Fishs  

For the past month, I’ve been unable to think of anything about which to write, so for lack of anything else to say, I guess it’s time to finally explain why this is called the fishs blog.

Well, it all dates back to my childhood, when fishs were something of a curiosity to me. Well, back then they were called fishes, or if you were really proper, “fish”. Does everyone reading this know what fishs are? They swim around in the ocean, occasionally eat things, lay eggs, get caught, get put in little cans…sound familiar yet? Okay, let’s just accept that as a given. Anyway, these fishs could stay underwater for as long as they liked. Do you know why? No? I thought you said you knew what fishs were. FISHS! They have gills, so they can stay underwater and not have to breathe air. They do get wet, though. Anyway, where was I? Gills. You know, Gil is actually a name. It sounds like it’s short for something, but I could never figure out what. Gilligan? I guess, but that name sounds made-up anyway. If someone told me their name was “Gilligan”, I would say “No it ain’t.” Unless you’re a sailor that’s been shipwrecked on a popular television series, you’re not allowed to have that name. However, if you were in such a situation, I bet you’d be eating a lot of fishs.

And you’d be saying to yourself “Tomorrow, the World.”

Hello, my Duffell.org peeps. Good to see you here.

I now present the rules (as I know them) for Hot Dice AKA “the world’s greatest dice game” AKA a fun way to spend an evening AKA what are those idiots doing over there making all that fuss…

What You Need: six dice, some people, a reasonably flat surface to roll said dice on.

The game is based on ones, fives, and three of a kind. Ones count as 100 points. Fives count as 50. Three of a kinds are x100 (three fives = 500, three twos = 200, three fours = 400, etc.) except three ones which counts as a thousand. Three of a kinds have to happen on a single roll within a turn to count.

Each player rolls a die to determine prder of play. Lowest starts.

Play begins. You begin by rolling all six dice. With each roll, you can keep as many or as few scoring dice as you like, and continue rolling the rest. Each turn goes for as many rolls as you like, provided you have at least one scoring die to pull aside with each roll. Turn ends when you decide to stop, or when you have a roll that scores nothing (in which case you lose all points for that turn). If you don’t have a one, a five, or three of a kind on your initial roll, you suck and your turn is over. Tough city.

You have to get 500 points on your turn to get on the board initially. After that, you have to make a minimum of 350 per turn. Otherwise you don’t get a score, and everyone makes fun of you.

Secondary rules:

When all six dice score something, you’ve got Hot Dice. Keep your score for the turn running and roll all the dice again. (Yelling “HOT DICE!” is encouraged at this point, though not required.) Play progresses as normal, but beware- as before if you get a roll with no scoring dice, you lose ALL points for the turn (yes, including those before the Hot Diceness).

Three CONSECUTIVE pairs on a single roll (1s-2s-3s, 2s-3s-4s, 4s-5s-6s) is Boxcars. Boxcars scores 1250 and you’ve got Hot Dice.

1-2-3-4-5-6 on a roll is a Straight. A Straight scores 1500 and you’ve got Hot Dice.

Six ones on a roll is next to impossible, and if it comes up wins the game immediately. No second chances, no appeals, suckas pack their bags and get out.

When a die rolls off the table, lands on another die, lands in your lap, etc., it gets re-rolled. (Just that one die, NOT the entire bunch of dice.)

Scoring is kept as a running total, adding as you go. Games are to 10,000. Once a player gets over 10,000, the players that go after him have one turn to pass him and win. (So if you go third out of six people and you get over 10,000, players 4-5-6 get one turn each to attempt to better you. Players one and two can go home and cry.)

Drinking is encouraged, as is shouting, as are various “psyche out your opponents” techniques (i/e making faces, making jokes about mothers, seductive glances, what-have-you).

So yeah. That’s the game. Best played late in the evening, for maximum delerium.

Awesome.

-Patrick

     Alright, I know what you’re already thinking. If the title of this post doesn’t just piss you off, you’re at least skeptical. What the hell would vegan scalloped potatoes entail, and just how disgusting are they? Well, I’m about to tell you what they entail, and they’re just about the most delicious scalloped potatoes I’ve ever had (besides my mother’s). Sure, you probably have to be a smelly hippie to truly appreciate it, but even if you’re a die-hard meat-and-dairy kinda guy, I bet you’re about a six-pack away from scarfing these poatoes down and loving them. So let’s get to the recipe, shall we? If you’re making this dish for meat-eaters, get them started on the six pack right about when you begin to cook, because the recipe takes about an hour, I think. Make them drink every time anyone pretentiously says the word “vegan” and they should be all set for some greasy delicious potatoes by the time you’re done.

Main Ingredients:

• Potatoes (do I really need to list this?) sliced to scalloped-potato-thickness.
• Some kind of vegan butter or oil, like 9 tablespoons or some ungodly amount like that. There’s usually a tradeoff with vegan butter, in that you either have to get a gross crappy one with lots of hydrogenated oils, or you get one with a pretentious hippie name like “smart choice” or “mother earth spread”. I usually suck it up and go for the pretentiously-named kind.
• An onion, whatever kind you like to fry up.
• Ground-up cashews. These can be produced using a food processor, or (believe it or not) a cheese grater. Whatever method you use, avoid grinding them to powder; it’s good to have some different textures in there, and the cashews end up doing double-duty by virtue of their cheesy flavor and crisp consistency. I use as many cashews as I’m willing to grate up, which is not many.
• Nutritional Yeast. I know, that’s one of those vegan phrases that drives off most regular humans, but it’s pretty much essential to the recipe. Mix this with the cashew grinds, in about a one-to-one ratio, though this can be tweaked to your personal taste.

Directions:

     First, preheat the oven to scalloped-potato temperature. If it doesn’t list this on the oven temperature gauge, then look it up on epicurious or something; I don’t know. Next, melt the “butter” in a pan and start cooking that onion. I usually chop it very finely, to avoid getting big pieces of onion in my scalloped potatoes, but if you’re into that, it’s not my place to judge. Once you got that going on, slowly add flour and water to this mixture (Sorry for not listing these in the ingredients, but if you don’t have stuff like this in your pantry I feel sorry for you) until it’s the thickness and consistency that you desire. It’s that french word, that sounds like “rue” but it’s spelled all french-like. What’s that word? Riwe? Rioux? En passant? Doesn’t matter. You’re building up one of those, and it should be a nice gravy-like consistency.

     Are your potatoes all chopped? Good. I don’t know how many, figure it out for yourself; I’m busy. Put some of the oniony goodness on the bottom of the pan, and then put the rest of your oniony goodness back on heat, and add the cashew-yeast mixture, and whatever other spices you think would be tasty. Oh yeah, salt would also be good. Probably add salt with the onion. I don’t know, taste as you go and figure it out; you’re supposed to be the one cooking, for god’s sake. Anyway, put the potatoes in the pan, then top with the rest of the goodness, and maybe an extra layer of nutritional yeast, or perhaps a garnish of some kind; I don’t care, they’re your potatoes.

     Cover the pan with foil or something and put it in the oven for some time. Whatever, this part is well-documented, look in a cookbook or something. At some point you’re supposed to uncover it and put it back in; this will affect how crispy the top gets, which ideally will be very crispy. When it’s done, take it out, let it cool, and eat it up with your drunk buddies. Chomp.