Return of the Prodigal Son! (Again)

Hello all of my faithful readers (read: Toninho), I have taken a short hiatus from blogging for about a month, and there is so much I have learned!  Actually, not really, I have just stopped blogging because I had better things to be doing with my life than sitting in front of a computer discussing the better things I could be doing with my life instead.  So let us get busy describing and going into gruesome detail about the month that was.  This video will give you a good idea.


A few days after the last time I posted anything to this site I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exams), the test was more or less a repeat of the SAT and was just as easy.  After breezing through the entire test and likely doing just as good as I knew I should have, I was able to officially enter the life of a true adult.  And this new life as an adult meant beers, beers, beers, golf and beers.  It was a deliciously fun time for the next week or so, as I was not only trying as hard as I could to enjoy my life, but I was also preparing to move back in for my last year at college!  Instead of the packing that it is usually expected to be, my preparing was saying goodbye to all of my great friends back home and trying to follow through with as many fake plans as possible.  But time truly flies when you were having fun and the next thing I knew I was back in my parent's car getting a ride back to school (my car died so I couldn't drive it).

We there yet?  My Teddy has to pee!

This year is much more special than any other year of college though, because this year I am living off campus with some friends of mine and do not have a meal plan, so in short, I am responsible for not letting myself die.  To do this I have had to learn how to cook, and how to eat smaller portions because I don't have the money to feed my fat ass (I am actually quite thin).  This is going surprisingly well as I have yet to go hungry for a day since moving in!  But it also has the unintended consequence of limiting my blogging time (frowny face) because for some strange reason, survival takes precedence over sharing my life with millions of strangers via their computer screens.  Hopefully, I will become so adept at not dying that I will be able to return to form and put a few sets of ideas out, and I also have office hours for a Calculus on Tuesday's and since I don't expect many visitors I will try to get some writing done during that block.  Living on my own has been a blast, I have continued my trend of drinking a moderate amount every night that remains from the week after the GRE, which sucks because it is costing me a lot of money, and I am not exactly made out of 20 dollar bills.

Currently in my fridge.

I have also found myself becoming obsessed with video games that were made over a decade ago.  The recent three games I have been playing since moving back into school are Banjo-Tooie (remake on the Xbox 360), Jet Grind Radio (DREAMCAST!) and the original Metal Gear Solid.  I think video games are much like music and art, the new stuff is good, but there are many times when you need to look into the past and experience what came before to get a true appreciation for how things were meant to be (especially for video games since the technology of games directly influences what they are able to do.)  I am planning on following this paragraph with a few images you need to see, the first will probably be some picture from Jet Grind Radio, and the latter will be a video display of the psychic powers of Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid.

On the next episode of Gangland we look into the GGs of Tokyo-to 

So, I am sorry there really wasn't much of a logical train of thoughts going into this post, it was really me just typing random things as they came to my mind so I could get back into the habit of blogging again, and to say things.  There are more things that I need to say that I hopefully will be able to get off my chest within the next few weeks.  But until then, enjoy my ideas and thoughts and appreciate the fact that this post was just me trying to waste an hour.

Project Yancey: Episode 19: Doug's Cookin'

