Back to Brunchie Munchies at Birdsall House

Ah, July.

Some may say that it's the Dog Days of August (those "some" are loons.  Dog days of Summer, perhaps...) but I know that you're one hell more of a bastard July.

Though you know July, as much as I hate how hot you are, August will always hold the spot for the "Most Boring Month of the Year" Award.  August is my vile nemesis but that is probably a well-known fact at this point.

At least things happen in July though by the looks of it, you'd swear the HOchieS have done nothing all month long!

And you'd be sort of correct in your assessment because there were many mornings of rolling into the house between the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. due to work obligations.

Hey...wait a minute, how come this July is sounding really close to anything but awesome right now?

...moving along...

This July found us on way too many Food Adventures and one of them included a trip back to the Birdsall House for brunch.

The last time we went there, I was cursing the concept of Brunch but certainly not the food at the amazing Birdsall.  This second trip with X and Moodou was no different.

What better way to start brunch than with Hard Apple Cider? Hm?

What Final Fantasy VII Taught Me

Recently, I finished Persona 3.  

 It took me some years - almost completing one play through and then booting up an entirely new game with some 80 plus hours later (not counting the 60 plus I previously sank into my first run) - but now it's over.

This time around I enjoyed the game that much more including building up my S-Links (relationships), fusing Persona and of course, that soundtrack by Shoji Meguro.

While I may have almost finished my first playthrough, I never allowed myself to listen to any later tracks on the soundtrack since I had not yet encountered them in the game which of course meant not listening to the Final Boss music.  It's a bit of a code that Bughie J. and I enforced many years ago and a sensible one at that.

And if Final Fantasy VII taught me anything...it's that you need to experience everything as an entire package while playing to build up that great memory you will forever hold dear; and you should always (if a game is good and enjoyable enough) play your games to the end.

Because Gary Oldman is Awesome

Conundrum

In case you missed it a couple of posts down, I've come to the realization that I enjoy building Lego sets.

Now, I've only done two so far and while I'd like a Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria set and The Avengers Quinjet set, there's one set out there on the horizon that makes me forget my wish for a Cave Troll or my desire to destroy a Lego Black Widow.

I present to you, the Lego Monster Fighters Haunted Mansion set:

As if it was not cool enough, it actually opens up like a play house with various rooms in your typical haunted mansion - a torture/potion/kitchen type room, a creepy basement, and a piano room.  I may be stretching it wtih a 'torture' room but I'm using my imagination as Lego would like me to and thinking up things my Haunted Mansion will have, okay? Okay.

Even cooler!!! (because why stop there), the set comes with a a zombie chef.  A zombie freaking chef.  And! ghosts...ghost that glow.  In.  the.  dark.

In discussing this with Bughie J. (Confidant for all my musings of ridiculous schemes involving Lego, toys and video games (while kindly reminding me I have a Hot Toys Loki to pay for at the end of the year)), we decided that all manners of things can live in this Haunted Mansion.

Some where along the way, the conversation on the Haunted Mansion went a little like this:

Me: ...people could live in there.  Like Loki.

Bughie J.:  and command his zombie chef to make him fish n chips! and Dalek cakes for you.

Me: He and I still trying to sort out the alleged chortling.  Let's not talk about it.  There was no chortling! pfppbbttfftt.  Hm? What? You heard nothing.

Bughie J.: Nothing? Or Something.

Me: Uhh...pancakes? No, nothing.  Really though, do we want to eat fish n' chips from a Zombie Chef?

Bughie J.: Depends how good!

Me: It's probably Gollum's fish, all rotten and stuff.

Bughie J.: Might be worth the risk.  Fish n' Chips and all.

Me: True.  True.

Bughie J.: Plus i'm sure the alcohol will protect me

Me: Who's brewing alcohol in the basement? The ghosts? Well, who else to brew some alcohol than some spirits, I guess.

I can see great things for this house and great frustration in my trying to build it.  14+ difficulty at 2,064 pieces, huh? Should make for hilarious times.

Currently: Trying to justify spending $16 for tax and shipping on the Wizard Edition of Ni No Kuni

Fish, Anyone?

My precious Gollum from my aforementioned Lord of the Rings Lego set...in pictures!

Creepy...nightmare inducing pictures.

Have some fish...

...yes.

Have some.

There's nothing busted about him as some may have you believe.

