The Witcher - closing remarks and assorted nonsense

I finished off The Witcher this last week and I have to say, well that was satisfying but I'm not sure if I'll be playing it again.  I ended up polishing off the game and side quests (a vast majority of them) at around sixty hours which, for a game that didn't boast a vast world is a good run.  The game ends on a high note with an awesome cinematic that sets up the next game.  The way I played through the game awarded me with a solid "good" ending.  I few suitably proud of myself for making the "right" decisions though during the game I had some second doubts.  All in all I'd have to give The Witcher a middle-high 8/10 B+.  The story and character development was excellent, I was really impressed by some of the story arcs but the denouement, fairly dull combat system, and lacklustre skill development made the game less of role play and more of follow the story.

In other assorted news:

After receiving a higher than average paycheck thanks to working Halloween I was able to take care of mid-month bills and have a little extra to put towards Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.  Plus I already overstocked on groceries so be expecting a post about my initial squeeing over Bethesda's new set of load screens, uh, game.
 

Manly Monday: Paul Newman in short shorts.

I've always dug Paul Newman more than Robert Redford.  In any case, as a counter-balance to Foxy Fridays (Gillian Anderson in a cat suit is my highest viewed post in the history of HYR), here's one for from the collection.  L'chaim!

The Witcher 2 Video Review Video - PC - IGN

More The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Videos

Remember, remember...

Ellen Barkin

to set your clocks to standard time this weekend.

In other random news:

Beverly Garland gets ogled in It Conquered the World (1956) also starring Peter Graves and Lee Van Cleef

"And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott...

Anne Francis Forbidden Planet

The Witcher - Enhanced Edition (2008) - PC - CD Projekt Red Studio

About two years before the much feted Dragon Age Origins  appeared on the scene The Witcher had been getting the love PC RPG fans.  At that time I didn't really give much thought to PC gaming so it fell in the cracks for me (I was all about Elder Scrolls Oblivion anyway).  Last month I saw The Witcher: Expanded Edition for $15 on Steam and figured what the hell, I'll give it a shot.  I'm now about twenty-ish hours into the game and I have to say I'm pretty impressed.  Is it the world's greatest RPG?  No but it's really good.

The basic premise is you play Geralt, a Witcher, who supposedly died (I keep waiting for the game to make the same Snake Plissken jokes I've been making) and has returned from the grave with amnesia.  Witchers are basically humans who, through alchemy and somethin somethin, have become more human than human in order to combat monsters, gribblies, and undesirables.  The downside is Witchers have been broken as a cohesive force and there are less than a handful left.  Regular human beings have taken their defense into their own hands and now view the Witchers with fear and contempt.  Yeah it's a well worn theme but The Witcher makes it work.  Geralt has to deal with humans and nonhumans (elves, dwarves, etc) and is constantly getting shit from all sides.

What I like about The Witcher is that it somehow manages to breath some new life into dark fantasy.  Truth be told, playing this makes me wonder how many of the Dragon Age creators we fans of The Witcher.   While some of the side quests involve "get me ten of this" some of the side quests are actually kind of intense and long running.   CD Projekt Red Studio is a Polish designer/distributor out of Warsaw and I think there's an Eastern European flavor to the game as well, a certain hard edge that Western games try for but miss 95% of the time.  This certainly is not a Peter Molyneux fantasy romp.  Plus The Witcher is certainly one of the more adult games I've played in awhile, not cheezy Kratos boot knocking, but this is an adult themed game.  Geralt is kind of like Ian Fleming's Bond, he's very good at killing things, drinking heavily, and having sex with bodacious chicks.

Now if you haven't played The Witcher and give it a shot you might be put off by its graphics.  It's not Battlefield 3 and there are times when it makes Dragon Age look pretty.  Really though the graphics are pretty solid and everything looks the way it should.  There's no character customization or party set up - you've got Geralt, which is okay since he's fuckin bad ass.

Controls are, well, never really having played a PC RPG actioner before it's taking me some time to get used to the keyboard & mouse control set up.  Now I know why the trackball mouse is so popular among PC gamers.  I guess I could go through the effort of mapping a controller but that would require effort.  I like the quickness of accessing menus and hot keys of the keyboard but exploring and camera control still kind of pisses me off sometimes.

This game looks like it might have some legs on it since I'm twenty hours in and only in the first or second chapter of the game.  I've been surprised that actions have consequences - a doofus statement I know but how many games promise this and the consequence is worthless or absurd?  I saved a cat from a tree later I received a sandwich from the cat's owner.  Derp.  Not all the secondary quests have blinky lights over their heads so tracking them down makes for some fun in the game.  There are one or two parts I've gotten a little frustrated at but I figure answers will be forthcoming.

The Witcher worth picking up if you're in the market for some dark fantasy PC goodness.

A classic from "Turn Signals on a Land Raider"

A blast from the past from TSONALR a brilliant webcomic focused on 40K exploits and hilarity.

Why I hate telephones so much:

Friday before Halloween HYR loves Jamie Lee Curtis

One of our favorite scream queens here at HYR, Jamie Lee Curtis.  Still one hell of a good looking woman, must be all that activia she eats.

NoMads poster

Nomads (1986) dir John McTiernan

I had never seen or heard of Nomads, McTiernan's first feature film - written and directed by him.  In all honesty I'm not surprised, it's kind of awful.  However, it's one of those 80s movies that is so bizarre and original that the awfulness is outweighed by the originality and imagery - example The Keep (1983).

The basic premise is French cultural anthropologist Jean-Charles (Pierce Brosnan) "discovers" a bizarre nomadic gang led by Adam Ant and Mary Woronov.  This turns out to be a bad thing since the nomads begin to terrorize him and his wife.  Okay, cool pretty straight-forward.  Here's the kicker - and not a spoiler - the last week of Jean-Charles' life is being experienced by Dr. Flax (Lesley-Anne Down) in a sleepwalking hallucinatory state after an emergency room encounter between the two.  To say anything more about the plot will give too much away but let's just say there's some weird shit going on.

It's not a fantastic film by any stretch but there are some concepts and imagery that I feel are going to stick with me for some time.  There's a briefly touched upon theme of the modern nomadic lifestyle (in reference to LA).  There are a couple of points in the movie that are genuinely spooky, not in a scary ooga booga way but in a that's just kind of unsettling way like Malcolm Morley's Beach Scene (1968):

Nomads isn't going to end up on the top of your "must see" spooktacular movie list but it is worth checking out.  It's certainly better than most of direct-to-video horror schlock out there.

Skullvane Manse Lair of the Astromancer

Skullvane Manse Lair of the Astromancer. Fuck, I remember when a release like this would make me crap my pants in anticipation. Now I just crap my pants.

