Halloween Inspired Nostalgia and Meals to die for!

1989-1991 a series ran which was very near and dear to that little part of my heart that will always be decorated by lacy black gothic mesh, it is largely one of the major influences I would attribute the current and past 'mall goth' craze to as well as stores such as Hot Topic and their 'brand' of fashion. The reason why? Many kids today that are into the 'gothic' look grew up watching shows such as this one, this show? The late, the great and the based off a movie show for the Ghost with the Most; Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

Yes, a follower to the movie was an animated series which in the 80s and 90s seemed to be the rage, everyone wanted to animate everything, even Rambo got it's own animated series in the 80s, what the fuck I ask you? What the fuck? But unlike Rambo, Beetlejuice worked because they didn't get hard-up for the movie. The movie was fine, a great cast and a great lead-actor was found in Micheal Keaton;

And surprisingly this film was before Keaton played his most famous role as Bruce Wayne AKA Batman in the 1989 film Batman by the same director, Tim Burton.. Unsurprisingly I saw Batman before I saw Beetlejuice so I was already endeared by the actor, the fact that he was playing this character was a little weird to me because I kept seeing a moldy Bruce Wayne every time I looked at Beetlejuice.. Very odd.. Nevertheless.. Beetlejuice was of course a successful movie and in no way is bad, it's in fact quite good if I do voice my personal opinion on it but I prefer the animated series and there's a reason I prefer the animated series. The animated series of course focused on the two main characters;

Beetlejuice (Naturally)

And Lydia Deetz (also naturally)

Although unlike the movie, the details and relationships were changed quite a bit and quite a bit for the better if you ask me. Unlike in the movie, Beetlejuice is not an unwanted part of Lydia's life, he is in fact her best friend and he's very cool (although gross. That much hasn't changed, it adds a certain charm I guess.), the Neitherworld (yes, it's called Neitherworld) is not the festering hole of boring bureaucracy it was in the film and boasts a larger expansive cast of secondary characters (not mentioning the humans and all in the series who make regular appearances. Honestly, I was always more interested in the Neither-inhabitants.)

There's a tap-dancing spider..

A mutant chicken McNugget which evidently drinks hair tonic

And a French Skeleton.

Sufficed to say, the Neitherworld was displayed in a fashion which clearly parodied the real-world and was more whimsical than the movie and had a couple of.. Shall we say.. Slightly racist portrayals in retrospect as I view this series again? Who cares? It was fun! The series was genuinely fun and didn't try to really take itself seriously, there was no over-arching plot, story or point to it, it was just the adventures of 'ole BJ (double entendre) and Lydia typically following an episodic formula we all know as being simple and common... And that's why it was good.. It was a cartoon that was a cartoon and nothing more but it was a good cartoon and it was worth watching.. Really worth watching.. And I've found it once more, inspired by the rapidly approaching Halloween season, I knew I should have been wary, though still I sought to venture some place screwy, ghostly haunting and some juice, it's Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

...Moving on

Cooking tonight is not something I'm really going to bother to explain too much in detail, I made my own hollow bread-bun again and filled it fulla a sour-savoury sauce with seafood and veggies mixed in, topped it off with some pieces of butter pan-fried fish and topped that off with a Japanese style tartar sauce. Oh also some sweet potato fries in the background which had a sweet plum-pineapple sauce drizzled onto them.. Yup.. It's GyoPan (Fish Bun) and I plan to make a secondary variety tomorrow night so keep on the lookout of my blog if you're interested in seeing what I come up with next sea-food wise. I likes cooking fish.

NARFing Nostalgia & Celebratory Dinner

Come take my hand and allow me to guide you into another twisting dark tunnel of nostalgia courtesy of my obviously getting too old and starting to want to relive the past.. I don't know if that's the case because really it seems to me I've always wanted to relive the past even years ago back so maybe my problem is just retrospective obsession, I don't really feel old; not in the traditional sense anyway. So maybe let me not so much guide you into a twisting dark tunnel of nostalgia so much as let me forcefully submerge your face and head into it's dark suffocating depths? ...Something like that, anyway.. At any rate our subject for this trip of nostalgia comes in the form of another show which premiered in.. Gee.. Fancy this.. 1993, Pinky and the Brain.. The fuck is with '93? Theme number much?

