Here we are again, bringing the music videos you didn’t know you wanted to see.
“The Hillywood Show: Pirates of the Caribbean Parody” – Very upbeat and fun. “If I had you…”
“The Hillywood Show: The Walking Dead Parody” – It’s new and wonderful and you’re missing out if you don’t watch it. “Another one bites the dust.”
“Melissa Ethridge: Come to My Window” – ‘Come to my window. Crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window. I’ll be home soon.’ Featuring the ever charming Juliette Lewis. Why? Because suck it, this is still a good video.
“Alannah Myles: Black Velvet” – Look at those eyebrows. What?
“Frozen: Let It Go Sing-along” – ‘The snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen. A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I’m the queen. The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside. Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried. Don’t let them in. Don’t let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know. Well, now they know. Let it go! Let it go! Can’t hold me back anymore. Let it go! Let it go! Turn away and slam the door. I don’t care what they’re going to say. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.’
“Paint: Boy Brand” – ‘You’re insecure. Feel like a bore. I’ve got a hunch we know what you’ll adore.’ ‘Your mom. Your mom. Your mom. Your mom.’ Lol.
I love the “After Ever After” videos to ridiculous degrees. Seriously, they make me super happy.
“Paint: After Ever After” – Disney parody. “Thank you BP.” Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, and Pocahontas.
“Paint: After Ever After 2” – Disney parody. Mulan, Cinderella, Tiana, and Elsa.
“Anastasia: Once Upon a December” – This movie was (and is) beautiful.
“Fievel: Somewhere Out There” – ‘Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight. Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight.’
“The Hillywood Show: LoTR Let It Go Parody” – Lord of the Rings and Frozen’s “Let It Go” in one video? What’s not to love? ‘What are you waiting for? Just let it go!’
I realize that it looks like crap, and that for some reason it’s showing up as HTML code in the front page excerpt, but I also know that I’m teaching this to myself and I’m doing pretty okay.
I’ve made my own pizza before — it’s super easy — and I usually line my cookie sheet with tinfoil to keep the mess to a minimum. But tonight I wanted to try waxed paper. Big mistake.
The pizza came out with its own paper wrapper that refused to peel off. It was a terrible situation, and an otherwise beautiful and lovingly prepared pizza was ruined.
I should have taken some pictures to show you. Looking at the beauty of the pre-baked pizza would have made you weep, especially when we were trying to get the paper off and ended up just eating all the pepperoni and cheese.
Next time I make pizza, I’ll take some pics to show you how it’s supposed to look.
*
Easy Pizza
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Seasonings to taste
2 Tbsp vegetable or olive oil
1 cup warm water
spaghetti or pizza sauce
mozzarella cheese
toppings
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375-degrees F.
Wrap a cookie sheet with tinfoil. Or use a pizza pan if you don’t like rectangular pizza.
In a large bowl add 3 cups flour, 1 pkg active dry yeast, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp white sugar, and seasonings (I usually add garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Makes the crust not so bland. If you don’t have any spices, you can have a plain crust and it tastes fine.)
Add 2 Tbsp vegetable or olive oil and 1 cup warm water. Mix with your hand, kneading into the bowl. Keep stretching and folding the dough until there’s no loose flour or crumbly bits and the dough becomes smooth and easy to work.
At this point you can either use the dough as is, or cover and let sit for half an hour. I usually just throw it on the pan because I’m hungry/impatient or both.
Plop the dough in the middle of the tinfoiled baking sheet, and working from the middle toward the edges, use your fingers and palms to spread the dough. It will seem like there’s not nearly enough dough, but keep working it and it will stretch to cover a whole 15″ x 10″ pan. Try to keep the same thickness across the whole pizza and you can add a bit of a lip around the edge to give yourself some crust if you like it.
Spread with spaghetti or pizza sauce and sprinkle with cheese. Arrange your toppings as you like. (I like Canadian bacon, diced tomatoes, black olives, and jalapenos, though pepperoni pizza is always a classic. You can even change up the sauce and experiment a little.)
Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let stand at least 5 minutes before cutting. (Give your cheese a chance to firm up before slicing. Otherwise you’ll start cutting and all your toppings will slide off.)
Making a pizza at home can feed your family for less than $5 per pizza.
(Prego spaghetti sauce: $1.88-2.50 a jar and you only need a small amount; Canadian bacon or pepperoni: $2-3 for a package and you can make 2-3 pizzas if you don’t eat all the slices; shredded mozzarella cheese: $1.50-3 for a package; flour: $3 for a whole bag; white sugar: $2-3 for a whole bag; active dry yeast packets: $1.50-3 comes 3-to-a-pack; salt: $0.50-0.90 for a canister; Italian seasoning: $0.50-2 for a shaker bottle; and garlic powder: $0.50-2 for a shaker.)
