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I made some congee for the first time.

I remember my mom feeding me something like it as a toddler, and even then I didn’t like it.

The flavor of the rice is made different. Like, I can eat a bowl of white rice. I can eat a bowl of white rice with water. But cooking the white rice to mush in the water? Nope.

The texture and the flavor, it’s not my favorite.

I tried some congee plain, and it was really not for me, even with side dishes added to every mouthful. The jellified rice and the thick, oozy rice water don’t bring me any fond feelings.

I did put some sesame oil and fish bouillon in a small amount, and that was very tasty. The consistency still isn’t my favorite, but I could see eating a bowl of flavored congee for an emergency meal.

There was a bit of rice leftover from dinner and I didn’t want to put it in the fridge or throw it away. So I added some water and set the rice cooker to the Oatmeal function.

I think that even if I myself don’t like the consistency, I can see turning the leftover spoonfuls of rice into dog food.

Leftover rice, a few shreds of leftover meat, some water or broth, then let it cook on the oatmeal setting.

It seems like a good way to get a senior aged dog to eat enough food and water. They could just lick it up.

I could see adding a cracked egg and stirring it in; some pieces of carrot, broccoli, peas, squash; meat bones that can later be fished out after they release their flavor; and/or cooked fish skin and bones that will disintegrate for added calcium.

Plain congee is not my favorite.

But having tasted it, I could see eating it if I was hungry and unable to get different food.

I like oatmeal. Though I don’t really see oatmeal as a "dinner" food, though there are plenty of recipes out there for "savory oatmeal."

A big canister of rolled oats or quick oats can be used to…

• make oatmeal
• make muffins
• make bread
• ground up as replacement flour
• make oat milk
• make granola
• make cookies
• crumbled up and used in meatloaf or meatballs in place of wheat bread crumbs
• ground up and added to the liquid used in a smoothie
• make dog biscuits

Rice, oatmeal, flour, self-rising flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, honey, vanilla extract, salt…

I saw someone mention that mixing equal parts self-rising flour and plain greek yogurt will give you a dough that can be used to make donuts. You could just mix the flour and granola together, and fry/air fry the donuts as rings or balls. Then roll the cooked donuts in powdered sugar or cinnamon and sugar or dip them in a chocolate or maple glaze.

Or you can mix the self-rising flour and greek yogurt and add different donut-type ingredients to your dough like…

• cinnamon and sugar
• vanilla extract
• chopped/grated pieces of apple or pear
• cocoa
• lemon juice and lemon zest
• lemon and poppy seeds
• blueberries–dried, frozen, fresh
• maple syrup

I have the Dash Mini-Donut maker–which I always forget I have–so I might just make some donuts tomorrow.

Even without a donut maker, making donuts can be really easy. And it’s inexpensive.

You just have to accept that nothing you make at home is going to taste as mouthwatering as a greasy grocery store donut you eat directly from the grocery bag while putting on your seatbelt after climbing into the car.

That sense that you’re doing something wrong, but you went out and gathered supplies so now you deserve a little treat.

The flavor of an earned donut is so much different from picking a day old dried donut out of a pink box someone left at work.

So as long as you accept that nothing you make at home is going to taste exactly the same as what you can buy… Making donuts is a fun thing to do at home. If you screw it up, you can change up your recipe next time. You can experiment and work through to make a donut you think is good, and for the same cost as a dozen store bought donuts you can get the ingredients to make three or four batches.

I’ve even bought one of those microwave donut makers before. I didn’t like that it’s made out of some kind of hard plastic, and my donuts came out more steamed than donut-y, but I like that the idea of the technology exists. Maybe if it was glass or ceramic and it fully enclosed the donuts rather than being a half-tray, it would have had better results.

So maybe somewhere out there is The Perfect Microwave Donut Maker.

I have a Dash Mini-Donut Maker so I’m not desperate for a microwave pan. But if I were traveling around the country and staying at different motels that have microwaves in the room, a microwave donut maker would be a nice little gadget to have on the go.

And all this babble is to say that I’m thinking about making some donuts.

And I’m not very fond of plain congee.

And maybe I’ll look to see if there are recipes for donuts using leftover rice. The congee had a well-stirred yogurt consistency to it. So maybe there are congee donut recipes out there. And with the addition of some chia seeds, I could make a donut that has a full serving of fiber.

Cooking is an adventure. As long as you don’t make too much at one time, if you screw up a meal or two it doesn’t have to be a disaster. And at least you can prevent the boredom of eating oatmeal for 6 out of 10 meals.

