Holy crap it's a Livejournal

Yay!

2009-09-30T15:37:03Z

I seem to have kicked my drawing slump off for the time being (and just in time as we are going through some serious financial issues at the moment). Because of said financial issues, I'm opening commissions for the time being.

My set price for a color portrait in this style (backgrounds will be more detailed in commissions) is $50, but I'm doing them for $30 for the first three people that request them. I've got two slots filled so far and I am taking a total of five, so that leaves one $30 left and two $50 ones.

So if you have the cash and would like to see your character in my style, let me know! Either via comments or e-mail at Rambeltilx(at)gmail(dot)com.

The days of whole potato pan are over

2009-08-27T16:03:10Z

When I was younger and my family grilled a lot, we would grill tomatoes and I remember loving it. So last night when Emily and I grilled some kabobs for dinner, I decided to resurrect the concept of grilled tomatoes. I did some improvisational recipe-ing with them and it turned out AMAZING so I am going to share this recipe with you guys because you need to try it. Even if you hate tomatoes (which I do), seriously.

First I cut a few tomatoes into slices (three red ones and one yellow one) and arranged them in a (somewhat) single layer on a plate I made out of heavy duty aluminum foil with the edges curled up and reinforced (like a very shallow bowl) to keep the juices from seeping out. In a separate bowl, I mixed maybe 3 or 4 tablespoons of canola oil (I didn't really measure it) with a few squirts of lemon juice, a bit of dried basil, freshly cracked pepper, and two crushed large cloves of garlic. After I mixed that up, I poured it over the tomatoes and then used a brush to spread it around, making sure to lift up some overlapping tomatoes and spread the mixture between them.

After I did that, I got 10-15 fresh basil leaves and placedthem whole all over the tomatoes, again making sure to get some underneath the overlapping tomatoes. Then I put some more fresh cracked pepper on it and sprinkled the whole thing with a decent amount of kosher salt. After all that was done, I wrapped the entire thing in more aluminum foil so that it was covered and put it on the grill, letting it cook for about 5 minutes before turning it around (not flipping it, because that would have been disastrous) and cooking it for another 5 minutes or so.

When we took them off the grill and opened it, they were JUST right. Not cooked to the point of falling apart too much, but still hot enough to be very tender. We ate them right out of the foil- they were SO good, I can't even begin to tell you. Seriously. Try it some time.

And that is pretty much the highlight of my last few days.

Heyyy Lisa and William, are you guys still coming over tonight?

Filled with Lucifer's own sputum

2009-08-25T12:56:47Z

I now work mornings instead of afternoons! Yay!

I don't have much else to say, but I mainly just wanted to recommend this show to everyone because it is great and repulsive. Witty British people dressing up in the clothing of various periods throughout history and then eating said period's food for a week = recipe for greatness. Also, sometimes very disgusting. The one I linked is Victorian, but they have a show for several periods.

The boiled cow's head and accompanying dishes literally made me gag.

wyrmrestaccord.net

2009-08-19T18:45:21Z

LIKE HERDING CATS

ninaclaww @ 2009-08-18T08:36:00

2009-08-18T12:43:00Z

Sunday night I put up Saints Row 2 to play again (since I never beat it), and I was messing around with character creation. I accidentally hit the voice I wanted twice, the sound bugged for a moment, and then there was a kid talking over Xbox Live. He couldn't have been older than 8 or 9, and he kept saying "HURRY THE FUCK UP" and weird shit like "I CAN TELL YOU'RE A NEGRO BECAUSE THEY SAY "MAMA" ON THE PHONE AND I HEARD YOU SAY MAMA, AND THAT'S WHAT NEGROES SAY." Yelling and cursing and throwing around racial slurs worse than any grown man or woman I've ever heard. I just thought it had bugged out because he was talking so frequently that he must have been talking with someone else, so I dicked around with character creation at my usual snail's pace while Emily and I laughed at this ridiculous kid. When I went to finish creation, I discovered that somehow open co-op had been turned on, and this kid was waiting for me and cursing up a STORM in the meantime (I was called a negro probably 40 times), so I declined his request to play co-op and I immediately got another invite from him while he desperately cried "I WON'T SAY ANYTHING THIS TIME I PROMISE!" So that was...weird. And hilarious.

So that's my story. My life has otherwise been pretty uneventful for the last few days unless you count skewering chunks of raw pork for 5 hours to be exciting.

It melts my Svedish heart

2009-08-12T12:26:04Z

Last night I had a dream that I was in a stage production of The Producers and that I was playing Ulla. Could I be more the opposite of that role? Unlikely. In any case, I could sing really well, but I missed most of the show because there was apparently a JUNGLE SCENE and it was absolutely mandatory that we have a specific type of shrub that I was charged with getting after my first number. At some point after that, I dumped beer on a teenage boy at the supermarket because he was calling me a big dumb lesbian.

