Baby Cakes Mini Waffle Stick Maker

As I have said about this blog, I will review anything and everything that I feel like reviewing and right now I feel like reviewing this.  THIS IS NOT A PAID ADVERTISEMENT AT ALL!  I really wish I was getting money for this, but alas I am not.  

So Walmart has this display with Baby Cakes stuff on it.  There's a donut maker and a waffle stick maker and other stuff.  I decided that I wanted to get the waffle stick maker because it was only $10 and I like waffles.  

I used the Bisquick waffle batter recipe because that's what I happened to have around the house.  That amount of batter actually made 32 waffle sticks.  I used a tablespoon of batter per stick.   

This waffle stick maker is very easy to use.  You plug it in and it starts heating up.  When the light turns off, it's ready to use.  It has a nonstick surface which makes it easy to remove the waffle sticks.  The instructions say 3-4 minutes for cook time but I have found that 2.5 minutes is just perfect for the batter that I use.  I've used this thing twice and I love it.  The cool thing is that you don't absolutely have to use a timer to tell when they're done.  When you first close it up it starts steaming and making kind of a squealing noise that sounds like the batter is screaming in agony.  Those of us who are weird find that amusing.  Anyway.  When the painful cries of the batter stop and the steam dies down to a minimum, then they're done.  It's that simple.  

I feel like I got a really good deal for $10 and plan on using this again and again and again because waffle sticks are great for breakfast or snack.  If you like waffles that are easy to dip, I recommend getting one.  Even a little kid could use this thing.  

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Review reboot)

Now that I have seen the movie three times and have had time to calm down from the awesomeness of it, I have decided to completely redo my review of the movie.  I still believe that it should be called Captain America: OMG THE FEELS.  That's not changed at all.  But I am going to try to be a little less fangirly and erratic with this review.

SPOILERS AHEAD.  

I do like the scene when we first meet Sam.  It shows the lighter side of Steve.  Or as my friends like to call him Captain Sassy Pants.  He does have a good sense of humor and they don't show it enough in the previous movies, I think.  Natasha's line about picking up a fossil is pretty good too.

I'm going to take a little side note here.  Marvel has this uncanny ability to find actors that embody the characters they play.  When I watched this movie, I didn't see Chris Evans or Anthony Mackie or Sebastian Stan.  I saw Steve and Sam and Bucky.  And that's the way it is with all of their movies.  I do not doubt that they will have continued success for this exact reason.

We've started to see that Steve is getting a little annoyed with the way things are in this day and age.  "I'm getting tired of being Fury's clean up crew" or something along those lines.  I can't remember the exact line.  He follows orders and does his job, but he's really starting to not like it.  The mission goes as he planned, until he finds out that Natasha had a separate mission.  When things go wrong and he is obviously pissed at her because of it, you can see the actual disappointment on Natasha's face.  She hates that she made him mad.

I'm not going to lay out the whole movie minute by minute because it has been a few days since I last saw it and I want to just hit the major points.  And there's the whole, trying to stay calm and rational thing.  Which is a lot harder than you guys realize for me.

Anyone who didn't know that Fury's death was staged doesn't pay attention to Marvel behind the scenes.  Samuel L Jackson was contracted for nine Marvel movies and if you don't count Iron Man (because the contract was after that) he's only done five.  So I knew that he wasn't actually dead.  The emotions that were played in that scene, though, were beautiful.  Especially Natasha.  It was like she was losing her father or something.  Pretty powerful.  And definitely above par for Scarlet Johansson.

Now on to Robert Redford.  I have always admired him as an actor.  I remember on my flight to Germany the in flight movie was The Sting.  I haven't seen a lot of the movies that he's done, but the ones I have seen I have enjoyed very much.  So seeing him playing Pierce just made me happy.  Because I'm not used to seeing Robert Redford play a bad guy.  Not a really, asshole bad guy.  Maybe a bad guy with a heart of gold kind of thing.  He did a beautiful job of making you think he was on the right side and then bam, you get the realization that he's not.

So now we come to the pivotal part of the movie.  The real feels come out when Steve realizes that Winter Soldier is actually Bucky.  Sebastian Stan did a wonderful job with those simple five words.  "Who the hell is Bucky?"  There's no emotion.  No recognition.  And that causes Steve to crumble.  Just absolutely break.  And it's scenes like these where I absolutely hate Chris Evans for being such an amazing actor.  My heart broke right along with Steve's.  It really did.

