"big oenis"

Anyone else been getting a lot of facebook spam friend requests lately? Here's my latest favorite:


"boobs or vagina pls" Both are not necessary, I guess.

Probably my most disturbing yet

Aldangelion

Just be thankful I didn't "improve" Rei and Hikari too.

Not anticlimactic or anything

As far as I can tell, that really is it. In reality, I only spent about 25 hours total over all three games.

"Only"

Let me show you them

Well lookee here, I'm finally posting again. If you couldn't figure out from this blog's extensive archives, I tend to have short periods of intense productivity followed by months of neglect. Circle of life, etc.

While reading the following post, please keep in mind that I am currently an unemployed 22-year-old male, and then keep your opinions to yourself, thankyouverymuch.

It is tradition in my head to play from the beginning (and beat) a pokemon game every winter around Christmastime. I can't quite remember how it started, but it is safe to assume that it was a Simpler Time, none of this "493 pokemon" shit. In my day we had 150 and we liked it. I have played through either pokemon red, blue or yellow probably a dozen times in my life, but I have never gotten close to "catching em all." This winter's playthrough also corresponded with a nasty cold, so I figure if I'm stuck inside here, I might as well try for glory.

Here are my stats so far:
Seen: 143 150
Own: 120 150
Time: 65:20 (note: I run my gameboy emulator between 300-400% faster than normal, so I haven't actually spent over 65 hours on this. I'm not completely insane.)

Here is my to-catch/evolve list (0 remaining):
bulbasaur
ivysaur
venusaur
vileplume
meowth
persian
arcanine
polywhirl
polywrath
abra
tentacruel
rapidash
farfetch'd
cloyster
krabby
electrode
cubone
lickitung
tangela
kangaskhan
mr. mime
scyther
jynx
magmar
pinsir
tauros
flareon
porygon
dragonair
dragonite

Again, 22-year-old unemployed male.

And lo, it was Good

A true story, based on the previous comic, obviously.

Not recurring characters

So, anyone seen that Jersey Shore show? Yeah, me neither. I hear it's awful, though.

Yoda Review: The Body

Well, it is certainly recognizable as Yoda. So it's got that going for it. The real product doesn't quite pop as much as the pattern reference, but that was probably wishful thinking to begin with.

Pic2Point is the online service I used to make that pattern. Since it's free, I can't really complain, but it made some very questionable color recommendations, as well as very questionable representations on the reference pattern itself. I may be colorblind, but even I can tell these are not the same. Which means they're probably even more terribly matched than I think.

Body Done

Next stop: Text-towne.

I speak fluent French

Vous de le coeur? Jeux fromage, poisson incroyable. Faux faux faux.

See? Mayor of Paris, right here.

ANYWAY, I made some crepes.

Ingredients assembled. Booze!

Crepe batter has to rest for an hour or so after mixing so the bubbles can dissipate. Sound food science, yes, but I WANT CREPES NOW.

Cooking away.

Check out this PHAT $TACK of CREPE$.

NOM.

Cookbook, stack, and rolled.

Crepes are So Choice. If you have the means (i.e. flour, milk, eggs, nonstick pan), I highly recommend cooking them up. Pretty much all recipes are more or less identical; this one seems good. Remember to leave time for batter resting!

SO CLOSE

So very close.

Stylistic choice, not laziness

FLCaLda

Bacteria Bread

This is sourdough starter. It is basically flour and water that has been sitting at room temperature for well over a week now. That may sound dangerously unsanitary, but those conditions encourage a balance between naturally-occuring yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria, the same types of cultures found in yogurt (as well as plenty of other foods). They produce lactic acid, which both inhibits growth of other harmful bacteria and gives sourdough its distinctive flavor. And it is delightfully bubbly:


This is the risen, unbaked dough:


And here is the finished product, a beautiful golden-brown.


Beneath the pan, the browning leaves something to be desired...


On the right is an identical loaf baked in a different type of loaf pan. I'm not exactly sure what the difference is, other than color and possibly material.


This is a better comparison. I think the dark pan might be hollow, but I'm not sure how that would encourage the all-around browning.


I forgot to make the bread with bread flour, and instead used all-purpose. It still tastes good, but the crumb is unusually soft (not enough gluten), and it doesn't even have as much chew as plain white sandwich bread. This will be rectified in the future.

Episode VI: Return of the Yoda

Hey, I took a week or so off from Yoda, because I obviously have literally thousands of other very important things to do. Obviously.

I spent time on this

While watching Hulu, as I am wont to do, I found myself on the receiving end of a PSA wherein Christopher Meloni berates me for leaving the water on while I brush my teeth. Putting aside the fact that I don't do this, he states that leaving the water on wastes "8 gallons" every time you brush.

This did not sound right to me.

If I were a normal person, I would have simply shaken my head and moved on. I am, however, an obsessive nerd, so I grabbed my measuring cup and stopwatch and headed to the bathroom.

Step 1: At the water flow rate which seemed reasonable for teeth-brushing, I measured 4 cups of water in 29.1 seconds. This translates to 1 gallon every 116.4 seconds. Thus, wasting 8 gallons would take 931.2 seconds, or 15.52 minutes. This is sliiightly longer than the 120 seconds recommended for brushing.

Step 2: Leaving the water on at full blast, the 4 cup measure filled in 9.1 seconds. Calculations suggest 8 gallons in 291.2 seconds, still more than twice the recommended brush length. That's at a water flow rate that could nearly chip enamel.

FINAL MESSAGE: Yes, saving water is Good Times. However. Please don't make up numbers. It just makes you sound dumb, and me sound increasingly unhinged. The End.

Quite sad, really

This comic is mainly notable in that it features zero of my traditional "two talking heads from 3/4 front angle" frames, which is a STYLISTIC CHOICE and not at all a COP-OUT due to SUBSTANDARD DRAWING SKILLS.

2003 is topical (UPDATE)

This guy? Douche. Or at least I remember him as such during the 2003 Air Force Academy rape scandal. 6 years later, a current web search is not so revealing, so I'm not sure what was so douchey about him. This is the only credible information I could find:

"Gilbert, who later went on to become commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy in 2001, was accused by several cadets of derailing their cases and pursuing punishments against them. Gilbert denied that."

I think that's douchey enough for an intensely lazy photoshop.

UPDATE:
Many thanks to Matt for finding this article, which states:

Gilbert came under particular scrutiny for comments he made to the Denver weekly Westword about Lisa Ballas, a 21-year-old senior who had reported being raped. At one point, he compared her conduct to walking down an alley with $100 bills sticking out of a pocket.

This article also reveals the shocking fact that the "S" in his name stands for "Sylvanus."

Brigadier General Sylvanus Taco Gilbert III.

I'll let that sink in.

Some Hourly Haiku

see also: supple underbelly

4-5 PM:
I have been alone
all day at the com pew tor.
I am going mad.

5-6 PM:
Someone updated
the wiki on my eye thing:
Keratoconus.

6-7 PM:
"Pain perdu" is the
French word for" french toast," which means
"lost bread" in English.

7-8 PM:
Photoshopping might
be more trouble than it's worth
sometimes, but oh well.

8-9 PM:
Took break from eye strain:
computer to focus on
eye strain: cross stitching.

9-10 PM:
cross stitching takes so
much time, but what else do I
have planned this evening?

9-10 PM, supplemental:
I may have had to
look it up, but yes, evening
is two syllables.

10-11 PM:
Getting quite tired.
Probably heading to bed
after a shower.

11-12 PM:
shower, wash, clean, scrub,
rinse, dry, deodorant on,
sleeping naked, zzzz.

Back to the photoshoppes

Django Fett

Megamix

My parents bought a new mixer recently, so I get to have the old broken one. Still! Kitchenaid Professional 600 Series stand mixer! It is a little sad how excited this makes me.