Currently listening to: "Dance Little Liar" by Arctic Monkeys.

A Lego Story

I built my first prefabricated Lego set last weekend.

Is that some sort of blasphemy on my part?

Lego sets are cool but the HOchieS had some lego bricks back in the day when the pine trees were the coolest spiral shaped things ever, and most everything you built was left to your imagination.

I don't recall having the instructions to build movie and television franchised sets back then.  I'm not sure Lego existed in that capacity as it does now.  It's rather brilliant and a little sad on some level, perhaps.

But I can report that it was lovely fun building last weekend.  It was such fun that I am considering buying everyone Lego sets for Christmas.  It's a sort of calming thing and I am impressed by the genius of Lego Engineers.  I don't know what you call the people who think up the construction of these things but I'm sticking with "Lego Engineers".

There have been some amazing sets from Lego but I never have space for anything and the last thing I need is more toys or something else to obsess over.  Really.  I don't.

But as with all my obsessions, they start somewhere.  It's usually a villain in an anime, or video game or in this case, that blasted Joss Whedon and his The Avengers, a certain Brit, and one bad-assed Agent Coulson.

I decided to start small and with $20 later, an hour or so of my life spent dealing with tiny bits of super heroes and a very helpful BooHead, I finished the Lego set "Loki's Cosmic Cube Escape".

There is in fact a demented looking Lego Hawkeye driving Loki around.

For some reason Iron Man was included in this box and I guess they did not think Loki could sell it on its own.  Well, that's crazy talk! ...or I speak crazy.  I don't know but the other thing that sold me on it was the fact that it involved S.H.I.E.L.D.  They could not very well include a mini-figure of Agent Coulson because he is just too awesome to include in any Lego set and I understand.  The world would implode.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Hare, Hare, Hare.

July has arrived with its hot days and all that stuff.

I hope this month works out for all.  Best of luck everyone!

P.S.

Can we make this the official Olympics Theme instead of this one?

Well, then...

This is awfully...

...

I don't want to say awful but it really kind of is...kind of awful.

Plenty kind of awful.



Alright.

Here's what I think, truly.  It's everything from the last two albums I did not fancy mixed into one track (think Knights of Cydonia (which I really dislike no matter what any of you louts say; that song is mostly lame) plus United States of Eurasia (which as the name implies was full of rot)) but will sound amazing in concert (no surprise) and somehow manages to be ever so slighty less agitating.  As an Olympic Theme, I can give it a pass in its ridiculousness.

What else can I say about it? I can say it's actually typical later Muse and not the dreadful influenced drivel I was expecting since the Unmentionable happened.  I'm still expecting some of that on the new album but it's not present here.  A glimmer of hope, perhaps?

And the end of this song?

It is in no way awesome.  It's in no way a "Whhaauuhhhtt" in your face sort of awesome.

It's more of a "Whhhaaaaatttt" disbelief reaction in its terribleness.

Yep, it totally smells like dog buns.

Currently: Unamused.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the Beast! Today, she turns 4 years old.  Four years already!  That's just craziness.

Sniffing a Sad Farewell to Spring, and Cursing Under My Breath at Summer

Spring brought quite the bit of rain for a couple of weeks there.  There were warm days to talk about too but nothing in comparison to the hellish heat today and for the next two days.

Yep, Summer, my Nemesis is here.

It's time to say goo'day to my bees (aww, my bees) milling about new buds of Spring and instead, say hello to a robot who echoes my sentiment about Summer.

That sentiment of course is to drink myself into a stupor so I just have a hazy recollection of anything Summery.

Oh, allow this to serve as a PSA while I'm at it: the amazing Futurama starts back tonight at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

Happy Summer to all you fools out there who are loving yourselves right now!

And Boo Hiss from the rest of us.

Freakin' Zombies

I got Lollipop Chainsaw this weekend.  I was so excited!

Suda51, James Gunn, Jimmy Urine, Akira Yamaoka, insanity, crude but hilarious humour...all these things to love!

All things to love except the zombies.

In case you have not been paying attention, the Zombie Apocalypse is upon us and we've been warning you for years of its coming.  Of all the undead or things that go bump in the night creatures, zombies are the worst.

Thus, I was apprehensive about getting Lollipop Chainsaw on account that I would be scared out of my wits.