At any rate, Pinky and the Brain was another gem from Steven Spielberg and the boys and girls at Warner Bros. Entertainment who seemed to be on a particularly high-stride in the 90s and were pumping out what would later become cult-classics remembered fondly and reminisced about on blogs such as.. Well, this one.. For years to come later.. Pinky and the Brain was another one of those cartoons which was far more clever than you'd have ever expected from animated programming, looking back on Warner Bros' record during the 90s you've really got to respect the fact that they seemed to consistently release some higher-brow humour and some more clever amusements than the standard fare for the time, Warner Bros seems to really dominate the decade with an iron gold and blue fist (WB Logo)

Pinky and the Brain was simple enough in design, you had your two main characters, two genetically altered lab-mice who lived in a cage within the ACME Labs Research Facility with the leader of the duo being arguably Brain, the.. Uh.. Brains.. Fuck you, redundancy;

Brain being the aforementioned intelligence in the 'relationship' whose one and only desire and goal was to take over the world and who probably would have succeeded several times over had it not been for his partner, the comic relief and retard of the team, Pinky;

Course Pinky being the retard was typically the cause of Brains plans to fail as has been mentioned and he had the added perk of being rather amusing, full of funny one-liners and catch phrases galore NARF! Zoit! Poit! Pinky was for all intensive purposes in retrospective realization probably the architectural "GIR" to which other characters including, durh.. Redundancy.. GIR himself was loosely based off of and likely inspired by.. While Pinky was a little less high-tension than GIR, Pinky still did some pretty amazingly stupid and epic shit. Funny how stupid and epic often go hand-in-hand together, isn't it? Very strange phenomenon that.. At any rate, The Brain and Pinky made an excellent team in spite of Pinky's constantly foiling Brains plans. We'd prefer to spend times with the ones we love and that love us no matter what frustrations they may bring us, right? And Pinky did love Brain and the Brain did love Pinky. There was a clear chemistry there, strictly platonic of course but still... It existed.. Brain was nothing without Pinky and Pinky was nothing without Brain.

As a short side-note I can't help but be freaked out by what I see reflected in this show in the real-world today.. An example?

...Yeaaah... Aaanyway... The episodes were fairly uniform and in each episode, Brain would come up with a new plan to take over the world, which ultimately would end in failure, usually due to Pinky's idiocy or the impossibility of Brain's plan but it was good in that 'I can watch them do this for pretty much ever' sort of way, it never seemed to really get old even if it did become somewhat predictable. Parodies and pop-culture references are abound in this show, this is where some of the real cleverness of the show came into play and many of the references and parodies like those seen in Freakazoid! seemed to be geared towards an older and more mature audience, WB seemed to be playing the field pretty widely here and that was always nice though I can't see some of these jokes, parodies and references not completely going over the heads of younger viewers.. It's a show that I remember fondly and miss, if you get the chance and you haven't seen it, I suggest to make the effort. If you have seen it? Watch it again. Always good to relive something this.. Uh.. FUCKING REDUNDANCY... GOOD.. FINE, WHATEVER.. NEXT SUBJECT..
So now we move on to dinner for tonight which was a celebratory dinner, a celebratory dinner in celebrRREEEDUNNDDAAAANNCCCCCYYYYYYYYYY of James' finding a job! Hooray! Ironically? He's working at Walgreens now.. Much love as I give that store on this blog they should probably pay me for advertisement and pimping their names, I'm pretty sure I've made them several sales in the past.. Tonight's dinner, though? It was an all out affair;

This is a unique dish I'd created myself, Japanese style naturally but a largely original meal. Amai supaisu butapan (Sweet Spice Pork Bun), the bun of which I'm proud to say as pretty as the fucker was, I made myself. The ingredients for the dough kneaded from scratch into dough, the dough shaped by my hands and then baked by my hands. It came out fluffy and buttery golden and when I filled it with my Butaniku no itame (Pork Stir-fry) it just looked sooooo nice! The sauce on top? Oh, that gets a mention all it's own. I worked hard on that sauce and I wasn't convinced it would work or come out right but I managed it.. Oh, I managed it. The sauce was less like a dinner sauce and more like a dessert sauce but that was the intention, it's an entry into the sweet-dish category and is a sweet spice sauce as the name of the dish indicates.. I'm not going to detail how I created it or what I used but the ingredients were difficult to work with and in the end the fact that it came out absolutely amazes me. I don't think I'm good for having created this, I believe it was a fluke that it worked out.. Nevertheless.. My god what a fluke..

And here's where I once again hope that someone who owns a restaurant or heads shows on the Food Network stumbles across my blog and hires me as a Chef or gives me my own job, where's my fairly tale twist, damn it!? Bah! I mumble in frustration.

