This was taken verbatim from the cooking for engineers site: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/70/Brining. I have stolen it because I have linked to it in another location and do not want it to disappear.
I've mentioned the need to brine chicken or pork to produce juicier, more flavorful, and tender cooked meats. The net effect of brining is to infuse the meat with extra salt (and sometimes sugar and other flavorings) and water. But how does brining work? In this article, I examine what happens when you brine.
What does brining do?
Brining is the soaking of meat in a solution of water and salt. Additional flavorings like sugar and spices can also me added, but salt is what makes a brine a brine (just like acid makes a marinade a marinade). This soaking causes the meat to gain some saltiness and flavoring while plumping it up with water so that after cooking it still contains a lot of juices.
The explanation for why brining works that I hear most often is that by surrounding the meat with salt water, salt and water are forced into the tissue through osmosis. Unfortunately, I've never been happy with that explanation. Osmosis is when a solvent (usually water or other liquid that can hold another substance, called the solute, in solution - like salt) moves from a low solute concentration (like the tissue of the meat) to a high solute concentration (like the salt water) through a semipermeable membrane (a surface that allows small particles to pass but not larger ones - like the cell membranes of our chicken or pork) to form an equilibrium. Hmmm... wait a minute. If that's true then water will be drawn from the low salt concentration meat to the high salt concentration salt water. At the same time, if the salt can enter the meat (which it can), then salt will be moving from salt water to meat. Won't that result in a salty, dry piece of poultry or pork?
Obviously, there's more going on than simple osmosis. It is true that salt enters the meat (it tastes more salty after brining). But why is it also more juicy? Well, when water flows out of the meat, salt flows in and begins to break down some of the proteins in the cells. In the broken down state, the molecules become more concentrated and the solute levels rise within the meat. This causes additional water to flow into the meat.
But doesn't that mean we've got the same amount of water as before brining? Nope. The cell membranes are semipermeable. They allow salt and water to flow in both directions freely, but larger molecules (like the denatured proteins and other solutes in the meat released by the salt) cannot flow out from within the cells. When the solutes of a solution on one side of a semipermeable membrane cannot pass to the other side, osmosis causes more and more solvent to move through the semipermeable membrane. This continues until the extra pressure from holding more solvent equals the rate at which solvent is "drawn" through the semipermeable membrane. (This rate is called osmotic pressure. How Stuff Works has a short article describing osmotic pressure with a diagram that may be helpful to visualize the water flow.)
What has happened is that through brining, we've caused a state change in the cells so that they will draw and hold more water than before. As we cook the meat, the heated proteins will begin to draw in tighter and squeeze out water, but, hopefully, enough water will remain to produce a juicy, tender piece of meat.
Brining Solution
So, how much salt in water is used for brining? That really depends on how long of a brine you want and how salty you want the final product. A weak brine will require a longer brining time to achieve the same saltiness as a strong brine. When I need a moderate strength brine, I use 1/2 cup (about 150 g) of table salt per gallon of water. (Higher concentrations of salt can be used to reduce brining times, but the amount of salt and the time it takes to brine is dependent on the muscle structure of the particular piece of meat.) Using kosher salt is a common practice, but different manufacturers grind the salt to different levels of coarseness, so kosher salt should be weighed before adding to water. For small amounts of salt, the salt can be dissolved into cold water, but for larger quantities it may be necessary to heat the water to dissolve the salt.
Brining Time
Always start with a cold brine. If you heated the brine, then refrigerate it before using it. The raw meat will be in the brine for a number of hours, so we don't want the temperature of the meat to rise higher than refrigerator temperatures (40°F, 4°C) if we can help it. Place the brine in a noncorrosive container like a plastic or glass container, plastic bag, or a stainless steel pot.
The brining time depends on the shape of your meat as well as the type of meat. Generally, a good rule of thumb is 2 hours per pound of solid poultry when using the 1/2 cup salt per gallon brine. Cut up poultry will have reduced brining time. For chicken pieces like breasts or thighs, 2 hours is usually enough time. Pork may take about four times as long to brine as poultry. In most cases, it's difficult to predict how fast the salt moves into the meat when you double or halve the salt in the brine, but it's worth experimenting with to have your brining "finish" at a time where you will be around to remove the meat from the brine.
When you remove the meat from the brine, rinse off the excess salt from the surface and return the meat to the refrigerator to await cooking. Pour out the brine after each brining. (No need to have a half gallon of raw meat juice infused salt water lying around growing germs...)
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Fish & Chips at Bonefish Grill
Today we went to the Bonefish Grill with some friends. We are technically flush with the Obama mandated money from Social Security that is a bribe for my non-citizen wife to vote for him, but that is another story. My friends got things such as a pad thai dish, lobster tails, scallops and shrimps (my wife's), and a sirloin. Overall the place actually did fairly poorly on the meal. The waiter was decent, but the food was eh.
Mine was a rather good Sir Will's Fish & Chips. Three pieces of fish and an adequate number of fries for $10. The good thing was that once I asked for Malt Vinegar twice I got a full bottle that was liberally applied. I probably used three ounces for my meal astounding my friends, and revolting those that could not stand the Malty goodness.
The reason for the CASTLE FALKENSTEIN tag is that I put a decent amount of work into the food that I use for the game especially during banquets and other fancy meals. One thing I have not done is put much work into street food. Fish and chips took of with the working class of London during the middle 18th century. Joseph Malin opened the first opened an official Fish and Chips Shop in 1860 that was a version of fast food. This is quite a ways before the start of most Castle Falkenstein games so should fit well. The first higher class restaurant, meaning they had carpet, was opened in 1896 at the tail of the Castle Falkenstein era.
