Words On Wednesday

A friend of mine recently gave me a Trayvax Summit wallet, with the condition that I write a review about it. Given I was already interested in trying out a minimalist wallet, I jumped at the opportunity. My biggest concern with switching to a minimalist wallet was the lack of space compared to a traditional bifold or trifold wallet. I’m notorious for keeping gift cards, loyalty cards, and various other items in my wallet that I truly don’t use often. When my friend asked if I were interested, I decided to take inventory and truly consider whether I could thin down my everyday carry to just what would fit in the 8-ish card maximum capacity of the Trayvax Summit. Of the cards that I had in my wallet at the time, a few were absolutely necessary to keep on me. Driver’s license, credit card, and debit card are standard inclusions. I frequently donate blood, and I visit my local library at least once per week, so I need both of those cards until they decide to support some sort of di

As a fan of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, it only makes sense I would be interested in their apple cider offering. Winter Jack Tennessee Cider is “a seasonal blend of apple cider liqueur & Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. Is it any good, though? A friend of mine actually informed me of Winter Jack. We were both pretty curious about it, since we enjoy apple cider and Jack Daniel’s individually. Put them together, seems like a pretty solid recipe for success to me. At a price tag equal to standard Jack, but less than half the alcohol content (15% or 30 proof), I was a little hesitant to pick up a bottle. While I do enjoy trying new things, most notably in the Mix-N-Match section at my local Ingles, I have a hard time justifying new distilled spirits. I like more than I dislike in general, but the cost of a whole fifth is hard to stomach, and the premium on smaller sizes is just annoying to me. As such, I *usually* don’t branch out much with liquor. In any case, my friend

As a fan of both “Blade Runner” and “Blade Runner 2049,” I finally decided to read the original inspiration book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. At least… I think I did. The book that I read was technically titled, "Blade Runner: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” but that seems to be a rebranding of the original book after the success of the first movie. I read a science fiction book about androids. Beyond that, I can’t be certain. I was curious how the book and movies might compare, since movies based on books are frequently inferior to the source material. The biggest problem that I see with movies based on books is how little time they have to expound on the characters, events, and themes. This is certainly still the case with “Blade Runner.” The book has much more commentary on social class, as well as the dynamic between real and synthetic. Character interactions in the book have much more depth, with much more nuance in reason and motive.

With the holidays coming up, I thought I'd share a super easy recipe that tastes like Christmas. First thing firsts first, you’re here for a recipe, so here you go: OLE SMOKY - NUTMEG DREAM Ingredients 3 oz. Ole Smoky® Shine Nog 1.5 oz. Coffee Liqueur Splash Nutmeg Garnish - Cinnamon Stick Instructions Mix well in a glass over ice Garnish Link: https://olesmoky.com/blogs/recipes/nutmeg-dream Isn’t it nice to have it at the beginning before numerous pages of text? Take note, food bloggers. Now, onto the details. Shine Nog I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of eggnog. Maybe I just haven’t tried the right brands, but any that I’ve had before left a weird, nauseating flavor in my mouth. I like custard, so I can’t see why I wouldn’t like eggnog, but here we are. Alas, I steer clear of the stuff. A few years back, we were on vacation in Pigeon Forge, TN and we visited the Ole Smoky Distillery. They offered free samples, and I’m certainly not one to t

I figured “Dracul” would be the perfect book for this post, as the prequel to the book that I wrote my first book report segment on almost a year ago to the day. Source:  https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91hTAsQX2xL.jpg My first exposure to “Dracul” came from an announcement of a book signing with the author at my local library. As much as I enjoyed Dracula, I was tremendously interested in a related work, written by the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker himself. Plus, the book serves as a sort of clash between Bram Stoker’s real family and his fictional characters created within “Dracula.” As with many works, the library only offered “Dracul” in physical book format, and I haven’t had the chance to sit down and read a proper book in a long time. I expressed this disappointment on Facebook, in the comments of a post promoting the meet and greet event. Surprisingly, the library’s social media team followed up with me, ordered cd and mp3 copies of the book, a

Over the past several months, I have read through both "The Hobbit" and all three (six?) books of "The Lord of the Rings." I was tempted to write on each of these works individually, but I decided that I didn't want to tie up a third of the year on Tolkien, and would just write on all of them at once. Since I won't count "The Silmarillion," and I would never read it anyway, these books cover my entire exposure to the world of Middle Earth. Since these phrases get me the most dirty looks and criticism of anything related to literature, I'll go ahead and throw them out there. 1, I've never seen any of the LotR movies, and I have only seen the first "Hobbit" movie, and only because some friends were going to see it in theaters and they invited me along. 2, I did not really enjoy "The Lord of the Rings" books. I'll expound more on both of these, but I didn't want to mislead any readers and get their hopes up th