Spray Muses; The Second Spritzing! ..Oh also some food

Told you we'd come back to these, I finally got them and I'm back to them. I'm back to them and I couldn't be happier because I'm back to something that even while off my previous nights Midol high has proven to be consistently awesome and has not disappointed me yet. This is going to be a review, make no mistake.. What I'm reviewing is in no way bad, no way.. It's not biased I'm just stating, I suggest you get these right off the bat. They're worth it.

I'm going to start with my meal instead of doing the reviews first, I was very proud of this even though it's something I've done before. Simply put? It's a Gyudon again, Gyudon Ni (Beef-Bowl Two) is what I called it.. It was changed around a little from earlier incarnations, instead of leaving the rice and beef separate I decided I was going to toss them all into the same pan and start cooking them together. The sauce is a savoury sauce which was made with mushrooms, bell peppers, soy, salt, ginger, broccoli, sake, rice vinegar and an egg.. The egg is used to thicken the sauce into something.. Uh.. Saucy.. Yeah.. Well, that's it's damn purpose! It's not exactly for taste! I'm not providing measurements because.. Well, I don't know that I want my recipes made by others and I'm a little protective of them right now.. Also no ones ever really tried to convince me to part with them so.. Yeah.. My ego hurts a little.

Getting to our review we'll start with this;

Warheads Super Sour Spray Candy (Green Apple): You already know from an earlier post that I adore this shit, I got my first one in the form of Watermelon Spray which I was all aflutter about. You may have thought I was so enthusiastic because I was ass-jacked off Midol but that's not why! This shit is honestly that good! I love sour things because I think they're fun and honestly these are some of the best sour things I've ever had. They're sour while still maintaining a respectful sweetness and not becoming disgusting. This shit will make your face fucking implode though, expect to pucker. EXPECT TO PUCKER MOFUDA!

Both of these photographs seem to have decided to be upside down strangely.. We're gonna go ahead and shift to this next one, though;

Warheads Super Sour Spray Candy (Raspberry): The Blue Raspberry? Homagawd. We saved the best for last, this particular spray is something I could kill for, it's delicious and it'll make your cheeks suck into your nasal cavities and your throat to seize in involuntary convulsions. You may think this is a description that suggests a rather ghastly experience but it is quite to the contrary that I will state, this is an awesome and wonderful whimsical experience. It's STRONG too, it's concentrated.. Well, whatever the hell it is.. I sprayed some on my tongue just now and literally without any hint of hyperbole or over reaction I can state that it caused my tongue to involuntarily shift in my mouth, recoiling from the deliciousness and then savouring it as it slowly eased into that sweetness that just mind-fucks your taste-buds. GOD YES. THIS is what sour candy is about. Out of all the flavours I've tried? The Blue Raspberry is the best. Get this if you get any, if you get any; try to get all. There are more flavours out there, I know there are because I've seen them on the internet and heard them whispered of. I want them SO badly.

Mutant Gamma-Cakes, Spray Muse and a New Gum Review!

Weekly trip to Walmart came a bit early, it's kind of like an early X-Mas or at least it would have been if it weren't for the fact that I was goddamn stoned skull-fucked out my head on Midol at the time of our having gone and I believe for most of our outing I was having an 'outing' of my own, an out of body experience to be precise. I know we were there for an hour and a half, a little more... Prooobably due to the fact that I kept wandering around randomly and I've become aware after the fact that I was frequently standing around staring at shit blankly and not really registering much.. It's very strange and very odd, I was there but I wasn't there.. I know James indicated to me also that I was receiving some attention in the form of a small pack of black guys which decided to apparently very openly, loudly and blatantly begin speaking of how they'd violate me given the chance and I know that I.. Well.. I really didn't follow, I don't know what I was following.. Perhaps it was this;

What is this you may ask? This is something of unnatural science, a gamma-irradiated HulkCake; The Chocolate MEGA Cupcake... And I'm left to wonder.. Who the fuck wants a cupcake this big and who the fuck would count this as a cupcake and not a goddamn flat out cake? Because that's what it fucking is.. A cupcake is a single-serving cake in a cup designed to be had by... Durh.. A single person.. Right? It ceases to be a cupcake if there's no conceivable way you could eat the motherfucker yourself and before anyone tries to, don't tell me you can. If you can, it's nothing to be proud of and I suspect by the end of it you'd regret it, hate yourself and probably shortly thereafter be spewing an odd slimy chocolate and pastel red mixture like so much lava from an active volcano.. Actually if any of you ever try to eat one of these, film the resulting upchuck and send it to me, I demand it. My morbid curiosity of seeing such a gastric gamma-irradiated disaster must be sated.