~Harper Kingsley

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“Wrath of Becky” is on Netflix. It’s the sequel to the eponymous(?) “Becky.”

So because of that, I’mma make a list of some movies you might be interested in watching:

• Weapons (horror)
• It’s What’s Inside (bodyswap)
• Mayhem (ultraviolence)
• Talk to Me (supernatural horror)
• Becky (ultraviolence)
• Wrath of Becky (ultraviolence)
• Bodies Bodies Bodies (group paranoia)
• Perfect Days (introspective)
• The Monkey (supernatural horror)
• Companion (sci-fi horror)
• Trick r Treat (supernatural horror)

Depending on your taste in movies, you probably don’t want to just dive on in watching these movies. I know that some people don’t like horror and especially jump scares, so you might want to watch a trailer or something first.

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“Becky” and “Wrath of Becky” are ultraviolence movies featuring a teenaged child in “Becky.” And she’s still a minor in “Wrath of Becky.”

It’s bad luck that the escaped Knotsy criminals broke out of prison to retrieve something that was at Becky’s family’s summer home. That at some point during the year when the family wasn’t around, dangerous criminals met up on their property and hid something in one of the structures. An area where children like to play. And that they had to retrieve it to complete their plans.

Becky and her family would never have faced such terribly dangerous people if members of the group those people belonged to hadn’t at some point been on their property. Doing stuff.

And you can kind of tell from the escaped criminals mien that they would have rather not had to deal with Becky or her family at all.

I don’t think most regular criminals want to involve non-participants into their dangerous crimes.

It’s much easier to break into a structure and get something if you don’t have to worry that there’s already people inside.

That said, he does not hesitate to order his men to do violence on Becky’s family.

He and his men are violent people. They have a mission and they’re not going to let anything stand in their way.

And of course they were going to kill Becky and her whole family the moment they showed up. It’s regretful, but they are escapees from maximum security federal criminals that killed the guards to escape. PLUS they are Knotsys that have a big ol’ tatertotplot to perform. Their boss is waiting for them to bring him the goods to make it all happen.

The second Becky found that thing, her family was an instant target.

Because even if those prisoners had never shown up at the summer house, whoever else that got sent would have to retrieve the item. Which could have meant them showing up at Becky’s regular house in the fall.

She could have come home from school to find her family dead.

And those guys would have been waiting for her, because she was the one to find it. And she was the one that took it.

I don’t think her father would give her up, but once they tortured him enough that they accepted he wasn’t the one to take it, then Becky would be the only one that could have.

Whoever hid that thing on the property was the one to kill people.

Like, all they had to do was hide it somewhere just off the property. They could have put it in a box and buried it.

But instead they hid it amongst stuff that obviously belonged to children.

That was cold blooded. And evidently a huge mistake when Becky starts going on her rampage.

I realize that “Becky” and “Wrath of Becky” aren’t for everyone. It is ultraviolence performed by a child in a believable way for a believable reason.

“Becky” kind of makes me think of “Where the Wild Things Are.” Becky is at the age of adventure and running through the woods “playing war.” Like, Peter Pan and skulking around and Calvin and Hobbes, all rolled into the personality of a child desperate to save her loved ones.

That she was arguing with her dad and she’d been acting out so much and basically screaming out as loud as she can “Dad, I am in emotional pain!” without ever saying the words, it is understandable that she would have big emotions.

She was grieving the loss of a loved one.

She became like Pippi Longstockings but with violence.

I don’t know. There was something about the cinematography in “Becky” that felt nostalgic. It reminded me of childhood, or of how childhood was presented to me in children’s media.

Like, they didn’t focus on it, but in Narnia those kids were killing people. Susan put arrows through so many enemies.

Cool to help out Aslan and all that, but he was basically calling forth child soldiers to do his bidding.

Children have gone to war many times.

There was even a Children’s Crusade where a bunch of them died on the way to the Crusades.

Becky was at that age where there’s an awareness that death should be avoided but also a sense that “Death can’t touch me! I’m the main character!” She did not hesitate to go out and fight, because she was already primed for a fight.

But yeah, at it’s base, “Becky” is the story of an unfortunate family dealing with the consequences of someone trespassing on their property.

Which is a crime, by the way. Or at least, it’s something you can call the police to complain about.

So all of the trouble that happened in the movie “Becky” could have been avoided if those Knotsys had not decided to break in and hide something on the family’s property.

Which means none of the stuff that happened in “Wrath of Becky” would have happened.

And some people might say that the events of “Becky” were “a necessary evil.” Because if she was not there in “Wrath of Becky,” she would have been safe at home with her dad and family. She might have dealt with her loss in a healthy way and made new connections and had a bright future of her own.

