Serenity/Firefly Themed Gift Basket

A little late I know, but I wanted to share my experience from this past Valentine's day.

Now, I don't generally go overboard for Valentine's Day- the beau's birthday is just the month before and our anniversary is right afterward so those holidays get priority in the budget. This year, I decided on a creative, budget friendly little gift basket themed around his favorite series, Firefly.

When I hit the internet I couldn't find another example of anyone doing this, so I decided to record my process in pictures so I could share it here.

Allons-y!


First off, the tools and components:

• Small wood crate- Amazon
• Shredded paper- Michael's Art Supply
• Swing-top glass bottle- Amazon
• Scissors
• Double-stick tape
• Aluminum foil
• Nature Valley Trail Mix Bars
• Kahlua
• Skyy Vodka
• Fruity Oaty Bar wrappers- deviantArt
• Mudder's Milk label- deviantArt

Not Pictured:

• Bao
• Milk

A couple things to touch on here- There are actually quite a lot of recipes on the internet for Mudder's Milk and Fruity Oaty Bars, but the Mudder's Milk recipes all contain dark beer which gives beau headaches and I'm crap at baking so the bars were out as well.

Back to it! I chose Nature Valley Trail Mix bars for my Fruity Oaty's because they have (you guessed it) fruit, and oats! Since the label was proportioned more for a flat chocolate bar than a granola-type bar, I had to smoosh the trail mix bars- luckily they were pretty soft so I was able to do this without any additional tools. 

Nestle it up in some foil...

Wrap 'er nice and snug in the label, and tape...

Repeat as needed!

To mix up my beer-free version of Mudder's Milk, simply do a 1-to-1 ratio of vodka and Kalhua into your glass bottle, and top with chocolate milk, to taste (wipe the outside of your bottle clean at this point if need be). Next, cut out your Mudder's Milk label, hit that bad boy with some double-stick tape and throw it on your bottle!

Bam.

I actually wound up unable to find any bao, so I picked up the most similar pork-buns I could find at a local Chinese place. All I did was place it into my wood crate atop the straw and all was well.

The "bao" looking like boobs was just a happy accident.

I welcome questions and/or comments! Thanks for reading!

  

The happy recipient!

Celebrity Spotlight: Shoko Nakagawa

I've always been a fan of Japan's rich, unique culture. As one of the oldest civilizations, and one of the farthest from our Western shores, every aspect from their quirky mythology to their day-to-day lives is fascinating to me. I'll admit, my interest was initially sparked by exposure to anime/manga, but I'm hesitant to place myself in the camp with "otaku", if only because I see my interest as more anthropological in nature.

That being said, when I discovered pop idol Shoko Nakagawa, I was really just... taken aback.

She's the 27-year old daughter of 80's actor/musician Katsuhiko Nakagawa, and best known as being the host of PokéMon Sunday. Shoko Nakagawa, or Shokotan as she is sometimes known, is about as big an ootaku (a huge fan of anime/manga) as you can find; she is an avid cosplayer, talented illustrator, voice actor, and singer. She runs a blog that's hit over a million views and loves interacting with her sizable fanbase.

Shokotan is talented in many respects, to be sure, but the real love she gets from her fans stems from them identifying with her as an otaku/cosplayer.

But her multitude of talents are not the only things that garner interest in Ms. Nakagawa. She's also really... well, weird. She owns around ten cats and has said she enjoys "tasting" them and occasionally posts photos to her blog showing her doing just that:

Don't worry, she's only smelling her cat's anus in that last one. #thingsyoudontexpecttosay

Every year in Japan, summer is ushered in by the buzzing of cicadas and as children flock outdoors to enjoy the warm weather, some of them with net in hand to catch said critters, and yet another bug-related tradition has popped up in recent years. Shoko Nakagawa, like clockwork, will go out and collect cicada skins and arrange them in her hair and on her face. For real.

You didn't need to sleep tonight anyway, right?

I don't get the impression she does this stuff to get attention, after all, she already gets plenty for her many talents and pop-icon status. It seems more like she just gives absolutely no fucks and does as she pleases; in one interview she even stated:

I just want to leave proof of my life in my blog, and I just want to be as free as possible. Sometimes I'm too free, and my manager will get mad at me. 

I've got to admit, despite the flood of NOPE that overcomes me when I see those photos with the cicada skins, I admire this lady. She's turned her fandom into a career, and an impressive one to boot. Plus, you can't argue with that level of "don't give a fuck-titude ".

Wreck-It Ralph

E3 2012 started up yesterday, and while I'm avoiding regurgitating all the same highlights you can read on hundreds of other blogs, one thing that stood out was the trailer for Disney's newest Pixar jam, Wreck-It Ralph, about a video game villain who gets sick of being the bad guy, and starts game-hopping to find a place where he can be a hero.

