Thirteenth To-Do List

Good afternoon, readers! Welcome to an early edition of The White Knight Chronicles! It's an early edition because... *checks watch* ...it's not even moonrise yet!

I'm sure some of you are wondering why in God's name am I posting an entry this bloody early in the afternoon. Well, while yesterday had absolutely nothing in the schedule, I actually have quite a bit of tasks and other (semi-menial) tasks to perform today. As a treat, I'll let you in on the list, because I know some of you like me enough that you'll unwittingly stalk follow my every move bloody stalk me and not tell me.

So, rather than make it difficult for y'all, I might as well throw my to-do list for today on here. Enjoy stalking learning more about me!





Filipino Spaghetti
(A Pinoy's take on the classic dish.)

It's no secret how much I love a good pasta dish. However, when you incorporate all the amazing things out there that involve noodles and a sauce of some kind, none comes close to the classical awesomeness that is spaghetti and tomato (meat) sauce. Personally, I prefer a Bolognese-esque kind of sauce - heavy on meat but with a fair amount of tomato sauce and herbs and spices, but I'll take anything.

Now, as spaghetti is pretty much an internationally-known dish, it's no surprise how many differing variants exist out there. Of these, I have to say that my favorite thus far is the Filipino-style that my ethnic homeland is getting to be known for - infusing the already-rich taste of the Italian dish with the Filipino knack for making things sweet and spicy (although the "spice" factor can easily be adjusted to fit the recipient's palette). I miss that style of spaghetti so much that I'll be taking matters into my own hands.

...and yeah: I'll be eating it, too. It'll be sweet - just like the sugar in this photo!
(Yaaaaaaaaay, diabetes. *rolls eyes*)

Tomorrow, I'll be attempting to cooking Filipino-style spaghetti for the first time, so as such I'll be requiring some time to collect the materials necessary to cook it. So if you're going to attempt to stalk me today, chances are that holding out at the local grocery store will let you have your "chance encounter" with me. If you think that wasn't honest enough, I'll be even more honest with you - I've yet to attempt cooking pasta in my life, so when I attempt it, I'm just hoping I don't botch it too bad.

Time permitting, I just might slap photos of me cooking spaghetti on this blog tomorrow. Hopefully, it looks as delicious as it sounds.





Dame Más Gasolina!
(Music makes your trips to the gas station less boring.)

Gas doesn't have to be so bloody expensive, does it? It does? Well, screw you and your steakhouse!

Anyway, I love how my car can easily squeeze out 400 miles on an 11 gallon tank. (I can do even more if I control my driving effectively.) However, awesome mileage means nothing if there's no gas to fill the car up, so I guess I have to visit a petrol station sometime today (especially considering the fact that I'll be doing some major driving today).

You ever go to the gas station and some random person blaring music you can't directly identify shows up? Do they shut the engine off and keep the radio on so they can expose everyone else to their brand of music? Well, I'm that kind of person, but don't worry:

• I don't blare my music that loud. It's loud enough for you to hear, yet not loud enough to cause your ears to bleed buckets.
• It's good music. (Mostly.)

Of course, half the time I pull up to a gas station, the music I'm playing just makes my trip seem more legendary than it is, which makes your average boring trip to refuel... not-so-boring. =D





Bookstores: The True Pagemasters
(One of the classic origins of inspiration? Oh, hell, yes.)

One of the oldest and best origins of inspiration come from books. Seeing as how I'm still finding myself in a writing rut, I figured that a new source of inspiration is due. (I'd say "writer's block," but my high school English teacher would just smack me upside the head, even if he's nowhere around me saying that.)

Back on the 8^th I posted a little thing from writer/freelance artist Keri Smith titled "How to Feel Miserable as an Artist" - a list of things that she felt weighed most contemporary artists down. Obviously I interpreted each thing my own way, but she still carries a point with all of them.

I figured that since her (written) works center around the topic of creativity (and by extension: creative writing), I could nab a book or two written by her and see if viewing art from another person's perspective might give me the edge I need to get out of this funk.

Plus, I haven't visited a bookstore in ages. I almost miss them. I like trips to the bookstore - almost every time I'm there, I discover a book I didn't know about that grabs my mind (and if it's engrossing enough, my wallet). Plus, they're a great place to kill downtime between social events - whether you need something to do before that party you were invited to or just don't feel like going home so you can digest your latest lunchtime conquest, the local bookstore's there.





Cutting Down the Mightiest Tree in the Forest... WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITH... a Herring! a Super Scope!
("Cut down a tree with a herring Super Scope? It can't be done!")

