[Cooking] Scrambled Eggs

Another quick and easy meal, but beware -- scrambled eggs takes a bit more skill. You can't stop stirring the eggs, even for a second. This can make it difficult to make toast, butter it, and zap some baked beans, all using your free hand. For this example, I've skipped the beans, just to keep it simple for you all.

History of the Dish: Scrambled eggs was "accidentally" invented back in 1987, when Dorris Studebaker was making an omelette. Her New York apartment was right under 2 train lines, and her kitchen shook every few seconds with the passing behemoths. This meant that the eggs cooking in the pan couldn't settle, becoming "scrambled", and "scrambled eggs" were born.

Loved the world over, everybody from a champion weightlifter, right down to a neglected Jewish Albanian boy, can enjoy this delicious way to prepare eggs!

Scrambled Eggs in 3 easy steps

What you will need:

- Eggs (2 to 4 for 1 person)
- Butter
- Dash of milk
- Salt and pepper
- Tobasco sauce

Step 1 - Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them up good and proper. Add a dash of milk and other seasonings. While you're doing this, heat up a pan with a massive chunk of butter.

Magnifico! You are just 2 steps away from a delicious meal!

Step 2 - Cook the eggs in the pan. Stir them with a wooden spoon. Don't stop stirring. If you stop, you fail. While they are cooking, somehow make 2 pieces of toast and butter them.

Cook it up boyeee! This is the stuff dreams are made of!

Step 3 - Chuck the cooked eggs on top of the toast, add some HP Sauce (required in every meal I cook), and enjoy!

Get that HP all up in it! Put the salt and pepper all up in the grill!

I will also take suggestions of meals you would like me to cook. Leave a comment below.

-Gray

[Cooking] Omelette

A fairly complex dish for this lesson, but don't be afraid to give it a go yourself! You can only learn by trying new things.

History of the Dish: The omelette was created by French rebels during WW2. The occupying Germans had put severe restrictions on the availability of fresh food, and were replacing it with bratwurst sausages, pumpernickel bread and cheese made from sheep's milk. The French quickly learned how to use simple ingredients from their own backyards, and the omelette was born.

The word "omelette" comes, of course, from the French "au om de le latte", which translates to "chicken's eggs and cow's milk". Delicious!

Omelette and Beans in 3 easy steps

What you will need:
  - Baked Beans. Do yourself a favour -- buy Heinz. Don't settle for some second-rate brand of bean.
  - Two to four large eggs, preferably uncooked.
  - A dash of milk
  - Ham
  - Cheese
  - Tobasco sauce
  - Parsley

Step 1 - Crack the eggs into a bowl, add a dash of milk, and whisk with a fork.

Unfertilised avian ovums! Yum yum!

Now is the time to add your "extras", such as a tiny dash of milk, ham, grated cheese, salmon, tobasco sauce and parsley. Unfortunately, I had none of these ingredients on hand, so I added nothing.

At this point, throw a massive chunk of butter into the frying pan and melt it on a medium heat:

I can't believe it's not butter! .... Oh wait, it is butter.

Step 2 - Tip the mixture into the hot pan and leave to cook for a few minutes. Chuck your baked beans into the microwave to heat up. The reason I use beans is that it means all the major food groups are covered -- vegetables, egg yolk, and butter. Essential balance for good health and vitality.

When the bottom half is cooked, and the top half is still liquid, flip half the omelette over the other half and allow another minute or so to cook. Leaving some runny shit inside is technically OK. You can't get sick from undercooked egg. Rocky used to eat RAW eggs, so don't worry about it. Did Rocky look sick to you?

It may look like a train-wreck, but it's dinner.

Step 3 - Serve on a plate with the baked beans. Brilliant!

Always add HP sauce to every meal. Otherwise it'll taste rubbish.

Now, you just can't get a more quick and easy meal than that, can you? No, you can't.

-Gray

[Bike] Bye bye CBF250 :(

Tonight I watched her being ridden away by her new owner. It was like seeing an old friend move interstate. Or a favourite, long-running TV series coming to an end.