Moving on we'll come to our next subject which is something fucking amazing and it wonders me that it's the first time I've ever seen or had it.. Well, I've seen it before of course but I've never considered having it until it was brought home as an impromptu surprise by James for me.. Friends, blogites and interweb degenerates I give you Warheads Super Sour Candy Spray, my new muse!

Coming not from Walmart but that wonderful place of wonders known as Walgreens ( The fuck is with the Wals? ) it's something I've never considered to be an offering worth a second glance and certainly not worth a purchase.. How wrong I was.. This stuff is amazing! It carries such a sharp hard-hitting punch that it nearly inverted my face when I first tried it but it's not the disgusting type of sour, it's a delicious sour, it's a wonderful sour it's a sour that I fear I've become addicted to! Oh this is bad, I've become addicted to a solution of liquified sour-sugar which will no doubt make me look like some moron constantly spritzing my mouth until I get the wise idea to spray it in my eye anOHMYGODFUCKINGBURNNNSSSSSS AAAEWGHNHJ HMN   CXDSAD a

....Right, then.. Well, the stuff is great. I'm going to try some of the other flavours in the future that I'm keeping away from my eyes and I'll be sure to post a review of each later on in a new blog-post. For this stuff? Consider this it's review, the first review.. The verdict? FUCKING BUY IT! IT'S GOOD, REEEAAAAAAL GOOOOD NIIIIIIYYYYGAAA!

And then finally we come to the crescendo! The Gum Review, a new gum! A great gum! A lot of things are great tonight, probably because I'm running off a wave of slowly vanishing Midol high and my cognitive function isn't quite up there enough to allow for more complex emotions other than happiness and wonder which is pretty fun admittedly because at this point I'm pretty sure a bomb could go off in my face and I'd think it was just super *~;-sparklystar-;~* special and wonderful.. Anyway.. Drug-motivated rambling aside, the gum being reviewed?

Trident Sparkling Fruit: This gum is weird, it's good.. Really good.. But weird.. It doesn't have the same consistency of normal gum, it's kind of strangely softer and a little slimy, it doesn't harden the same way other gums do to form the same consistency of chewing waddage but it's not bad.. The hints of sour and sweet work well together, grapefruit, orange and lime coming together to form one citric burst of flavour and there are even these abnormal little flavour granules in the gum itself which kind of pop and crunch as you chew it.. Believe it or not they actually add to the enjoyment of the gum, at least for me. Flavour-lasting wise? It's so-so, doesn't last forever but at least it's not gone right away and to begin with it's damn tasty.. I mean really tasty, those granules are like little tiny grains of flavoured sand which coat and infiltrate the gum with a whimsical wonderment the likes of which I'd wish other gums would replicate. Should you try this stuff? Yes. There's nothing to be lost, it's cheap; Trident isn't expensive.. And it's damn good.. Go get some!

Aaaand now because I'm still a little loopy, I'm signing off. I think I'm going to head into the kitchen and have a discussion with the sink. It mouthed off to me earlier and I think it might need some therapy.

Someone screws with me

Mini post just to state something;

STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME KILL MYSELF YOU BASTARDS. 

Someone actually seems to be screwing with me and appears to have almost searched for the thing I said I'd probably end my own life over (Someone searching specifically for the shitting cat toy over Google) if I received a hit from someone specifically searching from it. God damn it you people are going to get me lynch mobbed by the ASPCA!

In Space None Can Hear You OH YEAAAAAAAA!!! ...Also a burger

Nostalgia time! Nostalgia time with something awesome on par with Legends of the Hidden Temple, something that had it's time of reigning from 1994 to 2004.. Kind of strange how all these awesome shows seem to actually come from the 90s? I guess we just have some really good memories of these times, y'know? It's not necessarily better than other decades, the 90s were pretty damn good in the grand-scale of things, though. That something? Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Typically Space Ghost Coast to Coast was kind of incoherent, the cast usually was made up of Space Ghost of course, Zorak the musician and Moltar, the Director and Producer.

It was done in talk-show fashion, usually a mock talk show. The show was incoherent because the interviews weren't actually done in real-time but typically the interviews were done ahead of time and then added into the show later.. Duh.. It's animated, that's to be expected.. But they went one step further with this show and intentionally tried to make it incoherent, turning interviews into what was often best described as quickly devolving ramblings which ran on, made little sense and seemed as if it were all disjointed and out of place... And.. It was great! ...Funnily enough the show was HILARIOUS from start to finish and even some of the things that shouldn't have been that funny such as random and overt violence towards his Musician Zorak in the form of frequent wrist blastings

The wrist blastings were random and while typically motivated by something inane were sometimes egged on by Zorak. Yes, I realize that's a double-negative, the show was completely fucked up. Trust me, sometimes it was random, sometimes it was random and motivated and other times it was random and practically begged for. They were very subtle about that shit, I'm pretty sure that's why it managed to hit such a funny bone.

