Tag: Review

Kagemas: Spicy fun

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Me trying a chocolate 7 pot. One of the hottest peppers in the world.
A gift given to me 12/24/21

So the above photos are to give some background to this short Kagemas review. I have been eating hot peppers heavily since I was about 17. This would be 2003. Although I did try some in the 1990’s, I wasn’t overly enchanted with a lot of spicy stuff. Anyways, the point is I have a pretty high fuckin’ tolerance after nearly 20 years of eating hot shit.

Let me start with Steve O’s hot sauce. I watched Jackass as a kid. It had it’s moments, but it isn’t high brow by any stretch of the imagination. Steve O is a fuckin’ idiot, so when I was given this hot sauce, I actually had high hopes that it would be stupid hot. That wasn’t to be. While it smells and taste great, it is, overall a mostly meh sauce. You can get one that smells like, but taste slightly different than this one, if you buy Badia’s Ghost Pepper sauce or Melinda’s Ghost pepper sauce. Both are far cheaper than this stuff is and probably comparably hot. Granted, it will probably be hotter if you’re not a “expert” like I am at peppers or eating hot sauce, so a rookie might think it is too hot. Overall though, it’s good and I could be inclined to keep a bottle around every once in a while.

3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The next product is not to be underestimated. It only has the scoville rating of a Jalapeno, which, for me, is like eating a bell pepper. So I had a bowl, sans the stir fry part and boy did this fucker kick. You would of thought I was a rookie at eating hot stuff, but nope, as I assured you above, I have been an hot sauce idiot aficionado, for quite some time. I can see why so many people didn’t make it through the Youtube challenges. It’s price is decent, but not the cheapest ramen. If you try it, make sure to have milk, because it doesn’t fuck around.

4 out of 5 stars.

Kageoween: Halloween Kills Review (Mostly Spoiler free)

INTRODUCTION: Welcome back to another edition of Kageoween! This year, we’re taking a look at Halloween 2-2, aka Halloween Kills or Halloween 2020-21.

Is this the horror movie of our nightmares or another dashed potential at the film series?

PLOT: It’s technically November 1st, probably, but Halloween is still continuing to be a horrific nightmare, thanks to the escape of Michael Myers, only hours earlier.  

CHARACTERS: Mostly characters from the last outing or in Antony Michael Hall’s case, an updated actor to an old role. None of them are really better developed in this one, but they don’t really need to be.

STYLE: Very great visuals, especially when they go back to 1978 for a very special surprise, which will make you explode with joy as a fan.

ACTING: Very good! Not a single weak ass mutha’ fucker, even the extras brought their A game.

DIALOGUE: Clunky at moments, but otherwise fine. This movie would have been great even with dialogue.

FX: Retro, but good. Nothing is going to stand out to you.

MUSIC: It’s Halloween! It’s that same one fuckin’ song and the occasional eerie Myer’s screech/beat, but it is fuckin’ effective as all hell, so who cares?

SUBTEXT: None that I could discern at present.

CONCLUSION:

The critic consensus isn’t good, but fuck them, am I right? This movie just proves that this Halloween is following typical three act structure and this is The Empire Strikes Back of Halloween movies. Oh sure, it has a few weak moments when it comes to potential recons, that don’t really make sense, given that Halloween (2018) picks up right after Michael is shot by Loomis in Halloween (1978) but they’re not committed enough to those for it to have really matter, at least not in this flick. Yes, it’s a movie devoid of anything but senseless killing and in that, we find brilliance, because this movie is really Michael’s voice, in that he speaks through his actions, leading up to what should be a amazing third act in Halloween Ends (2022) Ultimately, this movie didn’t need to be anything but carnage candy and it satisfies. Now only time will tell if the series will end on a high note. It has me already looking forward to next Halloween.

4 out of 5 stars.

My Experience with the Covid-19 Vaccine.

The summer is dwindling down to a close and I find it is important to write about my experiences with the Covid-19 vaccine.

My 2021 started off in the shitter and didn’t get much better from there. I started growing my own food, something I’ve wanted to do for years and got a nice, but small crop of spring garlic. They were very good and I moved on to planting Habanero. Sadly for me, 2021 isn’t a very good year for Habaneros on the north east. Several major storms and 4 of the 6 plants I had are dead and the two left are 8 weeks in and they’re still tiny. I may have to bring them in and try growing them in the winter, or try again in the spring of 2022. I have managed to make some very good, fresh hot sauces in my own house and will have to post about those at a later date. What I really want to bring up most though is my experience with the Moderna vaccine.

June 15th was my first shot and everything went well. I watched the entire 5 seasons of Breaking Bad, plus El Camino. I haven’t reviewed it yet, regardless, that isn’t the point, which is to say, I had to fill my time awaiting the next dosage and trying to go outside as little as possible. The beginning of July sucked, as I slept for nearly an entire week straight, quite literally, and could barley eat. I had all the symptoms of Covid-19, except it wasn’t. My parents and siblings all got the same virus and 3 of the 5 of us got the covid shot and turned up negative. My siblings, at the time, had not gotten the shot, as we each did it in waves. My parents are approaching their 60’s, so they’re the most venerable and got it first. Then I got it, then finally my siblings. Now we’re all vaccinated. The second part of the shot went off without a hitch and I’ve been very good ever since, although I’m thinking I will get the booster when it is available.

