin paper to the sides of the pan, so I had to pry and chip away with a butter knife to free them-- that's why some are so broken up, because I had to mutilate them to free them. However, the muffins that didn't have a gummi worm on top fared much better. They still stuck a little to the pan, because they had chopped bits of worm inside them, but I could free them without mutilating them too much.

See? Not so bad looking.

As to the taste, they're really not bad at all. The lemon is definitely noteworthy, I can't really taste cola but that's not surprising. The gummi worms, although melted of course, still taste like gummi worm, which compliments the lemon, actually. The melted gummi worm is a somewhat alarming texture, sure, and tends to make the muffins crumble quite easily, because the bits where there's a lot of gummi, the muffin can't stay together. And it looks really weird, a bit like oozing puss. But I think that's why people normally do not bake with gummi candy. ;)

Oh, and once again, the potato chips are so subtle that you can't really notice them in the muffins, but I suspect their taste will always be overpowered by other things. Unless you add like a billion chips. And then the muffins might not cook right if you do that.

All in all, it was a much better attempt than the last one!

EDITED TO ADD: Next day, eating the muffins cold, mannnn. Not as tasty as when warm. XD And those potato chips still have quite an unpleasant chewyness to them.

And I forgot to add, thanks to folks at RainbowDash Forums for some ideas on the muffins.

Ugh, wheatworms? That must be fancy talk for earthworms!

jaybee_bug — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:58:41 GMT

Ummm, soooo, yeah. My latest food experiment. I modified an existing recipe for chocolate cupcakes, and tried out the modifications today.

Applejack’s Whoopsie Cupcakes

Yield: ~16 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For Cupcakes:

* 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 3 tablespoons butter, softened
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 2 eggs
* 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup sour (lemon juice)
* 1/2 cup soda (cola)
* 1/2 cup potato chips, crushed (plus some reserved for frosting)
* 1/4 cup wheatworms (gummi worms, cut into thirds, or mini gummi worms) (plus some reserved for frosting)

For Frosting:

* One package prepared white cake frosting
* Food Coloring
* Shredded sweetened coconut (to make it look 'hairy')

Directions:

1.) Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.

2.) In a large bowl (an electric mixer is best), mix together the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture alternately with the lemon juice and soda; beat well.

3.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a muffin pan with paper liners.

4.) Crush potato chips with a rolling pin until you have 1/2 a cup; cut each individual gummi worm into thirds until you have 1/4 a cup. (If using mini-gummi worms, there is no need to cut them.) Stir the chips and worms into the batter.

5.) Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full with the batter.

6.) Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool completely.

WARNING -- Beware molten hot gummi worms. Do not eat until cupcakes have completely cooled, the gummi worms will be hotter than the rest of the cupcake. Also, keep in mind when poking with a tooth pick, you might hit a gummi worm instead of cupcake.

7.) To prepare frosting, mix ? drops of ? food coloring with ? frosting, until the color is a light grey. Stir in ? crushed potato chips and ? shredded coconut and frost each cupcake liberally. Insert the gummi worm segments (or mini gummi worms) into the frosted cupcakes so that it appears pieces of worm are poking out of the cupcakes. (I haven't finished writing this part of the recipe; but I think grey is made with red & blue food coloring with a little yellow added)

Notes: Yeah, ok, they were originally muffins, not cupcakes, and they weren't necessarily chocolate. But cupcakes are more awesome than muffins, and chocolate is just awesome in general.

Also, yes, originally it was a 'cup of sour' but I . . . couldn't . . . bring myself to put that much in. XD

So I baked some of the cupcakes (I had to bake them for, like, 25 freaking minutes, actually, but my oven runs too cool) and taste-tested it. I have to admit I was kind of hoping for something palatable. I mean, lemon and chocolate? That actually sounds nice! And potato chips in a cupcake might actually be kind of tasty!