Of course the cast wasn't complete at just Space Ghost, Zorak and Moltar, from time to time they'd have other guest-stars or characters such as Birdman and characters from the Hannah Barbara/Space Ghost/60s era animated shows, Lokar and Brak being some that were more frequently featured

While other characters would simply show up from time to time. Though there was one episode in particular that was just epic on the same level that would have been if they had my beloved The Kurgan on and yes, it is necessary to refer to him as "The Kurgan", I don't give a shit if his name is Clancy Brown, he's The Goddamn Kurgan. The episode in particular featured someone I adore for his off the wall ridiculous voice and ability to flawlessly ham everything up and seem just awesome while doing it, the late, the great; Macho Man Randy Savage AKA Grandpa Space Ghost;

OH YEAAAAA! And you better bet this was an awesome and violent episode with 'ole Gramps threatening the guests, talking smack and taking concussions which should have rightfully put him in the dirt! But he's Randy Goddamn Savage and that gives him instant immunity to character death! Not even real death has been able to stop Savage, he lives on in our memories and in awesome.

And don't you goddamn forget it! Or he'll pile drive you so hard your spine'll feel like it snapped into a Slim Jim! OH YEAAAAAAAAA BROOOOTHERRRR!!!

There were of course other episodes that were equally as cool, one of the stranger ones that was quite awesome was an episode featuring Bjork which as one may imagine was as.. Confusing.. As it was.. Well... Fucking confusing.. But that made it awesome, don't get me wrong! It's just.. Something that has to be seen to be properly understood.

Watch it, learn it, love it. Expect nothing coherent or competent from this show, it is what it is; stupid off the wall incoherency which makes you laugh and sometimes stops your brain like a wall of fucking bricks.

Moving on to a shorter half of the post, the ending, the grand finale and coup de'tat we come to my dinner for last night, something I don't cook often because it's very difficult to Japanize but I did it nevertheless and it was awesome I believe. Came out absolutely beautiful! Ladies, gentlemen and oddities of the interwebs, I give you.. The Amai remonsosu no baga ( Sweet Lemon-sauce burger );

Boasting a freshly baked bun, dough formed by my own hands and toasted to buttery perfection in the oven, a sweet lemon sauce which had been thickened with honey and a tiny bit of Japanese Ketchup for extra flavour, fresh mushrooms stewed along into it, a beef-patty gently marinated and grilled with a sweet cinnamon spice-rub, topped by melty cheese and adorned by fresh greens the sides Anpan and Ume no raisu purin! This dinner I am PROUD of although it didn't get a reaction really worth mentioning, I myself am still quite happy with how it came out. It came out picture fuck perfect!

...AND I'M STILL WAITING FOR MY FOOD NETWORK SHOW OR CHEFS JOB, DAMN IT!

Dinners: The BIG Post; The Second Coming

So as always, I cook, I take pictures and I adore my photographs because honestly I'm a bit of an egotist when it comes to cooking and really only when it comes to cooking and truthfully I like to stroke my own ego on my cooking and have it looked upon by others; guilty pleasure. Who doesn't have them? And as mentioned in the past, it's hoped that I can do this and others will find it interesting and enjoy the post as well; win win, right? Well beginning, I've been cooking some strange things.. I've been branching out and typically fixing a rotating menu of Spicy, Sweet and Savory dishes. Course I'm still cooking Japanese, Japanese is my favorite style of cooking so you're probably shit out of luck if you're just dead set on seeing me make something Italian, I've honed my skills with Japanese cooking and I think if I do toot my own horn that I'm pretty darn good.

We start the cavalcade of meals off with a simple one; Gyu-kure ( Beef-Curry ) and this is probably something anyone could make. It's a spicy one, the actual Curry Sauce I created using a mixture of spices including paprika, pepper, salt and ginger while a thickening agent was added in the form of a little bit of coconut rum and an egg, there was also a bit of sake thrown in there for flavour and of course a little bit of  tabasco sauce and soy-sauce, most Japanese cooking utilizes soy-sauce. The Anpan strangely enough on this night decided that it was apparently going to grow a butt-hole as the top of it strangely deformed and mutated in the oven leaving the browned Anko toasted slightly by the oven looking suspiciously like.. Well.. Yeah.. But there were no complaints of it tasting like shite, just that it opened James' sinuses.

