Bargain alert! Ticket to Ride Europe for iOS is free today.

| everyone EXCEPT eric!

Organ Trail, the zombie version of Oregon Trail, was on sale around Halloween and is a great time waster. I wish I would have screen capped when Eric got killed but I think he got pulled from the vehicle and turned into a zombie. I had to put him down.

| I am completely high on the koolaid

And went ahead and pledged for an RSI Constellation. WOOOOO! :) It was a hard choice but I figure for the price of a cup of coffee or two a month I get to support a game I REALLY want to be made, and once it's out, I get a really sweet ride. The bonus is, any pledge ships have free "insurance" on them, so if they get blown up for any reason, they are replaced in perpetuity. I think the 'Stella will be a great rig to make money with so I can afford to buy smaller ships. It's being billed as in the same vein/class as the Millenium Falcon, so a high end cargo ship with some wiggle. Plus, it has so many configurable bays that you can really kit it out to do anything... exploration / mining, some trade runs/smuggling, and it wouldn't be hard to set it up as a gunship.

Constellation

Builder: Roberts Space Industries Crew (max): 4 Mass (empty): 75,000 kg Focus: Long-Range Mercantile / Space Superiority

When you think handsome bounty hunter making his own way in a galaxy of enemies, you think the Constellation. The Constellation, a multi-person freighter, is the most popular ship in RSI’s current production array. Constellations are beloved by smugglers and merchants alike because they are modular, high powered… and just downright iconic-looking. The Constellation includes a manned turret, a large cargo area and a small flight deck capable of launching a snub fighter in its own defense.

Upgrade Capacity: 14 Cargo Capacity: 35 tonnes

Engine- Modifiers: 4 Max. Class: Anti-Matter Thruster Class: 4 x TR6, 8 x TR3

Hardpoints- 2 x Class 1: Equipped 2 x Behring M3A Laser Cannon 4 x Class 2: Equipped 2 x A&R Pike IV Neutron Gun 6 x Class 3: Equipped 2 x Behring Judge missiles (Friend or Foe) 2 x Class 4: Equipped 1x Behring M5A Laser Cannon (turret)

Tender - Short Range P52 Space Fighter

Similar to… Paradigm, Salvia, Armored Transport, Millennium Falcon

Only 9-12 months until alpha! lol

I haven't been this excited about a game for probably a decade.

| BreadCon

That was a cool video to watch, but I'm a little cynical on these big video game kickstarters from old school dudes. I hope the game turns out good and if it does, I'll surely buy it. They always seem to offer more than what's realisitically possible, so I'm gonna hang back and wait till it releases. Wing Commander though was such an amazing game, so I'll be stoked to be proven wrong. I sucked at them too, but they were still so much fun to play.

Bread Talk
I was wondering when you'd get in on the bread-fun Enron! I still make a couple of loaves every other week or so. We have a fancy stand up mixer that makes it beyond easy to mix perfectly every time. I cook my loaves on a pizza stone and still do the water into another vessel trick. Don't know how well it really works, but I have some pretty awesome crusts for the most part. I've done a couple of "no-knead" loaves in my dutch oven, and those have been fun to experiment with. I don't think I really have it down yet, but I'm still trying. When I do a rosemary loaf, I do the basic french loaf but I'll add maybe  1T of dry rosemary and maybe 1/2T of dry "italian seasoning" into the mixing bowl with my other dry ingredients. In the water I'll add a little sugar and maybe 1T of butter. I basically scoured a few different rosemary recipes and picked this and that to try out. It always comes out awesome. I'll see if I can find the main recipe I was using for inspiration, but it's not jumping out at me via a quick google.
Edit: I think I used THIS RECIPE for the measurements, but didn't follow their step one and just did my usual french loaf recipe.

ManCon
I felt like from the emails we were settling on choice 1. I'm in!

I saw that! I fucking SUCKED at Wing Commander or I would be all over that one. There are a few genres that I've just learned that I'm so bad at, no matter how cool they look, I just need to back away. That's mainly space combat sims, RTSs, and tactical RPGs.

Well, all this talk of bread is making me think that if somebody doesn't whip up a batch at CabinCon, I'll be very hungry and sad. So is that still happening? We figured out a date, right?

| Oh also:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen WATCH THE VIDEOS AND LOSE YOUR MIND OMG

| Okay, can we talk about Star Citizen for a minute?

There hasn't been a game like this that has sparked my imagination or interest since perhaps WWII Online. The sheer magnitude / scope of what they hope to accomplish combined with WHO (the dude that did the whole WING COMMANDER series!!!) is doing the development and HOW (crowd sourcing to avoid dumbing-down by studios) they are going about it (PC ONLY - HARD CORE SPACE COMBAT, BITCHES!) is just the stuff of legend.