Alas, the end result wasn't tasty. As I dumped the lemon juice in, I suspected that would be the lethal ingredient, anyway. It wasn't too sour, though, actually, but the combination of the chocolate and the lemon just didn't taste right. Just sort of weird tasting is all. Also, you couldn't taste the potato chips in the cupcakes at all, they were overwhelmed, all they did was stick to your teeth in a sort of annoying way. XD

As you can see, I had planned on really cool frosting to make the cupcakes look horrible and everything, but I don't know if I should bother frosting the cupcakes at this point. :P

I'm open to ideas how to improve the taste of the recipe while staying true to the idea of it! If such a thing is possible, which I realize it might not be! XD

Writer's Block: First Amendment

jaybee_bug — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:55:23 GMT

Without freedom of speech, it's just tyranny. People have the right to express themselves.
There are certain extreme examples I think where speech ought to be limited-- horrific hate speech and so forth-- but really, we must fight for freedom of speech as much as possible. Without it we lose everything.

Meme Time, yay

jaybee_bug — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:23:58 GMT

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to Page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012. (ganked from kyoht)

This is what I got:
"This is a marvelous stitch pattern that has a woven look on one side and a grid of bumps on the other."

Lolz.

A special kind of stupid

jaybee_bug — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:03:00 GMT

We've been having a crazy-strong wind storm for the past 48 hours or so. It went all night and will carry on through all of today. There is a million pounds of junk in the air, fall leaves and seeds and stuff, being swirled around in giant vortexes and random winds from all directions. Tree branches are falling down, all that good stuff.

I just got back from a walk in the neighborhood, and there was someone with a leaf blower. He's still going at it as I type.

Seriously, humanity. The stupid is so intense sometimes, it burns.

it burrrrnnnssss

Ghost Stories of the 21t Century

jaybee_bug — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:43:53 GMT

I apologize if everyone knows about this already, but in case someone doesn't, hey, it's worth passing on.

Last night I stumbled across this urban legand about a hack of the old Pokemon Red game:

http://tinycartridge.com/post/866743831/super-creepy-pokemon-hack

It's a fantastic story, very well written, rather convincing in a lot of ways, and very creepy. Seriously, if you have familiarity with the old pokemon games, go read it.

Maybe don't read it just before bed like I did, though. ;) I was genuinely really creeped out afterwards.

Happy Halloween

jaybee_bug — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 03:46:55 GMT

Here's my pumpkin for this year:

Thanks goes out to the fellow running this site for a very handy online cipher for the Dancing Men, which I used to help guide me in this jack-o-lantern. (I printed out a blown-up version of the figures, then party carved based on a punched-in pattern and partly free-handed it. Which, ow, is kind of painful, by the way, I need to choose a less delicate pattern next year. :P)

We had a fair number of trick-or-treaters this year, but I've noticed a trend towards older people. Lots of highschoolers or even older. Heck, I think I saw some folks my age. They're still dressing up, so that's cool with me I guess-- it's just a bit weird is all.

Anyway, hope you all had a good Oct. 31st, whatever it was you were doing that night. I mostly ate pineapple pizza and watched a Halloween-special rerun of Psych, in between passing out candy. Heh.

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

jaybee_bug — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:30:03 GMT

I wrote a blog entry on the ice cream I made. Then I realized it was quite terribly boring. But oh well.

So, attempted to cook again yesterday. I'm calling it cooking because there WAS in fact some cooking involved, despite the fact I was making ice cream.

I googled for an eggless recipe and used this one. Apparently it's still really hard to find eggless recipes for homemade ice cream. Those recipes with egg were all made back when it was considered safe to use raw egg in food, but these days, it's a big no-no due to risks of salmonella poisoning. I don't know all that much about salmonella and what the risks actually are, but why bother risking it when eggless ice cream recipes taste just as good? Not to mention it's much more vegetarian-friendly if you're feeding a group.

Anyway, I managed to find that eggless recipe, but when I came home with the canned pumpkin, I realized I hadn't purchased plain canned pumpkin, but rather, canned pumpkin that had pumkpin pie spice and sugar pre-added. It's the stuff you get when you want to "make a pumpkin pie," and by "make," they mean, "add eggs, milk, and glop the can into a pie crust, taadaa, you made it from scratch!" Now, I'm not one to mock, as my cooking skills are very pathetic, but the way I figure things, you might as well buy the pie if you're gonna do that.

But I digress. Point being I'd accidently ended up with this stuff, so I was going to need to modify the recipe accordingly.