Ten years...jesus.

The Thing (2011) dir Matthijs van Heijningen Jr

As many of you long time HYR readers and friends of mine I put John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) in my nebulous top five favorite horror movies. I also really enjoy The Thing From Another World (1951) .  I genuinely love that movie and though it's turned into a movie I throw on in tandem with another Carpenter/Russell team-up there are moments that still get to me.  Rob Bottin's effects still look excellent - the complete edition has long interviews with Bottin about how the effects were pulled off - and the sheer inventiveness and imagination in design and creation fill me with joy.  In case you don't know who Rob Bottin is, he's the man who worked on the effects and creature design in The Howling (1981), Legend (1985), Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990), and more.  Ennio Morricone's score is still harrowing (and impossible to find for a reasonable price).  Wilford Brimley doesn't have a mustache.

Needless to say I went into Matthijs van Heijningen Jr's prequel very very wary and armed for snark.  I had avoided all reviews, trailers, junkets, or anything related to the movie.  One or two things had popped about the quality of the film from people I trust but still I was prepared for suck.

Note: contains spoilers but if you've seen the 1982 version you know what's coming and

 if you haven't seen the 1982 version then stop reading now and go sit in the corner.  

You can rejoin the class when you don't suck.

MvH Jr's version is a damned faithful prequel and comes across as real tribute from the pacing, effects, scoring, down to nitpicky details I was looking for.  Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. led by Tom Woodruff Jr and Alec Gillis did an excellent job with effects (considering they've not exactly worked on any gems since the 1990s - their creature effects in Skyline were okay) that in some sections of the movie I wish I could have paused and rewound.  They stayed faithful to the original design and feel of the Thing as horrific gribbly but with some really nice polish from the modern age of technology.  Marco Beltrami (one of the best new generation of composers) lifts tell tale cues from Morricone's score and puts together a solid score.  I don't know if it could stand on its own but I'm willing to track down the score to check it out.  The cast is solid though I didn't recognize anyone, though when I checked Mary Elizabeth Winstead's imdb page she's been in a lot of movies I have seen.  I really appreciated the fact the Norwegians were Norwegians and not Englishmen pretending to be Norwegian, plus with all the Norwegian horror movies coming out it's nice to see a potential jumping off point for new horror fans.  What got me was the sound design - digital sound really amped up the horrific noises the Thing makes.  It's pain/anger cry is top notch.

However my over-all impression isn't blown away.  Part of it was the theater, the screen was filthy and vast expanses of white were marred by weird stains.  A large portion of the movie was dark yet it didn't simply seem to be part of the design but just poor cinematography.  There were a couple of moments were I felt a little squinty but at least the movie wasn't in 3-D.  A section or two of the movie just felt out of place.  Additionally the pacing did not convey the isolation and claustrophobia that 1982 did, which ratcheted up the tension.

I'm certainly going to watch The Thing again if only to be able to instantly watch 82 afterwards.  The way the two films dovetail is one of the high points of the prequel.  Well worth seeing.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC) 2011

Truthfully the boss fights and end(s) of Deus Ex: Human Revolution sucked.  The three boss fights weren't simply difficult (which they were), annoying (which they were) the main problem was - and I've read this in other eviews - the boss fights come out of left field and consist of the tactic: hoard ammo and guns use them all in a boss fight because otherwise you're fucked.  If you've put your efforts into creating a stealthy hacker and not dermal armor plating and shooting skills then a) you're gonna get dead right quick and b) the boss fights do not allow for any other course of action besides run and gun.  In one fight I saw a series of crates hanging from the ceiling and after getting killed for the umpteenth time tried to find a way to drop them on the boss.  Nope, sorry. Fuck you.  Well maybe I could hack some sentry guns...yeah fuck you.  Could I...sorry fuck no.  Each of the fights made me dread the next one, not because it was hard but because I simply didn't have the option of playing the fight out in a different way.  In the final fight I ended up backtracking through the entire level and scavenging every round of ammo and guns I could find and I still got shredded time and time and time again.  Finally I had to drop the difficulty down to Tea Cup ride and that still was a bitch.

The denouement is less frustrating but kind of let down on its own, sort of like Fallout 3 and Fallout: Vegas.  Despite my loathing of the boss fights Deus Ex: HR had a solid, mildly convoluted cyberpunk, story with dynamic character interaction.  Communicating with side characters was a high point of the game for me and one particular conversation will stick with me more quite sometime - let's just say it didn't go well.  The ending just goes yup and the end.  Shrug.  I wasn't looking for Return of the King but a little more would have been nice.

All in all I enjoyed the game.  It was a solid forty hours of adventuring though I doubt I'll be replaying it or bothering with the DLC anytime soon.   

Vexor, Vexor, Vexor, Vexor, Ishtar! Ishtar!

Finally I am one day away from getting into the Ishtar!  From what I read on EVE-fail and Memoirs of a Carebear I should be in for a good time.  Happy fat kid hand clap glee.  I'll post pics when I finally take it for a spin.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011): Eidos Montreal

I love cyberpunk (except for the piece of shit Shadowrun FPS) in fact I think it's been my favorite genre since forever.  Unfortuantely it's a genre that is drawn upon but otherwise marginalized.  Hell, it's been nigh over a decade since Eidos Interactive released Ion Storm's Deus Ex for the PC - it was released in 02 for the PS2 which is where I played it.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel to Deus Ex (yes I know Invisible War was released but we're gonna Crystal Skull* that one) that begins in 2027 Detroit.  I'm about six hours into gameplay and here are my current impressions:

All the reviews tout DE:HR's adaptability and multiple mission approaches and let me tell ya, it's in there.  Frankly I don't know why this type of game play isn't the norm.  As you folks may well know I'm a sniper/klepto/hacker kind of player, more comfortable with hacking enemy turrets than taking the gunfight to the enemy.  That type of game approach is actually well rewarded in DE:HR - exploration and nicking things huzzah!  I spent the better part of last night sneaking around the Detroit PD, raiding desk drawers, hacking computers, and this was when I had permission to be in the building.  The conversation I had to gain access to the building really highlighted one of the best bits of the game for me - I actually had to pay attention to what the person was saying and respond appropriately.  It is a lot more engaging than the color coded chat wheel that's been prominent lately.  Also the dialogue is good and oddly convincing (well written dialogue in a game?) and except for the protagonist's pseudo-Clint Eastwood accent (which works it's just he sounds like Dirty Harry).

