Internet-Spammed Legos

So much talking; so little time! Let's get on it!

And yes, the title references the three main topics for tonight's entry.





CURRENT MUSIC:
Russel Brower and Derek Duke - "Citadel"
World of Warcraft: Fall of the Lich King Soundtrack

In hindsight, the announcement I made a few days ago (to post 1,000+ worded entries throughout September) didn't seem to be a good one. I've been known to set myself up for massive failures in the past, and by posting this challenge it seems I've repeated history once again. While success isn't going to be as daunting as... say, downing a tyrannical and malevolent leader of the undead, it's no walk in the park either.

I look forward to the future, and with this self-instated challenge in mind, all I can see is an icy, towering château and a graveyard that runs downhill... with all the graves marked with my name. As the announcement was made public, I can't simply walk around this obstruction - I have to steel myself and fight through it as I brashly proclaimed. (I mean, if I didn't, I'd look like some pompous liar, and we can't have that now, can we?)

Imaginary situation aside... the title track of the "Fall of the Lich King" campaign's soundtrack fits wondrously. The aural metaphorical feeling of seemingly endless doubt incarnate echoes through my laptop speakers much like it did in-game. The five-man dungeon "Pit of Saron" makes use of this audio track as you and your team battle your way through a giant open-air mine to break into the Lich King's stronghold, Icecrown Citadel. When I first ran this place, I was nervous as hell - not just because of the difficulty (it's no "tank-and-spank"), but the music was definitely creeping me out.

Of course, who's to say I'm feeling hopeless about this? No, no - like mentioned before, this will be a wondrous challenge for me to partake in! The music just speaks a story that has yet to be told! Heave to and take in sail - we're storming in!


Kenichiro Fukui - "Badlands"
Einhänder Original Soundtrack

Not many people out there have heard of this side-scrolling shooter made by Squaresoft (yeah; back when it was still known as that). I'm not surprised - everybody knows Square for other famous games (*cough* the Final Fantasy and Chrono games *hack*). That changes whenever I'm around with a copy of this game - I just broadcast and demonstrate the game, and the people I show it to agree with my statement of "AWESOME." Set in the distant future, you play as a military pilot from the lunar colonies piloting a bizarre-shaped aircraft named "Einhänder" (German for "one-handed") waging war against the forces on Earth.

Anyway, the music caught my eye when I was younger and playing this. Aside from gaining some notability as Squaresoft's first 3D shooter, it was also their first game featuring a fast-paced and tension-driving techno/electro soundtrack - one that I find very appealing. I think it was due to Einhänder's soundtrack that I developed a taste for techno and trance.

Honestly, blast this when you're trying to do something - be it typing that term paper you procrastinated on all semester, street racing driving down the U.S. Route 101 at a breakneck very reasonable speed or rushing at work to get your current task at hand finished - and I guarantee you will appreciate how much faster things begin to operate and appear.


Papa Roach - "...To Be Loved"
The Paramour Sessions

One of my favorite Papa Roach songs, "...To Be Loved" is the opening track for The Paramour Sessions. Whenever this pops up, I also get the urge to do things faster. It pops up on the freeway? I floor it, assuming I'm in the clear. It pops up when I'm working on something? I work much, much faster. It pops up when I'm sleeping? ...I'm sleeping. Hey, I'm a deep sleeper...





Good night, one and all, and thank you for reading today's edition of The White Knight Chronicles. As your host I've been concocting ideas for a decent blog and what not, and I think I came up with something that I think you'll greatly appreciate!

Yeah, that's Spam. Yeah, the camerawork is blurry - kinda hard taking pictures with an unsteady off-hand.

...oookay, maybe you won't appreciate the fact that I physically cooked and consumed something that you can't eat, but... hey, I did whip something up for y'all here: today's entry! "Feast your eyes on this!"





Ignoring the Warnings
(TV Tropes + Addictive Personality = !?)

Some of you may be wondering what's with my late-timed posts that keep showing up... well... late at night. Normally, I'd cite a half-assed excuse and present to you a bad case of procrastination and work, but today and yesterday involved none of those. (Okay, maybe procrastination, but definitely not work!)

Truth be told, I ended up getting caught in TV Tropes. Like xkcd said, "It's like Rickrolling, but you're trapped all day." Indeed - I spent about the first three - no, four of my waking hours today browsing through the wiki and nodding along with things I found to be true. Damn my addictive personality! According to Chrome's history (and current set of open tabs), here's a sample of what I've ended up looking through...

