Game of Thrones, First Three Episodes

Posted by John Klein III on January 16, 2018
Posted in: Television. Tagged: . Leave a comment

My wife has agreed to rewatch Game of Thrones, so that I can finally watch the series.  We’re three episodes in and I’m liking it, thus far.  The fantasy elements haven’t really appeared yet.  I’m mostly watching the scenes with Daenerys and Jon Snow with great intent.  I know they are the Big Two of the show, my wife tells me to round out the Big Three, I should pay greater attention to Cersei too.

The show clearly has great production values and I love that my wife gets to share all of her nerdiness for the series, like how I often get to with the superhero shows.

I’ll probably not chronical my entire viewing of the series but I thought I should let you all know that I’m finally trying Game of Thrones and so far, it is pretty fun.  I’m trying to allow myself to forget any of the Film Theory videos I’ve seen on YouTube or forget which “key episodes” I’ve heard about.  I’m also trying to not look at episodes titles either so I let her press the buttons that get us to the episode.

We also tried SlingTV Blue and already thinking of cancelling that free subscription and just paying for Showtime and HBO.  We want Showtime for Shameless, but I have to be honest, I have been just going through the motions with that show for the past two seasons.  I keep wanting to go on Facebook and ask if the current season is better than the previous one or is it pretty much the same.  Does anyone know?

I get that the characters live hard lives and make worst decisions, but at some point, I’m not enjoying the way the story is being told or the characters.

For Game of Thrones, I’m also tempted to stop watching the CW hero shows and just make sure I’m current with FOX’s The Gifted (which should be ending soon) and NBC’s This is Us.  I can’t think of any other show that I’m really excited to watch the next episode for.  Most shows, we can still catch up with but I wouldn’t mind taking a break and letting some episodes build up.

There are a couple shows on TBS that have catching my attention as I’ve been watching lots of their promos and a few sound interesting.  Unfortunately, the TBS app doesn’t really have the first episodes of the series so I’m out of luck with the bulk of them.  Maybe once they come to Netflix, I’ll catch up on them.  The shows I’m interested in are – Angie Tribeca, People of Earth, Wrecked, Search Party (which has every episode on TBS’ app), and The Guest Book.  We tried Snoop Dogg’s Joker’s Wild and that first episode was hard to watch.  It seemed fun but that male contestant sure was hamming it up.

Also on the television front, Hulu has the fifth and final season of the Nick Ninja Turtles so Walker Dennis and me have started that, we’re one episode down.  I’m going to miss this show when it is over.  I do wish the theme song had words, besides some “not catch phrases” being used.  Tales of the TMNT, is the official title for the final season.

We’re also having to find time to watch Game of Thrones when our son isn’t quite around as it can get pretty graphic.

We finished The Office and are trying Schitt’s Creek, which I’m not loving yet.  I like the children and the motel lady but I hate Chris Elliott as the mayor and I get that’s his character but oooof, I want less of that guy and maybe more interesting stories.  My wife heard good things about the series and we’re only five episodes in.  That fifth episode, The Cabin, was probably the first really good episode, so maybe time will tell.  I’m committed for the rest of season one but I’m ready to drop the series if it doesn’t get better.  I see the fourth season started last week so Netflix should get it after it finishes, I’m sure.  So people like it but I’m not there yet.

I still think of Riverdale so maybe I’ll try that show again.  I checked on Amazon Prime and they finally released the tenth season of Doctor Who so I want to jump back into that.  Amazon Prime also had the last two Christmas specials, besides the very latest one, so that’s nice.

Unfortunately, I’m already pressed for television watching time.  My son has gotten way into Knight Rider so that’s the show I’ve been watching the most.  We were going back and forth with the original series and the 2008 series but he’s since committed to watching the original series and we’re at episode 17 of the first season so we’re doing it.  I need to find the 2000 television film and if I can find Team Knight Rider, that’ll be fun to finally watch that show.

Trolls Fruit Snacks

Posted by John Klein III on January 12, 2018
Posted in: Dining Out. Leave a comment

This seems to be comically missing the point of the movie!  My son, Walker Dennis, loves these though!  I asked him if they make him happy as he eats them, and he said that they do!  So those Bergens knew what was up.  But so did that one kid troll from when we first see Poppy.  He tastes himself and realizes he does taste delicious.

Lately, we’ve been watching the opening scenes of Sing as he’s obsess with that film.  If he had his way, he’ll start with Sing, and segue into Trolls but we never get more than 15 minutes into Sing.