The writing is really good - I haven't delved that much into the main story I'm still working on well crafted side quests - which isn't too surprising based on my experiences with Eidos titles in the past (Batman: Arkham Asylum had an awesome story for a Batman game).  What really sets the writing apart is the amount of life they managed to put into the world.  I overheard a conversation about Robocop in the Detroit PD.  Evesdropping in DE:HR is fun and while doesn't directly influence the game makes for some entertaining listening.

Combat kind of sucks for me.  I'm playing the game on the highest difficulty which is fine when I can get the drop on or avoid an enemy but getting into a fire fight means death.  I supposed I could become a combat beast with the right augmentations but that's a low priority for me.  The AI is pretty good but not flawless (in one area I camped the end of a hallway and tranq darted gang members as they ran out to help one another).  Actually the AI can be kind of a sharp eyed keen earred bastard sometimes thus proving in RL I would last roughly 5.6 seconds as a cybernetically enhanced cop.

I love the look of the game but it might be off putting for some because the game thus far is orange.  Nicotine yellow?  Detroit is polluted amber yellow?  I'm exaggerating of course, the fancy buildings looks fancy, science buildings look shiny and sciencey, and endless miles of airvents look like endless miles of air vents.  I personally dig it because it's part of the look of cyberpunk neo-noir.  I get frustrated sometimes when I get turned around in air ducts or the sewer system and end up exactly where I don't want to be (ex. while in the PD I was scurrying around the air ducts and got lost and found an unopened vent cover that led to an office.  I opened the cover, the noise of which alerted the two cops in the room who promptly shot the fuck out of me).

I also like DE:HR right now because I haven't figured out how to break it yet.  Fallout: New Vegas was pretty damned easy (though a few hundred hours of training on Fallout 3 didn't hurt).  I imagine Skyrim though hopefully brilliant will be breakable.  I'm not thinking DE:HR is unbreakable but it's been tough to balance my slow skill building.  For example there's one side mission I am working on that I need a higher level hacking to complete but there's another side mission I needed a soft landing augmentation for.  Decisions, decisions. 

Oh helpful hint/trick to consider before heading into D-Town via rooftops - have both enhanced jumping and soft landing.  The problem with soft landing is that it is an automatic skill - there's one jump that involves jumping from an apt rooftop to a fire escape.  Before I got soft landing I was making the jump fine because of momentum and trajectory.  With soft landing the skill kicks in the moment you starting heading down (soft landing prevents death from falling great heights).  This is a life saver skill, unless you need the extra momentum to carry you through.  Damn it.

I look forward to playing DE:HR further and really exploring the side stories.  More news to follow.


















*In reference to the 4th Indiana Jones movie.  All data expunged.

Geek flowchart from flowtown.com

Flowtown - Social Media Marketing Application

EVE is sometimes very exciting to play.

Finally trying the Pankot Masala...

I decided to try to the chile paste I made over the weekend in my ramen.  How is it?  Delicious.  Smoky, fruity, there's that bhut flavor and some garlic.  The heat?  I only used a bump (is a bump a reasonable unit of measure?) and the heat is pretty intense but I can still taste what I am eating and the flavors of the other things I put in my noodles.  So one bump per two cups of water brings the sweat and snot, actually I don't know if it's the Trinidads but my ocular cavities are kind of pulsing.

I look forward to using more of the paste in a bigger meal.  Wish I could make jumbo prawn in chile paste.  That'd be damned tasty.

Sunday in the kitchen with Abuelita J: Chile paste

The Trinidad/Bhut blend is on the left.  The other is a blend of Santaka and Ring of Fire

I got my chores done and the kitchen clean so of course I had to make a mess of my kitchen again.  The pile of Trinidads and bhuts on the counter were half dried.  I fired up the oven to 450, tossed the chiles in olive oil and put them in (I didn't know this but Pyrex measuring cups are oven safe as well - a handy thing to know for the future) for about thirty minutes.  I also had about a dozen dried bhut jolokia in the freezer that I reconstituted in boiling water.  Now there are two cups of bhut jolokia tea sitting on my counter which I'm wondering what to do with.  The roasted chiles and reconstituted bhuts all went into the food processor with roughly two tablespoons of oil.  Then the paste went into a hot pan.  All windows were open and the fan was on but it was kind of intense going for a bit.  I added a couple of tablespoons of garlic puree, the zest and juice of one lemon, a pinch of salt, and a good slosh of fish sauce (it seemed like a good idea at the time).  Fried everything together until the excess liquid was gone, let cool, and jarred.  I did a scaredy cat taste test (I nibbled a little from the end of a spoon) and it's kind of evil.  Mola Ram god damn black blood of Kali evil.  So I'm naming this blend: Pankot Masala.

The blend on the right is the one I made before and is just Santakas and Ring of Fire roasted, blended, and fried.  It's actually got a human consumption heat level and gives the dishes I've used it a cayannesque kick with a richer flavor.  This one is probably one I will branch out with and work on for the upcoming holidays.

A bunch of brief movie reviews:

Been watching a shit-ton of movies lately so here's a quick run down:

13 Assassins dir Takahashi Miike.  I wasn't particularly hyped to see this movie until I heard some good things about it from friends.  For one I figured it was a Seven Samurai knock-off and for another Miike directed it.  Don't get me wrong I liked Miike once upon a time when I was all about Japanese cinema but recently I just find his movies kind of boring.  13 Assassins knocked me for a loop though.  It's the best Tokugawa era chambara I have seen in ages, really top-notch quality, excellent filmed, paced, and acted, Miike reigns in his penchant for the absurd and bizarre, and the action is brilliantly done.  One of the things I enjoyed the most about the movie was the camera work - it was steady and captured the action.  I loathe shaky cam and it was extremely refreshing to see hardcore action without it.  Nicely done.  Well worth watching.

Tangled - Disney's latest princess movie based on the Rapunzel story.  Meh, I'll stick with The Princess & the Frog or Mulan.  I just didn't really enjoy most of Tangled - there were a couple of cute jokes and I liked the use of skillets - and I didn't really like Rapunzel for some reason.

True Legend dir Yuen Woo Ping.  This movie is about Su "Beggar" Can who apparently created (?) Drunken Fist wushu during the end of the Qing Dynasty (mid 1800s).  This movie is paint by numbers and actually kind of boring and predictable.  The martial arts is as solid as should be expected from Yuen Woo Ping but except for one fight sequence in the middle of the movie the action is kind of paint by numbers.  If you're still a fan of wire work, wushu, and wuxia then True Legend is pretty solid.  For me I prefer no CGI or wires in my martial arts movies.

