Best posts made by GreenFlashlight

@testament "My skin is already a blanket, so why is this blanket lying on me? Am I not hot enough?"

@faraday Right. I'm implying that I want every actor to have the same training and responsibility as the armorer, but I'm not suggesting that because I am aware that implication comes from an irrational dread drilled into me since childhood; if that makes any sense at all. My actual proposal would be more akin to learning what the different kinds of bullets look like so the actor has a greater chance of spotting them, especially in a revolver...

...but even as I say that, I imagine some poor actor putting a slug in their eye socket while checking the cylinder instead of leaving it in the hands of a true professional.

As you can tell, I am struggling with this one. Most likely, I'm trying to make myself feel safe by pretending I can contribute a helpful solution to an intractable problem.

For people who have ever wanted a socially acceptable excuse to eat salsa with a spoon, here is my recipe for shakshuka. It is not authentic, if you were looking for that.

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in your largest frying pan over medium-high heat. When it's shimmering (or just warm; people make too big a deal about this, in my opinion), add 1 diced, white onion and 8 oz diced mushrooms; I personally like shiitake for the texture. Give them a pinch of salt and saute until the onions are translucent.

Add 1 diced red pepper, cored, and as much diced jalapeno as you think you can stand. Where I live, I can only buy them in the size of a salt shaker, so I get three and I don't core them, because I like foods that make my nose run. You can core them if you like it milder. Anyway, sprinkle 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp paprika (I use Hungarian but you do you), 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper over the sauteeing vegetables. Let all this cook for about three minutes, giving it a stir now and then to keep the spices from burning.

Add 28 oz. can of San Marzano tomatoes, crushed, juice and all to the party with 1/2 cup of water. Some people use broth, which I don't like in this recipe, but it's your frying pan, not mine. Stir it until everything's well-mixed and let it get to a boil, then drop the heat to medium and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

At the end of this time, give the pan a good stir to make sure nothing's burning to the bottom of the pan, then start making indentations in the surface for you to crack eggs into, one per. My frying pan is big enough to accommodate seven eggs with no overlap, but yours might not be. You're trying to poach the eggs if you like them runny or boil them if you don't (hi), so I like to partially cover the pan to speed the process along and prevent the shakshuka from losing any more moisture than it already has. When the eggs have hit the consistency you like, take it off the heat and serve it with whatever toasted bread you like best.

I understand lactose-tolerant people sprinkle goat cheese over the top before digging in, but that's not me.

"Why I Have Diabetes" Slapdash Noodles

2 tbsp butter
1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 pound pasta of your choice, you can't go wrong, I'm sure this would work even with lasagna sheets
1 tsp each of any Asian-ish sauce you have in your house

The hard part of this recipe is for the pasta to be done at the same time the sauce is ready to receive it. I recommend boiling and draining the pasta before starting to make the sauce until you get the timing down.

Melt the butter in a big frying pan over medium heat. When it's melted and soon to turn brown, stir in the garlic and let it cook for 3-5 minutes, until the raw smell goes away. Now you can add any Asian-ish sauces you have to the mix; I use a teaspoon each of whatever's in the fridge, and none of it has ever turned out bad. Soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and sriracha if I want a little kick? They all mix together fine! Anyway, stir it into the butter and garlic mixture, then add the finished noodles as fast as you can and toss to make sure everything's coated, giving it maybe a minute to finish up.

Since this recipe is basically impossible to screw up by adding things, play with it! If I have any leftover cooked meat I want to get rid of, it'll go great on this if you toss it in a little sesame oil to keep it from sticking to things before adding it to the pan at the same time as the noodles (krab is my favorite for this). You can add vegetables to the butter with the garlic to make a half-assed stir fry kind of thing; I know for a fact that it's delightful with a pepper you've cored and julienned and a cup or two of shredded cabbage, but broccoli would also go down a treat. I'm sure it's possible to screw up this recipe, but so far, even I haven't managed it. Just be sure to add more liquid to help spread the flavor around to all the extra ingredients you're putting in.

Better Than Hamburger Helper: Haluski

1 lb Polish sausage, cut into rounds; optional
6-8 tbsp butter
1 medium white onion, diced
1 pinch salt
5-8 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded
2 large carrots, peeled and slivered
red pepper flakes to taste
1 lb egg noodles

This is a Depression-era dish, so if you're going tor accuracy, cut the meat and only use 6 tbsp. butter.

Boil egg noodles per directions on the packet. Drain it when done, reserving 1/2 cup of starchy water. Return the still-hot starchy water to the pot with 2 tbsp. butter, stirring it all together into a fairly creamy sauce-coated bowl of noodles.

In a large frying pan, melt 2 tbsp. butter over medium heat and brown the sausage rounds in it, using a slotted spoon to transfer them to a bowl, leaving as much drippings behind as you can. Add another 2 tbsp. butter to melt, then add the diced onion and salt, sauteing until translucent. Add the crushed garlic and stir, cooking for 3 minutes or until the raw smell is gone.

Melt the last 2 tbsp. butter and add the cabbage, carrots, and red pepper, stirring to mix and to help cook. When the cabbage and carrots are soft, add them to the noodles in whichever of the two cooking dishes is large enough to accommodate all that. If you made it with sausage, add that too, and stir it all together until the butter and fat has combined with the butter sauce coating the pasta and thickened it a good deal.

@arkandel Thank you for being there for your baby. His life was better because of you.