But, that wasn't even the most heartbreaking part of the movie for me.  Bucky starts to remember.  And never have the words "But I knew him" held so much feeling than they did in that moment.  And the reason that scene is the most heartbreaking for me is because he knew that he was going to get his memory wiped.  He knew that everything he'd started to remember would be gone.  He knew that it was going to hurt like hell to have it done.  And he just sat back and let them do it.  Knowing everything that he would have to go through, he still let them do it.  And that hurt me more than any other part of the film.

Now, like I said, I'm hitting on what I consider to be the most important parts.  Yes, we find out SHIELD is infiltrated by Hydra.  Honestly, I was annoyed by this.  Hydra?  Really?  Of all the organizations out there they pick Hydra?  And to find out that Hydra was responsible for Howard and Maria's deaths?  I don't know.  It just bothered me.

Quick mention of the flashback.  The only real reason for this was the line "I'm with you 'til the end of the line."  That's it.  That's all they needed it in there for.  But it was still a touching scene.  Especially since Bucky knew that Steve wouldn't just come live with him without trying to pull his own weight.  And you can tell by Bucky's suit and shoes that he's not much more well off than Steve.  The suit doesn't fit quite right and the shoes are dirty.  Best friends to the end.

And now we come to the final fight scene with Steve and Bucky.  Bucky obviously doesn't remember that he's Bucky.  And he's forcing Steve to do a whole bunch of stuff that he really doesn't want to do.  You can tell that every minute of it is just breaking Steve's heart, even though he is defending himself.  He didn't want to have to hurt Bucky, but he had no choice.  And of course, Steve saves the day even though he's been shot like three times, one of which being in the gun through his back.  But this is Steve we're talking about, right?  And he's not just going to leave Bucky trapped.  He has to save his friend.  Because deep down inside there Bucky is still there.  "You're my friend."  "You're my mission."  It's just so sad.  But in the end, he does save Steve.  Yes, he leaves him to bleed to death on the shore of the Patomac, but at least he didn't let him drown, right?

I knew as soon as I saw Mackie sitting where he was sitting in the hospital that the "on your left" line would make another appearance.  I just knew that.

I would like to say that I really do love the fact that they had Fury still in a sling and Steve all healed up and looking perfectly fine.  Their way of proving that Steve heals faster than normal people.  I love that they did that.  I really do.  And now we have a general idea of what Cap 3 might possibly be about.  Maybe this time they won't have Steve falling into some water at the end.  I don't know.

Over all, I will say that this is the best Marvel movie to date.  It is amazing and wonderful and completely enjoyable.  Other than the whole Sitwell situation which I won't get into because it makes me mad.  He's supposed to be Coulson's buddy!  But anyway.  So I highly recommend the movie and think that everyone should go see it as soon as possible.

OUAT and OUATIW

WHY DO I KEEP WATCHING THESE SHOWS?!?!?!?!?

Yes, that did require all capital letters.  And I am seriously pissed off at OUAT right now.  I think the only reason I keep watching is for the actor that plays Hook.  He's so damn sexy.  But anyway.

Now, before I say this next bit I want to say that I have absolutely no problems with minority actors and actresses if they fit into the part that is being played.  I have no problem with people of other races at all whatsoever.  Now, that being said.

Why did they make Repunzel black?  It's a German story!  And to have Charming be the one to rescue her?  What the fuck?!  I mean, seriously?

And now lets get into the fact that the Wicked Witch of the West is not only named Zelena, but she's Regina's older sister?  What have those writers been smoking?!  I really want to know!


Alright, so now we get to OUATIW.   There are some things about this show that are making me mad and some things about this show that are making me happy.  Let's go with the mad first.

WHY IS THE JABERWOCKY A WOMAN?!?!?!?  That makes me mad, it really does.  That means that the worst, most cruel, most horrible creature in Wonderland is a woman.  What does that say, exactly?  Some people will see her as an awesome, strong female character.  I do not.  Maybe that's just me.

Another thing that is making me mad?  Will Scarlet was dating Anastasia and became the knave of hearts.  Now, I knew that Anastasia was a name that I should remember in the Disney world but I really didn't realize that they were going to make her one of Cinderella's step sisters and that THAT would be the connection to OUAT.  Ugh.  Anyway.

The thing that's making me happy is the whole situation with Amara.  How they tied that all together is awesome.  That she wanted to get the three genies and change the laws of magic because those three genies were her three sons and she wanted to free them from their curse.  That just makes a lot of sense now.  I actually like that bit.  And I like that Cyrus wasn't always such a nice guy.  He's not this perfect, amazing man.  That makes me happy too.

