Taven Moore's Blog, page 23

On Ducks

Notice: This is a birding post.

Thing the First

The first thing to know about ducks is that they aren’t DUCKS.

I grew up with this mental picture of duck = mallard. Heck, I even participated in a dog hunting event where I sat behind a blind with a giant slingshot and catapulted ducks into the air for dogs to retrieve. (The dogs who came up to say hello and oh hey by the way can I have one of THESE ducks? That other duck is so golly gee gosh darned far away it would be super if you’d just let me have one, and I’ll give you a tail wag and a lick on the face for payment were SOOO adorable and so very, very missing the point of the exercise. I still think they should have gotten points for creatively finding ducks, even if it wasn’t the duck they were SUPPOSED to find.)

Right. Anyway. Mallards? Are the male of exactly one species of duck.

A very successful duck, to be certain! But I felt my world-view shifting the first time I identified a Northern Shoveler. Not entirely unlike a mallard, but different enough to be suspiciously not-mallard, even to my untrained eyes. This, dear readers, was the moment when I had to stop and ask myself how many times I’d dismissed a lake full of ducks as “ducks” without ever realizing that some of those “ducks” might, in fact, have hilariously oversized beaks.

Then I saw a Bufflehead, and the world-view shifting did a couple of loop-de-loops just for funsies.

I adore Buffleheads. Steven and I have discussed making pokemon teams from our life list, and the Bufflehead will always be on mine. It’s like a crossbreed of a duck, a panda, and a puffin. They’re STUNNING and incredibly flashy and nothing at all like a mallard.

They’re also one of the most common ducks we’ve seen since we’ve started birding.

How? HOW could I possibly have missed this?! It’s not even CLOSE to a mallard. It’s not even CAMOFLAUGED. It basically SCREAMS to the viewer that it’s a special non-mallard duck and yet I’d never even registered its existence before.

This is one reason I love Buffleheads.

The other reason is that they’re adorable.

The final reason is that their name is as adorable as they are. Say it once. Bufflehead.

See? You smiled a little, didn’t you?

Thing The Second

Male mallards have iridescent green heads.

Many, many people have reported seeing blue or even purple-headed mallards. In pretty much every case, they are dismissed because the iridescent sheen can look blue in certain lights.

In only ONE case have I seen someone say that well MAYBE a mallard with a blue head isn’t producing enough testosterone to create the yellow necessary to generate green. Or something. I dunno. It was a very science-y post and I got distracted.

Anyway, I have photos of a purple-headed mallard. Please compare to this photo of a normal, green-headed mallard. And for funsies, this bibbed domesticated mallard that we found hanging out with a pack of normal mallards like it weren’t no thang.

All I know is that they don’t count as different birds. (Well, the bibbed domesitcated does. He may have been bred from domesticated stock, but he was clearly doing very well in the wild, so in my eyes that counts as a sighting. If wild-found parakeets count, this duck does too, by golly.)

Thing The Third

Ducks are weird.

Like, seriously. Let’s look at Grebes, shall we?

There’s the Pied-Billed Grebe, who is this awesome, tiny, submarine of a duck. You’ll see this teensy fellow scooting across the top of the water, where but one moment ago there existed no duck at all.

Most likely, it’s going to look like the smallest Loch Ness Monster ever, with a cute arch of a face and a graceful hump of a back. If you’ve got binoculars on you, you’ll note the black spot on the pale bill, the frill of feathers at the back, and perhaps the pale patch on the rump.

Then? The bird will be gone. (ACTION SHOT: mid-submarine disappearance)

It did not fly away. It was there just a second ago, and now it’s gone. Poof. Vanished.

… sometimes for up to 30 minutes.

And then, quietly and without fanfare, there it is again.

So that’s the most common grebe we’ve seen. It’s drab. Cute, even.

Then? You have the other Grebes we’ve seen, who look like drugged-out rejects from a Muppet convention. Like the Horned Grebe.

It’s like a macaroni penguin after years of hard drug use.

Thing the Final

I saw a mallard in the parking lot at work today and I think it’s the first time I’ve noticed just how CONFUSED they look. He was waddling aimlessly from side to side, nervously eyeing everything and mutter-quacking to himself as if to say, “How did I even GET here? This doesn’t look like a pond. Is this a pond? I don’t think this is a pond. Oh dear, oh dear, oh heavens me, I was supposed to be at a POND. Now what do I do?”