@ganymede said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

We are introduced to Peter as he uses his advanced degree to flirt with hot college girls; Ray is the busy-body spouting off his theories; and Egon eccentrically gathers the evidence and builds the machinery.

They're also, like, objectively bad at what they do. Peter's flirtations only work on children half his age; as soon as he tries that shit on an adult, she shuts him right down. Ray's theories are so useless that he has no idea how to apply them to the ghosts he interacts with. Egon's inventions are a threat to his own life and limb, either about to drill a hole through his head until someone with sense stops him or causing him to back fearfully away from the radiation his own weapon emits. As paranormal investigators and eliminators go, they're just one step above Abbott and Costello.

The only reasons they can achieve success are because the technology is so simple only a colossal asshole like Walter Peck can screw it up, and because the big bad is an utter doofus. That all probably sounds like criticisms, but it's a comedy and that's the whole joke! The punchline is basically, "Lookit these horny idjits! What a parade of nonsense!"

My introduction to Ghostbusters was actually the cartoon. I first got into it because I realized Venkman was being voiced by the guy who voiced Garfield* but I stayed because I was terrified of the dark as a kid and I loved the idea that human science had advanced us to the point that we didn't have to be afraid of the dark any more, because we could just call an exterminator to come deal with the pests. Afterlife feels more like a sequel to the cartoon series than the movie, which I guess is fine, but to me it feels about as wrong-headed and try-hard as a reboot of He-Man that tries to present this guy as a serious villain, and who'd do that?

Pictured above: existential threat to all creation.

*Holy shit, I just put it together. Is THAT why they got Bill Murray to voice the CGI Garfield movies? It was a Lorenzo Music joke?

My phone just went off to alert me to a breaking news story that a new archaeological dig is challenging the Bible's historical accuracy.

Everyone involved in writing that headline and bringing it to my attention makes me feel tired.

@sunny said in RL Anger:

If one more person tries to blame the recent tragedy in my life on the COVID vaccine I am going to stab somebody in the damn face.

If anyone asks, at the time of the stabbing, you were driving around town with me helping me find a pair of Chaco's ZX2 sandals for my sister for Christmas.

@tnp said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

But the coronavirus is not going away.

At least the people who refuse to vaccinate will. Eventually.

I get where you're both coming with this, but could we please be more careful with this rhetoric? My family's fully vaccinated, but everyone in my sister's house has COVID right now because my niece was exposed by one of her school friends, and... I dunno, I'm just not finding "ha ha they died of COVID" jokes as funny as I used to.

Most of Futurama is returning.

@silverfox I feel that you are describing a hostage situation. "Either let us continue to endanger you, or we'll put someone worse in your position who'll hurt your patients!"

Negotiating with terrorists is rarely a good idea.

@Roz said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):

For the people who are fond of OOC rooms, I'm curious: what benefit or functionality do they provide for you that channels don't?

They're easier to opt into or out of than channels are (why do no two games have the same commands for turning a channel on, aliasing it, and/or turning a channel off?), and easier to tell who has opted into.

@surreality said in Reporting Roadblocks: Denial, Fear, Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, etc.:

Further, I'm well aware of the emotional sensitivities during and after a traumatic experience, online and off, and don't need a primer on that front.

Sorry. That you're familiar and that I condescended to you. Both.

@kanye-qwest said in Reporting Roadblocks: Denial, Fear, Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, etc.:

But it isn't okay, is it? Because if a player is doing this stuff to one person...they are probably doing it to others, too. Like, yes you should strive for comfort and understanding but at the same time the staff's job is to do the best they can for the players. That means protecting them from known shitlord elements.

Then we need to be clear that the actual goal is not to eliminate roadblocks that prevent players from coming forward, and is instead to make things easier for staff to do what they want to do. And I'm actually more okay with that viewpoint than I probably sound; it does have merit. I just think when the conversation shifts from "how can a game make reporting more likely" to "staff needs to take X action no matter what," we need to acknowledge that we're no long talking about nor prioritizing the same things.

I kind of liked her Crow novel, but it was a little hard to get through all the twincest.

@reimesu said in Good or New Movies Review:

No one's mentioned this yet, but Knives Out was a fantastic amount of fun for anyone who's ever vaguely liked Agatha Christie type mysteries. The cast is phenomenal, the acting is brilliant, and several of the cast seem to be having the "I'm getting PAID for this? This job is the BEST!" kind of time in their roles.

I am trying to imagine anyone but Daniel Craig making Blanc's dialogue work. I don't think anyone could. It's so amazing. This movie is so amazing.

I would expand the section about non-consensual sexual RP to mention various acts of harassment, and a statement to the effect of, "This list is intended to be illustrative, not comprehensive. Staff will take steps to protect the community from offenses not specifically listed here: the spirit of the law is more important than the letter."

@insomniac7809 said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Like, every woman I've known who's read ASoI&F has commented that no, George, no woman spends that much of her day thinking about her own titties. The accidental stereotypes come, in my experience, from writers thinking too much about how an <X> character's <X>-ness would color absolutely every interaction, more than from not considering it at all.

The Ramona and Beezus series. The characters seemed so relatable even though the world was so strange because the writer used words from way before my time; I still remember trying to guess from context what a davenport is, and tentatively deciding it must be some kind of cabinet.

@reimesu said in Good or New Movies Review:

I am REALLY tired of hipster douchebags droning on and thinking it's a critical review, when all it is, truly, is yet another douchebag thinking he's an edgelord.

Shhhh. Let people like things.

but how will people know how smart i am unless i tell them how dumb they are for liking a thing i dont like