Onion parmesan dressing

Yeah.  Real original title.  I know.

Anyway, here is a brief (underwear) post to reintroduce everyone to Tasty Tuesdays.  Last weekend my fiancee and I were shopping and I saw a delicious looking bottle of creamy onion parmesan dressing.  I didn't buy it but when we got home I said to myself: "Myself!"

"What?" I replied angstily.

"That dressing looked good.  Go make me some."  I continued.

"Okay."  I responded, shrugging my shoulders.

So here we are.  Now the first thing you should know about making your own salad dressings is a handy rule of thumb I learned from my man Jaime "The Naked Chef" Oliver:  3:1 oil:acid ratio is what you're shooting for.  This is especially helpful for thinner dressings where you are actually using oil as your fatty portion.  This dressing is creamy, however, so I personally just made the ratio based on taste.  Do with that what you will.

Ingredients:

• Mayonaisse (If you so much as think about using Miracle Whip instead, I will burn you in a fire.  They are interchangeable on sandwiches.  That's it.)
• Vinegar
• Grated Parmesan Cheese
• Pepper
• Diced Onion (Use the dried kind found with the spices instead of fresh so that you don't have to worry about the extra liquid.  Unless you're only making enough for the one salad you're having and there won't be any left over.  Then it's probably fine either way.)

Add mayonaisse to a bowl; approximately equivalent to the amount of dressing you want.
Add vinegar to the mayonaisse until the dressing base until it has the amount of tangy-ness you desire.  Remember the 3:1 rule and don't add too much to start.  You can always add more, taking some out is a lot harder.
Mix until smooth and uniform
Add a little pepper so you can see the little colored bits throughout.  Kind of like peppercorn ranch dressing that you see in the store.
Add the diced onion.  Actually, onion powder would work too.  Keep testing the taste to make sure it's just right.  Again, try to add enough to evenly disperse throughout without being over whelming.
Add grated parmesan cheese.  This part you can do more easily by taste since the cheese will almost combine with the dressing base and act to thicken it.
Once you have the appropriate consistency and flavor, you're done!  Add to a salad of spinach, kale, or whatever your favorite leaf vegetable may be.  Use it with carrot sticks or celery.  Heck, bathe in it for all I care.  I'm not there.  No one's judging you.  Just go nuts buddy.

What Laundromat-ters most

So here I am, sitting in this crap-hole of a Laundromat, wondering why a place like this is allowed to exist.  It’s pretty much the dirtiest place I have ever spent multiple periods of time in and yet I keep coming back.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the owner¹ (not fully at least) I mostly blame the rif-raff so commonly referred to as “undergrads.”

[Side note:  I did not accidentally spell “rif-raff” wrong.  Normally there are two “f”’s in “riff” but I refuse to put both of them here.  “Riff” can also be used as a guitar term and as every tour-bus-chasing rock-band-groupie can tell you: guitars are cool².  The undergrads in this town are neither cool nor sexy, despite their apparent belief otherwise.  “Rif” is not a real word and therefore means nothing, which is a much more accurate representation of the drunken populous here³.]

So why is this place so awful?  Quite simply put: it seems to be the meeting place of the most inconsiderate people imaginable.  For example: who puts gum in a dryer?  What purpose does that serve anyone? 

I have, therefore, compiled a list of plans (not grievances, mind you) to correct these issues that make my Monday nights so unpleasant.  You see the problems here all stem from a distinct lack of care for your fellow man and I will correct these problems in the only appropriate manner: by violently forcing everyone to be kinder⁴ to one another⁵.

1.       All washers will eject their wet, wrinkled loads after the designated time is up.  If you are there, this will provide a fun game to pass the time where you try to catch your clothes in your hamper and then transport them to your desired dryer.  Some of you may be thinking: What about if I can’t catch them?  I was always bad in the catching things portion of gym class!  And the floor of the Laundromat is so dirty!  Do not worry friends, I have remedied this concern in issue 2 below.

