Wii got a Wii and Far Cry Thrii.

Salutations! I've been putting off posting for awhile because Christmas. Buh. I'm almost done with the shopping part, but I still have a lot to do on the making side of it. Met a little hiccup in the Christmas card plan, but I'm hoping to finish those today. But, I can't blame my procrastination ALL on Christmas... I got new stuff in the video game department to waste all my free time on!

We got a Wii U! I was sort of not super excited about it at first, but Brandon just could not wait to get one. It really is neat, but we don't have any real games for it yet. We got Nintendo Land which came free with the Wii U we bought. I don't think it comes with the smaller white model. The reason I don't count this as a real game, is because it feels a lot like Wii Sports did for the original Wii... just a tech demo to show off what the Wii U can do. That said, it is pretty fun. I imagine it would be more fun with a large group of people. It's a series of arcade-style mini games that have Nintendo franchise-based themes, such as Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Animal Crossing, etc. The themes are cute, but at the same time, it sort of feels like a rip-off of the original franchise, because the actual characters are never there. It's either your Mii dressed as the character (such as Mario or Link) or there's a strange toy-like version of the character (like Yoshi or the baddies from Zelda). But even without the Nintendo nostalgia, these games would be fun. I want to try it in a group of 4 or more, so everybody bring over your Wii-motes and let's have a party!!!

It is taking major self-control not to replace every "ee" sound with "ii." I love puns. Anyway, the only complaint I have for the system as a whole, is the menu loading times. They seem ridiculous in comparison with other consoles and the original Wii. Brandon tells me they're coming out with an update to fix that, but I don't know his source. Other than that, the Miiverse is really neat. Here's the demo from E3. Brandon and I had a lot of fun creating Mii's as well. There's a feature on the Wii-U where you can create a Mii using a picture that the game pad takes of you (or whatever else you can find). It got kind of silly after awhile...

Hopefully, we'll get the games for it soon! In the meantime, I've been playing Far Cry 3!!!!! It's sooooooo neat. I've heard it aptly described as Skyrim with guns. I think the major differences are the setting, and that's  what accounts for the guns. It's a modern setting on a beautiful tropical island. I love the beach, so I love the setting. It one of the more pretty games I've ever played. I think Skyrim is also pretty, but in a more majestic type of way. I'd rather vacation on Rook Island (once the terrorists are taken care of) than Skyrim. You play as a dude, who was taken hostage by terrorists while on a vacation and escaped and is now trying to free his friends. The story is very engaging. It's a little disturbing to me because it's so feasible. This could happen in real life. And the part where you narrowly escape death and you get tattoos that give you super powers to save your friends, probably couldn't happen... so yeah... disturbing.

Even though I am invested in the story, the protagonist and the "good guys" are a different story. They're pretty one-dimensional and remind me of people from an MTV reality show. The opening sequence does nothing to make me care about these people, in fact, I actively dislike them. They just seem like a bunch of rich white kids who are trespassing and got caught. On a number of occasions the protagonist slips into drug-induced hallucinations and sees some flashbacks, which I think are intended to make you want to save these people, but really, I just don't give a shit. What I do give a shit about is every time you come in contact with the main antagonist. He is fucking crazy and terrifying! I found myself thinking, while watching his cut scenes, that he was a really good actor, but then reminding myself that this is all CG. He's the best bad guy I've seen in a long time. On one hand, I can't wait to come in contact with him, just so I can see what he'll do but then on the other hand, I am terrified of seeing him again because of the fucked up stuff he does. So great.

So this is my current obsession since Brandon and I are on opposite schedules and haven't been able to play Borderlands together lately. That will change soon hopefully, because I really want to finish that game too.

Next week will be our live hangout for the Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb! So tune in for that. Only 6 days left to finish The Hobbit! Woooooooooooooooooooo! See you soon.

Cauli-whaaaa?

I haven't done a proper blog post in awhile, mostly because my schedule got all out of whack from being off for roughly three weeks. I'm back to the regular show schedule after Tuesday though, so hopefully that means more regular blog posts.

