Cooking with Kris

I don't cook often. At least, not as often as I used to. I've never been good at it, but sometimes, my culinary experimentation reveals something that I think is worth sharing with the internet at large. I've never been a big fan of standard recipe formats, so you'll have to keep up a bit.

Maybe you, like me, like sweet things. Maybe you also like the occasional drought of alcohol. I stumbled upon a way to mix those two things into one convenient thing.

Start with ice cream:

Any flavor will work. The more exotic, the more effective.

Derp

Sorry guys. Been busy with school and this one kind of got away from me. Believe it or not, I'm working on a respectable queue so this doesn't happen again.

Penny Reviews: 2011, Part I

I got a lot of comics in 2011 (while reviewing them for this blog, I made the mistake of estimating their cost and lost three hours to a haze of fiscal shame), and as people often do at the end of a year, I've taken a moment (actual value of moment is three days) to reflect on my purchases and share the resulting insights with you, the unwary reader.

Planetary Vol 4 by Warren Ellis

Fucking. Awesome.

#1 Best

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 41

Every Most Tuesdays I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Okay, I’m on this thing now.  I know Dean Cain’s Clark from “Lois and Clark” did some petty things that I don’t think of as super(though I can’t think of any specific examples), but maybe that’s part of his relatability? I mean, wouldn’t we do some petty things against people who are jerks if we had Superman’s powers?  Most of us would go beyond ‘petty,’ which is strange because I’ve used that word so much to describe super-villains. They aren’t petty, they’re petty and they won’t let it go. Oh, man, with the exception of the hairpiece thing, I’m not really sure what I’ve got on Superman doing that kind of thing. I’m sure it was common in The Silver Age. On the one hand, I get that Superman is a persona; he is that guy of course, but he’s also Clark Kent, average human reporter who doesn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders all of the time. Someone who does relax, who has fun, and enjoys the life that he works so hard to preserve for others. No, again Clark Kent is a reporter who’s clumsy and awkward. He doesn’t exude confidence or enjoy the company of others. Again, I’m thinking is the guy who can bench press planets and have quiet evenings with Lois Lane is someone else entirely, someone who can do all the things I listed two sentences ago. A guy who misses his planets and a family he’ll never see, but enjoys baseball and his mom’s apple pie. A guy who talks to his wife about the burdens of being a living icon while causing some occasional mischief with his god-like powers. Again, I think of Superman as really being Kal-El, Last Son of Krypton, Clark Kent by day, Superman…also by day.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 40

Every Most Tuesdays I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Throughout this all, Doctor Doom is reserved, almost reactionary. He doesn't go looking for fights, but finishes them utterly once they start. He doesn't commit genocide against other alien invaders, just wrecks their ability to make war. He doesn’t go out looking for a fight with The Celestials, he just stops them from interfering in the affairs of lesser civilizations because they interfered with his. He gains the Inifinity Gems because he's confident that he can and should wield this power. While I haven't read any of the “Infinity Gauntlet” that wasn't written by Brian Clevinger, I'm pretty sure there was a lot of fucking hand-wringing over what to do with the Infinity Gems once Thanos was defeated. A lot of “that's too much responsibility for one man”s being thrown around. While Doctor Doom doesn't doubt the morality of his actions, once he can surpass his petty desires to rule the world, avenge himself on Reed Richards, and save his mother's soul, his moral compass points as well as any superhero's that doesn't doubt itself and eagerly agrees to ignore The Prime Directive if someone else does first.

It's strange that Doctor Doom's actions in this story still aren't heroic; they're responsible. He doesn't have that moral myopia that only lets him hit the guy in front of him. He'd rather the job be done definitively than to keep bloodshed at a minimum. The exception is that he doesn't concern himself with the massive consequences of fighting the most powerful beings in the universe because he is right and they are wrong. Indeed, that kind of moral myopia isn't foreign to Doom, it's actually his normal level of petty elimination of people who oppose him. He will change the status quo of existence itself because it inconveniences him. That the consequences destroy Earth are no matter; he uses the last of his power to give the Earth a glorious rebirth. Of course, Doom himself is given a rebirth as a simple human, so much the better to begin his quest anew.

Doom must strive. Doom must oppose. It's only in adversity that Doctor Doom finds his calling. It's only by punching so far above his weight class that he can find the challenges that a genius—nay, a man—of his caliber requires. The central point of his character isn't to protect others or even to take his petty vengeances, it is to seek, to strive, to find, and not to yield (Yes, Tennyson). It’s the same unquenchable fire that drives heroes, but its direction is totally inward, pushing Doom to test and prove himself. Doom must be the best, he must be worthy of his own image.

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Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 39

Every Most Tuesdays I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

In the What-If, however, Doctor Doom detects The Beyonder's survival and doesn't fall for his trickery. The heroes are not revived and Doom is free to master his new powers and return to Earth.

He does, and pwns heavily. He is opposed first by Tony Stark and Doctor Strange. He simply adjusts Tony's Blood Alcohol Content to make him permanently drunk (bypassing the 'bottle' part of “Demon in the Bottle”) and though Doctor Strange has spent time in a hyperbolic time chamber preparing new spells for the battle, Doom simply Silences him and punts him elsewhere in the multiverse. Then the other heroes rally; pregnant Sue Storm, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, US Agent and...seriously, they are fairly unmemorable from that point forward. It's the C-Team plus S.H.I.E.L.D versus deus ex Doom and in the end...well, Doctor Doom only knows how to rule worlds and defeat that Accursed Richards, and he left all of his Richardses on WarWorld.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 38

