It's that time again...

...I've posted about it before, so I'll just linkify for now. It's Memorial Day...

Wii Download: Paper Mario

Not long after I picked up my Wii, I snagged a Wii Points card so I could download and relive a bit of childhood in the form of Spelunker... but, that left me with entirely too many points left over. I had previously heard that Super Paper Mario was a good game, so I decided to try the original Paper Mario, to see what made it sequel-worthy.

Several weeks and about 30 hours of play time later, I finished it... it was one of the better uses of $10 that I've made, games-wise, because I honestly enjoyed it. The "paper" aspect of it wasn't exploited so thoroughly as in the Super Paper Mario clips I've seen, but more of an artistic choice, based on the concept that the game is actually a story being read from a book. I think the way that the game was purposely ratcheted back from the graphics capabilities of its original console (Nintendo 64) actually helped it keep a somewhat "fresh" look all these years later.

The game is a mix of role-playing and platform genres (but, honestly, closer to the role-playing end), with the sort of story that's nice for pick-up play... not terribly deep, no huge plot twists, and pretty well laid out (in broad strokes, at least) early in the game. That said, there were a number of nights that I found myself approaching midnight before I determined I had to turn off for the night if I was going to function the next day... and not because I was looking for a save point, either (an unfortunate, but unavoidable, part of playing a game of that vintage). Best of all, from my point of view, the game painted a world based on the various strangenesses of ye olde Super Mario Brothers that hung together and made a strange sort of internal sense... the best kind, don't you know... :)

At any rate, if you've got $10 to blow, a Classic Controller (or a Game Cube controller, if you're into being tethered to your Wii), and several hours of time to kill, you could do far worse than this game.

Scenes from an afternoon drive

Today, it was HOT... abnormally so (90 in May is not normal for Spokane). Luckily (so to speak), I had some things to do out at work that could only be accomplished when nobody else was busy trying to get their jobs done, so I got to spend the afternoon in air conditioning, at least.

The drive out to work, however, was pretty strange as well... and not just in the costumed-advertising way either (although I did see a full-size Spongebob along the way). No, it was two chance road encounters that caught my eye, because they each imply a story that I can hardly begin to conceive the boundaries of.

First was a heavy pickup (double-wheels on the back axle, you know the type) with a bed full of... bread. More specifically, sliced bread, hotdog buns, and the like, all in their individual packages, tossed willy-nilly into the back of the truck, like somebody just decided that they needed all the bread they could find, went to a bakery outlet, backed up to the doors, and just started shoveling it in. I'm pretty sure that's not the case though... since we drove by just such an outlet on our way to our separate destinations.

Second was another pickup, more the light-duty variety, with a HUGE fence inside (pretty much doubled its height), containing two young or midget cattle. They had a little meander room in there, which sent the truck gyrating on its shocks whenever they moved... that on its own was noteworthy, but you wouldn't think they would need a fence that large to move such small-ish animals (I've never heard of cattle being that much of climbers or jumpers), and I don't see how that little truck could move any animals much bigger than either of those cattle.

If you have any ideas as to what the story could be on either of those, post it in the comments... me, I'm coming up blank.

Movie of the day: Forbidden Kingdom

Slow day at work, a movie theatre 3 blocks away, time for a matinée... in this case, Forbidden Kingdom. The basic story is the rescue of the imprisoned Monkey King of Chinese myth from the Jade Warlord, infused with bits of the standard memes like stranger-from-another-world, young love, mid-level evil underling, training to martial arts proficiency in an improbably short period of time, and the like.

The movie as a whole isn't half bad... sure, the 'American' bits are pretty much throwaway, but the rest of the story, while not deep, hangs together nicely... and doesn't have a purely happy ending, either, which is a plus. The action sequences also work well, with special effects thrown in only where they make sense (the use of chi powers by the Jade Warlord, as an example)... the rest is all choreography and wire work. There's not a lot of the "funny" fighting that Jackie Chan is so well known for, but both he and Jet Li put in decent performances none the less.

All in all, I don't think it's full-price-admission fare, but matinée is fine... and, as long as it's been out in the theaters so far, it's sure to hit the discount circuit before long. It's still pretty enough to be worth catching on the big screen at any rate, so don't wait for the DVD unless you've got a monster home theater to play it on.

