pencilears

pencilears OP , 5 hours ago

therapists these days give you strats for dealing with shitty situations, it's not all "ohh my mother wasn't very good at parenting" you're an adult! you have to consider what you're going to Do about it!!!

in this case, what we're going to do about it is have a nice lunch with grandma and maybie talk about grandpa with her.

pencilears OP , 5 days ago

Follow up: do you know what a "Clopen" is?

pencilears OP , 7 days ago

I know we share around the charts that show how a heart attack presents differently in women.

I think this one is also worth making up a little internet PSA graphic about, considering if you do know what you're looking for? you can say "aortic dissection" and all the weird test results the doctor is frowning at will snap into place.

Anyways, as a furry artist, it's important that I have some approximate knowledge of many autoimmune and connective tissue disorders.

pencilears OP , 8 days ago

I could do this, but the fact that my wife has done it and she's very Computer Expert-coded, means nobody is arguing about it.

I love her so much.

pencilears OP , 13 days ago

Also, personally, I do think people should take a class on bike riding before they're allowed out on an ebike.

Your average ebike rider usually isn't a cyclist, and while a lifetime of driving cars and motorcycles teaches you a lot, it's not enough, and eBikes are a lot more bike than they are motorcycle.

pencilears OP , 13 days ago

A kid on an ebike is in the mindset of a child on a trike, an old guy on an ebike is in the midset of a Harley Davidson rider.

Both of these are dangerous.

The ebike is fast and menacing to pedestrians in a way that being a child in a culdusac is not. So you're not used to needing to be careful.

The ebike is sluggish, quiet, and lightweight if you're used to the speed and heft of a real motorcycle. So you can neither demand nor receive the respect you expect on the road.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Everyone in the commune is an anarchist, so if anyone brought up that they felt there was an abuse of authority going on during the weekly meetings? They got shut down because obviously anarchists don't have authority.

Things didn't change untill all the women started talking together and comparing notes, but the only thing that happened when they all confronted the guy was he cried and then shut down the collective.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

I'm really appreciating the anti-ai girlfriend angle in this episode.

Like, yeah, it is weird and creepy to make an image of a real person and then make it say everything you want to hear, fall in love with it, and then expect the real person to love you back when they don't even know you.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

I have multiple examples across the spectrum of madness to new ideas, and sometimes the madness is interesting.

I just think that clinging to drawing comics about a slice of life that no longer exists as if it's still happening? just, isn't good for you as an artist, it seems to be a solid path to fascism.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Drawing autobio is always an attempt to do a slow motion diary, so you're always looking backwards simply because comics take so much time to produce, but I think acknowledging that you're looking at the past is more healthy than trying to claim you're in the present.

Anyways, I read a lot of Dillbert as a kid, it's actually one of my foundational texts, Scott Addams is a long-time problematic fav of mine.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

This is like when your friend who watches a thousand horror movies a year is trying to get you to watch actual garbage by actual teens, because they like something about the technical execution on a level only approachable by the truly deranged.

But like, decisively naively drawn comics have a lot of appeal that I've never been able to capture in my own work.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

I liked what he had to say about work.

as a child who's life involved a lot of being brought into offices on weekends, I wanted to know what my dad was dealing with. I wanted to know what went on in those cubicles, and Dillbert offered me a way to understand something of that world.

It sucks when the person who made something important to you is a crackpot misogynist, but it's unfortunately also a constant problem.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Success combined with isolation turns a normal creative weirdo into a nut job.

We see this over and over, if you're not humble, if you don't have anyone you feel like you need to impress, a little creative success can make a nightmare out of anyone.

And that's the other thing we should remember about this, being able to say "I'm sorry, I was wrong" and mean it, is what keeps your mind from turning to slush.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

One nice thing about being married to a picky eater is that I do get all my treats to myself.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

After having quested to replicate this soup for like, 20 years, finally getting it right has me feeling like somebody who has hard their desire eaten (their wish granted) by the demon in dungeon meshi.

Like, wow, I finally did it, I unraveled the secret of the soup!

It was the one ingredient I knew about, but could never source. Great. It actually needs alaskan king crab (Other shellfish are available) to replicate the time my cousin made it with alaskan king crab.