Title: Caspian Dukes and His Best Friend’s Husband
Author: Harper Kingsley
World: Heroes & Villains
Frame set: Allies & Enemies, “Good Times”
Characters: Caspian Dukes, Vereint Georges, Warrick Tobias, Melissa Kim
Pairings: Vereint Georges/Warrick Tobias
Genre: friendship, superhero, meta
Summary: Vereint and Caspian go see a movie together.
“I’ll have to remember that,” Caspian said.
“Lock it, put it in your pocket. Now we’ve gotta run if we want to make it on time.” Vereint lifted the shopping bags out of the cart with one hand and caught Caspian’s sleeve with the other. “Come on.”
Caspian followed him out onto the street. The movie theater was only a few blocks from the store.
* * *
They were nearly alone in the theater. It was nice not to be packed tight with a bunch of strangers. They were able to enjoy the movie as though they were alone.
“That was a great movie,” Vereint said as they left. He dropped his cup in the garbage with a slosh of melty ice. He shook the last few pieces of popcorn into his mouth before crumpling the bag and throwing it away.
“This was a good idea,” Caspian said agreeably.
“Let’s go pick up that stuff and take a taxi home,” Vereint said. “Unless there’s something else you want to do?”
Caspian shrugged. “I’m good. Maybe we should bring something back for Warrick and the kid?”
Vereint thought. There were some bananas at home and plenty of chocolate sauce. “We could stop off for some ice cream. Banana splits sound really good.”
“Score!” Caspian grinned.
They walked to the locker Vereint had rented. They’d had a good time and Vereint felt like the night had been a success.
Which was when the man with the gun stepped out of the alley. He wore a ballcap low over his eyes and had pulled his scarf up over the lower half of his face. “Gimme all your money,” he growled.
“Really?” Caspian asked.
Vereint looked around. They were the only ones in this corner of the street. He saw a group of laughing people disappear into a restaurant, a slender girl reaching out to touch a Chinese lantern in passing. They were alone with the wannabe mugger.
If they had been two different people this would have been a terrifying situation.
“I said, gimme all your money,” the mugger barked aggressively.
“Do you know who I am?” Caspian asked.
“I don’t give a fuck,” the mugger said. “Give me the money or I start blasting.”
Caspian stepped in front of Vereint, a rather gentlemanly action. “Look, no one wants to get shot tonight, but no one wants to hand over their wallet either. At the same time, I don’t think you would like what would happen if you pulled that trigger.”
“Oh yeah, what are you going to do?” the mugger asked. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Caspian was remarkably graceful as he lunged forward, his hand slapping the mugger’s arm with a deceptive lightness that resulted in the loud crack! of the ulna breaking. Caspian kept moving forward, his right leg twisting around the would-be mugger’s to bring him down to the ground.
The man screamed and clutched his broken arm, which flopped limply. Vereint took one look before grimacing and averting his eyes. That arm looked disturbingly gross.
“You’re hurting me! You’re hurting me!” the man screamed, wriggling in Caspian’s firm grip. “Fuck you, man. You’re hurting me!”
“You tried to shoot me,” Caspian said. “You’re lucky all you got was a broken arm.”
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
“Real nice,” Caspian said, holding the guy with one hands while pulling his phone out of his pocket with the other. “Good thing there’s no kids around or I might have to break your other arm. Now quiet down before I get testy and really hurt you.”
“You can’t do this to me. I have rights.”
“Shut up.” Caspian held the phone to his ear. “Yeah, hi, hello, this is Caspian Dukes and I’ve got a downed mugger near the corner of Lotus and Sprout Street. Can you come pick him up? Ha, yeah. Thanks.”
Caspian stuck his phone back in his pocket and smirked at the would-be mugger. “And that’s that. Someone will be by to pick you up shortly.” He lightly flicked the back of the man’s head when he started cursing in response.
Vereint glanced at his watch. “About how long is this going to be?”
“They said it would be about eight or ten minutes,” Caspian said. “I usually have priority, but this is just a mugger, not a supervillain. I don’t think they’re going to show up with lights blazing.”
“Right.” Vereint hooked his thumb down the street. “I’m going to go to the locker. That way we can leave as soon as they pick this guy up. That okay with you?”
“Yeah, that’s cool,” Caspian said.
“Okay. Then I’ll be over there,” Vereint said. “Don’t leave without me.”
Caspian waved at him. He was completely comfortably crouching next to the supine mugger. Never mind that he was in civilian clothes, he looked ready to burst into action at any moment. It brought a nostalgic smile to Vereint’s lips–back when he’d been a superhero fanboy, pictures of Caspian Dukes had been on his collectible list. To get a picture of Caspian dressed like a normal guy hovering over a baddie would have blown teenaged Vereint’s mind. He would have framed the print and hung it on his bedroom wall.
Even though he was an adult, there was a part of him that would always be a product of that boy’s life. And Caspian had been one of young-Vereint’s heroes.