There is the claim that the chipped potatoes were given away with the fish since they used them to maintain the frying oil at a good temperature. I find this unlikely as the price of the chips would have been included in the overhead cost of maintaining the shop. Anything else would have been taken directly out of profit and cause the shop to go under. But economics is not studied by even collage students now a days with communists being more important than capitalists. And capitalits will actually help people such as in the Victorian era.
Edinburgh is considered the location for a the increased popularity of Malt Vinegar!!! This is perhaps the greatest thing of fish and chips, and I would just drink the Malt Vinegar but people look at me weird. I probably go through two to three ounces of Malt Vinegar in a single F&C meal. It will make sense that Malt Vinegar is used quite heavily there as Malt Whiskey is also popular. The malt not used in the distilling process would of course be perfectly good for making a vinegar.
Edinburgh's preferred condiment for the meal is a chippy sauce made from a fruity brown sauce, salt, and Malt Vinegar. In 1896 the HP Foods company started to produce the HP Sauce that is used throughout the country. It is now owned by Heinz and their UK website does not even mention the sauce. At the very same time as HP Foods, the "Fish Restaurant" was introduced by Samuel Isaacs in London. His "Fish Restaurant" changed the ways many of the middle class looked at the extravagant ellegance of eating out.
This was a very nice restaurant that was several steps up from a C.M.O.T. Dibbler style street vendor and even had waited service, table clothes, flowers, china, and cutlery. This made a take the wife and kids out on Friday a possibility that was previously only available to the rich upper class of England. It was the Applebee's of the time (only good) allowing the working class to experience a higher class of eating without a massive increase in price beyond their station.I have been looking for possibilities of "Fast Food" to use in Falkenstein, but have only found Sushi and Fish and Chips as official fast food. Others I found here at Fast Food in Victorian London.
And for those who wish to try making it yourself:
Chippy Sauce:
First you make something called an HP Brown Sauce:
Ingredients
Apples - 1.8 kg (4 lb), peeled, cored and sliced
Prunes - 450g (1 lb) stoned and sliced
Onions - 2 large, peeled and diced
Malt vinegar - 1.7 litres (3 pints)
Ground ginger - 2 tsp
Grated nutmeg - 1 tsp
Ground allspice - 1 tsp
Cayenne pepper - 1 tsp
Salt - 8 tbsp
Sugar - 900g (2 lb)
Preparation:
Put the fruit and onions into a large pan and cover with water.
Cook until tender. Liquidise or sieve into a large saucepan.
Add the malt vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cayenne pepper, salt, and sugar. Cook on a low heat until reduced and thick.
To make “chippie” sauce - add about a third of the total volume of white vinegar. (after cooking - add to existing stock)
This sauce can be filled into sterilised jars or kept in fridge indefinitely.
Mine was a rather good Sir Will's Fish & Chips. Three pieces of fish and an adequate number of fries for $10. The good thing was that once I asked for Malt Vinegar twice I got a full bottle that was liberally applied. I probably used three ounces for my meal astounding my friends, and revolting those that could not stand the Malty goodness.
The reason for the CASTLE FALKENSTEIN tag is that I put a decent amount of work into the food that I use for the game especially during banquets and other fancy meals. One thing I have not done is put much work into street food. Fish and chips took of with the working class of London during the middle 18th century. Joseph Malin opened the first opened an official Fish and Chips Shop in 1860 that was a version of fast food. This is quite a ways before the start of most Castle Falkenstein games so should fit well. The first higher class restaurant, meaning they had carpet, was opened in 1896 at the tail of the Castle Falkenstein era.
There is the claim that the chipped potatoes were given away with the fish since they used them to maintain the frying oil at a good temperature. I find this unlikely as the price of the chips would have been included in the overhead cost of maintaining the shop. Anything else would have been taken directly out of profit and cause the shop to go under. But economics is not studied by even collage students now a days with communists being more important than capitalists. And capitalits will actually help people such as in the Victorian era.
Edinburgh is considered the location for a the increased popularity of Malt Vinegar!!! This is perhaps the greatest thing of fish and chips, and I would just drink the Malt Vinegar but people look at me weird. I probably go through two to three ounces of Malt Vinegar in a single F&C meal. It will make sense that Malt Vinegar is used quite heavily there as Malt Whiskey is also popular. The malt not used in the distilling process would of course be perfectly good for making a vinegar.
Edinburgh's preferred condiment for the meal is a chippy sauce made from a fruity brown sauce, salt, and Malt Vinegar. In 1896 the HP Foods company started to produce the HP Sauce that is used throughout the country. It is now owned by Heinz and their UK website does not even mention the sauce. At the very same time as HP Foods, the "Fish Restaurant" was introduced by Samuel Isaacs in London. His "Fish Restaurant" changed the ways many of the middle class looked at the extravagant ellegance of eating out.
This was a very nice restaurant that was several steps up from a C.M.O.T. Dibbler style street vendor and even had waited service, table clothes, flowers, china, and cutlery. This made a take the wife and kids out on Friday a possibility that was previously only available to the rich upper class of England. It was the Applebee's of the time (only good) allowing the working class to experience a higher class of eating without a massive increase in price beyond their station.I have been looking for possibilities of "Fast Food" to use in Falkenstein, but have only found Sushi and Fish and Chips as official fast food. Others I found here at Fast Food in Victorian London.
