NEET Eats 2!

 So, I decided I'd do another one of these. Okay, not really, I was just cooking today and thinking "What should I make a post about?" and then realized that there was material (shitty material) to make a post on right under my nose as I was cooking the chicken in my pan.

Making one blog post sometimes opens the door for me to make more, and since I've been so focused on my studies (Japanese and studies for the upcoming midterm...and 2 other tests) that I've just been popping in to check up on some blogs and then getting off.

So, I the dish I'm showing off today is something I often make, provided I can wait long enough for some chicken to defrost. Spicy instant noodles with chicken!

Of course, it's nothing too spectacular, but that doesn't matter! What matters is if it's cheap, quick to make, and adds some spice to an otherwise boring meal! Like last time, I won't give measurements, just put the amount you think you'll enjoy, and experiment a little. After all, most of this stuff I just make from experimentation, without looking up recipes. In preparation for this, all you'll need is:

1. Some chicken breasts
2. Some instant noodles (I use Maruchan chicken noodles for this dish)
3. Canola oil or vegetable oil
4. Hot sauce
5. Whatever extras you think may be good, usually some veggies. In mine I have carrots, peas, and corn.

So, simple enough, right? Only real hassle is the chicken, having to wait for it to defrost. But if you're patient enough to wait 30 minutes while it rests in a bowl of water to defrost, then it'll pay off with a meal that cooks in about 10 minutes or so.

What you'll want to do is cut the chicken into pieces while the water boils your instant noodles. You'll want to keep the seasoning packet until after, if you want to keep that flavor, as most of it will go away when you drain the broth from the noodles later. If you have extra ingredients, it's nice to prepare them at this stage as well. By the time you finish everything, the noodles should be close to completion. At this time you can heat up a skillet or wok, and place enough oil on it to leave a very light layer on the surface. It doesn't matter if there are a few dry spots here and there, so long as it's mostly covered in oil. I normally use canola oil, but vegetable oil is probably more common in most households, and works fine as well.

Throw in the chicken pieces and extra ingredients to start cooking over a medium-high flame. Make sure to stir it around a little so that the chicken whitens on all sides. Keep an eye on your noodles so they don't get soggy. You'll want to take them out when they're done and drain the water from it before the noodles absorb too much of the water. Unless you're into soft noodles, that's fine then, but if you want them to be crispy or crunchy then you'll want to get them before they reach that soft point. If your chicken is white on all sides, then it's fine to just toss the drained noodles into the pan along with them. You'll want to constantly stir from this point on, or flip if you're experienced enough to do so (it's fun with a wok). From here you add some hot sauce and seasonings on top. Usually the seasoning packet that comes with the noodles is enough, but if you find the flavor too concentrated you can experiment a bit with other seasonings you'll like. For some ideas, I sometimes use soy sauce with a tad bit of sugar, and sometimes I use some Adobo all purpose seasoning (this thing works on everything, seriously). 

Your seasonings should naturally mix in as you're cooking, since you're stirring the noodles constantly anyway. I usually like my noodles crispy and cook the chicken until it's a bit more brown, but today I made them a bit soft for a change of pace. And with that, you're done. It's relatively cheap, using maybe one slice of chicken breast per noodle packet (or one and a half if you really like your meat), and instant noodles are a STAPLE in a penny pincher's diet!

Enjoy! 

(Or not, people tell me my dishes are strange, but this one is one of the more normal of the bunch)

~ Kirari ミ★

Kirari returns with cool stories with a side of Takoluka

Alright, so I'm past the initial hook of my Marvel vs Capcom 3 addiction and settled down a bit so I don't have to stay on the game all day. I should continue normal posting starting tomorrow. I have a few images from my Flandre Nendoroid that just came in last week, so I'll be doing a review of her. I was thinking of reviewing Takoluka, but there's not much for me to really talk about, so I may just make a brief post tomorrow with cute pictures of her if I feel like doing so.

I might as well use this post to stuff in a few short cool stories to fill some space up. First of all, yesterday I went to my usual Japanese bookstore to pick up Yotsubato volume 10. I was also looking to see if they had that new Madoka Magika manga, but sadly they didn't have it in stock. I asked at the counter for them to special order it for me though, so I'll go pick it up whenever they receive it. 