That pretty much sums up my feelings on those two shows right now.  Though I have to say that Snow and Charming are pissing me off and making me want to strangle them both.  They're whiny and annoying and just need to get over themselves already.  They irritate me.

That is all.

Prop making

I've been doing a lot of prop making for my cosplaying.  I have a total of 5 props that I have made, only one with the help of my dad.  The rest I've actually made on my own.  I'm going to outline my most recent one here in this post.  What is it you ask?  Why, it's Captain America's shield.  I made it rather cheaply, to be honest.  I used foam board and acrylic paint that only cost 37 cents a bottle.  That kind of thing.  I've got pictures of the whole process.  

This is what I used to outline the shield.  They are inexpensive wire wreath frames and some foam circles that I got at Michael's.  I think they added up to about $20 total.  And the foam board was $8 because I had to get the one that was actually a display board.  I did it this way because I tried to make my own compass with string and a pencil and it failed miserably.  

Drawing the star in the middle was kind of hard and required a little bit of mathing.  Well, it wasn't that hard but it did require mathing and my brain is only good at money math, not this kind of math.  But I got it figured out. 

I meant to take a picture with just the white paint but didn't get around to it.  I used the white paint for three reasons.  One, as you can see, the paint is a different shade of white from the poster board.  Two, I thought it would look weird if only part of the board was painted.  And three, I needed to cover up some pencil lines.  

Here you have the shield with the first coat of the red paint. 

This is the shield completely painted and ready to cut out.  I had to put SEVERAL coats of the red and had to do a lot of touching up with the paint because I kept going over lines and things like that.  

Then I had to cut the shield out.  This was a bitch, I will tell you.  Cutting foam board with a pocket knife is a real pain in the ass.  Cutting it with anything is a pain in the ass.  After I cut it out, I sanded the edges down the best that I could and then painted them red as well.  

Then I covered the shield with a clear lacquer to help protect it.  As I said, the acrylic paint I used was pretty cheap and it could flake off very easily.  And it also got very dirty very easily.  So I coated it with lacquer and don't really have to worry about that anymore.  

Finally I put the elastic straps on the back.  This one was trial and error on how to attach them.  I tried craft glue and staples and the first time it seemed to go okay, but then I found out I didn't put enough glue because the staples popped right out and the elastic came off.  The second time, though, I put more glue and more staples and they stayed just fine when I gave the glue ample amount of time to dry.  

I have also made a blaster and lightsaber for my Jedi costume, a martini to go along with my Howard Stark costume, and a goblet to go along with my Lady Christina costume.  Getting all of this to Dragon Con is going to be interesting for sure.  

Technology

So I have this trend that's been going on in my life that was broken by the existence of MP3s.  I bought my first CD before I had anything to play it on.  Bought my first DVD before I had anything to play it on.  Bought my first blu-ray before I had anything to play it on.  But my first MP3 was on my computer and therefore, was playable as soon as I got it.  Ah the joys of technology.

Robert Downey Jr and other celebrity husbands

Celebrity Husband/Wife: (n)  A person with which you have a fictional/fantasized marital relationship.

So that's what I mean by celebrity husbands.  Not men who are famous and happen to be married, but men who I have crushed over hard core for a very long time.

My very first celebrity husband was Richard Dean Anderson.  I mean, seriously, who wouldn't crush over MacGyver?  He was awesome.  And a total brain.  Action her.  And that hair.  Oh the hair.  That just made my life, really.  I was totally in love with him when I was like 8 years old.

My next celebrity husband will be a little bit of a shock because he's not really considered the hottest of the hot.  That would be Dwight Schultz.  I used to watch A-Team all the time and Murdock was my man.  I even wanted some black converse high tops just like his.  I liked them crazy, apparently.  He was on the adorable side of things, though.  

I think my next celebrity husband was Tom Selleck.  Magnum P.I. was one of my favorite shows and seeing him running around in those short shorts just made my heart all a flutter.  And this was back when I was supposed to think boys were yucky.  I never really went through that stage that I can recall.  And all of these various celebrity husbands are totally putting a date stamp right on my forehead.  lol.   Though I think I was more in love with Magnum's Ferrari than I was with him.  

Through the years my celebrity husbands changed.  As different people came into the acting world, began to get noticed, that kind of thing.  Though I think that my longest running celebrity marriage was a poly-amorous one.  This was my fake marriage to both Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford.  From the time I was about 10 until the time I was about 24, I was addicted and obsessed with Star Wars.  So, of course, I had to be in love with the two main characters of the movies, right?  And who wouldn't be?  They were good looking men.  It's almost impossible to find a picture of just Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford without Carrie Fisher being in it too.  