No news about the domain issue... I really haven't done anything about it since my last post. I had lost my patience with the whole ordeal and I'm slowly recharging and waiting for a time where I'm ready to deal with it again. In the meantime though, I've been doing some fun stuff with GIMP, a free program that is a lot like Adobe Photoshop. For example, I made the banner at the top of the screen here, and also at the top of the Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb!'s blog. I also am making Christmas cards, that I can hopefully figure out a way to print before Christmas. Just another hobby, I guess. I have so many! I really need to stop finding new hobbies and work on my fascinator endeavour. But for that, I must get my house clean and organized. For some reason, my work space becomes the catch-all for our dumb crap we don't use. Probably because that is the part of our house least likely to be seen. Sigh.

Anyway, enough of my yammering. I thought I'd talk about one of my favorite vegetables: Cauliflower!

Growing up, I really didn't like cauliflower. I thought it was broccoli's albino cousin that didn't taste nearly as good. But when I started my sordid love affair with the South Beach diet, I needed a legit substitute for carbs and I was willing to try anything. I'd heard about using cauliflower as a substitute for potatoes in mashed potatoes and tried it. When I make mashed potatoes, I usually just estimate the amounts of all the ingredients and do a lot of taste testing. So I did the same thing with the cauliflower. First, though, I steamed the shit out of it. Like, steam them as you would for eating steamed vegetables, and then steam them like twice as long, until it's falling apart at the slightest nudge. And then add milk, butter, and salt, and voila! Mershed curlerflewer! Sometimes I add garlic powder too, if I'm feeling frisky. You could probably substitute greek yogurt or something similar for a low fat option. I think it's a whole lot easier to prepare than mashed potatoes and although it doesn't taste exactly the same or have that fluffy texture, I think they are a damn good substitute.

After I tried those, and loved them, I tried more adventurous recipes, like Cauliflower Pizza Crust. My boyfriend, Brandon and I LOVE pizza. And that was our serious weak spot in our healthy eating plan. So again, I was desperate to find a substitute. I tried a ton of different recipes, and while it tasted good, it was sort of mushy and you had to eat it with a fork... it's not as satisfying as picking up a big slice in your hand and shoveling it into your mouth. After several different tries of several different recipes I finally found the one recipe to rule them all. You can find it here, on the Detoxinista blog, a great blog for healthy living. It is a little heavy on the preparation time, but I think it's worth it. And it's picky-eater boyfriend approved!

The final cauliflower recipe I tried was Cauliflower Bread Sticks. And although I think this recipe is pretty good, it's not amazing and I'd like to try others. It's pretty similar to the pizza crust, and I might try just making the pizza crust without the toppings someday.

In summation, you should give cauliflower a chance. I know I am going to keep scouring the internets looking for more recipes. I challenge you to do the same. And then send me a link. DO IT!

Oh the joys of domain mapping.

Lately, I've been struggling to map my custom domain names to this blog. It seems like it should be easy but the instructions on the blogger site are unclear and I'm suspecting they are out of date. However, I googled the problem and came up with better instructions that made sense... but to no avail. If anyone has any advice please please please help!!!

For now my blog is on two different sites.

Old blog (but with less pictures): risboombah.wordpress.com

And of course you're on the new one.

risboombah.com is being held hostage for awhile, but hopefully I can get it to direct here someday.

You can also find me and info about the new book club I'm involved in here. I'm super excited about it, and you should be too!

Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb!

You're witnessing history, everybody! First off, three posts in one day by yours truly... and most importantly, the dawn of the best book club you'll ever pay attention to: the Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb!

Megan and I broadcasted live tonight and I have to say, it went pretty well. A few awkward lag moments and a complete crash but all in all I think it was swell and it was super fun! If you want to participate, (and we aggressively encourage it) we're reading The Hobbit, this month in anticipation for the movie coming out. Stay tuned for details!