Also, I wanted to double the recipe. It doesn't actually give an estimate as to how much ice cream it's supposed to make. I think it's supposed to make about a quart of ice cream, though, after doing a little maths and conversion, (the liquid you put into the machine will expand a bit when it turns into ice cream, I'm told, so I am guessing it'll expand about half a cup? I don't know! XD) considering there's about 2 cups of pumpkin and 1 and a half cups of cream. (and a quart is 4 cups) That didn't sound like enough, I was making this for a large group, so I wanted to double it to get roughly 2 quarts of ice cream.

As such, I wanted 30 ounces of canned pumpkin, which just so happened to be a single can of the pre-sweetened/spiced pumpkin crap I bought. The recipe said to strain the excess moisture through cheesecloth and a colander, but after some fruitless hunting where the only cheesecloth in the house I located was an old, small used piece (eew), I decided to line the colander with paper towels instead. It said to let drain for at least 15 minutes, but I had doubled the amount so I reckoned on at least 30 minutes. (note: you'll need a colander with the sticky-outy bits so you can rest it over a bowl, because you're not going to fancy standing there holding it for 30 minutes) After 15 minutes, I blobbed the whole mess into a bowl and replaced the paper towels with fresh ones and blobbed the mess back into the colander, to try and 'flip' it and get the liquid out of the stuff on top as well. It sat there while I worked on the rest of the recipe, which actually ended up taking sort of a long time, so it actually got a chance to drain for quite a while.

Right, so. Meantime, I got 3 cups of cream to warm on the stove. I was a little unsure how much sugar to add. The stuff came pre-sweetened, but pumpkin pie is sort of not a very sweet pie, and ice cream is probably sweeter than the pie. I also had to consider I was doubling the recipe. In the end, I added half the normal doubled amount of brown sugar (just 1/4 a cup; it was dark brown, not light brown, so I thought it might affect the taste if I put too much, anyway) and the normal doubled amount of regular sugar (1 cup). After dissolving, the recipe said to let cool to room temperature. Which was taking forever. I shoved it into the fridge, thinking it might speed it up.

In the meantime I looked up online directions for my ice cream maker, because said directions were lost many years ago. The directions recommended that the ice cream mix should be 'chilled' before putting into the machine. No doubt to speed up the whole freezing process, but aaaw man, more waiting. This ice cream thing was taking all day. :oP

So after blending the cream/sugar and the pumpkin, (I couldn't resist sprinkling a little cinnamon and nutmeg into it while it blended, despite the fact the canned stuff probably had PLENTY added already) I put it in the fridge to cool while I had a snack. And then got back to work, preparing the ice cream machine. It was quite obnoxous getting the ice, because the bag I bought had the individual cubes fused together pretty good and needed an awful lot of smashing with a hammer to break apart enough to put into the machine. Ice sprayed out on the patio, the ice was quite a slurry of leaves and ice by the end of it, (nobody's raked the patio in ages) but hey, that part doesn't touch the ice cream, so no worries, just a bit annoying. After 20 minutes it showed so signs of slowing down, so I really poured a ****load of salt (I had been layering ice and salt like I was supposed to all along, but I guess it wasn't enough). About the 55-60 minute mark it finally had enough and the engine made the sound of it-is-now-a-solid-not-a-liquid. (Which is weird, really, because you'd think it would be a gradual process, but it was all of a sudden; one second it was normal, the next second it was not. Threshhold sort of thing I guess? It had the momentum to churn until it reached a certain point? PHYYYSICS?!)

I blobbed the stuff into a large plastic tupperware to let it finish freezing overnight (we used to put the metal can from the ice cream maker into the freezer to do this, rather than remove it from the can. BAD IDEA. Ugh. So horribly hard to scoop it out of there, and it tends to freeze too solid, I think.) It was the perfect level of consistency the next day. And it came out great! I'd deffo recommend it.

Bacon-Laced Chocolate Cupcakes

jaybee_bug — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:48:16 GMT

So, next in my cooking adventures, I wanted to try making bacon-laced chocolate cupcakes.

