RPG of Life - Boss Battle: CRANE FLY

My last playthrough of this level took me about 6 or 7 in-game hours, mostly because my items on hand were limited at the time and so I went for a stamina defeat rather than trying to kill the CRANE FLY outright - bad idea. The first thing you should know about the battle with the CRANE FLY is that there is no effective way to defeat it by draining its stamina; as long as the LIGHT is on, it will keep coming back, and you will get tired of chasing it back out of the room before it gets tired of creeping back in. If you can't summon the CAT but really, really want the no-kills achievement, your best bet to defeat the CRANE FLY is to wait until night, chase the CRANE FLY out of the room with the BROOM item, then turn on a LIGHT elsewhere in the house and make sure the room you are in is in total darkness. When your character falls asleep and wakes back up, you will have won the battle.

Other, much faster strategies include:

1) Middling strategy: Summon an NPC to deal with the CRANE FLY. I don't recommend it, as while waking up MOTHER and/or FATHER for this battle will result in a dead boss, first you'll have to sit through a series of long cutscenes in which they try to convince your character that he or she is overreacting to the presence of the CRANE FLY.


2) Good strategy: smash the CRANE FLY with one of the items in your inventory or in surrounding rooms. Try the BROOM item hiding in the BASEMENT. The BOOK or SHOE item may do just as well if the CRANE FLY is sitting still and within reach. Note that this approach won't work if you took the INSECTOPHOBIA hindrance.


3) Best strategy: summon the CAT NPC by going to the BASEMENT and opening the door. If the CAT is awake and in range, he will think he is being fed and come running. Pick up the CAT and carry him to where the CRANE FLY is, show it to him by pressing the Action Button, and put him down next to it. If the CAT catches the CRANE FLY before he becomes bored, he will eat it and you will win the battle without this counting as a kill. You may have to either summon the CAT more than once or shut him into the room with the CRANE FLY if the CRANE FLY can evade him for longer than his attention span lasts.

On this playthrough I had the CAT unlocked and was able to deal some damage to the CRANE FLY with the BOOK item before summoning the CAT, who caught and ate it immediately. The whole thing lasted less than twenty minutes. Lesson learned!

--Veronica--

"The Wild Rose" - Wendell Berry

"Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

 suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

 and once more I am blessed,
choosing again what I chose before."


-Simon

Laetare Jerusalem!

Laetare Jerusalem: et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis: ut exsultetis,et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae. -- Introit, Laetare Sunday

This week was Laetare Sunday, traditionally a day of rejoicing midway through Lent. Personally, I find it to be a good opportunity to look at how well my Lenten practices are going. In the past, I've chosen to sacrifice something like sweets or computer usage; this year, I started out all fired up to go old-school and spend the entire forty days without any meat, dairy, eggs, or added sugar.

Yeah...you can guess how long that lasted. (I'm nomming on a Snickers bar in between sentences.)

Simon had a much better idea, anyway - he suggested I should give up anxiety, since the severe depression and anxiety that I've had for years are seriously interfering with my life and are only getting worse. I ended up dropping the veganism in favor of something similar to that: this Lent, I'm trying to trust. Sometimes it's very, very hard to stop myself and say "Jesus, I trust in You" once something goes wrong or I start panicking, but I have done my ever-loving best to try. While you might expect this to be the part where I begin to joyfully chirp about how much better and easier my life is since attempting to consciously, actively put my trust in the Lord, nothing like that has happened. Instead, everything has suddenly gotten much worse.

The first three weeks of Lent were the worst pit of depression I have experienced since I was a young teen with no close friends, a skewed body image, and an unhealthy romantic relationship. My anxiety and tension suddenly rose again, triggering vision problems, muscle pain, stomach illness, flashbacks, and disturbing nightmares. After going months without a truly disabling panic attack, yesterday I had three within a twelve-hour span. My compulsive coping mechanisms have resurfaced stronger than ever and greater in number, while the intrusive, obsessive thoughts have become near-constant. Needless to say, I feel like a complete nut case. Who said being a Christian makes your life easier?

There are bright points. The increased intensity finally convinced me to try treatment again after a disastrous first effort a year ago - first effort because I am still fighting the perception that my illnesses are shameful and reflect poorly on my self-control and maturity. I've started working with a psychiatrist, and I really hope that the medication I've just started and the therapy sessions I have coming up will help, even if they make it worse to start out with. I think something along those lines is why everything has become worse now. I haven't yet gotten used to holding on to Jesus exclusively, and without my familiar habits of pride and self-loathing to fall back on, my footing is a bit wobbly. I'm also not so sure that Satan doesn't have a hand in this, since he has a history of interfering pretty obviously - at least, to me - with my efforts toward Heaven...though that's another story.

All I can do, really, is keep praying, keep trying to take care of myself, and keep working toward my silent goal of being a healthy woman, capable of being a good professional, but first and foremost a good wife and mother - and above all, a faithful daughter of God. I like my progress so far this Lent - it's a painful start, but it's still a start, and I hope good will come of it. Even in the midst of suffering I can rejoice.

Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.


--Veronica--

Too much time on my hands...