2.       The floor of the Laundromat will be constantly cleaned by roombas.  Not your granny’s kind hearted robo-friend.  No, these roombas will be set to kill.  Any dirt or person who screws with my floor will regret it for the rest of their short lived lives.  The only thing the roombas will not attack will be clothes.  These they will return kindly to safety zones.  Safety zones will be raised areas off of the floor that are free from roomba harm.  Customers must stay on the safety zones to prevent a roomba-y death⁶. 

3.       The dryers will be allowed to sit unattended after finishing a load of laundry for 10 minutes before flames will shoot from the sides and incinerate the unattended load of clothing.  [This will prevent people from leaving their clothes for too long and taking up a dryer.  It will also prevent those preppy people who like to fold their clothes slowly and carefully while all the other dryers are full and I’m waiting with my wash.  You know who you are butt-monkey.]  Ashes from the load will then be spewed onto the floor to satiate the animal hunger of the roombas (see 2).

a.       Corollary rule: If anyone is detected messing with the dryers (see gum example above) They will be forced into the dryer compartment with mechanical arms and held there until the required ten minutes have passed.  Enjoy your fire gum-spitter.

That’s all I have for now, but I’m sure laundry night will be a much nicer night when I’m done.  Don’t you agree?  Be careful how you answer, the roombas are watching…

This post was brought to you by the punctuation: COLON.  Parenthesis put up a good fight, but fell behind in the third quarter due to injuries.

¹Okay, I blame him too

²and sexy

³Aww snap! Zing!

⁴WWSD: What would Stalin do?

⁵Read: me

⁶ That’s right: I’ve turned the entire Laundromat into one very serious game of “don’t touch the lava.”  Enjoy your death, Mr. Bond.

Let's all just pretend that didn't happen....

Hi everyone,

So I just realized that all of my TOTALLY DAILY blogs posts from the last FOREVER haven't been posting.  I don't know why because I have been posting AWESOME things EVERY DAY.  Also the previous posts have all been DELETED FOREVER and I can't fix the problem.  This is an unfortunate turn of events, I agree, and is in no way related to the fact that I am lazy and didn't write anything in this blog.  Yep, that's absolutely ridiculous and definitely didn't happen.

So we're just going to start again here.  I have had a great idea for a new story.  It a completely original idea for a world plagued by the same stories being told over and over again.  Here's a sample excerpt for everyone.

All his life, young Barry had thought he was nothing special and his jerk-face aunt, uncle, and cousin had been quick to remind him of that.  And yet, here they were in a tiny shack in the woods trying to escape from something.  Something that had been trying to contact him.
Haha, he thought dryly to himself, maybe I am special.  What a crock.  The odds were that this was just another elaborate practical joke to make him wish he had never been born again.  They (the Worsleys) LOVED their practical jokes.  Especially when they involved making poor Barry feel like a worthless waste of air and ESPECIALLY when they did it on his birthday.
He looked over at the real working Flav-a-flav clock hanging from around his sleeping cousin's fat lack of a neck.
Only a minute left and he would be eleven.  His birthday would come and he'd get the massive stack of presents the Worsleys always gave him.  Then, as per tradition, the Worsleys would load all the gifts in a pile and light them all on fire just to show him how cruel the world really was.  To him.  Every waking moment of his miserable life.
30 seconds left now.  Barry wondered if anyone would ever love him.
20 seconds left.  Would he ever have a real family?
10 seconds left.  Another year survived.
5...4...3...2...1...
BAM!
"Huzzah?"  His cousin sat up groggily.
BAM!
"What the deuce!?!?"  His uncle ran down the stairs carrying a rocket launcher.  Now Barry understood what had been in that mysterious giant package his uncle had been carrying around.
BA-CRASH!!
The lower half of the door had been blown off of the frame and in it was silhouetted a man, half the size of Barry.  He stepped into the shack and threw the hood of his cloak off of his head.  He was bald as can be, as if he had never had the tiniest piece of hair grow out of his head in his entire life.  He looked around and spotted young Barry
"Happy Birthday Barry!"
"I-I'm not Barry..." His cousin stammered.  The dwarf looked at him for the first time.
"I wasn't talking to you fatty!"  He looked back at Barry, "I haven't seen you since you were a wee baby.  Gosh I can't believe it's been so long, but at last you can come back."
Barry was confused and responded in the only way he could think of, "Back where?"
"Where?" The dwarf asked, "Why, back to our world of course."
"Who's world?"
"My world, your world, your parents world.  Our world.  Golly Barry didn't you..." as if something dawned on him, the dwarf turned to the Worsleys.  His next words were full of high-pitched fury, "You never told him?"
Uncle Mervon, drew himself up and spoke, "I swore that we wouldn't have any of that nonsense in my house.  We'd stamp it out of him."  With that, he lowered the sighting mechanism on his rocket launcher and aimed.
Swwssh!
Nobody had moved but the front of Uncle Mervon's rocket launcher fell to the floor as if sliced clean off.  The dwarf was putting something small back in his pocket ten feet away from where they stood.  "Now you stay quiet while I fix this Worsley, or that toy of yours won't be the only thing that gets sliced."
He turned to Barry with sadness in his eyes, "Barry Shotter.  You're a ninja-wizard."