Before you say anything, this wasn't just my idea, I actually saw a recipe in a magazine for it. No, I don't remember what magazine. But I swear it's true! I-- oh, wait, that's right, Google exists. Let's see if I can find it . . .

Right, it apparently was Better Homes and Gardens, but please don't take that as advertisement for their magazine. My mom gets it, I don't, I was just flipping through because I was bored. :P

Anyway! That recipe looked like way too much work, doing it from scratch and all, so I modified it. I bought a box of ready-made chocolate cake mix (the kind you just add water, eggs, and a buttload of vegetable oil to), some ready-made chocolate frosting, and some BACON.

Yes.

So I got the instant-mix all made up (there may or may not have been an incident where the metal brand button on the end of my electric mixer decided to FALL OFF and INTO the batter while it was mixing and attempt to grind itself into oblivion . . .) and while the cupcakes were baking in the oven, I fried three pieces of bacon, drained off the grease, and chopped the bacon up into fine bits. (The smell of chocolate cupcakes and bacon cooking simultaneously certainly was an interesting experience.) Then I got about two generous tablespoons (perhaps a bit more) of chocolate frosting and mixed some bacon drippings in with it, since the recipe I had found had suggested to do so. I tasted the mixture, but the taste of the frosting was way too overpowering for the drippings to make any difference. I could tell it wouldn't matter how much bacon grease I used, it wouldn't matter. Anyway, that ready-made shelf-stable chocolate frosting has tons of oil already in it, I didn't want to add much more. So I just mixed in two pieces of bacon's worth of bacon bits into the mixture. Then I frosted one of the cupcakes with it, and gave it a taste-test.

It's . . . surprisingly not revolting. Actually, my main concern was that you wouldn't be able to taste the bacon anyway, so it wouldn't matter, because chocolate is so strong. But you actually can taste the bacon bits! The combination is fascinating. I mean, bacon . . . chocolate . . . what's not to love?

I'm gonna try to take some to a potlock-type thing, although I did make some non-bacon ones as well, since I figured I ought to warn any potential vegetarians or people who don't feel quite so adventurous. I mean, sure, it would be amusing to give one to somebody without warning them (you can't see the bacon at all in it, it just looks like mildly lumpy frosting), but I'd only try that on a non-vegetarian friend of mine who I knew well enough to be cruel to.

Anyway, it was a surprisingly very effective recipe. If anyone tries to do this, I recommend not being afraid to mix a lot of bacon in with the chocolate frosting. (You may wince in horror the first time you dump the bacon bits into the chocolate frosting, since something feels fundamentally Not Right about it, but you gotta push past that.) I added some more after my taste test, so it was two and a half pieces of bacon in roughly two tablespoons of frosting, but it's easy to just eye it and add the desired amount. You'll want enough so you can actually taste the bacon, after all-- I can tell from the original recipe I looked at, there did not seem a high enough bacon-to-frosting ratio to really get that bacon . . . baconness. XD

BACON!

We Highly Recommend You Obey Us

jaybee_bug — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:53:49 GMT

Does anyone else who's reading this (and I don't flatter myself to think many, if any, are) use Yahoo Mail? Have you had the account for a while and then 'upgraded' to the 'new' Yahoo Mail?

I've noticed something interesting.

I am still using the old version, what they're calling "Yahoo Mail Classic." Many months ago I got a few invites in my mailbox suggesting I upgrade. Those e-mails gradually became more frequent.

Then they started really coming down on me. They would give me "Upgrade Now!" messages with increasing frequency whenever I logged into my mailbox. Eventually, the message turned a little more sinister. It said something along the lines of, "The Countdown Begins Now" and had a picture of a giant stopwatch and told me that I would recieve this message, asking me to please upgrade, EVERY TIME I logged into Yahoo Mail, until it was September 19th.

They didn't say what would happen once we hit September 19th. I was deeply curious. I guessed perhaps it was implied that, "We'll ask you every time you log in to upgrade until this date, then we'll force you."

I wanted to find out, so I continued to put up with the message and refused to upgrade. They don't make it easy-- the "No thanks, continue to Mail Classic" is exceedingly small and hard to find. They clearly don't want you to do it. Which is why I did it.

