- "Cardinal, this is not good... We're being attacked left-and-right about the sexual molestations, we need to do something."
- "Well, Papa, we need to do something that appeals to the youngsters of today. Wait, I've got it! Let's forgive The Beatles for saying they were more popular than Jesus!"
- "Brilliant, cardinal, that ought to shut them up! Alert the media at once."
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
"Burger King"? Sorry, that title is taken
Everybody likes a good burger, right? Well, not vegetarians, but there are some really good alternatives for them as well. In fact I have a great recipe for veggie burgers, but that's for an other day.
So what's in a good burger meal? Bread, some vegetables, sauce, fries, dip sauce, something to drink... Pretty simple, but 1000 different ways to do it.
Let's start with the bread. You can buy ready-made burger bread in the store. Boring. Make your own bread. You can combine a batch with making some "regular" bread as well; then you'll not feel like you just wasted a whole good dough on just burger bread. Bread recipes can be found anywhere, so just look around a bit. One thing's for sure: your home baked bread will kick the ass of any bread you can buy.
Fries: getting a bit bored with ordinary fries, and I think there are way more interesting ways to prepare potatoes if you want something "snack style".
Start by cutting the potatoes into sticks, about twice as big as "regular" fries. I usually don't peel them, it makes the whole dish really bland and takes away a lot of flavor.
Boil them a bit to soften them up. About 10 minutes should do it, maybe a bit less. Then move them over to some suitable overware. Sprinkle with some olive oil and put in the middle of the oven at 250 degrees. Does your oven have a grill function? Even better.
Take the potatoes out after a while, add some salt and sprinkle on a bit more olive oil, and give them a good shake/turn. Put them back in the oven.
The key here is color. You want a nice golden brown thing going on. Then they're done! Add some more salt if needed, and some tarragon or rosemary is also a very good idea.
Dip sauce: I like yogurt based sauces but natural yogurt is often too watery for my taste, especially here in Portugal. The remedy is to filter out some of the liquid using a coffee filter.
Once you've gotten some of the liquid out, transfer to a bowl and add some salt, pepper and pressed garlic. Done!
The burger is the easy part. Good quality minced meat. Usually 100g/burger is enough; 150 is also nice if you have made the breads a bit bigger. Fry one side, turn them over, add some salt and pepper, and a slice of good cheese if you feel like it. Put on a lid in that case to make the cheese melt nicely.
Fry the bead a bit as well. I usually do it before frying the burgers, otherwise I just get stressed from trying to prepare everything at the same time.
Sauce: ketchup is obligatory, but you can make your own which will for sure taste better. Start with some tomato purée. Add a bit of honey, worcestershire sauce, tabasco and dijon mustard. Quantities to taste, but remember that the sauce should be TOMATO based.
Some onion (yellow or red), a slice of tomato and some rocket (ruccola) salad... Done.
Drinks: well, it all depends on your taste. If you're in Portugal, a Sagres Bohemia is a very good idea.
There you have it! Burger, "fries", drink. Feel free to compare this to any meal in any burger joint and let me know which one you preferred. And this one is definitely healthier.
So what's in a good burger meal? Bread, some vegetables, sauce, fries, dip sauce, something to drink... Pretty simple, but 1000 different ways to do it.
Let's start with the bread. You can buy ready-made burger bread in the store. Boring. Make your own bread. You can combine a batch with making some "regular" bread as well; then you'll not feel like you just wasted a whole good dough on just burger bread. Bread recipes can be found anywhere, so just look around a bit. One thing's for sure: your home baked bread will kick the ass of any bread you can buy.
Fries: getting a bit bored with ordinary fries, and I think there are way more interesting ways to prepare potatoes if you want something "snack style".
Start by cutting the potatoes into sticks, about twice as big as "regular" fries. I usually don't peel them, it makes the whole dish really bland and takes away a lot of flavor.
Boil them a bit to soften them up. About 10 minutes should do it, maybe a bit less. Then move them over to some suitable overware. Sprinkle with some olive oil and put in the middle of the oven at 250 degrees. Does your oven have a grill function? Even better.
Take the potatoes out after a while, add some salt and sprinkle on a bit more olive oil, and give them a good shake/turn. Put them back in the oven.
The key here is color. You want a nice golden brown thing going on. Then they're done! Add some more salt if needed, and some tarragon or rosemary is also a very good idea.
Dip sauce: I like yogurt based sauces but natural yogurt is often too watery for my taste, especially here in Portugal. The remedy is to filter out some of the liquid using a coffee filter.
Once you've gotten some of the liquid out, transfer to a bowl and add some salt, pepper and pressed garlic. Done!
The burger is the easy part. Good quality minced meat. Usually 100g/burger is enough; 150 is also nice if you have made the breads a bit bigger. Fry one side, turn them over, add some salt and pepper, and a slice of good cheese if you feel like it. Put on a lid in that case to make the cheese melt nicely.
Fry the bead a bit as well. I usually do it before frying the burgers, otherwise I just get stressed from trying to prepare everything at the same time.