We had some fun times. No bad times to speak of. Apart from that first trip down to Donnybrook when I was freezing and cramped up. Damn I hated you for those last couple of hours!! CURSE YOU!! CURSE YOU TO HELL, FOUL CONTRAPTION OF WIND AND COLD!!!.... Oh, I can't stay mad at you, that wasn't your fault ... <sniff>

I wish I had some photos of our times together ... Learning to ride, passing my test ... cruising the Scarborough coast, checking out the ladies ... Going on group rides ... Nearly getting killed by that old man in his Falcon .... Good times. The memories will live on in my heart.

Let's have a moment of silence for the mighty CBF250, which started me on my long road of motorcycling joy. What a trustworthy steed.

I hope your new home is a good one. I'll miss you, little lady ...

- Gray
PS. PLEASE don't snap your chain in the next few months. I don't need the grief. Thanks.

[Cooking] Sardines on Toast

Let me start my new series, "Cooking with Gray", with a nice simple dish -- Sardines on Toast.

History of the Dish: Originally found in the waters of the Swiss Alps, the sardine has spread around the world due to several unfortunate quarantine accidents. They quickly adapted to salt water, and the oceans around the world are now teeming with these annoying parasites.

Fortunately, they taste great and pack a nice protein hit, so let's cook some up tonight!

The name "sardine" comes from the French "swordine", which comes from the Greek "swordicus", which comes from the Latin "sardine". 


Sardines on Toast in 3 Easy Steps

What you will need: 
  - A tin of sardines, of the brand of your choice. "Woolworths Home Brand" is good at this time of year. I've gone for "King Oscar" -- if it's good enough for a King, it's good enough for me.
  - Two slices of bread. Try wholemeal. Remember that white bread is essentially bleached and processed until it contains less nutrients than cardboard. Never, ever eat white bread.

Let's get started!

Step 1 - Open the tin. Tip the sardines into a warm frying pan. Enjoy that salty, fishy aroma! While they are simmering along nicely, let's move on to step 2 ...

Step 2 - Make some toast. Here you can see I'm using an electric toaster, but feel free to use a grill, open fire, microwave, or any other method you enjoy.

Step 3 - Put hot sardines on top of hot toast.

So easy, and so delicious! Enjoy!

-Gray

[Movie] "Insidious" review

MINOR SPOILERS but nothing that would spoil the movie for you, when you watch it.

You don't see too many completely original horror movies being released. Because it's all been done before. Typically, "Insidious" is a melting pot of themes and techniques from other horror flicks. You've got your creepy kids, strange events that get more full-on as the movie progresses, and a nice (if predictable) twist at the end. You're looking at people running past in the background, kids laughing, baby monitors picking up some ill shit, bloody handprints, and so on.

Brilliantly, Insidious doesn't waste 30 minutes setting everything up. It gets started pretty quickly and snowballs from there. So it's definitely entertaining. There are some real jump-out-of-your-seat moments, and the general build-up of tension is very well done. In particular, the part with somebody walking back and forth outside her window, on the roof awning, made me shake like a little girl.

I lost all my fear towards the end -- I thought they went a bit over the top with some of those final scenes. But the ending was decent so it's still a winner in my book.

One problem I had was with the use of torches, or "flashlights" as they're inexplicably called in America. They never look right in movies, do they? They light up a tiny section of the room. Sure it's scary, but even a $5 Chinese LED torch will light up more than that.

Insidious - 4 out of 5
Not as scary as some IMDb reviews were suggesting, but definitely a good movie. I can't say I wasn't scared for most of it (or I should say, "I was scared for most of it").

-Gray

--- SPOILERS BELOW ---

Questions for anybody who has already seen this movie:

1) What happened to Mr. Stereotypical Goat-Footed Demon Man? After his Spider-Man act, we never saw him again.

2) Why do the ghosts in these movies always seem to be from the olden days? I'm sick of old women with veils, and men in old-fashioned clothing. Why is there never any modern-looking ghosts? Or to go the other way, why is there never any caveman ghosts?