And for those who wish to try making it yourself:
Chippy Sauce:
First you make something called an HP Brown Sauce:
Ingredients
Apples - 1.8 kg (4 lb), peeled, cored and sliced
Prunes - 450g (1 lb) stoned and sliced
Onions - 2 large, peeled and diced
Malt vinegar - 1.7 litres (3 pints)
Ground ginger - 2 tsp
Grated nutmeg - 1 tsp
Ground allspice - 1 tsp
Cayenne pepper - 1 tsp
Salt - 8 tbsp
Sugar - 900g (2 lb)
Preparation:
Put the fruit and onions into a large pan and cover with water.
Cook until tender. Liquidise or sieve into a large saucepan.
Add the malt vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cayenne pepper, salt, and sugar. Cook on a low heat until reduced and thick.
To make “chippie” sauce - add about a third of the total volume of white vinegar. (after cooking - add to existing stock)
This sauce can be filled into sterilised jars or kept in fridge indefinitely.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Way To Much Anime ... Or Maybe Not Enough!!!
Today I did nothing major but did a whole lot of little stuff. Writing down
This was a surprise for me as I thought that the hard drive was dead, but found that it may have been the SATA channel on the PC I tested it on. I began watching some of it today - Ranma 1/2 & Gun Frontier. I really liked Ranma 1/2 even into the 7th season and the movies that many people disliked for the rehashed plots. So what if all they did was fight things, they did it in funny ways and frankly some of the times boobies were involved. They, like bacon, make almost anything better.
I did think to go to www.anime-planet.com to update some of the new stuff I have watched. I had not done this in quite some time so I ended up adding both a dozen anime that I have watched since then and ones that I had forgotten about. Then I went oh yeah I have seen up to episode 68 in Gash Bell so I shall add that as well. I wonder how much anime I have watched now.
This was no big deal to me really it is mostly just a way of keeping score , but I set up the signature for a list of what I have watched and was actually somewhat surprised. Over 3 MONTHS of anime!!! I wonder how I made it out of school with a 3.94 GPA especially since it was a private school.
I guess I shall have to work harder at this. And by harder work my way up to 4 months. Have fun my whole whopping follower, as I sit to watch anime tonight and tomorrow.
- Picking up and dropping wife off to and from work.
- Two doctor appointments one for me and one for my wife.
- Paying credit card and medical bills.
- Cleaning the house some.
- Taking out garbage.
- Dealing with medical insurance with my wife.
- Dealing with online credit card access, USAA is such a good company.
- Finding out why Citibank sucks a lot when my wife's credit card is denied. (P.S. the citi may never sleep except when it comes to Firefox their site does not work with it.)
- Lunch and insulin pump difficulties.
- Pulling old information from hard drives and finding 194GB of anime on them.
This was a surprise for me as I thought that the hard drive was dead, but found that it may have been the SATA channel on the PC I tested it on. I began watching some of it today - Ranma 1/2 & Gun Frontier. I really liked Ranma 1/2 even into the 7th season and the movies that many people disliked for the rehashed plots. So what if all they did was fight things, they did it in funny ways and frankly some of the times boobies were involved. They, like bacon, make almost anything better.I did think to go to www.anime-planet.com to update some of the new stuff I have watched. I had not done this in quite some time so I ended up adding both a dozen anime that I have watched since then and ones that I had forgotten about. Then I went oh yeah I have seen up to episode 68 in Gash Bell so I shall add that as well. I wonder how much anime I have watched now.
This was no big deal to me really it is mostly just a way of keeping score , but I set up the signature for a list of what I have watched and was actually somewhat surprised. Over 3 MONTHS of anime!!! I wonder how I made it out of school with a 3.94 GPA especially since it was a private school.
I guess I shall have to work harder at this. And by harder work my way up to 4 months. Have fun my whole whopping follower, as I sit to watch anime tonight and tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Insulin Pump No Delivery Problems
I have been on a Medtronic insulin pump for a bit over 9 months now, and things have gone fairly well. Over the past week I have gotten 7 no delivery errors that are indicative of air getting in the line forming an occlusion. It is unknown that is causing it, but the main cause seems to be the infusion set getting crimped in some manner.
I pulled two out with both having a slight bend in the catheter. Both had different placement location but were the same type of set. The no delivery error has occurred four other times and I was able to rewind and try the same infusion set again. All the times my blood sugar was in the range of 300-450 at the time of error with it falling to 80-110 the next morning. This has caused me to go through 4 infusion sets in 5.5 days time. I am going to assume that it is something with my infusion set placement on the body and not the equipment itself.
The problem was resolved by replacing the line and the insulin reservoir itself. The past times it had always been the site itself. While this is only the fourth time it has happened the past three were all due to kicks in the catheter of the infusion set itself. I will be checking the reservoir every time to ensure a good fit of the cap.
The only problem that I will be having is with the State provided insurance. My wife works for The State where we get our insurance from. We have had our insurance canceled because the state only checks the mail box once every two weeks. This may seem bad, but five years ago they only checked it once a month. I mailed it on the last day possible after having problems, the post office took 8 days each way, and it looks like it got there on the last possible day for them to check the mail. And rather than check the mail in the afternoon they check it in the morning. This means that just the time the government took to work with it was 31 days.
The next thing to happen with the insurance is that when my wife went back to work they needed to process a large amount of paperwork. The insurance we had was for disability and we were paying it every month by sending a check ... no electronic payments of course it would cause people to lose jobs. You have to have someone to walk to the PO box twice a month. When she got back to work someone canceled the disability portion of the insurance system, but did not put in that the deductions from payroll needed to continue. This caused to insurance to cancel at the end of the month. They said they would get the new insurance to go through the payroll group as soon as possible.