And I kind of want to give him a hug, a cookie, and directions.

Related posts:

Birding
I’m Not Irish, But I Know Someone Who Is

Crash! Kaboom! Kapow! (kersplat)

So. No REAL blog post from me this week, because I’ve been sinking all my free time into trying to get this server move done. I thought it was done, then this morning I couldn’t access the domains again.

To the gent who asked how the asp hosting went with wordpress, the answer is that it didn’t. I had to swap back after buying the package because apparently “php” doesn’t mean “wordpress is a-ok”. I don’t really blame them for the miscommunication, but the hope that I could do both kinds of programming was one of my reasons to move. The unlimited space was the other, so hopefully it’ll be enough to make it all worthwhile.

It does look like the data move was successful, so now it’s just the domain transfers that I need to worry about. Hopefully. No promises.

I’m looking forward to next week being bug-free and having everything running smoothly again. And you should be looking forward to it as well, because Anne sent me some adorable home-drawn comics from her family and Perry’s been working on his arm gestures and I’m looking forward to not ripping my hair out over a keyboard in the evenings after work.

/lovemuffins

Related posts:

On Missing Youtube Videos
The Birth of a Website, Part 2
[Perry] Vive La Revolution!

[Perry] Doctor Who: The Bad Bits

The following post will contain more spoilers for Doctor Who than you can shake a stick at.

Let the stick shaking begin!

So last week, we talked about some of the good points about Doctor Who. And to be fair, there are a lot of high points about the series and things worth watching.

But let’s talk about some of the things that fall a little flat.

Martha Jones

This character? Was rubbish. Do you know what she was? She was sort of the polar opposite of the rebound girl.

She came in as the second companion since the season restarted and David Tennant picks her up shortly after losing Rose to the alternate universe.

The Doctor is very, very clearly not interested in any kind of romantic relationship…but it’s clear from the start that Martha wants just that. And to watch her sort of moon after the Doctor for an entire season was…just, sort of awkward.

I might be alone in this opinion, but watching her struggle to catch the Doctor’s eye when he’s CLEARLY not interested was like watching a car wreck about to happen.

Filler Episodes

There are a fair amount of filler episodes sprinkled throughout the series.

Now, I’m not saying that filler is bad all the time. In any long running series, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll have a fluffy episode here or there.

But in all honesty, I feel like the ratio between good episodes to filler/fluff episodes in Doctor Who is skewed a little bit the wrong way.

And it wouldn’t be as bad if the filler episodes were entertaining themselves, but largely speaking, the filler episodes are horribly mediocre, if not downright wastes of time.

The two that really just jump into mind is one where David Tennant and companion visit Agatha Christie? And there’s a whole thing about a murder mystery and how one of the guests at the house is some…alien…wasp guy? Because the mother had an affair with an alien wasp man way, way before and had some mutant, alien wasp man baby?

What the shit.

Or how about the random one about the group of people who struggle to track down the Doctor because they think he’s a mystery, and then one of the new group members turns out to be a human eating alien and then at the end, one group member continues his romance with another group member…who’s turned into a face set in a slab of concrete?

Just…no.

Steven Moffat

This is going to be a bit of a multi-tiered point.

Steven Moffat was an on again/off again writer for the show and took over as head writer once Matt Smith began his tenure as the Doctor.

Now, Moffat’s writing when he was responsible for one or two episodes a season? Was pretty spectacular. Things like the first appearance of the weeping angels and the girl in the fireplace episode were high points of their respective seasons and it was all Moffat’s work.

After he took over, though? Something happened.

It’s almost as if…

Think of an author who writes absolutely amazing short stories…but when he tries to write a novel? Trash.

It’s that sort of situation.

In small doses, Moffat’s contributions to the show seem brilliant and play out well. Given free rein, though, and something horrible happens.

It feels as if he falls in love with making things as needlessly convoluted as possible, and then trying to tie it together in the last two episodes of each season. Over and over again, we see this happen.

