Happy Mother's Day to anyone who has cared for something smaller than them.

I was sitting at my desk, reading, when I heard the unmistakable Bad Kitty noise of claws on screen. I looked up to yell at Vienna (she's the only one with front claws) and saw this:


( Cut for space. And suspense. )

This one actually made me laugh out loud!



...

Okay, I'm done now.

G'night, internets.

I think I'm gonna like this comic...

"Come off it, Miss Vienna," she said, "you can't win, you know. You can't lie in front of the vacuum cleaner indefinitely." She tried to make her eyes blaze fiercely but they just wouldn't do it.

Vienna squinted at her. "I'm game," she said, "we'll see who rusts first."

So my boss' husband has a seagull with a broken wing trapped under a laundry basket in their back yard. He's been feeding it since Monday. Today he'll be wrangling it into a box and bringing it to our office, so that I can take it to the MSU vet school where it will be treated and cared for. There's a branch of the humane society just down the street from me, but they're more interested in euthanizing the bird... and to be fair, a university has a lot more resources to be able to deal with charity wild animals.

This isn't any different from my facebook and G+ posts. I just wanted to archive it.

( Do you feed your introvert Iams or Science Diet? )

It's a lot easier to update facebook from my phone than LJ. I'm also feeling tired, cranky, and still slightly feverish, so have a FB recap:

4:30 am - I feel like my right ovary is trying to explode. Hospital now.

7:00 am - I'm at troy beaumont in emergency. The pain tapered off and is a dull ache. Symptoms are consistent with an ovarian cyst bursting but they're testing for appendicitis too. Not how I planned to start my day.

11:00 am - ‎1. I'm home.
2. I now have an opinion on transvaginal ultrasounds, which is topical!
3. Ultrasound results found fluid in my pelvis, which is consistent with the "ruptured cyst" theory. My ovaries otherwise look okay.
4. They found some growths called "fibroids" on my uterus which can cause pain and cramping if they grow larger. I'm supposed to pay attention for painful periods.
5. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to figure out fibroid pain in relation to endometriosis pain or cyst pain.
6. I hate my genetics.

Okay, so as a young girl you were kidnapped and taken to a mental institution on a rural island. You don't remember what happened, but the experience has haunted your life ever since. Now, of the four other girls who were held captive with you, two of them have recently died horribly under suspicious circumstances. You're feeling an indescribable pull back to the place of your nightmares, and you fear that if you don't go, you'll die too.

So what do you wear to explore the abandoned ruins of a sanatorium where you may have been tortured?

( Personally? Jeans, kevlar, sensible shoes, and a fucking bazooka. )

... Yes. Yes, of course you do.

I miss Rei from Fatal Frame III. She got to wear pants.

So the boy and I have been playing Journey all week. It's my first experience with a thatgamecompany title, and I'm ready to run out and buy their other two games, flOw and Flower, on the strength of this one. "Impressed" is a sorry understatement. "Blown away" comes closer. Journey is riveting, beautiful, emotional, and awe inspiring. At times it's heartbreaking. And at $15, the only reason not to buy it is if you don't actually own a PS3 (it's a Playstation Network exclusive).

( I still say that this is a game best experienced as unspoiled as possible, so all further gushing will be below this tag. )

Conclusion: In a landscape that seems overpopulated with hardened space marines and ragtag bands of unlikely heroes facing overwhelming odds, Journey stands out as a shining example of how mature the medium has actually become. I don't want every game to be Journey -- I do love me some old fashioned monster-killin' -- but I'm thrilled that a game like this exists and that I was able to experience it. It's a reminder that the verb associated with video games is "play", it's a fulfillment of what online play was always meant to be, and it's a great big thumbed nose to the Jack Thompsons and Roger Eberts of the world. I can't recommend it highly enough.

You start here:



You're trying to get there:



Everything in between... is Journey.

...