If you want to watch tonight's recording, keep checking http://www.meganligeti.com to see it! I'll probably also post here when it finally goes up. Yay!

Live book discussion!

So my dear friend, Megan Ligeti, and I are starting a semi-regular book club. She gives an apt description on why and how on her blog: A Pretty Girl in a Nerdy World. If you haven't read all her other posts... go do it... now... I'll wait...

Okay, now that you're back from visiting that other awesome blog, I'll just say that I'm super excited about "hanging out" with Megan tonight and hope that we can continue doing so in the months to come. Here's the info again in case you're dumb and didn't read Megan's post:

Who: Megan Ligeti and Me
What: Book discussion about "Poison Study" by Maria V. Snyder
Where: G+
When: Tonight (11/9/12) at 9:30 (CST)
How: Technology!
Why: Just because... jeez... you ask too many questions.

See you soon!

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeen

Wow! What a couple of weeks it's been! I've been ridiculously busy with work, designing a high school production and decorating my house for the party of the century! It was so much fun and so much work. Things have calmed down a bit and I can take a breather. I'm on a two week hiatus from work, between shows and my high school show opened last night! It's for Crossroads College Prep School and the production is "The American Clock" by Arthur Miller. It's about how peoples' lives changed during The Great Depression. It's funny how the themes are relevant again during this recession. But the kids are doing great and I heard opening was amazing! I couldn't be there because I was at the Regina Spektor concert last night. It was pretty great, although I wish she had played more old stuff, which is like everybody's complaint about every concert ever.

But the party went swimmingly. There were less people than we had planned for, but to zero detriment. I had a blast and from what I've heard from others, they also had so much blast. I'm hoping I can talk my roommates into having more themed parties because this one went so great. The next one I have in mind is a Dance Central tournament. A friend of mine said that I had an unfair advantage since I own the game, but believe me... I ain't doin' it in my free time! I've been having some knee pain and am going to physical therapy for it and I'm just way too lazy.

But anyway, on my old blog I shared some of my decor and wanted to save the bulk of it for after the party. I did a lot of decorating on the cheap with stuff I already had. Here's a good example of cheap and easy, yet effective:

All I did was cut bat silhouettes out of black construction paper and used double stick tape to tape them to the inside of the shade. Also, that's a red light bulb. I had a bunch from who-knows-when (maybe Park Place?) but you can find them for 3 bucks at Target. Here's another example:

In our front window, I created a Slenderman out of my dress form, a styrofoam head, fabric, plastic bags for stuffing and Brandon's clothes. The result was unnerving...

 I couldn't sleep the night after I created him. I kept having nightmares that he was going to come to life and come into my bedroom. I was happy to take him down.

Here's the Batgirl cape I made for my kitty:

And finally, here's some pictures of my costume I made myself. I made the dress out of old black t-shirts I scrounged from the thrift store. I draped the whole thing, which means I didn't use a pattern, I just basically built it on the dress form. I sewed most of it together and then sprayed it with bleach to create a space-y background.

Then I used acrylic paint and sponged on some galaxies and used a splatter technique for stars. I also used glow-in-the-dark puffy paint so it would glow in our black-light dance room.

Then I sewed it all together. I also made a hair fascinator that was supposed to represent The Sun. I originally had planned to print planets on tattoo paper and put them on my arms but I ran out of time. Here is the result:

 Pictures don't do it justice. You really have to see it in person. But here's the sun fascinator:

 And the makeup I did by myself, and my face under the black-light:

I think it turned out great! Let me know what you think! And for your viewing pleasure here's a great slideshow of more decor and some of the others' awesome costumes!

New and improved

Okay, so it didn't take too much time for me to find a new place for my blog after my last post to the old site... which I can't figure out how to export, so I guess it will be lost as soon as I switch my Squarespace site to my portfolio, which I'm extremely unhappy about and have sent a complaint to Squarespace. I've decided to go with blogger and I'm pretty happy so far. It's so much easier, way more customizable, and FREE. Let me know what you think!