The ever-versatile cheese sandwich

"Some say cooking is an art, others say it's more like a science.  After today, I would say that cooking is more like an attack from outer space."  These insightful words from Doug Funnie, start this episode as he and Porkchop try to fight off a huge flesh colored blob from covering the entire school kitchen.  A cooking contest in class causes this thought, as Mrs. Wingo decides that for Home Ec. grade teams of two students were going to have a cooking contest where the most delicious and original plate wins (much like Iron Chef, except without an awesome Kitchen Stadium and a crazy Japanese host.)  Upon hearing this news, the girls of the room all cheer, and once they are done doing so all the guys boo, and Roger says "hey cooking is for girls!"  Roger obviously isn't the only one who thinks so in that class, and that may have been one of the most objective comments he has ever made.  As Mrs. Wingo reads off the team, the only three teams we hear, are probably the only three that are interesting at all.  First, she calls Skeeter and Bee Bee, to which Roger asks if they are gonna make a Wedding Cake (from now on that becomes an off and on running subplot for the rest of the series), which amazes me because Roger has already made two comments that you don't immediately think to yourself that hes a total ass.  The second  team read off is Doug and Patti!  This comes after it is revealed via daydream that Doug can make a mean grilled cheese sandwich, and after the teams are named it is revealed Patti can't cook.  As they are making plans to practice at Doug's house tonight, Roger chimes in again, this time asking if he can be the baby since they are playing house tonight (this comment is beyond creepy, I won't even try to express it.)  And finally the last team is Roger and Mrs. Wingo, serves that bastard right.  As Doug prepares to have Patti over he searches for a recipe, but the only cookbooks he has are variations of grilled cheese, so Porkchop suggests (by miraculously morphing himself) to ask Mr. Dink.  Since he just purchased a [very expensive] computer chef and diet manager thing, named for Julia Child (My first ever Simmons-esque aside: I don't know if anybody else finds this interesting, but Julia Child was 6'2", that's the same height as a deceptively tall John Candy, and Mickey Rourke is only 5'11".  I randomly find this kind of stuff interesting and could look for hours, just try out www.celebheights.com, you will find yourself spending a lot more time than you think looking at people's heights.)  But anyways, after Julia insults Mr. Dink's eating habits, Doug decides to try to make a carrot cake with Patti.  As expected, Patti massively fails at cooking, and they don't even reach the point of putting it in the oven.  Discouraged, Patti starts spinning a basketball on her finger and a commercial comes on featuring a pizza chef spinning the dough on his finger, the coincidence in the air is nearly palpable at that point.  So the cooking contest starts, we see Bee Bee bossing poor ol' Skeeter around (who are we kidding he's lovin' it, those two lovebirds were made for each other), Mrs. Wingo has to monitor the students so Roger is basically left alone to ruin their banana pudding, and Doug and Patti have things go well and Patti even tells Doug they make a great team. Long story short, Roger tries to ditch his crappy banana pudding, crashes into Doug and Patti, Pudding goes on pizza, Doug and Patti feel like its over, Skeeter catches up and tells them people love their banana pizza, they win, Doug goes home a happy camper because Patti said they make a great team (first team, later couple... maybe.)

She was 6'2", thats amazing!

I wouldn't call myself a chef by any stretch of the imagination, the extent of my cooking knowledge is putting something on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees and let it sit until it looks about right.  But don't hate on those methods, the foods that I can make turn out really good, and I am sometimes clever about mixing foods together and having it work out.  So while I acknowledge that I really need to learn how to cook, I'm usually too lazy to actually put time into caring about how to cook, which will likely come back to bite me in the ass when I do need the skill.  So since theres not really much to talk about, I'll acknowledge that I've worked at a grocery store for 4 years or so as of now, and I'm gonna discuss some of the more strange/disgusting foods I have happened to stumble across.  First I must mention chocolate whipped cream, to put it bluntly, I can't see that being put on anything without looking like something from "2 girls 1 cup".  Sorry if you have had this product and enjoy it, but I'm sorry its the only thing i can think of when i try to see what that would look like.  Another similar product I've seen is canned pancakes, this is pancake mix in a can similar to what whipped cream comes in and apparently is released in the same manner, this just seems really weird to me and I don't think I would be able to try it out.  I also don't want to understand what people do with the chicken gizzards and hearts that I see purchased at a much higher frequency than I would have ever otherwise guessed (yes, they sell pretty well).  But it isn't all bad things in the realm of strange foods, many of the random strange ethnic fruit look really good, and even in the case of the Ugli fruit (yes that's the name on the sticker), which looks like an orange with a tumor, they are delicious nonetheless.  The last food, which isn't really strange at all but I've always wanted to try is bison meat, I've heard many times that it is great but I've never bought it.  Maybe when I learn how to cook I'll become a bison specialist.

I think you see my point.