• Clasp Your Hands if You Deceive (known in anime circles as "The Gendo Pose")
• Capcom Vs Whatever ("IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!")
• World of Warcraft (For the Alliance!)
• Archer ("Jesus; the helium!")
• Character Blog (one of my characters will have this...)
• Burn Notice ("You say 'tomato'; I say 'pimp.'")
• And Some Other Stuff (totally not unobtainium at all)
• How I Met Your Mother (Legendary!)
• The Xanatos Gambit (I WIN.)
• Arson, Murder and Jaywalking (Imagine someone only getting acquitted on the first two...)
• Enforced Method Acting (Hell of a way to act. Nicely done in some situations.)
• Dawson Casting (Yeah... totally not age-matching there.)
• My Friends... and Zoidberg (Ladies. Gentlemen. Josh.)
• The Lad-ette (Which school? A cross between Three and Five, maybe.)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender ("[Toph] sounds like 'tough,' and that's just what I am!")
• Chew Out Fake Out ("But seriously: feel free to do it again.")
• Leeroy Jenkins (Totally not my fault. Or Leeroy's. But hey - least I had chicken.)
• Audience? What Audience? (Fourth Wall breakers are pretty funny.)
• Metal Gear (Who are the Patriots?)
• Deadpool ("This is a Hyper Combo~!")
• Idiot Ball (Not the Orb of Confusion!)
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment (HELL, YEAH!)
• Random Encounters (Always when you don't want them to happen.)
• Oddball in the Series (Because every group has one...)

Jesus. I need to stop... clicking... on... these... *sigh* ...ah, to hell with that. I'm enjoying myself and reading all this. It's quite fun. If you're asking, "Really?" then I have only one response for you:

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESS!

Oh, and as for the answer to that math question in the subtitle? God only knows.





Spamsilog - the Breakfast of Champions
(The pics say it did happen.)

Before we continue, I'm aware that some of you are wondering what the hell kind of Filipino dish "spamsilog" is. It's quite simple, really - I already mentioned it before, but for those of you too lazy to re-read "Zwei":

Spamsilog is a variant of "-silog" meals that stem from the cuisine of the Philippines. The original word, tapsilog, is a contraction of "tapa" (dried or cured meat), "sinangag" (garlic-fried rice) and "itlog" (egg - usually fried or over-easy). Most Filipinos take the "-silog" part and simply slap on some other meat (dish) of their choice, creating their own contracted word in the process. "Spamsilog" is one widely recognized variant, and those that enjoy this (breakfast) dish enjoy it with great gusto - myself included.

Surprisingly, it's not all that hard to cook (sadly, I know a few people who can't pan-fry anything). The rice is the only "tricky" part, but even then it's a cakewalk.

Obviously, with me at the kitchen, I'm not one to follow traditional recipes or even remote guidelines - I always experiment on some level to the point where the finished product not only looks and tastes appetizing, but in a rudimentary way the meal could be called an "original" dish in some circles. My recent experiment with cooking spamsilog deviates from the traditional directions because I experimented and made it mine. I infused the meal with that "sweet and salty" taste most Filipinos seem to enjoy - and I'm pretty sure some of you non-Filipinos out there love that kind of thing, too.

So without further ado:



Josh D. "Whitey" Blanco's Spamsilog
(Geez, I need a better name...)

(Author's Note: This is assuming you've got plenty of time (read: the day before cooking and the day of) and you're the kind of chum who prefers to cook their rice the right way: with a dedicated rice cooker. You can cook with any other kind of rice or use freshly-made rice, but I don't think it's going to taste the same...)

EQUIPMENT:

• oven
• rice cooker
• frying pan
• spatula

MATS:

• Spam (the quintessential ingredient to spamsilog)
• rice (three cups) (preferably brown)
• eggs (x2) (x3 if you looooooove eggs)
• can of sweet corn
• garlic, chopped
• onion, chopped (fresh works best, but that pre-dried stuff works fine, too)
• Worcestershire sauce
• sugar
• paprika
• teriyaki sauce
• soy sauce
• various herbs & spices (modify for personal preferences)

DIRECTIONS:
1.) Prepare and Cook the Rice
The advantages of rice cooked with a rice cooker is that it turns out exactly as you picture it. You have complete control of preparation, and the steaming takes care of the rest.

Hand-washing rice? Unheard of in the Western world, but commonplace for countries with rice as a staple.

I hand-wash my rice. Gets any impurities and random... stuff... out of the mix, gets the rice pre-soaked and ready to get cooked, and shows how much love you're pouring into your cuisine. Simply fill the container with water so that it's above the rice line and then squeeze and knead the rice. Once the water becomes heavily opaque (that is to say: you can't see the rice at all), drain the water and repeat the washing process. You have to show your rice that you're going to present a dish made with love to other people.

COOOOOOOOOOOORN~

After three wash-and-drain cycles (four if you're paranoid or bored), toss in the corn (plus the included water, minus the can), a bit of chopped garlic and some of the herbs and spices. Hand-mix the rice and other stuff.

This is my rice cooker. There are many others like it but this one is mine.

Fill the container with four cups' worth of water and let the thing cook. With fresh rice, it's usually imperative to pay attention to how much water you put in (too much makes the rice soggy; too little makes it harder than hardtack), but since we're using "overnight" rice (where it's dried out), it's not important.