With the voice talents of John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer, Sarah Silverman and more, the bar is already set pretty high.

The problem with this kind of movie is that it's really unlikely it won't go one of two ways:

1. It'll be targeted at your more general audience of "family gamer" types, and resulting in sweaty gamer outrage being splattered all over the internet.
2. It'll be so chock-full of obscure nods that hardly anyone will get it, and it'll flop.

Hopefully Disney finds a happy medium and we wind up with a nice Roger Rabbit for the video game industry, and not another Cool World fiasco.


**EDIT: To be clear, it was shown DURING E3, but not at Disney's panel.

Gamer Fuel: DewRito Cupcakes

In the first of this new series on Geeky/Gamer eats, I'll be attempting to recreate the gametastic Dorito/Mt. Dew cupcakes sold at 4Rivers Smokehouse in Orlando, Fl.

I scoured the internet but couldn't find anyone who had duplicated the recipe, but I did find this Mt. Dew cupcake recipe from The Geeky Hostess, which I worked from as a base.

In an interview with John Rivers, owner of the aforementioned 4Rivers Smokehouse, Mr. Rivers advised in making one's own soda-flavored cakes, the use of a soda reduction was key.

Lovely ingredients!

Making a soda reduction takes quite a bit longer than I realized. You'll wanna use at least two or three times the amount you want to end up with, about 3 cups. Start by bringing your soda to a nice rolling boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1-2 hours until it becomes a syrup.

Stir stir stir

When done, mix 1/2 cup of your syrup reduction, and two eggs into your white or lemon cake mix (I used lemon for mine).

Throw that bad mama jama into your cupcake cups, filling to 1/3 full.

Bake at 350 for the time specified on your mix box (about 20 minutes) or until a toothpick/skewer inserted into the middle of cakes comes out clean.

For an extra kick of flavor, you can top each hot cupcake with a light drizzle of reserved syrup, creating a nice glaze.

While those babies cool, go ahead and start on your icing. You can either use a store-bought icing and add a tablespoon of Mt. Dew syrup and a squeeze each of lemon and lime, or you can go the from-scratch route, as I did.

Mix up your butter until it's nice and fluffy(ish), then add your lemon, lime, and Mt. Dew. Mix 'er up again, and start adding your powdered sugar a cup at a time until you get to the consistency you want.

When your cupcakes are nice and cool, top each one with icing and then just roll the edges in your Doritos.

(NOTE: You'll wanna do this right before serving, as the Doritos chips on your cupcakes will go stale rather quickly)

All in all, I'd say the flavor is... unique. I'm not in love with the icing recipe, as it had a very strong powdered sugar taste. The cake was good, and as noted the Doritos need to be added shortly before you're actually planning on eating them. :)

Happy noming!

Wonderful photography by HylianxPrincess of our sister-blog (literally) Ctrl Alt Petite.

A Reflection on the Nature of Comedy

I saw an ad for The Comedy Awards, which apparently began last year. Almost immediately, it struck me as really odd to have a big cable TV (it's a Comedy Central jam) awards show for comedians. Like it's contradictory to the very nature of comedy.

Historically, comedians have always been the kind of people you don't want to keep on display out in the daylight. You'd go and see them late at night, in an ill-lit, smokey club, and the whole scene had an amazing underground element to it. Comedians, just as brilliant and creative as any other artist, were regarded as less worthy of being recognized for the unique genius they possess. But that's okay. They fed on that. They were the underground, the drug-addled, alcoholics reflecting openly all the stuff everyone does in private, saying the dick lines it's in our nature as human beings to think, but socially unacceptable for us to say.

It was amazing, brilliant, and really filled a very specific void in our collective subconscious.

The entire comedy sub-culture seems to have been slowly creeping it's way into the mainstream since the 90's when open-mic nights started disappearing, and it's watering down the entire experience. Then there was another leap in the early 2000's when Dane Cook and Blue Collar Comedy Tour gained popularity, and now we've got this award show.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say every funny person, or even every professional comedian is some kind of a train-wreck of a human being. Although most of them will.

I have the pleasure of being friends with someone who has experience on the stand-up circuit, and one of the first things he said to me when I approached the subject was "most comedians have a very dark side". He continued, saying:

...My best friends that are comedians and that are actually good, have experienced so much more in life than most would. They are literally down for anything, any drug, any situation. They don't say no to anything, because regardless you can get a story or an experience out of it. Some of the stories that I've heard just bs'ing after a show, is 10x funnier than bits they do in their acts. You can't make that mainstream.

In all honesty, I'm not sure I could write a more accurate conclusion than that final line:

You can't make that mainstream.