One of my passions in life is cooking. It doesn’t mean I’m any good at it, or have any delusions of Grandeur when I’m in the kitchen, I just enjoy experimenting in there. Today was one of those days…

Having lived in Korea for just over 7 months of my life, Mike and I ate a lot at a little place called Gimbap Chonguk. It was basically a Korean “fast food” franchise that specialised in fresh Gimbap (Korean equivalent of sashimi, I guess, would be a close approximation. Nore, rice and a “cooked” sandwich type filling instead of raw fish. My personal favourite was tuna) and inexpensive yet nutritious meals. One of my most ordered dishes was Cheesu Donkas.

Basically, its a pork cutlet and a piece of cheese, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Its served with a sweet and sour-esce sauce, rice and a side salad. It’s awesome. It’s also really easy to make so I thought I’d share how!

Ingredients (Donkas)
1 Pork Fillet
Cheese Slices
2 Slices of bread
Corn Flour
2 Eggs

Optional to season the coating
Garlic Salt
Black Pepper
Coriander
Sesame Seeds

Ingredients (Sauce)
Tomato Ketchup
Tomato Purée
Soy Sauce
Sugar
Salt and Pepper

Right, start by ripping up your bread and tossing it in a blender. Bung in the rest of the things on the list, and anything else that you think might work. If you want to kick it up a notch I recommend some Cayenne Pepper to get some subtle heat into the coating - I usually do this if I’m making spicy mozzarella bites and I can imagine in a Donkas it’d work well. Fresh coriander also works well. Blitz them up so you have some loose breadcrumbs.

Next you need to bash the shit out of that pork fillet with a rolling pin so its nice and flat. The first image is a prime example of why it needs to be thin; it needs to cook through quickly and there seemed to be a fine line between the oil being too hot and browning the coating too quickly and it being too cool which causes the cheese to pour out and go mental in the oil. A professional would be able to tell you the ideal temperature (but that’s not me…)

Once the fillets looking good, you need a cheese slice or two and mirror the fillet with it. I’d recommend putting a bit more in the middle of the fillet so as it melts, it spreads throughout the donkas. I’m sure you could use any cheese but standard burger slices work well as they cling to the pork better.

Next, coat the pork cheese with the cornflour. Rub it in so it’s nice and smooth and all over both sides. Then, dip in the whisked up egg and into the breadcrumbs. It doesn’t need a major coating, just ensure the cheese side is fully coated. Now we’re ready for deep frying!

The ideal temperature for the oil is cooler than what you would use for chips. I use a chip pan on an electric hob and normally it would be between 5 and MAX for chips, I found donkas needed to be on 3. Make of that what you will.. I recommend a few trials with a little offcuts!

If the oil is just right, the cheese will start to seep out just as it hits cooking perfection. Whip it out and pat it down with a bit of kitchen paper, plating up with rice.

The sauce is just a pan, a blob of ketchup, a squirt of purée, a dash of soy sauce and a sprinkling of sugar. Stir and season to taste, then pour over the cooked donaks and boom… she’s done.

Plated up it would normally come with a side salad of finely chopped cabbage, sweetcorn and a blob of thousand island sauce but I didn’t have the cabbage in the fridge. The results were delicious!

It took me three attempts to get the oil right, and I put the large cutlet in the oil a little tentatively but cutting into the donkas, the results spoke for themselves. Just as I remembered it!

I also whipped up Amy some Cheesu Ramen too… another of Mikes favourites, and a few mozzarella bites (Amy lived on these in Korea) on the side seen as we had left over breadcrumbs.

All in all it was a successful day of experimental Korean cooking and Cheesu Donkas is definitely on the menu in the future!

And speaking of games, I officially broke the Achievement Point 40k barrier whilst baby and mother slept, proving that my addiction to gaming can officially withstand the birth of a child. But of the games I’ve played, a few minor summaries would be:

Civilization Revolut’n : Awesome… buy it now!

FIFA Street 3 : Annoying but fun in brief periods

Bee Movie™ Game : Surprising deep for a movie game, great game engine

Virtua Tennis 3 : Brought back memories of the Dreamcast because this game could be called Virtua Tennis 2+, Now with New Douchebags

Beautiful Katamari : Great but very, very cheap of Namco to rerelease a PS2 version and then nickle and dime XBL for the new levels…

SEGA Superstars Tennis : Frustrating as hell yet sometimes brilliant…

EA SPORTS FN 3 : Give Me Geekpoints… not a bad game though… worth a play through

LEGO® Indiana Jones™ : Amy liked this a lot more than I did in Co-op mode… I found myself getting annoyed with her wandering off…

Battle for the Pacific : Wank… and I still completed it…

LEGO Star Wars: TCS : Completely cheap if you’ve already played through Star Wars II as its just bolted that onto the first three chapters

Top Spin 2 : Meh…

Halo 3 : Eventually played through the entire game on Normal after beginning it on Legendary and after a few Near Joypad Destruction Experiences, reduced the difficultly to Heroic, then down again to Normal….