What's cookin': Bacon and Chicken Risotto-esque

No, it's not quite Risotto... to my mind, that's Italian terrain, and I made some modifications that, historically, they wouldn't much agree with. So, its...

Ingredients

• 2c. chicken broth
• ~2T. olive oil
• 1/4lb. bacon (4 strips, in my case)
• 1 boneless skinless chicken breast (or 1/2c. or so of leftover roasted chicken)
• 1 red onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1T. butter
• 1/2c. risotto (arborio) rice
• 1/2c. mead (the original calls for white wine... but, while I'm not likely to drink leftover white wine in a reasonable time frame, I will drink mead)
• 1t. sage
• frozen peas

Equipment

• saucepan
• deep frypan
• wooden spoon
• slotted spoon or similar
• ladle
  

Procedure

• Prep those ingredients: chop the onion, mince or press the garlic, and cut the bacon and chicken into bite-size bits.
• Pour the chicken stock into the saucepan and leave on low heat (this preheat just helps keep things moving later on)
• Heat olive oil in frypan over medium heat... as you approach "working" temperature, add the bacon pieces and cook to your desired texture (for me, that's "not wiggly, but not crunchy").
• Remove the bacon from the pan with your spoons and drain on paper towels.
• If you're dealing with raw chicken instead of leftover, add it to the pan and brown. Careful, this is the most "spitty" part of the grease-cooking... long sleeves are pretty much mandatory for this. Once browned, remove the chicken from the pan and stash it with the bacon.
• Add the chopped onion to the pan, cook until softened but not crispy.
• Add the garlic to the pan, cook for about a minute.
• Add the butter to the pan, stir to melt and combine
• Add the rice to the pan, stir to coat and cook for about 30 seconds
• Add the mead to the pan. Once the mead starts to bubble, reduce heat to medium-low
• Let the mead reduce down to almost nothing... then (finally!) add the chicken broth to the pan, one ladle at a time, allowing temperature to recover between ladles.
• Add the sage and stir to combine
• Return the chicken and bacon to the pan
• Let the concoction stew, stirring occasionally, while the rice cooks and the liquid reduces. In my case, it was somewhere in the 20-30 minute timeframe before the mix was more "oatmeal" than "soup" consistency, by which time the rice had cooked nicely.
• Add frozen peas to the pan... at this point, it's really a personal preference as to how much peas to other stuff you want, so let your judgment be your guide. It should take about 2-3 minutes for the peas to cook sufficiently.

This makes a reasonably tasty meal without getting into the minute moisture-control that "real" risotto involves (think spreading out that broth adding across the entire cook time, and having to keep a closer eye on it the whole time). The recipe I worked from called for parmesan to be added at the last, but the recipe turns out fine without it... although, I might try some other "chicken" herbs (thyme and rosemary, for example) to tune the flavor a bit, maybe some pepper... at any rate, this should readily serve two people as a single-course meal, more with add-ons like bread, salads, or the like.

Inflation's here

Well, I was kind of hoping for something more... momentous... for my 100th post, but there you go. Now, I know that, as a rule, economists don't consider food and fuel prices when they calculate inflation, because they vary so widely that they add too much "noise" to the "signal" that they try to figure out on a monthly basis. As a rule, I tend to agree... but there's one subsection that I do pay closer attention to, that being the Wal-Mart of fast food, Taco Bell.

Mind you, I don't eat there often... but some nights, while I'm not particularly hungry, I know I should eat something on the way home, and Taco Bell barely qualifies as something. Anyways, what makes Taco Bell worthy of exceptional note is that they compete almost entirely on price... they use some of the least expensive ingredients they can find, and rely on their sauces to make their food "work". In order for them to raise their prices, they have to determine that they can't maintain their profit margin over "reasonable" swings in the price of ingredients and transport, lest they stray into the realm of "higher-end" fast food, like, say, McDonalds.

Last time I hit Taco Bell, my meal of choice came out slightly over $5... this time, it was closer to $6. Allowing for the fuzziness of my numbers, that's about a 10% jump. Whether that increase is due to food, fuel, some combination of the two, or some additional factor, I can't say... what I can say is that, if they're raising prices, others will be in short order, if they haven't already.