It just gets to be too much. And what’s worse is that this escalates from season to season, growing more and more convoluted each time until we culminate with the Time of the Doctor episode, where Matt Smith bows out of the series and that episode? Just…culminates in this giant shit show that seems to make no fucking sense.

Steven Moffat: Women

Moffat writing women seems…a prickly subject.

I’ll preface this by saying that largely speaking, I didn’t really have much problem with the female characters as characters. My issues stemmed from how certain female characters were treated.

Every one of Moffat’s female characters were Doctor bait. They were all spunky, fiery attitude, lot of talk back, and all of them hopelessly attracted to the Doctor.

Amelia Pond started that way, but she had Rory (her eventual husband) to balance it out and the Ponds and the Doctor had this strangely familial relationship that I really enjoyed.

But many of the other women all suffer the same problems.

What I found to be the most egregious case was in the Time of the Doctor episode (noticing a trend?).

There’s a high priestess character, Tasha Lem?

Lord, you couldn’t have written MORE of a ‘sex kitten’ character if you tried, really.

I mean, here’s this woman who’s smart enough, ambitious enough, and filled with enough conviction to rise to the number one spot in this giant church…and she just melts into a little puddle of horny goo anytime the Doctor shows up.

Even worse, after she gets “possessed” by a dalek, she’s unable to fight it off. All of her strength of personality, conviction…none of it is enough. But throw the Doctor into the scene? Have him taunt her and slap her to piss her off and THEN she can fight off the possession?

I call bullshit.

Steven Moffat: Clara

I liked Clara as a character. I know that a lot of people didn’t, but I liked her pitter patter back and forth with the Doctor and I liked her story.

But I felt like she was cheated. And cheated in a big way.

For starters, she didn’t have a lot of time, only about half a season to make her debut as a companion…and it’s a shame that so much of that season was WASTED with filler nonsense when it could have used more to strengthen her relationship with the Doctor.

Hells, get rid of the filler episodes and throw in a few more episodes to reinforce the whole “impossible girl” scenario. Spend 2-3 more episodes at the start of her debut with a few other times she’s died to save the Doctor in the past and THEN bring out the ‘final’ Clara with whom to solve the mystery.

The Impossible Girl mystery itself, I thought was fine…but the way the Doctor saves her? Just randomly jumps into the vortex and snatches her out (nevermind how, that apparently doesn’t matter), and bippity, boppity, home again, home again?

That’s just sloppy.

Even worse?

I felt like she got completely cheated at the end.

When Matt Smith is regenerating, there’s this whole bit where he says his goodbye (but he’s speaking to the audience, not Clara), and then he has a vision of Amy Pond coming back to say goodbye….and then poof, regenerate.

The whole time he’s having visions of Amy, Clara just gets to stand at the side, crying? And no goodbye for her?

Fuck that.

For god’s sake, how do you DO that and think it’s a good idea?

I mean, yeah, I’m aware that Amy and the Doctor had this special thing…but didn’t Clara? Amy and Rory jumped off a building to break them all out of a paradox, Clara jumped into a vortex that intersected the Doctor’s life and saved his life over, and over, and over again…

But Amy and the Doctor gets this heartfelt goodbye, and then Amy gets to horn in on what SHOULD be Clara and the Doctor’s goodbye?

Where’s the fairness?!

Lord, I’m getting riled up again and it’s been week since I finished up.

I just felt like she got SO cheated, and that whole ending bit left a HORRIBLE taste in my mouth.

Minor Things

1) The long awaited Day of the Doctor episode almost ended well. The two future Doctors finally accept the actions of their past self and almost destroy Gallifrey together to stop the war…but then, cop out time! Random bullshit solution to save the day.

Way to fuck up the tension you’d JUST built up.

2) The “Doctor? Doctor who?” joke just gets so overused to stop even being groanworthy and just makes me want to turn it off or watch something else.

Especially? ESPECIALLY when you turn that shitty joke into the basis of an ENTIRE SEASON (the last Matt Smith season), with some cosmic signal, reaching all of time and space going “Doctor who?” to know if it’s safe for Gallifrey to come over?

Really?

3) There’s something that bugged me about Rory.

