Tails’ Blography

So yesterday the bf and I went grocery shopping, and we were discussing warm winter treats and desserts.

Flapjacks came up, as did muffins and hot chocolate. So, making our way through the baking aisle, we came across some muffin trays. Now, I’ve always wanted a silicone muffin tray (I have muffin mix at home already, as seen in picture) but they always seem too expensive or I see them when I have no money and so on and so forth. You know the story.

Anyway, so we’re debating buying a 6-cup muffin tray (R60), when just above the muffin trays, I spot a whole silicone baking set (R99)! {cue angel choir} It has everything I wanted and more: 12-cup muffin tray (light blue), 6 medium individual cupcake cups (red, neon yellow, & neon green), and (eeeek! *excited squeal*) a 12-cup MINI MUFFIN TRAY (darker blue. F.R.I.E.N.D.S made me fall in love with them! Episode clip below)!

So, I look over to the bf with a huge smile on my face, and say with glee how much of a better bargain the set is (it already wins the bargin-debate by having double the amount of cups than the original tray for less than half the price more) when he replies, with a smile, a simple, “ok.” Ok!?! Yay! He then informs me I better make him some muffins soon…how ominous! Hehe.

So we came home with the cutest, most cheerful looking baking set ever! I cant wait to use em…of course, that will be this weekend! Yay! Its been making me smile all day thinking about them, so I figured I had to blog about it.

The F.R.I.E.N.D.S clip is really funny, and features the mini-muffins (you even get to see one briefly! It’s cute!!):

Are you voting/Did you vote on Wed 22nd?

Hell yes!! (89.0%, 8 Votes)
Yes (11.0%, 1 Votes)
Doubt it (0.0%, 0 Votes)
No (0.0%, 0 Votes)
Hell no (im sitting on my ass like a lazy fart!) (0.0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 9

An astonishing 9 voters!! Yay!! And I’m so happy to see everyone voted! Thats fantastic!

New vote is up, check it out :) A simple one, but one everyone can answer, nontheless :)

This month I finally participated in my first OC. OC stands for Organised Chaos and is a LAN held at the Bellville Velodrome. If you’re unfamiliar with what a LAN is, its pretty much a place set up for people to bring their PCs/laptops and play games against each other and share files etc. It runs from Friday evening (6pm I think) until Sunday afternoon (12pm), and lots of people bring mattresses and bedding to stay the nights. Tournaments are held and prizes can be won, and some months they’ve held spot prizes, where if your seat number is drawn you win a prize. Its great!

Booking is done online or on the day, and is R140 per seat. If you’re just spectating you dont pay, which is normally what I do. This time, however, I brought my PC and stayed the weekend. I participated in some Call of Duty 4 games, and sucked haha. I was sitting at 26 kills where everyone else was at around 80 haha (I wont even mention my kills:deaths ratio!!). Its a hard blow to my ego because I used to kick ass at Unreal Tournament a year or few back hehe. But I’ll get better…oh yea, I’ll get better.

Also at the LAN are food stuffs. There’s a burger place, pancake place and this month there was a chip place that sells those chip twister potatoes-on-a-stick things. Pancakes are R4 each, and burgers range from R14 (single plain burger) – R37 (a double meat and chicken burger with chips). Coffee is R5 and there are various chocolates, sweets and cooldrinks aslo for R5 each. Scooters Pizza* delivers to OC if pizza is more your meal of choice (oddly, whilst searching for the Scooters’ website, I came across the Epic Scooters Pizza Delivery site – really, what next!!). You can bring your own food and booze (if you drink responsibly and are not underage) if you’d like. I brought snacks (pretzels & doughnuts! yum!!) and wine (and was told I look “too classy” for a lan because everyone normally drinks rum/brandy & coke from a 2l coke bottle haha).

Unfortunately, for about 3 hours on Saturday at around noon, the power went out and left us high and dry. A lot of people gave up pretty quickly and went home (losers!), but we stuck it out and once it came back on again, we had a good 10 more gaming hours (we left at 3am on Sunday morning). In fact, a lot of people thought the break from gaming was a nice change. All in all, a great time was had and I cant wait for the next one! Seriously, I’m hooked!

If you’d like to participate and bring your PC, go to the OC website* for booking information (you can book online), prices, and rules. Its definately worth it! The site also has some great photos (April’s pics will be within the week I’m sure) or check out their Facebook group. Do remember to game safely and, especially since someone at this month’s lan had an epileptic fit, remember to get enough sleep and eat a decent meal. I was unaware but apparently too much sugar and sleep deprivation can induce fits if you’re prone. I enquired after the guy and turns out he was ok, the fit was minor, and he was collected and taken home to recover. Poor guy :(

Some pics of our little corner of OC:

About 1 min after the power had gone off (lights were running on generators)

A better view of the disgruntled lanners

The bf…unimpressed about me taking a photo of him. Thats our friend, Ferdie behind him, and behind him you can see some of the mattresses people have set up for sleeping

A disgruntled Steve hehe

My PC (yes, I like my grey mouse and keyboard, ok! :P) next to Michael BIIIIIG 26″ monitor and sleek black keyboard (the silver machine behind my monitor was huge and very expensive! People kept passing by to admire it haha)

Time for my second in my trilogy of Favourite Facebook Apps (have you read the first one?) – (insert cheesy drumroll here) Restaurant City (hereafter ‘RC’). I cant say for sure whether this is my second favourite, but its the one I’m currently playing so I’m choosing to post about it second. Again, you can click the images for larger versions.

