Been watching E3 with my usual mix of interest and amusement. Reading the Penny Arcade forum commentary on the various press events is often more fun than watching the live feeds themselves.
I'm not thrilled with all the Microsoft stuff, since most of it was shooters, and I don't do shooters. I continue to hope that the woman being highlighted in all the FF13 coverage is actually the main character, because JRPGs could really use more female protagonists who aren't the white mage/token love interest/leather-clad slut. Really, Ashe of FF12 should probably have been the player character, and Vaan didn't need to be in the game at all.
Aaaanyway, Nintendo's showing generally pleased me, certainly much more than last year's. Golden Sun is fun, and I'm sure I'll enjoy Mario Galaxy 2 as much as I enjoyed the first one. The trailers (and the game itself, when I'm not cussing at the more difficult platforming challenges) just evoke such a feeling of simple joy.
For a final note, I don't have Rock Band, and I'm not sure I want it. As a vocalist, I much prefer to be able to improvise than to be put on rails and told I need to sing just like the original. However, this trailer for Rock Band Beatles is pretty awesome whether you're interested in the game or not.
We'll see what Squeenix and Konami have to offer today!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Big ol' Raspberry Game Review - Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked
So the latest game to come my way from my friendly rental service was Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked for the Wii. Let me begin by stating that I love sim games and I love exploration games. I can spend hours and hours with Harvest Moon, and I thought Endless Ocean was pretty nifty. I'm generally forgiving of a few interface issues, some translation glitches, non-top-notch graphics, etc. if I find the main game satisfying. Unfortunately, I found Lost in Blue: Wii edition to be far from satisfying.
Since I didn't play the game long enough to give it a thorough pannning, let me just state the following:
1. Bars that go down constantly and must be refilled are a tricky game mechanic to do right. The Sims is still trying to get it right, and they've been making the bars less demanding with every iteration. Lost in Blue's bars go down steeply, and the food bar goes up veeery slowly. They did not get the balance right.
2. On the topic of getting the balance wrong, forcing the player to make their little guy down 20 coconuts, 18 berries and an entire boar in one day in order to meet his nutritional needs while attempting to explore an island is not fun. At all. That stinking boar should have lasted days. DAYS, I say!
3. So the little guy meets a fellow shipwrecked passenger, a blonde ponytail girl who somehow thinks it's a good idea to keep wearing her high heels on a deserted island. Despite the fact that she's been smart enough to set up her own base camp and keep herself alive for days before you meet her, she turns suddenly helpless at the sight of the player character's raging testosterone, or something. Maybe she's seen his metabolism and is afraid he'll eat her. Either way, you have to do everything for her and don't have the option to send her off to do her own thing. This is both sexist and not fun.
Back to the rental service with you, Lost in Blue!
Since I didn't play the game long enough to give it a thorough pannning, let me just state the following:
1. Bars that go down constantly and must be refilled are a tricky game mechanic to do right. The Sims is still trying to get it right, and they've been making the bars less demanding with every iteration. Lost in Blue's bars go down steeply, and the food bar goes up veeery slowly. They did not get the balance right.
2. On the topic of getting the balance wrong, forcing the player to make their little guy down 20 coconuts, 18 berries and an entire boar in one day in order to meet his nutritional needs while attempting to explore an island is not fun. At all. That stinking boar should have lasted days. DAYS, I say!
3. So the little guy meets a fellow shipwrecked passenger, a blonde ponytail girl who somehow thinks it's a good idea to keep wearing her high heels on a deserted island. Despite the fact that she's been smart enough to set up her own base camp and keep herself alive for days before you meet her, she turns suddenly helpless at the sight of the player character's raging testosterone, or something. Maybe she's seen his metabolism and is afraid he'll eat her. Either way, you have to do everything for her and don't have the option to send her off to do her own thing. This is both sexist and not fun.
Back to the rental service with you, Lost in Blue!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Recipe: Super Tender Pork Chops and Zucchini Cakes
The pork chop recipe was adapted from somewhere on the Internet, which I unfortunately can't credit because I lost the printout some time ago. The zucchini cakes are all me.