Now, I believe vaccinations work and are fantastic, have had all my shots and the only time I don’t is with the flu shot. When it comes to the flu, normally I end up with it before the vaccines are even available, flu strains are not the weather and are not overly predictable anyways, so even if I didn’t get sick, there is a chance that you could get the wrong strain of flu shot, because no one is perfect. Anyways, this is a newer version of an old technology that was rushed through FDA procedures, with good reason, but still, any reasonable person that was skeptical of the shot, myself included, would have had good reason to be. Science isn’t McDonalds and you cannot rush it, especially when it comes to Virology or anything similar.

So does the shot work? I think it does. I initially got sick in December of 2019 with something I wasn’t quite sure of. It hit me like a ton of bricks, which is a rare thing. Fast forward to January and well, we start to be aware of Covid-19. I had already recovered and so didn’t my family from this mystery illness. I spent most of my time drinking and watching Lucifer, of which I reviewed. Side note, I really need to stop getting sick and binge watching Netflix. I did my part to stay inside during covid, venturing out very little, which is normal for me, since I’m not a partier or anything, I don’t patron many restaurants, since it is cheaper to dine in. I order my books from Amazon and I wait for most movies to hit DVD before I watch them anyways, unless something really interest me. So, short of going out to get laid, or visit the local nerd shop, I am very adept at the whole, stay home and fuck around thing.  

Now, while I didn’t get checked for covid, remember I was fine by the time we knew what it was and there were no test yet, I strongly suspect I did have it. Every six months, I would get very light covid seeming symptoms, though. I didn’t get checked, because it seemed counter intuitive. If I don’t have it, I am exposing myself and risking others to see if I do. If I did have it, it is very mild and not worth the ER or Doctors trip. So I stayed in.

Since I have had the vaccine, the only time my nose drips, is when I have hot sauce and the only cough I have is from smoking a cigarette.  I don’t even get any of the mild aspects anymore. I went around without the mask for a while, before the CDC recommended that even vaccinated people wearing it again and was fine.

While the numbers of people dying to covid aren’t overly drastic, that small minority of people which are not vaccinated would be wise to do so, regardless of autonomy over their own body, because that small number, could be even smaller than it already is and since it doesn’t hurt or cause any issues, on top of the fact it is free, you really aren’t doing you or anyone else any favors by not getting it.

In the future, I think the covid shot might be like a flu shot. You get an annual booster of it and off you go until it disappears or is replaced by something more aggressive than it is. While fears of future complications might not be entirely unfounded, only time will tell about both, but until then when it comes to the shot, I say it is highly recommended.

Best Resources for Learning Another Language

Jim Ross: Are you biliginual?
Triple H:There are many bi things I am JR but linguals not one of them. Wait did I just mean to say that?
Jim Ross:I don’t think you did, but be that as it may, we’re live
King of the Ring 98

INTRODUCTION
When I was in middle school they gave us one of two choices to learn a second language. Spanish or French were the only two things you could pick from. Now, in Salem, there used to be a major French population, but that dwindled by the time I was born. Salem, Massachusetts was high in Puerto Ricans when I was growing up, so I opted for Spanish, since this would be a more practical language to use, plus it would allow for more immersion as well as better job opportunities abroad. You took 2 years in middle school and 4 years in high school, if you passed the middle school aspect. This is way too long to be teaching a language and for some people it is too short to be able to learn a language. I always hopped for a better way, especially as a autodidactic person. Sadly, books were never enough to just learn a language and most programs were and are uber expensive. I still think Rosetta Stone is too costly, even coming down in price from the $500+ dollars in my late teens and early twenties to about $200ish. That said, it is a worthwhile program to use, if you can get past the initial price tag. So recently, I set out to use Duolingo to learn German and search for other resources that would supplement its use. Here is a review of the best resources to use in learning another language.

BEST RESOURCES
Duolingo is amazing and fun. It makes learning the language a breeze and helps to cement thing in better than just rote memorization. This isn’t without its faults though as it will only get you so far in your target language. The Duolingo plus is alright but relatively expensive for what you get, which is just no ads and the ability to repair streaks. If you pay the monthly until you’re finish, you’ll be all set.

LingoDeer is much like Duo but with a deer mascot and it is just as fun, but I wouldn’t say better than Duolingo. Its best aspect is in price point, for less than a year’s service on Duolingo, you can have lifetime access to everything and this, I believe, extends to all languages you could learn.

Busuu is amazing for learning a language as they have people who actually speak your target language which can help you with pronunciation. It is more like a helpful social media than an app. Included with the service is McGrawhill certification, which, if you didn’t know, if you’re American, made all the textbooks you used in school growing up, so the certification is worth more than you’ll pay for the service and probably far cheaper than most others you could get from anything else and with such a trusted name in education, well worth the price.