The Doctor was 900 years old when I first met him (Christopher Eccleston). And he had this wealth of experience and whatever…

Well, due to the whole Pandorica mystery thing, Rory ends up being over two THOUSAND years old. And he states in a later episode that he can still remember most of that time, if he concentrates.

…I’m sorry, doesn’t that warrant making him a little more mature? Giving him a little more depth of character? Changing his character in ANY WAY?

No? He’s just going to be the same old Rory?

Okay…

Conclusion

There was a lot to love about Doctor Who, but also a lot to hate, really.

It’s up in the air as to whether I’ll continue watching it now that Peter Capaldi’s taken the reins.

I guess we’ll see when the time comes.

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Doctor Who: The Good Bits
Supernatural – Eye of the Tiger Extra
[Perry] Game of Thrones: Red Wedding

Blog Outage Incoming

The Technical Scoop

I am swapping my hosting provider.

Much as I love the service at A Small Orange, I need the ability to play with Microsoft .Net coding and I need much, MUCH more room. Arvixe will give me those things at close to the same price I’m paying now.

Blah blah, what does it mean for YOU?

What this means for YOU, dear readers, is that there’ll be a period (starting tonight) where the blog won’t be available.

That period may be like an hour? Or … it may be a couple of days. Depends on how well things go. (and things like this never go well)

Links Remain the Same

I am keeping all of my old domain names, including TamiMoore.com, TavenMoore.com, and Cogsworthy.com. I am keeping this blog. I am keeping Choose.

Aside from the probably site outage, nothing should be broken. (Cue lightning, thunder, and ominous distant laughter)

IF, however? You notice some issues emailing me at my tamimoore.com email address, switch to whiskerwing at gmail until I get it fixed. Getting my email hooked up is my FIRST priority so hopefully there won’t be so much as a blip on your radar when it comes to contacting me.

Other Benefits?

Weeeellllll, I’d be putting the cart before the horse to announce much of anything right now, but let’s just say that there are THINGS in PROGRESS which are very EXCITING and I haven’t even told PERRY about them yet, which will probably result in some sort of eloquent two-arms-in-the-air gesture that I haven’t yet been subjected to.

Man can say more with two arms than most folks can with an entire dictionary.

I love you all. I hope you get this message BEFORE the outage. Please do not panic. /hands you a towel

Related posts:

Blog Housekeeping
Why a Blog?
Blog Preference Request

Birding

What is Birding?

As in the, “go look at birds in the wild” sort of birding rather than the “birds in my home” birding.

Basically, you go out to where you think there are birds. You see the birds. If you have a companion, you point the birds out to your companion.

Anyone can bird.

You can gamify the process by noticing enough identifying markers on the bird to determine the exact species of bird you’re looking at, then record it on a self-policed Life List.

You can do this with your bare eyes — but a pair of binoculars, a local bird species book, and a smart phone app will make it a lot easier. You can even add in a camera and try to snap pics of your birds as proof to the world that yes, you really DID see a Palm Warbler, not just a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet.

Why is Birding Fun?

As someone abnormally susceptible to gamification, building my Life List is super-duper satisfying. Every ten birds is a celebrational milestone, complete with feelings of accomplishment and euphoria. (We broke 60 birds recently! Most of which we have photographic evidence of!)

It also gets me out of the house and paying attention to nature, which is a marked improvement over previous months. =]

Also? I’ve always enjoyed knowing the names of things, especially animals. Dog breeds, horse breeds, cat breeds, the whole shebang. It’s almost a magical feeling, to expend the effort to learn the subtle differences between and Lesser and Greater Scaup, as if I’ve gained some measure of power through that alone.

Also, the fact that Steven and I are sharing our life list makes it all the more rewarding. We’ll spot a bird and work together to correctly identify it, hoping that both of us saw enough markers to agree on a positive identification. It’s very much a team sport this way, and it drains the experience of any sort of competition.

Finally? It’s sort of eye-opening to walk past a pond where once I saw “some ducks and canadian geese” and now see a vibrantly puffin-like Bufflehead, a pair of elegant Wood Ducks, Blue- and Green-Winged Teals mixed in with Shovelers and Pied-Billed Grebes (… and, truth be told, Canadian Geese. Because they’re EVERYWHERE).

