Kimchi isn’t anywhere on my “things to try and cook with” list so I’m going out on a limb here. As my friend Mark (Scribatious Insanity in the links) calls it this is “Jewrean”. I haven’t cooked this so you’re gonna be trying it at your own risk. I made it because My dad called me up and asked for a Beef and Kimchi based recipe, cause he has a lot of Kimchi laying around. Well I have a lot of Matzo mix laying around. So he can come get some of that to make it :p

Ingredients

0.5 Pounds of Beef, chopped
1 Tablebspoon of sesame oil
3 Small cloves of garlic, chopped
2 Cup of kimchi, chopped
1 Tablespoon of Hoisin sauce
1 Tablespoon of chilli peppers
1 Tablespoon of soy sauce
1 Tablespoon of Teryaki Sauce
1 Teaspoon of sugar
4-5 Cups of Beef stock
Small Matzo Balls
1/2 an onion, diced

Hardware

1 sauté pan
1 large pot
stirring spoons/Spatulas

Directions

In a sauté pan, sauté the beef in half a tablespoon of the sesame oil for a few minutes. Add the kimchi, and the rest of the oil as well as the garlic and stir over medium low heat. Let simmer.

In the pot add your chicken stock, sugar, sauces, and onions and bring to a boil. Add matzo balls and bring to a simmer. When stock has reduced by about half add beef, and kimchi from sauté pan into the pot and let simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Serve with Rice.

Options and Notes

I know from experience that Korean dishes use a lot of fermented bean paste, like Japanese Miso. You might wanna add a bit of that into the pot with everything else. The Matzo balls are clearly not standard Korean but they soak up flavors well and add a good bit of ‘breadiness’ to a dish.

Model number: MSX-07-AZ Custom
Code name: Alastor
Unit type: prototype mobile suit
Manufacturer: Anaheim Electronics
Operator: Alasdair Z’dain
First deployment: UC 0088
Accommodation: pilot in panoramic monitor/linear seat cockpit in Torso
Dimensions: overall height 25.6 meters; head height 23.0 meters
Weight: empty 30.5 metric tons; max gross 71.2 metric tons
Armor materials: gundarium alloy
Powerplant: Minovsky type ultracompact fusion reactor, output rated at 3960 kW
Propulsion: rocket thrusters: 3 x 14000 kg, 2 x 13300 kg, 8 x 9800 kg; vernier thrusters/apogee motors: 28
Performance: maximum thruster acceleration 1.87 G
Equipment and design features: sensors, range 22600 meters; 2 x external propellant tank, ejectable, mounted on backpack
Fixed armaments: beam cannon, power rated at 6.8 MW, mounted in torso; 2 x beam saber, stored in recharge racks in forearms, hand-carried in use
Optional fixed armaments: shield, mounted on either forearm, mounts beam cannon, power rated at 7.5 MW, doubles as beam saber; 6 x heat claws, mounted on hands; beam gatling gun, power rated at 6.4MW mounted on shoulder, retractable onto back when not in use, ejectable
Optional hand armaments: beam shotrifle w/ heat bayonet, power rated at 8.2 MW, powered by rechargeable energy cap; beam Longsword , stored in recharge rack in shield, hand-carried in use

Equipped with Shoulder Cannon
Arctic Camouflage
Stealth Camouflage

This is a simple Recipe that doesn’t require a lot of prep time and can be pulled off in just an hour and a half (including shopping time) if ones in a rush to make a nice looking main dish and in a pinch. I’ve updated the ingredients and altered the directions to match what I did with this dish for my Family Reunion, which has so far gotten the best results. Enjoy!

Ingredients
1 Jar of a Cheese based pasta sauce (in my case, Garlic Parmesan) 2 jars if you want it really cheesy
2 whole boneless & Skinless chicken breasts, sliced into strips.
or
2 small packets of pre-cut, pre cooked chicken breast meat (if your in a hurry)
1 regular bag/box of Penne Rigate pasta
1-2 bags of shredded Parmesan cheese (can be changed depending on your cheese sauce)
Optional
Small amount of oil (if cooking own chicken)

Hardware
1 Pan (if cooking own chicken)
1 Pot
1 Oven Safe baking dish (I use Corningware)
1 Spatula

Cooking

Pasta

1st things first. Pre heat your oven to 350, and then start with the pasta.