NHL 2K6 : Fucking game… I did the damn score a penalty achievement on All Star and I didn’t give me the achievement!

I also got my ass down to Morrisons today in my lunch break, to get Viva Pinata : Trouble in Paradise. Normally I would be ashamed to step foot in a Morrisons but for this week only they have all the Top 10 games for X360 and PS3 for £25, most Wii games for £15 (including Mario Kart with Wheel) and DS games for £12.

Other than looking after baby and gaming though, I haven’t been up to a great deal… a bit of Nintendo DS demo coding to show potential employers, some humorous eBaying and some grilling in the rain. Nothing exciting really!

This update was more to make sure I could still log into my blog than anything else…

It came as no surprise though, and had I not have signed a Non Disclosure Act with the company until the game had been released, I could’ve told you this 18 months ago. You see I interviewed with Ninja Theory back in January ‘07 and after being definitively bored by there technical wankery of the PS3, I turned down the chance to work on Heavenly Sword in favour of eating my own fist more money at my previous employer.

* I can see you wondering whats brought me to talk about this today, so it was this post on UK:R about Games 100 best games of all time.

Anyway, I knew they weren’t for me within the first 5 minutes of the interview, when they questioned the “favourite games” section of my CV. My choice of Shenmue was almost mockingly scoffed at, like I knew nothing about gaming and had picked some 2 week old title like GTAIV…

In fact, fuck them… looking back they were mocking it, the cunts!

Unsurprisingly the interview progressed to them talking about Heavenly Sword and what type of game it was. My comment of “so its a bit like Golden Axe then with only the female character to select from?” didn’t go down particularly well but ironically, I was completely right… it is a fucking hack ‘n slash after all. Nothing more, nothing less… it just looks “pretty” and cost £24.9mil more than it’s 1989 arcade father.

I also came out the interview feeling slightly violated after they jotted down my ideas furiously like I was the fucking Dali Lama of Video Game Design. I’ve not played HS so I can’t comment if any of my input translated to the game but whatever. I’m sure something from that free labour brain storming session we had got brought up elsewhere.

Anyway, back to what I wanted to discuss and that was the Top 100 Greatest Games of all time, not according to Game or the children they had participate (seriously, the winners idea of the best game being Killzone induced coffee being spat on my monitor in a definite WTF moment). I just want to make a few points for future lists so they get a little bit closer to the mark:

• Anything in a Greatest X list has to be more than three years old. In video gaming I’ll let this slip to 12 months at a push, but titles that fall into this category had better be fucking amazing.
• Just because Sega don’t have a current gen console, doesn’t mean you can forget about their games. This also counts for Lucas Arts (they did more than Monkey Island) in the software platform.
• Arcade games count so stop leaving them out
• If the list doesn’t have Castlevania Symphony of the Night on it, it instantly fails

Call of Duty 4 is good, but above Zelda Ocarina of Time… you’re having a laugh aren’t you?!

• Updated my sites to the latest revisions in Fantango - I haven’t touched Oh For Fucks Sake yet though for fear of breaking it after it failed on another Drupal site
• Post a blog on OhFFS about Norton Internet Security and how wank it is…
• Wrote the following complaint letter to Kenco in an attempt to get free coffee out of them:

Just wanted to register my dissatisfaction with the sachet sizes for Kenco based products. I wouldn’t say the cups we use at our company are too large, in fact I would argue they were slightly below the “national average” yet the colour and flavour provided by a single use sachet was less than required to make the perfect cup of delicious Kenco goodness.

They come as a massive disappointment given their obvious benefits that the sealed retention of flavour gives as we often find ourselves using a 3 for 2 ratio to get adequate flavour and strength into our mugs. The coffee inside is always delicious, we just thought you should consider reviewing the portion sizes..

40 minutes to go….. for fucks sake… GTA4 better be awesome…

If you live in the Fylde area, starting next Tuesday we are running a games night in our local that everyone is welcome to. We had a dry run this week and although there were only 4 people involved playing repeatedly, some of the regulars even had a go on PGR4 and the SWOS mini league we had got a few older players interested. I think in future, once I actually take Rock Band down too, the night will become quite awesome!

 New posters coming today so the starting date is the 18th and every alternate week from then. We’re doing a quiz on the other Tuesdays which is also going to be fun!

Does it mean I’ll be back to posting more regularly? I doubt it but the thought is there if nothing else!