As Pacific Media Expo inches closer and closer to us, I feel the urge to grab new weapons to "defend" the convention when I work Security. In the past I've been armed with the following:

• Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle (a.k.a.: the Halo Plasma Rifle)
• Kalashnikov AKMS (7.62x39mm Soviet)
• MAC-10 machine pistol (.45ACP)
• Nerf Longstrike CS-6 sniper rifle

(Author's Note: Yes, the AKMS and MAC-10 were airsoft models.)

I figured that I could use another silly weapon to perform my role effectively. I've always seen myself as the kind of security that's easygoing unless the time dictated for us to be serious - but with PMX the way it is, I never have to be serious.

Which, of course, I've taken out of context to mean that I have to be armed with something silly. The first thing that crossed my mind when that came up was my favorite peripheral of the Super Nintendo (and probably the only known one in non-gamer circles): the Super Scope. You know the one.

The Nintendo Super Scope: blasting CRT targets and Smash players since 1992.
(Photo found via Google.)

Now all I need to do is find a place that sells surplus ones at a cheap price...





Lego Special (Photo) Ops
(Because recon is necessary for an effective mission.)

Remember how I said last night that I was going to give some of my Lego creations a proper introduction? I'm wondering if I can get that via pictures and a decent-and-short biography. Now, with the pictures, I'm wondering if I can pull that off with outside exterior shots... because Lego-based shots outside in the real world make for epic photos.

Besides, it could help me with some photography skills. Obviously, what I'm doing shares a different dynamic than taking snapshots of live people, but who knows - maybe I'll get ideas as I do it.

Of course, where will I be taking these photos? I don't know yet. That's what the gasoline's for: driving around looking for fun spots to prop these Lego people around.





Defending the Homestead: NERF-Style
("Upham! UPHAM! Upham: ammo, goddammit!")

When it comes to infantry area denial, there's a few options. While artillery is usually the best option, it's not always available. That leaves the infantry with some kind of heavy weapon that can cover a pretty good distance with a high rate of fire. Oftentimes, the weapon of choice will be some kind of machine gun.

A common problem with real-life machine guns (and all guns, for that matter) is barrel overheating. Obviously most everyone knows that when a bullet is fired from a gun, heat is created from the gunpowder reaction. Without an adequate cooling mechanism, the gun barrel overheats and creates a high risk of the bullets firing on its own (due to the high temperature prematurely igniting the gunpowder). Firing sporadically obviously reduces this issue dramatically, but with an automatic weapon (like a machine gun), that's not possible.

Aside from designing weapons to cool faster (via water jackets like in the old days or cuts in the design like with contemporary weaponry), another technique used in some automatic weaponry is the reduction of the firing rate. A good amount of machine guns have a feature that alters the rate of fire between a high rate (commonly used for suppressing fire and/or when overheating isn't an issue) and a lower one (commonly used to conserve ammunition and/or to reduce barrel overheating issues). Some weapons attempt to solve this problem simply by marketing the weapons with the lower firing rate only.

Now, real-life weapon facts aside, what's this have to do with my tasks today?

Me manning a machine gun post. Those damn Krauts Commies Charlies Chimeras Covies zombies [insert generic "bad guys" here] won't know what hit them!

Well, I recently procured a Nerf Vulcan machine gun. It's a nice Nerf weapon, but there's two main drawbacks I see with the weapon's "factory settings" (read: "what the gun's like fresh off the boat box"):

1. Low Rate of Fire
   Nerf says that with fresh batteries, the Vulcan can go up to 3 rounds per second. Do the math, and you'll get a cyclic rate of 180 rounds per minute - too slow for effective suppressing fire.
2. Ammunition Capacity
   The standard box only comes with one ammo belt, and each belt only carries 25 rounds. Even with a low cyclic rate, that's not enough ammunition for your traditional machine gun.

Obviously, Nerf modders wanted to fix these issues right away, and so they began experimenting. Fortunately, the solutions found were quite simple to work on. For the former, purposefully overvolting the Vulcan's motor (by using something juicier than six D batteries) allows for a much faster firing rate (Mana Potions already field-tested this with two R/C car batteries). For the latter, it requires spare ammunition belts, a screwdriver, a bit of cutting to make the belts latch on to each other, and maybe a guide in the event you can't do it yourself.

Now the question is... where can I procure spare ammo belts for cheap? More importantly, did anyone get the reference to the line I used in the topic sub-title?





So, with all that said and done, I'll be seeing y'all tomorrow. Until then, stay cool. I'll be performing all of these tasks today plus a few other social events.

Oh, and please don't stalk me. =/