Weekend of July 18th, 2014

Weekend of July 18th, 2014


Finished the 2nd season of Orange is the New Black this weekend.  I have to say that I like the direction the show went this season and I hope they keep it up.  With a couple of characters backtracking to be more like themselves before their season 1 "awakening" episode, I was worried I would not like this season.  The main addition to the cast is Vee, and I have to say that the actress they picked does her job well, you'll hate this character.  It does not matter who you liked in the cast, this woman will screw them up or screw with them, and you'll not like it.  While the end does leave several things cliffhanging, it is pretty satisfying.  The show is really bad about not letting "good" things happen very often, but they let us have a couple of "good" things by the end, just enough to keep us interested in a 3rd season without saying "fuck this show" like a few other shows I won't mention just take and take and take.  If you liked Season one, you'll love season 2... unless you actually watched the show for Piper, because they tone down her spotlight quite a bit, and IMO it was smart to do so.

Garm Journaleests strike again with 8 JRPG's better than Final Fantasy 7 .  Final Fantasy 7 goes into cycles, and I guess we're on a "its overrated" cycle among the blogger "journalist" crowd at the moment.  Give it 6 months.  Anyway, the list is: Skies of Arcade, Super Mario RPG, Chrono Cross, Front Mission 3, Persona 4, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and Final Fantasy 6.  Now, I have to agree that Xenogears, ChronoTrigger, and Final Fantasy 6 are probably better than 7, but it is extremely debatable that they're all tied... with Xenogears being the one truely flawed one(despite being my favorite RPG of all time).  Mario RPG... while great... has all the emotional impact of a Mario game.  Did any of you cry during Mario 3?  Were you actually worried about the Princess in any Mario?  Didn't think so.  Persona 4 gets on a lot of lists of greatest RPG since the 90's, and while its not my cup of tea, I have to agree it has had a huge impact and was a torch barer for RPG's through the later PS2 era.  What doesn't need to be on here is that turd of a game called Chronocross.  If Chronocross made the list suspect, the lack of Suikoden 2 makes the whole thing invalid.  8 RPG's on the list, 7 great games that JRPG fans should play, and 1 that should be stricken off the record forever.  None of them "clearly" better than FF7.

We've already established that sometimes titles of things from Japan go through a mangled translation and come out seeming silly.  Bubblegum Crisis is one of those.  I had always thought this show was a part of a very large group of shows that would be too large for me to get into, but come to find out that its actually very manageable.  The made exclusively for TV series "Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 is actually a good "stand alone" series.  Meaning, you can watch it, like it, and not need to watch anything else to be satisfied.  So I found this out and watched the first episode, and really really enjoyed it.  Bubblegum Crisis is actually a very strong Cyberpunk series.  Its right up there with Cyberpunk 2020, Neuromancer and Bladerunner.  This series, done in 1996, has a lot of callbacks to the previously mentioned stuff, but the manga was being drawn right alongside the others as they were created as well.  It "gets' cyberpunk being about style and moral choices and all that.  It is far from the "power rangers meets sailor moon" show I thought it might be.  Its real cyberpunk.  If you liked Appleseed, this too will be something you want to check out.  I'll be finishing the series when I get in my next Cyberpunk mood, right now i'm knee deep in fantasy thanks to D&D 5th(more on that later this week perhaps).

Earlier I have talked about using cauliflower for a rice replacement in dishes.  Its not not a substitution, its an alternative to make some wonderful new dishes you've never tried before.  Well this Saturday we had turkey sweedish meatballs with cauliflower and gravy.  Canned gravy is a hell of a lot less calories than home made(I was taught mostly in French styles... so yea, probably 1/100th the calories of the way I make gravy), and you throw in a can of mushrooms and you're golden.  The cauliflower mixed with the gravy is AMAZINGLY good.  I did not miss the rice, and felt the cauliflower actually added some flavor to the dish compared to the average non-Jasimine rice or egg noodles that would normally go with something like that.  There's a lot more "comfort food" this means that will work since cauliflower goes so well with gravy, I'll keep you updated as me and my girlfriend come up with new ways of using it.