Then we tried again to get a prescription to be paid for, but the person we talked to did not set up the paper work to go to one more person who made sure that the payroll deductions were actually made. There was three people involved in setting up a single thing. Each of them had multiple steps to do and did not do all of them causing a simple mistake on their part to extend for three months. This is why I am glad the entire country is not on State Run (Socialist) Health Care.
I pulled two out with both having a slight bend in the catheter. Both had different placement location but were the same type of set. The no delivery error has occurred four other times and I was able to rewind and try the same infusion set again. All the times my blood sugar was in the range of 300-450 at the time of error with it falling to 80-110 the next morning. This has caused me to go through 4 infusion sets in 5.5 days time. I am going to assume that it is something with my infusion set placement on the body and not the equipment itself.
The problem was resolved by replacing the line and the insulin reservoir itself. The past times it had always been the site itself. While this is only the fourth time it has happened the past three were all due to kicks in the catheter of the infusion set itself. I will be checking the reservoir every time to ensure a good fit of the cap.
The only problem that I will be having is with the State provided insurance. My wife works for The State where we get our insurance from. We have had our insurance canceled because the state only checks the mail box once every two weeks. This may seem bad, but five years ago they only checked it once a month. I mailed it on the last day possible after having problems, the post office took 8 days each way, and it looks like it got there on the last possible day for them to check the mail. And rather than check the mail in the afternoon they check it in the morning. This means that just the time the government took to work with it was 31 days.
The next thing to happen with the insurance is that when my wife went back to work they needed to process a large amount of paperwork. The insurance we had was for disability and we were paying it every month by sending a check ... no electronic payments of course it would cause people to lose jobs. You have to have someone to walk to the PO box twice a month. When she got back to work someone canceled the disability portion of the insurance system, but did not put in that the deductions from payroll needed to continue. This caused to insurance to cancel at the end of the month. They said they would get the new insurance to go through the payroll group as soon as possible.
Then we tried again to get a prescription to be paid for, but the person we talked to did not set up the paper work to go to one more person who made sure that the payroll deductions were actually made. There was three people involved in setting up a single thing. Each of them had multiple steps to do and did not do all of them causing a simple mistake on their part to extend for three months. This is why I am glad the entire country is not on State Run (Socialist) Health Care.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Crisis on Infinate Kirks
We went to see the new Star Trek movie this Sunday. It was during a wild day of moving friends and visiting my mother for Mother's Day. My friend offered to pay for my ticket to the movie as a thank you for my assistance with the move. That spoke greatly of his desperation on needing people to help with the move.
I had read a little on the movie so I was not going into it completely blind. I was however very worried about the differences displayed in the characters and the comments on continuity with the main story line. All of this is there, but there is very good reason. The reason may actually lie in comic books.
In the past DC and Marvel comics would spawn new series with a plethora of characters in them. Most are promptly forgotten in the shadow of prime heroes such as The Batman or Spider-Man. I mean really who remembers the Gibbon or the Mathemanic. Oooh the powers of Math and a Monkey ... hey if they combined the two it's Math Monkey. There would be so many characters that they would need to take up valuable space in the comic mentioning a little about the character to let the readers know why this monkey is talking to Spider-Man. However they could not just kill off characters willy nilly through a vast number of comics. There would be fan complaints and the fear of American Congressional action that spawned the comic killing Comics Code Authority. To solve this the comic companies tried a number of things
Marvel is always one for spawning a completely new universe at the drop of the hat. The latest Ultimates series (that is really good) is one example of this. You just drop everything every character has been doing and recreate them for the current times in a series that has nothing to do with the events of the past. The X-Men had multiple time lines that at times I was not sure which one I was reading and just went for the action rather than the higher level plots.
DC always used multiple universes (multiverse) that could be linked by the Flash being able to vibrate between them. This way you could ignore that Lois Lane married Superman in one comic in Universe 2 (even if the explanation is magic stole is memory) and still have the Man of Steel in Universe 1 do his normal things. This was brilliant as it gave writers the ability to ignore the continuity forced on them by past writers. Any mistakes could be given off to "Oh it happened in universe 785 rather than Universe 1." This sort if freedom was often taken to an extreme in Earths where Batman begins his career in 1889 (Earth-1889) fighting Jack the Ripper (Joker) or one where all humans are actually weres (Earth-387). To stop the growth of these universes DC introduced Crisis on Infinate Earths.
All this did was merge all of the historys of the Earths that they wanted to keep, kill of any Earths they did not want, and alter the historys of any character they wanted to clean up. This is why it is related to Star Trek. Paramount has now cleansed the Star Trek universe with a reset.
!!!SPOILER ALERT!!! IF YOU CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS LINE THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THINGS MAY BE RUINED FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT LIKE KNOWING THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AHEAD OF TIME!!! YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED!!!
The movie's villain is a time traveling Romulan that makes his way back with a ship and crew on the day of Kirk's birth just in time to kill his father. Once the bad guys were here all of history as we knew it went out the window. There were a dozen of things where I was going well this happened like this, that never happened, and this was just funked up just in the first few minutes. After the time travel explanation I just went "Oh its like the mirror universe episode!!!"
The writers ignored current character development but seemed to pull more form the books than the last original cast movies did. Spock and Kirk not caring for each other had been mentioned a few times, but never on the screen. They were able to use that decently and most likely used it to play up the more emotional portrayal or Spock. Since they used Leonard Nimoy as Old Spock they can play the differences significantly more than if the actor had died and was replaced by CG or a different actor entirely.
While the character personalities are a bit different the core of the characters is still there. Scottie is still Scottie, Sulu is now much more Sulu, and Spock is more realistic portrayed in his youth. The only ones I found disappointing were Chekov and Uhura.