Shortening Names

Posted by John Klein III on January 11, 2018
Posted in: Conversations. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Me:  This is my friend, Michael.

Other Friend : Hey, Mike!

Michael : Fuck you!

Like, how much more clear could I have been!?!  If I said his name was Michael, maybe take a cue from that.  Get to know the guy and maybe he’ll say “call me Mike” or correct me and say he prefers “Mike.”

I supposed, knowing that he doesn’t, I could have quickly added “don’t call him, Mike’ but that isn’t a great introduction.

Michael keeps things honest.

Sunday Dinner : Seriously Amazing Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

Posted by John Klein III on December 20, 2017
Posted in: Cooking. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Seriously Amazing Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

This was a pretty nice and easy meal.  I paired it with some baked chicken, nothing too fancy.  This could have used more cheese and more chives!

Since it wasn’t that many potatoes and I finally learned that potatoes need to be cut into eighths for anything that involves mashing them, this didn’t really take too long to prep.

I put in six cloves of garlic instead of four as we really like garlic.  I feel like it barely tasted of garlic still.

I used two cups of cheddar cheese and we still wanted more.  Might end up getting two bags of two cups worth of Cheddar cheese.

I did use three tablespoons of chopped chives but my wife looked into her bowl and asked where all the chives went so next time, five tablespoons of chives, at the very least.  The bowl was mostly white with a few lines of yellow and a speck or two of green.  Not the color feast I was hoping for.

We’ll probably add onions to it for next time.  Maybe some bits of bacon too?  Maybe just go crazy with the whole thing.

. . .

We’re still in the middle of season eight of The Office, our next episode is Tallahassee, which hopefully it is as good as previous multi-episode arcs like Jim’s time in Stamford and the Michael Scott Paper Company arc.  That pool party episode should have been better, one of the few episodes we had to stop in the middle of and it took us a few days to get back to it.

We’re looking forward to all of our shows being done for the winter break, gives us time to catch up with other shows.

Marvel’s Runaways is still going, and that show gets better and better.  I wish there was a local comic book store I could pick up that first trade to refresh my memories.  My sense memory was that the parents were barely in it, more like bookend scenes or something.  The latest episode ended on such an intense note!

Looking up Runaways reminded me that we are getting Cloak & Dagger and New Warriors, both coming to FreeForm.  Which is pretty nice and all three shows are set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so that’s cool too.  I haven’t seen anything on Runaways that proves or disproves that but if Jeff Loeb says it is true, he’ll know.  I didn’t even know that Squirrel Girl was cast but she’s the playwright from This is Us, Sloane, her actress is Milana Vayntrub.  Odd that Squirrel Girl and Great Lakes Avengers’ Mister Immortal are the big names of the show.  At least Night Thrasher and Speedball are represented.  Maybe they can quickly incorporate Justice and Firestar to the show with the Disney / 21st Century FOX merger coming.  There apparently is a trailer for the Cloak and Dagger show that I need to watch.  It occurs to me that I haven’t done a post regarding the Avengers : Infinity Wars trailer.

We’re finally three episodes into Harlan Coben’s The Five.  There is a moment in the third episode that I just loved and now I just want to binge the rest of the seven episodes but we still have to get through The Voice and maybe two other shows.  What happens would have taken maybe seven episodes on an American series but they solved it and the twist in no time.  Detective Kenwood is now my favorite television police detective.  I may have to make a list but besides Batman, I’m not sure I even have a list of favorite detectives for one particular genre.  I guess Dick Tracy and Elongated Man would count.

. . .

I’m on episode 117 of Living Between Wednesdays so I’m getting caught up!  They are reviewing Justice League and I’m going to have to make peace with the fact that I’m going to listen to their Star Wars episode before I even get a chance to see it.  As I doubt our son will want to sit through The Last Jedi but maybe he will.  If anything, it will be towards the end of its run in the theater.  We didn’t see Force Awakens until it was well onto DVD, like a month after it came out.

. . .

TMNT Legends, I’m finally close to getting all of my characters to level 31, well besides the ones that don’t have available DNA to use.

I’m going to have to double time the tournament if I want to get Shinigami, though it is still early in the week.  I usually get to the third tier of the blue one which is where I have to be to unlock Shinigami, so I should be able to do it without any real problems.

I’m at level 66 so I’m close to level 70 where I get to participate in particular challenges, so that’ll be nice.  I still barely play for 20 minutes, in the morning, at lunch and at night.  So an hour is pretty good for a free game.