Add Penne Rigate to an appropriately sized pot and fill with water just above the pasta, some will float, thats fine. Add a we bit of butter or oil if you’re worried about sticking. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat then lower it to medium low and simmer till pasta is cooked to preference (i like a little crunch left in mine so I pull mine out a bit before ‘Al dente’). Quickly remove from heat, strain, and shock with cold running water from a facet to halt the cooking process.

Chicken

After cutting your chicken into slices per taste heat a pan over medium high heat and add a small amount of cooking oil, type isn’t important I used regular vegetable oil. Once the oil is at the right temperature add the chicken to the oil and stir constantly (think stir fry for a short while) until thoroughly cooked. Remove from heat and set aside.

Final Dish

Add your pasta and your chicken to the baking dish you plan to use, move every thing around so its all nice and even. Pour on your chosen cheese sauce and with your spatula move the sauce around so its a nice even coat and seeps into the gaps between the chicken and pasta. Add your shredded cheese on top of your dish, sprinkle it out evenly. Let the food settle for a minute or two so the sauce can get into the devices (it won’t get everywhere but thats fine).

Place the pasta in your 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. When there is 5-10 minutes cook time left turn the oven off and turn your broiler on low and let the dish sit under the broiler for around 5 minutes. When finished remove from oven and let the dish sit for another 5-10 minutes so the melted sauce and cheeses can settle a bit. Finally with your spatula divide and serve the pasta and chicken like you would lasagna. Generally serves four, or two for two servings.

Let us take a look at one of my favorite fandoms to get lost in. Its full of a rich millennia long history, interesting characters, species, sects, groups, and technology. It’s one of the most loved, cherished, and praised creations of the last century.

I’ve loved star wars since I first laid eyes on the Tantive IV streaking across the starscape, being perused by and exchanging fire with the Star Destroyer Devastator. I remember more about watching star wars (and Star Trek, but thats not the point) as a child than I do anything else. I have an almost insane, and probably to most people obsessive, knowledge of the inner workings of the Star wars universe, its history, technology, and people.

But no great giant is without its weakness, and Star Wars has a big one. Aside from George Lucas being more in love with money than the solidity of his franchises stories, that weakness is poor decision making, especially in regards to the Expanded Universe. In particular however, I’m referring to clones.

We established the Republic as near pacifists in Episode I but they need an army in Episode II what do we do?

CLONES!

Darth Vader redeemed himself and made a noble sacrifice to save his son, and in turn the rebellion and Galaxy, what do we do?

Lets clone Palpatine and completely remove any meaning to it at all!

In star wars, everybody and their mother apparently has clones. Thrawn had clones. Luke had Luuke. Jorus C’baoth had Joruus C’baoth. Leia had an android designed after her (not a clone but same vein). Sa Cuis, General Maximilian Veers, and later Baron Soontir Fel. The list just goes on and on.

The point of the matter is, if LucasArts has a problem, or needs to make a buck, they call in the cloners. Case in point: The Force Unleashed II.

Galen Marek, aka Starkiller, aka The Secret Apprentice. The purpose of a game like TFU (and any character based game) is to have the player feel for the character. To have compassion for Galen, his cause, and what he fights for. As you play TFU, you feel for Starkiller, how he was raised by Vader, treated badly, fell for Juno, learned from Rahm, bonded with PROXY, and ultimately sacrificed himself at the end of TFU to save the Rebellion.

And so, despite the fact that TFU ruined canon, despite the fact that the foundation of its story was weak, it was decent, despite LucasArts best efforts to ruin it. So it sold — it sold well. It had its detractors, it had its benefactors, but the end result was a success. And so LucasArts was poised with the concept of a TFU2. And LucasArts did what it did best.

It got the cloners.

As seen in the Betrayal trailer, Starkiller has been cloned — a lot actually. This makes all his sacrifices meaningless. He gave his life to save others, to give the rebellion a chance, and in the end he was cloned, and used by those he fought against. They took the character, that was foundationaly weak to begin with, and devastated him.

They took the lazy, easy route to make a new game instead of making a new character, and a new story. And thats sad. Let’s take a moment to look at two quick (and better) TFU2 story concepts that were thought up in about five minutes. First by my friend Dade, the second by me.