Emily and I made jalapeno poppers last night (my fingers still burn; next time I cut peppers I'm using gloves) so I'm just going to pretend that I had such dreams because I ate spicy stuff soon before bed and not because I'm a fucking lunatic.

ninaclaww @ 2009-07-22T18:33:00

2009-07-22T22:40:29Z

I am in love with Team Fortress 2. I was hesitant about playing it for a while because I primarily played as Scout and I apparently suck at Scout, but then I tried Sniper a few days ago and it's definitely more my calling. I'm really hoping we can get enough folks to justify buying a server!

And I'm sick, go figure. I'm having to take time off of work for it about a week from my beach vacation, so I feel like a total jackass. Chance and Lori were sick recently too so I guess I got what they had. Blehhh. Sinus issues are unpleasant, to say the least.

Also, I'm removing that quote from earlier because I bitch too much.

ninaclaww @ 2009-07-21T17:46:00

2009-07-21T21:36:06Z

Recently Emily and I have gotten into Team Fortress 2, but the public playerbase of that game is kind of [pants on head retarded][juvenile][stupidstupidstupid[[failfailfail] so we're considering buying a private TF2 server. We've got a few people (like, 3) who we know would play with us regularly, but 5 total isn't really enough to have a proper TF2 game, so we're aiming for having a static group of 10-15. THAT BEING SAID, would any of you be interested in playing with us somewhat regularly? (PC Version)

Let me know if you'd be interested!

ninaclaww @ 2009-07-06T23:38:00

2009-07-07T03:43:54Z

Amanda sent me this website of numbers station recordings a while back, and talking about conspiracy theories with Kat tonight reminded me of their existence again. I think I might have posted this a long time ago, but I don't really remember! So I'm posting it again, because I think they're really awesome and creepy. Mostly creepy, but I think that's why I am so in love with them.

Swedish Rhapsody and Gong Station are my favorites.

Edit to add that Emily is AWESOME!

ninaclaww @ 2009-07-06T09:35:00

2009-07-06T13:46:52Z

Mom texted me to tell me that somebody broke into Lou's house and stole all her jewelry. I just can't even fathom what an asshole you have to be to do that? She is a 90 year old widow wasting away from like a hundred diseases and he steals all of her valuables. Apparently he took a watch that Robert gave her in 1934 as a graduation present before they were even married. People are fucking lame. I hope they catch him.

Not much else going on. We didn't really do anything for the 4th, but Emily bought me Venture Bros. season 3 so we watched that over the course of the weekend. Good times. We rented this movie called "Oscar" that Jason suggested and it...had its moments? I guess? All in all it was a pretty bad movie, but Tim Curry is always a plus and Marisa Tomei as a stupid flapper throwing screaming baby fits was pretty classic.

I'm sort of majorly depressed about the Lou thing.

ninaclaww @ 2009-06-24T09:05:00

2009-06-24T13:12:41Z

A few days ago silent_claws introduced me to these and I just now got around to finishing watching them. This is most definitely my favorite. The look Riker gives Picard. Ahahahahaha ahhhh.

Emily's friends Lisa and William came to visit last night and we played 360 for a while. William brought the new Red Faction and we played the demolition multiplayer thing which was pretty fun. I think me and Emily are gonna buy Grand Theft Auto IV this weekend so we can play the online with them. Since, you know, the multiplayer was so vastly superior to the single player.

Jason is driving up to Virginia to visit this weekend and I have no idea what we should do. There is like nothing to do here.

Edit: Is anyone else really annoyed by how they're advertising the Half Blood Prince movie as a romantic comedy/drama thing?

ninaclaww @ 2009-06-22T12:46:00

2009-06-22T16:52:36Z

The ending of Fallout was pretty terrible. I ended up killing Lily because I liked Fawkes so much more than her, so now I'm replaying as Nat with the intent of getting the downloadable content once I beat the game with him. Or rather, I'm playing as an avatar named Nat. It's actually just a man with greaser hair and huge muttonchops in a cowboy hat wielding a baseball bat. I want that magical gauntlet thing that lets me punch people's heads off. And the Bloody Mess perk because seriously.

Seriously.

I also blew up Megaton (after I beat Moira to death with my baseball bat) this time around and I feel like a complete jackass about it but oh well, at least I still have a robot butler.

Not much has been going on in the real world. I'm starving for RP lately and I'm out of single player games to distract me from it. My drawing rut is still shitting all over me, but I think I'm gonna look into taking some figure drawing classes some time soon.

Oh and Jason (if you even check LJ anymore) can you call me? I lost your number before I could put it in my phone and we need to know if we're still gonna come visit this weekend.

ninaclaww @ 2009-06-21T01:41:00

2009-06-21T05:41:35Z

This is all you need.

ninaclaww @ 2009-06-15T12:32:00

2009-06-15T16:37:03Z

Emily and I adopted a kitten and she is adorable. We named her Lily. SHE IS SO ADORABLE. I don't think I can ever go back into an animal control shelter again, though. That fucked me up for days. I spent pretty much the whole day crying.*

In other news, I finally sat my ass down to play Fallout past the first chapter of Wasteland Survival Guide. I've dumped like 15 hours of my life into it in the past week, and now I'm stuck at Lamplight Caverns because I shot at the stupid kid that called me a shitbutt but it won't let me kill any of the children and now I can't activate the door to the next zone because "there are enemies nearby".