We are all caught up with Season Four of the Nick Turtles, so I really need Hulu to get season five put up but I imagine that’s a year away.

Now that we are done with that show, I’ll be able to go back to Riverdale.  Sounds like Living Between Wednesdays is wavering if they are going to keep watching it.  I still can’t believe they decided to do 22 episodes of Riverdale, the first season’s 13 was so tightly written and this season just feels bloated and filler-ful.  Which is super disappointing.

PS4 Games Research

Posted by John Klein III on December 18, 2017
Posted in: Games, Websites. Tagged: . Leave a comment

I was writing this for another post but then I realized there is enough here for a separate post.  I’ve been thinking lately about how I could do a quick recipe post and then the “what I watched/listen to last week” as a separate post, but that seems silly as the recipe posts are never very long.

keep thinking about, once I have the PS4 hooked up, when am I even going to play any games?  I might try to wake up at 5am and play, but my wife seems to wake up around 4am and sadly, can’t go back to sleep so that might not work.  I can try to do it on my Shopko nights but if my son is still awake (he tries to stay up to see me) then I won’t be playing on those nights.  Just not sure when I’ll be able to do it.  When he naps, on the weekends, we try to watch a show but he has not been taking naps so I’m not sure.  If he had a sibling, he wouldn’t need so much attention but I work so much, that I like to give him so much attention.  The waking up early is probably my best option.  This is definitely a first world problem but I don’t often get those.  It’ll probably be used for Netflix and Hulu, mostly, but I’m getting a few games that I’m hoping to actually play on a frequent basis.

I keep reading lists of Must Own games for the PS4.  I’m getting Grand Theft Auto V and Fallout 4.  I saw that Gamestop has the Game of the Year edition of Fallout 4, so I’l have to buy the DLC pack.  I also saw that you can get KITT (the car from Knight Rider) in GTAV, so I’m going to want to do that as early as possible.  Though I can’t find the step by step process on how to do it.  I saw that it is super expensive and is part of a DLC pack, so I’ll have to download that one.  I just looked up the word for that DLC and now I’m seeing that GTA Online might be a separate thing?  Is it separate from V or is that just the fancy word for the multiplayer mode?  KITT is in the Import / Export DLC, one of the later cars.  It isn’t a separate game on Amazon so it must be within GTA V.  I guess I’ll find out soon.

I’m also hoping to get the Uncharted Trilogy (for the third game) and 4, plus Lost Legacy.  I’ve been also wanting The Last of Us (also by Naughty Dogs – who develops the Uncharted series).  But then I read (or was reminded) that isn’t the Ellen Page game, Beyond : Two Souls is which there is a double game of that and Heavy Rain, that I really want.

Speaking of Naughty Dogs, my wife is getting the Crash Bandicoot trilogy, which I’ll probably end up playing for her.  We’re also getting Little Big Planet 3 for the family too.  My son likes racing games so I need to add Gran Turismo Sport for that purpose.  I may be wrong, LBP3 might be a future purchase, I’m not sure now.

I just checked metacritic.com for best racing games for PS4 –

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/genre/metascore/racing/ps4?view=condensed

I’m just going to go ahead and switch out Gran Turismo for F1, as I’m not loyal to any racing game franchise.

I want to also get Batman Arkham Knight, to finish that story.  I still haven’t played Origins either but I’ve heard I can skip that one.

I also want to get TMNT : Mutants in Manhattan.  I’ve heard it isn’t a stellar game but it is pretty good for a Ninja Turtles game.  Like, people wanted more from it but what they got, was pretty decent.

In researching games, I found some that sound super interesting games.

Life is Strange sounds super interesting.

Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice sounds like a brand new type of game.

Rachelle of Living Between Wednesdays talks about Lego Marvel’s Avengers, with how fun the Farmhouse segments were.

I’m a nut for Peggle so that could be fun on the PS4.  Maybe a tad silly but another family game.

I never got to play Red Dead Redemption, and it looks amazing.  The prequel comes out next year as does Far Cry 5.  I’ve never played a Far Cry game before, but it is set in Montana (where I live) so I feel compelled to play it.  It is a fictional city, of course, plus super stereotypical of who people think Montanans are but I’m not from here, so I’m fine with it.

I keep reading how much there is to do in Witcher 3 but I’m not the biggest sorcery / fantasy guy.

Until Dawn also sounds like an incredible game, I’ll want to get that at some point.

I’m regretting getting two massive open world games in Fallout 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5.  I wouldn’t mind a smaller or more linear game to play, along side those two.