This game is also made by Playfish, who made Pet Society) but it’s created a little different. You get a restaurant to run, you hire friends to work as waiters or chefs, you get to decorate your restaurant, and you get to choose from a list which dishes you want to serve. I’ve chosen Lamb Samosas (the adjective before the dish’s name changes with each level – cute!) for starters, Tuna Sushi for mains, and Pomegranite Parfait for dessert. I’m working on getting them to level 10 before moving on to new dishes (you can only serve one of each course at a time anyway) but some peeps choose to level up each dish as they get the necessary ingredients.

Ingredients play a large part in RC…without them, you cant level up your dishes, and with low-level dishes, it takes longer to level up your restuarant (more on that shortly). There are a few ways to get ingredients (yet it still doesnt seem like enough!): a daily quiz (brush up on answers here), a daily free ingredient, trading, and each time you visit a new friend for the first time only. Trading is the easiest, but if you dont have a lot of friends, or if you’re all trying to level up the same dishes it can get tricky. You can also lock items which you dont want people to be able to freely trade (without your confirmation) but periodically its nice to unlock ingredients you dont need…this helps out other RC players (maybe let them know in a status update) and you might just get something you need!

Leveling up is done by collecting Gourmet Points (GP), which you get each time a customer eats at your restaurant. The higher the dish they eat, the more GP you get. Each time you level up, you’re rewarded with a small cash bonus and either a larger restaurant or an extra employee. Employees start out on 100% energy, but the longer they work that number declines. They have to either be fed or allowed to rest. In the beginning, its best to let them run down to 0% (they’ll conk out and fall asleep on the floor), put them to rest, save the game and come back in 2-3 hours. They’ll be back at 100% and ready to work. You can either put them all to work again and save and close (you can come back in 3 hours and you’ll have earned $2000 but they’ll be at 0% again) or you can leave the game running and feed them when they get to 75% or lower. I recommend the latter when you have enough cash.

With the cash you earn, aside from feeding your employees, you can purchase items for the inside and outside of your restaurant, earning you trophies (“Buy 10 Indoor Items” and so on) and making your place look cool. You can also buy clothing for your own character (mine’s in Chef’s clothing).

All in all, its a simple game and it takes a while to get hooked, but once your restaurant is going – wow its addictive! I have a few friends playing it who have simply flourished and some who I didnt think would enjoy it are having a ball (my boyfriend included!). Its great to have a friend or two playing (as opposed to adding random people you dont know) because you can work out who wants which ingredient, and your chances of getting that ingredient are much, much higher if you’re all in agreement. So, if you havent tried it, here’s me saying, “Go for it, man!”

Inside my restaurant

Decorating my restaurant – choosing tables

Outside my restaurant

Clothes shopping!

Trophies you can collect (visiting friends, spending money, upgrading your outside decor, upgrading your inside decor and cleaning up trash)

Replenishing your employees

I’ve never been interested in politics…ever. I think I’d like to blame our schools for that, since they never really made us, or rather, helped us understand the importance of it and the basic structure of politics. Or maybe they did and I missed it?? As what seems to be “the norm”, our polititians are also fairly corrupted, with the leader of the ANC (and next in line to be president) having 700 cases against, which include among others, a long-ranging list of corruption, money laundering and fraud based on a mult-billion-dollar arms deal. Although, believe it or not, these charges were dropped…conveniently before election.

So, unfortunately, I’m not very patriotic about South Africa (I’m more patriotic about America – their attitude towards their country is fantastic!!). I believe we’ll probably end up like Zimbabwe, but I’m still hopeful that we might just scrape through.

However, tomorrow I’ll be voting for the first time! And I’m proud to be doing so! I know of a few people who are voting for the first time, and, what if this was the election that many who had never voted before did? Think about the results! I’m disappointed, though, and maybe its a little high-and-mighty for me to be disappointed considering I’m voting for the first time ever myself, but I’m disappointed at those who are not bothering to vote tomorrow. It’s important for our country to do so, and I wish there was a way to make businesses and schools involved with getting their employees and scholars (of legal voting age) registered, and making it a pro-active thing to vote. Too many people I know are just sitting on their asses tomorrow enjoying the public holiday…its just disappointing. Sigh.

Anyway, with elections coming up tomorrow, here are some interesting events going on in our media with regards to the elections…of course, they’re all aimed to amuse ;)