I would like to do some stand-up comedy in the near future. So I am making some new jokes. So far I only have one real, “winner” of a joke. The rest are too bland and don’t hit hard enough. A good comedian can bust out multiple jokes per minute that are of varying complexity. The trick is timing so I want to have a lot more than one good joke. But one joke is at least a start.
[UPDATE]
I’ve just written 4 more jokes. And these are good ones. Tonight is going great!
-Tyler
Yo! Noid Victory
This is a guide on how to win at Yo! Noid for the NES. It is dedicated to my friend Ryan. This game is a 2D side scrolling platformer. It may seem like a cheesy low budget game at first glance. But after playing it for the past couple months off-and-on, I’ve come to hold a great deal of respect for this fast paced game. Yo! Noid does not in any way allow the player to “Go Easy” on his or herself. You need to be alert and thinking ahead every step of the way. If you are the kind of player who is good at dodging enemies, you will need to use those skills to survive. If you are an aggressive player that likes to rack up points, you will need that personality as well in order to maintain your score and get extra lives. And believe me, you will need all the extra lives you can get. Do you remember in Batman Begins when the main bad guy was training Bruce Wayne at the frozen lake? There was a part where he said to Bruce Wayne, “Mind your surroundings, Bruce.” You will need to heed that advice for Yo! Noid.
Instead of giving you a complete walkthrough of the entire game, read on to have the skills you need in order to be victorious in Yo! Noid In the first couple stages, you will notice that there are strange blocks that float around with roman numeral, “II” or “III” on them. Also, you may see an exclamation mark floating around as well. If you pick these up and survive to an odd numbered stage, you will get to a pizza eating contest with an enemy Noid. The evil Noid will always go first. If you pick a higher numbered pizza than the enemy noid then you will eat the difference of the pizzas. If you use one of those roman numeral things then the amount of pizzas you will have eaten will be multiplied by either “2x” or “3x” depending on whether or not you choose a “II” or “III” pizza modifier. The most important thing to know about this is that if you are able to fill up all the pizza slots and not let the enemy Noid eat a single slice, then you will not only recieve 100,000 bonus points. (You only need 200,000 points to get a free life) You will also get an extra continue! This is key to winning the game because the game gets challenging, especially in the later stages. The first stage you won’t be able to do a clean sweep against the enemy Noid, so you should use your slices strategically in order to achieve a close victory. Remember, the hot sauce and the pepper will make it so the evil Noid can’t use his slices, so use those whenever the Noid picks a high-numbered card of slices.
As you get to the later stages you will be tempted to use your multiplier cards sparingly against the Noid in order to win the battle. But the key is to try and beat him as fast as possible. One thing that you should know is that in the stages beyond stage 3, there are many slice modifier “II” things that are actually invisible. And you need to attack the air like a fool constantly in order to make them appear and for you to take them. So make sure to jump around all the time and search with your yo-yo to find these items. If you don’t do this, you won’t collect enough modifiers in order to do a clean sweep against the enemy Noid on the pizza eating contests.
One thing to mention is that if you do not win the pizza eating contest, you will loose a life and will be sent back to the beginning of the last platforming stage. So it is imperative that when you play a pizza eating contest, you win.
The power-ups in the game are small scrolls and large scrolls. If you attack a large scroll with your yo-yo then a special move item will appear. (or sometimes a 1-up item will appear) The special move is usually a snowflake or a pogo-stick looking thing. But there are others as well. The snowflake move is activated when you have at least an entire horizontal bar of “small scrolls” at the bottom of the screen. To activate it you press, “Down” and “B.” Since it takes an entire horizontal bar, you can only cast the snowflake skill twice before refilling your small scrolls. But the cool thing about this ability, is that you can destroy all destructible enemies on the screen, including flying ones.
The pogo stick skill is cool too, because it can kill enemies that are on the ground with an earthquake. Also it only uses a fraction of the amount of small scrolls to do so. But being able to destroy flying targets is far superior so I prefer the snowflake skill.
There is a fast-run skill also but I haven’t had a lot of luck with that one. Maybe you will have a better time using this ability.