Then my research took me to easy games to platinum and found a fun list of those games.

https://culturedvultures.com/easiest-platinum-trophies-ps4/

Some sound fun and easy but I’m not sure if I want to throw down twenty dollars just for easy trophies.  Though I’m curious about the TellTale games, when I wasn’t before reading that list.

I also found this list :

http://www.businessinsider.com/ps4-playstation-4-best-games-2017-8

Which has several games on it that seem like they would be fun for my wife and me.  She likes a good puzzle game, and I like games that push the graphic card, to justify the system and the fancy TV.

Those games would be : The Witness / The Last Guardian / Inside / Abzu / Flower / Journey

I kept finding game lists for games that came out in 2017 but I wanted a more comprehensive list.  I also like that we are buying this system in probably its second to last year so a slew of games should be more affordable but if not, time tested.

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/ps4/filtered?sort=desc&hardware=all

This is probably the most comprehensive list I could find.  i like how they have it by Metascore and another list created by users (that keeps track of the metascore, too).

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/userscore/all/ps4/filtered?sort=desc

I feel like the user list might be the one I listen to, even though Witcher 3 is on the top of it.

I’ll be tempted to get Injustice 2 once the Game of the Year edition comes out, unless the Ninja Turtles are lame on it, then I might still pass.  I’m not the biggest fighting game guy, or first person shooter nor a racing gamer.

I was tempted by Amazing Spider-Man 2, as it reminded me of Spider-Man 2, being an open world Spider-Man game.  I read decent reviews, back in the day.  Essentially most of them stated to play it on the PS4 and not the PS3, which was the case for most games where that was an option.  Which makes perfect sense.

Night in the Woods sound cute.

We’re getting the 1 terabyte PS4 proper (or it could be a slim, for all I know) so hopefully that is enough memory to last several games.

Here are some other sites that I found with helpful lists.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/10-best-ps4-games-this-generation-s-must-play-titles-1298394

http://www.trustedreviews.com/guide/best-ps4-games

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/best-ps4-games/

At lunch, my wife told me that seven games should be enough to hold us over for some time, so I know four of those games.  I’ll let you know what the other games are, once I know them.

As I do enjoy making lists (it gives me something to scratch out or strike through), here is the list of games I’m interesting in, broken down into tiers as I’m also way into using the word “tiers.”  It really is the little things in life that amuses one, later in life.

Grand Theft Auto V
Fallout 4
Uncharted Trilogy
Uncharted 4
Uncharted : Lost Legacy
Batman : Arkham Knight
Heavy Rain / Beyond : Two Souls
Crash Bandicoot trilogy
Little Big Planet 3
Lego Marvel’s Avengers
The Last of Us Remastered
F1 2017
TMNT : Mutants in Manhattan
Peggle 2                                                                (11)

Life is Strange
Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice
Until Dawn                                           (3)

The Witness
The Last Guardian
Inside
Abzu
Flower
Journey                                  (6)

Which is 20 games, and I do enjoy a list divisible by 10, heck, even 25, which is my comic book upbringing coming through for the latter.

okay, so I counted the list and it is 23 games, so I’m not sure how I missed up counting that before.  I originally had Peggle 2 on there twice but that doesn’t really help.  Oh, I wasn’t counting the games I know we own, that’s how I got to 20 but 23 are listed.  Gosh, the difference an hour makes when writing a post!

The second tier games are the ones I discovered after conducting my research.

The third tier is mostly games I think my wife would enjoy and are apparently very nice to see.

https://www.costco.com/TCL-43%22-Class-(42.5%22-Diag.)-1080p-Roku-LED-LCD-TV.product.100328192.html

The TCL 43″ Classic 1080p Roku LCD TV, is the TV we are going to pair the PS4 with.  The Roku TV is how we’ve been addressing it.  For Black Friday, it was down to $250 but we’ve committed to paying the $280 for it, as it didn’t time out right for us.  My original goal was to “surprise” my wife for it for an anniversary present, as it is the TV she picked out.  We like the Roku brand (until it goes wrong, which is rare nowadays) so it does have everything we want in a television set.

I write “surprised” as anything over fifty dollars, we discuss it as one never knows.  Such is the married life.

 

Wishlist – Funko Mystery Mini – Kitty Pryde and Lockheed

Posted by John Klein III on December 13, 2017
Posted in: Toy, Websites. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

That is a narly looking Lockheed!  He’s like a gargoyle.  And look!  Kitty with transparent legs!