It’s humbling to think of how I could possibly have missed the sheer variety of bird life at my fingertips.

Chasing a Northern Flicker by sound alone, while desperately trying to identify it? Priceless. Spending nearly an hour with a Wilson’s Snipe not teen feet away, scrambling through every bird we can think of to try and figure out what the HECK this perfectly-camoflauged THING was? Unforgettable. (pre-post update: only to find out that they are WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF MY MOM’S FRONT DOOR?!)

Question For Youse Guys

If I was to blog about various birding expeditions, would you be interested? Be uninterested, but scroll past without irritation? Kind of prefer if I tried to blog more about writing and reading?

Related posts:

Spring Flurries
Fantasy Garden
More To Life Than Writing

[Perry] Doctor Who: The Good Bits

The following post will contain some minor spoilers for the Doctor Who TV series. 

It took me a while to get around to it, I will admit, but now? I know what a sonic screwdriver is. I know the sound the Tardis makes as it arrives. I can instantly recognize the opening “oooeeeoooooo…” sound that marks the beginning of the theme song.

Having finally finished burning through the series, geek cred intact, I wanted to share some thoughts on the series as a whole. It’ll be a little long so I’ve split it into two parts. The Good Bits will be this week, and the Bad Bits will follow next week.

Let’s get started.

The Doctors

Three different men had their tenure as the Doctor while I watched the show. They were all good in different ways, but there was definitely one that I enjoyed more than the others.

To me, David Tennant was THE Doctor. I thought he brought a perfect mix of gravity and levity to the role, slipping back and forth between a man who’s burdened with regret, and a man who’s able to find wonder and distraction in the smallest things.

His outfit symbolized this with the suit effect overall, but with a mop of unruly brown hair and running shoes to complete the ensemble. Lord, that man could run.

At the same time? I also enjoyed Matt Smith’s portrayal of the character as well. To be sure, it took longer for Matt Smith to grow on me as the Doctor, especially after Tennant’s emotional farewell. In time, though? I grew to love a lot of Smith’s mannerisms and methods, forgiving him the flaws that I now attribute primarily to the writing.

The Companions

Compared to the Doctors, the companions were a bit more of a mixed bag.

Donna Noble took a while to grow on me, but once I started to understand the kind of relationship she had with the Doctor, I found her to be a wonderful foil. Especially when considering the trail of broken hearts he’s left in his wake, to see him with a companion that didn’t think of him in that way in the least was a joy in and of itself.

Donna’s exit from the show was also a fairly emotional moment, hitting that bittersweet tone that the show seems to hit so well and so often. It was also an event that highlighted her relationship with her parents, and featured more of the wonderful Wilfred, Donna’s grandfather.

My favorite companions, though? Without a doubt were Amelia Pond and Rory Williams.

There was an interesting shifting and prickly dynamic that the three of them shared. It began with Amelia carrying a huge torch for the Doctor, despite the fact that she was engaged to Rory and that made things…tense. More than a little awkward, especially when Rory began to travel with them as well, dealing with his vague feelings of inadequacy and jealousy.

If that was the only note the relationship between the three of them took, it would be largely forgettable. But it went beyond that.

They sort of grew around each other. Amelia and Rory eventually got married and the Doctor fit into their lives, not as a romantic foil, but more as family.

The sense of family that the three of them give off in later episodes is a wonderful one, to be sure. In later episodes, the Ponds settle down and try to live their normal lives, punctuated by the occasional frenetic visit from the Doctor and you’re left with the strong sense that they’re playing the parents while the Doctor plays the role of an unruly, excitable child.

It’s a strong dynamic that shifts in little ways, just enough to keep things interesting.

Last, but not least? Is Clara, Matt Smith’s “impossible girl.”

Glancing around online once the series was done, I noted that there were actually a lot of people that didn’t like Clara much. They leveled against her the criticism that she was a flat character and sort of stereotypical Doctor bait (attractive, fiery, female with the hots for the Doctor in a short skirt), but despite that? I loved her.

I thought her story was decently handled and her rapid, pitter patter banter with the Doctor (moreso than any other companion) really made her stand out to me as more than an equal to his wit, if not his experience and intellect.