Clozemaster is another great resource to learn but I don’t think it is overly helpful past Duolingo or LingoDeer unless you’re willing to pay for the service. It is alright but not the most amazing way.

YouTube is surprising more amazing with learning a language than it is for anything else. The majority of teachers are well worth paying for and very helpful. In fact, I would go so far and say this is the most helpful and useful of online communities on Youtube. Worth spending your money on any and all and even the weaker channels tend to offer great content.

Idiots/Dummies guide
I have both idiots and dummies guides and I think the Dummies guides are way better than the Idiots guides. This things have been around for years and with their trademark wit and humor, they’re a great resource for anything one could desire to learn.

Collegiate dictionary is a must due to the amazing amount of words they have. Some can be expensive, but their digital counterparts are often very cheaper and well worth the investment.

Amazon is fantastic for digital books as it can offer thousands of no to low cost books to buy to help you learn the language. Add in the aforementioned dictionary and you will be learning new words in no time.

Twitter may not seem like it, but it is an amazing resource that gives you access to native speakers all over the world, not to mention thousands of brands in the country of desire. Well worth using to see updates in your Twitter feed daily to help you learn.

Fluent forever is a book which, isn’t really mind blowing as he basically just explains a lot of techniques that the accidents civilizations used in order to remember better, personal connections to make remembering words easier for you. It isn’t a bad book and for those of you that may have never read the ancient philosophers or went to college, this book will be gold for you in helping you out.

Conclusion
Learning a second language is fun and worthwhile endevenor and the ability for everyone to learn one at their desired pace is exquisitely amazing in today’s age. We’re afford so many luxuries that our ancestors could only dream of and there is really no reason to give it a go and with the resources provided above, it shouldn’t be too difficult for anyone of any age to accomplish.

Ich wünscht du glück in learnen ein zweiten sprache!

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Minor corrections to the text 31 July 2019 10:01

Halloween: A movie review of Blumhouse’s H40

Introduction

I don’t want to start off with the typical cliché of the fact that the Halloween movies are 40 years old at this point and go through all the old bullshit about how so many movies have been made, including the remake and all that other fun stuff. I’m going straight to the point and talk about the fact that this is the movie people have a wanting for a long time.

Synopsis / Plot

Michael Myers breaks out of sanitarium, terrorizing Haddonfield, 40 years to the day of the original babysitter murders.

Characters

The characters are only kind developed but once we get into the bottom below where I praise the acting you can find yourself being like well, the acting makes up for only so-so character development.

Acting

I think it’s spot-on even from the most bit characters, which is a new trend in Hollywood that has been happening the last couple years, which I find to be an extremely interesting and very much a pleasurable thing. Backround characters are treated as something of note. The annoying aspect of background characters being bad actors always make for a weak movie and this is definitely moving in the right direction from all those old sequels.

Kills

I highly enjoyed all of the kills. Now, none of them are particularly interesting, you’ve seen things like this before but I enjoyed that because lately, especially with the Saw movies, Hollywood has been getting very over-the-top with their kills in horror movies and it’s ultimately destroying the entire horror industry. None of it is scary, and it’s absurd as I pointed out. This movie got it right! it had some up front and personal kills mixed with the Quentin Tarantino aspect of shying away from showing everything but letting you build it up in your mind. This is the right way to do a movie! Afterthought on this: a lot of people complained about the infant crying after his mom was killed was a missed opportunity. I disagree, it was more brutal than a kill would of been. A newborn left to fend for itself is 10x more evil than stabbing it.

Subtext

None of note but we don’t need that in this movie.

Conclusion

Most of her critics were completely wrong about this movie. I find the gripes to be unfounded. A lot of people came away from this with a version of the Mandela effect because they aren’t remembering it correctly. They still entitled to their opinion but they really should have bothered to have paid more attention in my mind. The acting was superb, the Kills were nothing new but still decent, the characters were okay but the acting more than made up for it, the tension was there, which lately is a new trend, is actually great. My only real gripe is super nitpicky, with one exception, most of the actors in this movie are hot but just kind of mediocre looking. Not a single one is overly photogenic, which is weird for Hollywood, but I don’t see anything wrong with hiring Hot or ugly people, even in horror movies, provided they can act. it works because all these people can act even if they’re not all Brad Pitt and I’m okay with this trend overall. Ultimately Halloween hits on all the right notes and is really done a great fan service 40 years later. In my mind Laurie Strode was done well, so much better than H2O or Halloween resurrection. This is the movie that I’ve been waiting to see since I was a kid.

Over all this movie gets 4 out of 5 stars and I hope it gets a sequel ASAP.

Heffalumps and Woozles: A Review of Stephen King’s book, IT

     32 years ago, a book was released by a pretty well-known writer. The book was called IT and the author is Stephen King. Maybe you heard of him? Stephen King is the guy who wrote fantastic books like Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shinning and The Stand. When it comes to his early professional works, 1974-1980, King really knew what he was doing. He developed great characters, top tier concepts, vivid but accessible prose and took on subjects like an author of Literature.

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