That is one sassy Kitty Pryde there, too.

I’m just glad to see something that has come out this year, that includes Lockheed.

Poor Lockheed, hasn’t made a comic book appearance since Secret Wars 2015!

Captain America : Steve Rogers 15’s ResurrXion variant cover is the only place he can be found, in the past two years!  Also, I would like to get this variant cover as well!

The cover is by David Marquez.

According to my old pals over at ComicBookDB, Lockheed hasn’t been seen since

http://www.comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=1888

Groot (2015) 6, which came out in January 2016!  I’ve checked variant covers, as good as I could, and this is the only one he’s appeared in.  I’m not sure about dialogue but as of comics released in August 2017, Lockheed hasn’t been mentioned either.  I’ve been compiling a list from Marvel Database from July 2016, when Hastings closed, to August 2017 (I have to update it for September books).  It takes some time to look at all of the comics Marvel releases on a monthly basis.

So those four items are the latest we could see, besides shirts that I’m not sure were official or are fan made, it was hard to tell from how they appeared on Amazon.  I do like how Amazon has third party, including individuals, giving eBay a run for their money.

Wishlist – Marvel Chess Piece – Kitty Pryde

Posted by John Klein III on December 11, 2017
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Songs, Toy, Websites. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

After Magik (44) got her own Chess Piece, I thought for sure Kitty would get hers, soon after.  Instead, it took longer than one would suspect.  They did eventually make one, 61, and I want it so much!  Poor Lockheed, can’t get included in any new merchandise materials!

Magik came out in November 4, 2015, she’s a White Pawn

Kitty came out in May 25, 2016, she’s also a White Pawn

So she must have came out around the same time, I had quit searching for her.

Ever since Hastings closed, I’ve allowed myself to lose all interest in comics, outside of podcasts.  I don’t even keep up with comic movie news, until they are literally coming to theaters.

All of chess discussion is making me want to listen to Murray Head’s One Night in Bangkok.

Thanks to ChessVEVO for hosting the video!

Which is odd, I was expecting it to read as MurrayHeadVEVO but I forget it is from a musical titled, Chess.  A play, I would love to see, as I do enjoy the game of Chess.  As I prefer my kicks, above the waistline.  A line, that I adore to say, whenever I can.  Except, most people don’t get the reference now and I’ve had to dial it back as they probably think I’m talking about boobs.  ( o ) Y ( o )

YouTube actually has five songs from the musical!

The order to listen to them, according to Wikipedia –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_(musical)

Arbiter
Nobody’s Side
Pity the Child
One Night in Bangkok
I Know Him Well

So I’m going to have to listen to these, sometime soon!

This reminds me of when I discovered YouTube had a live performance of Beethoven’s Last Night

Thanks to YouTuber squintyt4e for having the playlist.  I thought YouTube made it so you can link to a website of a playlist but I’m not seeing that option.  My understanding is that that video should play all 37 videos.

Probably my favorite musical and by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, so great!

My favorite songs, in order of the show –

What Good is this Deafness
What is Eternal
The Moment
This is Who You Are
Who is This Child

So great!

 

Wishlist – Heroclix – Uncanny X-Men – Kitty Pryde

Posted by John Klein III on December 8, 2017
Posted in: Heroclix, Toy. Tagged: . Leave a comment

My wife discovered that Heroclix released an Uncanny X-Men set!  The line came out in May 2016, so I’m crazy behind on Heroclix.  They then released a Superior Foes of Spider-Man line in August and haven’t released one since then.  So maybe that’s why I haven’t thought of Heroclix, in a while.

No Lockheed, but that’s okay, he can’t be on everything that relates to Kitty.

Heroclix, being Heroclix, they also released a clear edition!

I told my lovely wife, that she doesn’t have to worry about the clear one, especially as it is like ten times the cost of the regular one.

Her powers don’t make her invisible, so I don’t know why this is even an option.  I can write this, this is not the first transparent Kitty Pryde item, every so often, a company will create something with a transparent limb, to show her powers in effect.  Which, ironically, they still don’t end up accomplishing.

 

Sunday Dinner : Cheesy Chicken Casserole

Posted by John Klein III on December 6, 2017
Posted in: Cooking. Tagged: . Leave a comment

http://www.plainchicken.com/2012/06/cheesy-chicken-casserole.html

I didn’t mean to take so much time away from the blog, it sort of just happened that way.  Sorry about that.

This is a pretty great recipe for a potluck, I would only changed it from two tablespoons of poppy seeds to one, as one was plenty for us.