Yo! Noid - Apartment Stages
Sometimes even getting to the pizza eating contest is a tall order. The first really challenging stage is the second one. There is ice everywhere. A thing to remember here is that when you jump on the floating ice things that travel from side to side, they are slippery. So you need to move in the opposite direction of the one that you were jumping in, in order to stay still and not fall off. In the part where there are two of these things, you can jump then walk a bit to the left to stay stationary. Then wait for the second one to pass you, for some reason it is safer to be patient here. Then when you get closer the second time, do a timed jump onto the other moving ice platform. But you will probably need to jump immediately after you touch down and do a jumping dance on the platform in order to get across. I’ve only been able to land on the second one and stay still a couple times. And it takes a serious amount of practice.
When you’re on the skateboarding stage, the trickiest thing is the football dropping guys. Their footballs explode after a short amount of time. But if you are patient, most of the time these enemies will simply fly over you and their footballs will explode before they hit you. The long jump at the end is doable by picking up some speed from the incline and jumping at the last second before falling off the ramp.
The stage where the dock moves up when you hit a “dock icon” is where you first encounter the invisible, “II” and “III” items. So you should start attacking the air and memorizing where you find the power-ups. The main thing to keep in mind for this stage is Patience. There are this flying fish that jump out and if you are too hasty, they will kill you. So when you jump to a new area inch forward a bit and take out the flying fish. There is this one part where you encounter a silver frog who seems to be invincible. I’ve tried hitting this fool hundreds of times with my yo-yo and he keeps on dancing. This frog is legit and it is best to just jump over this kid before he 2-steps all over you. The cannons in this stage are tricky but you can use the snowflake skill to destroy the bubbles before they explode. If you hit the cannon bubbles with your yo-yo they will send out dangerous smoke that kills you in a wider radius than it you dodge them or use snowflake skill.
In the strange propeller flying stage, you need to immediately press “A” to get a boost of altitude. It was really funny when I first played this stage because I just dropped like a log and died. I busted up laughing when this happened. “Little warning, thanks?!?” Watch out for the flying squirrels.
Yo Noid! Late Stages
The next stage that is worth mentioning is the circus level. This stage scrolls automatically and you need to move quickly to survive. Many of the carousel creatures turn into bad guys. But the ones that are over botomless pits never turn into bad guys. You need to jump on these things fast and don’t be too patient. If you hesitate then you will die. In later levels the main things to think about is searching for the “II” and “III” items. This circus stage is especially in line with this. The Enemy Noids keep getting more and more slices of pizza to choose from during each pizza eating contest so you will need all the bonuses you can get.
The second to the last stage which is a tall winding apartment exterior is definitely worth discussing in detail. There are these flower pots that come out of windows and you need to get close without dying. Then within range, fire your yo-yo blindly for a while until you kill a couple of them. (you will hear a sound) Then jump over the window. This part is kind of like real life. Standing underneath an open window is a bad idea. You want to stay moving on this stage. There is this sewing machine thing that fires out debris. It is really dangerous. You need to move extremely quickly and get it to shoot at you in one direction and then jump up to the next ledge as fast as you can. If you stand still you will get killed. The hilarious part of this stage is when you go up against a police officer who is tossing a barrel down at you. You need to jump over the barrel. Running away from it will not help. If you run away it will seriously chase you down the entire ridiculous stage. And if you get too close to the police officer he will pull out his Billy Club and terminate you. But if you hang back the cop will simply jump down the apartment to his doom. So don’t try to 1 on 1 the police.
The last stage is another flying stage and it is actually really fun. Just make sure to pick up as many “II” and “III” items as you can. Because you will need them for the final battle with the Green Noid.
Overall this game is excellent for building reflexes and pattern recognition. Like many of the old games, it focuses on dexterity and skill instead of level grinding and perseverance. Even though it is extremely easy to die in this game, it is not very discouraging and if you give it breaks it is a lot of fun. It isn’t rewarding enough of game play to jam out during a weekend. This game is best come back to over a longer period, very casually, in order to gauge how your reflexes and zen concentration is building.