Enemies

What’s a man without enemies, right?

I will admit that a lot of the early villains didn’t do much for me…at all. Primarily, I think the problem was that they were reminiscent throwbacks to the early episodes of Doctor Who. The villains looked old fashioned, came off as hokey and did NOT instill a sense of threat at all.

Enemies like the Daleks and the Cybermen? Threatening creatures in the lore, to be sure, but they looked too old fashioned and clunky to really be frightening.

This DID change, though. Thankfully.

Later on in the series, we were introduced to the weeping angels, one of the more memorable villains I’ve ever seen.

There was also The Silence, who had such a wonderful concept behind them. The Silence were aliens who lived on earth alongside humans, but had the strange property of erasing themselves from your memory as soon as you couldn’t see one. In essence, this ‘explained’ the times where you might have suddenly felt irrationally afraid (coming upstairs from a dark basement?) and you didn’t know why. It was because you’d just seen one of the Silence but you could no longer remember.

Hells, late in the final current season of the show, they even revamped some of the classic villains. The Dalek looked goofier than ever, going with a whole Power Rangers color scheme, but the Cybermen actually turned into something quite threatening, even if Gaiman (writer of that episode) DID rip off the borg from Star Trek to do it.

The Writing and Memorable Episodes

There were a lot of these.

When I think back to the run of the show that I’ve seen, several episodes easily burst into light as bright spots.

The first time you meet the weeping angels. The first time you meet River Song. The time when Rose left the show? The Girl in the Fireplace episode? Man, that was heart wrenching.

And to counter the heart wrenching, how about the unexpected laughter that bursts out of you when you find out who the Face of Boe really is? Or, when they’re all standing around with Tennant and flying the Tardis? He gives each and every one of them a button to push or a lever to pull…till he gets to Jackie. Then he just stops short and just says, “…No, Jackie. No, no. Not you. Don’t touch anything. Just…stand back.” Hilarity.

When David Tennant finally left the show? How powerful was that? I felt like someone had socked me in the gut. I almost didn’t want to keep going with the damned show.

Or the whole thing with Amy and Rory? A lot of the high points of their relationship made for some damned powerful TV. Like the point where Rory does the whole centurion thing to wait for her to come out of the box? Or the Two Streams Facility episode, where there’s a turnabout to the waiting, and the utterly cold lump that forms in your throat at the end of that.

Hells, even the way they left the show together, with the weeping angels in the hotel in Manhattan.

There were a lot of high points to the show. Granted, there was a fair bit of filler-y episodic episodes as well, but I felt that the bright points made up for the dross in a big way. The show may not have always hit the right notes, but when it did? It nails them.

I think it’s good when you finish a long series and you can still clearly remember a lot of the big emotional moments as if you’d just watched them.

Conclusion to the Good Bits

There’s definitely a lot that the show really does RIGHT. It’s not always on point, but when the show nails an episode, it really just knocks it right out of the park.

The Doctor is essentially a 900+ year old alien and we’re given a way to relate to him. To understand his struggles, his burden, and his guilt. We’re with him on his journey to try and forget the awful things he’s done by doing good things and saving others.

It’s a wonderful trip to be a part of and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the series.

Most of it, anyway.

Next week, we’ll be taking a look at some of the problems that the show has had, and we’ll come to a final verdict.

Related posts:

[Perry] More on Villainy
[Perry] Listen to Your Story
[Perry] The Strengths of Stephen King

[Anne] DOOM!

Tami Note: Anne sent this in, as an example of writing from one of her kidlets, from around the 3rd or 4th grade level. She asked if I’d like to have more. My initial inclination was to shout HECK YES, but I thought I’d let you readers toss in a vote as well. If you’d like more like this, please comment and say so!

CHAPTER 1

Ugly, terrifying, evil. That’s the way most people would describe it. But me, the way I would explain it would be fun, exciting, awesome and I guess kind of dangerous. So I guess what you were about to ask was what is it? What is this thing that I’m talking about? I am talking about the HOLE OF DOOM! That’s what I’m talking about. All of the kids at school make such a big deal over it, and don’t even come close to a mile away from it. But me, I have taken my scooter, bike , skateboard and electric scooter there and jumped the HOLE OF DOOM with all of them, and people at school keep calling me this big show off. Just the way I like it.