What was also plenty for us, was this dish!  Once I poured the Cheddar cheese in, I started realizing that this was a lot of food.  So next time, I’ll just half ingredients.  I also started having that thought with all the sour cream the recipe called for.

Not a full rotisserie chicken
Probably keep the 16 ounce egg noodles
12 ounces of sour cream
Probably keep the two cans of cream of chicken soup
Probably go with one eight ounce bag of mixed Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese
Keep the sleeve of Club crackers, the garlic variety
Keep the 1/4 cup of melted butter
1 tablespoon of poppy seeds is all we needed so we’ll keep that too

Another change of the preparation, and maybe this is more of a fun factor, is that i would stir each new ingredient, as we put it in.  I had the idea after doing the two cans of soups but I should have started that immediately with the sour cream.  It would have made for a better mixture.

Our six quarter pot, that we use for everything (so we need to do dishes after using it, every time) was pretty full when everything was in it.  I started getting concern everything wasn’t going to fit inside the 9 x 13 dish.

We ended up eating half of it, as it was pretty dense.  Very tasty but dense.  Just a big spoonful was all we needed for a serving.

I also bought a Costco rotisserie chicken, after being told that it was the best price and pretty tasty.  I thought it worked out pretty well.  I think I still prefer just cooking up some chicken thighs and going that route but I understand it is supposed to be a time saving measure but I don’t think it really is, after all the chopping and pulling the meat apart.

. . .

We’re onto Season Eight of The Office, our next episode is Lotto.  So far, it hasn’t been to bad, without Steve Carrell being around.  That may change, as I know the show only lasts this and the next season.

We are all caught up with the CW Superhero shows.  I really enjoyed that Crisis of Earth-X crossover, it was the best one yet.

I’m behind with Riverdale, I usually watch it with my son.  Which may be questionable but I have to watch TV with either my wife or my son as I don’t have private time to myself.  With the holiday season upon us, I should have time as our shows tend to stop airing new episodes.

Our next episode of the Nick Turtles is The Insecta Trifecta.  I’m happy they are back on Earth but I’m curious if the old space turtles are ever going to be mention.  So odd that there are duplicates out there, having adventures but being told about what their future selves were up to.  Pretty complicated but I know that show ends after the fifth season so it isn’t a big worry.  Hopefully Hulu uploads those episodes as we’re going to be done with the fourth season, relatively soon.

On Netflix, we’ve started watching Harlan Coben’s The Five.  We’re two episodes in and we’re hoping to finish the entire thing soon.  So far, pretty good.

We probably won’t start Legends of Tomorrow until the summer, we want a break from superhero shows.  I’m not dying to watch Luke Cage, Iron Fist or the Defenders, so we might be done there.  Which means we probably won’t watch Punisher anytime soon, though I’ve heard good things.

We did finish Inhumans, it wasn’t horrible, and I liked that the last two episodes took place on Avalon.  I wish the Royal Family don their proper costumes for the last two episodes but I get that they were still moving fast but it would have been nice.  I do want to watch the motion comic Inhumans DVD, as it still is in the plastic wrap.

We are thinking of starting to watch Emily Owens, MD on Netflix as The Five is only ten episodes.  I looked it up last night and FOX’s The Gifted is 13 episodes, when I thought it was only ten.  I’ve heard good things about Owens and it is another done-in-one season.  Hopefully it ties everything up at the end there.  I’m fine with a tease for season two but hopefully all the main plot points tie up.  It has Justin Hartley in the cast, so that helped convinced my wife too.

There is a new episode of Runaways so we have to watch that this week.

. . .

I’m on episode 106 of Living Between Wednesdays, so I’m doing it!  I can’t wait to be caught up with that show.  I haven’t been missing Undisclosed so I am seriously thinking of going through Turtle Soup but this time, keeping track of funny segments.  I wrote up a Second Clip show option for the Uncanny X-Cast, which I had planned on posting once they did a new episode but I might just post it some day.  I did share it with Rob but I don’t think they’ll use it anytime soon.  Not like Turtle Soup would use my clip suggestions but I’ve been thinking about it for so long I might as well do it and get it out of my head.  I’m not sure if I want to go through the trouble of creating a Wiki for it or just posting it here as special posts, which I probably will do, plus it gives me content.  I’m sure there is a way for me to create a special subpage where everything can be kept but I’m not sure how to do that with WordPress.  If anyone knows how to do that, I’ll be up for a step by step direction.  I’ll Google it and see if I can find an easy way to do it.  I feel like I looked it up before and it looked super complicated, going into the other WordPress where the templates live and doing things there, I was put off by it, is my sense memory of it.

