Frying Cheese for Fun and Profit
Frying Cheese for Fun and Profit
Thursday, January 12th, 2005
A month ago I promised you all that we'd find a permanent home for my notes about the chupaqueso, that delicious, nutritious, low-carb, high-tech package of pan-fried dairy goodness. Well, the doors are now open at Chupaqueso.com. You can find the original recipe there, as well as all of my recent blogging about cheese.
Some of you have emailed me to ask "what was that one place you told us about that makes the farmer-whatsit cheeses?" Well, that information is there too, as is a list of Cheeses I Have In My House Right Now.
Jay Maynard is taking care of the hosting on this, and he and I will be splitting the ad revenue. Jay and I have run two hands-on chupaqueso workshops together, and he tells me he'll be putting up a tutorial, complete with photographs. I may have invented the chupaqueso, but Jay perfected it.
Now it's remotely possible that we'll run out of chupaqueso-specific or even CHEESE-specific things to blog about. That's okay. We've both been asked repeatedly for "geek recipes," and I'm sure we'll have more than a few out there. Most of them will involve frying things, and perhaps even DEEP frying them. Just give us some time, folks. Just give us some time.
I realize that many, many popular blogs these days have political undertones. We'll try to stay away from that, but it may become necessary to unload a few rounds of invective in the direction of lobbyists, activists, and assorted wackos who would oppose us in our quest to eat things made by, from, and without the consent of animals. We'll try to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Until then, though, I'd like to quote a fellow cartoonist, Doc Nickel... "vegetables are what food eats."
And Now, In Context
Tuesday, January 10th, 2005
More than a few of you have emailed me to let me know that Uwe Boll, the executive producer and director of BloodRayne, has produced and/or directed other stinkers. To this I say "I know." My review of BloodRayne was contextless. I attempted to judge the film based on what appeared on the screen, rather than on what I believed was going on behind the scenes.
As horrible as the on-screen material was, the behind the scenes story is worse. Begin, if you will, with this Cinema Blend article which explains that Uwe Boll is out to make tax breaks, not movies. You know that hit Broadway show The Producers which is coming back to the big screen? Well, Uwe is doing exactly what the protagonists do in that film -- he's making money through tax laws, while destroying the intellectual property he licenses for production.
Yes, I've seen House of the Dead. I can be forgiven for that, right? I mean, I had no idea Uwe Boll was a scam artist back then. I really enjoyed the game (I played all the way through it once, using both players' stations for that "John Woo" two-pistol mayhem). Oh, and I've got a thing for zombie movies. It LOOKED like something I'd enjoy. To say that it was every bit as bad as BloodRayne would be two years later is inaccurate, though. It was bad, sure enough, but Uwe Boll was still working on his "craft." In BloodRayne I believe he has perfected the "art" of taking good actors, beautiful locations, and expensive equipment and churning out worst-case scenarios.
What's the answer to all this? If we stay away from his films, he makes a mint. If we go and SEE his films, we're throwing away time better spent buried up to our necks in anthills, and money better spent donated to webcartoonists. Stuart Wood, the Cinema Blend reporter, may have the right idea: boycott Uwe Boll's work "in screening, review, interview, or any other form."
To that end, I probably should stop talking about him...
Gaming at The Keep
Tuesday, January 10th, 2005
I've been having a great time lately gaming at Dragon's Keep. This last Friday night we had a role-playing session, and the gamemaster had shamelessly borrowed, stolen, lifted, and plagiarized material from an unknown number of horror-genre works in order to create a really enjoyable campaign. I actually got the creeps a couple of times-- like when I turned on a TV set and saw myself staring back at me, only from a room that was different from the one I was standing in.
(When I say "I," I of course mean "my character," but when I role-play I try to get into it. I may munch a little kin when it comes time for combat, but mostly I RPG for immersion.)
Yesterday I headed down to the Keep after coloring a week of strips. I needed to get some pencilling done, and getting outside of my box often helps. Well, I ended up pencilling six rows while playing Arkham Horror. This was my first time with the game, and I enjoyed it. I really like games where the players play WITH each other rather than AGAINST each other, and in Arkham Horror the players work together to beat the game board. My only gripe with the game is that just setting up and sorting the different play decks and tokens takes half an hour. Oh, and the rules are so byzantine they're nigh-incomprehensible. Oh, and it takes too long. But other than that? Great game.
Three hours in we realized it was time for everyone to go home (closing time at the store, after all), so we checked the next few cards in each deck, rolled a few dice, and determined that we would have had about 2 chances in 3 to win. So Jason, our dealer, rolled a six-sided die. On a 1 or a 2 we "lose." He threw a 6.
For me, putting the entire outcome of three hours of game play on a single die roll was thrilling. No, that's not in the rules anywhere, but I suspect that often enough it comes down to that, one way or another.
Looking for previous blogs?
Here are links to my BloodRayne Review, the The $100 Christmas Report and Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Me