What the rice looks like once it's done cooking. And yes, it's great out of the rice cooker!

Once it's done cooking, feel free to help yourself to a fresh variant of the stuff. Nice and tasty, eh?

2.) Chuck the Rice in the Refrigerator
Let the rice cooker cool off and chuck the entire container in the refrigerator. Doing so allows your rice to harden and dry out overnight - a key trick in turning fried rice from "amazing" to "epic." And moisture lost is flavor gained... the next day.

3.) Sleep
Or whatever. Generally speaking, you're going to want to halt production 'til the stuff you oh-so-coldly placed in the cooler can be considered "day-old" rice. Once it's set and ready, pull it out and prepare yourself for a fun cooking session.

4.) Fry the Spam
Time to fry! Bust out the frying pan and set the oven to medium. Cut the Spam into strips - make 'em as thin or as thick as you want. Just be sure to remember that thinner slices cook faster than others.

It's alllllllllllll about precision. Not really. But an even coating of the condiments helps.

As you place each batch of Spam slices on the pan, coat each slice with sugar, paprika and Worcestershire sauce, using the spatula to evenly coat the meat. Once done, flip the slices and coat the other side the same way.

Sizzle.

When both sides are coated, just let them sit in the pan. Flip the slices occasionally.

Oh, don't that look just scrumdiddlyumptious?

OH, MAAAAAN. Take a piece and sample it - you mouth should be swirling between the sweet, salty and spicy tastes. If none of them are overpowering one another, then congrats - you put in the right amount of each of the three condiments. If otherwise, then simply adjust how much you're slapping on. Repeat all this until all the Spam's been cooked.

5.) Fry the Rice
The leftover grease and what not on the pan will be nice in adding flavor to your already-flavorful rice. Switch the oven to high heat and begin piling as much rice as you can reasonably fit onto the pan.

Rice, revisited. And it thought it only had to endure an hour of steam torture...

Throw in some garlic and onion, coat the pan with a copious amount of teriyaki sauce, soy sauce and herbs and spices (how much is up to you) and continually mix the rice until you believe it's done. "How do you know?" you ask? Well... just go with instinct. Time yourself, keep a spoon handy, have someone who can cook supervise you - whatever. Just as long as you're sure the flavor is thoroughly mixed in, it's done. If you have any remaining rice, cook it all the same way.

6.) Cook the Eggs
Cook your eggs to order. Personally, I think sunny-side-up or over-easy compliments spamsilog the best, but it's all up to you (or whoever you're feeding).

7.) ENJOY!
Dive in. Ketchup and Sriracha optional.



Well, I hope that makes your breakfast/lunch/dinner a good one. After all, nothing beats home cooking.





Military Reorganization
(Command structures have to stay in some kind of order - even fictional ones.)

I looked at that initial photo of an unnamed Serecles Royal Defense Force platoon I posted about a week ago. I remember thinking, "Gee, Josh: that does seem mighty large for a platoon." Plus, it's a defense force, not a full-on army."

I agreed, and I figured out how I could split up the group and reorganize them into a smaller company-sized unit. After some math and some moving around, I got to reorganize them to look like this...

Better organized, I'd say.

Presenting your typical SRDF light infantry company. 65 soldiers strong, with this company possessing an attached civilian journalist. The Company Commander (the guy with binoculars, big-ass visor and the white epaulettes), the Company First Sergeant, their accompanying radioman can be seen up front.

Each 31-man platoon is led by a Platoon Officer (black epaulette, yellow stripe on armor) and Platoon Sergeant (red armor, orange epaulette) and has a medic attached (rightmost columns). In the platoon are two Sergeants (red armor), four Corporals (NCO stripes on right side of breastplate), two radiomen, two mortar operators, two light machinegunners, two demolitionists, a medium machinegunner (the dude with the .30 cal), a designated marksman (armed with the M14) and twelve riflemen. Spiffy.

And while I was at it, I created an adversary!

Haven't named these guys yet, but eh - the time will come where I come up with something.
And yeah - that's Fullmetal Alchemist on the laptop screen.

Looking close enough, you'll notice differences between the uniforms.

Black stormtrooper armor, M-1 Garand rifles and M1 helmets? Anachronistic, isn't it?

The guys you saw on the left are the standardized infantry. It's only a light squad, but these guys are so well-trained they'd probably put contemporary special forces to shame.

Volunteer militia, armed with just about anything that shoots bullets.
Or in that lady's case up front, crossbow bolts.

The right group, seen in the above photo, are actually volunteer militia. Their country employs mandatory conscription and placement in the national reserve, but when patriotism levels are just sky-high, what's the point? Oh, and don't let their motley look fool you - they received the same basic training the regular soldiers did, so they're still a force to be reckoned with...

It's only a matter of time before these guys go into war...





Whew, cutting it close there! I'll catch y'all tomorrow!