Bliss

If you were alive during the early 2000s, chances are you have seen the above image. The image, Bliss, is the default wallpaper of the default theme of Windows XP, which was the most popular version of Windows until the release of Windows 7.

Despite taking more photos since then, even making sequels to the photo, Bliss remains his most popular photo, and for the most part, he's content.

Such stories make me think that maybe chasing perfection isn't the best way to go. I've learned this as well on one of my temp jobs. The client wanted a presentation, and in the end, everything was a series of JPEGs.

Moral of the story: effort is everything, but don't waste it

- Ryan

Too Hot For TV

When I started this blog a month or so ago I did so with the intent of making some form of income with it someday. I always wanted to use my interest in writing into something marketable, after all: It's not really a job if you enjoy doing it.

Granted, I thought of that before Twitter and Facebook were a thing, so fuck me up the ass, I guess.

However, I still do want to continue writing, inasmuch as my actual ability. The blog was also meant to host any writing that I do, fictional or otherwise, and this site will continue that function, as will it also play host to my semi-weekly writings.

To that end, I've made a separate site for my work which are bit spicier in nature. This site will function as a bleached underpants site, the one you take home to mother. The other site will be a bit more ranty, a bit more cursey, and definitely a bit more sexual.

I won't link it here, as that site would be more personal in nature. Find it or don't, I wouldn't care, though it would be best if there was less links to both sites as much as possible.

So yes, this site will continue to be up, thank you.

And to those who genuinely read my site, please comment. It'll help me think about topics to talk about.

- Ryan

A Quick Recipe

Let's talk about what we pass down.

My grandmother has a recipe for baked chicken, which I loved to eat growing up. For the longest time I grew excited when I saw a whole chicken in a baking pan, knowing that the best goddamn food was gonna get cooked.

When I was 19-20 years old, she taught me the recipe for the marinade, and it made me wonder about her other recipes: her garlic shrimp, her adobo chicken and pork, her fried pork. When the inevitable happens, who'll cook 'em? Furthermore, who taught her the recipes?

It's all pointless, really, wondering where it came from. But it did leave me with a wish to preserve at least one recipe. Something to remind me of days-back-when.

So without further ado, the recipe to my grandmother's marinade:

• Salt
• Pepper
• Oyster sauce
• Knorr Liquid Seasoning
• Garlic powder
• Chopped onions

First put the chicken in a baking pan. Thoroughly rub salt on the bird inside and out, but not too much. Then, add pepper and garlic powder, then splash with the seasoning and oyster sauce.

Rub the bird thoroughly inside and out with the marinade, then stuff with onions. Put it in the fridge for at least 6 hours to 2 days.

Specific measurements? Just eyeball it.

- Ryan

The Current Agenda

I'm beginning to hate the word "agenda". It's just become shorthand for "thing that I can't describe but dislike intensely." "Agenda" is no longer an itinerary, a list of things to be done. "Agenda" is now a global conspiracy done by the faction and/or ideology of its preceding word.

Within our increasingly open world thanks to the Internet, more lines are being drawn. Humanity as a whole is tribalist in nature, and "us v. them" is becoming the most popular narrative nowadays. We don't open our minds anymore, we close them up. We are convinced in our righteousness, and we surround ourselves with people who agree.

It's a terrible system, and sadly, I feel that it's here to stay for a while.

- Ryan

Addicted to Stress

There are times in which I literally do nothing but goof off despite the fact that there's a deadline on my head, like a sword of Damocles.

This is one of those times.

It's an in-built function that runs in the rest of my family. Whenever something stressful happens, we do something else: me and my sister go online and shut the rest of the world out, my other sister does the opposite and goes out partying.

Really this is just one of the things that everyone else experiences, but I find it interesting to talk about: why do we do something else when faced with stress, when we know fully well that just walking up and dealing with it is a logical course of action.

It's one of those things, yeah.

- Ryan

A Sentence on Long Weekends and a Paragraph on an Ex-Girlfriend

Personally, long weekends are the worst. I remember back when I had 3 months of jack shit to do: nothing but sitting down on a chair and doing god-knows-what on a computer. Looking back, trying to remember that period of my life, one woman defined that period of my life: Rachel.

I met her by chance on Omegle (I was a really bored motherfucker at the time), we added each other on Skype, and for 3 months, it was pure marital bliss, so to speak. She was smart, well-spoken, a well open-mind, and she was a fiery redhead to boot.

Then it was over, just like that. We broke up, and we've never talked to each other since. I wonder sometimes how she's doing. I hope she's doing well.

 - Ryan

A Skill Level Far, Far Away

(Originally posted 10/24/17) 

I've been thinking of getting some of the Star Wars kits. The though of owning one was always in the back of my mind whenever I walked into a local hobby store, but in the end, I usually just leave or, more likely, get another Gundam because goddamn it the Battle Droid and STAP needs to be at least 1/6 scale and Bandai is not making it. ​I mean c'mon, hate the prequels all you want but you have to admit that it has some amazing designs:

In all seriousness though, the biggest barrier to the Star Wars line is, like all things, money. Paints don't come cheap, and the Gundam series, especially the Master Grade line, don't require it.

Personally I'm down with just some waterslides and a topcoat of either matte or semi-gloss. Money, however, isn't my biggest barrier to entry. No, my biggest barrier to entry is skill level. Anyone can paint, but painting well, to my preferred standards? That takes time, time which I honestly don't have anymore. Maybe one day I'll be rich enough to just lie back and practice, but for now...

 It's been nearly a month, where is it, Local Hobby Shop?

- Ryan