3) Unfortunately, it's yet another movie where some basic combat training would have solved things very quickly. If you're going to go toe-to-toe with a supernatural being, at least learn some basic shit (Krav Maga). Every time we see that Undertaker-looking guy with the demented face, the characters are paralysed with fear. I just wanted them to punch him right in the nose. Lights out, game over, the good guys win. But it never goes down that way in the movies ... 

[Bike] Pulled over in Freo

Got pulled over today, lights and sirens, the whole works. Now I'm not going to lie, I thought about just twisting my wrist and getting away. I wasn't doing anything wrong, but why take the risk when I've got 19kW (25 horsepower) at my command?

Unfortunately, I would have been putting innocent peoples lives at risk when the police assigned 6 cars to (unsucessfully) chase me, so I pulled over.

Turns out, the guy just wanted to make sure the bike wasn't stolen, license check, and wanted to check out the bike. He had a good old chat, walking around, checking it out, talking about how he rides a 175cc -- I said Pfft, you may as well ride a pushbike. Actually no, I didn't say that.

Nice guy. Never really had a problem with cops. Probably because I never really break the law.

Nearly sold him my CBF250, too. That would have been cool.

-Gray

[iPhone] Review - Galaxy on Fire 2 (part 1)

I've only played this for just over 1 hour, so I'll post Part 2 of this review in a week or two. It's too big a game to judge after 1 hour. That certainly won't stop me judging it, however.

I spent a few months playing X3: Reunion by Egosoft, back in the day. I liked Elite and the Wing Commander games. And I messed about with Eve Online, although I didn't have a good enough computer to enjoy it. So I thought I'd check out Galaxy on Fire 2 .... After all, it only costs $10.50 (?!).

Cruising the galaxy like a true pimp.

The basic idea is, you fly around space, docking at various Stations to trade goods, pick up freelance missions, upgrade your ship, buy a new ship, and continue along the Story Missions. You get to fight other ships (a lot), and probably do some other crap which I haven't reached yet.

Graphics - Brilliant, can't fault the look of this game. Here is another screenshot:

"I wonder if this station has a McDonalds?"

Sound - Nice space-type music. Combat sounds are OK, but a bit repetitive. Interestingly, the voice acting is of a very good quality, which really makes the game feel polished. You've heard me whinge about bad voice acting in a previous post. No problem in this game though.

I did a fly-by on this massive Cruiser, while it headed for the jumpgate. I'm just cool like that.

Gameplay - Well you get everything that it promises on the tin. You can fly around just trading if you want, building up your money for a bigger or better ship (or even your own station to store them in, I read somewhere).

Or you can stick to the story missions. The story is pretty standard fare, nothing too exciting.

Or you can do freelance missions for fun and cash.

Or you can be a pirate. Maybe. I've never tried this, but there are other computer-controlled ships flying around the place, so I don't see why you couldn't blast them and steal their cargo.

Sorry I didn't get a screenshot of combat. I forgot.

The loading screens lasts literally 1 second on the iPhone 4, so that's very impressive. Nothing more annoying than a game that makes you wait for loading screens. And I haven't had a single crash, stall, jerk or jitter since I started playing. It also supports that "iOS multitask" thing, so when you jump back into it, you'll be at exactly the same screen you left at. Awesome.

"Hello why you shoot me?? NO BANG BANG!!"

Value - Hard to say a game is good value when it costs this much. Then again, there is plenty of content in here. There is already 1 expansion pack released. I think it costs another $6. Bit steep frankly.

But if this is the kind of game you like -- you honestly won't find a better "space combat/trading" game for your iPhone than Galaxy on Fire 2. I assume. I've only tried 2 other games like this. But they were both absolute shit. So it's a safe bet that GoF2 is the best of the bunch by a long shot.

Galaxy on Fire 2 - 5 out of 5
Not to everybody's tastes, but you can't fault this game if you're a fan of the genre. It includes everything you would expect, plus more, and it's very polished.

Spaceship parking $5,000 per hour. Offenders will be towed.

- Gray

Yet another 5 things that annoy me

This blog now has over 1,000 total pageviews! Yay! To celebrate, I thought I'd whinge a bit more:

1) People walking around shops in bare feet. At least put some thongs on.