Back in Black (symbiote that is)

Alright alright.

As Leigh Ann has so graciously reminded me, finals are over.  I'll try to get back into the swing of things with the ol' blogger-ooni (not to be confused with Blogger-oni, which is the legendary japenese demon of the blog).

So, even though it's Tuesday, here's a little of what I've been up to:

So I bought a game cube last month for something to do, and to celebrate the end of finals I bought some games on Amazon.com.  One of these games was Ultimate Spiderman.  This game may be my new favorite thing other than painting ghostly figures on my neighbors windows in clear luminescent paint.  The webslinging is wonderful, the voice acting and dialogue are witty and enjoyable, and the cut scenes are like unto reading one of the comic books.
Now I've read that the game is short which is a problem, and I can vouch for the games desire to force me to do the race side missions (or main missions-damn you electro!) to progress the story.  Admittedly, this aspect of the game sucks.  But it's a small issue in the grand glory of not having Tobey Maguire's stupid ass voicing over my favorite hero.  This game is in no way tied to the movie, which is one of the reasons it's so wonderful.
All in all, the game play could use some tweaking and a longer main story is desired.  That, I feel, is a good thing though.  It means that the story line was something I enjoyed, and therefore want more of.  The cell shaded style is reminiscent of the comics on which the game is based.  If you're a fan of New York's beloved Web-head, then this game is a must.  If you're a "real gamer" (a.k.a. merciless prick who thinks the only good games that involve a headset mic, high end graphics, and a recliner in your mom's basement) then stay away.  If you simply hate Sam Raimi and want to play a fun, albeit short, game then dish out a few bucks and buy a used copy.

Until next time, true believers,
Excelsior!

Finger got Freddied

"Hey Bill."

"Oh, hi Bob!  Good to see you again.  What's going on?"

"Oh, I just had this great idea for a new superhero and I wanted to run it past you."

"Sure, sure.  Let's see it."

"See he's called Batman.  Doesn't he look awesome?  I thought the red and black would go well together."

"Hmm...Well to be honest Bob I'm not so sure it works.  Plus he looks an awful lot like Superman.  Why don't you go with a gray costume; more mysterious and all."

"You mean like this?"

"Yeah, that's great.  And what about a full cowl instead of a domino mask.  It'll keep his secret identity better."

"That's a great idea Bill!  Boy, that domino mask sure looks silly now!  Like something a sidekick would wear.  Haha!"

"Oh!  You should give him gloves to prevent him from leaving fingerprints.  Maybe some cool spiky gauntlets too.  And those wings don't make sense, they'd be really cumbersome.  How about a ribbed cape?"

"Yeah!  This is looking great now.  What would I do without you Bill?  You know, I've been having trouble with a secret identity too; any ideas?"