This was a colourful and rather large dish I made; Suteki ( Simply 'Steak' ), although steak doesn't seem particularly Japanese off first mention, it all depends on how you cook it. This was an entry into 'sweet' and the sweet came in the form of a unique idea I suddenly had while cooking a new batch of Ume no raisu purin ( Plum-Rice Pudding ), I decided a steak may be delicious if it were cooked Japanese style and added with a vegetable spiked sweet Ume Shoyu ( Plum-Soy Sauce ), the sauce of course made by a list of my own ingredients which I won't detail because I'm feeling slightly territorial of the recipe but I will mention as should be expected, plums were a factor. This shit was gone before I knew it, it was clearly something James had enjoyed; he vacuumed it up. As for the Anpan? This time you may notice a kind of purple-ish colour on it's edge, it's a jelly candy which I placed inside the Anpan and unfortunately which caused it to rupture slightly. Nevertheless the Anpan became somewhat reminiscent of a Jelly Doughnut if you were to add a bit of Anko ( Red Bean Paste ) into it and James seemed to think that worked just fine.

Next dish up; Ebi to Sake Chanpuru ( Chanpuru being noodles typically with meat or fish and vegetables ), this was an interesting one to cook and it took an interestingly pretty form as I used the two stalks of broccoli as garnish which came out looking very pleasing. This one was an entry in spicy as it was a Supaishiyashi-sosu ( Spicy-Coconut Sauce ) that I made for the Chanpuru, of course coconut rum, sake, ginger, an egg for a thickening agent, a little bit of sweetener, a good bit of tobasco and a little bit of salt. I had tasted the sauce before serving, while it was spicy it was incredibly tasty if I do say so myself, I've been quite proud of my sauces lately as I've recently learned a few tricks from repeated viewing of the Food Network and Cooking Channel. Thank you cable!

Tori to Ebi Teiryaki; Teriyaki is self explanatory and while most Teriyaki are deep fried with a slightly dredged flour or panko coating ( Panko being Japanese bread crumbs ) I actually did these a bit different because they were an entry into sweet. Put simply, I marinated them overnight in sweetener and a little of the sauce I had made for them ( A slight tweak on my Supaishiyashi-sosu, sans spicy and changing it for sweet ) and fried them in that before bringing them to the pan to finish cooking and to cook the oils out and the vegetables in. The dish came out looking quite pretty and if I recall correctly, I actually added a small piece of chocolate into the Anpan which guessing and considering the taste of Anko and Anpan to begin with probably went extremely well with both and was surprisingly noticed by James whom commented on it and confirmed it was indeed good. I've been really into bell-peppers lately for some reason also as a point, I don't know why but they're extremely fun to cook with and truthfully, what doesn't a bell-pepper fit with? ...You can't really answer that, can you? They're adaptable little fuckers.

That finally brings us to tonight's dish, my most recent dish at the time of posting and it goes by a simple name; Toriniku ( Chicken-Meat ), it is as it's name suggests rather simply put, chicken meat. Specifically I used Chicken Legs because they're more easily adapted for what I was aiming to do with this, I stewed them and anyone that's ever stew cooked something knows that big cuts of meat can be difficult to turn and cook evenly if you're not fully submerging them. In my case, I was cooking them in a thick savory sauce and so they were only half submerged, using chicken legs allowed me to use my prongs which I utilized to gently grip the chicken legs and turn them over, coating them evenly and cooking them evenly in the sauce. When all was said and done what I had on my plate was a delicious looking dish if I do say so myself, an Anpan whose cheesy innards ( Yes, cheese. Velveeta and a small bit of cream cheese with the Anko ) had burst fourth like so many puss-filled zits and a fresh bowl of Ume no raisu purin. James seemed to have liked this one a lot, I've still yet to ever get that 'enthusiasm' I've aimed for, but what the hell? I'll keep trying. Some day I'll do it and on that day I'll probably shit my britches because I'll have coincidentally died on spot from shock. At least I'll die happy.

....Now someone give me a goddamn cooking show on the Food Network or a job as a Chef!

Gum Reviews Galore: Trident

Today we're doing another review post, today's review post is also devoted to a single brand; Trident. This post is probably going to be a little short, apologies ahead of time but it's constructive and helpful so I can't exactly help not being able to pile in a ton of asinine shit as I usually do. Let's kick it off, shall we?

