Minimum Safe Distance

James Lipton: “Hello there, internetophiles! I’m celebrity host of Inside the Actors Studio James Lipton. I’m not actually here as part of this story, but since I happened to pop up in the calendar today, I thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you about a much better story, which Riff shamelessly ripped this idea off. Of. Off of which Riff ripped this idea. Shamelessly.”

James Lipton: “That story is the X-Entertainment.com yearly Christmas advent calendar, starring me! James Lipton! And some other people as well. Including a jolly fellow known as Mista Snowman, from whom the personality of Guardbot is pretty obviously stolen. Did I already use the word shamelessly?”

James Lipton: “Admittedly, there are two definite changes that Riff has made from the X-E formula: only having one picture per update, because he’s extremely lazy, and using his incredibly shitty iPhone 3G camera, because he’s incredibly lazy. So a least there’s that!”

James Lipton: “Here’s a link to the first day of 2007’s Advent Calendar. They are kind of a bitch to navigate, because it doesn’t seem like X-E’s Matt has made any provisions for easy post-event viewing, at least not any I’ve been able to find. But the URLs seem pretty standardized, and you can just change the year and day to move around.”

James Lipton: “So, in conclusion, if you have enjoyed this Lego AdventUre, I recommend you take a look at X-Entertainment as well. Thank you.”

And here we have the baby Drago from Mother 3. He’s sort of like a baby tyrannosaurus, except the Dragos are friendly and I guess herbivores? They totally look like tyrannosaurs though. He’s involved in a fairly powerful emotional moment in the game, though I don’t think I should spoil it.

It’s great to have some small characters to work on, because I am tearing through them. It’s nice to have that sense of progression in such a massive project. Also, being able to post a cross-stitch update means I don’t have to do a Lego update today, and man. I am glad people seem to like the Lego adventure thing, but I am starting to get kind of burned out on it. Only 9 days of it left, though, and then I can move on to the thing I have planned to replace it, and that’ll be fun.

Marty: “All right, well, my primitive medieval knowledge of technology may have adapted pretty well to robotics, but I dunno a damn thing about computers. What’s it do, Phil?”

Phil: “It will allow you to view various areas of the city through surveillance cameras we have installed, and transmit your voice to the people and robots in battle.”

Marty: “You mean… I won’t have to actually fight in the battle? I can stay up here and just watch? Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you…”

Phil: “I mean Billy will, because he is good at video games, and you don’t know a damn thing about computers.”

Marty: “Oh. Well, shit.”

Phil: “It also dispenses a soft-serve ice cream which, being a robot, I cannot eat, but Janet assures me it’s delicious.”

Over at the big crossstitch project, we have a Platypunk, the generic badguy mooks from Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. They aren’t a particular favorite or anything — as I recall, they’re kinda funny, but nothing special — but I figured he’d look good standing next to his boss there.

I am going to drop some mad knowledge on you, so buckle your seatbelt.

This is my recipe for really good, zesty, tangy, spicy, easy-as-shit chili. You can throw it together in like half an hour and eat like a damn king. I don’t know a friggin’ thing about cooking, so I’m sure someone like Alton Brown could tell me a million things about this recipe that could be improved, but whatever, it works.

You need a generous-sized skillet — the one I use seems like it’s maybe a foot or a foot and a half across and an inch and a half deep? I’m using it to cook chili at the moment, so I can’t turn it over and see if it has specifications engraved underneath.

Cut up a fist-sized onion (adjust if you have unusually large or small fists) into bite-sized pieces. Get a white onion, preferably one that says “sweet” on the grocery store tag. Don’t get one of those shitty bitter yellow onions.

Turn on the heat under your pan. Turn it all the way up. Drop a fork-sized glob of butter on there — probably like a tablespoon I guess? Measuring is for suckers.

When it starts to sizzle, dump the onions in there and stir them around. Throw on some salt and pepper and stir them around again. Don’t turn on the stove fan yet; this will make your apartment smell fucking awesome. (You may not need to pre-cook the onions like this if you’ve got a source of good-tasting onions. All the ones around here are bitter as hell, though, so I like to make absolutely sure to cook out all that bullshit.)

By the way, make sure you are using a wooden spoon. A metal one will fuck up your pan; a plastic one will melt and fuck up everything.

