Category: minutiae

Finally, it’s over. Jer’s campaign ended last night at about 12:30am. It took us, I think, six months to get through it all. And I’m still puzzled about a lot of it. Merreck died again, Mynnyd was unable to get to the battle again, (damn you, Bigby’s Interposing Hand!) Cooper almost died three times, and Sagittarius… well, I guess he didn’t do anything “again,” but he was very impressive using jillions and jillions of arrows. Oh, maybe he almost killed himself disabling a trap again. Anyway, we’re done. We saved Manifest. Woo, us. And we all lived happily ever after. (Apparently. Although according to Jer’s epilogue, Mynnyd and Merreck take off together to find dragons and explore the land where Mynnyd’s clan lived. I just can’t see a barbarian and a wizard getting along all that well. Mynnyd would have to take a level of ranger, or something, because Merreck often needs healing. [A barbarian can’t wield a wand, but a ranger can.])

Next week, we’re going to roll up our Arcana Unearthed characters for Scott’s campaign. I’m interested in being a Verrik witch, but we’ll see.

Ee, they’re adding a new show to TWoP, and the forums are down. Please let it be House. Or Farscape, even though it’s been dead a while. I hope it’s House. That’d be keen.

No, it was Revelations, the heaven vs. hell show coming soon on NBC. Damn.

I made a couple curries Friday night. Aloo Matar and a variation on the Massaledarh Sambhar. I poached chicken in its more soupy form while it reduced. It never got quite as thick as I wanted, though. I’m not eating it today, though, because I forgot to make rice. Tonight, then. I also made sourdough bread over Friday night and Saturday morning. It turned out… weirdly pale again. So I turned the broiler on and nearly burnt the top. The bottom crust is still as white as I am. I don’t get it. It’s getting placed on a rocket-hot pizza stone! Why doesn’t it brown?

Went over to visit Lydia (and by extension, Zack) on Saturday. I brought the less burnt loaf of bread as well as my reserved pale loaf from the first time I made it. They thought it was decent, I thought they were being kind. I finally got caught up with them in watching Yakitate!! (And sweet Jesus, in my thread over at TWoP, someone said, “Someone should really change the title of this thread to Yakitate!! Japan.” JEEZ. SORRY. I really don’t think we’re going to get someone saying something completely off topic and then going, “Oh, dear. I’m sorry. I thought this was the Yakitate!! Australia thread.” [Sorry, bitter. I’m probably going to get the same sort of flack for my Tsubasa thread.]) It’s such a cute show. And I love the new ending, with the manager Ken disco dancing to some surprisingly funky music.

Lydia and I went out for lunch to a soda fountain, which had rather disappointing food and drinks that were slightly too sweet (well, my orange Julius was, I don’t know about Lydia’s purple cow), but which was amusing all the same. Then we went to Jeremy’s, which is… I don’t know, like a consigment store? There were used and new designer clothes there. I bought two dresses, a hat, and a pair of boots. All J. Crew, I believe, and it cost me forty-seven dollars total. Lydia bought a shirt and a sterling and rose quartz ring. The dresses were eight dollars apiece. Lydia talked me into the hat, because it matched well to one of them. Actually, my scarf will also match, if I ever finish it. I know, me in dresses, sign of the apocolypse.

Walked around Mountain View yesterday, judging books by their covers. I was looking at the outside of apartment buildings. There weren’t any that looked particularly nice. The area is lovely, but the individual complexes generally looked crappy. Oh, well. I’ll look again at some point with fresh eyes. I got tired, went over to Rob and Jer’s to sit, and then it started raining. Jon and Ryan called and asked if I wanted to come over and eat and see their pretty new car. We watched some Cheap Seats. I think the Sklar brothers are cute.

So, it’s April Fool’s Day. Does this mean I make Velveeta fudge or something? Or one of Sandra Lee’s recipes? Let’s see… last year, I ate leftovers. That’s not interesting at all.

Oh yeah, I was going to make bread. That may turn out as a joke. Gr.

Oh, Grant. I think I love you. The rest of you have to check out this link. This picture, though, is what made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

This won’t interest you. I’m talking about D&D and cartoons.

Damn you, Jeremy! Our illustrious DM put some major hurt on us last night. Oh, we all survived, yes, but my GOD did we lose a lot of money. He pulled out an oldie-but-goodie, the rust monster. Cooper and Mynnyd tried to kill it as fast as possible, but we still lost a set of +4 full plate (Cooper) and a +3 animated shield (Mynnyd). This was our second battle of the night. In the first, Merreck conjured a red dragon to fight a yuan-ti dragon (AKA ssvaklor). It was grappling Cooper, and Merreck had his dragon breath fire on the two of them, Cooper being fairly certain he could take the damage. Yes, he could take the damage, no problem. However, he critically failed his reflex save and lost his +5 cloak of resistence to the flames. So, let’s see. Mynnyd’s shield was 25,170 gold pieces. Cooper’s armor was 17,650 gp, and his cloak was 25,000. Damn. Thankfully, we had enough other stuff back in town so we could sort of protect ourselves. The party has a +2 large steel shield that Mynnyd can use, although it means he has to go back to using his dwarven waraxe one-handed. No problem, he’s got the feat that allows that, I’ll just miss adding strength and a half to his damage. We had some +1 dwarven full plate of nimbleness from Mynnyd’s late uncle that Cooper could use, and through some switching around of party gear, he wound up with a +4 cloak of resistance. What I’m saying is this hurt us, a lot, and now Rob and I really need to be thinking about money.