Natural Eating Tip: I always keep a container of organic, low sodium chicken broth in my fridge. Chicken broth is excellent for giving flavour to many dishes. I often use it as the base for cooking rice or soup, giving a lot more body to the dish than cooking in water.
Ingredients (based on serving 2, double to serve 4):
1 large zucchini, grated
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbs flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
white cheese of your choice, to top zucchini cakes
2 pork chops
1/4 cup cooking wine
1/2 cup cooking broth
olive oil, salt, pepper
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350 F
2. Mix grated zucchini, beaten egg, flour, and bread crumbs together with a fork. Mixture should stick together, but doesn't need to be super sticky. If it's too wet, add more bread crumbs. Shape mixture into 4 discs.
3. Add 2 tbs olive oil to pan over medium high heat. Brown zucchini cakes for 2-4 minutes per side. Remove cakes from pan, place on baking sheet, and top with cheese (if desired). Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
4. While cakes are cooking, trim fat from pork chops and season with salt and pepper. Remove zucchini bits from frying pan, and add a bit more olive oil. Sear the pork chops on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes per side. Add wine and cook until it is mostly evaporated, flipping pork chops once. Add chicken broth and simmer until done, 4-6 minutes per side.
Natural Eating Tip: I always keep a container of organic, low sodium chicken broth in my fridge. Chicken broth is excellent for giving flavour to many dishes. I often use it as the base for cooking rice or soup, giving a lot more body to the dish than cooking in water.
Ingredients (based on serving 2, double to serve 4):
1 large zucchini, grated
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbs flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
white cheese of your choice, to top zucchini cakes
2 pork chops
1/4 cup cooking wine
1/2 cup cooking broth
olive oil, salt, pepper
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350 F
2. Mix grated zucchini, beaten egg, flour, and bread crumbs together with a fork. Mixture should stick together, but doesn't need to be super sticky. If it's too wet, add more bread crumbs. Shape mixture into 4 discs.
3. Add 2 tbs olive oil to pan over medium high heat. Brown zucchini cakes for 2-4 minutes per side. Remove cakes from pan, place on baking sheet, and top with cheese (if desired). Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
4. While cakes are cooking, trim fat from pork chops and season with salt and pepper. Remove zucchini bits from frying pan, and add a bit more olive oil. Sear the pork chops on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes per side. Add wine and cook until it is mostly evaporated, flipping pork chops once. Add chicken broth and simmer until done, 4-6 minutes per side.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
How (not) to be an Ally - Obama and Gay Marriage
Sometimes, to be an ally of a community that lacks, civil rights, you must be willing to accept personal consequences. You'd think that Barack Obama would understand that very well, but I'm not feeling it with his stance against gay marriage. This self-described fierce proponent for equality rights for gays and lesbians openly opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs. Mr. Obama, I'm sorry, but if you believe in full equality for a group of people, you can't go halfway.
Compare Mr. Obama's stance to Paul Martin's. Paul Martin was the Prime Minister of Canada who introduced the bill that legalized gay marriage throughout Canada. He did this despite being Catholic and facing threats of excommunication from Catholic leaders in Canada. Here is what he said about the issue of voting for gay marrage despite his religious beliefs:
"Religious leaders have strong views both for and against this legislation. They should express them. Certainly, many of us in this House, myself included, have a strong faith, and we value that faith and its influence on the decisions we make. But all of us have been elected to serve here as Parliamentarians. And as public legislators, we are responsible for serving all Canadians and protecting the rights of all Canadians.
Compare Mr. Obama's stance to Paul Martin's. Paul Martin was the Prime Minister of Canada who introduced the bill that legalized gay marriage throughout Canada. He did this despite being Catholic and facing threats of excommunication from Catholic leaders in Canada. Here is what he said about the issue of voting for gay marrage despite his religious beliefs:
"Religious leaders have strong views both for and against this legislation. They should express them. Certainly, many of us in this House, myself included, have a strong faith, and we value that faith and its influence on the decisions we make. But all of us have been elected to serve here as Parliamentarians. And as public legislators, we are responsible for serving all Canadians and protecting the rights of all Canadians.