Once the onion pieces are looking a bit translucent and starting to brown around the edges just a little, drop in a pound of hamburger.

I recently discovered the joy of buying like four pounds of hamburger at a time and quartering it up into one-pound wads in plastic ziploc bags and freezing it. Then you just grab a block out of the freezer, clonk it in a bowl and microwave it for six minutes, pour off the gross, and holy shit, you’ve got MEAT son! (You gotta cook it for reals right away though, microwave defrosting does not count for sufficiently cooking a block of hamburger.)

Bust up the hamburger into little bits with your wooden spoon, add more salt and pepper, and stir it around with the onions. Also add some minced garlic — the definition of ‘some’ will vary from person to person. It is best if you buy a bulb and mince your own cloves, but I won’t fault you for buying a jar of pre-minced garlic and using that. It’s way much easier. You can turn your stove fan on now, but take a minute to enjoy that hearty meat-cooking smell first.

Give the stuff another stir every couple moments. Flip over the bits of meat so the other side cooks. While you’re doing that — actually before you start cooking at all, to be honest — open and drain the slime from a can of dark red kidney beans. Pour them into a colander or strainer of some kind and give them a good rinse, because the juice they pack those beans in is nasty as hell. Also drain the juice (there isn’t much) out of a can of 100% Natural Hunt’s Diced Basil Garlic & Oregano (which also includes tomatoes, despite not actually saying so on the label).

When you can’t see any more pink in the meat, dump in your kidney beans and stir them in. Once you’re done stirring and you figure you’ve given them enough time to heat up, pour in the tomatoes and stir them in as well. This is where stirring will get difficult, because the skillet is getting pretty full, so err more on the side of not sloshing the stuff out of the frying pan.

Then pour in a can of Campbell’s Select Harvest Garden Recipes Zesty Tomato Bisque. This stuff is pretty goddamn delicious just as soup, by the way, and I do not at all enjoy what you think of when you think “tomato soup”. The soup adds enough liquid to make everything much easier to stir, so do that now (It’s easiest to like start at the sides and push the stuff in toward the middle).

Now! Add several shakes of dried basil, oregano, and parsley flakes. If you have fresh herbs, by all means use them, but man if you have enough money to buy fresh herbs or the patience to grow them, I am not the man to be getting recipes from. Add a healthy dusting of paprika, and some “Mrs. Dash” if you’ve got some. And then add some Tabasco (or Frank’s Red Hot or Tapatío if that’s your preferred brand), some cayenne pepper, and some chili powder. Don’t overdo it with the spicy stuff, you don’t want to overpower the rest of the flavors. If it turns out to not be spicy enough, you can use more next time.

Stir that all in pretty thoroughly, and then add several gloops of Heinz A1 sauce, a good spritz of balsamic vinegar, and a nice fat squeeze of lemon juice. Stir it again.

Go away for a couple minutes, then come back and stir it again. Go away again and find something else to do, then remember you’re cooking chili and come back and stir it again. It’s okay if it starts to stick to the pan — just scrape it up with your wooden spoon. The charred bits will add flavor.

Continue occasional stirring until the chili has thickened to a point where it’s legitimately chili and not soup or stew. Take it off the heat, and stir in a small can of peas. Give them a few seconds to warm up, and then dish yourself up a bowl. If there are other people around, you still get the first bowl because you goddamn cooked it.

Add some shredded cheese and a fat glob of sour cream and enjoy some delicious motherfucking chili.

This recipe serves two big eaters or four people if they aren’t very hungry and you’re also making a salad or some shit.

Cindy: “Excuse me?”

Hairbrush Santa: “What the-! Who are you?”

Cindy: “Oh, just a traveler of no particular importance, and not anybody you need to trouble your friends with. You appear to have set up an elaborate portable hairstyling station in the middle of the woods, and I just had to ask.”

Hairbrush Santa: “Yep. I set it up every night when we make camp, hoping that Femme de Pain will let me brush her beautiful hair, but she always threatens me with that loaf of bread of hers.”

Cindy: “That’s your psycho deal? You like to brush hair?”

Hairbrush Santa: “Like it? I live for it! The feel of the brush running through a long silken mane! Ho ho ho!”

Cindy: “That’s a little strange, but it doesn’t seem like that would mark you as a full-on psycho.”