Pathetic fanfare noise

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

I guess the other things I have now that I didn't have when I started questing is: fresh lime leaves, canned curry paste, and an immersion blender.

Anyways, ingredients:
Leftover cooked king crab meat (or whatever you've got), white onion (diced), shallot (diced), carrots (peeled and diced), celery (diced), garlic ginger paste, lemongrass paste, can of Thai red curry, can of coconut cream, kabocha squash, fish sauce (or dashi stock), chicken stock, better than bullion roast chicken flavor,

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Procedure: hack your squash in half, scoop out and roast at like 350°F cupped upright so the sugar doesn't run out of it untill fork tender.

Defrost your homemade chicken stock with a scoop of chicken bullion goo in water on your stove on low

Chop your veg

In a cast iron pan add the onions and the shallots and sautee untill transparent and a little brown. (the kabocha squash is going to add a lot of sugar so you're not obligated to carmelize your onions, but don't let them be raw.)

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Once onions are done, throw them into the soup and sautee your carrots and celery together, sautee untill the celery is bright green and a little transparent and add to soup.

Now, sautee the ginger-garlic paste, (and some lemongrass paste if you can get it) plus the can of Thai curry paste, mix and sautee all the aromatics together untill it gets fragrant and then add all that to the soup.

Pour in a can of coconut cream (plus a little thai fish sauce, if you can get it) and add the lime leaves

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

By now your pumpkin (kabocha squash) should be fork tender, take it out of the oven and scoop the flesh out of the rind and into your soup.

(There is no need to peel squash before cooking if it's going into a puree)

Once the flavors have melded and the carrots are soft, remove the lime leaves from your soup and use an immersion blender to puree everything. (you can put the lime leaves back in afterwards if you like)

Taste, think about if it needs salt, if so? add more fish sauce.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

You may allow the soup to mellow in the fridge and it easily adapts to being vegan.

(Sub salt for fish sauce, water for chicken stock, and omit the shellfish entirely, tadah! it's still pretty good, I've made it this way for parties)

To serve: warm your bowls in the oven, add your pre-cooked shellfish, and ladle over with hot soup. (If you don't preheat the bowls in the oven you may employ a microwave to counteract heat loss from the leftover crab meat, but be careful not to overdo it)

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

You may garnish with chili oil and the hearty carbohydrate of your choice.

(This soup is basically curry, therefore rice goes hard here. However, I am a barbarian and my preferred carb is crusty bread, ideally hot from the oven (heated up with the bowls) with a pat of salty butter, you can do what you like with your life)

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Substitutions that do not work: fake crab is worse than no crab, Butternut squash doesn't have enough flavor, canned coconut milk isn't thick enough, and you can't really omit the salt or the fat or the spices without making a very disappointing soup.

Substitutions that do work: it's not bad when vegan and served over sauteed mushrooms, and while king crab replicates my cousin's soup, you can get away with shrimps, or any other crab meat, probably also scallops, and it will be delicious.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Kabocha squash is better than sugar pumpkin which is better than canned pumpkin puree, which is still better than butternut squash.

I feel very lucky to have access to all the basic ingredients for this one that makes it stand out from the crowd (coconut cream, lime leaves, fish sauce, chili oil, Thai curry spice, ginger-garlic paste, and lemongrass paste) so, I tip my weeb fedora to Uwajimaya and H-mart for making this all possible.

pencilears OP , 1 month ago

Anyways, any luck and this is the last you'll hear of this particular soup-posting.

I've finally cracked it, I'm done, I'm free.

pencilears OP , 2 months ago

The big bad is obviously doing old-school foot binding on little girls, but this is setting a general fashion trend for tiny feet that is resulting in most of the problems our hero has to see.

Anyways, this feels like a trashy horny isikai that should already exist, I assume it does, nonetheless, fresh idea, free to good home.

pencilears OP , 2 months ago

A classic in the elf-sploitation genre

pencilears OP , 3 months ago

The problem with contemporary lamps is that because everything is bought via mail order it's all as light as possible while also being as difficult to break as possible.

So, there's a lot of lamps that are just a bunch of wires.

Which, looks cool, fine, but a lamp base needs to do two functions for me:

1. Not tip over too easily
2. Hide the cord/guts of the lamp

Geometric wire lamp bases, being light and mostly made of holes, do neither of these things.