Sauce: ketchup is obligatory, but you can make your own which will for sure taste better. Start with some tomato purée. Add a bit of honey, worcestershire sauce, tabasco and dijon mustard. Quantities to taste, but remember that the sauce should be TOMATO based.
Some onion (yellow or red), a slice of tomato and some rocket (ruccola) salad... Done.
Drinks: well, it all depends on your taste. If you're in Portugal, a Sagres Bohemia is a very good idea.
There you have it! Burger, "fries", drink. Feel free to compare this to any meal in any burger joint and let me know which one you preferred. And this one is definitely healthier.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Are you suffering from electrosensitivity? Well of course you are...
Saw a program on Swedish TV yesterday, and I don't really know why I did it because I knew it would severely piss me off in the end. But I was curious to see if they would actually bother to put some SCIENCE into it.
They didn't.
I would actually guess that most people in Sweden have heard about electrosensitivity, or allergy to electricity (elallergi). And herein lies a clue to what makes the whole thing quite hilarious: they talk about it now and then in Swedish media which, according to my theory, brings on more and more cases.
The program in question is called "Outsiders", which is a series showing the lives of a bunch of weirdos and retards. Now, that's my professional opinion. This particular episode featured -- just like in most of the others -- people making wild claims with no evidence to back it up.
Now, let me make this perfectly clear: these people DO show symptoms of discomfort, I will not not challenge that for a bit! But people have to realize how powerful their imagination can be, so to the point that it triggers physical symptoms.
After watching a bunch of weirdos bitch and moan for 25 minutes, we finally get to listen to a doctor who works with these people, and hear her opinion. "Here we go, finally some sense in this one-sided shitfest". Oh yeah, she really laid it down. Apparently it's all a big conspiracy, because accepting this "disease" would be a huge cost on society. Cue, final credit, end of show. WHAT!!?
Let me make it perfectly clear. I do not for one second believe that electrosensitivity exists. I've reached this conclusion from reading reports and results from studies. I do not give a flying fuck what these people say, because I could put a radio mast inside their asses and they would have no clue about if it was transmitting or not! Yeah, I'm an asshole and I don't like to sugarcoat, but this is how the world works.
I made a funny little experiment of my own last year. Me and my wife took the car to check some mountains close to where we live. On one mountain top they had several radio and TV masts (I guess, I don't really care what they were sending out). I asked my wife if she could feel it in her head. Guess what? She started feeling like shit.
This is how the brain works. It makes all kinds of funny assumptions and it tricks you over and over. Not much to do about it, but it does help to know what the hell is going on in there and not be too quick to jump to conclusions.
Towards the end of this piece of TV garbage, we were treated to one of the most fucked up dances I've ever seen, from one of the participants. Why don't you get a real fucking disease? Let's see how well you dance with cancer.
Rant over. Back to work.
They didn't.
I would actually guess that most people in Sweden have heard about electrosensitivity, or allergy to electricity (elallergi). And herein lies a clue to what makes the whole thing quite hilarious: they talk about it now and then in Swedish media which, according to my theory, brings on more and more cases.
The program in question is called "Outsiders", which is a series showing the lives of a bunch of weirdos and retards. Now, that's my professional opinion. This particular episode featured -- just like in most of the others -- people making wild claims with no evidence to back it up.
Now, let me make this perfectly clear: these people DO show symptoms of discomfort, I will not not challenge that for a bit! But people have to realize how powerful their imagination can be, so to the point that it triggers physical symptoms.
After watching a bunch of weirdos bitch and moan for 25 minutes, we finally get to listen to a doctor who works with these people, and hear her opinion. "Here we go, finally some sense in this one-sided shitfest". Oh yeah, she really laid it down. Apparently it's all a big conspiracy, because accepting this "disease" would be a huge cost on society. Cue, final credit, end of show. WHAT!!?
Let me make it perfectly clear. I do not for one second believe that electrosensitivity exists. I've reached this conclusion from reading reports and results from studies. I do not give a flying fuck what these people say, because I could put a radio mast inside their asses and they would have no clue about if it was transmitting or not! Yeah, I'm an asshole and I don't like to sugarcoat, but this is how the world works.
I made a funny little experiment of my own last year. Me and my wife took the car to check some mountains close to where we live. On one mountain top they had several radio and TV masts (I guess, I don't really care what they were sending out). I asked my wife if she could feel it in her head. Guess what? She started feeling like shit.
This is how the brain works. It makes all kinds of funny assumptions and it tricks you over and over. Not much to do about it, but it does help to know what the hell is going on in there and not be too quick to jump to conclusions.
Towards the end of this piece of TV garbage, we were treated to one of the most fucked up dances I've ever seen, from one of the participants. Why don't you get a real fucking disease? Let's see how well you dance with cancer.
Rant over. Back to work.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Stop thinking and use your ears
So I'm in the middle of the Watain recording session and I'm sitting here thinking about some of the signal chains. It's very easy to listen to much to what people say about what you can and cannot use and stop using your ears.
The setup hasn't been much different than usual I decided to not give a flying fuck about what you're "supposed to use". Hence, we've reached a sound truer to our expectations than I could have imagined when we started out.