But in typical Suda fashion, it's been nothing but fun, crazy nonsense.  The zombies say ridiculous things including every manner of curse words possible and it's hard to take them seriously.  I had my first boss fight and it was Zed, voiced by Jimmy Urine if I'm not mistaken.  It was pretty fun and the music has been nothing but a trip.

It's been all fabulous and not in any way scary.

Tell me why then, I had to wake myself at 2 a.m. then again at 2:30 a.m. because I was having a zombie nightmare in which I was not going to make it.  Zombie food, man.  I was going to be Zombie food! I had to wake myself up.

But you know, the strangest thing? In the dream, H1 and I were running through golden fields and to desolate, country looking houses.  It was a clear indication that I have been traumatizing myself with a zombie induced frenzy with Wallander as a setting.

At least there was a small meeting with Magnus at some point.

Happy Birthday, Brother Bunji

It's our Brother Bunji's birthday today and I did not speak to him to wish him Happy Birthday.  I suspect I will hear of this tomorrow.  I left a voice mail though...doesn't that count for something?!

Congratulations!

Dear Beetchie,

Happy Graduation and congratulations!

We are proud of you.

Love,

The HOchieS.

Happy Father's Day

To all you fathers out there, we hope that your chirren are better to you than we are to our own father.  We have yet to get a present.  It's actually really sad because all he wanted was a scratch ticket.

We are ashamed.

Obsessions of the Month (May 2012)!

The Avengers

To be more specific - Loki. Or rather, Tom Hiddleston. A whole blog post followed because I had nothing better to do.


Though I did enjoy the Avengers, so much so that I saw it twice and would see it again if the rumoured Director's Cut makes it to the theatre in August.  So much fun! So much Tom.  Stop judging me.




Persona 3 Portable

Some time ago, I started playing Persona 3 FES. I'm not sure what happened (probably a broken PS3 that did not allow for PS2 games to be played) but I never finished. I got near the end and....yeah. So now, I've been playing P3P and it's even more fantastic than I remember. It's a lot deeper than I recall: all the relationships I've been investing my time into and I'm honestly having fun. I'm probably over hour 60 or 70 at this point but I'm only now feeling it wear on me. It's been a fun journey and I hope for a stellar ending. Also, I'm looking forward to P4: The Golden in the Fall. Wooo!  (Update: I finished it and loved it but those 80 plus hours were draining).




Lego Mini-Figures

At some point, I became obsessed with these things. Perhaps it was in part due to the fabulous work by Mike Stimpson or Powerpig but in my tiny brain, I figured I could re-create some sort of epic story by using lego mini-figures. Um. Yeah, I'm still trying to think of something funny and have come up with diddly-squat. I'll probably just use them to keep on playing inefficiently with my macro lens. So expect some pictures of mini people in the future. Or mini robots. Or mini...minis?

Our Soap Opera Identities Revealed

H1 found a fabulous little Soap Opera name generator today which you can find right here.

Being the idle, young and restless fools that we are, we went ahead and did a name generator for each of our frenemies.

Some of these are quite the fantastic little things and already thoughts of the days of our lives are swirling in my head and I can imagine the dramas I need to start writing for everyone.

We do note that some of you have been coming up with different name generators for whatever reason but these are the ones we came up with today and so, feel free to write your own little stories or add to them if you would like.

That said, here are our Soap Opera identities starring:

H1 as Tatiana Strange.  H1 and I are not related...at least, we don't know much about our ties yet.  Troubles a-brewing and I think Tatiana's baby sister may have "drowned" in an unfortunate Christening event.  Tatiana thought she was giving me a little bath but little does she know...

Or 2 as Cally Marcoux.  That it was a fake drowning and I was raised by a French mother and father.  I am a French bitch now.  Obsessed with revenge.  And deathly afraid of water.  Showering is quite the task for me.

MC as Augustus Bledsoe.  Our resident Token who is also the resident "bad man".  In the man ho sense of course.  The actual evil character role has already been fulfilled by none other than....

TD5 as Dr. Hugo Hemmingway.  Writer and Doctor! He's mysterious and evil for reasons yet to come to light.  There's a serious malpractice suit forthcoming when Dr. Hemingway botches the plastic surgery of one of the cast regulars leading her to have a severe case of Dissociative Identity Disorder...

