The Great Ramen Fiasco

I’ll get this out of the way quickly: despite what I may have told you to get you in here, I’m not rich. Wait. No, what I meant to say was “there’s isn’t really any fiasco.” Sorry. I’m just used to having to clear that up with girls the morning after when they wake up and ask why I live in my parent’s house. Yeah, so in summary, there’s no fiasco, it’s just a buzzword to get you reading. Wait. Fuck.

So if you’ve decided to move on to the next paragraph, congratulations! You’re in for a good ten minutes of boring crap about me cooking noodles!

Now that that’s out of the way, time for the back-story! For a while now, my interest in cooking has been rising, possibly piquing. I’m not sure if it’s just a phase or if it will grow into a notable part of my life, but for now, it’s just a fun thing I do from time to time. And it’s not any really big cooking either. Usually just pancakes or pasta or something simple. I think the most elaborate thing I’ve made to this point is hamburgers. The important thing is that I’m slowly learning to prepare more diverse types of foods, and I’m really enjoying it.

All this stuff aside, I am still learning the basics. And that’s why some simple things can still pose me a problem. Like ramen noodles. And that’s where my latest foray into the world of food preparation has taken me.


Oh yeah. When you’re on the internet as much as I am, you hear about these bad boys all the time. All the anime-loving geeks eat ramen and pocky like they were imported straight from the Garden of Eden. Or at least that how the stereotype goes. I’d never really eaten the stuff before, but I couldn’t imagine it being any different from any other noodles I’ve eaten in my lifetime.

So I’d picked out what I was going to eat for lunch, and now I would obviously have to prepare it. But in that was my first problem. There were no cooking instructions on the bowl, and there was no way I had enough experience to just improvise. Or did I? My first thought was to fill the thing with water an microwave it, but then I noticed that the bowl said specifically not to mic it. So plan one was boned right away. I was going to have to find another way to get this done. I should mention that I know at least a handful of people who, by lifestyle alone, should theoretically know how to prepare ramen, but with me, human interaction is a last resort, so I stroked my stubble-covered chin hoping for something to click.

And then I saw it. The one thing that could get the job done. My round, squealing salvation. The tea kettle. Before you could say something with about ten or so syllables, I had cow-shaped kettle in hand and was filling it up and ready to rock. I set the stove the max, set ‘er down, and began to wait. Because I assumed the water would take a couple minutes to bring to a boil (it does when it’s in a pot…), I decided to get the ramen opened and ready for wettening.


Inside, I found a block of noodles and two small packages. One was a package of flavouring – “spicy thai” flavouring to be exact – and the other was a very saddening package of dried vegetables. Now, I appreciate the thought, but two peas just ain’t gonna do it in a whole bowl of noodles. When I have peas and noodles, I need to have a decent balance of both in each bite, and I’m thinking that even with the help of the corn niblets and carrot flakes, those peas don’t have much of a chance to satisfy my obsessive-compulsiveness. So rather than drive myself nuts with a poor vegetable-to-noodle ratio, I just tossed the veggies.

At that point, the kettle started whistling (far quicker than I has predicted that it would), so it was back to the task at hand for me. I quickly tore open the spicy thai flavour and poured it on the noddle block, and proceeded to dump the hot water into the bowl. At that moment, however, I was struck with another small dilemma: what now? Should I just mix the noodles up while they soak? Won’t the heat escape? Uh-oh! But then I had another great brainstorm: Hold the lid-flap-thing closed while the noodles soaked! They wouldn’t get mixed much, but all the heat would stay in. Neither of my dogs had any better suggestions, so that was the plan.

Lucky for me, it worked! After a couple minutes, I lifted the cover to find the noodles pleasantly soggy. I mixed them up a bit to make sure the flavouring didn’t clump, and then proceeded to dump the water. It wasn’t until I went to make the banner for this article that I did a GIS for “ramen” and discovered that you’re supposed to leave the water in. Oops. Well, you live and you learn, right?


Ah. Beautiful, no? There she stands; lady victory in all her spicy thai glory.

I have to come clean with you on something again. I didn’t actually use the chopsticks. I’ve tried over and over, but I can’t for the life of me figure the damn things out. But you know, I can’t be totally perfect. As long as the world never needs to be saved by my good use of chopsticks, I’d say we’re gonna be okay. Besides, those chopsticks have probably been there since we moved into the house, and while I’m sure that wood has no expiration date, I can’t help thinking what may have happened to them in that many years.

You think the story ends there? No. I haven’t told you about how good the noodles were yet! Simply put: they were awesome! Spicy thai is wicked tasty and spicy. I made the mistake of drinking what was left in the bottom of the bowl, and my lips felt like they were on fire for a good half-hour afterward. But damn were they good. Sadly, wrangling wet noodles is not something I do often, and I ended up making a huge spotty mess (which was actually like 3 tiny spots, I’m just a total neat freak when it comes to eating), and that made me sad because I never spill. Except today.