Okay, look. Any kind of spoilers, even going so far as to tell you what to expect, will hurt the experience. Actually... that website I linked to above? Don't visit it. Just go and buy this game on the Playstation Network (PS3). It's fifteen bucks. Set aside at least two hours when you're not going to be distracted. Play it on the biggest TV you have and with the sound all the way up.

It's amazing.

Yeah, so that sleep thing isn't going to happen. I haven't actually eaten the cupcake yet, either.

It's a good thing for the world that the boy is working a day shift so we'll be carpooling. I doubt very much that I'm safe to drive. Not that he's had a much better night from what he says.

Ten hours. Well, twelve from now. That's all I have to get through.

*whimper*

Once again, there is no sleep; only Zuul.

Sunday night is almost always the best sleep I get during the work week. Each successive night is a little bit less restful until I crash on the weekend and SLEEP ALL THE HOURS. Then I have a hard time going to bed on time on Sunday and the cycle begins again. This week, Sunday night really sucked -- lots of waking up three times an hour to look at the clock -- and things have not improved since. I sleepwalked through yesterday, and given that I'm wide awake at stupid o'clock am now, today is going to be awesome*.

I'm awake because I had this idea. I could get a plush mouse, right? Maybe a cat toy of some variety. Then I could get some nice colorful scraps of fabric and make it a little tribal costume. The finishing touches would be crafted from the contents of an owl pellet. Voila: instant Aeslin mouse! My only real worry would be that I might have to go through more than one pellet to find a nice, intact bird skull. Because using a mouse or vole skull for a hat would simply Not Do. And owl pellet kits aren't particularly cheap. Well, my other worry would be that I'll freak people out with the morbidity of using real dead animal bits to make a piece of fanart and oh god why am I awake contemplating this at four in the morning all I want is to get a few hours of sleep so that I can do a halfway decent job at work and not lapse into demented raving in Klingon on my audit report. Again.

Anyway, you should go read Discount Armageddon by seanan_mcguire. It's witty as hell with a memorable cast of characters, excellent action, worldbuilding you can lose yourself in, and sex scenes that didn't make me roll my eyes and skim to the end of the chapter (that's a compliment - paranormal romance isn't normally my genre for a reason). The mice are the best thing. Verity and her endless problems with concealing enough weapons in competition ballroom dance costumes is also the best thing. I could go on, but at my current level of functionality I'd be tempted to use phrases like "lighthearted romp" and nobody wants that.

I'm going to go eat a strawberry cupcake the size of my head and try to go back to sleep now.






*Awesomeness of today not guaranteed. Color and shape of visual hallucinations may vary. Your Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you, and in fact cannot speak. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Time to CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! I will start by folding up the blankets on the chair!





... dammit.

I just got done playing Catherine for PS3. It was a Yule present, and a nice palate cleanser between The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Final Fantasy XIII-2. It's also one of the more interesting and unique games I've ever seen.

It takes place in an unnamed American city in the near future. You play a guy named Vincent, a thirty-something low-level programmer. He has been with his girlfriend, Katherine, for about five years now, and she's starting to hint rather strongly that it's about time they got Married. He's... not exactly irresponsible, but he enjoys the freedom of having his own place and being able to hang out at the Stray Sheep bar with his buddies on a regular basis, and is happy with the current level of his relationship. The thought of change scares him.

Meanwhile, Vincent has started having weird nightmares every time he goes to sleep. He's forced to climb this tower night after night, and if he doesn't climb fast enough the floor will fall away and he will die. He doesn't remember any details of his nightmares once he's woken up, but he's not getting much rest.

Then one morning he wakes up and discovers that he's not alone. And the naked blond girl curled up next to him isn't Katherine, either. Enter Catherine. She's sexy, uninhibited, believes in no-strings-attached love, and thinks that Vincent is the hottest thing she's ever seen. After a moment of blind panic, Vincent vaguely remembers her flirting with him when he stayed to drink at the bar after his buddies had gone home for the night.