There were only seven days in my spring vacation

And school came along just to end it,

So the most recent problem for my contemplation

Was finding a good way to spend it...

Like maybe...

Building a bookcase

Or fighting boss battles

Or trying to snap shots of flowers,

Discovering products that shouldn’t exist (Yeek!)

Or giving Simon’s porch a shower

Surfing the Internets

Baking tiny pies

Or locating your car in the rain (It’s over THERE?!)

Finding the pics you lost

Running along the beach

Or driving pharmacists insane (Back already??)

As you can see,

There was a whole lot of stuff to do

Before Monday’s roll call (Come on kitty!)

But it’s all cool ‘cause Simon and Veronica

Totally did it all –

But it’s all cool ‘cause Simon and Veronica

Totally did it all!

(Simoooon! I’m parodying a title sequence!)

--Veronica--

Recipe: Teatime Tassies

I've only made these cute little pecan tarts twice, and they're already my favorite dessert recipe ever. Know why? Because I've only made them twice and I've already memorized the recipe. Also, it's amazing how much inattention on the part of the baker they will tolerate! Though I nicked the recipe from a friend's grandmother, you can find it listed as "Teatime Tassies", "Pecan Tassies", "Pecan Tartlets", etc. in just about any older Southern cookbook worth its butter. I had never encountered the word 'tassie' before this recipe, but it's just the Scots form of French tasse, cup. Now you know, too. As the other half of the title suggests, these are indeed delicious with tea, which helps cut their sweetness.

TEATIME TASSIES

Total prep time: 1 - 1.5 hrs, depending on how many people you have helping, how good they are at helping, and whether or not you left time to soften the butter and chill the pastry.

Qty: 2(4) dozen tartlets, to serve 12-24 people. They're very rich and most people will only eat one or two, but if you want leftovers or there are teen- or college-age boys involved you should probably go ahead and double the recipe anyway. Really.

These will go faster than you think.

PASTRY
1/2 cup/4 oz (1 cup/8 oz) cream cheese
1/2 cup (1 cup) butter or margarine
1 (2) cup(s) flour

FILLING
1(2) egg(s)
1(2) tbsp(s) butter or margarine
3/4(1 1/2) cup(s) brown sugar
1(2) tsp(s) vanilla extract
Dash of salt
2/3(1 1/3) cup(s) pecans

Put the cream cheese and butter out to soften, preferably somewhere the cat can't get to them. Write a few paragraphs on your language history paper. Come back and poke the butter. If your finger leaves a dent, great. If it doesn't or you skipped what I said about the paper, don't worry; the only thing softening really does for this recipe is make it easier for you to combine them later.

Cut the butter into pieces, dump the butter and cream cheese into a bowl, and mash them up with a fork until they're one big light yellow glob. Try not to think about how you are, at this point, basically handling an enormous ball of delicious milkfat, most of which will shortly head straight for your waistline. Add some more people to your guest list and cut the flour into the butter-cheese mixture - this is cooking-speak for "carry on with the fork-mashing until you have a solid ball again." Scrape it all off the inside of the bowl, squish it together with your hands, and stick it in the fridge.

At this point, you can either leave the dough alone to chill for a while, or you can jump right into making the filling. Cut up the butter and set it aside to soften a bit, then crack and beat the egg. You can be fancy and use a whisk, but the fork you were just mashing with is fine. (Wipe the dough off first, though.) Dump in the sugar, butter pieces, vanilla, and salt and stir them all together. Chop the pecans into whatever size pieces you would be fine with seeing sticking out the top of your pastry and dump them in too.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Take the dough out of the fridge (or wherever you set it down) and cut it in half. Cut the halves in half again, and...you see the pattern. Keep going until you have a size you feel comfortable tearing into the number of pieces you need out of that particular chunk. Just to make sure, roll  them all into little balls between the palms of your hands and drop each one into one of the cups in the tin. This is another great reason to make sure you're all doing them at once.

Should look kind of like this. Pretend I actually made those into balls of dough.

Using your fingers and thumb, smooth the balls of dough into mini pastry shells along the contours of the cups. This is easier demonstrated than described (see photo above), but once you make a few batches you should get the hang of it. Just make sure the bottom of the cup isn't too thick or thin, or the filling will either leak or be all pastry and no pecan, and don't slope the tops of the cups away to nothing or your filling won't stay in right. Drop about a teaspoon of filling into each cup and wipe up allllllll the drips. Trust me: you don't want to be scrubbing burned sugar off that pan later.

If you have a bunch of filling left over, don't panic: your cups were just probably a bit too shallow, but they'll still be delicious. And chances are, at least one of your friends or family members likes sugar too much to be worried about salmonella and will happily eat the filling as it is. Stick the pan in the oven, set a 25 minute timer, then clean up the kitchen and check on the tartlets nervously:

Reward yourself by browsing photos online for a face-claim for your newest RP character. When the timer goes off (you DID remember to set the timer, right?), take them out and let them cool - again, preferably somewhere the cat can't get to them. Once they're cool, they should pop right out of the pan, but if not, loosen them up a little with the butter knife. Stick them into paper cups and take pictures because of how cute they are, then quickly put them away where you can't eat them all by yourself at once.