All guitars....ALL guitars go through a Behringer Dualfex that I bought maybe 7-8 years ago without much clue about what I needed it for. I find it quite funny that in a signal chain which probably amounts to 8000 euros (it all ads up), the last step before the A/D is a Chinese box that I picked up second hand for 50 euros and that everybody probably hates.
And while we're at it... Main guitars: TLAudio 5001 preamp. Who would ever recommend this piece of "garbage"? Me, that's who. Suck on that. We went through some different pres when we set up the vocal sound as well. Guess which pre we went for?
Bass: PodXT with a 5150->4x12 V30 emulation. I don't think I've ever gotten such a raw bass sound.
Moral of the story? Conventions stink!
The setup hasn't been much different than usual I decided to not give a flying fuck about what you're "supposed to use". Hence, we've reached a sound truer to our expectations than I could have imagined when we started out.
All guitars....ALL guitars go through a Behringer Dualfex that I bought maybe 7-8 years ago without much clue about what I needed it for. I find it quite funny that in a signal chain which probably amounts to 8000 euros (it all ads up), the last step before the A/D is a Chinese box that I picked up second hand for 50 euros and that everybody probably hates.
And while we're at it... Main guitars: TLAudio 5001 preamp. Who would ever recommend this piece of "garbage"? Me, that's who. Suck on that. We went through some different pres when we set up the vocal sound as well. Guess which pre we went for?
Bass: PodXT with a 5150->4x12 V30 emulation. I don't think I've ever gotten such a raw bass sound.
Moral of the story? Conventions stink!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Ode to Portugal
Hello Portugal
Could you please explain your perverse obsession with papers, signatures and stamps? Isn't it about time that you get with the program? You ask for every single detail OVER AND OVER and NOBODY ever questions why. Do you really think that you are progressing as a nation with this kind of nonsense? I'm not very happy with how they run the country I'm from either, but at least they have obviously made an effort to make it easy for for people to fill out a simple form and things like that, without getting completely ensnared and entangled in ridiculous bureaucracy that has no place in modern day society. Shame on you, Portugal, shame on you.
"onde está o papel? precisa de um papel!"
Could you please explain your perverse obsession with papers, signatures and stamps? Isn't it about time that you get with the program? You ask for every single detail OVER AND OVER and NOBODY ever questions why. Do you really think that you are progressing as a nation with this kind of nonsense? I'm not very happy with how they run the country I'm from either, but at least they have obviously made an effort to make it easy for for people to fill out a simple form and things like that, without getting completely ensnared and entangled in ridiculous bureaucracy that has no place in modern day society. Shame on you, Portugal, shame on you.
"onde está o papel? precisa de um papel!"
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Valkyrja Day 1
So the recording of the new VALKYRJA album has commenced. Without having received the pre-payment as usual...but what can we do, no point to waste any time.
We started out pretty calmly. The drums have been rigged up, tuned, tuned again, tuned again. Tried two different snares with different tunings. Nobody could agree which one to use, so we're taking that battle up again today. Not to mention the hours-long discussion on which key to tune the guitars in. I wish we had an independent jury sometimes.
We started out pretty calmly. The drums have been rigged up, tuned, tuned again, tuned again. Tried two different snares with different tunings. Nobody could agree which one to use, so we're taking that battle up again today. Not to mention the hours-long discussion on which key to tune the guitars in. I wish we had an independent jury sometimes.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Mixing and...Watain!
Ok, nothing much going on in this blog for quite some time. I just haven't felt the urge to say much because there hasn't been much to say. Everything is recorded now anyway and I'm working with the mixing right now. Have to say, it's sounding pretty good!
I also have some other news that might interest some people. The ones who attended the Watain anniversary gig in Uppsala might have noticed the audience mics on stage. I saw some people discussing it on a forum for example.
Well, here's the whole story: I had the whole setup connected to an Alesis HD24, a multi track recorder, all the mics, everything. The gig was recorded, but there is ONE flaw with the HD24, namely that if the power is cut, everything you just recorded is gone. GONE. And this is exactly what happened when the cursed fire alarm went off. The recording was GONE.
I've been looking around for a solution since then and today I found it. I've managed to salvage the entire performance, and what can I say, it sounds really, really good!
Now it's just a question of what will be done with the recording, and that's completely up to the band of course. Only time will tell.
I also have some other news that might interest some people. The ones who attended the Watain anniversary gig in Uppsala might have noticed the audience mics on stage. I saw some people discussing it on a forum for example.
Well, here's the whole story: I had the whole setup connected to an Alesis HD24, a multi track recorder, all the mics, everything. The gig was recorded, but there is ONE flaw with the HD24, namely that if the power is cut, everything you just recorded is gone. GONE. And this is exactly what happened when the cursed fire alarm went off. The recording was GONE.
I've been looking around for a solution since then and today I found it. I've managed to salvage the entire performance, and what can I say, it sounds really, really good!
Now it's just a question of what will be done with the recording, and that's completely up to the band of course. Only time will tell.
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