Last night, I managed to finish off William Gibson’s The Peripheral, which meant I would ultimately have a lot more spare time. Or at least a new project of my choosing. So I decided today, after having finished my pot roast, to finally get my crab legs and seafood boil on.
I used a combination of two recipes but ended up buying too much ingredients for the size of a pot I have. Went with the crab legs, shrimp, some kielbasa, crayfish and corn on the cob with lemon and a few other things since I could not find the Old Bay seasoning. Dinner came out wonderful and oddly it was more difficult to eat than cook!
I shared my images with various friends and everyone commented positively on them. I really feel that I’ve made progress as a cook, even though I’m still very far from being anything close to a professional. But it’s satisfying hearing good feedback especially on things you’ve only done once in your life thus far.
Despite having leftovers (which I may add to tomorrow considering that the pot has emptied 0ut a bit), I ended up making another health smoothie, which I had become complacent in doing in the past few weeks. It was good to get one in just because I value not only the ingredients but the daily vitamin that I incorporate.
I feel that with the massive change to cooking at home more often as well as combining that with a daily vitamin, I’m doing better along those lines. I still feel the need to work more on the vegetable aspect in adding more dark, leafy greens to my meals. But honestly, it might be tough just because the portions I make really do not leave much room for much else.
One thing that I have been enjoying since starting this voyage is not cooking the same thing more than once (outside of vongole, which I did fuck up the last time I made it). After living in Japan, I got pretty fussy about food but with all the restaurants closed, I’ve been left with little option except to do it myself if I want to have restaurant quality meals.
In turn, cooking for myself means a far larger menu since I can pick and choose whatever I put my mind up to. Sometimes, some dishes require a little investment like buying a whole appliance like my Instant Pot. But I consider those long term, life changing investments that will be better for me.
Just a meal like tonight’s makes me incredibly happy as I would look enviously at pictures from now closed buffets in Vegas and drool. However, I can definitely say that I have my own power to re-create those concoctions and that it’s a matter of time before I am able to master cooking a good portion of these menus.
Beyond all that, I got a little Path of Exile action in. I’ve been playing this new Raider on and off as a cyclone Facebreaker type. I’ve been slow on her just because I’ve been either too tired to play or trying to finish up that book. I think I should be able to get her into maps soon-ish. My goal was to create an easy Raider that I could hopefully push into Uber Lab. I’ve yet to have a full ascended Raider and I thought that Cyclone would be a good choice initially.
Also, I have another cyclone character, a champion (actually a pair) that are sitting around. I was thinking of taking one of them and converting into a Starforge cyclone character. The idea is to use a more reliable build than the Facebreaker, which I like but find a bit squishy due to gear constraints. I have a 6L version of the Starforget sitting in my unique tab so it would be a good opportunity to use it.
I think for my raider, I might eventually convert her to a Herald of Agony cyclone character. I have a similar one as a juggernaut. But the build is a slightly different. I’m thinking the Raider would be a bit faster. But again the idea here is to just have a super tanky Raider that can do Uber Lab without a sweat.
In addition, I have a Hollow Palm Ice Crash Raider. She has been fun to play. But the squishiness of the build is terrible. Sure, you can scale damage and health through dexterity but getting the right pieces is tough, especially if you want to get over 1.3k dexterity and maintain your resistances, etc. I might return to her and attempt to figure out a different way to play her such as changing her to a Facebreaker character.
Honestly, part of my general hesitation to play PoE at all is just the number of disgruntling bugs. Even earlier today before the patch, I had a lot of stuttering on standard. It just felt awful and left me little desire to play.
Instead, now that I have more free time, I’ve been thinking about getting back to Wheel of Time. I still need to get back into writing my novel but my mental state just hasn’t been there. Basically, I need to re-read the old chapter that I’m re-writing and quite frankly, I don’t want to at this point in time.
Rather than that I’m focused on something else. Like my mind either is on Lego, cooking or just another subject. I feel like I have to learn something beforehand in order to continue writing. It’s a really odd feeling. But the basic desire isn’t there.
Outside of those things, one thing I am looking forward to coming up is Amazon Prime Day. Despite all the protests against Jeff Bezos’, I’m simply interested to see what they might have on sale. There’s a few Lego sets I really want along with a Ninja Indoor Grill. If I see any of those discounted, I’m in.
Besides those items, I might consider some electronics too. The big thing I need is a back up drive. I’ve been considering one for years but it just keeps escaping my mind. The other really nice-to-have item is new speakers for my computer. I’ve been using the same speakers for almost two decades. So I believe I deserve some new ones as these are practically at the end of their line.
Not sure what other real upgrades I need. I’m always looking for things that can improve my life, especially if it’s through some form of automation. Perhaps, some new books might do me good. I do know there’s a follow up to The Peripheral. And a few Stephen R Donaldson books too after the last Thomas Covenant series. Also, a cookbook my friend Susie suggested for pies.
At any rate, I felt things went well today. I hope to clear my mind a bit tonight because I need to figure out how to refocus myself.
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