I’d recommend this game to anyone who wants a beatable game that has serious challenge. This is not an impossible game, but it does require some memorization of enemy movement and hidden item locations.
-Tyler
Strange Facebook Trend Semi-Directed Status updates
Strange Facebook Trend (SFT) : Semi-Directed Status Updates
I’ve been on Facebook over a year and I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of Status Updates that are at least partially directed at specific people. But the strange thing about it is that the actual person who the status update is directed at is not specifically identified in the status update. To make things more confusing, the actual status update is on the person’s own wall instead of the wall of the person who perpetrated the wrongdoing. So I’ve read things like, “Step off…bro” that show up in my Facebook status news feed. And I’m thinking, “Step off of what? Is my foot on the dog’s tail?” But then I realize that this girl is talking to someone else completely. There have been other updates like, “You know who you are. You need to shut your mouth for once!”
This is a Strange Facebook Trend because it is almost a form of interactive communication, without actually committing to the consequences of directly contacting someone. Because someone could say, “Shut your own mouth!” And the person who wrote the original status update could then say, “I wasn’t talking to you, Roger. You are so narcissistic and egotistical to think that everyone is talking about you all the time.” And then poor Roger could easily develop a complex.
After some analysis of this trend I find that these Semi-Directed Status Updates appear to be a form of lashing out. But in reality, this SFT is a withdrawal symptom which is a result of a lull in over-stimulation. Many people have become so ingrained by contact with other people that they have actually acquired a bio-neural-chemical need for single sentence or like-button communication. It has gotten to such an extreme degree of integration, that many users are even attracting potentially negative attention to their profiles in order to get some sort of contact. This kind of behavior is less like a hobby or recreational activity and more like dependency.
The interesting part about this Strange Trend is that it seems to be increasing and growing in commonality. I’ve noticed this first hand because I’ve stayed at around 800 Facebook friends for half of a year. And not until recently has this phenomenon become prolific enough to write about. After pondering this subject for quite some time, my only conclusion is that this cyber-trend has manifested itself into a physical illness. So one could say that Semi-Directed Status Updates is the first computer virus that has ever successfully infected a human physical host.
To explain this in more detail let’s take a look at the viral nature of Semi-Directed Status Updates. One person, let’s call her Rosie for the purpose of this thought experiment wants extra attention on Facebook. This is because she is so used to constant contact, that she often feels the “longing” sensation, that one has when she has been separated from a lover for an extended period of time. But her longing comes from Facebook ‘likes’ and comments. So she posts a Semi-Directed Status Update on her wall. Now, since she has good looking pictures in her albums, and she occasionally has witty things to say, 200 of her 500 friends frequently visit her profile. So those people often see her status updates within minutes of when they are posted.
But Rosie’s status update is Semi-Directed and says, “I hate it when you treat me like that.” So, one of Rosie’s friends called Frank, comments on her status and says, “Maybe if you weren’t so rude at parties, I wouldn’t have to.” But instead of Rosie saying to Frank that she wasn’t talking to him, Rosie decides to accept the contact and actually build on the communication…whether the communication was intended for Frank or not. So Rosie comments back, “Yeah, well. I was having a bad day.” And now something interesting has happened. Not only has Rosie gotten what she originally set out for, which was communication on Facebook. But she received it without exerting much more than minimal effort and risk. Also, Frank not only got to talk some sassyness with Rosie, but he also learned a new technique for communication on the social network. And the follow-up comment by Rosie, validated the form of communication. So now the Semi-Directed Status Update virus has spread virtually from Rosie’s profile to Frank’s notification area.
But since Frank now has a new tool in his online communication arsenal, if he ever gets lonely on Facebook, he can use a Semi-Directed Status Update in order to attract attention to himself. If he uses this technique enough times, there is a high likelihood that he will eventually acquire the very real and neuro-chemical dependency on the cyber-contact that Rosie originally had. Therefore the computer virus has a dormancy period that is directly related to the psychological needs for contact and attention of the infected host.