I remember /jp/ had a thread about places in New York and mentioned that another bookstore called Bookoff is just a few blocks away from Kinokuniya, and sells Japanese books at very low prices. Well, I decided to give it a look, and wow. They're used books, but they're mostly in new condition, as if taken right off the shelf of a new bookstore. I managed to get Oyasumi Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei 20, Mirai Nikki 3, and Kodomo no Jikan 1-5 from the $1 section. All in good condition. Also picked up Oyasumi Punpun 2 which was about $5, if I remember correctly. I'm very satisfied with the store, and will of course be doing business with them again.

I missed the deadline on a test from one of my online courses, but I didn't make a big  deal about it. Taking it easy, it's just something that can't be helped. The professor is a crab so I don't even feel like emailing her to ask if there's any way I can take a makeup exam. It does annoy me that she also gave a research topic that's limited to 1 internet source and 2 library sources. Honestly, I don't really understand the logic behind this. If you can find the information needed, it shouldn't really matter where you got the information from. Information is information, regardless of where you get it. I really dislike when instructors live in the past like this. I'm in no way belittling printed books by insinuating that they're no longer useful. Of course there are still things that are simply better found in books than on the internet, the internet doesn't have everything on it. But at the same time, the internet certainly has enough resources to complete a research paper in depth. I supposed if I was doing a thesis on something, I'd want to dig deeper into as many sources as I could get, but if it's just a simple essay then I shouldn't have to go out of my way when everything I need is at my fingertips. 

What makes this whole situation even worse is that the class this essay is for is, ironically, a Computer Science course. Now tell me, why the hell would I go to the library and pick out a printed book to do research on web design? What is the logic behind this? Literally everything I need for this research topic is right online for me to look up. I really doubt there's any books I can find that will tell me something about web design that I couldn't find out already on the internet. If I was doing a history paper? Sure, I may not agree with getting information from books if I can find it on the internet, but at least books give the chance of boring old dudes that write personal experiences of their time in World War II or something. But web design? Come on. I guess I'll just download am ebook or something, because I'm too lazy to go to the library just to pick out a PHP guide or something for reference.

That aside, tomorrow is my court date to fight the ticket I mentioned in a blog post last month. It was moved 3 times, but I haven't gotten notice of a new date yet, so I'm assuming that tomorrow is the real final date. I'll head over there tomorrow and hopefully get this settled so I don't get legally robbed of $75. I'll watch the newest episode of Kimi ni Todoke and get some sleep. Win or lose the case tomorrow, I'll probably just come home and celebrate, or take it easy, by playing some Marvel vs Capcom 3.

Until then

~ Kirari ミ★

Amiami filler stuff

Just posting something filler for now. I plan on making my 999 review today or tomorrow (posting this now so I have more incentive to not procrastinate on it). Just taking it easy, as usual, perhaps a bit too easy, if there's such a thing. I'm in a slightly good mood because my Flandre Nendoroid shipped yesterday and I managed to secure some stuff from Amiami I thought I'd lose. I also got a call from one of my father's computer illiterate friends asking me to enable tethering on his cellphone to work with his computer, offering me $50 for the job. Last time the dude paid me $100 to pirate Photoshop for him, so I certainly like taking jobs from him, because of how high he pays for such simple tasks.

Moving on to the main topic; Amiami apparently didn't get my email, or hasn't responded yet anyway, about me not having access to my old account anymore for my pre-orders. I changed the email associated with the account, but after I did that neither my new nor old emails worked on Amiami's site (which I made sure to also detail in my mail). But I saw Takolukla finally on sale, and saw I had no message in my inbox regarding my pre-order, so I knew that I'd lose my pre-order for her unless I got access to my old account (as soon as I remember where I had my first honeymoon for the security questing, I'll be glad to hop onto my email again). So I thought I lost my chance to get her, and that I'd have to wait for her to restock. But then I thought that if I can time it right, I can snag her when my pre-order expires and the one I reserved becomes open again. So I loaded up my trusty Check4Change addon to stalk the page and tell me when there's some in stock again. I was about to go to sleep last night when my updater told me that there were 2 in stock! So I quickly took the opportunity to create a new Amiami account and snipe the buy before it was too late.