"That's a tough one...How about Bruce?  You know, after Robert the Bruce.  And something colonial for the last name...Adams?  ...no...Hancock?  ...no...I've got it Wayne!  Just like 'Mad Anthony.'"

"Wowee Bill!  How do you do it?"

"Oh, I'm just trying to help a friend Bob."

"I want him to be like Zorro.  You know, because he has a mask and all."

"We could also make him a super-sleuth like Sherlock Holmes, and a Jack of All Trades like Doc Savage."

"Yeah!  And he's like Zorro because of his mask!"

"uhh...yes.  Yes he is Bob."

"Hey, do you think you could make some cool villains and story lines for Batman?"

"Well...um...sure."

"Great!  Hey everyone!  Come look at the awesome new superhero I came with ALL BY MYSELF!!!"

Nicholas cage: perfect father figure

Leigh Ann and I went to see Kick-Ass this past weekend and it was...well...okay.

Oh and spoilers below: you have been warned.

I wish I could say that it was kick-ass, but unless we're referring to the title, that would make me a liar.  The movie was more violent than I expected, but that's not why I'm saying it wasn't great.  I simply felt like the movie didn't really know what it was doing for two hours.  It was like somebody looked at the movie and said:
"Here's the general plot, just do whatever feels natural to fill in the spaces so we can get the full length out of it."

I still maintain that the general idea is a good one.  A young man simply decides to become a superhero and turns out to be an average guy in a costume just doing the right thing.  He realizes in the grand scheme of things that he's nothing special, but here's the thing: he is special.  I think so at least.  My favorite part was during a fight with three thugs, one pulls a knife.

Thug: The fuck is wrong with you, man?  You rather die for some piece of shit you don't even fucking know?
Kick-Ass:  Three assholes laying into one guy while everyone else watches?  And you want to know what's wrong with me?  Yeah, I'd rather die...so bring it on!

A great moment that really looks into why some teenager would risk his life, but they never expound upon it.  They never bother to make a point in the movie.  Good guys get the bad guys, and that's all well and good, but that can't be all there is.  If I wanted violence and action, I'd rent a Michael Bay film.  If I wanted vulgar language, I'd watch a Die Hard Movie.  If I wanted to watch silly modern teenage antics, I'd go buy Juno.  But I don't want those things.  I wanted a superhero movie.  I wanted a point.  I wanted all of the above woven together well as opposed to shifting the focus from scene to scene.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate the movie.  I was just really disappointed in how it performed.  I do want to look into the comic, to see if it fills in the holes left behind by Hollywood.  If you have huge sums of disposable income, go watch Kick-Ass, it's worth that.  Otherwise wait until you can rent it because there is no point in paying for an incomplete movie.

My rating: 6.8/10

My Second Favorite Quote: "Fuck you Mr. Bitey!"

Nathan Lane owes me millions.

Tonight's Wiki Wednesday is brought to you by my good friend Reed who directed me to this:

The Lions Sleeps Tonight has an interesting history.

Originally called "Mbube" by it's writer (and initial recorder) Soloman Linda it has been sung by many over the years.  Linda was given the shaft and payed a one time fee instead of normal author royalties.  The famous chorus of "Wimoweh" is actually a mistake, caused by a mishearing of the original chorus "uyimbube" which means you're a lion.  This means Timon and Pumbaa are stupidly singing "You're a lion, You're a lion" in horribly mistranslated African during the movie.  Stupid jungle animals, listen to Elton John.

The song is based on an old African legend about the king Shaka Zulu whose pro-wrestler name was "The Lion."  They say that when the Europeans invaded he simply fell asleep (instead of dying) and will awaken some day to exact his Buffalo Loined Vengance.  Of course, if my leader decided at the critical moment to go to sleep while his people were being conquered, I would probably prefer thinking he was dead.  You know, instead of being a jerk who abandoned everyone for 40 winks.

In 1982 the most popular version this song ever was performed and released by the group "Tight Fit."  And this is why it was so popular:

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to go and make some bread.