If you are current with all of Comixology’s free comics, today they released :

Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat #1 / Uncanny Inhumans 1, SHIELD (2014) #1 / Captain America 444

I really need to put the Comixology app onto my Kindle.  My wife gave me a free trade code for Amazon and I downloaded IvX but I haven’t open the trade yet.  It took like 20 minutes for it to load, which by the time it was loaded, I had to start doing something else.

I plan on updating with Comixology’s free comics, just so I can get a feel for when new ones are added.  I feel like they are added every two weeks but maybe not?

. . .

TMNT Legends is still a fine game.  Ludia did change the Challenges so we can replay them, daily, to get new DNA cards, so that was a nice improvement.  I’m getting closer to getting my second to bottom tier guys moved up to the next stage, so they can no longer be level 30.  Once I get like five of those guys, the game should open up some more for me.  It is a grind but it is almost over.  I’m excited to get the new April Kunoichi, especially as we’re watching this version on the show now.  Fun how all that came together, for me, at the same time.  She’s the prize for the current tournament.  I keep getting into the bottom tier of the Shogun tier but I’m clearly not meant to be in there.  I finally have a decent two teams of level 45 characters and my third team is mid-30 but I’m clearly supposed to be at level 50 so I keep being bounced back to the upper tier of Samurai.  I hope I got those names right, it is the blue tier and the brown tier is the one I’m clearly under-leveled for.

. . .

I really do enjoy writing these posts, I just need to do it more often.  I just been so distracted with work and life, I haven’t had any think pieces come to mind to write down.  I need to be less busy, I guess.  Not sure how that’ll happen but maybe the end of 2018 would be a bold start, if everything works out.

Sunday Dinner : Slow Cooker Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

Posted by John Klein III on November 22, 2017
Posted in: Cooking. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Slow Cooker Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

I’m not usually a big fan of the concept of Cordon Bleu, as I’ve never really been much of a ham guy, or turkey type of guy, for that matter.  I’m particular with my roast beef too, if it isn’t from Arby’s or that style, I’m not a fan.  I really should learn what they do that makes me like it so much so that I can order roast beef from the grocery store or another restaurant.  Which reminds me, my wife finally agreed to go to Arby’s (she’s not the biggest fan) and they were out of roast beef!  I went with one of their new deep fried turkey sandwiches but I should have just went somewhere else.  That was pretty disappointing.

This was another receipt that my son, Walker Dennis, helped me prepare.  He really got into shredding the ham.  I thought he was doing it too much so I was essentially just quartering the ham slices we got from the Walmart deli.  I didn’t care for the ham, separately, but during the end result, it was pretty tasty.  We usually go with a black forest ham but went with another option, it wasn’t honey as my wife doesn’t like that variety but I’m having a hard time remembering.  She’s a big fan of ham, so she’s regularly getting the ham sandwich from Hardee’s and Arby’s.

I’m coming around on Swiss cheese, I hated it as a kid but my taste palette has really come a long way in the past few years.

My son also loves stuffing so that was a big hit.  He didn’t eat much of the dish proper but he ate up the stuffing.

. . .

I’m behind on my Riverdale as we were closing up the third season of the Nick TMNT third season.  That ends on such an intense note!  I really want to launch into the fourth season, especially the first episode but I need to take the long weekend to get caught up on Riverdale.  The Sony BluRay player we have in our son’s room doesn’t have the CW, so I have to stick with watching it on the Kindle.  Eventually, we’ll be able to find the Roku Stick that was on his television prior to our big move.  We have so much in storage that we haven’t come across it, and we thought we opened every box.  It is in a safe spot, is what I’m thinking.  I imagine it is in my comic book box that also has my Notary Public stamp.  I found my book in another box but not the stamp.  Which is the part I really need to so I can help out the office being another Notary Public.  That comic book box didn’t have my six or so issues that I bought from Hastings that I never got around to reading so I want to find that second box as there are some other documents in there too.  That’s from my memory, at least.

We’re caught up on most of our shows.  The Monday night episode of the Voice was pretty disappointing, I only liked three of the songs.  There are no many contestants and their video packages are not leaving much of an impression on me.  I had to look up their names and songs from Wikipedia.  I thought Brook Simpson (Team Miley)’s rendition of Praying lacked a lot of the purpose of Kesha’s version, which makes sense as it is an extremely personal song.  Which is a concept that I keep coming back to with artists like Ed Sherran that he writes all of these personal songs, then within six months of the album (or single) release, randoms are now singing them on singing competition shows, like they were just words put to music.  It is an odd concept that I’m just now thinking about.  That’s what happens with popular music, the artist releases it to the world and one never knows how the word is going to respond.