The Force Unleashed 2 Concept by Dade: (Lots of Paraphrasing by Kahn)

Since they’re already pretty much “raping canon up the ass,” they might as well go all the way and just go AU with TFU2. Have the game with Vader as the protagonist. Darth Vader, as he is in Episodes IV, V, and VI is one of the most badass characters in the Star Wars franchise (perhaps of all time). It’s not just his power, but his presence, character, and personality. If you think about it, one of the most entertaining levels in the first TFU was at the beginning, when you played as Vader.

In this AU game, as Vader you could ultimately have a number of endings. Kill the emperor, join the rebellion, and ultimately redeem yourself, as in the Infinities comic. Kill the Emperor, recruit Luke to the darkside and go on a crusade to defeat the Rebellion. Or Kill the Emperor, and Luke, and implant yourself as Emperor of the Galactic Empire.

The Force Unleashed 2 Concept by Kahn

Let’s go back in time, turn back the clock 1,000 years…

It is a perilous time for the Republic. The Galaxy is split in two by conflict, the likes of which has not been seen for 3,000 years. The Sith Empire under the iron fist of Lord Kaan wages a bloody war against the Republic and its Jedi guardians.

On the now decimated surface of the planet Ruusan, the war wages on. The fate of the galaxy is pitched on the outcome of a battle on a single world…

That’d be the opening crawl. You’d play a nameless Jedi Knight amongst the forces massed at Ruusan for the final campaign of what would be one of the most influential wars in the Star Wars galaxy. Being a nameless Jedi you’d be able to have some customization on your Jedi, male, female, species, sorta like the Jedi Academy game. As you played through the game you’d do missions given to you by Hoth and other Jedi leaders.

Over the course of the game you’d be able to make decisions and actions that would reflect on how Hoth reacts to the outcome of your missions. For good, or bad. Light or Dark. Eventually You’d be one of the 100 Jedi to join Hoth in confronting Kaan in the chamber with the thought bomb. It is here that you’d be able to play along with Canon, or have an AU ending, much like TFU. You could stand by as Hoth lunges, and as history writes die as the thought bomb goes off. You could take initiative and strike Kaan on your own and save the Army of light as you, Hoth, and the 99 other Jedi strike down what remains of Kaan’s inner circle.

Or maybe you’d succumb to temptation, and see a chance for power yourself. Strike at Kaan, at the heart of the Sith, then Hoth, heart of the Army of Light. Single handedly decimate both sides of the war, taking the reigns of the Sith Empire for yourself as you turn on your Jedi compatriots.

5 to 10 minutes of thinking, thats all that took, and it has a sounder concept than “Lets clone em!”

Due to DeviantARTs regulations I’ve volunteered to host this image for Blue here on my blog. So let me hand the reigns over to her.

– — –

Pencil lines, digitally finished in photoshop cs4
I’m unsure how long, exactly, I spent on this one, numerous hours on and off. These two are a couple of OC’s, mine (the female) S’uun Esh, and my friends (the male) Kao Yaght. While I tried to make this look a tad more sensual than the scene should actually be, they have themselves something of a barbed and twisted relationship, but ultimately it always seems to come back to this primal desire to be with each other in some form or another.

Click link below for more, DISCLAIMER: Mature Content.
Read more

I’m testing the lightbox feature

Click to display…

Really. I just now put it all together. It took a bit of dot connecting but it all makes sense.

My grandmother huddles around real slow (mostly for show) like she’s hurt real bad. She takes 10 minutes to get to the car which is 5 feet from the door, and 30 minutes to get ready to go to the store thats 5 minutes away. When she drives, she always drives a good 10-20 miles below the speed limit, she’ll stop in the middle of the road to gawk at something. She mumbles, purposefully, about random crap, and shudders.

But when she’s angry. She moves like she’s 10 years younger, and like a bat out of hell. When she’s angry and drives she – miracle of miracles – drives the bloody speed limit, and obeys traffic laws, and she speaks coherently, even if she tends to yell.

So, I have tried all three flavors of Dew for Dewmocracy 2010, Whiteout, Distortion, and Typhoon. I’ve savored the flavors of all three, weighed on their pros and cons and this is what I’ve come to conclude on them.