Whatever. Have some fabulous dancing ghouls.

*Probably had something to do with PMS.

ninaclaww @ 2009-05-05T14:30:00

2009-05-05T18:37:33Z

I discovered a soundtrack for Little Big Planet and that makes me so happy I cannot even tell you. It's the instrumental music, too, so it's chock full of adorable music like this. I also found a list of the borrowed music in it and went on an iTunes spree. So I'm a happy fucking camper.

I'm also 90% sure I have a job in Virginia, so cross your fingers for me on that last 10%! Not having a job up there is the only thing that's been keeping me from moving; seriously, most of my stuff is already up there. I hope I get this job, auuugh!

In other news, Emily is the greatest.

ninaclaww @ 2009-05-04T01:14:00

2009-05-04T05:14:12Z

Instead of actually posting an entry with content, I'm just going to post this.

ninaclaww @ 2009-04-27T23:26:00

2009-04-28T03:28:10Z

Emily and I got this virus called Trojan Wincod. I finally managed to get it off my computer via turning off the auto restore and running about a thousand anti-malware programs, but now Emily's anti-malware programs won't even detect it. We've tried practically every program known to man, tried to manually go in and delete the shit in the registry...nothing. Does anybody know anything about this virus/how to get rid of it? Really don't want to reformat it.

ninaclaww @ 2009-04-08T19:21:00

2009-04-08T23:21:32Z

What the fuck is the point of Twitter?

ninaclaww @ 2009-04-06T19:06:00

2009-04-06T23:07:02Z

I want every single thing (well, Lackadaisy thing) on this page. Especially the pin. Holy cats.

HA GET IT

Charmmmmed, charmmmmed, charmmmmed, charmmmmed

2009-04-06T05:28:07Z

I still can't get anything more than crappy bust shots onto paper. I can't color, either. Nor can I write. It's driving me batshit. Huuaauggh.

The draenei mafia thing is going surprisingly well, however. In game mechanics are a bit of a bitch, but other than that I'm having a lot of fun. Not entirely sure how to go about it in a prolonged way, though, and that's bugging me. There are a lot of things about it I'm not really sure how to go about, actually. It's sort of intimidating, but I'm really looking forward to working it out down the road.

I watched Bullets Over Broadway and it was great. Normally I dislike Woody Allen movies, but Jennifer Tilly was so hilarious that even if the rest of it had sucked, it probably would have still been good because of her. Cheech's girlfriend was great too, though her part was super small. Also I love the 1920s. I love the 1920s so much.

And obnoxious flappers.

ninaclaww @ 2009-04-04T03:18:00

2009-04-04T07:18:34Z

Dear Ending of The Sopranos,

Love,
Mallory

ninaclaww @ 2009-04-02T10:59:00

2009-04-02T15:06:56Z

Does anyone know who adular is? They just added my journal for Nataske to their friends list and their friends list is so massive I can't distinguish a solid connection.

Sadly I don't have too much to write about. Emily gave me a daffodil, isn't that sweet?

And now for something completely different.

2009-03-27T22:53:50Z

My aunt introduced me to this recipe, and oh my god is it good. I have to share it.

Maple-roasted butternut squash

1 large (or 2 small) squash, peeled, seeded and cut into ¾ to 1” cubes. Peel it with a vegetable peeler, cut it in two and spoon out the seeds. There aren’t many and they are located in the bulby end.

1 head garlic, separated but not peeled

2 Tbls good olive oil

2 ½ Tbls pure maple syrup

1 tsp Kosher salt

½ tsp freshly ground pepper

2 ounces thinly sliced pancetta, chopped (I used bacon because I'm a lazy American)

16 whole fresh sage leaves

Preheat the oven to 400.

Place the squash and whole, unpeeled garlic cloves on a sheet pan in one layer. Toss with the olive oil, syrup, salt and pepper (I whisked these together in a little bowl and poured it over the stuff, then mixed it up).

Bake for 20 – 30 minutes, until the squash begins to brown, turning once during baking.

Sprinkle the pancetta and sage leaves evenly over the squash and continue to bake for another 20 – 30 minutes, until the squash and garlic are tender and caramelized.

It's supposed to be spread over french bread, but we didn't bother with that part. It's SO good. Oh my god, seriously, try it.

ninaclaww @ 2009-03-07T10:18:00

2009-03-07T15:19:03Z

Really?

2009-03-06T13:51:18Z

Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers.

Dear Video Game Industry,

What?

Love,
Mallory

In other news, I'm actually really excited about seeing Watchmen. I can't remember when I was last excited to see a superhero movie.