Our first flavour;

Trident Layers Sweet Cherry and Island Lime: Trident has recently released a slew of these 'layers' gums, they're basically gum within a gum, a gum sandwich if you will. There are two strips of gum of one flavour, in this case Sweet Cherry with a smaller ultra-thin sliver of Island Lime flavour between them. I don't know if the piece between them is actually gum or not and I'm inclined to say it's not because of it's consistency. It's not quite like gum as much as it is a partially firmed ooze, kind of cool because when you chew these you can imagine chewing a piece of gum someone left lying too close to those odd leaking canisters in the T.G.R.I offices. The gum itself isn't bad, the flavours pretty strong right off the bat but unfortunately that's about the only time it's strong. The flavour quickly fades with only a few minutes of chewing and that's just a little disappointing given the fact that the gum is a gum sandwich.. It really should last longer.. Nevertheless this is actually one worth trying if you're not particularly just jonsin for something that'll last you hours. It's not bad, it's just not great.

Trident Layers Green Apple and Golden Pineapple: Same deal as the first, honestly it's really strong and really good to begin with but it just doesn't last. I can't write much on it because truthfully there's not much more to say about this specific Trident that hasn't been said about the first. They're different flavours, true but they're both strong when first beginning the chewing process and they both last with their respective flavours for only a little while before degrading into something less than palatable.. In this case it's two Green Apple sticks of gum with a single wad sliver of slimey Golden Pineapple between them. Very tasty while it lasts providing just a little pucker to meet the sweet.

Trident Strawberry Twist: Don't ask me what the 'twist' is, I don't know; ask Shymalamadingdong, I'm sure he knows. The flavour featured here is of course; Trident Strawberry Twist and honestly it's really good. It was gotten for me because I enjoyed the Strawberry flavour that Trident sold in these little chicklet forms, it's not quite as powerful or flavourful as the chicklet form I'm guessing because it lacks the hard shell of the chicklet which seems to pack some considerable punch but it's still pretty damn good. It comes plentiful in pieces and the pieces are surprisingly not that small feeling, it's also fairly long-lasting as compared to the aforementioned Layers products above and if I were to choose one to suggest to you, stick to what's safe; go with this.

Trident Watermelon Twist: Which brings us to our final contender and the best Trident gum I'm reviewing tonight by far, Trident's Watermelon Twist is even more long-lasting than it's Strawberry counter-part and is fairly flavourful. If I had to suggest a single gum to buy, it'd be this one. Added bonus? Most gums come with like 14-15 sticks, this gum? 18! 18 whole sticks! It's a great deal and a great gum!

Shrimpy Shrimp and Lost Legends

Okay, first things first; asinine shit out of the way off the bat.. Well, it's not really asinine but it is something that's driven me crazy since I noticed it a few weeks ago during our trip to Walmart, you see.. We bought some shrimp and following a theme lately that seems to indicate Captain Obvious is not doing this fucking job or maybe people are just complete muffin-brained morons it seemed to be marked with the most redundant and fucking DUH statement/warning in the history of statements and warnings.. I've seen others but they're never any less jarring;

All Purpose Shrimp; Contains Shrimp.

NO FUCKING SHIT!? GODDAMN REALLY!? STEP BACK YOU COCKSUCKING MOTHERFUCKER, YOU SHIT WITH ME! My SHRIMP contains SHRIMP!??!?!?!?! OH MY GOD, WHAT A REVELATION! I JUST... Unhh.. HNnhhHHHrr...

...Holy crap, I think I almost had an aneurism.. More specifically a major aneurism... Let's quickly segue into the next subject, something happier and less brain-melting before I suffer irreparable damage. Our next subject being the epic nostalgia-dusted goodness that is Legends of the Hidden Temple!

Legends of the Hidden Temple was a game-show, a physical challenge game show which ran from 1993 to 1995, a time period when a lot of truly awesome shows were on a surge of popularity. I know, there have been other times in history when truly awesome shows were on a rise and I'm sure there are truly awesome shows today but there's never been anything like Legends before or since in my opinion. Legends of the Hidden Temple was a truly awesome show, I mean what viewer watching this show didn't secretly dream and desire to be on this show? How awesome would it have been to be able to compete? There was nothing about this show that was bad, right down to the shitty legends which were often based vaguely off history, we say vaguely because frankly I don't think that Feudal Japanese Shogun being attacked by Ronin typically cancelled their 'dental appointments' because they were suspicious of the aforementioned possible raid and I don't think Benjamin Franklin ever mentioned anything about a hair dryer in relation to his discovery of electricity, nevertheless even some of the more ridiculous and flat-out untrue and bullshit legends were amusing, I've always wanted to hear what stories the guy making the props for this show had to tell, just think about what stories you'd have when you've been asked to make a Golden Pepperoni ( Yes, I'm serious. It's an episode; "The Golden Pepperoni of Catherine de' Medici" ).