Possible implications for this type of crossover-disease may be medication prescriptions for an at-risk population of 500 million or more. There is tremendous potential for the pharmaceutical industry to capitalize on this phenomenon, and require vaccinations for social network users that log-in for 2 hours per day or more. Perhaps a new type of multi-vitamin may be created in order to supplement the psycho-emotional immune system of Facebook users.
-Tyler
Teriyaki Sesame Chicken Salad (complete)
This recipe is for making Teriyaki Sesame Chicken Salad basically from scratch. The only things that you will use that is going to be pre-made will be the base liquids for the glaze and the salad dressing. But the rest will be done completely by you and you will probably have a tremendous amount of fun making this dish. Similarly to the other recipes in this section, the Teriyaki Sesame Chicken Salad takes about 1 hour for you to purchase the ingredients and 2 – 3 hours to make dish depending on how well acquainted you are with the dish. When my girlfriend and I made this dish Sunday she focused primarily on preparing the salad part and I concentrated on cooking and glazing the chicken. So if you can have a helper chef in the kitchen then this is a really enjoyable dish to make. Since there is division of labor, this salad is good for a date-type meal because you two can talk while cooking, without stepping on each others’ toes. This dish is slightly challenging to make, but it takes more patience and creativity than it does actual skill. So I recommend this for adventurous cooks who are adults. Young adults and kids should definitely ask their parents for help as head chefs on this one.
Before we talk about the ingredients, let’s discuss how many people this serves and what kind of cookware you will need. Since the Teriyaki Sesame Chicken Salad we made Sunday was for a large Pot-Luck party. We made enough to serve about 10-15 smallish/medium sized portions. To do that we needed several things:
1 x small saucepan: for making the glaze
1 x large metal pot: for boiling the chicken (This may seem odd but we will talk more about this later.)
1 x casserole dish or similarly sized item: for containing the chicken while you cut it into pieces before you start to glaze it (The dish will help make sure you don’t get water all over the place)
1 x large metal wok-style curved pan: for glazing the chicken
1 x large bowl for holding the cooked chicken
2 x cutting areas: for the lettuce and other vegetables
1 x large salad bowl: for the finished salad
PLUS: Forks and knives and spoons required for preparing and serving the salad. Also you’ll need a sink and a stove.
Next let’s discuss the ingredients for the salad. We purchased our ingredients at Bristol Farms here in Corona del Mar and the price for all the items was about $50 or so. But remember, in all likelyhood you aren’t going to serve as many people as we did so you can factor that into the price.
[remember to wash and dry all your vegetables]
2 x lettuce: crunchy Romain: Chopped into small edible pieces
1 x bunch of carrots: Peeled and shaved
1 x cucumber: Peeled and sliced into quarter inches
1 x red heirloom tomato: Ripe yet slightly firm
1 x yellow or gold heirloom tomato: again ripe yet slightly firm (the color variation is to add visual stimulation)
6 x boneless and skinless small chicken breasts (NOT FROZEN): These should weigh about 2 lbs. in total. If it is more or less than that, you need to adjust your poultry order accordingly
1 x jar of thick teriyaki marinade or sauce [The amount of each jar will depend on how sweet or flavorful you desire your chicken to be]
1 x jar of oily sesame marinade or sauce
1 x jar of oil based or vinaigrette sesame salad dressing
2 x handfulls of brown sugar
1 x small cupfull or packet of soy sauce
3 x pinches of salt
10 x pinches of pepper
1 x olive oil: You will use this for multiple purposes
1 x small bag of sesame seeds (white): this should not cost more than 3 dollars
OK. Since the best way to make this dish is with two people. I am going to tell you exactly how we did it. But if you are making it alone, you can always slice, shave, and chop the ingredients for the salad first. Then before mixing the salad, you can go ahead and work on the chicken.
Here’s how we did it:
My girlfriend washed and dried the vegetables. Then she chopped up the lettuce and peeled the carrots as mentioned above in the ingredients list.
In the meantime I started to boil some water in the large pot. This was going to be used for the chicken breasts. The reason why we boil the chicken first is because it makes it more tender. I learned this from listening to a pro talk about making tender BBQ ribs.