The SCOPE of the universe is just amazing. Persistence. But with instances. Also, the single-player version can be played offline or you can invite friends to join you on co-op style missions, and you basically earn pay / rewards for joining in on a campaign and winning.

Meanwhile, back in the "real" universe, you can play as a merchant, soldier, police officer, bounty hunter, trader, pirate or any combination of the above.

So, they're doing a Kickstarter campaign and have absolutely crushed their minimum goals and are adding content left and right (star systems, ships, etc).

I think I'm going to throw down for one of the pledge ships or really go crazy and get more than one. The great part about the pledge ships is that they come fully insured, so they are replaced if they get blowed up. lol

The BIG question then is... fighter/interceptor or more of a research / merchant vessel OR.. go nuts and get the Millenium Falcon style ship.

MAN, I DUNNO and it's killing me, lol. I'm thinking I'll probably be plopping down for a Freelancer ship so I can do a bit of everything (and the customization bays / slots make it so you can really do a lot of interesting things with it). I MIGHT just lose my mind and grab a Constellation class ship (more like the Falcon-sized ship) that you can really haul some cargo with, and still be able to hold your own against fighters, etc.

| Bloody Rosemary

Honestly, I just kinda eyeballed it. For the usual batch, size, I just unscrewed the jar of dry herb and sprinkled it in... maybe a tablespoon or so? Then I added in about a tablespoon of minced garlic. Tablespoon of salt (increased from the OG bread recipe by a tsp, and also put in the sugar to balance it all out.)

Came out great! Super easy.

| Brosmary

The missus and I have been talking about trying out making Rosemary bread. How much did you use? Dry or fresh rosemary?

D>M>

| Nice!

Yeah, I don't do any of that towel shit. Like I laid out a while back, I experimented with how many steps I could eliminate from the process and still have high quality end result and the answer was.. nearly all of them lol.

After I mix my batch initially (I've even stopped using the electric mixer, I just use a large table fork at this point to get it all mixed up, heh). And do the subsequent kneading / mixing for another 2-3 times, then I just throw the whole thing into a large metal bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and stick it in the microwave with the door slightly open (keeps the light on which makes it pretty warm in there).

After 99 minutes in there, I take it out, throw it on the cutting board, slice the top, and after the oven is pre-heated, throw that shit in the oven.

I did a loaf with rosemary and garlic in it a couple weeks back and it was absolutely nom-tastic.

I too have jumped on the bread making bandwagon. The first attempt was using the "perfect french bread" recipe fArt posted back a few months ago. Turned out pretty descent, but a tad undercooked inside but was still very edible. My oven runs hot and crisped the out side too fast. On reheating it the next day, it was even better.

Then we tried a recipe Aimey found and came up with this beast (see below). The bread was great, but the salt content was off. Some of the people on the website's forum had suggested upping the amount, but we didn't notice that until after we had prepared it. This one was cooked inside our dutch oven. Plus I was using Kosher salt, which I know I should do because it is so variable in the volume to weight ratio, unlike the granulated stuff. Looks nice though.

I have made a few loafs since then and I think I am a lot more confident in preparing the stuff now.

My lessons learned so far:
- I have the oven temp down fairly well now (~400 setting = ~450 actual).
- The Dutch Oven, while cramped, tends to produce a better crust. I tried the "water on the oven floor bit" with a cast iron 9x12, but it just didn't work as well with out a lid.
- I learned when waiting for the dough to rise in the quick recipes, I get better results by turning the oven on to 200 to get the room warmed. The dough rises better. Our kitchen gets cold in the late fall and winter months.
- Don't use Kosher salt, unless you really know your brand's volume as compared to a similar weighted amount of granulated. My scale isn't accurate enough, so granulated it is after boning two recipes a little.
- Don't listen to a recipe that tells you to flour a towel and wrap the just formed dough in it for an hour or so to rest. It doesn't work. I had to throw that towel out after trying to wash it several times. Wet towels on floured cutting board work better.
- Don't put the bread in a plastic bag, especially if it is still warm. Yeah I already know this, but I am still dumb sometimes. I put that shit back in the dutch oven after it cools and it stays perfect for days.

D>M>

| Mmm... bread porn!

Made a new loaf tonight, artisan style. Slight modification to the base recipe (did a full tbs of salt and added 2 tsp of sugar). Came out freaking amazing. Also did it at 425 for 25 minutes then applied some butter to the top and baked it another 6-7 minutes like that. We ate it as desert tonight while we watched a movie together, used some blackberry preserves from a local farm. So good! :D