We will be influenced by our faith but we also have an obligation to take the widest perspective -- to recognize that one of the great strengths of Canada is its respect for the rights of each and every individual, to understand that we must not shrink from the need to reaffirm the rights and responsibilities of Canadians in an evolving society."
This, Mr. Obama, is how to be an ally to the gay and lesbian community. We cannot support civil rights while allowing our personal religious beliefs to determine how far we're willing to take equality. I know it's a difficult choice to make, and that there are consequences for supporting civil rights. Mr. Martin faced possible excommunication from his own church, and a number of Catholic priests and bishops in Canada stated that they would refuse holy communion to Mr. Martin. He still did the right thing, because he truly believes in civil rights.
Here's Paul Martin's full speech in favour of his bill. It's an excellent speech.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Everybody was Swine Flu Fighting
This whole Swine Flu debacle seems more worthy of the comedic stylings of Jon Swift than Jon Stewart. It's the perfect storm of bureaucratic bumbling and media madness.
First off, we have the CDC and the WHO, both of whom appear incapable of communicating effectively with either the media or normal human beings. The renaming of the Swine Flu into the utterly unmemorable H1N1 Flu Virus was truly comic. Then there were the CDC reps I heard on the radio all weekend, attempting to calm everyone down by explaining that labelling a disease a pandemic simply means that it's widespread, not severe. At the same time, as my husband so reasonably pointed out, they've got a pandemic alert scale that they've raised to five and are threatening to raise to six out of six. In a world of colour-coded terror alerts, can you blame people for thinking that six out of six is supposed to be, like, really bad?
Then there's the usual media, "Oh my god IT CAME FROM MEXICO we're all going to DIE!!!" screeching. I can almost hear the disappointment in the Canadian TV news personalities' voices whenever someone fails to die of swine flu here. They're so sad about the lack of apocalypse so far that they've switched from "We're all going to DIE!!!" to the slyer "Is swine flu a threat... to your CHILDREN?" I swear, I feel worse for North America's criminally overprotected kids with every news report. I really hope they all rebel when they have children of their own, and actually let their kids go out and do fun stuff again.
Beyond the screaming headlines, however, you can get a fascinating glimpse into the labyrinthine world of US/Mexico relations. The typical US xenophobes are spouting their usual anti-immigrant rhetoric, and of course trying to use this as an excuse to rid the US of all "illegals", never mind that said "illegals" have been in the USA, not Mexico, and are no more likely to have swine flu than anybody else. More interesting (and insidious) is the casual equation of Mexico and other third world countries with uncleanliness and unsanitary living, never mind that the flu exists everywhere, and that North Americans really aren't all that great at washing their darn hands after using the public washroom. In the meantime, the Mexican public, fed up with US anti-Mexico rhetoric, is happy to entertain various conspiracy theories of Swine Flu actually starting in the US and being exported to Mexico.
Me? I continue to believe that driving on the streets of Toronto is far more likely to kill me than a global flu pandemic.
Edit: Update! The CBC News has helpfully informed us that the median age of all Greater Toronto Area swine flu sufferers is 25. Yes, that's the median age of all 36 cases of swine flu in the GTA. I'm so glad I have been provided with such important and statistically useful information!
First off, we have the CDC and the WHO, both of whom appear incapable of communicating effectively with either the media or normal human beings. The renaming of the Swine Flu into the utterly unmemorable H1N1 Flu Virus was truly comic. Then there were the CDC reps I heard on the radio all weekend, attempting to calm everyone down by explaining that labelling a disease a pandemic simply means that it's widespread, not severe. At the same time, as my husband so reasonably pointed out, they've got a pandemic alert scale that they've raised to five and are threatening to raise to six out of six. In a world of colour-coded terror alerts, can you blame people for thinking that six out of six is supposed to be, like, really bad?