Chekov they did OK with, but they played on the Nuclear Wessles line to much. The accent worked, but the hair cut and look just seemed off. I simply did not like it terribly and hope that future sequels and spin offs due him better justice.
Uhura was actually very well done personality wise, but I still think that Nichelle Nichols was far more attractive especially Mirror Universe Uhura:
I had read a little on the movie so I was not going into it completely blind. I was however very worried about the differences displayed in the characters and the comments on continuity with the main story line. All of this is there, but there is very good reason. The reason may actually lie in comic books.
In the past DC and Marvel comics would spawn new series with a plethora of characters in them. Most are promptly forgotten in the shadow of prime heroes such as The Batman or Spider-Man. I mean really who remembers the Gibbon or the Mathemanic. Oooh the powers of Math and a Monkey ... hey if they combined the two it's Math Monkey. There would be so many characters that they would need to take up valuable space in the comic mentioning a little about the character to let the readers know why this monkey is talking to Spider-Man. However they could not just kill off characters willy nilly through a vast number of comics. There would be fan complaints and the fear of American Congressional action that spawned the comic killing Comics Code Authority. To solve this the comic companies tried a number of thingsMarvel is always one for spawning a completely new universe at the drop of the hat. The latest Ultimates series (that is really good) is one example of this. You just drop everything every character has been doing and recreate them for the current times in a series that has nothing to do with the events of the past. The X-Men had multiple time lines that at times I was not sure which one I was reading and just went for the action rather than the higher level plots.
DC always used multiple universes (multiverse) that could be linked by the Flash being able to vibrate between them. This way you could ignore that Lois Lane married Superman in one comic in Universe 2 (even if the explanation is magic stole is memory) and still have the Man of Steel in Universe 1 do his normal things. This was brilliant as it gave writers the ability to ignore the continuity forced on them by past writers. Any mistakes could be given off to "Oh it happened in universe 785 rather than Universe 1." This sort if freedom was often taken to an extreme in Earths where Batman begins his career in 1889 (Earth-1889) fighting Jack the Ripper (Joker) or one where all humans are actually weres (Earth-387). To stop the growth of these universes DC introduced Crisis on Infinate Earths.
All this did was merge all of the historys of the Earths that they wanted to keep, kill of any Earths they did not want, and alter the historys of any character they wanted to clean up. This is why it is related to Star Trek. Paramount has now cleansed the Star Trek universe with a reset.
!!!SPOILER ALERT!!! IF YOU CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS LINE THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THINGS MAY BE RUINED FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT LIKE KNOWING THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AHEAD OF TIME!!! YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED!!!
The movie's villain is a time traveling Romulan that makes his way back with a ship and crew on the day of Kirk's birth just in time to kill his father. Once the bad guys were here all of history as we knew it went out the window. There were a dozen of things where I was going well this happened like this, that never happened, and this was just funked up just in the first few minutes. After the time travel explanation I just went "Oh its like the mirror universe episode!!!"
The writers ignored current character development but seemed to pull more form the books than the last original cast movies did. Spock and Kirk not caring for each other had been mentioned a few times, but never on the screen. They were able to use that decently and most likely used it to play up the more emotional portrayal or Spock. Since they used Leonard Nimoy as Old Spock they can play the differences significantly more than if the actor had died and was replaced by CG or a different actor entirely.
While the character personalities are a bit different the core of the characters is still there. Scottie is still Scottie, Sulu is now much more Sulu, and Spock is more realistic portrayed in his youth. The only ones I found disappointing were Chekov and Uhura.
Chekov they did OK with, but they played on the Nuclear Wessles line to much. The accent worked, but the hair cut and look just seemed off. I simply did not like it terribly and hope that future sequels and spin offs due him better justice.
Uhura was actually very well done personality wise, but I still think that Nichelle Nichols was far more attractive especially Mirror Universe Uhura:
Thursday, April 16, 2009
CN Real --- ly sucks
I am less than impressed by even the hint of the new line of shows that the Cartoon Network has been producing. This is the CN Real line that is a push for reality television programming on a network that is designed around the format of 100% cartoons. This is obviously going to replace cartoons during the evening hours that they consider prime time. However, this may be a good thing as the cartoons that they have been playing have been for the most part complete and utter crap.
The move to reality shows may be caused by the recent writers strike that caused reruns all through the country. I found this much better than most as I watch the CN and History Channel (the original reality television program.) The problem is that more and more of the History Channel are gangland style or religious shows. Neither of these am I wanting to watch.
Now I will give CN Real a chance. I just cannot imagine that these are going to be any better than the other reality TV shows. I am beginning to think I need to cancel the cable TV and try to use only the Internet for everything. The only thing I worry about is the fascist Democrat plan to monitor all Internet traffic throughout the country. Then they will know all the bad TV shows I watch.
The History Channel has been removed from the lineup by the cable provider in their standard analog package. This and CN are the only channels that I watch. If I am not able get the channels back without resorting to paying $6 for a digital cable box then the cable goes and DSL come to my house.
The move to reality shows may be caused by the recent writers strike that caused reruns all through the country. I found this much better than most as I watch the CN and History Channel (the original reality television program.) The problem is that more and more of the History Channel are gangland style or religious shows. Neither of these am I wanting to watch.
Now I will give CN Real a chance. I just cannot imagine that these are going to be any better than the other reality TV shows. I am beginning to think I need to cancel the cable TV and try to use only the Internet for everything. The only thing I worry about is the fascist Democrat plan to monitor all Internet traffic throughout the country. Then they will know all the bad TV shows I watch.