She was a smart kid. Clever and physically active; talented in ways of strategy.

Who knows what kind of life she could have lived. Whether the loss of that Might-Have-Been is more or less of a loss compared to the greater good she might have done in “Wrath of Becky.”

And we don’t know, but it’s something to wonder about.

“Becky” and “Wrath of Becky” might not be movies you will ever want to see. But they were somewhat satisfying “revenge” stories.

She was going full Boadicea.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

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How much of a video do I have to watch to get them the money?

I want to help out, really I do, but I’m not interested in that movie. I can see from your 20 minutes of chattering about some obscure movie from 1989 that you really like it, but I’m not going to watch that movie.

I want his studio to get the money so that they’ll pay him more money.

But I’m very uninterested in the subject. I watched like 5 minutes and I knew it wasn’t a movie for me. Too much splooshy blood.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

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https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
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I finally saw "Weapons," and it’s a good horror movie. I enjoyed watching it.

So if you don’t want to be spoiled, leave now and go watch the movie. Be a fresh mind with no preconceived notions and let yourself be sucked into the story.

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I have thoughts about the movie. And I realize the director has left all the mystery intact, presenting the movie as-is, and basically saying that whatever you think it means, that’s what the movie means.

It’s your personal experience and whatever you feel about the movie, whatever metaphors or allegories your brain has produced, then that’s what the movie is for you. Enjoy the movie. And I respect that.

That said…

I feel so bad for Alex. I don’t think he’s ever going to get his parents back.

Those kids were under Aunt Gladys’ control for a month, and it took them two years to start talking again. And some of them still aren’t talking. Meanwhile, Alex’s parents were under her control for a longer time, and it seems like she might have used a different method to enthrall them.

When Alex first comes home from school to find his parents under her control, they were able to see him and interact with him a bit. By the end, they were just mindless husks, and that’s not something that can easily be fixed.

It seems as though Aunt Gladys was sucking the life out of them. If it was simply the vitality, maybe they can get that back with time, but if she was taking their life force? Maybe all her victims will have a shortened lifespan.

And it doesn’t say what Aunt Gladys is sick with, but if it was cancer, then when those kids ate her, could they get cancer from eating her? And it was her own fault that she got torn apart and eaten because she was the one to put that idea into Alex’s head.

Which makes me wonder: If she is some kind of parasitic being, will she be spread around by having been eaten? Are those kids incubating the next generation of whatever creature was wearing an Aunt Gladys skin?

Anyways, I think that at it’s core, the movie is about a bad cop making bad decisions that result in a bad outcome. Some people might say it’s about school shootings, parental fear, and the aftermath of children just suddenly being taken out of life. But my brain is focused on Paul, the bad cop who’s so focused on himself and his problems that he doesn’t realize he’s a bad cop.

We feel sympathy for Paul because we see him as a human being with human flaws. He’s an alcoholic that is trying to remain sober, and the stresses of his life result in him falling off the wagon, and then he just keeps making worse and worse decisions.

It’s sad that Justine had to kill him, but it was his own decisions that made that happen.

He likely didn’t think of himself as a bad cop, but we, the viewers, have a clear view of him fucking up at his job. And that fuck up results in him ruining his life, and then losing his life.

He asked James "Do you have anything in your pocket?" then he gets pricked by a needle and punches James, and from that point forward he just makes some really terrible decisions.

The stress from punching James and knowing that if James makes a report he could lose his job is part of the reason he’s so quick to drink alcohol, and then he makes the decision to cheat on his wife who is the beloved daughter of the sheriff. And the whole time, he knows that as long as James doesn’t report what he did, the dashcam footage for his patrol car will be overwritten in 30 days.

He’s just counting down the time until that dashcam footage can no longer be used against him. Which is why he reacts so badly on seeing James approach the police station.

Seeing him racing in his patrol car and reaching up to disconnect the dashcam is the moment when he truly failed as a cop. And then he doesn’t call it in when he goes to the Lilly house with James, even though all those people are desperately waiting for any news about their missing children.

I don’t know if a bunch of police busting into the house would have made much difference, but it would have meant that Paul wasn’t a completely fuck up as a cop. And maybe he wouldn’t have died like that.

That killing Aunt Gladys broke her thrall over Alex’s parents and those kids, means that if police had busted into the house and been attacked, there’s a good chance they would have shot Aunt Gladys and that would have been the end of ALL OF THAT.

Instead the children hunted her down like they were animals and they tore her apart with their bare hands and ate her flesh. And they wouldn’t have been forced to have that memory if Paul had simply called it in to the station.