While the water is heating to boiling point. I put olive oil in the small saucepan and set the burner on high. After the oil got hot I added a generous amount of teriyaki marinade/sauce. After the marinade and oil moved around with the heat, I added a small glug of sesame marinade. (you should be stirring occasionally this whole time) Then I let that come to an almost boil and then I added a couple handfulls of brown sugar. The brown sugar is what is going to turn this from a marinade into a glaze. With the glaze we are making a reduction so be prepared to spend a lot of time on this. Now add a little salt into the saucepan and stir for a bit then lower the heat to minimal.
At this time your water in the big pot should be boiling and it is time to add the already washed chicken breasts. After all the breasts are in the pot, let the water to come again to a boil. Once the water has bubbles and you know it is boiling then start your timer for about 4 minutes. The flesh of the chicken should change to a pinkish-white color. After the four minutes are up turn off the water heat and remove the chicken carefully and place the breasts into the casserole dish. Make sure that you shake off the water from each breast or else use a serrated spoon to scoop the chicken. A little water in the casserole dish is OK but too much will be revolting and disturbing while you do your work.
Next, take a long fork and a long knife and cut the chicken into bite sized pieces. The chicken at this time should be extremely tender and easy to cut. If you keep one hand steady with the fork and cut with the knife, making simple bite sized pieces should be simple. If the chicken is not tender then you probably started with frozen chicken and didn’t read the ingredients section intently enough. Now here is the fun part. When you cut your first couple pieces of chicken you will notice that the outside of the slice will be whitish pink. And the inside of the slice will be a darker color. The color differential should resemble searing. This means that you did your job well and you should talk to your companion that is working on the salad and show him/her how skillful you are.
After you cut the pieces of chicken it is time to take another look at your glaze/thick marinade. Turn up the heat on your small saucepan to a little more than medium. Wait until the sauce starts to move around and undulate and then add more teriyaki and salt. After a couple minutes add a few pinches of pepper. Then add the pack of soy sauce. Wait until the glaze turns into a liquidy saucy abomination that isn’t too sticky yet. And once you have a good amount of the stuff add some sesame seeds into it. Then after a couple minutes take a look at the amount of sauce and the consistency of it. At this point it should be relatively thick but not too thick. We want to reduce it later. (Reduction is just a sassy term for removing the water from something by boiling it for a while) Once you feel that you have enough sauce to saucify your chicken then get ready to move onto the next step.
Now add some olive oil to the wok pan and make sure to line the whole interior of it with olive oil. This will help prevent the items from sticking to the pan. Turn the heat on high for the wok and let the olive oil heat up. (be super careful not to burn yourself or splash hot oil in your face or eyes. Do all this stuff at your own risk and have fun be don’t get your butt kicked)
Once the olive oil is really hot pour all the sauce that you made in the saucepan into the wok. Then stir the wok gently on high heat. Wait for it all to come to a light boil. While waiting you should put the big pot of water and the empty used saucepan away in the sink and dump the water out.
Now that the wok is at a near boil, take a look at the liquid levels. The wok should be about one-third to half full of sauce. (this really depends on the size of your wok) If you have more than that much liquid you need to reduce the liquid until it comes to acceptable levels. Also you should make sure that the glaze/sauce is slightly thick with a little bit of gumption to it. It shouldn’t be molasses thick at this point tho. If it is, then that means you added too much brown sugar and you will end up caramelizing your chicken and that is for a different recipe in the future. But if you end up having this problem simply pour some of your sauce out and add more olive oil and sesame marinade until you get to a semi-thick liquid.
Teriyaki Sesame Chicken in glazing process
Once the sauce comes to a good level and appropriate thickness go ahead and add the chicken slices/pieces into the wok. The trick is to put the pieces of chicken in the wok on a single layer so that each piece is about halfway submerged in the liquid. If the entire piece is covered by the liquid then you have too much sauce and you need to get rid of some of it. Now there is an urge to immediately start stirring your chicken. Don’t do that! Let the chicken take a bubble bath in your glaze for a few minutes. If you added enough olive oil and followed directions earlier you shouldn’t have to worry about the chicken sticking to the wok. While you are letting your chicken hang out in the glazy sauce for a few minutes you should double check on your comrade and see how he/she is doing with the salad.