X as strong-willed Audrey Lionheart (hair as black as night and piercing eyes) and Rosebud Rossignol (red fiery hair and some crazy eyes), Psycho Killer Extraordinaire.  Has had affairs with many residents of our little drama as Rosebud and rules with an iron fist as Audrey (well-respected though, go figure?).  Rosebud has recently taken Town Clown as hostage for toppling over a piece of glorious lemon meringue pie she had been eating.  Poor, poor...

Frass as Bo Tebowing.  It's okay, Bo Tebowing...like Token we need a Town Clown around.  There's only one of you and you are irreplaceable.  You'll be fine but next time, don't mess with the pie.

Bughie as Michel Whyland.  Resident policeman.  Whyland, get it? You have to play the cop.  You do a better job than Officer Barbrady, I can assure you but not such good a job that you can stop my vengeance plans or get Bo Tebowing from get a slap across the face from Rosebud.

Finally, we have our very own resident Brad Carlton who discovers later on in life that she is actually Jewish.

Beetchie as Vanita Schwartzman.  Make what you will of that.

Currently watching: Wallander.  My poor little Magnus is always getting yelled at.

Happy Birthday, Gen' Frien'!

We hope you have a wonderful day and that you got your HK fountain pen.  Did you?

Lots of love,

The HOchieS.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Hare, Hare, Hare.

Okay, June...please be better...

Good luck to all.

Confirmed

Today's Thursday is in fact one of the crappiest in recent memories.

I just found out as I was writing Thor's Day that Beetchie was injured in a horse incident today which resulted in three of her ribs being broken.  As horrible as it already is, we can only be thankful that it was not worse because it certainly could have been.  =( 
We love you, Beetchie.

Thor's Day

Everything about this day has been off.

Of all the days of the week, Thursdays are the days I hate the most.  This has been ongoing for some years now but it always seems like bad things happen on Thursdays, at least in my mind.

That bad feeling I just could not shake was not helped any by the news that a gunman tragically took the life of 5 people in Seattle yesterday.  My very great Gen' Frien' lives out there and thankfully, she is fine but it turns out the area in which the incidents occurred is one she frequents and almost did yesterday.

Frass is also well, having not heard from him in days after the zombie incident - another sad and scary event.

When I got to work and to cheer my spirits, roommate TonA had written "It's Thor's Day!" and scribbled a lightning bolt on our community white board (she has been a constant ear to my ramblings about anything and everything Loki/Tom H. and we have bonded solidly for the past month over Avengers).

Side Note: Last week for Fleet Week, I drew a Sailor.  Or... a Sailor Madeleine.  With a boomerang.

In keeping with bad drawing tradition, I decided at 8:45 this morning to poorly sketch a Thor.

Those aren't khakis but Pajama Pants.  Halloween plans to go as Thor and Loki in Pajamas are underway for TonA and I.

For my efforts, I received an "F- -" from H1.

But the true "F - -" moment came when Alex made a sighting as to a tall, blonde celebrity outside our building while one of our co-workers spoke to him.

And we later found out that it was indeed Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth.

Thor.

Freakin' THOR was in my building and I had a missed opportunity to have him sign my Thor dog tag that I've had on my person for the past month.  And I missed my opportunity to tell him that while he was good in Avengers, my favourite was Tom.  Because I'm a fool who would say that and profess my obsession with the God of Mischief to the God of Thunder.

Six Degrees of Separation, I guess.

Me ---> Co-Worker G.Med ----> Thor/Chris Hemsworth ----> Loki/Tom Hiddleston + ???? = Profit

Sunday Brunch at Birdsall House

It has been decided that the HOchieS do not approve of brunch as a meal.  It is too filling and messes up your eating pattern for the rest of the day.

But if you asked me to go back to Birdsall House this Sunday for a $19 pre-fixe Brunch outing, I would do so quite willingly.

For $19, the meal comes with a starter and main course with your choice for a complimentary bloody mary, mimosa or beer.

Knockin' About on Rainy Mondays and Tuesdays, Part II

In this Tuesday recap of a Rainy Day Knock About, there was not much H1, Ren, J and I did or anything fabulous to talk about.

It really rained on us that morning as we headed down to 34th street but it was what we found on the way that is truly worth showing.

This movie poster was at the 49th Street Underground Subway Station.  I know nothing of this movie but I had no idea that the awesome man with the awesome name was in it: