Me: So, what do you want to do tonight?
Her: *puppy dog eyes* Can we watch some more Full Metal Alchemist?
Me: … I love you.
Old School Dinner Plans: Cast Iron Skillet Magic
So, a few years ago, a guy I know posted about some pretty wonderful sounding food you could put together in a few minutes with fearless use of a cast-iron skillet. Sounded great, except I didn’t have one.
Then I got one – I think as part of our wedding registry, which it was on because of all that stuff I’d read – and… it sat in a cupboard, because it had a whole series of instructions on how to ‘season the pan’ and how you couldn’t actually wash the thing with soap, and you had to RE-season it after every use and…
Well, it just sounded hard.
Yes, I’m THAT lazy. Turns out that seasoning a cast-iron skillet consists of wiping it down with some vegetable oil and putting it away. Big deal.
Anyway, I decided to cowboy up this weekend and get that skillet going. Here’s what I did.
Continue reading “Old School Dinner Plans: Cast Iron Skillet Magic”
The wonder of not planning
Had a very refreshing, restful weekend. It finally felt as though things were back to normal after almost two months of trips and meetings and events and special exceptions. We had nothing planned and – thanks to Colorado’s annual April blizzard – lots of good excuses not to correct that oversight.
Got home fairly early Friday and we did stuff around the house, then pondered our evening. We both wanted to get a movie in this weekend, but put it off to Saturday due to the weird weather. End result was more time spent around the house, getting caught up on shows and couch cuddling. Kate commented that the afternoon time, plus the evening made it feel as though we’d gotten two days out of Friday, and that was a pretty good feeling.
Saturday, I got up and shoveled the walks in anticipation of a guy coming by to give us estimates on getting new windows, as ours are 25 years old or more and showing their age whenever the temperature isn’t a perfect 72. The overall pricetag was pretty impressive, but we can do it in baby steps, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. First up: the patio door and the worst of the windows. I’m excited to get some proper Green windows in.
Once the window guy was done, I went looking for a gaming manuscript I’m supposed to be editing and which I’ve not-so-inexplicably misplaced. This lead to a deep-level clean-out and reorganization of the big gaming closet downstairs, which felt pretty good (although I still haven’t found that damn manuscript). That took us into the afternoon. We got caught up on a few more shows, then got scrubbed up and out for dinner (burgers) and a movie (Duplicity, which is a fun little spy/caper movie), came home, and watched the first disc of Full Metal Alchemist. Good stuff.
Sunday, I puttered around until probably noon (poking at various minor projects while watching streaming movies on Netflix — Appleseed: Ex Machina is very good), at which point Kate joined me for a bit of Lord of the Rings play, which we haven’t done much of lately. We took a break in the mid-afternoon for some post-blizzard yardwork — I have a pile of branches cleared out and ready for disposal — then it was couples-time in the kitchen for a yummy chicken dish (about which, more in a minute), supper, FINALLY getting completely caught up on our DVR’d shows. (Chuck is really hitting it’s stride. Heroes isn’t.) Then, just because we could, we played some more Lord of the Rings, this time with our “main” characters whom we’ve let rest for a bit. That went pretty darn well, all things considered — we’re looking forward to exploring the recently released content.
And that was the weekend. I hit the week feeling refreshed, happy, and barely able to remember what we did all weekend. Happy, hazy memories. Pretty nice.
The neverending battle
No, I’m not about to reveal some heretofore unknown affliction – I’m just fine, thanks for asking.
I don’t think of myself as having been involved in a lot of cancer drama, but when I look back on my life, I see a different pattern. My grandmother’s breast cancer, when I was still in grade school. My dad’s battle with prostate cancer that became one of our main topics of conversation for half a decade. The wildfire lung and liver cancer that took my granddad not too long ago.
And once again, I’m involved in that same long fight; once again, I’m on the sidelines – watching, cheering as much as I can, but ultimately more than a little helpless. My dad is back in the crosshairs, this time for something operable that’s hopefully been caught early and is easily excised.
Hopefully.
I’m starting to hate that word.
Happy Anniversary, My Love
You are the best part of me.
Year one is the paper anniversary (also, apparently, clocks). I tossed around a number of ideas, but getting books for one another is more of a year-round thing in this household (and she steals my watch all the time anyway), so I decided to make something.