I bring this up because this episode (and the related What-If that was released a few years ago) gives us insight into a villain as he becomes powerful beyond imagination. The first thing Doctor Doom does with his powers is restore his face. He later presents himself to the heroes and claims they have nothing to fight over any longer. If they insist on fighting him, he will defend himself. Captain America claims that Doctor Doom is still to be opposed, citing the fact that the first thing he did was restore his face. It brings the pettiness right to the surface. If Doom is still so interested in such minor things, how noble, how far-looking can he be? (I can't remember if he specifically threatened their lives, though I'm inclined to say he didn't, as I don't recall it being mentioned that much.) It brings that issue of pettiness right to the surface. A hero is expected to have a certain amount of vision, not to focus on small or superficial things.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 31

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

However, if Batman is merely good at surrounding himself with morally non-challenging figures, Doctor Doom must have a post-graduate degree in it. Even getting beaten by That Accursed Richards over and over again hasn’t taught him to respect Reed. Getting captured and dethroned by The Avengers wasn’t enough for him to show Osborne any respect when Osborne was offering to release him. He and Namor famously toast one another only to stick knives in each others' backs. Look, I’m not saying that Doctor Doom is dumb; he is obviously gifted in the areas of science and magic, but ‘learning that some people will kick your ass unless you step up your game‘ is apparently the great balancing element of his intellect. Perhaps even overbalancing. Doctor Doom is both incapable and unwilling to hear the voices of failure which surround him. Don’t get me wrong; against anyone who doesn’t have their own comic, Doctor Doom will destroy you like the flotsam you are, but once you get an important character, there will be some technobabble, Doom will get overconfident, and then he will find himself in over his head and be defeated.

The Prisoner: Hammer into Anvil

I haven’t watched any of The Prisoner since around the time that I posted “The General,” as I was waiting for my blogs to catch up with my viewing. Now, as I watch credits for “Hammer into Anvil,” I have time to think about how excited I am to be watching again. The last month? was rough, but after the next five episodes, I’ll have to live years without being able to look forward to new episodes.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 29

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Doctor Doom is a character who feels his obvious greatness must be recognized by the world. He’s his own biggest cheerleader (his ‘man alone’ persona and mom being in Hell makes that something of a necessity, I suppose) and his hardest-working press agent. Doom’s greatest source of publicity is his own voice, and that’s a deal; everyone listens to Doom and what greater thing could Doom speak of than Doom himself? Doctor Doom referring to himself in the third person is the perfect message for the perfect media.  In his head of course. Doctor Doom’s staggeringly massive ego is easily his most defining trait. The funny thing is that it even outpaces his prodigious intelligence, giving him a human flaw and a reason to, despite numerous advantages, fail, and despite numerous failures, carry on. Doom is unrelenting because what he does he does on principle (a warped, selfish principle) and failing to relent is a basic heroic attribute. Batman doesn’t give up. Superman doesn’t give up (mostly).  Spider-Man…sticks it out for a really long time (no pun or double entendre intended).

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 28

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Okay, so the moral myopia and righteous vengeance are staples of the genre. Got it. The heroes who pursue violence against those who don’t deserve it, who are pacifists, and who try to solve all of the world’s problems are doomed to failure. Failure and suck. Eventually.

That said, let’s discuss some of these unapologetic punching bags for our heroes, the villains:

Timewalking Archive Trap: Video Collection, vol 1

Doom stands up:

Awesome.


Music.


Music.


Shatner music.

If you're not keeping up with these, you should be:








Star Wars cut up over the voices for a Departed trailer.


TMNT over Reservoir Dogs. :D


Someone asked about Wilford Brimley the other day.

He's cool. Also, he's the unofficial spokesman for Diabetes(diabeetus).


He has, naturally, been spoofed by the interwebs.


Really, this shit goes on, but they're all variations on the same theme:

Blog in Exactly 1000 Words: In Stores in June

Poorly Photoshopped Deadpool and Doom #1
Poorly Photoshopped Deadpool & Doom
The Merc with a Mouth meets the Megalomaniacal Monarch-for-Life in Metal! Completely unlike anything you've ever seen before, including the time that Deadpool teamed up with that other half-metal ruler of his own sovereign nation, or that time that Deadpool teamed up with someone new every month. While any casual reader might think that this odd couple might be odd enough to warrant 23 pages of the title characters fighting each other every month until the series is canceled, we've bombarded each episode with high amounts of cancer cures and arcane knowledge to give it the one thing no one expected; legs*!

*Conceptmayormaynotactuallyhavelegs. Individualresultswillvary,butthatresultwillprobablybebuyingthisthingbecausepeoplelovethesecharacters.

Blog in Exactly 1000 Words: Bananaphone

Sorry it's late. Trip to Texas set things back a bit.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 07

Every Tuesday, I post excerpts from my best-selling at not-selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

My other blogs are Giant-Sized this week, and so is Playing Favorites. Enjoy.

Full disclosure; I’ve only read, like a half-dozen individual Black Panther comics. That’s not even ‘Black Panther’ comics where his name was on the title. Half of those were ‘Fantastic Four’ issues where Reed and Sue were on vacation after Civil War and newlyweds Black Panther and Storm were filling in. I honestly only picked those up because they ended up dimension-hopping to the Marvel Zombies Universe. I got one from after that arc where they were on racist retard Skrull planet (just like in the classic Star Trek episode, “A Piece of the Action”), but that…had to be an accident; I don’t think that comic came out while I was still drinking heavily.

Anyway, I like Black Panther because he’s the trifecta; the technology, magic, and national support of Doctor Doom, the drive, abilities, and wealth of Batman, and the something something of someone else who isn’t memorable because they aren’t Doctor Doom or Batman(maybe ‘integrity’ and ‘Captain America’). But really, aren’t Batman and Doctor Doom enough to make a trifecta? Possibly more? Is the sum of two and two three? No, it would be foolish to say such is so, but it would not be so foolish to say that two and two is greater than three.