And there's the conflict of the game: Freedom or responsibility? Love or simple sex? Over the course of a week, it's your job to guide Vincent to make the choices that will lead him to a happy ending. And not get him killed, because young men have been turning up dead in their beds all over town, and according to the rumor mill the only thing they all have in common is being unfaithful to the women in their lives...

Catherine settles you into the game's routine fairly quickly. You begin with a Nightmare level. In his nightmares, Vincent has to climb a tower made out of cubes. You can only climb one cube at a time, and must push and pull them in order to create stairs to reach the top. You have to work quickly, as the bottom level of blocks will fall away every few seconds. If you're stuck on the bottom floor when it drops, you lose a life. As the game progresses, different types of blocks are introduced, requiring different strategies for dealing with them. There are three or four stages to a Nightmare, and the final one is always a boss level, where a giant personification of one of Vincent's fears chases him up the tower. You can't fight it; you can only outrun its attacks.




Once you outrun that night's boss, Vincent wakes up and the day begins. You're treated to a cinematic sequence showing the day's events. At the end of the day Vincent visits the Stray Sheep bar with his friends. Here's where you can take control of him and start guiding his decisions. You can speak with other bar patrons, fiddle with the jukebox, play a video game machine, or get drunk. Periodically you'll get a text message from one of the women, and you can choose to either ignore it or respond to it. Responding takes the form of selecting from several pre-written phrases. If you text something that Catherine or Katherine particularly likes, they may follow up with a phone call. Each interaction is registered on a meter that shows you which *atherine Vincent is currently leaning towards.

Talking to people is incredibly important. During the nightmare sequences, you run into anthropomorphic sheep. These "sheep" are actually other men who are caught up in the same nightmare (Vincent looks like a sheep to them, too). Several of these men drink at the same bar that Vincent does, and you can encourage them to talk about their troubles. Doing so will give them the hope they need to stay alive. Ignore them, and the bar becomes a lonely place rather quickly.

If this game sounds strange, that's because it is. It's half puzzle game and half fucked-up dating sim, and the entire thing is atmospheric and creepy. It's less cheesecakey than the promotional art would have you believe (NSFW-ish), although you probably wouldn't want to play it with your mother in the room. The themes are handled in a surprisingly mature way, and I found myself rushing through the nightmare stages so I could find out what would happen next. It can be frustrating at times; Vincent will spend several nights with Catherine even if you want him to man up and marry Katherine. But then, it would be a really short game if he kicked her out of his bed on the first morning and told her that he already had a girlfriend that he loved.

Bottom line: Catherine is a breath of fresh air in an entertainment medium cluttered with ragtag bands of heroes and hardened space marines. It's nice to see a game developer take a risk with something truly unique -- one that paid off for Atlus, as it sold over 200,000 copies in its North American release. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and although FFXIII-2 is calling my name right now I'm looking forward to playing through Catherine again to get a different ending (there are eight total). It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're looking for something different it's well worth picking up.



PS3 / XBOX360

Alternate cover art editions: PS3 / XBOX360

Limited Edition Gift Set (you know you want those boxers): PS3 / XBOX360

This is Mousey. It is Fancy's favorite toy. It was also her first toy, which means it's going on twelve this year. I was looking at it today and thinking about how well loved it is, and suddenly I wondered whether beloved cat toys become Real.

Then I realized that probably isn't something that cat toys aspire to.

2011 was the first year in a long time that I didn't actually want to kill with fire at the end of it. I suppose that's saying something.

I lost just about forty-five pounds. My doctor thinks I should have lost more, and I'll admit hitting the big round five-oh would have been pleasing, but... you know... screw 'em. Losing weight slowly still isn't gaining. For this year, I have a shiny new Curves membership and a perhaps overly ambitious goal to be on the right side of 150. We'll see how that goes.

I'm still dealing with depression. I really thought that the Saphris was going to be the magic pill for the anger issues, but after the first thirty days the shiny seems to be wearing off. I'm thinking that the initial excellent results had more to do with it helping me sleep through the night than its actual mood altering properties; when I'm rested, I angst less. When I've slept poorly, I stew over little things and fly off the handle. As Saphris is also freaking expensive, I'm going to discuss other options with my pdoc.