The History Channel has been removed from the lineup by the cable provider in their standard analog package. This and CN are the only channels that I watch. If I am not able get the channels back without resorting to paying $6 for a digital cable box then the cable goes and DSL come to my house.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Falkentein Weekend Party
I ran the group through the Weekend with Enrico Falgore a few weeks ago. The post on it was deleted accidentally and not noticed by me. I have now recreated it from the tiny information in the draft mode of the blog. Guess I was pretty lazy. They went through the game pretty quickly without stumbling over too much along the way. We started at 3:00 PM and ended at 1:30 AM. Since no one played the part of Chris that night (our constantly late friend) it was not
I had set it up as a birthday party for Falgore and the players were invited since they had confronted Evil with the host. He hopes to see them as friends and continue with the good will. The problem was that for the past several days Falgore was the victim of a series of accidents that would most likely have killed him were it not for circumstance and the players. Most of the adventure was a series of subtle clues with some of them pointing the the Awnshidhe farie. He looked like the bad guy and until the very end the group strongly suspected him. Falgore was saved and now owes the group a large favor. The group think little of this as they know him only as a bit of an annoying artist.
However, one of the characters treated the wounds of Falgore on a previous adventure and found that the wound patterns matched that of faeries and iron. She had no idea why this would be especially as the skin looked not to be broken. He later explained who and what he was: a knight champion of the Seelie Court, asking for her to honor a silence on this, whose glamour and shape changing abilities were strangely unaffected by normal steel and iron. He had taken the disguise of boisterous human opera singer to be allowed to sing and gain fame without the use of his glamour abilities. No one is as impressed with a Fay singer as they can always use magic to improve their voice, but a human one that good is truly impressive. "And obviously Signor Falgore is a human good sir as he just picked up that steel cigar case and did not grow pointy ears. No faerie could abide the touch of steel and keep an illusion of humanity crafted no could he?"
So at this point one player knows about him owing a major favor to the players, and exactly how useful he will be in the future. However, she has been sick or really tired the last several sessions and has not been able to explain what happened. For now the characters only suspect him of being something he is not since he was so skilled at Adventure!!!
I had set it up as a birthday party for Falgore and the players were invited since they had confronted Evil with the host. He hopes to see them as friends and continue with the good will. The problem was that for the past several days Falgore was the victim of a series of accidents that would most likely have killed him were it not for circumstance and the players. Most of the adventure was a series of subtle clues with some of them pointing the the Awnshidhe farie. He looked like the bad guy and until the very end the group strongly suspected him. Falgore was saved and now owes the group a large favor. The group think little of this as they know him only as a bit of an annoying artist.
However, one of the characters treated the wounds of Falgore on a previous adventure and found that the wound patterns matched that of faeries and iron. She had no idea why this would be especially as the skin looked not to be broken. He later explained who and what he was: a knight champion of the Seelie Court, asking for her to honor a silence on this, whose glamour and shape changing abilities were strangely unaffected by normal steel and iron. He had taken the disguise of boisterous human opera singer to be allowed to sing and gain fame without the use of his glamour abilities. No one is as impressed with a Fay singer as they can always use magic to improve their voice, but a human one that good is truly impressive. "And obviously Signor Falgore is a human good sir as he just picked up that steel cigar case and did not grow pointy ears. No faerie could abide the touch of steel and keep an illusion of humanity crafted no could he?"
So at this point one player knows about him owing a major favor to the players, and exactly how useful he will be in the future. However, she has been sick or really tired the last several sessions and has not been able to explain what happened. For now the characters only suspect him of being something he is not since he was so skilled at Adventure!!!
Irish Moss drink ... Yum!!!
We went to the Buford Highway Farmers Market to pick up some food for dinners for the next week. We make a number of things that are not carried in normal grocery stores, or if they do it is freakishly expensive. Okonomiyaki, goyza, Pockey, and pork katsu. Sometimes I will buy something that I have not seen before just to see what it is like. This time I got Grace Jamacan style Irish Moss Sea Moss.
Now most people may look at this and see the moss part of it and go ick it has moss. Now do not worry it actually has seaweed. See, is that not so much better.
It does sound truly disgusting once you realize that it is a vanilla flavored sweetened condensed milk drink . It gets worse since it is very sweet (real cane sugar) with nutmeg and turmeric in it as well. When i opened it it was so viscus it would not pour from the metal can without an air hole in the other side. Once this happened I went to the wiki to see how to drink the freaking thing.
I found that many people drink it very cold over ice. I tried this and found that it was just weird tasting but neither bad nor good. I would not have drunk it again even if it were given to me for free. Then I tried the suggestion of adding rum to it. That made it taste great. I figure every thing in Jamaica has rum in it. This may explain the laid back nature and reggae. Damn the rum for reggae. I would actually drink this again if I did not have to pay to much for it.
next time I go I will not pick this up again. I will have to look for another freaky food to try and top it. Hopefully it will require the addition of rum to make it taste even better.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Al Gore or ALGOR!!!
I have decided that Al Gore is using the Global Warming for his own personal gain. It is not the fame or millions of dollars that he is funneling into his pockets by owning the majority of the UN approved carbon offset company. It is not the political power he is trying to maintain in the face of stupidity. Not even the unshaven, unbathed, freaky environmentalist women who want to do a Clinton on him ... OK maybe he doesn't want that one. No it is none of these. The reason that Al Gore is fighting against Global Warming is that he is secretly a Palladium Algor Frost Giant.
He obviously came through a rift from the Palladium universe and found the world to be far to hot for his artic skin. He found he had no useful skills that would be able to support him on this world. He went Through a metamorpheous to become a human and began a career as the closist thing to an evil warlord as he could: A POLITICAN!!!! He found that his skills at giant English and giant journalism kept him in the lower bracket of monsters. He sucked at fighting and did not have the brains to be a mastermind criminal.