Related posts:

[Anne] Tiger Mother
[Anne] The Words We Use Are Powerful
[Anne] Spring Break

Magic Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

“Magic” Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

(Winner of the Best Organic Dessert prize at my work)

The Crust

This crust was seat-of-the-pants. I’ve used a premade oreo crust before with no complaints, but I needed it to be gluten-free, so I cobbled together my own crust at the last minute.

a stick of organic butter
chopped walnuts (how many, you ask? I dunno. Like … three quarters of a cup? Ish?)
some organic cane sugar (how much, you ask? I dunno. Like … a tablespoon? Or two?)
organic coconut flour* (…you already know where this is going, don’t you?)*
fair trade chocolate chips

Toast the walnuts in the butter (stove/pan) until it smells glorious. Don’t burn the nuts. That’s not glorious at all.

Mix together till it seems like a good consistency, then bake at 350 till a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before adding the rest of the pie.

The Pie

one 16oz jar of REALLY good peanut butter (I used Smucker’s natural – ingredient list was “peanuts, salt”. Other peanut butters don’t have the right consistency — you can skimp on the rest of the organic stuff, but get the right peanut butter!)
3/4 cup of honey (I used a local honey out of Mt. Horeb)
a block of softened organic cream cheese
1 tub of cool whip (alas, nothing else quite works as well as this horrible, delicious nonsense)

Blend the honey and cream cheese until it’s pretty well smoothed out. Add the entire jar of peanut butter (oil included) and blend till your arms ache, then hand it off to an unsuspecting bystander to finish. Gently fold in the cool whip. Dollop most of it in the pie shell.

Realize you have too much filling. Eat the excess, congratulating yourself on finding such an elegant solution to what could have rapidly turned into a horrific problem. ;)

The Topping

Some chocolate chips
Some organic coconut oil (this worked MUCH better than the shortening or butter I’ve tried in the past)

Heat the chips and coconut oil (stovetop gives you more control, careful not to burn the chocolate) till you get something that can be drizzled. Drizzle.

It’s up to you if you clean the pan with a spatula or your finger before you wash it.

Finishing

Pop in the fridge overnight and voila! Instant deliciousness.

I’d have taken a picture, but it was eaten so quickly that there really wasn’t anything but carnage by the time I thought of making a blog post.

Related posts:

Recipe Sharing Time!
Socca Recipe PLUS Socca Pizza-gasm
Peanut Art

Harry Potter 7 Discussion

Harry Potter 7 Discussion

And now? The series is done. Over. Kaput.

The battle between Harry (and Dumbledore) and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is now finished.

Romance. Mystery. Magic. Puzzles. Death. (so much death!)

Normally, this is the part where I tell you what I liked and did not like from the book. This time, I’m going to flip things around. YOU tell ME what worked for you? What didn’t?

Did the book work for you? Did you find it satisfying? What did you think of the epilogue? What about all of the characters dying, or the reversal of Kreacher’s behavior? What did you think of the mystery of Dumbledore’s family and the items he left in his will? What did you think of the Deathly Hallows?

And that final battle — what were the best and worst moments for you? What did you think of Snape’s revelation, or the final horcruxes?

And as a wrap up … what was your favorite book in the series and why? Who was your favorite character?

You tell me, dear readers (both those reading along and those who are simply remembering the books through the fog of memory). What do YOU think?

Related posts:

Harry Potter 6 Discussion
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[Perry] A Tale of Two Movies

So I watched two movies in the recent past that hit hard, but both of them did it in completely different ways.

So this is what happened.

Riding the wave of many, many recommendations from various sources, I watched the movie Her over the weekend. It was actually a movie that I was fairly interested in checking out when I first heard of it but it had dropped off my radar for a while until now.

So I sat down and watched this movie.

The trailer does a pretty good job of setting the scene, and if you feel at least a little intrigued by the concept, you’ll probably find something to enjoy in the movie.

The movie is set in the near future and follows a man named Theodore. Theodore is a little awkward when we first meet him, as he’s going through the tail end of a divorce and he’s finding it hard to connect with the people in his life and the life he’s living.