I really enjoyed making that Zelda-fairy ornament. I already have plans to hit Frankenmuth to see if I can find some better clear glass bulbs for the purpose; if I can perfect the design, I might try my hand at selling some on Etsy. I need to make more things. It makes me so happy when I do, and I don't know why I stop. Probably that depression thing again. Maybe I'll finish that advent calendar I started a million years ago.

As of the bill I just got, I officially have thirteen payments left on the Mini. I'm planning on sending the tax return to them, so assuming we get a similar refund to last year's, we should be out of payments around September or October. Then we can get the boy a car of his own. We're looking for a good, reliable baby in the 10-15k range. It looks like there are a lot of choices this year, so it's time to start researching our best option.

I'm officially trying to get a better job within my company. I like my boss, but I've been bored with my responsibilities for some time, and more money would be a huge help. I haven't had much luck so far, but if I keep throwing my resume at the wall, it'll stick eventually.

Fancy, who is not a pair of mittens right now only because of how amazingly kind and sweet-natured I am, saw us clipping Folly's claws last night and decided to retaliate by peeing on the boy's wool cloak. The wool cloak that can't be dry cleaned because that would strip the lanolin and remove the waterproofing.

So how do I clean this thing?

Can I wash it? Can I use detergent? I assume heat would be *bad*, so line-drying in the bathroom?

Are we going to just have to suck it up and dry clean anyway?

Half Moon's website is extremely unhelpful. They say that a yearly airing and "spot cleaning" is all that that is required, but I don't think they were thinking of cat pee.

Help!

Does anyone have a good source for 3mm eye hook screws that won't make me order a billion of them at a time?

Don't you love it when you go to make something, and it comes out pretty much the way you had it in your head?

( Hey! Listen! )

Stuffing it in the ornament crumpled the wings a bit, but it's still pretty much made of awesome. And super glue.

The nylon thread is really too delicate to use as a hanging thread, so I think I'm going to get some 3mm eyehook screws and screw one into the cork.

This requires walking to Joanne Fabric. Be back later.

So I'm playing Nethack, and I find a giant hardware store on level 4 that nets me two bags of holding, three bags of tricks, a magic marker, a pick-axe, a tinning kit, a can of grease, a magic whistle, a magic lamp, and some other more common but quite useful stuff. On the way down to Minetown to check whether that magic lamp is immediately usable for a wish (read: blessed), I come across another bag of holding, another magic marker, and two more magic lamps. I've also found four plain old sacks; three more and I can safely stash a bag of holding inside another bag of holding for maximum stuff-carrying capacity.*

One of the magic lamps turned out blessed, so I'm now wearing a shiny new blessed greased +2 gray dragon scale mail.

The Random Number God Generator is going to kill me.





*A bag of holding halves the weight of anything inside it (quarters it, if it's blessed). You can't put a bag of holding inside another bag of holding. Trying it will cause a quantum explosion that will destroy both bags and anything else that was in them. However, if you put your BoH inside a sack, and put that inside a sack, until you've nested it inside of 7 sacks, you can reduce your chance of inventory loss to 8/128, or 6.25%. Oddly, if you nest it in any more bags than seven, the chances of going 'splody start increasing again. Not that it matters given that there's a nymph with a wand of death or pit of poisoned spikes in my future (see above re: RNG).

Vienna and I are eating pita bread and hummous together.

Well, I'm eating the hummous. She's just eating the bread.

If the aliens had to suss out what the heck Christmas is based on Google image results, I don't think they'd come to the conclusion of a festival celebrating anyone's birth. A fertility rite, maybe, given the sheer volume of underdressed ladies in Santa hats. They'd probably pick up on the gift-giving anglle, but would also find round bulb-style ornaments to be overly significant. Maybe they'd decide that they were talismans given to the underdressed ladies to indicate desire to do the sorts of things you do with underdressed ladies.

