Upon the suggestion of my dad, I tried something new.

Take a pot of espresso, freshly brewed. Pour over ice cream. Indulge.

Affogato is the Italian word for “drowned,” and this is what this dessert is called. Simply splash your espresso over ice cream and that’s it.

It’s my third time to try affogato the way Italians do it (Starbucks does it wrong). See above. Only this time I have discovered an excellent ice cream flavor for the bitter dark espresso to go with.

The first time, I tried it with mango ice cream, resulting in the weirdest thing ever. About a month ago I was able to do it with vanilla ice cream, which is the way it was supposed to be done. Nothing short of superb.

Imagine that solid frozen sweetness swimming in a witch’s brew of bitter darkness. Fantastic.

Today I tried it with butterscotch and caramel ice cream. Even better. The heat melted the butterscotch chunks into a gooey mess, while the espresso and the ice cream mingled and produced a sweet soup with some spots of bitter. Very, very good.

With deep, dark sweetness,
Your Black Lion

Earworms
-I need something new.
Projects
-The Black and the Purple Chapter II, and other related items.
-Drawing of [Alodia] as a fantasy character. (Due September 1)
-Resuscitating a comatose Inkwell.

Finally done with grades. They were late, but my boss asked for an extension from the higher ups and it wasn’t given. (Lateness was due to my students’ Ramayana presentations getting nuked into the future by the hideous weather.) It was a massive chunk of their grade and many would’ve failed without it.

Anyway, just a series of updates on what’s been happening lately, minus the angst.

The Ramayana presentations were mostly successful. Instead of having the students perform the traditional epic, we have them do modern adaptations.

Beryllium had the villain Ravana as an evil technocrat who wanted to kidnap S.I.T.A. (a sentient gynoid) from her creator Rama. Potassium had Ravana as a chef–I kid you not–oppressing the culinary community. Magnesium had the simplest idea–Ravana as a Mafia don–but their execution was pretty good. I might post my photos and videos when I have the time.

Our creative writing club, Inkwell, is rather dead at the moment due to the unfortunate departure of some of our officers. (The fragged schedule doesn’t help either) As such, I’ve been trying to pull it together. Hopefully we will manage to hold that vital constitutional congress and come up with the Inkwell Charter–without which we won’t get officially recognized.

Okay, geek mode.

I managed to purchase Monster Manual V. It’s an awesome read, full of interesting new ideas. Some things of note:
Mind Flayers of Thoon The Thoon Mind Flayers are a small cult of Illithids who went a bit too far on their travels through the multiverse. They ended up seeing something that they now worship, and go out in its name to seek a strange resource called “quintessence.” Although they still eat brains like regular Mind Flayers, these guys now have powerful constructs to do most of their dirty work. The Soldier of Thoon is an awesome construct that can reconfigure its body into different combat modes, while the Thoon Hulk is a big construct made of leftover Mind Flayer parts—it essentially looks like a hulking cyborg Illithid with axe blades on its hands. Freaky.
The Thoon Elder Brain’s not as strong as the regular Elder Brain, which makes it a good challenge for a party that isn’t that strong yet. Thus it could work as an excellent side quest without detracting from the main forces involved in the campaign.

Xorvintaal: The Great Game of Dragons Xorvintaal is like a game of chess. Except the players are dragons, and the pieces are people. The game may last for centuries, and involves the clever manipulation of pawns and resources to outsmart another dragon. Dragons practically devote their lives to play this game, losing their arcane casting and spell resistance ability in exchange for several magical powers that help them play Xorvintaal better. It’s a good overarching mechanic that doesn’t take too much away from the imagination.

There are many other cool things introduced in MMV, and I can definitely say it was worth my money. Some of that stuff is definitely finding its way into The Black and the Purple.

Hoping for more time and blog entries,
Your Black Lion

Earworms:
-The Tower from Avantasia: The Metal Opera

Projects:
-The Black and the Purple Chapter II: The Black Network (0.01%)
-Checking/Recording Quizzes: 50%
-Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko: 66% (planning to continue since Arghs said he’d lend me Battle Royale when I’m done.

Coffee should be as black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love. –Turkish proverb

Tried my hand at using the new stovetop espresso maker that Dad brought me from Singapore. It was a mix of disappointment and satisfaction.

True espresso is made by sending sub-boiling water at high pressure through a firmly-pressed puck of finely-ground coffee, as opposed to brewed or drip coffee that simply uses gravity to draw the water through the coarsely-ground grains. The pressure makes the coffee brew a lot faster–the industrial-use espresso machines used in Starbucks, for example, have the water at sub-boiling temperature already, so it just takes about 20 seconds to brew that single shot of espresso. This makes espresso is a lot more concentrated than typical brewed coffee. The perfect shot is a rich, dark brown with a layer of crema (foam) floating on top. At the right temperature, the shot will be sweet–too cold and it turns sour, too hot and it turns bitter.