Then there's the usual media, "Oh my god IT CAME FROM MEXICO we're all going to DIE!!!" screeching. I can almost hear the disappointment in the Canadian TV news personalities' voices whenever someone fails to die of swine flu here. They're so sad about the lack of apocalypse so far that they've switched from "We're all going to DIE!!!" to the slyer "Is swine flu a threat... to your CHILDREN?" I swear, I feel worse for North America's criminally overprotected kids with every news report. I really hope they all rebel when they have children of their own, and actually let their kids go out and do fun stuff again.
Beyond the screaming headlines, however, you can get a fascinating glimpse into the labyrinthine world of US/Mexico relations. The typical US xenophobes are spouting their usual anti-immigrant rhetoric, and of course trying to use this as an excuse to rid the US of all "illegals", never mind that said "illegals" have been in the USA, not Mexico, and are no more likely to have swine flu than anybody else. More interesting (and insidious) is the casual equation of Mexico and other third world countries with uncleanliness and unsanitary living, never mind that the flu exists everywhere, and that North Americans really aren't all that great at washing their darn hands after using the public washroom. In the meantime, the Mexican public, fed up with US anti-Mexico rhetoric, is happy to entertain various conspiracy theories of Swine Flu actually starting in the US and being exported to Mexico.
Me? I continue to believe that driving on the streets of Toronto is far more likely to kill me than a global flu pandemic.
Edit: Update! The CBC News has helpfully informed us that the median age of all Greater Toronto Area swine flu sufferers is 25. Yes, that's the median age of all 36 cases of swine flu in the GTA. I'm so glad I have been provided with such important and statistically useful information!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
De-chemming Your Diet - How to Eat More Naturally Without Going Nuts
Everyone has their own reason for wanting to eat a more natural diet. For me, it was the suspicion that a sensitivity to MSG (monosodium glutamate) was responsible for a number of nagging health problems I've had over the years. Others might be interested in losing weight, eating more environmentally/globally responsible food, or simply increasing their well-being in general. Whatever your motivation, it can be difficult to alter your cooking and eating habits in order to reduce the number of artificial ingredients in your food.
While I started my journey by simply avoiding MSG in my diet, the time I spent reading food labels sensitized me to foods with large amounts of processed and artificial ingredients. I soon decided that I would also avoid eating foods containing high-fructose corn syrup, and would in general try not to buy foods with large numbers of artificial ingredients. It hasn't been easy, but through careful shopping I've managed to both greatly reduce my consumption of processed/artificial foods and significantly reduce my grocery bill. I no longer suffer from regular intestinal problems and dizzy spells, I've lost weight, and I have more energy. It's been great for me, and I thought I'd share my tips for others who'd like to eat better, but who also want to eat affordably. I make compromises - I'm not sure if the organic foods I buy are truly organic and completely pesticide free - but I've made a good start without breaking the bank or driving myself insane.
Here are my shopping tips:
1. Shop on the periphery of the grocery store. I noticed a popular nutrition/diet book out that gave this same advice about a year after I'd started doing it myself. The vast majority of my current food purchases are from the produce, meat, and dairy sections of the store. The middle aisles of the store are Processed Food Central, and shopping there usually involves a lot of label reading for me.
2. Read labels and decide which ingredients you will definitely avoid, and which you will tolerate. If you want to avoid MSG, look both for "monosodium glutamate" and any "hydrolized" ingredients on food labels. Also avoid buying foods that list "soy" + anything that isn't "beans", such as "soy protein isolate". Soy lecithin, however, is not associated with MSG and seems relatively non-toxic.
In general, when comparing products, I will go with the product that has the simplest, least polysyllabic ingredient list. Since I now know which ingredients are most important for me to avoid, I've gotten much faster at choosing what I'm willing or unwilling to buy.