So anyway, have some more wallpapers. They're nearly entirely secular, unless you count Santa Claus as a religious figure. Anything remotely unworksafe is in a separate folder for my your convenience, as usual.

While I'm on the subject of desktop wallpaper, John's Background Switcher is the best wallpaper program I've ever found. It's got a billion features and can pull pics from Flickr, I Can Haz Cheezburger, or other photo sharing sites in addition to pictures from your hard drive. And it's freeware.

I downloaded a bunch of Thanksgiving-themed wallpapers. They're 1920x1200, because that's my screen resolution.

You can get them here.

( Hey, remember that Nethack game I started around 4am during Extra Life? )

Dear Michigan Republicans,

That language you added to the anti-bullying bill to safeguard a kid's god-given right to torment faggots? You know, the bit of language where bullying is exempt from the law if it's done due to moral or religious convictions? Also won't protect a Christian kid from someone who's decided to give him a hard time for being a superstitious nutjob. And that doesn't make me feel any better. Because nobody should be bullied. EVER. Only you're so damn hot to not be seen doing something nice for the icky queers that you're pushing your own kids under the bus. THIS LEGISLATION IS SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING THEM!

I wish the dinosaurs would come and eat you. Right now.

Also, Senator Whitmer says it way better than I ever could, and without the offensive language:

If I had two wishes, I'd wish for every politician in the world who served an office higher than dog catcher to be unable to communicate anything other than the complete and unvarnished truth as they understood it.

If I had only one wish, though ... I'd wish to be a shapeshifter.  Not one of your namby-pamby bound-by-the-laws-of-physics ones where you have to stay the same relative size and weight, nuh-uh.  We're talking full on, BAM! I'm a butterfly!  BAM!  I'm a blue whale! shapeshifting.  Because there's selflessness, and then there's LOOK MOM I'M A VELOCIRAPTOR.

So if a bunch of lying politicians ever come down with an unexplained case of eaten by dinosaur, you'll all know how many wishes I got.

LJ is driving me utterly insane. Here's a typical session during the last few weeks:

Open browser. Homepage is droewyn.livejournal.com. Log in prompt.

Click on friends list link. Log in prompt.

Scroll down. Click on someone's cut-tagged entry. Log in prompt.

Return to friends list feed. Forget to log in, miss a bunch of f-locked entries.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

I thought it might be because I'm still running Firefox 3.6, so I upgraded to the latest version. Nope! I downgraded again (never leave me again, FFXI Helper!). It doesn't seem to be an issue in *spit* Internet Explorer *spit*. And I'm guessing that it's not a widespread problem, as I haven't heard any reports of torch and pitchfork bearing mobs of bloggers invading Russia. Because seriously, this is tearing-out-your-hair annoying. Oh yeah, and the LJ Login extension doesn't work at all. It THINKS it's logging me in, but Firefox disagrees.

Any ideas? It's starting to affect my reading habits when I weigh whether or not to look at a comment when I know I'm going to have to log in at least twice in the process.

Small children and old people will comment on it. Costumed people might comment on it, but probably not. Everyone else is uncomfortably pretending that they're not looking at your butt.

Added another feather to my collection of Feathers I'm Not Allowed To Own. It's a peacock wing feather. It starts out gray and downy at the base, then turns blue and green at the tips. I found it on the sidewalk at the zoo today, and closed it gently in my wallet so it would stay nice.

The headache is lurking around the edges, trying to come back. I don't feel as nauseous, but I'm still very dizzy and spacy. I think I can do some laundry, but cleaning? Bending and reaching when I'm having trouble walking in a straight line? No. Not today.

Today I see a lot of hanging out on the couch playing video games.

Dammit.

Dammit, I was going to be productive today. I was going to clean all the things and wash all the clothes.

Then I woke up with a killer headache of doom. If it doesn't go away I won't be getting off the couch.