One thing that did bug me about the noodles was the package. Not only did it lack any form of instructions, but it also teased me with a picture of delicious toppings for my noodles. The top shows a crab claw and a plethora of peppers, but what did they provide me with? A meager (to be really nice) packet of dried vegetables. Not cool, Noodle Time. Not cool. But you know, aside from that little hiccup, I enjoyed the whole experience. I got to spend fifteen minutes in the kitchen, and the payoff was totally sweet. I highly recommend picking up some spicy thai ramen, as it’s frickin’ awesome.

Everything is better when I’m not around

So I think I’m dying. Or really malnourished. I’m not too sure. Anyway, time for more important matters.

The new New Super Mario Bros video is up. It’s really looking good, but upon closer inspection of the bottom screen, the levels seem to be a little short. Let’s just hope it ends up being as good as Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World.

I shouldn’t have to remind you, but E3 starts in a week. It’s gonna be an awesome show, because we’re finally going to see some Revolution Wii games. Hearing all this talk about Red Steel and Madden 2007 (which sounds like it’s going to be really sweet) is all well and good, but I need something I can really sink my teeth into. Like maybe a video or two of the new Super Smash Bros game. Anything from Nintendo would be nice, really. This is going to be even better than the E3 where they showed off all the Gamecube stuff. It’s bringing back memories of the time before the GC was released, where my friend and I would just sit at IGN and refresh every minute in hopes that some new screenshots or videos would be added. Ah, good times. Good times.

In other news, I may have an article tomorrow. I may not. Depends on how I feel today. And also if I spend the whole day sleeping, like I have been for the last 4 days. Damn overnight shift broke me good. Thank God it’s almost over.

It doesn’t have any soul

Hey, check it out. Another WarioWare copy! But it has been a while since I linked to the last one I found, which is, on that note, still hanging around.

So anyway, I’ve gotten most of what was on the Comedy-Napalm TE over here now. It’s just a matter of the news archives and the CD collection at this point. I’ll be posting a new article later this week, as well as another CN article. What else will happen is strictly up to fate. Oh, and I guess a Band of the Month post should appear in there sometime too. What with April ending today and all.

All I can say, I shouldn’t say

Welcome to the new and very sextastic Torrentialequilibrium.net. I hope you enjoy your stay. Things are a bit disjointed at the moment, but they’ll all be up and in their places soon enough. Big things are going to be happening around here pretty soon too, so make sure you come back every now and again.

That said, I have a Brain Age blog review scheduled for today, so let’s get to that.

First off, Brain Age is not really a game. It’s software intended not to entertain you, but to get your brain moving and in shape. That said, it’s still pretty neat to mess around with. The main idea of the game is to take a series of test each day in an effort to work your brain and keep it at it’s sharpest. Your progress is track by your brain age, which is tells you how old your brain seems by how well you perform. On my first try, my brin was ranked at 77 years old, which I’m certain is pretty horrible. After a couple days though, I’ve been able to work it down to a more respectable 32 (20 is the lowest you can get). The tests include the Stroop Test, some basic arithmetic, and other such things.

You can also get that prefrontal cortex motoring with some basic brain training exercises. These excercises include more basic arithmetic, reading out loud, counting syllables, and other stuff. One exercise in particular shows you pattern of numbers (from between one and ten) for about two seconds, and then you have to poke their positions in order of highest to lowest. You get a stamp every day that you complete at least one exercise, and you unlock more exercises by accumulating stamps.

Finally, the game has a huge number of Sudoku puzzles built in, and while I find Sudoku very easy and not at all worth all the attention it’s been getting lately, it is fun to try to get really fast times on the various puzzles.

The neat thing about Brain Age is that you play it holding the DS sideways. It seems a bit wierd at first, but ends up being far more comfortable than holding it normally. I think it’s an interesting piece of software, and at the bargain price of $25, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Oceans of light envelop me

You know what? I’m not even going to bring it up past this short paragraph. It’s not going to happen. It’s just a name. It’s not worth shitting my pants over. (CONTEXT: The name “Wii” was just unveiled)

Now I’ve got a little dilemma. I seem to have forgotten to tell you about the Silent Hill movie, but I also promised I’d share my opinions on Brain Age today. I don’t want to do both, (why waste a good blog post?) so I’ll just have to push Brain Age to tomorrow. Again.

Okay, so Silent Hill. I love the games very dearly, and if you keep up with this blog, you knew that. So obviously I was very psyched about this movie. It also filled me with fear and sadness because as a rule, video game-based movies blow. Silent Hill did not blow, despite what Scott and Tycho may be telling you. I’m going to go on record and say that it’s the best video game movie ever made. In fact, I loved it. There were so many great things about it that I don’t know where to start. I guess the first thing to hit me was that at least half the music in the movie was ripped straight from the first game, or was at least so similar that I can’t tell the difference. Next, the camera work was brilliant, and very reminiscent of the game. Lastly, the “crazy world” parts were very well executed, and made me a very happy Ryan. The base of the story remained mostly the same, and there were some huge changes that kind of irked me, but I won’t spoil anything like that.

The things I didn’t like about it are as follows: 1) I miss Harry Mason. 2) The fact that it was based on the first game, yet featured Pyramid Head (along with his gigantic knife) from SH2 was a little dumb. 3) They totally trivialized the Lisa character. She could have just as well been cut altogether. 4) You know, that’s about it.