Enjoy!

--Veronica--

Simon Speaks

Hello.
Hi.
Hey there.

I've been meaning to post for the past couple of weeks but life has had a habit of distracting me and what free time I've had has been spent being sick.

However, I am better.
Somewhat.
Chronic cases of maybe and undefinedness.

However, the ironic thing is faith is like that.
Suspended between two extremes...two poles where we attempt to follow Jesus' on the 'straight and narrow' because to go to either extreme is to sin.

Grace helps us find the medium, the balance between endless physical greed and shallow self serving spiritual...a middle ground between the physical science and the abstract religious.

It's more than idealism and better grounded than any philosophy.
It's the "evidence of things unseen" while at the same time it's the sort of faith where we have to be willing to take the next step...even when we do not see a logical conclusion of how it's possible for another platform for us to step upon.




"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
 "But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."
-1 Corinthians 13:12-13




There is a beauty to be found in realizing we're finite, incapable and in need of Love's divine insanity to rescue us. God made us not because He was in  need but desired to show love...and all of history has been the tale of God chasing His wayward bride aching to have us near.

The love shared between Veronica and I is an example of that. Currently we're only dating (have talked engagement, marriage and escape to New Zealand as opposed to Old Zealand) but despite mistakes we've made and pain we've caused one another...we both pray, strive to serve and keep communication open so that we do not live in darkness but push one another to grow, to trust in Christ and to hopefully be ready for the day in which we marry.

Marriage was created to serve as a reflection of the harmony God has in His Trinity and how God shares with us...and so this little blog will be a record of our trip, our journey and blessed misadventures through life.

Thank you for joining in, take a seat, feel free to prop up your feet and nibble on some popcorn. It's going to be one heck of a trip.
-Simon

La Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris

(Background: I have a major in French language and spent a sizable chunk of my last summer in Bourgogne. I am also a sucker for Gothic architecture.)

These photos gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finish my six-month-old photo album from studying abroad in France (YESSSSS!! FINALLY), though most of my pictures are not nearly as breathtaking as these shots of Notre Dame. I miss the brief four days I spent wandering around Paris, forgetting I didn't live there. The City of Light does that to you, n'est-ce pas? Check out the full photo set on Crack Two here and don't mind me comparing the price of plane tickets to Paris against the balance in my savings account.

Ces belles images m'ont fait FINALEMENT finir l'album de photos de mes études en France que j’ai devenu à faire il y a six mois – bien que la plupart de mes photos n’est pas aussi stupéfiante que ces-là de Notre Dame (bien sûr). Je parcourais Paris pendant quatre jours, au cours desquelles je me vraiment oubliais que je n’y habitais pas. La Cité de Lumière fait tout le monde penser comme ça, n’est-ce pas ? Voir toutes les images sur Crack Two ici et m’ignorer, s’il vous plaît, pendant que je compare le prix d’un billet d’avion à Paris au solde de mon compte bancaire.

--Veronica--

Yeah, but is it tasty?

I'm not a big gamer, but for the last few weeks I've been following Simon through Metal Gear Solid 3 and acting as his spotter. MGS plays like an interactive film, which I love, and divides itself pretty fairly between things that make perfect sense (e.g. if you blow up the enemy food supplies, the soldiers you encounter will be weaker) and things that are perfectly absurd (e.g. if you eat the glowing mushrooms, all the batteries you're carrying will be recharged.) I really recommend the series for jumpy types like me who tend to panic when things charge out at you: much of MGS 3 focuses on survival and sneaking around rather than on direct firefights. The radio game's main method of transmitting information to the player is through often-hilarious radio conversations with NPCs back at headquarters, and if you're curious about whatever new food the PC Snake has just caught, you can just dial up Paramedic. She'll happily reel off a veritable encyclopedia entry on Garials or Russian Inkcaps, while Snake just wants to know how the darn thing tastes.

I'm also not a big cook, but every now and then I get the urge to make something, and the results can be a little...hit-or-miss. Oftentimes I leave it to Simon and his barely-functioning nasal passages to finish the leftovers since he can't taste much anyway. Such was the case last week when the amount of spice in the chicken curry left my mouth in pain. I thought I'd heard the last of the Disastrous Thai Chicken Curry of '12 until Simon brought it up today and then asked me what the leaf in there had been. "Uh, that was a bay leaf. It's just there for flavoring, you're not supposed to eat it." Naturally, he already had...sigh. I quickly went to look up what happens if you eat a bay leaf, and we proceeded to have the following conversation.

"Well, it says here that it's not toxic, but it's not exactly good for you..."

"Hey..."

"...they're just really crunchy. 'The sharp edges may be painful to stomach linings, intestinal walls, and mouths'..."

"Hey."

"...but they're a good source of antioxidants. What?"

"But is it tasty?"

"...Snake."

"What?"

"(sigh.) Yes. The Yahoo!Answers entry says it should taste pretty good."

"That's all I needed to know."

Why do I have a feeling I'm headed for Snake and Paramedic cosplays next?

--Veronica--