Hairbrush Santa: “Well, I did murder a few ladies with particularly lovely hair, ‘coz they refused to let me brush it. Wasn’t fair for them to be so selfish.”

Cindy: “Oh.”

Hairbrush Santa: “Oh my. You know, now that my eyes are adjusting to the moonlight… you’ve got quite a beautiful head of hair yourself. Ho ho ho!”

Cindy: “Yeah, well, I do try to take care of it. Umm… look, you’re not being euphemistic or anything, right? You are speaking literally about liking to brush hair? And with a regular brush, not a knife or your dick or anything?”

Hairbrush Santa: “Hey! Lady, I take offense to that! Hairbrushing is a serious passion for me, and I wouldn’t sully it with that sort of filth!”

Cindy: “Sorry, sorry, I just had to make sure. Listen, I’ll tell you what: if you tell me everything you know about this mob of people you’re travelling with, and where you’re going and what your plan is, and promise not to tell them about me, I’ll let you brush my hair.”

Hairbrush Santa: “…Huh. That’s mighty tempting, miss, but you’re asking an awful lot.”

Cindy: “I’ll let you french braid my hair.”

Hairbrush Santa: “Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!”

Marty: “Okay, while the robots are working on shoring up the town’s security systems and so forth, I wanted to call all us humans together for a strategy meeting and pep talk, and… and…”

Janet: “And what, Marty?”

Marty: “And is this everybody? Three guys, two kids, a dog and a cat? Is this seriously all the humans left in this town?”

Miner: “Prrrretty much, yep.”

Marty: “Wow, we are fucked! We are hilariously fucked!”

Overalls: “I gotta say, I’ve heard better pep-talks.”

Hairbrush Santa: “What’s yer problem, fella? You said you didn’t wanna pull the luggage cart any more! Ho ho ho!”

Keith: “Hate… you guys… so… much…”

Bolt Head: “Wheeee!”

Bolt Head: “AAAARRRGH!”

Guy: “Calm down, my old friend! You recognize me, non? We fought the robots together?”

Bolt Head: “Uhhhrg?”

Guy: “You remember Voldo, do you not?”

Bolt Head: “Vuhduh?”

Guy: “Le homme with ze mask? And ze claws? Hisses a lot?”

Bolt Head: “Claw! Vuhduh!”

Keith: “Man, when he said ‘not very articulate’ he was vastly understating it. The melty-head guy from The Goonies was better-spoken.”

Hairbrush Santa: “Ho ho ho! Better keep your voice down, kid, something tells me you don’t want him to hear ya talkin’ that way.”

Guy: “So what do you say, eh? You want to rejoin ze psychos and smash robots and kill people again?”

Bolt Head: “KILL! ARRRRRGH!”

Guy: “I assume that ees a ‘yes’.”

Cindy: “Oh god, we are so boned.”

Applepig: “Oink.”

Cindy: “Hello, fellow psychos! I’m looking for some friends of mine that passed this way recently.”

Fireman: “Oh yeah? How do we know you’re actually a psycho and not a regular person?”

Cindy: “I’m travelling with a pig with an apple growing out of its back and a robot that won’t stop singing showtunes.”

Guardbot: “Hello Dolly, well hello Dolly! It’s so nice to have you back where you belong!”

Fireman: “They went that way. They’re maybe five or six hours ahead of you.”

Cindy: “Thanks! I’d better hurry and catch up with them.”

Guardbot: “If I were a rich man, ya ha deedle deedle bubba bubba deedle deedle—”

Cindy: “Please stop.”

So hey, instead of a Lego AdventTures (hurr look how clever, I could be in marketing) post, here’s this. Remember this? This cross-stitch thing I was doing until Minecraft happened? Well, I don’t have any projects going in Minecraft, at least until the next update, so I’ve been working on this instead.

These little guys are the Pokémon Plusle and Minun. I guess they’re sort of like Pikachus, except positively and negatively charged? Which presents all kinds of weird questions. Like, they seem to be two distinct species of creature — the Plusles aren’t all males and the Minuns females, or anything like that. So probably they don’t cross-breed. But, wouldn’t a male and female Plusle, being the same charge, repel each other?

It would probably just lead to madness to think about it any harder than that.