Rant 869 / Crazy Boars

Made ee noodles again, this time stir-fried with imitation crab sticks and bailing mushrooms in half the chicken stock I made the other day.

Surprisingly, the chicken stock had become a jelly. The last time I made chicken stock, it remained liquid in the fridge. Then again, I didn't break the bones when I made that batch of chicken stock.

Boiled the noodles a little too long but it was still ok.

Thought it was going to be bad but it was pretty decent when I ate it.

Initially planned to pour the crab-and-mushroom gravy over the boiled noodles but decided to just dump the noodles into the gravy and stir-fry it.

Saved a bowl of noodles and poured some of the gravy over it so that I have an insurance in case stir-frying was really a bad idea. When it appeared to be ok, I threw the bowl of it in too.

Also tested the effectiveness of frying the crab sticks to improve the flavour. About half the crab sticks were mixed with a little starch and fried beforehand while the rest were just dumped into the noodles to be stir-fried with.

Frying them was better.

Next time, I'll be doing the same but with some sesame oil. Everything tastes better with sesame oil.

Sesame oil is like the bacon of Chinese cuisine - everything you throw it in will taste better.

The only reason there isn't bacon chocolate cake is because I'm not into baking.

Just kidding. Chocolate bacon cake has already been done. I even found a recipe for chocolate bacon cupcakes!

Original Recipe Yield 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

• 12 slices bacon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup cold, strong, brewed coffee
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the eggs, coffee, buttermilk and oil. Stir just until blended. Mix in 3/4 of the bacon, reserving the rest for garnish. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter. Frost with your favorite chocolate frosting and sprinkle reserved bacon crumbles on top. Dust with additional cocoa powder.

Yum!













Playing a bit of Sanitarium, a 1998 point-and-click adventure game about some guy who wakes up in an asylum with bandages around his head.

Saw it played on vidyavidya.com and found it quite interesting because his delusions causes each chapter to have completely different settings, from a town in which all the humans were gone to an insectoid hive where giant intelligent bugs work to take over a world ruled by... cyclopses instead of humans.

In between each of these delusions are brief moments when he comes back to reality and gradually discovers the truth behind his insanity.

So far it's quite fun but I apparently encountered the biggest bug in the game - I cannot enter buildings.

The worst thing about this bug is that a lot players, including myself, mistook it for a hint from the game that whatever I'm supposed to do no longer required entering any rooms.

I only realized it was a bug when I couldn't enter the village store room after obtaining the key from some kid.

Now I have to load the game from the first save in that chapter because I didn't save a lot.

Obviously it's been too long since I last played an old game and I'd forgotten to save like crazy.

Anyway that was quite easy to resolve. When you know what to do, it doesn't take long to finish even an entire chapter.

Now to Chapter 2.













So I tried Taric again in LoL after a very long time. I felt like using it after I watched a friend use it as a tank and not quite succeeding at it.

But Taric isn't a tank as far as I remember.

A support with good armour, but not a tank.

Mainly it's because of the lack of damage and focus on team-aiding abilities like heals and increase stats.

Apparently Taric's been changed since I last used it, just like Kayle.

Now Taric's ultimate does damage and its mana cost no longer increases every second. It's just one shot of AoE damage plus the stat-boosting aura for a limited period of time.

No wonder he was being used as a tank. With the extra damage, I guess he's doing some decent damage, making him an off-tank, or a tank if the team has no one else. Tanks need to be able to do some real damage or else enemies would ignore him.

After all, what's the point of a tank if enemies just run pass him?

The stun is still as pointless to upgrade as before. The damage increase is still pretty bad per level, so I might as well raise my other skills.

One trick I still remember as Taric from before still works - his stun works best on escaping enemies because the further they are, the longer they get stunned.

Which probably means that the best way to deal with Taric is to get really close to him.