And I’m a moron for forgetting that Mynnyd had a potion of fly on him.

I brought a bottle of Bawls to the game last night. Hee! Bawls. It’s got a lovely blue bottle and is apparently hyper-caffeinated. I didn’t really feel the effects. I’m sure the D&D Fellows will say, “Sarah, we saw you shaking, you were affected.” But I always shake. It was too sweet for me. I think, if I were to drink it again, I’d prefer the sugar-free. Unfortunately, the sugar-free comes in a clear bottle. Not as pretty.

I recently added Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends to my season pass list. I would highly recommend the opening sequence to everyone. The show sometimes isn’t great, but I love the opening theme and animation. The theme song features a slightly out-of-tune piano and kazoos. It’s pretty awesome. I quite like Wilt (a tall, basketball-playing imaginary friend voiced by Phil LaMarr) and Eduardo (who looks like he stepped out of the pages of Where the Wild Things Are). The music just kills me. Kazoos. Brilliant.

International Channel (which has the same annoying habit as Disney Channel not to have a “The” in front of its name) has recently changed to the all-Asian network, AZN Channel. Not much better a name choice, in my opinion. However, they’re showing more anime now, so I say yay. I would just like to give massive props to the person who decided that they should broadcast Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei). You’ve got balls, man. Yes, it’s the dub, which means Muraki sounds like the villain of a Hammer Horror flick, and Hisoka sounds far too old, and wow, they made Watari British. Usually dubbers make the person from Osaka speak… more roughly, not more refined-ly. Anyway. There’s some blood in Descendants of Darkness, which I guess will appeal to people, there are people fighting demons, but the best description I can find for the show comes from the forums at Television Without Pity, where one poster described it as, “I Love My Dead Gay Bureaucrats.” You’ve got these guys who work as shinigami (gods of death) for the Ministry of Hades (argh, these half-assed translations aren’t pleasing me), kicking ass and taking souls for the good of Japan. With unresolved sexual tension. And a mad-scientist villain (Muraki) who is very interested in the protagonist (Tsuzuki) for… um, not just research.

Anyway, I just find it fascinating that in the current climate of America, AZN Channel decides to show shounen-ai. What’s next? Cartoon Network running Gravitation? Sure, that’d make the yaoi fangirls happy. Not me, though. I thought it was an annoying series. Really wanted to like it, but didn’t.

Yeah, food.

Okay, I’ve actually written out the recipe for the Murgh Dehin. I finished it for lunch yesterday. I have more Indian leftovers today, but these are from an actual restaurant, not stuff I made. On Saturday, Rob, Jeremy, Carolyn, and I went down to the South Jo’ to visit Val and Grant. They have a lovely house. And a great kitchen. I want their stove. We got take out from a local Indian place. Mm, tasty. And then we played a game called Bang! in which a dumb mistake I made caused Jer (the sheriff) and I (the deputy) to lose and the outlaws to win. It was still a lot of fun. Val, Grant, and I had never played before, so it wasn’t like a situation where you feel dumb because you’re the only one who doesn’t know how to add up damage on a crit. Er, or something. (I know now!)

All right. I’ve got a couple more Katamari Damacy cosplay pictures to share.

The Dashing Near-Sighted Prince. Props to him for getting the bottom of the tunic right. The head’s not great, though. As I’ve said before, you run into problems if you show your neck.

Another Prince. The colors are right, which is really nice. People usually get the leg color wrong. However, the hole in the head is far too small. Seriously, I’d feel mega-claustrophobic in that thing. (Hopefully, I won’t have that problem with my head. Hopehopehope.)

Kuro! This lass is going to be wearing this costume to Fanime, same as me. So Lydia and I have to make sure our costumes are better than hers. It’s going to be tough! The head’s not exactly right yet, it’s missing the pointy red accent strips, but she says she’s got more additions to it. The bottom of the tunic needs the hoop (or whatever) in it to make it stand out more, and the gloves shouldn’t be gloves but more like mittens. It’s very good, though. I’m mega-nitpicking it since I’m going as the same character.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
Cook’s Illustrated

8 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
3/4 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp table salt (1 tsp kosher)
1/2 cup sour cream

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350. Line standard-sized muffin pan with cupcake papers.

Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in a medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and fully combined. Set aside to cool until just warm to touch.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl to combine.

Whisk eggs in another medium-sized bowl. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt. Whisk until fully integrated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined, then sift the remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is homogenous and thick.

Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.

Easy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Cook’s Illustrated

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
5 oz. confectioners’ sugar
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp heavy cream

In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners’ sugar and salt and beat on medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape the bowl again, and add the vanilla and cream. Beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about four minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice. (If using a handheld mixer, double the mixing times.)

Use immediately for easy spreading. If you refrigerate the frosting, it needs to come to room temperature to soften before use.

Easy Coffee Buttercream Frosting
Cook’s Illustrated

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
5 oz. confectioners’ sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso or 2 tsp instant coffee

Dissolve the espresso or coffee in the vanilla and cream. In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners’ sugar and salt and beat on medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape the bowl again, and add the vanilla, cream, and espresso or coffee. Beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about four minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice. (If using a handheld mixer, double the mixing times.)

Use immediately for easy spreading. If you refrigerate the frosting, it needs to come to room temperature to soften before use.