2) Self-serve checkouts. They're slower. I'm fairly geeky and even I had trouble understanding the damn thing when I tried it. They're taking jobs away from teenagers. And, if it's cheaper to install the machines, shouldn't the prices of goods come down? ...

3) Chevy badges on Holdens. Can somebody PLEASE explain this to me in the comments below? What's the idea here? The engine is designed in America, but built in Australia, yes? Or what? ... Anyway it's usually stupid bogans that also display the Southern Cross on their window (another issue entirely ...) so which country are they pledging allegiance to? Australia or America? I'm confused.

4) People that see you're wet, and immediately say "Oh is it raining outside?"  .... "No, I took a shower in my clothes." ... "No, it's raining inside actually." ... ARGH!

5) Company "sick leave" policy. They advise you in the induction, "Don't come to work when you're sick! Be responsible, don't spread it -- stay at home!" ... Then when you actually get sick, that attitude completely reverses. "Oh we're short staffed, are you sure you can't come in? Are you getting a doctor's note then?" ... Sick of it. I'm getting a cold right now and already I'm thinking that I can't have any time off since the other storeman will have to do all the work without me. So I'll be spreading the cold to about 40 people ... in a hospital. Brilliant.

[Movie] "Drive Angry" review

Drive Angry is sort of an "intentionally corny" movie. Slightly similar to "Death Proof" in a couple of ways. Throw in some "Constantine" too. As long as you don't take it seriously, it's decent.

It's the kind of movie where a guy gets blown back by a single bullet. Where the "hero" can somehow avoid getting shot even when two cops unload from 10 feet away. Where cars can do improbable stunts, and the chick always has perfect hair and makeup no matter what she's just been through.

I'll be honest -- you take away Amber Heard and the movie would suffer. But whatever. Nicholas Cage plays his standard character -- softly spoken, with plenty of squinting and a slightly strange walk. The special effects are pretty poor, but there is hardly any in the entire movie so it's fine.

I can't really call it a good movie, but it didn't make me want to stop watching.

Drive Angry - 4 out of 5 (3 out of 5 if you don't like watching Amber Heard)

-Gray

[iPhone] Let's Play Order & Chaos - episode 5

Episode 5 - Stale Bread, a Retarded Squirrel and Sweet Revenge

Well I haven't played iPhone games for a few weeks really. I had a spare 11 minutes tonight, so I thought I'd jump back into Order & Chaos and kill a squirrel.

Driving back from Donnybrook last week, a squirrel wandered straight across the road. My reflexes were dulled by 4 hours behind the wheel and the soothing voice of Karl Pilkington. So I reacted by swerving into the oncoming traffic lane. Could have been fatal. Time for some revenge ...

The best place to look for a squirrel is in the forest, so off I went. After a while, I stopped to munch on some stale bread:

Who laid these paths? Seriously. Think about it. Who?

I was dispatching Bandits as quickly as a fat kid devours a Twix bar, but my true target remained hidden. People don't realise how cunning the squirrel can be. It's a natural survivor. Squirrels have remained, virtually unchanged, since the time of the dinosaurs. It is commonly believed that they evolved from birds, when in fact they are a completely unique species, correctly named the verticalis nuttomi draconis, literally "climbing nut-eating dragon".

Although prized for it's meat in the South American continent, it generally proves very difficult to catch. That's why I was so surprised when this obviously retarded squirrel bounded over the nearest hill:

Retarded or not, it's a dangerous animal. The yellow stripes warn away potential predators.

Despite it's mental retardation, I jumped straight into battle with the nasty beast, and my level 10 Mage spells proved very helpful:

You got pwned little bitch!! Killed it so fast, it was dead before I managed to screenshot the battle.

The creature was slain in a massive ball of fire and death, and soon I stood proudly over my conquest:

The only good squirrel is a dead squirrel. The woods are a safer place now.

Another fruitful expedition in the world of Order & Chaos.

-Gray

[Movie] "Hanna" review

Hard to describe this without basically describing the entire movie. It's pretty basic. Watch the trailer here on YouTube. It's basically about a girl that gets trained from birth to be a hunter/killer/survivor or something. Then some paedophile woman from the FBI called Cate Blanchette is trying to kill her, or catch her, or something.