What's funny is that I used the email that I already used for my previous account as the email for my new account. As in, I used the newer email I created after losing access to my old email, and it still let me go through with it. It's odd, because I even have a notification in my box about the email change, but it seems Amiami's system just bugged up and my old account had no email at all assigned to it after I switched, despite the fact that they sent a confirmation email.

Regardless, I  decided to pre-order whatever i could (thankfully everything I previously pre-ordered was still open). Now I just need to try and snipe a Patchouli plush when she's up for sale again. A handful of people never went through with their Takoluka plush orders (me included, though not by my own fault), so I'm hoping a handful will skimp out on their Patchy order and allow me to get one. I was going to get one as well, but Amiami put pre-orders for the restock up at the worst time for me (after I get a ticket and have to pay a $70 fee for being late on my rental textbook return).

Curse my indecisiveness making me miss the opportunity to buy Patchy (again).

~ Kirari ミ★

Busy week

I'm sure some of you have noticed (or not, that's fine) that this has been my longest string of inactivity as of yet. I've never gone more than 1 day without an update. I apologize for that. It's December, and I guess since the semester is ending everyone feels like rushing in one last wave of work to shove down my throat before I can be done with their class. I've many projects assigned to me.

That's not to say I don't have free time, but the extra work has made me feel extra lazy, so I've just been napping and finishing off my backlog. I've been able to catch up with anime I've been behind for a few weeks, so it's all fine. Ika Musume, The World God Only Knows, Panty and Stocking, Arakawa x2, etc. I still have a lot of catching up to do as well.

But I remembered that I haven't even posted filler here. I'm sure you guys don't mind too much or anything, and understand the situation completely, especially since I tend to post daily, with only 1 skipped post occasionally, but I still feel I should apologize. I promised a Lazengann review, and I've yet to get around to it. I mean, I took pictures on the day I took it out of its box and stuff, but I haven't gotten around to actually posting up my thoughts on the figure. And there it is, right on my computer desk, staring at me, reminding me that I've yet to tell you guys about it.

So really, I'll post something tomorrow for sure. I also wanna catch up on some of your blog entries as well. Right now I'm takin' it easy and going to watch some more animu.

Take it easy as well, guys.

~ Kirari ミ★

Nendoroid Megurine Luka Review

So I looked around and managed to find my mother's old digital camera. The digital display oddly enough is completely black when I'm trying to take pictures, but actually displays what I'm viewing if I switch to video mode. The viewfinder was dirty and scratched beyond repair, so I didn't bother looking through that. In other words, these are pretty much blind shots, so forgive them if they're not really centered properly.
I don't have a lightbox set up, so rather than using one, I'll be using a "darkbox".
Okay, it's just an emptied portion of my bookshelf, deal with it.

In any case, I decided to take my first crack at a figure review. If the title and image didn't make it apparent, I'm reviewing Good Smile Company's Megurine Luka Nendoroid. 

Dragonballs not included

Like Good Smile's other Nendoroids, this comes with quite a alternate parts, along with an accessory. One of her alternate sets gives her the face and arms she needs to make her Double Lariat pose. Takoluka alone makes this a lovely buy. Posing her for some of these pictures was probably the most fun part.

Look at this pimp.

Just look at her.

Takoluka is also edible. I think.

Nyron~

The face I used for Luka above is from my Snow Miku Nendoroid, it's not included Luka, but most Nendoroids can swap parts, much like how Revoltech figures can swap parts. It's not as visible in this image, but Yotsuba's left arm is actually Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's arm.

Takoluka also has this hole on the bottom of her, which I really liked.

The hole that really makes this fun to play with-

-because you can use her as a head for the Nendoroid Mini's!

Yeah, what'd you think? At first people might not know what the hell the hole at the bottom is for, but seeing as how I have so many  Nendoroid Minis (AKA Nendoroid Puchi) around, including the Luka one above, I  decided to experiment a bit. It's a bit of a loose fit, and makes it a bit hard to balance properly for you to place your figure on the stand, but once everything is placed together, it should all stay sturdy enough to display without toppling over.

半径85センチがこの手の届く距離～♪

Very nice figure, with an awesome accessory. It's pretty much 2 figures for the price of 1 Nendoroid. Can't really go wrong with that. 

~ Kirari ミ★