And honestly how can we forget our hosts? We were hosted by a giant stone head that constantly made rock puns and was voiced by Dee Bradley Baker ( A voice-actor on par with The Kurgan, he's one of the well known 'I've been in fucking everything and voiced everything' actors ) and Kirk Fogg, some random dick who I'm convinced was a right proper kiddy-fiddler and aforementioned dick.. It deserves the redundant mention because Kirk a couple of times really seems to border on being quite abusive to the kids.

Just once I wanted to hear Olmec utter "I'm totally stoned" or "I'm rock hard".

The teams of kids of course were segregated into multiple colour-coordinated animals;

The Silver Snakes, Purple Parrots, Orange Iguana's, Green Monkeys, Blue Barracuda's, and Red Jaguars and in truth, some of the teams seemed more plagued by gimp kids than others, I kind of wonder if they chose the retards and segregated them further to one of the shittier teams like the Orange Iguana's who in spite of some wins absolutely sucked for the longest time and lost constantly. Who can say really?


Then we got down to the games, the actual meat of the show and the meat of the show was divided into several events;

1. The Moat Crossing: The Moat Crossing was always something to do with some ancient something or other being left behind for some reason and was usually tied to the legend of the day in some way, it was typically pretty self explanatory, you did whatever bullshit they told you to, got across and hit the gong. First four to cross the moat and hit their gong won and moved on to the next step.. Step, see.. That's going to be an important word in a second because it's a pun. By the way, you did not want to lose on The Moat Crossing, if you were one of the suck-ass teams that lost on the Moat Crossing then chances were that you were taking a tuna sandwich home as a prize. No, I'm not kidding.
2. The Steps of Knowledge: This was easy enough, The Steps of Knowledge simply put was a round where you stood around, listened to Olmec tell you a story, paid attention and providing you weren't a dipshit moron with ADHD, answered some questions about the story you were just told that were usually extremely easy. This did not stop our fair share of children from answering in a completely and unbelievably dunce-cap fashion, however.. From time to time their brains seemed to mutate into liquid cheese and they'd answer with an answer that just.. Well, I can feel that vein in my head pulsing again.. Let's just say the first two teams to progress to the bottom of the steps by answering correctly moved on to the next round.
3. The Temple Games: And these were always themed according to the legend of the day. Some of them were confusingly themed but who can really blame them? When you're given what they were given to work with, you kind of roll with whatever you can come up with. Usually the Temple Games were pretty rough physical challenges and some of them seemed like they'd probably have been more annoyance than fun, there were a couple that really seemed like they'd be a ball.. Some literally involving balls ( Not backstage, although I'm sure Kirk did that too. ), in the Temple Games the "glory went to the fastest and the strongest" and you were competing for Pendants of Life which were tokens or extra 'lives' to protect you from the Dreaded Temple Guards in the final round. Amusingly this is also the part of the show where Kirk frequently and in an all too comfortable and natural fashion yells at the children to 'get on their knee's'; "On your knee's! On your knee's!", that phrase seriously seemed to be uttered by him with far too much comfort and ease.

 

     4. The Temple:  This was the final round and the most intense. Although the Temple Games could be pretty physically intense, the Temple itself was nearly goddamn impossible, I suspect they actually designed it to be nearly un winnable because they couldn't really afford to give away that many prizes or specifically that many quality prizes. You ran through the Temple which looked incredibly fun, did their puzzles and plotted your course and if you were unlucky ( And you usually were ) you'd walk away with fear-poop filling your pants because of the Dreaded Temple Guards who were actually a lot scarier than they seem from first glance.. Seriously.. I've seen some kids have the holy bejesi-shite scared out of them by the Temple Guards. What's more frightening? The fact that according to trivia knowledge, the Temple Guards were random mooks, randomly chosen individuals who filled no criteria and no specific job requirements were chosen to hide, stalk, jump out and grope children out of the blue.. Yeah.. Best goddamn day ever for these kids.. Probably raped blue by the dick of a host and then fondled by a possibly unstable psychotic hobo dressed as a Mayan Guard, if you're unclear; Mayans? 

...Yea...

Just... Yeah..

You know.. Kirk joked about that shit, insinuating some of the skeletons and remains on the floors of the Temple weren't props but actual past contestants that didn't make it out.. I kind of wonder.. I really do...

...Fuck.. Can't sleep, Mayan Temple Guards will get me... OH GOD, can't sleep Kirk Fogg will get me!