Well, today is September 20th! So what happened??

So, I thought this was it, and I had no choice now. Surely? They had been asking me for months now with increasingly strong language and in increasing frequency and intensity to upgrade, and it looked like they finally gave me no choice.

BUT NO, LO AND BEHOLD! It's hard to read in the screencap I have here, but in small light gray print, that final sentence down there is 'We recommend you upgrade to the newest version of Yahoo! Mail now or review Yahoo! Mail Help for other options.' With a link for Yahoo Mail Help.

Which I follow to an FAQ, which begins with a button to UPGRADE NOW in case you missed the other five billion, then lists the advantages of their shiny new mail, and then this:

"What if I don’t want to upgrade to the newest version of Yahoo! Mail?

We strongly encourage you to upgrade so that you can experience all of the exciting new benefits that Yahoo! Mail has to offer. However, if you do not want to upgrade, please click here to use Yahoo! Mail Classic."

A-ha! I found a link to continue to Classic! I followed it and I live another day as a rebel in Yahoo's eyes. I look forward to their next move.

Seriously, this whole little saga has fascinated me. If Yahoo were to simply tell me that it's upgrading everyone's account eventually, including mine, then I might be a bit annoyed, but at least they'd be upfront and honest about it. This entire tactic of theirs to try and pressure people into upgrading, to make it seem like it was the user's idea to want to upgrade rather than Yahoo's, to hound people who don't upgrade, etc., when in all seriousness, I suspect in the end they will force all accounts over to the new system . . . it's just really dodgy. It's not cool, man. The only reason why I have refused so far to upgrade is because of the way they've hounded me over it and my curiosity over the increasingly firm 'requests' and whether or not it's going to become a "Ok, **** you, we're not giving you a choice now." I mean, at first I didn't upgrade because I find it annoying how so many websites, computer programs, etc., are constantly making new versions and forcing you to relearn crap, when really, their 'improvements' are rarely all that big a deal, and not really worth it, and WHY can't you just leave things BE?! XD So at first that was my reason, but the more they tried to make me, the more I wanted to disobey them, like a petulant child not wanting to be told what to do. ;oP

Honestly, guys, either admit you're going to eventually force the upgrade on everyone, or say that you'll continue to also run the old system and stop hounding people about the fact they don't want your shiny new version, alright? Jeez. I'm even getting spam in my other e-mail box from them about upgrading. Starts to make me think about Dr. Who's Cybermen and all that.

I'll be sure to let you know if Yahoo drives by and sends a brick through my window or increases their 'requests' any further.

Deck (and why my head currently hurts)

jaybee_bug — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:38:14 GMT

So, the neighbor who lives directly behind our house has been known colloquially by the members of my household as "Mr. OCD" for as long as we've been here. I don't even know his real name.

The reason he's earned this nickname is because of the wooden deck that he has in his backyard. I would not even begin to be capable of describing to you the epic level of effort he has put into this deck. You would need to write a poem as long as Homer's Iliad to even approach it. What makes it unfathomable is the sheer uselessness of the effort. I don't know tons about decks and how long they're supposed to last, but I'm pretty sure that tearing the entire thing down board-by-board and rebuilding it from scratch every six months or every year or so is not necessary if you've done it right to begin with. I'm not even exaggerating, because that's about how often he rebuilds the thing.

He's at it again at the moment, and it takes the workmen he hires weeks and weeks of drawn-out agony to get it done. There is endless sawing and nailing and grinding and buffing, which begins early each morning and practically vibrates our house. It sounds more like they're building Noah's Arc rather than a deck. For several weeks now (WEEKS!) they have been painting the wood with some sort of varnish that smells horrific and the fumes enter my house no matter which window I open. The fumes give me a fierce headache so I haven't been able to open the window for weeks or even stand in my yard.

Seriously, neighbor? Not loving you at the moment, mate.

O, btw, wb LJ. (Hooray for sentences composed entirely of acronyms.)