I recently set out to get a secret weapon in Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. The process convinced me to be much more critical of what information I consume, and to always listen carefully to all instructions. Zodiac Age, as I’ll call the game for brevity’s sake, has a number of powerful weapons not available in the original release of Final Fantasy XII. Fortunately, none of them are as ridiculous as the original way to get the  Zodiac Spear , which could be rendered unavailable if the player unknowingly opened any specific chests throughout the game, without any indication that they might play a part in obtaining what was the most powerful weapon available. The Zodiac Spear is still available in Zodiac Age, but they’ve generously removed that awful chest mechanic. Plus, there are actually several more powerful weapons available, so players might not even decide to procure the Zodiac Spear anyway. Many new weapons are upgrades to existing weapon classes, like the  Kumbha kat

Despite not writing a book report post since "Jekyll & Hyde" back in November, I have continued reading. Quite a bit actually. Unfortunately, that left me with a sort of indecision about which book to write on. In reading order, I have since finished: "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" "The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories" "Jane Eyre" "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" "The Hobbit" "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" "The Old Man and the Sea" "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" I am currently working on "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," and at this point, I think it might be better if I hit all of Tolkien's stuff in a single post once I finish the last of the trilogy. As for "The Chronicles of Narnia," my book club at work is tentatively working on

My family has a lot of good stories and memories, but I think one of my favorites is Putnam's Landing and Crackhead Tom. Around the time I was in middle school, my father had an Airstream camper that was more or less permanently stationed at Putnam's Landing on Lake Murray. Given it was only about an hour drive from home, we spent basically every weekend there through summer vacation. From Friday after school until late Saturday or early Sunday, we would spend every moment possible living it up on the lake. Boiling up a pot of shrimp on the shore, cruising around on the boat, fishing, swimming, or racing a pair of RC boats we had, we were always busy doing something. As a home away from home, I loved that old Airstream. The AC unit was absolutely amazing, and we kept it freezing inside, even during the stifling heat of summer. Quarters were a little cramped, but with a full or queen size bed on one end, and 2 twin beds near the bathroom, it was plenty of room for us. The k

I love Costco and I like beer. As such, it would logically follow that a cheap light beer under the Kirkland label would be right up my alley. And for a time, it was. Unfortunately, Costco has since discontinued their light beer. Source:  http://dan4allseasons.blogspot.com/2015/03/bottomshelf-beer-reviews-light-beer.html Recently, I was perusing Costco for my usual grocery run when I noticed that they had a new craft beer pack in stock. I’ve had good experience with Kirkland Signature branded beers in the past, and the craft beer packs are typically really cheap for decent beer. As such, I decided to investigate a bit, to see if maybe I would want to pick up a case. During my research, I searched for a comprehensive list of all the craft beers that Costco had yet produced. The packs seemed to occasionally have repeat styles, so I wondered if maybe there had been a few that I missed along the way. My favorite was certainly the double bock, but I hadn’t seen it since perhaps the

Hard seltzers are the new IPA. They’re the “in” thing right now, adored by hipsters and the like, and criticized by your more traditional beer drinkers. These alcoholic sparkling waters are quickly gaining market share, while craft beers are other categories remain static or fall (Kendall, 2019). Being the adventurous soul that I am, new types of alcohol always interest me, even if I do feel like a stereotypical cool kid while trying them. My first exposure to hard seltzers was the Truly Colima Lime flavor. It was available from the Ingles Mix-N-Match area one time, and I’m more than willing to try a drink if I can get it as a single, rather than committing to a full 6-pack of it. We threw one in with our weekend beer run, figuring it was worth a shot. In this case, I’m very glad we only got one. It was awful. I don’t really care for seltzers or soda water anyway. Unflavored options seem to have a salty, bitter flavor. Flavored options like La Croix have the same shortcoming,

I’ve always been interested in writing a story, and lately I’ve been revisiting the idea with a more approachable technique. Instead of knocking out a full novel in one fell swoop, I might publish a number of different stories in more of a serial format. When considering what I might write a story about, I’ve had several different ideas: a drug addict who sees large buildings and construction equipment as monsters, a high fantasy work that serves as a more literary telling of the adventures I’ve had across several MMO games, a post-apocalyptic tale of a society rebuilding from disaster. Each of these is obviously unique from the others, and if I were to commit to one, I would be stuck with it for the duration, even if I might want to entertain one of the other ideas. If I let myself switch, the stories might get caught up in the literature equivalent of development hell, and never actually publish anything at all. To avoid this unsavory scenario, I considered that I might write mor

I’ve always struggled with reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, part of which is eating a healthy breakfast. Lately, I’ve been trying to find something that is healthy, but also something that I can meal prep, and sustainably eat over a long time frame. Checking all of those boxes has been a surprisingly difficult endeavor. At first, I started with overnight oats. They tasted pretty good, and they were surprisingly customizable. Change up what fruits or spices you add, and it creates an entirely new dish. After a while, though, I started to get tired of them. Fruit gets mushy pretty quickly after you cut it, so I could prep the oats themselves about a week in advance, but I had to add the other stuff in each morning. Plus, they were a little higher in carbs than I wanted to consume for breakfast, so I started to look for some other alternative. A friend posted on Facebook that she mixed protein powder with a pumpkin spice latte k cup, in an attempt to meet her protein goal