Eric Bana plays the father of the kid. In my mind, Eric Bana is always going to be Poiter, so it's hard for me to accept him as a German-accented assassin in this movie. Typecasting -- it's a bitch.

The albino teenage girl who stars in the film does a pretty good job I suppose.

All in all, it's a bit art-house for my tastes, but I still enjoyed this film. I recommend it if you like East European movies with slightly dubious pacing but good acting and scripting. And who doesn't?

Hanna - 3 out of 5

-Gray

[Movie] "Pandorum" review

If you enjoyed any or all of the following films:

1) Alien
2) Event Horizon
3) Sunshine

... then please watch and enjoy Pandorum.

Pandorum is a sci-fi thriller, which feeds you information just quickly enough to keep it interesting. It's fairly low-budget but if you put Dennis Quaid into a movie with some deep-space creatures, then count me in. It's a recipe for success. You've got some nasty alien things, a lot of moodily-lit spaceship corridors, some solid acting, and a much more interesting story than 90% of the crap that makes it into theatres these days.

Pandorum - 4 out of 5

-Gray

[Bike] Splitting like a knife through hot butter

Thought I'd give this a go. Rode into Fremantle for a nice fish and chips, then returned north along the freeways at around 5:30pm. As traffic was getting slower and slower, and I was wondering at what speed I should jump out and start splitting, two sports bikes split past me. I quickly jumped behind them and starting splitting through the cars like a scythe through dry wheat. Or something.

Don't think about it, just do it. It's like eating a strange vegetable for the first time. Or jumping into a swimming pool. Literally close your eyes, and do it. Actually, I joke about it, but since the sun was down and I was stuck using my tinted visor, I may as well have had my eyes closed. I could have flipped it up but (a) it's windy, and (b) if people can see my geeky face peering out, they might move over to block me. With the tinted visor down, they assume I'm a tough guy and are more likely to get out of my way.

Pretty fun, but I suppose everything gets old after you do it enough times. Yes everything. Filtering at the traffic lights was fun the first few days I was doing it. Now I don't really think about it. Like masturbation. It's the best thing in the world when you first discover it. By the time you're 30, it's just something you occasionally do when you want to guarantee a solid nights sleep. It's a chore, if anything. That's all I'm saying. Put out the bin bag, check the doors are locked, feed the fish, have a tug, sleep time. I often find my mind wandering to non-sexual topics and problems, while I'm .... Actually I'm going to leave that there.

One thing I noticed was that some cars would move to the side of the lane to let me through. Some seemed to drift over, and block me off. Or maybe they were just sloppy drivers and didn't even realise I was there.  Pathetic. They aren't even looking out for hard-to-spot, illegally-splitting motorcycles coming up behind them between the lanes. That's basic driving skills.

I tried to give a little "wave" to the guys who moved over. If they're on the left side, it's easy since I can fully twist my hand off the bar and extend my fingers to the side. On the right side it's a problem since I'm trying to maintain a certain throttle, and cover the brake lever. So I settled for a demented, retarded-looking three fingers, bent upwards, which they almost certainly couldn't see but which has now left my fingers aching.

-Gray

Computers in the old days

What's the deal with boot-up times? Booting Vista on my Dad's laptop takes about 3 minutes, no exaggeration. I owned a Commodore 64 once, and it booted in less than 1 second.

What's the deal with networking? I've spent many an hour fiddling with router settings and trying to get a machine wirelessly hooked up to the internet. I linked up a 486 once, by plugging a "null modem cable" from it into another computer. It worked instantly.

What's the deal with complexity in computers? Windows is doing about 500 things in the background. That's 500 things that can go wrong, pop up stupid error boxes, or just slow everything down. Back in my day, real men used MS-DOS 6.0. Your computer did 1 thing at a time. Sure, you couldn't actually do anything useful, but what it could do -- it did quickly. And only when you told it to, by typing something in. I get slightly sick every time my virus scanner pops up "Virus definitions updated". Sorry, did I ask you to update? STOP THINKING FOR YOURSELF!!