Recipe Review - Treacle Pudding

jaybee_bug — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:45:19 GMT

So, as a self-confessed anglophile and someone who's been doing a lot of research lately into the Victorian/Edwardian eras of England's history, I thought a little more hands-on approach to my research was warranted. I wanted to try some of this treacle pudding I've heard so much about, and naturally, I had to try it freshly made. I am aware of canned boiled/sponge puddings but I can't imagine that's going to be anywhere near as good as the real thing.

There is a recipe I have from a book, (Food and Cooking in Victorian England) but its solution for those of us who do not own a pudding basin (read: most of us) seemed excessively awkward. I googled for an alternative and I saw a popular approach to making the boiling of the pudding really easy was to use a rice cooker.

"Huzzah!" says I, "For I have a rice cooker!"

So I procured the needed foodstuffs, most of which were easy to obtain, save but one item. The rather vital treacle, for which the pudding gets its name. This I obtained on Amazon (Lyle's Black Treacle) in a real pretty looking tin. For those of you unaware, treacle is very similar to blackstrap molasses, but I wanted this to be as authentic as possible, so I sprung for the real thing.

The recipe I used was this one I ran across while googling. The site does blather on about Harry Potter for a bit, but you can just ignore that part and concentrate on the actual recipe. It's a bit vague on the cooking time, not really indicating how long to boil the pudding in the rice cooker, which I think is quite an oversight, but as it turned out, that would become a moot point for me. I realized I don't have a rice cooker anyway, I have a rice steamer. I had not realized there was a difference until I'd stared at the recipe long enough. (Though now I am curious, would steaming a pudding work??)

So! There goes plan A. Plan B was to use the microwave, as the recipe included a microwave option. The idea of course dismayed me, for I wanted to be authentic, and this did not smack of old world charm to stick something in the microwave. But I am also lazy. So it is a compromise. Later on I might work out a means of proper boiling. I was also hesitant because it didn't sound like it would even work in the microwave, but I gave it a shot anyway.

I didn't have a 1-quart bowl, so I decided to divide the batter and cook two smaller puddings instead and just use a cereal bowl as the pudding mold. This required me to cut the cooking time in half for the microwave (down to 3-4 minutes) and hope it would work out OK, and also hope there was enough room leftover in the bowl for expansion of the pudding. I wasn't sure if by "cover with a piece of parchment" the directions meant that it should be perfectly sealed or just covered (well, this wasn't being boiled, so there should be no reason to have it sealed; on the contrary, I made sure there was a bit of a vent for steam).

I was quite worried about hot spots making burn holes in the pudding. My microwave is bloody ancient, and it has no turntable. Heck, the thing probably is leaking microwave radiation and cooking my brains everytime I use it anyway. :oP But anyway, I gave the bowl a quarter-turn every 30 seconds while I cooked it. After 4 minutes of this, the pudding was starting to 'pull away' from the sides of the bowl and looked done. I waited the 15 minutes and then poked at it a bit with a butter knife to unstick it from the bowl before flipping it over.

Ta-daa! Behold:

Amazingly, the treacle carmalized perfectly without burning at all, and the texture/moisture was right, it was not dried out or anything, seemed to survive the microwave just fine. It didn't stick to the bowl either (because it was a shallow enough bowl I guess and I buttered the heck out of it).

I saved the second one for later in some cling-wrap and tinfoil, and it seems to reheat in the microwave just fine as well.

So, there you have it. Be sure to eat it with milk. Oh, it took ages to get the treacle to run all over the bottom of the bowl before putting the batter on top, by the way. I guess they don't say 'slow as molasses' for nothing. If I was a little more patient, I could have easily done some funny little pattern with the treacle, like a star or something. XD

Anyway, next up on my list, I think, is "learn to make tea THE PROPER WAY" as opposed to the usual "tea bag in a mug and turn on the kettle."

Realizations

jaybee_bug — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:04:30 GMT

So I've got this song sitting on my computer I've listened to a bunch for years-- it's got to be hundreds of times by now? Well, maybe not quite that much, but a lot. It's called 'People Can Fly' by some group called Astral Projection . . .

I was listening to it today, and for some deeply mysterious reason, something new clicked in my brain that never did before, and I realized the voice in the song was familiar. A few moments later I realized it was David Duchovny. (I was a huge X-Files fan)

. . .