Kinda.
The individual post-its read:
There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, and walk quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the way out, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there.
Winnie the Pooh is wise.
Wizards of the Coast takes a… novel approach to dealing with PDF piracy
And by “novel”, I mean to say “utterly stupid and short-sighted.”
Earlier this evening RPGNow, Paizo, and DriveThruRPG pulled all of their Wizards of the Coast PDF products (where both new and much much much older products were available) at WotC’s request. The ability to purchase them ended at noon – the ability to download products that you’ve already bought ended at midnight.
According to Wizards of the Coast, this was done to prevent piracy. (In a followup statement, they clarified that they believe this… because they are luddite morons.)
“We have [taken these actions] to stop the illegal activities […], and to deter future unauthorized and unlawful file-sharing.”
I love the vast understatement from one gaming site today:
“I predict an increase in piracy of Wizards products.”
REALLY?
Let me take this one step further. I guarantee – not ‘predict’, but guaran-goddamn-tee that every single PDF of WotC products made available after midnight tonight will be a pirated copy.
Just… think about it for a second; you’ll see exactly what I mean.
See… before today? Sure, some people were sharing PDFs like that on file-sharing sites, and there was pirating going on. Sure, yes.
Was it because the PDFs were made available by WotC and sold online?
No. You’ve been able to get PDFs of ANY game book — hell, any book at all — even ones that have never had electronic versions available, ever since scanner technology became remotely mainstream (early 90s), because people have time, and geeks have desire for the electronic versions.
Until today, at least most of the people who wanted electronic versions of their game book were getting the PDFs the easy way: google search, got to RPGNow, click, click, download. No torrent software. No worrying if you picked up a virus with your latest PDF. Easy.
Now, the only way to get the electronic version of a WotC product is to get it from a pirate site.
I can either not get it at all (sucks for me, and WotC gets no money), or I get it from a torrent site (hassle for me, and WotC gets no money).
The pirating people? This has no fucking affect on them what. so. ever.
Well, no; that’s not entirely true.
This move by WotC, ostensibly meant to fight piracy, will actually ensure that more people will come to their site to download ALL the PDFs they want (for games, for novels… whatever — I mean, as long as they’re THERE for the DnD stuff, they might as well look around and see what else is out there, right?…).
It’s not just stupid and short-sighted. It doesn’t just ensure the piracy of their work by 100% of those that want PDFs of DnD material; it actually hurts all the other companies in the industry as well.
Optimism, Action, and How To Be The Neighborhood Pulp Hero
What’s this? A pulp action author picks up Spirit of the Century and gets inspired.
To go back to the original pulps, the writers of Spirit of the Century got it right. In the 1930s, if you joined the Doc Savage fan club, you’d be sent a membership card, on the back of which was the “Doc Savage Code:”
1. Let me strive, every moment of my life, to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it.
2. Let me think of the right, and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice.
3. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage.
4. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do.
5. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.
The author springboards from this example and a great Harry Chapin quote from the book itself, to talk about how you can make changes in your neighborhood and your life – how to ‘be a pulp hero.’
It’s a fine piece. I recommend checking it out.
The Un-fun Parts of a Blizzard
Me: You know what sucks? Shoveling snow sucks.
Brain: You know what’s going to suck a lot more than that?
Me: … not really.
Brain: That frozen waterfall on the side of your house.
Me: Wha…
Brain: Or rather, replacing the blown-out brass sprinkler valve that the frozen waterfall originates from.
Me: No, what sucks is you. You suck.
Brain: Me?
Me: Why didn’t you tell me to shut that valve off until almost midnight last night?
Brain: Why didn’t you listen to me two weeks ago, when I told you not to turn it on in the first place, because there’s always a blizzard near the end of March?
Me: … Touche.
Brain: It’s Touché.
Me: Whatever. Why the HELL do they put a valve like that on the outside of the house, anyway? That’s the second time it’s frozen and burst in seven years.
Brain: Because if they put it on the inside, it would flood the house when something like this happened.
Me: But something like this wouldn’t HAPPEN if they put it on the inside of the —
Brain: Shh. Don’t speak. You know what happens when you speak.
Me: But —
Brain: Shh. Look, someone updated on Twitter.
Me: Oooh…