3. Check around town for inexpensive ways to buy organic/natural food. Many organic/natural food stores (hello, Whole Foods) are expensive, but luckily organic and natural foods are becoming more popular. Sometimes you can find them in surprising places. For example, in Canada, Shopper's Drug Mart is currently selling an affordable line of organic canned and boxed foods. Finding MSG-free soup at Shopper's has been a godsend for our emergency food supply. In the States, you may be one of the lucky individuals who lives near a Trader Joe's. If you are, I am very jealous. Tell them to open a store in Toronto, damn it!
Just like for regular groceries, you'll have to read the labels on so-called organic and natural foods. Many supposedly healthy or natural foods are full of the exact same artificial ingredients as normal processed foods.
4. Take a serious look at store brands. This may not be true of all store brands, but I've found that the store brands at my local grocery stores contain far fewer artificial ingredients than the big brands. Foods with a lower price and with natural ingredients? Yes, please!
Hopefully, this will help budding natural eaters get started with the shopping. Next time, I'll talk about eating naturally while keeping your cooking time down and your flavour level up.
Note: I have linked to Wikipedia in this entry because it's an easy central location from which to get basic information. Of course, if you want to get serious about researching food processing and artificial ingredients, find better scientific sources than Wikipedia.
While I started my journey by simply avoiding MSG in my diet, the time I spent reading food labels sensitized me to foods with large amounts of processed and artificial ingredients. I soon decided that I would also avoid eating foods containing high-fructose corn syrup, and would in general try not to buy foods with large numbers of artificial ingredients. It hasn't been easy, but through careful shopping I've managed to both greatly reduce my consumption of processed/artificial foods and significantly reduce my grocery bill. I no longer suffer from regular intestinal problems and dizzy spells, I've lost weight, and I have more energy. It's been great for me, and I thought I'd share my tips for others who'd like to eat better, but who also want to eat affordably. I make compromises - I'm not sure if the organic foods I buy are truly organic and completely pesticide free - but I've made a good start without breaking the bank or driving myself insane.
Here are my shopping tips:
1. Shop on the periphery of the grocery store. I noticed a popular nutrition/diet book out that gave this same advice about a year after I'd started doing it myself. The vast majority of my current food purchases are from the produce, meat, and dairy sections of the store. The middle aisles of the store are Processed Food Central, and shopping there usually involves a lot of label reading for me.
2. Read labels and decide which ingredients you will definitely avoid, and which you will tolerate. If you want to avoid MSG, look both for "monosodium glutamate" and any "hydrolized" ingredients on food labels. Also avoid buying foods that list "soy" + anything that isn't "beans", such as "soy protein isolate". Soy lecithin, however, is not associated with MSG and seems relatively non-toxic.
In general, when comparing products, I will go with the product that has the simplest, least polysyllabic ingredient list. Since I now know which ingredients are most important for me to avoid, I've gotten much faster at choosing what I'm willing or unwilling to buy.
3. Check around town for inexpensive ways to buy organic/natural food. Many organic/natural food stores (hello, Whole Foods) are expensive, but luckily organic and natural foods are becoming more popular. Sometimes you can find them in surprising places. For example, in Canada, Shopper's Drug Mart is currently selling an affordable line of organic canned and boxed foods. Finding MSG-free soup at Shopper's has been a godsend for our emergency food supply. In the States, you may be one of the lucky individuals who lives near a Trader Joe's. If you are, I am very jealous. Tell them to open a store in Toronto, damn it!
Just like for regular groceries, you'll have to read the labels on so-called organic and natural foods. Many supposedly healthy or natural foods are full of the exact same artificial ingredients as normal processed foods.
4. Take a serious look at store brands. This may not be true of all store brands, but I've found that the store brands at my local grocery stores contain far fewer artificial ingredients than the big brands. Foods with a lower price and with natural ingredients? Yes, please!
Hopefully, this will help budding natural eaters get started with the shopping. Next time, I'll talk about eating naturally while keeping your cooking time down and your flavour level up.
Note: I have linked to Wikipedia in this entry because it's an easy central location from which to get basic information. Of course, if you want to get serious about researching food processing and artificial ingredients, find better scientific sources than Wikipedia.
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