Whiteout: Clearly the best of the three. Whiteout does what a new Dew flavor should do, it brings something new, and well thought out to the flavor mix. You can taste the dew, and the new flavor, but they work together, they don’t fight each other. That said, I think Whiteout would be better suited for something other than a new Dew flavor. A replacement for Sierra Mist. Honestly it has that sort of twang you expect from a citrus flavored drink, and it tastes GOOD, neither of which Sierra mist have. This is how good Whiteout is, it does the job of another soda.

Distortion: My second favorite of the selection. It has a similar concept to Whiteout but its executed totally differently. Its regular Dew with the slightest hint of lime. The problem is the lime isn’t pronounced, its a very light after flavor. It doesn’t stick out and is overshadowed drastically by the traditional Dew kick.

Typhoon: Ah Typhoon. I just didn’t like it. The “Punch of Tropic” was just that, a punch. Way to much flavor, it over shadowed the dew and made it basically a carbonated, caffeinated tropical punch. And it has what I believe is pineapple, that is WAY to strong for my tastes it hits as a foreflavor, and stays for the after party way to long.

Final Thoughts: None of these flavors are perfect, and of the three only Whiteout comes close to really being a stand alone flavor, and as such will be getting my vote. Distortion wasn’t strong enough, with tweaking it could probably outshine whiteout, but Distortion was bad, way to strong.

Suggestions: Mtn Dew, Next Dewmocracy instead of releasing 4 packs of the flavors like you did this year. Release a four pack with one regular Dew, and one of each of the three flavors up for office. Make it easier for people to get all three flavors at once, and easier on our wallets. Let me make a suggestion for next year. Mtn Dew Blue Shift, Mnt Dew with a hint of pomegranate and blue berry.

Just the result of playing around with some sprites and making them animations.

This is a simple tutorial on how to get your text to appear along a path. Over time I’ll do other simple how to’s for Text functions in GIMP as well.

Step 1. Setup

To practice your text along path abilities set up a nice transparent canvas by clicking File>New and setting up the options. Then you’ll want to add paths to your layer dialog box. On the dialog box in the upper righthand corner you’ll see a little triangle. Click it, Then New Tab>Paths. This will add the Path tab to your layers dialog and you can switch back and forth between the two dialogs.

Step Two: Establish your Path

Now you will need to establish your paths. To do this first select the path tool from the main GIMP window it appears to be an old inkwell pen with a cirved line going from its tip. Alternativly you can access it from the tools menue. After you have the tool selected you will need to establish your anchor, click anywhere on the canvas where you want your text to start (or end) and this will set up the anchor. Clicking again will let you move the anchor.

Clicking a second location will establish a second anchor, if you hold down the mousebutton when you click you can move your cursor and and adjust the path to become a wave or curve. You can also do this by clicking on the path itself and moving it around. You should also notice little boxes attached to the anchors via doted lines, these  can be used to fine tune the path. Each anchor will have two, one for each path connected to it, as we only have one path, only one box per anchor will work. Once you have established your path move on to the next step.

Step Three: Establish Text

Now you will want to select the text tool and type out your text. Be weary of length, as text that is longer than your path will result in a very unsatesfactory text effect. You can get around this by adjusting the size of your text and the space between the letters, as well as adjusting the path.

Now you will notice a button within the text tool’s window titled “Text Along Path” clicking this will establish a ‘ghost image’ of your text moving along the path you have created. Once this is done, move along to the next step.

Step Four: Fill In your Text

Now you will need to click on your path tab. If you see an eye symbol beside your new path (it will be named after the text you typed) click it. Now you will want to make a selection from your path, to do this, click the button at the bottom of the dialog box that resembles a pink square (hovering over it will establish it as “Selection from path”).

Return to your layer tab and delete the text layer you typed. You will then want to make a new transparent layer to fill your new text in on. When this is done select your paint tool of choice, and a properly sized brush and fill the selection in with your color of choice. You will have now made text along a path.

Alternatively: Paths out of a Selection

You can also make a path out of a selection, such as using the rectangle or circle selection tool. To do this simply make the selection as you normally would then in the path dialog select the botton next to “Selection from Path” which is “Path from Selection” this will convert the outer edges of the selection into a path, such as the circle seen above. Once you do this, simply go to Select>All then return to step three