Hanna dir Joe Wright.  This is a strange little movie that I want to like but for some reason can't commit to 100%.  It starts strong, keeps a tight pace with action and pulsing score.  The international feel of the movie was engaging.  Saoirse Ronan is pretty bad-ass, actually she's super bad-ass, and she dishes out some ass whuppin.  Eric Bana is cool.  Cate Blanchett is one of my favorite actresses but she had this weird American accent that reminded me of Clarice Starling, it was really distracting.  The action camera was spastic - in a few sequences the camera was jiggly even when there was no action happening.  Tom Hollander was a high point of the movie for me, channeling Taylor Negron and sporting a track suit.

X-Men: First Class dir Matthew Vaughn. X-Men doin X-Men shit in 1962.  Michael Fassbinder's Magneto was kind of the high point of the movie for me though his Irish accent came out near the end of the movie.  X-Men was pretty much what you'd expect from a X-Man movie.  They have powers, some hide their powers, others don't.  Humans are afraid.  Blah blah blah tortured teen drama bullshit.  The best parts of the movie were Magneto before he gets a happy memory unlocked and the team recruitment sequence, oh yeah and Emma Frost's (January Jones') breasts which aren't the best on Mad Men but are the best in this movie.  Meh, I'm just not a huge fan of the X-Men in general.

Thor (2011) dir Kenneth Branagh.  Man, Thor is an asshole.  I guess if you're the God of Thunder you might be a little cocky but damn Thor is just a dick.  I couldn't stop thinking that throughout the entire movie.  Movie wise Thor just felt weak when compared with 2008's The Incredible Hulk and the first Iron Man.  Not sure if Branagh was the best choice as director (though I still enjoy his movies) but then again I don't really think he had much to work with.  Thor just isn't very interesting.  And Nick Fury isn't black.

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath (2005)

I've just started playing this. Review pending.

Give 'em The Bizzness - Mental Poison LIVE

Santaka's on the wire!

I just made my first fried chile paste.  My entire apartment reeks in such a good way.  Thank god the weather is good so I can have all my windows open.  Instead of crafting a sambal or a nam prik I decided to go for a foundation - pure chiles with only adding oil and a splash of lemon juice.  Salt, dried shrimp, lemon grass, any and all other additives are being left out for the time being.  My idea is to have this chile paste and add to it as the dish requires.  As it stands, the paste has a vicious bite to it but due that magic of roasting (SCIENCE!) there is also a really rich bass note to both the heat and flavour.

I will be storing this batch and sending it out in the next week.  I will have some on reserve for further blending purposes.

Here's what I done did recipe:

• A couple of beers
• Roughly two dozen fresh Santaka chiles
• A tablespoon or so of olive oil

1. Drink beers.
2. Preheat oven to 450.
3. Destem chiles and throw in large bowl.
4. When all the chiles are destemmed, coat/toss in oil, put in Pyrex baking container, then put chiles in pan in oven.
5. Roast for about thirty minutes.
6. Take out of oven, put in blender with the juice of on half lemon.  Blend.
7. Heat a skillet on med-low.  Put contents of blender in pan when hot.  Add the juice of the other half of lemon.
8. Add another tablespoon of oil to pan.
9. Keep chiles in pan moving.  DO NOT BURN.
10. After about five minutes put the chiles back in the blender.  Important safety tip:  Do not put hot pan full of chile oil in the sink and then pour cold water in it.  I didn't do that because it was something I learned years ago.  Hot pan with chile oil + cold water = chile steam.
11. Blend the chiles again in the blender.
12. Tada!  Put paste in pyrex (not plastic) container or other glass container.  Store in fridge.

More news to follow once I stop sneezing.

Now I definitely have to get my computer up to snuff:

a crew of folks, RAGE Team, are making a mod to turn GTA IV into GTA IV: VC. 

I hope this is real because I think I just pooped a little.

Crimson Alliance (2011) Certain Affinity, Inc

I downloaded Crimson Alliance last night and gave it a couple of run throughs.  It's a dungeon crawler that is pretty straight forward.  Three character classes to choose from: wizard, fighter, rogue.  I had the best luck with the wizard's combo of ranged attacks.  Combat is pretty straight forward.  I don't think the game has the skill tree depth of say Torchlight (or the lot hunting) but Crimson Alliance has what Torchlight is missing: co-op.  Frankly with my recent play-through of Kill Team and now Crimson Alliance I wish I had a regular gaming friend with which to play.  The downside to Crimson Alliance co-op play is that it seems some of the puzzles are unsolvable without help.  Kind of a drag since I haven't taught Moxie how to use a controller yet.

The game looks like a dungeon crawler, controls like a dungeon crawler, and is generally fun.  If you're the kind of person who often has a friend or friends over for gaming then definitely take a look.  If you're on your own then stick with Torchlight.

Julia Child

This might be old news for some but i just found out. Julia Child is a badass. follow the link to the article.

Counting the Cost - The battle for the South China Sea

As a chilehead...

an armchair food historian and epicure I find joy in reading about the uses of chiles across the globe.  One of the things I truly love is browsing recipes from dissimilar cultures and regions containing chiles and realizing that the similarity of basic chile paste is the same.  Certainly in some regions ingredients are different due to availablity (ex. galangal) but the basic quartet of chiles, garlic, citrus, and salt are all the same.  Some recipes call for a sweetener.  Some call for dried chiles, others fresh.  Some recipes have more than a dozen (some kari and other curries and moles).

Not to sound touchy feely "We Are the World"-y but this commonality in recipes and love of chiles redeems my faith in humanity a little or at least brings out a feeling that food can create bridges between people and can allow individuals to self-educate about cultures other than their own.  It also lead to the imperialistic Western European drive across the globe but we're gonna just gloss over that.  That whole sugar and slavery thing...yeah, that was kind of a catastrophe.  However without the Spanish conquest of the Western Hemisphere there wouldn't be nam prik or sambal or zhoug or doro wat (okay there would still be doro wat but it wouldn't be so damned tasty).

been-jamin is trying to either...

A)  Kill me.
B)  Make me see beyond time and space.

As some of you might have noticed my old friend has posted on HYR and has been sending me some of his latest chile crop.  Today I received in the post a slew of Santakas (my current favorite chile) which I will definitely make into a fried chile paste once I find a recipe I like.  Additionally there is a gorgeous, I mean stunning, Trinidad Yellow Seven Pod.  I wish I had a decent camera because the yellow is just so damn vibrant. Additionally, and the reason I think that the man is out to get me, there is the Trinidad Scorpion.  Yes, that Trinidad Scorpion.  I swear to god the fucking thing hissed at me while I was sorting out the peppers.  I might not eat it, I might just use it as a ward against sorcery and restless spirits.  Or I might powder it, mix it with tetrodotoxin and bone meal and make me some good old fashioned zombies.  Or I might eat the thing and if I don't die I'll get it inked on my chile tattoo arm.

If anyone needs me I'll be in the kitchen.

Space Marine Demo (2011) THQ & Games Workshop - and a word on "Warhammer 40K: Kill Team"

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" is one the phrases that makes me giggle with girlish glee.  Ever since 1988 I've been a fan of Warhammer 40,000.  As far as the digital incarnations, though I haven't played the Dawn of War series (I will once I get my new vid card) I have played Space Hulk, Warhammer 40K: Squad Command, Fire Warrior, and I could have sworn there was another one in there somewhere.  Most of them are only cool because it's a Warhammer 40K game other than that they aren't the world's greatest games nor have they really done 40K justice.  Last night I downloaded the demo for the latest foray into the grim darkness of the future, Space Marine.  Just from the demo I started making noises like the village idiot receiving a basket of glitter kittens that secreted mini-marshmallows.  You control Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, battling - in the demo - the greenskin tide.  I don't know what took so long but this third person shooter actually rocks.  From Bolter to Chainsword to crushing gretchin under a power armor shod foot Space Marine  actually feels right.  There is no cover system and no health packs - instead the game rewards you for whoopin and whompin every living thing in sight.  Switching from melee to ranged and back is absurdly fast so blasting the living shit out of the greenskins as you storm into the fray and then firing up the ol chainsword for a bit of the ultraviolence is smooth.  Narf narf narf.  The game also looks right, which is just proof that a proper Warhammer 40K game was just waiting for the technology to catch up.  There's supposedly an online multiplayer mode but I don't know jack about that.

Potential downsides:

• I noticed in several instances the camera was kind of useless until I still started tweaking the camera as I moved in combat.  There were several times all I could see was either a welter of gore or a wall.  Corners and under catwalks were the main problems.  In open areas, using ranged weapons, or when able to step back from the scrum camera issues were far less noticable.  However, for a game that leans towards melee, a sloppy camera can spell death.
• I get the impression that Space Marine will be a short linear game with minimal replay value/ exploration/etc.  In other words?  Not worth $60.
• Multiplayer with the same assholes who play Gears of War.  Yeah, the robble robble argy bargy tossers.  You know who I mean. 

I'll have to wait for the reviews to come out.

Kill Team for the XBOX Arcade was a fun taster for Space Marine - though Kill Team is in no way shape or form as intricate as Space Marine.  Basically a top down shooter with player Marine v Orks I spent about a day playing through several times with various Marine classes (Librarian, Devastator, Assault, Techmarine) mainly because I had nothing else to do but I also wanted to test out weapons.  I am looking forward to the opportunity to play Kill Team co-op as I think the game will really shine when  there's more mayhem to be had.  For 800pts it's worth the value plus you can unlock some kind of whompin stick for Space Marine.

Beef is made from cows: Part I

I spent the better part of yesterday cooking and I have to say that I might have learned something very obvious that I hadn't considered before.  Beef is not pork.  Beef is made from cows.  Beef also cooks very differently than piggy.  I also had forgotten that beef will retain it's beefy flavour unless nuked from high orbit with a spicy ion cannon.

I purchased about three pounds of stew meat, marinaded it all in cider vinegar and pineapple juice.  I rendered down about a half pound of salt pork then sauteed onions, garlic, and four congo black chiles (aka chocolate habaneros) in the drippings and crumblies.  The majority of the cooked salt pork is now in a container in the fridge waiting for various nommings.  I then added the beef, put the heat on low, and commenced drinking.  About the time I was drunk and realized that I was hungry I had some leftover pizza and passed out (fortunately I had remembered to turn off the stove and put the pot o'moo in the fridge before going to bed).

I woke up hungry so I made some rice and heated up some of the beef.  The beef has become pretty much the consistency of barbacoa  and tastes like barbacoa.  A bonus is that I cooked it so long that all of the fat melted so there's none of that Barbacoa Russian Roulette - will this bite be delicious meat or wad of fat with the texture of dairy phlegm?  The flavour is intensely beefy, even though I didn't use any stock, and that's awesome.  So why am I kind of disappointed?  Well for one I don't have tortillas, fresh cilanto, or lime to make tacos.  For two I don't taste anything but beef.  Thirdly something happened to the heat - it's impulse power warm.  Maybe I just scooped out a dud spoonful.  When I get home from work today I will put the pot back on the stove and add more chiles and stuff.

Am I missing something specific to preparing spicy beef?  Do I need to ramp up the amount of spices I need to counteract the natural flavour?  The salt level is decent thanks to the salt pork.  Is beef kind of a building block for other ingredients?  Am I just out of practice with beef that isn't a steak?  Ideas, questions, comments, suggestions welcome.  I'll post part two when I get some time this evening.

Burke and Hare (2010) - dir. John Landis

I'm not sure where to start on this review.  John Landis hasn't made a movie that I enjoyed watching since his comedic masterpieces of the early 80s.  Okay, Family for Masters of Horror was pretty enjoyable.  I'm also suffering from a mild case of Simon Pegg overexposure.  Frankly I wasn't expecting much from reading the description but I was interested enough after the trailer to download it.

Burke and Hare is based on the lives of two rogues who went from rags to riches selling corpses to the Edinburgh medical community in the early 19th Century.  Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis play Burke and Hare, respectively, and the movie is really fun to watch.  It's quite possibly the funniest period piece based around murder that I have seen in quite sometime (p.s. fuck Burton's Sweeny Todd.  Go Lansbury or go home).  Pegg and Serkis have a really solid on screen rapport, and their back and forth really pops.  Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft's script reminds me more of a stage production instead of your standard comedy script.  The cast is a veritable who's who of British actors ranging from Tom Wilkinson to Hugh Bonneville to Tim Curry.  There are a couple of excellent cameos as well.  Landis really knocked it out of the park with Burke and Hare, everything just kind of meshes into a really solid black comedy.  The ending stumbles a bit but does not face plant the way most comedies do (movies in general).

I downloaded it from XBOX for the price of a regular movie ticket as an advance view but it's definitely tracking down a copy or seeing in the theater if you get the opportunity.

A review.. sort of.

Well, the upload went not so good ( 1 to 2 second delay on the audio). The vid explains the rest Enjoy.

Cheers.

A fine Morning Pick.

A bit of of color for today.

So my cinematic skill withstanding, here is a quick vid of this morning's harvest. Hooligan and I have a shared love of the capsicum.. has anyone noticed? I have been growing peppers for about 5 years now and have recently graduated to what is rightly called "Super Hots". Mind blowing nasty little demons that this vid just doesn't do justice.

I hope that anyone with the culinary need for capsicum will enjoy this.

Foxy Fridays: Ellen Ripley

My favorite incarnation of Ellen Ripley (also my favorite movie of the series).

G-Male

Santaka time

Santaka chiles are akin to cayenne in heat but have a fresh, bright flavor to them.  I diced three fresh and added them to a tomato based pasta sauce - fried them with the garlic and onions first.  They added just the right amount of heat without hindering taste.  An excellent chile, simple and tasty.

One of papers I am gonna be working on this semester...

is going to be an attempt to find some aspect of the connection between martial arts films from the 1970s and American (regardless of race) culture that hasn't been covered by quite a few more well versed people than I am.  I never thought my familiarity of chopsocky movies, Blaxploitation, and film scores would be actually useful.  I also never thought I would be listening to the Wu Tang Clan discography for research.  Did you know that the Wu Tang Clan was not to be trifled with?  Nor did I think that I'd be watching Fist of Fury or The Five Deadly Venoms as research.

Any helpful ideas, source material, or input would be much appreciated.  

Frank Nac: meal one

Frank Nac had it's grand opening on Friday night and while I missed attending a friend and I swung by last night around 9.  The place was jam packed but we got a table after about a minute wait.  Put an order in for chili waffles cheese fries and a Hot Polish (Vienna beef Polish sausage, spicy Dusseldorf mustard, sauerkraut).  These are some serious dogs and tasty.  The sticker shock of a $4.50 sausage is dispelled on how damn tasty they are.  The fries never arrived because the restaurant hadn't expected ninety gajillion people to show up and they were sold out.  They were also sold out of the Jackalope.  C'est la vie.  I'm definitely coming back to try out the other dogs.  One of the main things I am interested in are exploring the appetizers and the Cobb salad.  I love a good Cobb salad.  I'm gonna have a hard time breaking my Delacroix's loyalty for Brunch though.

The atmosphere was unexpected: the main dining area is one large open area packed with tables, booths around the edges but with enough room to maneuver.  I didn't check out the bar and only glanced at the outside seating area.  I'll be more interested in the outside area when it's not a hundred friggin degrees out.

So initial impressions are good, food good, layout good.  I'll be interested to see what the rest of you folks think.
 

The Who ~ A Quick One, While He's Away

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)

Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day (HD)

Rude Rich & The High Notes - Grandma Ska

Shark Week Recap - Action Figure Therapy

Mental Poison embedded player

is over there on the right.  Seriously you guys need to check them out.  It's more fun than riding a Seadoo through the Mental Poison studio lot.

Look what I did

Aakhol Ghor, the Assamese Cuisines and Foods from Assam: Pork with Gaanj Tenga (Chilly Pork Curry in Bamboo...

Aakhol Ghor, the Assamese Cuisines and Foods from Assam: Pork with Gaanj Tenga (Chilly Pork Curry in Bamboo...: Serves 6 - 8 Ingredients: Fresh Pork Meat (cut into small pieces as shown in the photo) 1 K.G. Bamboo Shoot (Grated) 150 gms Bho...

Potential recipes with BenMor chiles:

So after a bit of cursory research re: BenMor's chile shipment  I think I have some cursory ideas:

• Bhut Jolokia
• Fried paste
• Soak the bastards in vinegar and use as condiment (on greens for example or fish'n'chips)
• Keeping away rogue elephants from my apartment
• A red Thai curry with coconut milk
• Congo Blacks (aka Chocolate Habaneros)
• mole negro ("negro, negro, number uno")
• add to my Northwestern African spice rub
• driving out the Belgians
• roast with apricots then blend
• Santakas & Ring of Fires
• use as I would japones or thai chiles
• slice paper thin as garnish
• more chile paste
• add to Abuelita J's puerco rojo
• add to a shrimp ceviche

Mental Aussie tests the Bhut

How to make Hooliganyouth's day:

An old friend from back East turned my day from shit to sunshine.  How?  With a shipment of fresh Bhut Jolokias, Congo Blacks, Santakas (a chile I have been waiting years to try), and Ring of Fires.

Frankly I'm a little scared.  The pile of chiles are sitting on the counter and for some insane reason the Do Lung Bridge scene from Apocalypse Now came into my head.  The smell alone gave me goosebumps.  Some people ride roller coasters, some people scale cliffs, some swim with sharks.  Me?  I'm a chilehead.

Photos and reviews and recipes pending as soon as I can figure out what I am gonna do with these.   

A brief tirade about 3D movies:

Fuck em.

To clarify:

I loathe 3-D movies, the 3-D movie trend.  The two movies I would actually see in the theater I don't know if I can because they are in 3-D.  "But Joshua,' I hear you say, "It's really cool and is going to open a whole new..."  Fuck you.  I wear glasses.  I already see in 3-D.  The glasses they charge you an outrageous sum for, yeah they are about as comfortable for me as a Dreamcast controller bashing me in the ocular region.  Additionally the lighting of 3-D movies is off so I can't watch the movies without the glasses.  But I can't wear the glasses.

grumble grumble grumble

Daryl Hannah: Still sexier than Megan Fox

One of the Gen X bombshells from the mean streets of the Windy City.  Happy improptu "God damn Daryl Hannah is Hot" Day.  

Here's one for you "Lolita" fans:

Maybe this should be tagged LOL-ita!  Ha!

EVE: Changes to Null Sec -A- Evacuation

Kevin Kosar on Whiskey: A Global History

Sunny Anderson eats a Bhut Jolokia

How to Make Henry's Anytime Chili for One - Henry's Kitchen

The reason why Rick Perry doesn't believe in global warming is...

here in Texas there are three seasons: not hot, whew startin to warm up early this year, and jesus christ on a cracker it's fucking hot.  Seriously, summer here is what winter is in other parts of the country.  It never ends. It's been over 100 (without the heat index) since June and will continue to be so until September.  This isn't a record breaking summer either so no wonder Rick Perry (whenever you hear Rick Perry think of the ol Rocky Horror response to Brad Major's name) "expresses doubts on global warming".

Many moons ago, even before badger badger

This is my new crack (drug not butt)

Sequential Art review

As many of you may know finding a webcomic that is good, genuinely well done, is akin to ye olde needle in a haystacke.  Sure we read the same dozen every day but I get tired of the same old, same old.  So I browse and 95% of the time I am disappointed by what I find.  Oh goody another manga knock off from some Westerner who grew up in the aughts.  Sometimes though I stumble across something that catches me off guard and has a certain hook and I spend an entire day reading the complete archives - Phillip M. Jackson's Sequential Art is one of those gems.

It's one those webcomics that in order to describe would make you sound like a crazy person.  There's an Englishman living with a cat girl and a penguin and then a squirrel girl shows up and it's funny but it's also a horror/sci-fi/action/gamer/comic geek/gamer...oh yeah and then...uh...boobies!  In all honesty though I have to say that it's one of the funniest webcoms I have read in a long time, well drawn, and Mr. Jackson manages to keep story, characters, and action constantly moving  forward at an excellent pace.  There are some brief lulls but he managed to keep me reading (and entertained) through nearly six years of comics.

Very well done Mr. Jackson.  Very well done indeed.

World of Tanks review in three words:

Fuck this shit.

To clarify, World of Tanks is an MMO tank combat game set during WWII.  Should be awesome right?  Well besides the fact it crashed my computer because my video card wasn't up to snuff the second time I logged in the game has no learning curve.  There is no curve, in fact there's no tutorial, no directions, no helpful hints, nothing even resembling useful information at all.  It reminds me of one of those Avalon Hill war games that are made for model train/ham radio sociopaths (I love model trains but the hobby draws a certain spooky element) that is a box of paper and fucking math.


World of Tanks sets you up in a garage with a choice of three starter tanks and some crew.  Uh ok.  Guess I'll pick a tank and enter battle.  Enter battle.  Now the fuck what?  I shot a lamp post trying to get the shit heap fucking tank moving.  Hmmm...W?  Okay going forward, oh wait now I'm stuck on a fucking car.  Game crashed while I was trying to get unstuck from the car.  Click here to uninstall World of Tanks and go back to playing EVE (which at least has a fucking tutorial).

Caught on the World Wide Web

Y'know what's interesting?

Frank Hot Dog and Cold Beer in Nacogdcohes Texas!

"Making Nacogdoches Weird" reads the slogan on the sign of the as of yet unopened Frank Hot Dogs and Cold Beer.  2304 North St is the location of the ATX branch to be opened here in Nacogdoches and I'm feeling a wide range of emotions.  I'm excited because it's within walking distance of my apartment and it's a new restaurant/beer/music venue here in "there's one option for a bar next to campus and it's a fucking sports bar" Nacogdoches.  I'm excited that they brew their own beer.  Generally I, and several people I know, are excited just have somewhere new to go.

I have some grumbles mainly focused on prices on dogs - a plain dog for $3.00 is bullshit let's gouge tourist prices.  How much is a soda? $2.50?  The other food looks solid and I'm always on the lookout for new appetizers.

Truth be told the thing that sticks in my craw is the simple fact I hate Austin and I hate the "Keep Austin Weird" slogan.  It reeks of 78704 smug.  Granted Nacogdoches used to be known as "Little Austin" back in the 70s and Lord knows this "college-town" (which truth be told is more along the lines of a college in a retirement community) could use a fucking kick in the ass and unleash the potential for awesome lurking here.  I just don't want to get Austin smarmalade on my shoes.

Still, they brew their own beer and that's awesome and it's not a fucking sports bar.  Hope to see you there.  Review will be up once I can get in the door.

A clip of one of my besties being awesome:

Thanks to Scott for hepping me to this:

When it rains it pours: HYR Movie extravaganza!

No time to waste, I'm launching a fusillade of movie reviews!

Insidious (2010) - Dir James Wan.  

I wasn't expecting much from the folks behind the Saw series (which I view with contempt usually reserved for Insane Clown Posse) but I must say I was very surprised by the quality of Insidious.  Let me get the bad out of the way first: it's predictable, there scares stop 2/3 of way through the movie, a couple of moments of shaky camera work annoyed me (as always), and in the end felt like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone or a watered-down version of Poltergeist.  On the upside: there were a few moments where the movie scared the fucking bejeezus out of me - genuinely (the last time I remember a scare like that was during The Unborn) scared,  the casting was pretty good - I like Patrick Wilson (the guy from Hard Candy) and Rose Byrne were solid parental characters, Lynne Shaye and Barabara Hershey were highlights - Lynne Shaye particularly nailed the part, and through the first half of the movie I was seriously creeped out.  Also the opening credits were really well done, none of this pseudo-Se7en crap, it was very smooth and neatly done.

Insidious was a pretty solid creeper that went in a different direction than what I was expecting. Leigh Whannell's script moved along nicely until the third act clunk where the movie strayed too far into Poltergeist country.  Whannell sets up a reasonably convincing  family dynamic though it was impossible to suspend disbelief long enough to accept a schoolteacher and a stay-at-home mom (who is a musician taking time off for her family) have enough money to buy the home they live in.  Well, maybe they invested well and...fuck I don't want to think about the housing market and economy during a horror movie.  It's worth seeing and considering October is right around the corner you'll want to add it to your stack of horror movies.  I wouldn't watch it again but it's definitely worth giving a fair shake.

The Rite (2011)  Dir Mikael Hafstrom

One of my fellow horror movie buddies brought this over the other day (along with Insidious and Rango).  I didn't know much about it except Anthony Hopkins, exorcisms, Catholics, yadda yadda yadda, it's gotta be better than most of exorcism movies that been crapped out over the last decade.  Basically The Rite is Catholics, exorcism, Anthony Hopkins, Colin O'Donoghue, Rutger Hauer (but in a good way), and off we go.  I have to admit that this was a solid movie, not exactly a frightfest but a really well done movie.  The denouement kind of fizzled but what exactly was supposed to happen?  A parade and a pie fight?  The Rite might not dethrone The Exorcist but it certainly stands head and shoulders above the Satanic endeavours of the last decade.

Side note:  Though she doesn't say anything, wears a simple black dress, and is only on screen in support of another side character (which is a god damn shame considering her acting career), Maria Grazia Cucinotta is stunning.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker for raven-haired smoldering hot Italian beauties.

Rango (2011)

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp makes me want to puke.  Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp work but the whole pirate thing makes me unhappy (I fucking hate pirates - I take a British Naval stance towards them) but Verbinski and Depp working on Rango = fucking awesome.  If you've seen the preview you know exactly what the movie is about, I don't have to recap events here.  What the previews don't show you is the complete (in some ways predictable) insanity of Rango, the brilliance of the animation, the sheer quality of production, and the amount of enjoyment I had watching it.  Now I'm not shitting all over myself with Pixar idolatry (aka HYR loves Monsters, Inc, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles) over Rango but I think that was puts the movie apart from the Pixar pack.  It's thematic qualities and at times brilliant humor really worked for me.  Sure there are the expected pop culture references and inside jokes but there were a few moments where the creators just went abruptly sideways.  For example a tired use of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" suddenly is turned into jug band "they didn't start chasin us until you put on that get away music" greatness.  While I can barely stand Depp's cartoonish acting (75% of the time) in an animated form it works, it's almost as if the elasticity of a digitally rendered lizard was made for Depp to inhabit.