Learn more about espresso.[link]

The contraption that Dad got me is not a true espresso machine, but it tries to approximate the conditions in which espresso is made. It’s based on the Moka Express[link], which has the water in a boiler compartment below the coffee instead of above it. As the water heats up, the container raises the pressure to a level at which it begins to rise up through a funnel where the coffee is placed. The pressure forces the brewed “espresso” through a small, fountain-like spout in the upper compartment from which the coffee can be poured.

My stovetop espresso maker.

Here’s the spout.

Apart from the obvious differences in the operation of a stovetop espresso maker and a true espresso machine, the coffee in a true espresso machine is tamped down with a tool to compress it into a firm puck before brewing. In a stovetop, the tamping is automatically done when you screw the upper compartment onto the boiler.

I was a bit excited as I washed and prepared my little contraption. It didn’t take very long for the coffee to brew–I just had to wait for the water in the boiler to run out. Since the espresso maker brews exactly six shots of espresso, I had to make sure that both Mom and Vince would want to share the coffee.

The resulting brew filled a little more than four of these Chinese teacups.

Disappointment
Due to the forced boiling, it seems that the water ended up being far too hot. The coffee was strong, alright–and incredibly bitter. (Perhaps the Turkish proverb I quoted could be modified to say it’s “as bitter as love,” but that would be a bit too pessimistic, wouldn’t it? ) The brew was thinner than I had expected, and contained loose grains that settled on the bottom of the cup. As Dad had told me, there was no crema (he tried his own hand at stovetop brewing).

Since it’s not real espresso, maybe I should just call it “espresto” in honor of this OOTS strip[link].

Satisfaction
Since the espresto was about as bitter as a jilted lover, I had to find a way to make it more pleasing to the palate. This was accomplished by dumping the espresto into a larger coffee mug and filling it with chocolate milk.

The result was sweet, fulfilling and a lot more pleasant than the horribly bitter brew that came straight out of the espresso maker.

Mmmm. Mocha.

As I drank the cup, I noticed that a lot of residue had settled on the bottom of the cup. Usually one would be afraid to drink this part, as it might be bitter. However, I was surprised to discover that the sediment was actually far sweeter than the liquid.

For Next Time
I think the bitterness was mostly caused by having the fire on too high–the brew was continuously exposed to high temperatures even after it came out of the spout, leading to undesirable chemical changes. This was a big mistake.

Comments on Dad’s Flickr entry about trying out a stovetop maker said that learning how to use one is a trial-and-error process and will probably involve several disappointments before attaining perfection. Of course, this isn’t something I can do every morning (I don’t want to risk permanent insomnia) so I guess the next attempt will have to wait. I’m happy to hear, however, that satisfaction is at least, in this case, attainable.

Being used to Starbucks frappuccinos (which are full of water and are thus very diluted), I’m currently shaking as the caffeine works its black magic on my nerves. A few nights ago my Y!M status message was:

There’s too much blood in my caffeine system. –”Jack n’ Joe,” a card from the defunct TCG Netrunner.

Now it’s something closer to “I HAVE THE POWAAAAAAA!”

Wired for the next 48 hours,
Your Black Lion

PS: More awesome videos from OGs:


Formation-R. The new Variable Formation BGM sounds fantastic, and so is the added touch of Ryusei skewering the enemy with the T-Link Sword.

Axel owning stuff with his attacks. The first two missile attacks are status missiles. The energy projectile is Hadouken Seiryuuin , 青龍鱗(Blue Dragon Scale), the flying arm attack is Genbu Goudan , 玄武剛弾(Dark Warrior’s Mighty Shot), and the combo+energy ball grinder is Rasengan Byakko Kou　, 白虎咬. (White Tiger Bite)　His missing attack is Mai Suzaku , 舞朱雀 (Dancing Phoenix)

Axel in Soulgain doing his finisher, Kirin 麒麟. The new DARK KNIGHT BGM is also awesome, and so is the animation sequence.

Ryuune in Valsione. In order, the attacks are Divine Arm, Psycho Blaster, Hyper Beam Cannon and Cross Smasher. The final clip is Wodan Ymir’s Thrudgelmir pwning Kyosuke’s Alteisen for massive damage with Zankantou: Inazuma Juuryoku Otoshi. (Ship-cleaver: Lightning Gravity Drop)