He attempted to create a massive communication network to control the minds of the Earth, but he found it had already been made. So he found that before he could bring his brothers over he had to become president and casue tempratues to lower throughout the world causing massive poverty and starvation in the poorer countries. Once the human population was gone his giants could come over to proclaim him emporer. This is how sucky great and stupid Al Gore is.
Killing babies throughout the world for decades: Al Gore the Algor.
He obviously came through a rift from the Palladium universe and found the world to be far to hot for his artic skin. He found he had no useful skills that would be able to support him on this world. He went Through a metamorpheous to become a human and began a career as the closist thing to an evil warlord as he could: A POLITICAN!!!! He found that his skills at giant English and giant journalism kept him in the lower bracket of monsters. He sucked at fighting and did not have the brains to be a mastermind criminal.
He attempted to create a massive communication network to control the minds of the Earth, but he found it had already been made. So he found that before he could bring his brothers over he had to become president and casue tempratues to lower throughout the world causing massive poverty and starvation in the poorer countries. Once the human population was gone his giants could come over to proclaim him emporer. This is how sucky great and stupid Al Gore is.
Killing babies throughout the world for decades: Al Gore the Algor.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Street Fighter Chun Li
So I am watching the CN and a commercial for Street Fighter the Legend of Chun Li comes on. Now the other Street Fighter movies sucked a lot. I feel bad for even paying for it. The Anime one was so bad they made a gay sex spoof of it that I saw at DragonCon, it was sadly funny. These are very good reasons to completely skip the movie, however the best one may be what they did to the star.
In the game on of the best reasons to play Street Fighter 2 was that the one girl character in it was actually pretty good looking. Chun Li was a cute Chinese girl that you would not mind looking at for hours at an end.
In the commercial she is shown in a completely black outfit. This was not what the the character should have been. She was the sterotypical cute Chinese girl that game players would want to see. Sure there is sexism, but it made you notice the character. If they did not have the character it would be sexism. If they made her look ugly it would have been sexism. it would have been sexism no matter how you look at it, but at least Chun Li would have kick the asses of anyone who said it was sexism. Take that NOW losers. Make this blog into a sexist blog so that it can be noticed.
But there may be reasons for not making her look like that. If she is investigating the death of her father she should not be going around like a festival girl. The black works well for the skulking in the night. I assume that they will put in a scene where they put her in the traditional outfit as a joke on the regular game outfit. I mean if she was in a fighting tournament she would be laughed at until she began the beatings.
But oh well. I will just have to wait until I can find street.fighter.the.legend.of.chun.li.torrent to be able to see how it was. And besides I always thought that Cammie was the hotter girl in the game.
In the game on of the best reasons to play Street Fighter 2 was that the one girl character in it was actually pretty good looking. Chun Li was a cute Chinese girl that you would not mind looking at for hours at an end.In the commercial she is shown in a completely black outfit. This was not what the the character should have been. She was the sterotypical cute Chinese girl that game players would want to see. Sure there is sexism, but it made you notice the character. If they did not have the character it would be sexism. If they made her look ugly it would have been sexism. it would have been sexism no matter how you look at it, but at least Chun Li would have kick the asses of anyone who said it was sexism. Take that NOW losers. Make this blog into a sexist blog so that it can be noticed.
But there may be reasons for not making her look like that. If she is investigating the death of her father she should not be going around like a festival girl. The black works well for the skulking in the night. I assume that they will put in a scene where they put her in the traditional outfit as a joke on the regular game outfit. I mean if she was in a fighting tournament she would be laughed at until she began the beatings.
But oh well. I will just have to wait until I can find street.fighter.the.legend.of.chun.li.torrent to be able to see how it was. And besides I always thought that Cammie was the hotter girl in the game.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Steampunk Dead?
I have been going about reading some of the steampunk blogs and sites that I have not been at since my computer died hideously. One of them, Voyages Extrodinaires, had an article on the rise and current death of steampunk. To many of the core followers of the movement see the embrace of steampunk by the mass media and "fringe groups" as the harbinger of doom for the genre. Personally I just cannot see that, and think that the supposed core followers are just sad gits.
The steampunk or Victorian science romance has been with us for over 150 years. I like to think that the big start was with the first publication of Verne with Five Weeks in a Balloon. The balloon had a device that allowed to to generate hydrogen from water through electrolysis loosely making it a scientific adventure. There is Man exploring nature and conquering adversity giving it the sense of a romantic adventure of the soul. The idea that Africa will be the next basket of civilization after the fall if the United States gives us a steampunk dystopian atmosphere with an aura of hope around it that the Victorian society embodied. Just the fact that a person would only be limited to their ability to gather food and water for survival for the distance that their explorations would carry them is incredible for the time. Not having to go back for coal or other fuel while maintaining such high speeds would make me long for adventure had I been in the time period. Heck it makes me yearn for adventure now!!!
As the steampunk movement progressed very slowly it seemed that only the cream of the crop was presented to the consumer of the genre. We did not see the large amounts of crap and clutter that is produced when something becomes popular and everyone tries to latch on. This crap and clutter may be bad, but a true connoisseur can select the gold from the dross. For every 10 bad items that will be produced there will be that one glint of purity that will be the excellence that we look for. With so many people working in the genre the amount of gold will dramatically increase along with everything else. We just have to look for it.