One of his greatest fears is that he’s already felt the most intense emotions he’ll ever experience and that everything to come in his life will awaken only pale echoes of those high points.

Then?

He installs a new operating system. Think of the voice assistants we see advertised on our devices today but one that’s personable, has a real voice, and is capable of growth and learning.

Theodore begins to find himself growing more and more attracted to this artificial intelligence that lives within his phone and starts questioning whether what he feels is real or not.

The movie explores a lot of themes, and it doesn’t pull any punches.

It kind of left me feeling like I could use a hug by the end of it, to tell the truth. Not necessarily because of anything that happened in the film itself, but it was just that sort of feeling that it evoked. It instilled a desire for human contact, to feel that connection to another living person.

I hugged my dog.

Yes, I am totally that kind of person.

While I found it to be a fairly emotionally heavy movie, I found a lot to love about it, from the story, the characters, the slowly budding relationship, and the pitfalls to said relationship. I loved the technical aspect of it, like the framing of the various shots and scenes.

And?

And?

I ADORED the soundtrack and the music that accompanies Theodore’s journey.

I strongly recommend this movie as a watch, but just be advised that certain mature topics are dealt with here and there, so it’s not very much of a family film.

On the opposite spectrum of that, I met up with a friend the other night to catch a movie so laden with testosterone that it could be used as a hair tonic.

…A hair tonic for chests.

Yes, watching this movie will deepen voices, drop testicles and put hair on chests, so watch with discretion.

This movie was, of course, The Raid 2: Berendal.

It’s a sequel to The Raid: Redemption and is set about two hours after the first movie ended.

You don’t HAVE to watch the first movie to follow along the plot of the second one, as it’s largely unconnected, save for the main character and his family relations, but the experience will definitely be enhanced by knowing the events of the first movie.

Raid 2 is an action movie.

You know what? It’s my current pinnacle for action movies, without a doubt.

When I got to the end of the first Raid movie, I thought there was no way they could top what they’d done. Then a friend mentioned that they were making a sequel. Trailers were released and I remember thinking to myself that if they just matched the fighting and the intensity of the first movie, I would be more than satisfied.

I would be satisfied, but in my heart? I will admit that I thought that the second would crumble under the weight of the hype. That it would be a hollow thing. Yet another prime example of how a sequel ruined a franchise.

This fear lasted till I watched the second movie.

And it was easily two or three times BETTER than the first one.

BETTER fighting!

MORE CAR CHASES! (The first one had none. The second movie has ONE!)

STRONGER STORY! (The scope of the story and the adjustments made to an old gang war formula was interesting and engaging)

BETTER FIGHTING!

BETTER FIGHTING!

And even more BETTER FIGHTING!

I really can’t say enough about the choreography of the second movie. The fighting is fast but the camera keeps up with it. The fights are framed properly. Instead of the camera being so close that you can’t tell what’s going on, the camera stays a far enough distance that you can see exactly who’s doing what to who.

If it’s variety you want? Various weapons make an appearance in the movie, ranging away from the standard fists and guns (though there’s plenty of that). The three main opponents that Rama (protagonist) faces go across a spectom.  There’s a guy that dresses like a hoodlum and uses a baseball bat with all the precision of a samurai wielding a sword. There’s a deaf girl who wears dark sunglasses who uses two claw hammers with brutal efficiency. Finally, there’s a guy who appears to utilize the same fighting style as Rama, but who also favors twin karambit knives in a fight.

The fighting is brutal and violent. There is gore, but the film doesn’t linger on the gore, if that makes sense. By and large, most of the bone breaking or the cut throats or things of that nature are shown in a brief, flashing pass before the camera jerks away.

It gives the sense of the film acknowledging the fact that this type of brutal fighting WILL result in these types of injuries, but it doesn’t really linger on the injuries after they’ve been inflicted.

The result of this are many moments where the theater bursts out in amazed “holy fucking shit!’ kind of laughter, if that makes sense.

There’s a sense of realism to the combat, a sense of impact and motion. There’s a physical poetry to the film that is amazing to watch in motion and if you are a fan of these types of movies in any way, you owe it to yourself to check out this movie.

If anyone HAS seen them already, I’d love to hear what you thought of them!

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