One last thing that doesn’t really need mentioning is something that would have scored huge points with me: if they had used the joke ending from the game. Everybody who hadn’t played the game however many times you need to get that ending would be stupified and angry, but I would have loved it. I’m pretty sure anyone else who has earned that ending would agree with me. Here’s hoping they use the SH2 joke ending in the likely sequel. All hail the Dog!

They bought and sold you

It’ll still be a couple days before I try to get back into the swing of things, but I figured that in the meantime, I’d distract you with a little blog rambling. To tell the truth though, I’ve got nothing. Nope, nothing to say. Nothing new anyway. Well, I did find the soundtracks for Baten Kaitos 1 and 2 on eBay about half an hour ago, and it’s taking every ounce of willpower in my body (and then some) to keep from blowing my hosting money on them and having to wait another eight days for new hosting funds to transfer over.

They’ve begun posting weekly videos over at the New Super Mario Bros site. So if you’re interested in that, then you might want to click my little link there.

I’m going to see Silent Hill tonight. As a gigantic fan of the games, I’ll have a very biased blog review tomorrow, assuming nothing gets in my way.

For the Tetris lover in all of us.

I’m a little surprised at how much people seem to hate the PSP. I’m starting to feel bad for the little guy. Did I really just type that?

Lastly, I feel the need to mention that Planet MegaMan is back up after what seems like forever. It’s still slowly recovering piece-by-piece, but it certainly looks spiffy.

We’ve had our fill of Heaven

Okay, good news. I’ve found solutions to all my problems. Some less great than others, but at least… you know what? Only one is a good solution, and that’s deciding to get my own webhost. Currently, I’m leaning toward Topclasshost, but it’ll still be a few days before my cash transfer will be complete, so if anyone spots a better deal in the next 4-5 days, don’t be afraid to give me a holler.

The next thing I’ve decided is about the site’s future. I’ve come to the conclusion that my last blog post was kind of like a mid-life crisis for the site. As such, I’ve decided that since the site is three-and-a-half years old, I will continue with it until it’s at least seven. At that point, it’ll be up in the air, but I promise that I will continue to provide half-baked entertainment until December of 2009.

Lastly, since I’m really not digging the night shift as much as I thought I would (read: at all), I’ve quit my job. It’s sad because I like the work, but I really hate the hours. I don’t feel so bad though, because my cousins go through jobs like Russians through vodka, and me only quitting one job because I don’t like it doesn’t seem so bad in comparison. Anyway, I’ve already come up with a respectable list of places that I know I’d love working at, so we’ll see how that turns out.

But enough about that shit. I’ve got good news! I’ll be posting a good many articles soon after I get set up with wherever I’ll be hosting my site from, with one being a real movie review. Not one of those lousy quickies. Also a handful of video game reviews, including Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse, and a review of the Tales of Eternia anime series (Because I’m a Tales whore. Seriously. I’m considering getting a PSP for the ToE port, even though I swore to myself that I’d never buy one of the damn things). All this along with some very overdue articles and the rest of the Comedy-Napalm articles. So while there’s been a little slump this month, things are going to get very much better soon. At least for a while. Did anyone suggest the return of weekly articles? I just might consider it…

Argh… One last note: due to inactivity and the whole webhost fiasco, the CN Forums have officially been abandoned. They’ll still be around for a couple months or so, but after that, they’ll be dead. Not like mine, which are still floating around out there somewhere…

The streets are filled with regret

There are three reasons I’ve neglected to post anything over the past week. Firstly, and most dominant of the trio, is that one way or another, I’m going to be moving the site again. Mike has gone and found a new web hosting service, and that means if I’m going to keep blogging on his dollar that I have to move with him. However, I’ve been seriously considering finding my own web host. I’ve been looking around for a bit, and I’ve found one that seems to have all the things I need, so I may very well take my web-fate into my own hands after three and a half years of relying on someone else.

The second reason is that I’ve had no will to write at all lately. I’ve been devoting most of my computer time to Coozy for Hire, and I don’t feel like working on anything else on the computer. I’ve got plenty of things I want to write about or at least give plug in the blog, but this whole graveyard shift business is really taking it out of me. Was everyone who told me it was a bad idea right? Yeah, probably. I still love the work, but the hours are really starting to get to me. Not to mention that I have to start half an hour early every day and manage to get clockblocked for at least twenty mintues every weeknight. That’s just not cool.

The last thing that’s been keeping me astray is thinking about the future. And not just the overall future, but the future of this website. Like what the hell am I going to do with it when I’m done? Will I just let my hosting run out and let it become nothing than a memory? When am I going to decide to call it quits? Am I going to be able to let go or will I kep updating until I die because I don’t want to just throw away something I’ve invested so much time and effort into? Why do I bother doing it all anyway? I get no significant pleasure from writing, and nobody really visits anyway. These thoughts are driving me bonkers, and have helped chop away at my zeal for webmastering. So I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but likely I’ll get a rush of enthusiasm if I get my own webhosting, like I did when I escaped the clutches of Angelfire. Anyway, we’ll just see, and you can expect that I’ll update you whenever something related to any of these issues happens.