You might be able to lend a hand with cutting the cucumber or shredding some carrots. Or else you can clean some of the dishes and free up some space in the sink. This would probably be a good time to clean that casserole dish that you used to hold the chicken pieces a few minutes ago. After a few minutes have passed take another look at your chicken.
At this time you should stir the chicken around so the other side gets cooked. You should notice that the chicken is starting to look a little golden on the side that was previously submerged. Instead of tasting anything at this point, go ahead and smell the sauce and the chicken. Does it smell appetizing? Is it too sweet smelling or too salty smelling? If so make minor adjustments by adding a little bit of the teriyaki or sesame marinade until you feel confident that this thing is going to taste great. After a few more minutes at medium-high heat, you should start to see that the sauce is getting thicker and reducing. Also some of the pieces of chicken may be fraying slightly, like pieces of rope on a sailboat. If this is happening, that is a really good sign. Because later those frayed pieces will become partially caramelized and will add a tremendous amount of texture to the dish. The good news is: If you are mindful of the temperatures and make minor adjustments at this point and beyond, it is very hard to mess this salad up.
At this moment you should have been cooking the chicken for about 20 minutes. You can now take a couple small pieces of the chicken and put them on a small plate and let them cool. After letting them hang out for 6 minutes or so let your partner and yourself eat them. Gauge the flavor and sweetness of the chicken. Is it sweet enough? Can you taste the teriyaki or does it just taste like brown sugar? If you and your buddy both like the chicken then you are doing well. Technically, the chicken should taste good enough that you could be able to eat it over rice, even now. But remember, you are putting it in a salad. So it will need to be much more flavorful and textured in order to add contrast to the lettuce and salad dressing.
Lower the heat to medium and add pepper and salt to the chicken. Also add more teriyaki or sesame marinade to taste. (this is where your artistry will really show) Then let the chicken cook for another 20 minutes, while you stir it occasionally.
salad without the chicken yet
At this point your partner should be pretty much done with the salad. It should have carrots and lettuce and cucumber and tomato all chopped up and ready to go. Go ahead and mix them all together in the big salad bowl but do not add the dressing yet.
Now take another 2 pieces of the chicken out of the wok and after letting them cool down let your friend and yourself test them. If you both feel really strongly about the chicken then you can move on to the final stages.
Look at the sauce in the wok. There should be some separation from the dark liquid from a more clear liquid. That clear liquid is most likely oil and some water. If this is the case, then turn up the heat to high and stir in a generous amount of sesame seeds. The sesame seeds should speckle the chicken but not shroud them in it. Continue cooking the chicken until the frayed parts become dark brown and the chicken main parts become golden brown. If you see loose frayed pieces then stir them together with bigger pieces and let them attach themselves. Let the chicken be little poultry magnets of justice. Once you have the right color, taste, and texture remove the chicken and put it into your other clean large empty bowl. Let the chicken cool down.
Now that your salad is all mixed together, add some of the sesame vinaigrette salad dressing. Stir the whole thing. And make sure there is enough room to eventually add the chicken. Taste the salad with the dressing. It should taste like the salad is pretty good, but it is missing something.
Add the chicken that has been cooling down to the salad. And stir the chicken into the mix thoroughly. Once the chicken has been mixed in add a little more salad dressing to taste. And give it a try. If it tastes good then you have just one final step.
Wipe the edges of the bowl with a paper towel so there is no grease or oil at the rim. Then add a thin layer of sesame seeds to the top of the salad for decoration but don’t mix them in. GREAT! You just made a really tasty salad. Serve it however you want and enjoy!
Make sure you cleaned up and turned off all your burners and that stuff.
This style of cooking is incremental, so there are no real proportional rules. Just use your personal preferences and adhere to the rough measurements above as closely as you feel comfortable with and you should have a truly enjoyable time making this crowd pleasing Teriyaki Sesame Chicken Salad. Sunday this salad went over so well that we won 3rd place in a pot-luck contest with it. And we won some movie tickets. So if this is done right you may impress your friends.
-Tyler
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