microclimate: if there’s a thing on the news about an office worker being violently thrown from a window, onto tube tracks, you’ll know i finally lost my rag
microclimate: (in the w12 area of london)
Steerpike: That is one of the downsides of telecommuting
Steerpike: No defenestration potential
taphead: Awesome word.
Magnulus: Ahhh, defenstration.
Magnulus: Learned that one from Calvin and Hobbes.
microclimate: rarely does one hear of fenestration
microclimate: or indeed refenestration
microclimate: “is this your escaped toddler, lady?” *hurl*
Magnulus: Well, how does one perform a refenstration?
Magnulus: Would that be to climb back in through the window one was thrown through?
microclimate: or to throw someone back through, as you prefer?
ZombieGerryAdams: Magnulus is of course thinking of autorefenestration
taphead: ^_^
taphead: You people fill me with an emotion not entirely unlike love.
microclimate: taphead, are you now whelmed?
ZombieGerryAdams: you’re thinking of lust
taphead: Yes, and yes.

Now, I’m not presuming that you find me so fascinating that you just have to know more about me, but if you do have anything you’ve been wondering about, please do ask. You can ask the questions anonymously, even, so if the question is embarrasing you don’t have to worry about it!

Oh, and of course: If you register or are already registered, let me know so I can add you.

Weight: 76.1

Slog #5

Weight yesterday: 78.6
Weight this morning: 78.2

Slog #3

There are some obvious mistakes in there, but I’ll not spoil it by pointing them out. I was new to the software at the time and producing full sound-scapes as well, and we were pressed for time. I still find it entertaining. The carnage is especially pleasing.

Sugru is a silicon-based material that works a bit like clay in that you mold it around whatever you want to fix or improve, then you leave it to dry for 24 hours. The difference is that the dried piece is “rigidly flexible” like silicon things usually are and it also very strongly binds to whatever you’re fastening it to, so it works like a permanent, stronger kind of Blu-Tack. The stuff is amazing, and the people behind it are in the process of scaling their production up to be able to accomodate a market many, many times bigger than they expected to have. Check out their site for more info.

The reason I made the song was because they asked people who REALLY wanted some sugru right now to send them an e-mail with some pictures and text about why they should have Sugru. I quoted If I Were A Rich Man in mine and then I couldn’t quite stop myself…

For a month.

I have an inkling that cheese is actually one of the most addictive substances on Earth. If not, it’s certainly the most widespread addiction. Not without reason, either. It’s a source of calcium and protein, it fills you up and it tastes really really good. Also, it’s amazing. And varied.

On the downside, cheese is really fatty and is (according to some sources) possibly to blame for my slimy throat. So starting this thursday, I’m not having a bite of cheese for a whole month. It’s going to be tough, and I’m a bit freaked out by the idea of cheeseless pizza, but it’ll also be interesting. I might get the Uncheese Cookbook and try some stuff, too. Who knows?

I’ll make a video to announce it on Youtube as well. Watch out for that.

Look at that red inside. Barely cooked. (Click to enlarge)

Mid-september, I decided I’d try to cook a steak by pre-cooking in the oven first and then quickly turning in the pan. I’d done it once before and it was a tentative success, though flawed. At the meat counter at Sainsbury’s we picked out two small but thick fillets of Aberdeen Angus, just because Angus is fucking amazing meat. We probably wouldn’t have bought it if we’d looked at the price, though… over 30 British Pounds per kilogram! Crikey! When it beeped through at the cash register, my nerves shot upwards at an alarming pace. What if I fuck this up?!

When I got home, I tightly wrapped the fillets individually in aluminium foil and put them in the oven, which was set to the lowest setting (50 Celsius here). I let them sit there on their grill for about an hour while I made mashed potato and set greens to steam.

Perfect angus, greens and mash. (Click to enlarge)

As I assembled all the pieces, I started properly salivating. Everything looked just right. I was not disappointed. The greens had steamed to perfection with nothing overcooked and nothing raw. The mushrooms were golden brown on the outside and cooked all the way through, but hadn’t gone squishy yet. The potato mash was really creamy and with just the right seasoning. And finally, the Angus was red all the way through, but didn’t have a single millimetre of raw meat, and it was so tender I could pull it apart quite easily with my fingers. To me, it was like the steak in The Matrix when Cypher goes “ignorance is bliss”.

A combination of good cooking and fortuitous timing on every end made this the most perfect meal I’ve probably ever cooked in my entire life, and it’s likely I’ll never be able to reproduce it. That won’t stop me from trying, though!

Moral of this story: If you want full control over your steak on a regular cooker: Pre-cook it in the oven on a low-low setting (It shouldn’t be more than 50-70 degrees in there, otherwise, you’ll overcook it) and then quickly fry it on high in a pan. Also, before you try this on really expensive meat, practice on cheaper stuff, and also practice your timing with steaming and all that.

I must say that this: I got this tip from one of the waiters at First Coast, the best goddamned eatery in Edinburgh. They make amazing food with equal focus on both meat-dishes and vegetarian ones (something you don’t see very often, and something I appreciate as I mostly don’t eat meat) and they’re extremely reasonable compared to other gourmet restaurants and compared to what you get. If you’re ever in Edinburgh, look them up. They know their stuff. (Also, they don’t do “weekend staff”, so you’ll always get people who know what they’re doing, unlike their neighbouring restaurant, The Sizzling Scot.)

And then I opened the box and saw this…

The collector's edition Batarang: A cheap plastic toy.

It’s a solid block of cheap, black plastic molded onto a cheap, plastic stand. Oh, but they have machined scratches! oooooh! What the hell? According to the promotional material it’s meant to “match the design” of the batarang in the game. Obviously, this is true if you look straight on at just the silhouette of this dingy plastic toy, but they didn’t bother to make it look even vaguely metallic. I hadn’t expected a fully functioning, metal batarang, but at least something more exciting-looking than this moulded plastic trash. Had it been at least painted in a metallic colour, used a thinner mould that looked vaguely sleek and maybe even had the bloody seams polished off, it would have helped.

It does come with an extra booklet and some behind the scenes stuff, so the rest of the extras are nice, though I don’t quite understand why the discs had to be in a non-standard paper box that has no space for the instruction booklet. What’s wrong with a nice, metal box like most other “special edition” PS3 games give you? Why do I have to store my manual separately from my game?! What? You couldn’t afford to give it a proper cover because you spent all the money on the massively expensive plastic toys?!

I feel cheated and pissed on, but at least the game is good.