The Mind Of OverlordTomala
Food/Drink

This thread is brought to you by several balanced breakfasts

I’ve more than fulfilled my promise this weekend for healthy breakfasts, and even managed to get over my fear of oatmeal. I grew up not really caring for it… and I think in part it might be in how it was prepared for me the few times I had to to try and stomach my way through a bowl. Now that I’m an adult with an overactive imagination and an appetite to apply a small amount of it to I think I’ve managed to actually make oatmeal to be proud of. The above is a mix of chopped frozen black cherries, whole recently frozen blueberries, dried cranberries, sliced fresh banana, pralines, maple syrup, brown sugar, cinnamon and just a touch of salt. It was the right amount of sweetness, and the addition of nuts and berries gave it additional flavor. I was so proud of myself that I decided to do a different variant today:

This one consists of brown sugar, vanilla extract, walnuts, frozen mangoes, strawberries and pineapple chunks, and another chopped banana. It felt nice to have something warm with the taste of the tropics on an otherwise cold morning. I’m thinking of next week of making some breakfast curry of some sort; until then I have these to look forward til hump day.

The one in the middle is a raspberry white chocolate parfait that I plan to bring to work tomorrow. The one on the left is a caramel banana oat parfait (though they all have oats in them), and the one on the right is basically the same thing as the one on the left but with maple syrup instead of caramel, and the addition of walnuts. Oh, and they all have cocoa granola because that just sounds good with any of these. :trollface:

If anyone has good breakfast or any other kind of food ideas you’ve tried recently I’d like to hear it!

Food/Drink

Mastering The Zen Of Yogurt

Sorry, been a busy week and these have really been coming in handy. I never got to put together that caramel banana one I had envisioned; instead I decided to make all of the remaining yogurt parfaits for the week into matcha ones, not that you’d be able to tell or anything due to all of that fruitiness going on.

This mix consists of:

  • Greek Vanilla Yogurt (or your personal preference)
  • Honey or Agave (optional)
  • Blueberries
  • Black Cherries
  • Japanese Matcha sweetened with Monkfruit
  • Pulverized Oats
  • Topped with a fruit and nut granola mix

After eating one of these I was basically set for the rest of the day. I haven’t even had a proper after work lunch yet, and I ate this about 7 hours ago! The sweetness of the blueberry helps offset the tangy black cherries, and matcha mixed in yogurt with fruit not only adds a nice tea flavor but also offers helpful antioxidants alongside the blueberries. I’m not a health nut, but somehow I keep making these choices.

I’ll be bringing another parfait of the same make tomorrow, that one was good enough to have an encore.

Food/Drink

Food Thoughts For Thought

I’ve been continuing to experiment with yogurt parfaits. While I like them they are still very liquid based, including the THICC Greek variants. Adding granola doesn’t seem to help absorb much, though adding pulverized oats to the parfaits thickens them up kinda like a pudding, and I feel even fuller for longer without having to piss like a race horse. The first two days are cocoa parfaits; one is a chocolate cinnamon crunch parfait and the other was chocolate raspberry.

I’m thinking Thursday I’ll make a caramel banana nut oat parfait, then Friday and Saturday will be matcha based. Start the week off with indulgence, and end it with some balance. I’ve also been formulating breakfast plans for the weekend. Last weekend was Japan, the week before was Curry, and I still want to keep it on the healthy side for another week (must… resist… bacon). I’ve been looking up a few ideas on both the sweet and savory side… I’ve even entertained the idea of a vegetable/tomato based yogurt parfait with peppers and quinoa. It would be based off of a Bulgarian yogurt soup recipe I found years ago; Consisting mainly of tomato, peppers, cucumber, walnuts, and a few other ingredients. I was also thinking of adding quinoa into the mix. Despite what you might think plain yogurt mixed with vegetables, tomatoes, herbs and nuts isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Gaming

From Soul Calibur 6 To Yakuza 0

Even The Yakuza cannot resist the sweet taste of watermelon.

The rain convinced me to stay in pajamas today, and to play a game in bed for awhile. Leveled up a bit more in Soul Calibur IV, and I also decided to go back into Yakuza 0. I started a game of it almost a year ago and never got back to it! This ends today…. or tonight rather!

This is the first game I’ve played in the series, and while the cutscenes seem kind of long I do find them to be a nice break on my hand (all those combos); they also do a good job conveying what’s going on. Kiryu (the character you play) was hired to rough some dude up in an alley way, and you do exactly that… there’s just one problem. The guy you rough up gets shot, and you’re framed for it.

I won’t go into the story too much; other than to say that it’s one hell of a ride so far. I feel like I keep going further and further down a rabbit hole, pieces of the puzzle are in front of me, yet not enough to paint a full picture. I had to take a break from fisting an entire board room of Yakuza who wanted some of my sweet ass, as my right hand was starting to cramp up. But I had a hell of a fun time.

I found Canada!

My only complaint about the game so far is the minimap. I don’t know if its just me, but I have a difficult time following it to my destination. I keep making sure to try and stand in the right place, and looking over to the top right of the screen to make sure I can move forward. If anything I had a harder time with that than the actual gameplay.

It also dawned on me that there are a few minigames that I could play with another friend! Might have to have a Yakuza bowling night sometime!

All in an Overlord's day / Gaming

Current Mood: Japan

Could you pass the wasabi?

