[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