Pretty easy to make cottage fries

 When I find cool recipes I like to share them.

Superman vs Batman should've been several different really good movies.

DC just took a bunch of comics, put them in a blender, and called it a story.

Many scenes work well for comic fan service if taken out of the context of this movie. I will watch the extended cut to see if they really took out important story elements that the theatrical cut is missing.

If the entire movie took place in the dream?/flashforward? of Batman in the destroyed city and a dark Superman I would've been truly impressed. I mean it, that could've been one scene in a movie of amazing scenes, but instead it should've been on the cutting room floor because it served no purpose.

The movie has some fundamental story problems that would have been solvable if someone just gave a damn. This movie is told as a series of; this happens then this happens then this happens. At no point is it; this happens and therefor this happens which causes this to happen. No cause and effect at all.

One example is the title fight between Batman and Superman. The stated reason for the fight is Lex holding a hostage. Does Lex, one of the most brilliant villains in comics, bother to verify that they actually fight? No he doesn't. If Lex had cameras watching the fight it would've explained why Superman fights instead of flying around like he does at lots of other times. But how could Lex have cameras at some random location you might ask? He has a bunch of kryptonian drones from the first film at his command doesn't he? Wouldn't that have been a cool visual? And that would have allowed Batman, The World's Greatest Detective, to figure out that Superman didn't want to win this fight and at the last moment, when Superman was resigned to dying at his hands, ask Bruce to "please save his mom." No need for "Martha" or the millionth shooting of Batman's parents or tomb visits. Both actors could've really delivered on their acting abilities instead of causing my girlfriend to laugh (again) at an important moment. Think about the look of resigned defeat on Henry's face as Ben get's to unleash his award winning acting chops showing realization and sudden conviction that Superman is just like him, and even more that Bruce Wayne needs to become a mentor to young Clark Kent. The veteran of twenty years fighting evil could help the new guy overcome his horrible missteps that have lead to him being hated and feared! Like Elliot, he could help protect and save his new alien friend.

So much of this could've been fixed with the cutting of entire scenes and a few reshoots. I want to talk about what I liked but can't because this movie had Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman and wasted all of them. All three actors did well. Batfleck had some truly amazing moments. The script and the 30 minute CGI climax wasted all their hard work.

Sorry for the sloppiness of this, I just had to get some of this out.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

My stick puppet VJ talks about Ministry on a YouTube playlist.

Apple Music version of the playlist with 100% less stick puppet

A very nice performance from Portishead

NIN + Doudou N'Diaye Rose = A monster remix.

This:




Plus this:




Equals this:




Bonus performances:

A few of videos of Goldie worth watching.

Goldie has a lot of heart when he talks about music.  He's not a go to artist for me but the man loves music and it shows.

Thinking of ways to bring this back to life.

A lot of things are boring me enough that I might have to create my way out of the funk.
I'm beginning to lose faith in Twitter and other places I spend my mental energy.

Bllllaaaaarrrrrrgggggh.

Had hoped to have some newer music ready by now. I've played around with a lot of stuff but nothing's finished. Even worse, none of the one's I haven't trashed are getting me excited to finish.

Not sure how to fix this musical slump.

Listening to Podcasts.

By the time Howard Stern left the regular radio at the end of 2005 I was already listening to my iPod for both music and the newly emerged medium of Podcasting. My car radio was with me for the two hours every day that I drove to work and it now acted as a playback device entirely. I didn't bother with CDs since my 30GB iPod had a large chunk of my favorite music and I also would use it to sync new Podcast episodes from my computers iTunes almost daily before driving.

Three years later my iPod was replaced with an iPhone 3G but the syncing ritual was the same. Within a couple of years Podcast Apps started to come out for the iPhone.  Some good, some not. I tried several over the years.

• The Podcasts App from Apple had a rough start but is better today. (And is now included by default in iOS 8.) It syncs across your devices with iCloud and is free so that's an easy way to get started.
• Instacast is one that I liked for years (until my current favorite came out) and aside from a few glitches a few years back has always worked well.
• My current Podcast listening App is Overcast. It's free, but spend the money on the in App purchase it offers to get the best out of it. 

What made Overcast my current favorite is the things that it can do with audio. I listen to several different shows of varying audio quality and episode length. Some of the less professional podcasters use poor microphones, bad mic technique or don't know how to correctly use a compressor to even out volumes. Overcast's Voice Boost feature fixes many of those. Some of my favorite shows have lot's of dead air when the host or guest are thinking about what to say next or the Skype connection they are using to speak remotely causes a delay. (That's one of the reasons I would use the 1.5 times (sometimes 2x) playback speed.) Overcast has a playback feature that can, in real time, cut out dead air. That feature has saved me a full days worth of dead air time!

Patronage in music history and present.

Sometime around 2005 I was a member of the Nine Inch Nails fan club. One of the benefits of paying  for the fan club (in addition to shirts, posters and advance concert tickets) was the forums that Trent Reznor would sometimes pop in to chat.

He would occasional offer his opinion on this or that or ask a question or two of the community. One of those questions has stuck in my mind for a long time.

He asked the forum members about how music might continue to be a profession given that the internet had begun to collapse the music industry and how could artists continue to make art in the future. My contribution to the conversation was that we could return to more of a patronage model as had existed before records (and sheet music printing before it) allowed for a "music business". My thought was that the members of the NIN fan club would be happy to pay the same yearly fees to support the creation of the art itself rather then the supporting materials that it generated. It worked for classical music and musicians, why not for us in an era where music is listened to and loved more then ever.

Sadly he didn't try it, but he has tried a lot of different ways and has thankfully kept making music. (He even release a free record as a thank you for his fans continuing support.)

So if NIN didn't go the patronage route why the hell am I bringing this up?

Because while NIN didn't, others have begun to embrace patronage as a way forward to support not only music, but all the creative arts.

Learn more about Patreon in their FAQ or watch these short videos.











So basically what I'm saying is, THE INTERNET IS AWESOME!