Dear LJ,

Please stop logging me out every five minutes. Seriously, having to re-log every time I want to look at someone's comments is really rather annoying.

Much love, but a lot of exasperation too,

Me

Have you spent the last week downloading every 1920x1200 (widescreen) Halloween wallpaper you could find?

No?

Would you like to take advantage of the hard work and right-clicking of someone who has?

Here you go. Enjoy.

Note that there is a subfolder called Not Worksafe. There's nothing seriously raunchy/porny here, just a handful of pin-up looking pics of real and anime girls in costume. They're probably actually fine for most workplaces, but when I decide which pictures I'm putting on my work computer, I tend to do so with the mindset that Miss Crumplebottom will be judging them for appropriateness.

By the way, if you're in the market for a program that tags and deletes duplicate image files, VisiPics is an excellent freeware program that I've found recently. It can detect images that are the same despite being different resolutions, and even images that are the same with minor changes (such as a picture of a kitty, and the cat macro made from the same picture). You can either manually choose which files to delete, or give it criteria (i.e. save the high-res version, delete any lower-res copies) and let it flag the images to be deleted for you. Either way, nothing gets erased until you tell it to.

I visited this restaurant with my mother. Neither of us had been there before, but my brother recommended it.

The atmosphere is understated and attractive. It’s not a theme restaurant by any stretch, and those looking for a lot of photos and yard sale leftovers covering the walls are going to be disappointed. It’s just a nice, quiet, place to eat. Unfortunately, it could be better maintained by the staff. The bright track lighting highlighted smudgy kid-sized hand prints all over the walls of the booths, which were clearly the product of several weeks’ worth of buildup. Those surfaces really need to be wiped down along with the tables during nightly cleanup. Otherwise, the dining area was clean and well-lit.

Our waitress was friendly, efficient, and knowledgeable. She said that she had tried everything on the menu, including dishes that had ingredients she did not like, so that she would be able to answer questions about them. She clearly cared about her job and was an excellent server.

Most of the dishes are under fifteen dollars, which is pretty good these days. Mom tends to be a little… overenthusiastic… when trying out a new restaurant, and likes to err on the side of order-one-of-everything-and-have-leftovers-for-a-month. So between the two of us, we wound up with three entrees, an appetizer, and a side salad. This came out to $50-something with tip.

The twisted salad was excellent. I don’t have the ingredient list next to me, but there were sliced apples, nuts, blue cheese, and a leafy mix of greens among other things, topped with a raspberry vinaigrette. The restaurant makes its own croutons, and the ones for this salad are baked with cinnamon and a touch of sugar. It’s really nice to see a place that offers its signature salads in a smaller portion, rather than the usual side salad choices of either Caesar or three-cucumbers-and-two-sad-looking-tomato-wedges-over-iceberg-lettuce. The portion was extremely generous; I could easily see someone making a meal of this “side salad”.

The beer battered fish was equally good. The fish was perfectly prepared, and the batter was light and tasty. I am not a fan of beer-battered things as a rule because it tends to weigh the dish down with a sticky, gooey mess. I’m happy to report that this wasn’t like that at all – the breading was crisp and lovely, not soggy at all. I didn’t eat any of the waffle fries, but they looked tasty. However! Here is one place where I have to take issue with the restaurant’s self-professed support of Michigan foods. The fish and chips were made with grouper, which is not a Michigan fish. It’s not even a lake fish. The waitress assured us that it comes from a fishmonger in Royal Oak and was never frozen, which proves that it’s fresh… but that still doesn’t make grouper anything other than what it is: a Florida fish that was caught in the Gulf of Mexico and shipped to Royal Oak, probably a few days to a week after it was caught. This isn’t a real complaint, because the fish itself is so tasty, but if they’re going to beat the Michigan drum so hard they need to be called on it when they skip a beat.

I was a little disappointed in the bruschetta pasta. I think I was expecting more flavors than just tomatoes and basil. I guess I’m just used to more interesting bruschetta than that. Also, I should have known better than to order a pasta dish with an olive oil-based dressing (those tend to upset my stomach). But the flavors that were there blended nicely, and the chicken was very tender. Oh, and don’t get this if you don’t love garlic – it really dominates. So overall, it was good but not great. Mom was much more impressed with it than I was.

The twisted macaroni and cheese was incredible. Magnificent. To die for. I mean it – if you try and eat my leftovers, I will shiv you. Most restaurants that make their own mac & cheese give you something that, other than the fancy noodles, looks and tastes like it came out of an orange Velveeta box. This is soooo not what you get at other restaurants. Sharp, tangy cheese sauce (made with five cheeses? I believe it!) over cavatappi spirals, with crisp (not mushy!) peas, tender chopped asparagus, ripe sliced grape tomatoes, and diced chicken. Seriously, I can see you looking in the direction of my fridge. Me. Shiv. You. Get your own.

I saved the appetizer for last because I have the most to say about it.

The spicy caramel bacon bites (grilled peaches and thick-cut applewood smoked bacon sautéed in red chili flakes, piled on a sliced baguette and drizzled in caramel sauce) were utterly fabulous… for about two seconds.

…Okay, look. I’ll admit that I used to be a wimp about spice levels. But I have been expanding my palate lately and have acquired a fondness for a nice kick to my food. “Ooh, that’s got a bit of a bite to it”, “Oh wow, that creeps up on you, doesn’t it”, and “I’m sweating – have you got any milk” are all places that I’m pretty comfortable with. But this dish bounded right past those zones like a gazelle fleeing from land sharks, sailed blissfully through “Oh em gee ai ken onlee express myself thru lolcat nao for the rest of mai life kthxbye”, and stuck a perfect two-footed 6.0-points-from-the-Russian-judge landing smack dab in the middle of “I can see through time”. We’re talking flavors utterly obliterated by the sheer heat, lips still burning fifteen minutes later, holy-my-little-pony they should have a warning label on this, HOT. I have to assume that the lid fell off of the jar of chili flakes into the pan and someone made the executive decision that nobody would notice if they just scraped off the extra bits before serving it. Because, dude.

I can only attest to the sheer awesome of that instant before the heat kicked in when I say that I’d totally consider ordering this appetizer again.

Final score: four out of five. The missing star is for the grimy walls and the DEFCON-1 spice level of the bacon bites. I will absolutely be coming back.

Extra Life 2011 BREAKS ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

October 16th, 2011 at 2:49 am · 5 Comments

by Doc

And that's it. Twenty-four hours, over one million dollars raised for children's hospitals. Congrats everyone, and good night! #ExtraLife

And the final hour of #ExtraLife will be spent playing Beautiful Katamari. Because that's how I roll. Thanks to everyone who donated!

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY! #ExtraLife hour 23 begins! (the Nethack character is still alive, just changing games)

Going into hour 22 with the same Nethack character I started out with. I'm on a roll! #ExtraLife

I've been playing video games now for 20 hours. I could play them for another 20 hours. I'm not proud. Or tired. It's #ExtraLife hour 21!

Time to do another round of Wii Fit. I'm still going strong -- how about you? It's #ExtraLife hour twenty! Donate at http://goo.gl/nALye

Hour nineteen. I'm thinking another hour of Lego Star Wars, then it'll be time to switch to something else. Staying awake so far! #ExtraLife

Back to Lego Star Wars, because boys are WEAK and FEEBLE. And get headaches from FPS games. It's #ExtraLife hour eighteen!

Sixteen hours down, eight to go. Is a logic game like Portal 2 the best thing to play after midnight? Let's find out! #ExtraLife hour 17!

Holy crap, I just looked at the money counter on the #ExtraLife page and we've over $780,000. #keepituppeople

Who's playing Portal 2 in hour sixteen of #ExtraLife? IS IT ME? It is me! And my husband! I call dibs on P-body!