WHY did it take me this many years to realize that?! XD The brain is a very strange thing.

Writer's Block: Going boldly

jaybee_bug — Sun, 29 May 2011 22:41:46 GMT

Yeah, Mr. Spock. Because he's awesome.

Where were YOU?

jaybee_bug — Fri, 27 May 2011 18:16:51 GMT

I was in my bedroom, livestreaming the show at my computer. That in and of itself was unusual. The show begins at 11pm where I live, and I'm usually in bed by 10. (Look, I'm not a night person, ok? I just can't do nights . . .) So I usually just podcast it, but tonight I happened to be up a little later than usual, and thought I'd listen to a little right before bed. I ran off to brush my teeth during a song, heh, (and was confused when I checked back and a new song was playing. 'They only play one song during the break, wtf?' But apparently it was a brief power outage) and I came back as the Random John segment was just starting. 'Oh, listen to Random John before bed, just this one last segment,' I think to myself.

I confess I'd long ago given up all hope of their ever succeeding at the game. Sure, I had high hopes the first several weeks, but as time wore on and talk of statistical odds and sanity set it, a rational girl like me can't possibly go on believing. It would be just another silly segment gone the way of The People's Bull and The People's Hoverboard and all the rest. (Or Adam's Hill. I really wanted that one.) I think in our heart of hearts, we all knew that. It's like when a kid grows old enough to realize Santa probably doesn't exist.

But like a kid nostalgic and reluctant to let go of her old childhood joy, I was reluctant to cast aside all hope. Like Fox Mulder, I wanted to believe. So you don't outwardly speak of your doubts, and you 'get into it' anyway as best you can, wanting to work up your hopes again, because you don't want to let that myth go. I still believe in John. I do, I do.

So, when they put in the number and it started to ring, I went through the usual ritual I did every week when listening to the segment, chanting "John! John! John!" as the phone rang and allowing myself that small hope against all odds.

I happened to be in the middle of pulling a medication pill out of a bottle when IT happened, which I suppose just goes to show I was treating this segment with a little more casualness and a little less focus than I used to.

The brilliant thing is, it wasn't one of those uncertain phone calls. Most of the time, you'll get people who just say 'hello' when they answer, and then you have to ask for their name before knowing if you got lucky or not. But this time, when the phone finally picked up, the first thing you heard after hello was this voice telling you, unequivocally, undeniably, immediately that this was John's phone. There was no doubt. You knew instantly that it was so. Then there was a half second of sheer disbelief and shock.

It's a bit of a blur after that. I remember I shouted and cheered, though I really don't remember what I was saying. I bounced in my seat and banged the desktop. I got out of the chair at some point and bounced/danced around the room. I'd hurt my foot earlier that day during tai-chi so it was quite sore and very hard to walk on, thus it was quite a pathetic excited hobble, but I did it anyway. I didn't care, this had to have a victory dance even if it cost me a foot. At some point while I was dancing around Hamish was babbling about poisoned cordial for some reason, but any nonsense seemed to make perfect sense in that moment. I know at one point I shouted "JOHN!" at the bedroom wall and it vaguely occurred to me that my dad was probably going to be pretty annoyed at all this noise (he was sleeping in the next room).

Eventually I calmed down enough to send out a few erratic tweets about it and then Andy started talking about how it might not count (psssh, as if). I listened until they got back the ruling on it being an official Johnpoint and then went to bed. (Though there was no reason to now. After that adrenaline, really now, how could you try to sleep?)

Looking back, I still can't believe how lucky I am that I happened to be listening when it happened, because as I said, I almost never listen to the show live. It did occur to me a few weeks ago that if they ever DID get a John, I would in all probability have that fact spoiled long before listening to the podcast. They would no doubt immediately tweet about it. Who woudn't? And then I'd mostly feel the sting of disappointment at having it spoilt and having missed the moment live. The fact that I was listening live is almost as incredible a statistical odd as having found a John. That night was doubly lucky for me. (For all my fellow podcasters who missed the moment: you have my sincere sympathy. I have missed stuff I've wanted to see live before, so I do know the feeling. it is the cross the international fan must bear, alas, the cross of time zones.)

In short: I was witness to history.