Now my celebrity husband tastes have taken a turn for the more comic book direction.  I actually have another poly-amorous fake marriage going on with Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan. 

While my love for RDJ began back in the early 90's, I've been unable to officially call him a celebrity husband until recently.  2008 to be exact.  Iron Man just made me fall completely head over heels in love with him all over again.  And I know what you're thinking.  Captain America made me in love with Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan, right?  Well, you would be wrong on that account.  

What made me fall in love with Chris Evans was actually the movie What's Your Number?.  I only kind of liked him after Captain America.  Colin Shea really made me lose it for him.  He was so adorable and sweet, while being a total man whore.  It was impossible not to fall in love with him.  And let's not forget that he spends about 80% of the movie naked.  That was a major bonus right there.  

I fell in love with Sebastian Stan while he was on Once Upon A Time.  His character of Jefferson/Mad Hatter was awesome.  That is what brought my attention to him as an actor.  I remember watching it and thinking that he looked familiar and then looking him up and being like "OMG! That's the guy that played Bucky!" and my daughter was also amazed.  

Now, what does having a celebrity husband entail, you might ask?  Well, for me, that means tracking down and watching every single movie, TV show, and even commercial that they've been in that I can actually get my hands on and watching all of it.  Even the really bad ones.  And there have been some majorly bad ones.  Especially in Robert's career, though I offer him no offense in that statement.  I think the worst of the movies I watched for RDJ was one called In Dreams.  It was just bad.  And he had long, stringy red hair, which he really can't pull off.  It was one of those times I wish I could get my time back.  

I think for Chris Evans, the worst of his projects that I watched (so far) was Loss of a Teardrop Diamond.  Now, let me explain why I think this.  This movie is not bad.  The acting is good and the sets are great and the whole cast is just amazing.  With a glowing review like that, why do I call it the worst of Evans' movies (so far?).  Well, it's Tennessee Williams.  And while he is noted as one of the greatest play writes, I just think he is long winded and boring and slow.  But that's my personal opinion.  

The worst of the Sebastian Stan movies that I have seen would have to be Gone.  I did not like that movie at all.  It was completely unrealistic and Amanda Seyfreid wasn't that great.  Sebastian was the best actor in the movie and his acting wasn't even at its best in that one.  Just over all, not good.  The movie of his that surprised me, though, was The Covenant.  I went into this movie thinking it was going to be bad based on the premise.  And while I was partly true, and some of the acting really was horrible, over all it was a good movie.  Especially Sebastian.  He is surprisingly good at being evil.  It was great.  

So now you have a general idea of what it means to have a celebrity husband.  I have to say, though, that I've even had a celebrity wife at one point.  Her name is Natalie Dormer and she's awesome.  I would totally go gay for her.  And I would motorboat Kat Dennings if she was okay with it.  But that's beside the point.  

I really need to get back into this

Alright, so I am so going to get more active with this blog.  I know I've said that a few times but this time I really mean it.  I am going to do a lot of blogging and some of it will have to do with the wonders that is the new cosplay group that I am a part of.  What is this group you ask?  Well, it's DFW Cosplay Gallifrey.

I cosplay as the 10th Doctor and also as Lady Christina de Souza from Planet of the Dead.

Thank you to William Lamoreaux for that photo shoot.  He's pretty cool.

The whole group is pretty awesome and I really enjoy hanging out with them.  Once a month we get together and we watch Doctor Who episodes together.  There's all kinds of cool stuff going down with this group and I will keep giving you a heads up as it happens.


Another awesome thing that is going on is All Con Dallas.   I actually have six different cosplays that I will be doing for this convention.  One is Howard Stark, one is 10th Doctor, one is Lady Christina, one is Angela Montenegro from Bones, then I have a USO girl from Captain America: The First Avenger, and then I also have a Jedi OC that I have made props for.  I also made a golden goblet for Lady Christina to have stolen and I made a fake martini for Howard to carry around.  I'm getting pretty good at props in general.  Some of which are with my dad's help but it never hurts to get help, right?

Now, do you want to know the coolest thing about All Con?  I AM PRESENTING A PANEL!  That's right, I actually have content going on at All Con.   So if you are at All Con and you have time on Friday at 10am come to the Pecan Room and we can talk about the Minor Characters of Marvel.

That's all I have for now.  Will be updating more soon.