I’ve been having a pretty zen weekend. Made some Miso soup, tamago, some rice with a rice seasoning I got for Christmas, and I also blended some yogurt and more of that monkfruit and matcha with some greek yogurt and added nuts and the homemade cherry sauce on top. It was so filling I was able to skip lunch, though that was also due to sleeping in. 😛 I had a really tiring week, and I have a feeling next week might be moreso.

I played a bit of Mark Of The Ninja (Remastered), and I have to say that I like it so far. Sadly I have no pictures of my own, but basically its a sidescrolling stealth platformer entirely in 2D with fairly decent animated 2D cutscenes. The voice acting isn’t what I would call great, but this is an indie title, and the gameplay so far makes up for it. I also progressed further into Soul Calibur VI, though I mainly did side fights. Came across someone jealous of my anal beads.

Other than that I did some online shopping for some new PJ’s and have always had a mug of green tea in one form or another, at my side the entire day. I’m thinking tomorrow I’ll make some more Japanese breakfast; followed by making tea and yogurt parfaits for the following work day(s). I actually made a nice cherry green tea one the other day but forgot to share it, had a nice color blend between the matcha and the cherry syrup.

Now if you’ll excuse me… I’m being lulled away by the scent of cherry blossoms and watermelons. :melon: Hopefully I’ll continue to come out the other side unscathed.

Server / Site Related

The Bluehost Blues

Last August I began having issues with my website provider Bluehost, when they “upgraded” my service by taking away my ability to open a process manager, and also made it impossible for me to run a murmur server due to their ridiculously low file descriptor count. In the old days I could just submit a support ticket to get a config changed, or open certain server ports for example. Now you have to either sit down and chat with them on the phone, or have an online chat with them. I’ve complained to them numerous times about my issues with no success, in fact at one point they made it even worse for me by changing my PHP version from 7.2 to 5.0, which is the equivalent of ordering a cheeseburger at a restaurant and instead having a toaster served to you on a platter with maple syrup and a hobo’s flaming scarf. What part of “Follow this wiki link and increase my file descriptors” even remotely translates into “Downgrade my PHP version plz”? PHP and Murmur don’t even have anything to do with each other!

They also managed to lock me out of FTP. Two tech support sessions and about a month later I eventually get my FTP access back… However I’m still at square one. I’ve been telling them from the beginning that I needed my file descriptors increased in order to run murmur, and I even linked instructions to them on a wiki page! After about another month I got word back basically stating what I already knew; My old server they migrated me from had a larger file descriptor count, and since I’m on shared hosting I would most likely have to pay for a dedicated server to do what I basically did before… They were going to look into things further, and said they would get back in contact with me sometime after thanksgiving… I still haven’t heard from them, at this point I decided take a friend’s advice and just go to Digital Ocean.

Now that the holidays are over and I’ve had a chance to breathe I’m proceeding with my server migration plan. I’m copying my files off of bluehost and getting ready to copy website databases, email addresses and the whole shebang to prepare for the move. I have until July to get things switched over, so while I’m not in too big of a hurry I do want to use the time to be through. It will give me plenty of time to test things properly before pulling the plug on bluehost.

It’s a shame that I have to do this after almost a decade :zorak: , but the service I got was anything but impressive. One thing I’m noticing across businesses is the lack of quality in staffing, or rather just lack of staffing in general. I wouldn’t be surprised if bluehost got rid of a bunch of their staff and only hired and trained people just enough to work with WordPress installs. As a result my questions about my Murmur server alluded them… I’ve seen a lot of companies try to take Wal-Mart’s leading business examples beyond the retail front, and it looks like Bluehost Wal-Marted their quality.

All in an Overlord's day / Hobbies / Open Threads

Evening Open Thread

Nothing to really write about tonight. I’ve been doing some SFM and photoshop work the past week in my spare time, and unfortunately I don’t have anything to really produce visually at this time, however if you’ve seen my real world metal jaw mask you might have a rough idea. :melon:  I’m currently working on the ending for the third Skyrim video which is going to take some time.. I’m animating a little over two minutes worth for the ending, and that shit takes awhile when this is only a hobby.

The weather is going to suck again this weekend. I’ll probably have a cozy introverted couple of days… I think I’ve earned it after the last few weekends not quite panning out as planned. I’m thinking of doing something creative tomorrow, but not quite sure what… I think I’ll take a hint from the two accidental naps that I’ve had and get a full night’s sleep before I let my brain think of anything else.

Until then… Open Thread!

All in an Overlord's day

My New Melon Bags

Morty Approves Of The New Bag Law…

As of January 1st plastic bags have been outlawed in Oregon, we now charge 5 cents per paper bag. I already had quite a few reusable bags from when they were first becoming a thing, so it didn’t really bother me when the ban took place. I actually think it’s a good idea. I’ve seen a couple documentaries and have read plenty about plastic in the ocean to know that some things need to change for this to stop. With each change comes growing pains, and if things didn’t change we would still be in castles and villages. I mainly see older people complain about the new law, and the common complaint I hear now is “I keep leaving my bags in the car!” like somehow this was the fault of everyone else. How hard is it to keep these in a purse or something? You can get your bags to fit into tinier bags, or roll them up to fit in your pocket. I take my gaming laptop to work everyday for lunch and have decided to leave a few of these bags in my backpack just in case I need to get a few groceries.

If a stoned gamer can remember to be prepared for a shopping trip after a full day of work then you really have no excuse.