Notices by Jenn Dolari (dolari@driveinsaturday.org), page 5

@Mondobizarrro @Nil - My bad, Season 4 STARTS with William Hartnell, but is mostly Patrick Troughton.

@Mondobizarrro @Nil - 6th season is 2nd Doctor, yeah. But the season with the most missing episodes is Season 4, with the First Doctor.

@Mondobizarrro @Nil - Happy to give you my list of "Best of Each Doctor" stories to watch to get caught up on the series. :)

@Mondobizarrro @Nil - I watch a Dr Who story every Friday Night from all the way back to "An Unearthly Child." :)

I don't really do the watchalongs anymore, just cause there's not much to say about a lot of the episodes. I'll pipe up when something comes up though.

Last Friday was "The Runaway Bride" and I mentioned how Donna became the best NuWho companion after a one-off where she was the worst. :)

"I've been unemployed for eight months. That's what makes me a writer."

So I finished the overlay of my bootlegs to the Season 1 DVD versions of Spartakus, but I was missing three episodes. I went online to see if anyone else out there had the three episodes I'm missing and...

Guh.

These look SO much better than my DVD set, too!

https://lostmediawiki.com/Spartakus_and_the_Sun_Beneath_the_Sea_(found_English_dub_of_French_animated_series;_1985-1987)

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: Hungarian Beef Stew

This recipe must have a misprint in it, because after seeing the amount of leeks versus the amount of broth the stew called for, it just wasn't going to work.

I cooked the meat with the amount of broth it called for, and that was fine, but once the leeks went in, there was no way the leeks were going to wilt up with that little broth. I ended up doubling the broth, which is fine as that's one quart of broth, and what I usually use in stew.

And it came out amazing. Who knew the problem wasn't going to be "three leeks is a LOT" and instead was "this is NOT enough broth?"

The recipe below has the correct amount of broth.

# Hungarian Beef Stew
Easy Basics for Good Cooking

2.0 tbsp vegetable oil
1.5 pounds beef chuck (cut into 1 inch cubes)
1.0 quart beef broth
1.0 clove garlic (minced)
1.0 tbsp paprika
3.0 whole leeks
1.0 whole bell pepper
0.5 pound small mushrooms
0.25 cup whipping cream
1.0 tbsp cornstarch
2.0 tbsp sherry
salt
pepper

1 - Heat oil in a 5-quart kettle over medium-high heat.
2 - Add meat, a few pieces at a time, and cook until browned on all sides.
3 - Stir in broth, garlic, sherry and paprika.
4 - Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer until meat is tender when pierced (about 1 hour).
5 - Meanwhile, trim and discard tops from leeks, leaving about 1 1/2 inches of green leaves.
6 - Split leeks lengthwise, rinse well, then cut into 1-inch lengths.
7 - Seed pepper and cut into 1-inch squares.
8 - Add leeks, pepper, and mushrooms to meat.
9 - Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender when pierced (15 to 20 minutes).
10 - Stir in cream and cornstarch mixture; cook, stirring, over high heat until thickened.
11 - Season to taste with salt and pepper.

#cooking #thisweeksmeals

There is one place I'd like to visit when I get back to Texas, and that's this spot. It was here, in 1995, I comitted to my transition. It was a rough night. It ended badly. But here is where it happened.

The picture on the left is from 2008, still looking much like it did that night. On the right, May 2023. The road I took to get there has pretty much been obliterated and exists only as a property line now. Thankfully, this segment of "Blind Bandit Creek Road" uses the old Kallison Lane road for it's path.

The woods on the right are protected as they're part of the Government Canyon State Park, but that old power line anchor is all that's left of the area as I remember it.

I should go out there before it's gone completely.

Fixing an audio dropout in the VHS by putting a piece of the French audio back in for a split second.

It's the Yellow Card fairy! She gives Yellow Cards to naughty soccer players.

It's funny how I often say my favorite Street Fighter II is Super Turbo. But I almost never play the arcade version. Why? I love the mechanics, but the difficulty level borders on MK2 levels of cheating.

The Japanese version, however, plays more like the other SF2 versions, while maintaining the mechanics of Super Turbo. And the Japanese difficulty is what most of the home versions are based off of. So instead of the arcade version, I'll play the Playstation, or 3DO or PC versions (the PC is the most nostalgic, but the 3DO music is the best).

This post brought to you by Jenn attempting to play Super Turbo on MAME and getting her ass handed to her by Ken. Again. And again again.

(I swear I was good at the arcade version back in the day, I swear it....)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t48Myt5t4O0

Still the best music in SF2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtDFdJYn4d4

Silly Jenn Fact: I got an early copy of Half-Life back in the day as a gaming company I was afiliated with was asked to make some deathmatch levels for World Opponent Network ready for Day One.

Nothing I made was used in our levels, but I spent a LOT of time in 1998 in the game, testing Deathmatch levels, playing the main game, and dabbling in level creation (I was hired mostly to write documentation and make the occasional graphic).

To this day, if I want to relive the late 90s, I'll fire it up and play a few levels.

"My god, Bones. What have I done?"

Not shown: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (which I also finished, with much cursing).

So this movie was made in 1983. If it's 1000 times more powerful than the averan 1983 computer...that would be....multiply by 1024....carry the one....square of the hypotenuse....my phone is 3 million times more powerful than their supercomputer.

I mean, really...16 colors at 320x200? My phone is 16 million at 1920x1080. :)

Baby Trans Jenn Goals #10937:

Jenn: "You know, Superman III isn't as bad as I remember it. There's some real heart here in the Smallville scenes. Maybe I'm just misremembering it all...oh."

Movie:

@Mondobizarrro - I really loved the Grandeur of Superman I, and while Superman II dulled that a little, I liked it. I actively didn't like Superman III and have actually never seen Superman IV.

When the Richard Donner Cut of Superman II came out, I fell in love with it, even if it's not the best cut due to all the scenes that didn't get filmed, and it's that sweeping epic grandeur I loved about Supes 1 and 2, the cemented that dislike of Goofy Superman.

Testing the limits of my MST3K tolerances....