Through some John-powered miracle, (or the sleep medication I took, perhaps) I was able to eventually fall asleep, and the feeling of waking the next morning after having gotten a John . . . . aaah. There's nothing like it, people. There's just nothing like it.

So, where were YOU when Hamish and Andy found a John?

Knowing that you're dreaming

jaybee_bug — Thu, 26 May 2011 03:40:42 GMT

Some lady had really young kittens she was bottle-feeding (they'd lost their mother). She was asking me a question about it (I was supposed to be a bit of an expert on the topic). I think she asked something about how long you should wait in between feedings. I'm not sure, but I know I gave her an answer, which she promptly questioned, and thought I was wrong about. I told her, well, I'm actually pretty darn sure I'm right about that, so I really don't know why my subconscious is arguing with me over it. I added,

"If you really want, I'll Google it when I wake up, alright??"

Which I did.

My subconscious should listen to me more often. XD

Slice of Life

jaybee_bug — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 01:09:58 GMT

I put an egg in the freezer just to see what would happen . . .
A few minutes ago I was in the kitchen, trying to smash the frozen egg with a hammer. My brother came into the kitchen for a drink of water, watched me, and then left without a word.
Lol.

Er . . . judgment day?

jaybee_bug — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:32:53 GMT

So, here's an odd little snippet of dream.
There was a large stone statue of a person, which included this person holding a large basket-like object, upside-down, creating a sort of cage if it were dropped. A bit like that thing in the Mousetrap board game. Yeah. I was checking out the big statue, which naturally included standing under this cage-thing, because it was cool and amusing, and I mean, it's not like it's a risk, because hey, statue.

Except that the giant stone statue was operated by a little sentient mouse that pushed a button and trapped me in the cage. XD

Then he asked me if I had done anything of any real value to society or the world at large, and if I had, he would let me free. And if I hadn't then he'd eat me. He explained he put this question to all the humans he trapped as prey. And that most could not really think of anything.

When people begged for freedom he would laugh at them.

"Relax," he'd say,

"The world will go on spinning with or without you. Your greatest contribution to this planet was always going to be no more than merely becoming a small snack for a large predator. Or a large snack for a small predator, I suppose, in this case."

Kind of an odd way to wake up in the morning, but it does motivate you to try and accomplish something that day, I suppose. :oP

Vegas, Baby

jaybee_bug — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:13:14 GMT

I'm going to Las Vegas for a week just to muck about-- anyone out there have any suggestions for things to do in Vegas? I don't gamble or drink or do the club scene, so those are out. ;) I was going to try Red Rock Canyon, though, that looks nice. I'm open to other ideas as well!

Blast from the past-- Jeeves and Wooster

jaybee_bug — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:53:43 GMT

Heh. I was going through old folders of school work. I came across this:

I have to say, jeeves, it doesn’t seem to look quite like the picture on the box.

no, sir.

in fact, I think I’d go so far as to say I’m having some difficulty seeing the resemblance at all.

indeed, sir.

*contemplates* hm. I wonder what went wrong.

it’s difficult to say, sir. many possibilities spring to mind.

*has been making a weird face at it* what d’you suppose those bits there are?

*hesitates* if I were to hazard a guess, I would suggest they are the remnants of cheese.

really?

I could be wrong, of course, sir.

*sighs* oh well. first attempt and all. I’m sure it’ll improve as I go along. These things take breaking in, y’know. I better tuck in before it goes cold.

you’re not still proposing to actually consume the item, sir?

well of course I am. It’s my first creation. A little saggy, but, well -- I made the bed, I’ve got to lie in it-- that’s the rule, you’ve got to eat what you make.

but were that the case, sir, some of the most venerated culinary innovations would most likely not have come about; experimentation necessitates a certain degree of catastrophic error

well you’re not suggesting I just waste it, jeeves?

*pause* ‘waste’ may be too generous a label to apply to disposal of the item, sir, as I believe it likely it no longer falls within the category of cuisine. the moment possibly occurred during the spatula incident.

oh, pfffff. it isn’t that bad.

I think I was sketching random bits of dialogue as a revolt against my homework. Ah, Uni days, good times. ;oP