And gaming? Well gaming has gone steadily downhill. Observe ...

Back in the good old 80's, you bought a game on casette tape, or if you were lucky, a "floppy disc" for the C64. This is back when floppy discs were actually floppy. You chucked it in, it took about 3 or 4 minutes to load, and then you were playing. Brilliant! Chance of the game working on your machine = 100%.

In the 90's, you bought a game on 3.5" "floppy discs" (which were not floppy at all), or if you were lucky, a "CD" for your "CD-ROM Drive". You chucked it in, it took about 25 minutes to install, and then you could ... fiddle with loading device drivers and tweaking the EMM386 memory manager thing, reboot your machine about 6 times, and finally it would run. Meh. Chance of the game working on your machine = 80%.

In the 2000's, you bought a game on DVD, which is the same as a CD only it holds more. You chucked it in, it took about 45 minutes to install, and then you could play it. Getting better. Chance of the game working on your machine = 60%.

In 2011, you buy a game on something called "Steam", which takes all of your personal details, bank details, mother's maiden name, a snapshot of the contents of your computer, and an uploaded photo of your underwear drawer. You click through all of that, it then takes about 8 hours to download over Australia's pathetic internet infrastructure, and as long as you're connected to the internet at all times, you get to play the game you just paid $100 for -- as long as you have 4GB of RAM. Pathetic. Chance of the game working on your machine = I don't know, I haven't purchased a big-budget commercial game in about 4 years. 

I think the last game I paid money for was Minecraft. It was cheap, it gets regular content updates, and I think I got about 50 or 60 hours easily out of it. When my Xbox 360 crapped itself, I had about 30 games ... that's about $2000 worth. Hardly ever played them. Now I use my original Xbox, it's still going strong after about 7 years, and even though I never touch most of the 50 games, at least they only cost $5 to buy second-hand.

Why did I have more fun with games on my 486 SX/25, that had 256 colours and ran in 4 MB of memory? Is it the old "rose-tinted specs" phenomenon, or did the old games just have better gameplay? I'm eagerly awaiting the release of id's new game "Rage", so that I can tear it apart as the shambles of "technology and visuals over gameplay" that it will surely be.

-Gray

[Movie] "Transformers 2" review

I can't even review this properly. The level of awful that this so-called "movie" has reached is unbelievable. In fact, if you take out Megan Fox ... I would literally rather spend 2.5 hours weeding, than watching this again. I mean that quite literally. It's painful.

Pathetic, weak story, special effects everywhere, stupid characters with no personalities (that includes the robots too), childish jokes throughout ... I would LOVE to hear somebody say they enjoyed this movie. Just so that I can ask what they liked about it. And then tear them apart with reason and logic.

I just Googled "transformers 2 sucks" and got 1.8 million results. I'm just saying.

Transformers 2 - 0 out of 5
Definitely in my top 10 "Worst Movies I've Ever Seen" ... Hey that would be a good blog entry to do.

-Gray

[Bike] Finally got some respect

Parked in Manning last night, I come out of IGA to see some neat older gentleman checking out my bike.

He said, "Just having a look at your bike ..."
I said, "Yeah, she's a beauty allright."

He said, "Looks kind of small ..."
I said, "It's a 250 mate."

He said, "Yeah I was just surprised how small the--"
I said, "She's small, but she's sprightly."

He said, "Uhh yes ... I meant the wheelbase is quite short for a--"
I said, "More maneuverable."

He said, "Well it looks great anyway. I'm on a 1200 Yamaha something-or-other."
I screwed up my face and said, "Ohhh ... Bit sluggish in the traffic, hey ... OK all the best mate, cheers, take care."
(*)

Anyway it's nice to finally get some acknowledgement. This is part of the reason I got into biking in the first place -- the chicks want to be with me, the men want to be me. So far I've only attracted a middle-aged man but it's something. It's a start.

Getting lots more nods too since I switched over to the CBR. And that's what it's all about, in the end.

-Gray


(*) Conversation may have been edited at editors discretion.