My main problem with the episode was that song selection was pretty lousy.  I just want some fun upbeat songs, or if you are going to do a slower song, you have to knock it out.  I liked Chloe Kohanski (Team Blake) with Dido’s Thank You, probably the real winner of the night, for me.  But I could have just did without the episode.  Am I surprised that Team Adam had two people in the bottom two?  No, of course not.  I imagine the winner will either be from Blake or Miley’s team.  JHud has such a team that they are pretty exchangeable.  Also, the Instant Save song, better just be a fun upbeat song, so people see that you are fun and a delight to keep seeing in the competition.  Let’s hope that Adam Cunningham can take some notes and isn’t leaving next, even though, he really should be next.  Which is the point of the Instant Save, to put a contestant on notice and go in a new potentially winning direction.

Dancing with the Stars 25 big winner is Lindsay and Jordan Fisher won, which makes complete sense.  Fisher is essentially a professional dancer.  There is a fun piece of trivia with Lindsay coming in fourth, third, second and now, finally, first, over the past four consecutive seasons.  Which is a record that someone on production must have gotten the word out on.  It wasn’t a bad season, I had to read the result as I had to get to work this morning and didn’t wake up early enough to finish the entire episode.

We got fully caught up on last week’s show by last thing Sunday night.  Now that Dancing is over, we should be able to start tackling our backlog of shows.  I really want to continue watching Stranger Things 2 and Inhumans.

We saw the first episode of Runaways, I really dug it.  Alex is pretty cast perfect with his look.  It bugs me that Molly is the same age (maybe a year younger?) but it makes sense.  A 12 year old would be pretty limited with her screen time, BUT she didn’t get that much screen time, so what would be the harm?  We’ll probably try to watch the next episodes once we get one more of the other shows seen.  I like how Hulu released the first three, so that’s pretty nice.

Our next episode of The Office Season Seven is The Search.

I’ve been so pleased with Hartley Sawyer’s take of Elongated Man on this season of The Flash.  I keep waiting for them to give him that soft lavender costume.  Plus a gal named Sue!  That’s what that show needed.

I’m on episode 96 of Living Between Wednesdays, wherein Rachelle and Dave rate Elongated Man for the revised Super Hunks feature.  I wish they would do a proper blog post for the new ratings, that’ll be nice.  They make the joke about how the choice is out of the blue as there was nothing keeping him in the public consciousness.  But to me, it made perfect sense as he’s on The Flash now but they’re still so far in the past that there probably wasn’t even casting news.  Heck, I didn’t even know he was joining the show until they said Ralph Dibny’s name.  Then it took me several minutes before I realized I did recognize that name.  The podcast episode came out in June 2017, the week after Wonder Woman came to theaters.  I’m hoping I get her BluRay for Christmas and finally see that film.  From what I’ve been told, I’m getting a slew of BluRays with digital copies of several superhero films.  Wonder Woman and Spider-Man : Homecoming are my top two picks.  I see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is coming to Netflix in early December so the need for that one goes down a bit.

We’re hoping to score a PS4 at either Target or Costco, as both have it for just under $200 and that’s a price I can’t say no too!  For our anniversary, I’m hoping to get my wife that 43 inch television with built-in Roku as we’re fans of that setup.  We’ve really need a new television for the living room.  It is currently $280 so if it could go down to $250 for Black Friday, I’ll scoop one of those up too!  My wife says that it was pretty low last year and hasn’t dropped in price since then so it must still be a $280 value television.

I do like how Costco isn’t doing anything on Thanksgiving, good for them!  Sadly, with a PS4 in our sights, we’ll be outside of Target around 5pm or so.  I’m hoping they do the first hour guarantee.  We’ve passed up on deals for controllers and such, already, as I don’t want buy any of the side stuff until owning the system itself.

. . .

From my family to you and yours, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

My wife an enlisted me to help her cook a corn casserole and a sweet potato casserole, so that’s what we’re contributing.  And two different types of rolls from this great local place, Great Harvest.

I still can’t believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I can’t wait to be out of the retail game and the holidays feel like real joys instead of obstacles that I have to endure until the day itself.  It is tiring and the late nights are starting to catch up to me.