I'm buying this as soon as I can, that's how much I liked Rango.

Sniper (1993)  Dir Luis Llosa

Yeah I'm givin up some review space for 1993 Tom Berenger/Billy Zane vehicle Sniper.  What?  Sniper was one of those movies from the early 90s that form part of a core movie experience for many of my peers and myself.  1993 also saw the release of Hard Target and The Last Action Hero.  Sniper is currently on hulu.com for free and since I had nothin else to do and I was sober and bored I said fuck it.  Y'know, it was fucking bad ass, like shit this pretty good.  I started getting all into it and I realized that Tom Berenger gets a bad rap (I know Billy Zane gets a bad rap but I don't care I still love him.  I love you Billy Zane!).  Most of the people who remember Tom Berenger equate him first with 1996's The Substitute and then maybe Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), Major League (1989), and Sniper (hur hur hur that's the one with Billy Zane in it I hear you say - fuck you Billy Zane rules).  Tom Berenger's Gunnery Sgt Thomas Beckett (two T's the other Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury assassinated in 1170AD only has one T) was one hell of a character, the way Berenger plays him you can't tell if Beckett is a total sociopath or simply trying to maintain and somehow hold onto his humanity.  It's an interesting role compared to Berenger in Platoon.  Definitely worth the rewatch.

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)  Dir Takashi Miike

I'm just gonna pour hate-o-rade on this fucker in the following order:

1. Fucking god damn Tarantino shows his fucking mug in the first section of this movie and I have no idea what the hell he said because he spoke in this wretched faux "Western" drawl mixed with some kind of racist interpretation of a Japanese narrator from one of the movies he is constantly ripping off.  The hyper-stylized set would have been interesting to look at except for the fact I kept fighting the urge to instantly turn off the movie the moment I saw and heard Captain Self-Fellator.
2. The accent wasn't racist after all indeed the entire cast - Japanese speak English with the same unintelligible garbled accent.  With no option for subtitles I couldn't figure out what the fuck they were saying.  Not that it really mattered because...
3. After about slogging thirty minutes into this movie I said fuck it, I can't put up with this shit.  I might have eaten it up with a spoon ten years ago but now...jesus.  It was just tedious.  So I ended up watching - 

American Yakuza (1993) Dir Frank A Cappelo

Yeah I know I was expecting a complete dog with a title like that too.  Then the movie starts up and the credits are rolling and I see Viggo Mortensen, Ryo Ishibashi, and Michael Nouri...nani desu-ka?  

Now before we go any further I will tell all you HYR followers that I fucking love Yakuza movies.  Some people love Mafia movies.  Some people love Russian Mafia movies.  Some people love Triad movies.  Me personally, I give the most love to the 8-9-3.  I grew up loving movies like Black Rain and Rising Sun and once I really began my exploration of Asian cinema i just went kind of apeshit for the genre.  That being said...

American Yakuza didn't really suck at all, in fact, it was pretty awesome.  The plot is pretty cut and dry and the movie moves on rails to a fairly predictable conclusion but it's one of those movies that Viggo saves just by being Viggo.  I really dug the rapport Viggo and Ryo build, like wow these guys actually respect one another.  Plus Viggo is dreamy mcdreamy.

Definitely worth watching if you're in the market for an actioner or if you want to watch a movie with Viggo you haven't seen before.

Star Wars insanity FTW:

[via Agent M Loves Tacos ]

FOR SALE: Electronics

Well folks here are the specs for the TV.  Links and specs are listed below.  If you're in the East Texas area and will pick up then drop me a line.

Both items are in damn fine condition since I'm not a slob who breaks all his crap.  Haven't had any problems with either item. The VIZIO is a plasma and while in the past there have been problems with burn in with plasma screens this model has a screen cleaner you can use.  It's a handy thing  for me since I'm a marathon gamer.  It has been my TV/primary display for almost two years rigged up with consoles and a PC.  Truth be told I wouldn't be selling it except for my transition to PC gaming.  Comes with remote and directions.

Asking price: $200.

VIZIO VP322HDTV10A - 32" plasma TV - widescreen - HDTV:

Product Features

High Definition TV formats supported (1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i)

Amazing 30,000:1 contrast ratio

Digital HDTV & standard TV combination tuner

Computer monitor (RGB) up to 1366 X 768 WXGA

Wall mounting capable

Technical Details

Typical lamp life of 60,000 hours, equivalent to 27 years*

1x RF, 1x RGB, 3x HDMI, 1x Component, 1x Composite, 1x, S-Video Inputs

2x Built-In 10-watt Speakers

Supported TV Formats 1080i, 720p

Supported PC Resolutions 1366 x 768, 1024 x 768, 800 x 600

Panel Type: 32" Diagonal (31.96" Viewable), 16:9 Wide Screen, Plasma

Display Compatibility: HDTV (1080i)

Colors: 16.7 million

Viewable Angle: 178° (horizontal and vertical)

Contrast Ratio: 30,000:1 (typ)

Holy frickin Moly!

While searching for how to tweak EVE for single large monitors I found this:

A major stumbling block appears in my attempt to become a PC gamer.

If you've been paying attention to the last couple of tech related posts you'd probably know HYR is considering and attempting to achieve the first steps on the path of becoming a PC gamer.  EVE Online was the catalyst and so I began learning about monitor technobabble and digging through forums and the like.  I realized a fundamental flaw in my desire to become a PC gamer Thursday evening when I finally realized what specs I wanted as should look for in a monitor.  Talk about a fleeting sense of victory...hey stupid your CPU won't even support...fuck.

My overall mistake was not beginning with the CPU and seeing where I could go from there.  By researching and daydreaming about monitors and everything else I failed to realized that I was doing the PC equivalent of someone researching rims and low-lights and hydraulics and failed to realize they drive a fucking Plymouth Horizon.

So for now my entry into PC gaming will remain with games that my system can handle - which truth be told are plenty.  Awesome and flashy ka-boom Baysplosion games will be played on the 360 - which truth be told I don't play many of anymore because they are so god damn expensive and I'm still pissed off about getting screwed over by DLC, GOTY editions, and the like.   

Happy Friday: Gillian Anderson in a catsuit.

Flies caught in the World Wide Web: HYR loves kittens #413/Q81

Cowboys & FreddieW (ft. Jon Favreau)

T's Sandwiches is moving...

Here in Nacogdoches there's pretty much boring shit as far as choices for food goes (except for Delacroix's). T's Sandwiches is a small Vietnamese & Burger joint in the dirt mall.  We swung by there yesterday for Bánh mì and saw this sign.