This is the case of the Castle Falkenstein RPG. It was published to early and did not get the attention that it deserved. If it were released now it would have a number of additional gamers playing it now. The only thing that could keep it from succeeding for a while would be WoW. Perhaps if there were a MMORPG it might draw a lot of people. I truly hope that Atlus Online will be able to get the MMORPG players hooked on to something like reading Verne or some wild thing like that. They can even get it from Project Gutenberg for the fancy digital copy for their steam powered iphones.
WoW has drawn away to many pen and paper gamers as it is. I got started with Castle Falkenstein when it came out. I own every source book and run a game now and then. I have even gone on to create alternative rules for the game using dice to make it easier for new players. Not that anyone will ever notice my site Mot's Castle Falkenstein, but hey I needed to put it up there for my other player so I might as well make it available for everyone.
I go out to find new steampunk, Victorian sci-fi, Victorian adventure, and the like quite a bit. With the Internet I can find quite a bit and sort through to get what I like out. Those who complain about the acceptance of the movement by the Mass Media are just lazy or stuck up wanting staying with their individualism just like everyone else. I say share with everyone else you want to, let people decide what they like on their own, and keep your version of steampunk true to yourself. Perhaps the merging of genres will create something really great and freaky.
The steampunk or Victorian science romance has been with us for over 150 years. I like to think that the big start was with the first publication of Verne with Five Weeks in a Balloon. The balloon had a device that allowed to to generate hydrogen from water through electrolysis loosely making it a scientific adventure. There is Man exploring nature and conquering adversity giving it the sense of a romantic adventure of the soul. The idea that Africa will be the next basket of civilization after the fall if the United States gives us a steampunk dystopian atmosphere with an aura of hope around it that the Victorian society embodied. Just the fact that a person would only be limited to their ability to gather food and water for survival for the distance that their explorations would carry them is incredible for the time. Not having to go back for coal or other fuel while maintaining such high speeds would make me long for adventure had I been in the time period. Heck it makes me yearn for adventure now!!!
As the steampunk movement progressed very slowly it seemed that only the cream of the crop was presented to the consumer of the genre. We did not see the large amounts of crap and clutter that is produced when something becomes popular and everyone tries to latch on. This crap and clutter may be bad, but a true connoisseur can select the gold from the dross. For every 10 bad items that will be produced there will be that one glint of purity that will be the excellence that we look for. With so many people working in the genre the amount of gold will dramatically increase along with everything else. We just have to look for it.
This is the case of the Castle Falkenstein RPG. It was published to early and did not get the attention that it deserved. If it were released now it would have a number of additional gamers playing it now. The only thing that could keep it from succeeding for a while would be WoW. Perhaps if there were a MMORPG it might draw a lot of people. I truly hope that Atlus Online will be able to get the MMORPG players hooked on to something like reading Verne or some wild thing like that. They can even get it from Project Gutenberg for the fancy digital copy for their steam powered iphones.
WoW has drawn away to many pen and paper gamers as it is. I got started with Castle Falkenstein when it came out. I own every source book and run a game now and then. I have even gone on to create alternative rules for the game using dice to make it easier for new players. Not that anyone will ever notice my site Mot's Castle Falkenstein, but hey I needed to put it up there for my other player so I might as well make it available for everyone.
I go out to find new steampunk, Victorian sci-fi, Victorian adventure, and the like quite a bit. With the Internet I can find quite a bit and sort through to get what I like out. Those who complain about the acceptance of the movement by the Mass Media are just lazy or stuck up wanting staying with their individualism just like everyone else. I say share with everyone else you want to, let people decide what they like on their own, and keep your version of steampunk true to yourself. Perhaps the merging of genres will create something really great and freaky.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Military is at Least Honest
The US Air Force has released regulations and work flow process charts on how to deal with postings on blogs that are not complementary if the USAF. Now I can understand that the USAF needs to be looking out for people that are either confused or just plain lying about the honor of the air force. It is just very stereotypical of military mindset to have a flow chart of what a soldier is to when they find a post that they do not agree with.
It is actually a rather well done, if simple, flow chart with, I am sure, quite detailed and voluminous regulations to go with it. I feel bad that the AF has released that just to help their image, but they are open with it. The US government is significantly better than others on how it handles criticism and the rights of citizens to criticize it. The AF wants its people to tell the truth in a polite fashion with full disclosure of who they are.
Other organizations will either hide who they are or just lie about it. My Wife's third mother sent things to her from the Obama campaign that were criticizing other candidates (including the Libertarian FairTax). It turned out that all of the emails were a lie and the supposedly "third-party" website was owned by someone on the Obama campaign.
I am thankful that the USAF is far more honorable and honest in their press work than most countries and almost all politicians. I just find it sad that they seem to think that they will have people looking for blog posts that are defamatory to them. Perhaps they have a staff of hundreds of airmen checking all the blogs 24 hours a day. That is just a sad and pathetic waste of money.
It is actually a rather well done, if simple, flow chart with, I am sure, quite detailed and voluminous regulations to go with it. I feel bad that the AF has released that just to help their image, but they are open with it. The US government is significantly better than others on how it handles criticism and the rights of citizens to criticize it. The AF wants its people to tell the truth in a polite fashion with full disclosure of who they are.
Other organizations will either hide who they are or just lie about it. My Wife's third mother sent things to her from the Obama campaign that were criticizing other candidates (including the Libertarian FairTax). It turned out that all of the emails were a lie and the supposedly "third-party" website was owned by someone on the Obama campaign.
I am thankful that the USAF is far more honorable and honest in their press work than most countries and almost all politicians. I just find it sad that they seem to think that they will have people looking for blog posts that are defamatory to them. Perhaps they have a staff of hundreds of airmen checking all the blogs 24 hours a day. That is just a sad and pathetic waste of money.
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