Just because it's mine now doesn't mean it's magically fixed, though. I do have a shiny new engineering degree, so why don't I just open this sucker up?

GUTS GUTS GUTS GUTS!

It's pretty obvious from the start that the worm gear has a rather large chunk taken out of it, probably from trying to mix something that did not want to be mixed:


There's also a small chip on the shaft threads (ha, "shaft"), if you can tell from this blurry photo:

I didn't notice it when I first ordered parts, but the front bearing for said worm gear is badly bent and cracked. Also pictured is the threading chip I found hanging out in the gear housing grease:


Total cost of all repair parts: about 30 bucks, with another 30 if I decide to get a new metal gear housing (the plastic one it came with is slightly cracked). Not bad for a mixer that has an MSRP of $500.

The Death of Innocence

I am 74 years old.

The Life Cycle of Cranberry Walnut Bread

The bread is mixed. This is like the embyro stage, I guess?

The bread rises. Larval stage. Sure.

It rises some more. Like some kind of... pupa? I don't know, this isn't an exact science or anything. Stop questioning my arbitrary cross-genre nomenclature decisions.

The bread is baked into a beautiful butterfly. I just looked it up; the adult stage of an insect which undergoes complete metamorphosis is called an "imago." SCIENCE!

The bread is then eaten so I have energy to make more bread.

Closing in

You can finally see the vague outline of the whole thing! (Except for the text.) The end is near!

Strange Arts

Enjoy this weird distorted batman. More Yoda tomorrow.

No Yoda this time

It's funny because I'm not a contributing member of society! Ha ha!

Three Days In

Not much to report. I made an executive decision and changed the color of his robe. The automatic online pattern generator I used had it as turquoise. He may have been introduced in 1980, but he's not that bad.

Oh, and I bought an embroidery hoop. Because I wasn't quite cool enough already.

He has a face now

I have to admit, I was a little worried about this yesterday. It certainly didn't look like the Yoda I know. However, it came together nicely when I started willing in the missing colors. My only gripe is that he doesn't seem like a very happy Yoda, but hopefully that will change with time to match the pattern (now pixelated for your convenience):

Another source of problems:

Do these colors look the same to you?
This suggests a fourth and fifth rule:

4. If colorblind, have someone check the colors for you.
5. (see rule 3)

Update The First

I have decided on a final design (above) and purchased my supplies. I was right about the cost: the base fabric, thread, and needles cost $5.08 in total.

And how far have I gotten in over 4 hours of work? I have gotten this far:


So class, what have we learned?

1. Cross stitching takes fucking forever.
2. Maybe choose a simpler design next time?
3. You moron?

I will continue updating until I finish in mid-2015.

Everyone needs a hobby

As I am sure all of you know, I am without gainful employment. While this has afforded me ample time to get in touch with my inner human wasteland, it can be problematic in the field of "not going out of my fucking mind." So, I need a project.

I think I have found one.

Ok, everyone read aloud with me here:

Yoda.

Needlepoint.

!!!

I'll let that one sink in for a minute.

Can you imagine that fucker hanging on the wall of your entryway? Massively dope, my friend. This seems pretty ideal to me. It appeals to my obsessive nature, it's cheap (I hope?), and it's fucking yoda needlepoint. Win win win. I'll keep the blog posted with my progress.

You didn't think I was done with these, did you?

CREDIT PLZ:

woo batman woooo

(Ordered from jmshop.net)

These are little 7x10" mini-posters from Japan. I had no idea this came three-in-one. I am not kidding when I say that that is the most exciting discovery I have made in the past week.

Also:
Nana nana nana nana Baaatpuuug!

Safety is paramount

Here is Brian in lab safety goggles and a lab coat. Alternatively, here is Brian in the 80s. This is a doodle for the label on a home brew beer that may or may not exist in the future.