But he was so scared about losing his job.

Like, he’d lost everything else in his life. He’d fucked up his marriage by cheating on his wife, which angered his father-in-law who is his boss. He’s scared that after the needle prick he might have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis. He still has unresolved feelings for Justine, which leads to him lying to her about his availability.

He’s not a good dude. And he’d bad at his job.

But he didn’t deserve to be taken over by Aunt Gladys and dying as a result.

Like, on first meeting him, we the viewers have to sympathize because his wife was putting pressure on him to get her pregnant and it was obvious that he was not ready to be a dad. He didn’t even seem sure that he wanted to be married to her. And then getting pricked by the needle and worrying about the effect it’s going to have on his health and we find out he’s a recovering alcoholic… He was not in a place to make a life-altering decision. But there he was. Making bad choices due to the panic he was experiencing.

And James is deep in his addiction, to the point that he’s no longer allowed around his family. They had to cut him off to protect themselves because he’s willing to steal anything from anyone to feed his addiction. Like, he goes into the Lilly house, sees what’s happening there, and then he just continues stealing stuff. He doesn’t even think about calling the police until he realizes that there’s a reward for any information about the missing children. At which point it’s his greed for more drugs that motivates him.

Others were enthralled by Aunt Gladys, but he was enthralled by drugs. Hollowed out by his addiction.

Justine honestly cared about the children. At the end scene, her first impulse is to find Alex and make sure he’s okay. Throughout the whole movie, she wanted those other kids to be rescued, but she was also very worried about Alex. She had a deep commitment to her students, even as she fails to care for herself.

She’s an alcoholic, and without her class, all she had was alcohol. She was left anchorless.

And I think her having sex with Paul and the inference from her having had an affair with a colleague at her last school shows that she has self-harming tendencies. She knows that what she’s doing is wrong and it’s not good for her, both as a person and on a professional level, but she still does it because of her own inner damages.

She loves the children she teaches, and that’s kind of her glimpse of light, so having them all taken away from her leaves her with nothing but her self-damaging impulses.

And throughout the whole movie, she was basically flailing around and begging for help from someone she saw as a figure of authority. She spoke to Marcus in person, she called him on the phone, she told him multiple times that she felt something was off with Alex’s home life. And because of her history of "caring too much" about her students, he shrugged off her concerns and didn’t take her seriously.

As a result, he ended up enthralled by Aunt Gladys and that killed him and his husband.

All he had to do was notify the police or CPS that something was going on at Alex’s house. If enough people had known there was something weird happening, Aunt Gladys would have packed up her magic tree and fled the scene, hopefully releasing the children when she did so.

Because it did seem as though she had to have her victims close at hand to suck out their energy. Otherwise she could have just enthralled them and left them in their homes as catatonic victims. They would have been hospitalized, and she could have fed on them from a distance, if that’s something she was able to do.

I believe she had to have them close at hand to feed off of them.

So I think, to me, "Weapons" is an allegory about life. Like, there’s addiction, there’s the fear parents have for their children, there’s the suddenness of their children just being gone, and the hurt and anger that causes.

Like, Justin Long’s character and his wife… The wife did not want to help find her own child. And maybe it was just because this seemingly aggressive stranger made her uncomfortable, or maybe she and Justin Long’s character–who had already seemed to put aside the pain of their missing daughter–are supposed to represent the blasé attitude of some parents.

Like, they have children because it’s something expected of them. And they raise their children, and maybe the children have a good life and feel loved in the home, but at the same time, the parents are distant and a bit hands off when it comes to real emotional love. And the kids grow up all right and they’re happy people, and they don’t realize what they missed out on, but at the same time, they do miss out on something they don’t know exists in other families.

Alex’s parents loved him, and he loved them. He was willing to do anything to keep them safe, even if that meant bowing down to Aunt Gladys’ demands.

Aunt Gladys represents calamity. She came into the lives of Alex and his parents, brought in by familial obligation, and her presence resulted in him losing the parents he once had. He still loves them, but they will never be the people he remembers, because once the damage is done, that’s it.

Like a car accident, a stroke, a break-in and assault. She entered their lives like cancer and her influence grew and grew. She changed every aspect of their lives to the point that even their house was nearly unrecognizable by the time she was done.

It’s a good movie. Fun to watch as a horror spectacle, but also filled with what-if thought provoking theories about what it all means.

And maybe it means nothing if you don’t think it means anything.

And maybe it means everything if you think it means something.

You take away from the movie what you put into it. And that’s what makes it a good movie.

10/10, would watch again.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

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