David's Boring Blog

 Egg Roll in a Bowl  Ingredients 1 pound ground beef or pork 1 teaspoon minced garlic 14 ounces of shredded cabbage or coleslaw mix 1/4 cup soy sauce 1 teaspoon ground ginger 2 teaspoons sriracha  1 whole egg 1 tablespoon sesame oil 2 tablespoons sliced green onions Instructions In a large pan or skillet ban your beef or pork.  Add garlic, cabbage or coleslaw mix, soy sauce, and ginger and sauté until cabbage is tender Clear the center of the pan moving cooked ingredients to the edge Scramble egg  Mix well Stir in sriracha, sesame oil top with green onions serve and enjoy This is a super easy fix for those egg roll cravings when you are wanting to cut carbs. Let me start by telling you what not to do. Do not mix up the spoon for the sriracha sauce. Don't get me wrong. It make an excellent meal, but it left me with my sinuses clear and nose running.  This recipe might be keto friendly. I don't really worry about that sort of thing. Big picture for me is that it is cheap to put t

 I remember days when getting off work Friday night was this trigger into excitement. I had rituals that went along with that such as washing my car or truck, vacuuming the interior, and wiping down everything to a shine with Armor All. It didn't matter if I had a date, plans with friends, or was just hanging with the family. Thursday night was time to polish up my ride for whatever the weekend was going to bring.  I was also a big fan of knocking out laundry Thursday evening. Sure, I would likely need to do another load Sunday night, or more likely Monday night, but I wanted to make sure I a full closet rather than a full hamper going into the weekend.  Times change. I don't know that I washed my car in 2022. I do occasionally wipe down the interior and, mostly, keep the floorboards clear of trash. I am ashamed to admit that I haven't run a shop vac in there in quite some time. Laundry gets washed before the hamper is full most of the time. I feel like we use way more towe

 I do not care for the recipe blogs that go into a whole explanation before the recipe. Thusly, I am not going to do that.  Ravioli Casserole Ingredients 1 package (20 ounces) cheese raviolis 3.5 cups pasta sauce 2 cups small curd 4% cottage cheese 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese  .25 cup grated parmesan cheese fresh parsley to garnish * optional Instructions Preheat Oven to 350 Prepare Ravioli per package instructions In a 13x9" baking pan spread a layer of cooked Ravioli  Cover in pasta sauce,  1 cup cottage cheese, and 1 cup mozzarella cheese Repeat layers  Top with remaining mozzarella Top with Parmesan Bake 30 to 40 minutes Let stand 5 minutes before serving to thicken Garnish with parsley *optional I was in the mood for something like spaghetti, meaning using red sauce and noodles, that wasn't exactly spaghetti.  This caught my eye since I haven't cooked with Ravioli. I made some mistakes in prepping it by not following instructions. I used a larger baking dish. It

 I am guilty of taking technological innovation for granted. I think we all become spoiled by the advent of minor things that were once a wonder as they trail away into the commonplace. I think about things like fuel injection which makes internal combustion engines much easier to start particularly in cold weather. I think about things like push button start for motorcycles which has eliminated the kick start entirely.   In my lifetime music has had several evolutions. As a kid, I had cassette tapes. Cassettes were a decent technology used for music and digital storage. Yes, kids, once upon a time you could load up and play a video game using a cassette on your TRS-80 computer (amongst others.) I collected a fair few tapes along the way. Around the time I turned ten CDs came into popular use. They had been around a while longer, but the transition happened slowly. I remember seeing the music selection at K-Mart have a few CDs on a display and later being revamped so that the CDs and c

 I was scrolling through Facebook tonight (27 December 2022) and I stumbled across a nostalgia post for Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.  My first thought was, "Holy shit, I loved the silver flying guy toy that I had from that show." I don't necessarily remember the show being all that good. In fact, it seems to me it was a weird live action thing that reused tons of stock footage. Naturally, I watched it religiously whenever it was on during Saturday morning cartoons. I feel like it was the last show before wrestling started which also typically was about the time my parents wanted to kick the day off and get out to do stuff.  That one flash of memory only slightly laced with nostalgia got me thinking about how much better (most) of my cartoons were compared to the cartoons my kids grew up with. Now, before I start hearing objections from the peanut gallery let me say that each generation has had some stand out shows. Taila had Spongebob Squarepants, Danny P

I don't rightly recall how I stumbled across the advertisement for the Byrna SD kinetic launcher. I do know that I was pretty intrigued. I got out of whatever social media sit that had captured me in the doom scroll and went web surfing. My first impression was," I would like to try that out." My second impression was," I have paid less for an actual gun." I tend to be a bargain hunter in the firearms market. I look for sales, manufacturer's rebates, and great deals. I waited eighteen months for the right buy on my AR-15. I had already stocked up ammo from sales knowing that I would want plenty of .556 (and .223 Remington) on hand when I got my rifle. I even had a few magazines standing by.  The great thing about the personal protection industry comes in the form of innovation. Some great ideas catch on like unchoked short barrel home defense shot guns. Some take longer such as shorty shells for the 12 gauge (measuring at 1 3/4 inches long rather than tradit

 I rarely see praise for Final Fantasy XIII. I was recently teaching a class. During introductions I rattled off something about working my way through the Final Fantasy series. One of my people identified themselves by immediately launching into songs of love for their favorite Final Fantasy game which, naturally was Final Fantasy X. When asked what game I was on I answered," XIII," and was met with pity for me and hatred for the game. His exact quote was," Wow, the worst one they ever made." I don't know if I can agree. I am the guy who struggles to enjoy FFX though I wouldn't call it the worst game in the series either. Maybe if I translated his communication to what I feel that he means which would be," Wow, it is the Final Fantasy game I enjoyed least," then I wouldn't feel a need to disagree. Which is what all rankings of the game fail to take into account. One person's least favorite entry into the series will be another person's

 Here I am again blogging using my Steam Deck. This go round I am killing time while some files copy from my portable hard drive onto the new SD card of my Steam Deck. The biggest difference between my last attempts to blog and use the Steam Deck as a laptop replacement is pretty much major: I am working on Windows. Yep. I am using Windows 10 on my Steam Deck.  The first question that came to my mind when I decided I wanted to give this a try was, "Why?" The Steam Deck Desktop Mode has a rather robust functionality. What would a person need Windows for? Turns out there isn't much actually. Steam Deck desktop mode can do most everything that you'd want to do on PC.  The thoughts about this little project started when I packed away my gaming laptop to dedicate my computer gaming to the Steam Deck for as long as I could hold out. I had split my Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age play through between the Steam Deck and the laptop. Sometimes I played with the handheld. Other tim

 I have been thinking a lot about the good parts of 2022. Though paying double for groceries over what I paid in the prior two years and triple what I paid in 2019 is not a good thing, cooking and eating excellent meals has been. I have enjoyed learning and experimenting with new dishes. I want to focus that a bit in 2023.  I gave myself a simple goal. I want to try one new recipe each week on average. Why phrase it that way? Imagine a moment that I take a week's vacation to Disney World. I am unlikely to cook in that fantasy vacation. Likewise if I end up traveling for work.  I gave myself the same type of wiggle room for my blog in 2022. I wanted to post twice per week on Monday and Thursday. I wrote very few of those posts on their due date. At my best (like this post) I am writing several posts ahead and scheduling them to drop.  Likewise, I plan to work in a new recipe per week. If I have weeks where cooking isn't my focus for one reason or another then I will simply doubl