And on the back of that, today I got reprimanded for my persistent tardiness even though I never take a lunch, and on the back of the comments I’ve been leaving on my job sheets he was pissed off. Apparently it was an inappropriate outlet for my grievences and I should have approached him directly and am never forced into working my lunch (bullshit).

I wouldn’t mind so much but I’ve tried that already after approaching our supposed manager of scheduling about the extra hours I’ve been doing and never getting a lunch break and he said and i quote:

“I understand what you are saying about lunch breaks, I too find it difficult to step away from the desk to take a meaningful break. It requires a different type of discipline to detach from what you are doing especially in lieu of the deadlines we have to achieve. When you work it out let me know!”

Which is typical of the weasily little fucker he is, completely avoiding my questions and point and making some arbitrary comment that is utterly meaningless. This cunt is the reason our companies going down the swanny too… he has an “office” in the south yet works on his own and could do his job from home. I’m sure it’s really hard to have a lunch break when other people aren’t relying on your help… douchebag.

“When I work it out”. When I fucking quit more like…

My main boss also justified my shitty lunch setup by using my tardiness as a “swings and roundabouts” linchpin. Good one, dickhead… so if I was coming in on time every day for my Gold Star I would be getting my full one hour lunch break? Would I fuck, so don’t try and give me such bullshit.

I mean don’t get me wrong, if I had my own company and persistently saw a member of staff coming in 10 minutes late I would address it too, but 10 minutes of early morning work time vs. one hours worth of lunch break are in no way a “swings and roundabouts” trade off. Hows about we look at the average hours a month I’m working compared to what I’m being paid for. Lets deduct my lateness minutes and then add on the amount of times I’ve stayed late without even a whimper of complaint and see whether I’m the one taking the piss or is it you?

Bosses… why does a position of authority go to everyones head and you instantly have to become a prick?!

Oh, and whilst I’m on the subject of piss taking… wheres my fucking Christmas Bonus?? Nice lies people… nice lies..

As some of you may know of me, i’m a first aider in our workplace. Not a qualified doctor, not a paramedic, not even a nursey….just a first aider.

Though first aiders are trained in all aspects of ‘initial treatment’ from bandages and plasters right through to CPR, I very rarely get much interesting to do apart from the odd severed finger (please see previous post, a finger of fun…).

Anyhows, i’m going off track here, what I want to tell you is that I got sent on a course last week. Because i’m trained as a first aider I should have been sent on a 2 day refresher course but because my boss paints us all with the same brush, he thought I must be a spaz like the rest of my colleagues and sent me on the full, initial 4 day course for begginers.

Although I was pissed at the prospect of ‘re-learning’ I favoured the following points…

• 4 days out of the factory (paid) is much better than 2 days out of the factory (paid).

• I was getting petrol money for the journey to and from every day, even though the training centre is closer to my house than my actual workplace.

• I got to be a swot!! I fully remember pretty much the whole course from the first time around, so theres not going to be anything I didn’t know……

…..WRONG!

Though the basic bandages and shit were still white, still cheap and still the same to put on, which I excelled at while the security guard I was paired up with for the week kept dropping his then running after it while it unraveled along the floor like a fucking andrex puppy with a pissing labotomy, the main bit- the important bit- the lifesaving bit- the CPR (mouth to mouth and chest compressions for some fucker who’s not breathing incase you don’t watch casualty) has changed!!

It used to be “3 rescue breaths into the mouth, then 15 chest compressions, then 3 rescue breaths into the mouth, then 15…etc”

We all sat on the floor with our rubber, ‘dead’ dolls and the retired biddy nurse taking the course (who looked like she needed some urgent fucking medical attention) said

“Now who has read their books and knows what ratio of rescue breaths to chest compressions we give?….” looking around like a smug Aunt Fucking Bessie

Books? Books? Phhht….I’ve been here and got the T-Shirt love. I’ve put fucking plasters on cuts, me. I have washed countless bits of shit out of my mentally handicapped colleagues eyes. I wiped my arse on the book after my morning shit this morning, Pensioner love, because I know everything about first aid..

So Florence Knightingale here puts his hand up…..and made a proper cunt of himself!

“Yeah, it’s 3 rescue breaths to 15 chest…”

Mother Theresa stopped me mid-sentence, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”

“Ya fuckin’ what?” I replied, almost like I had just recieved an ASBO.

“It is NOT 3 rescue breaths to 15 compressions, it’s….”

She looked around the room at the rest of the people sat at her feet and lifted her arms like a mass hypnotist. The entire room (apart from me who was red as fuck after my chav-like outburst) all chanted like Fucking schoolkids “2 reessccuuee bbrreeaatthhss ffoorr eevveerryy tthhiirrttyy cchheesstt ccoommpprreessiioonnss”

That wasn’t a typing error, they just all said it in unison but dragged it out like kids in a classroom say “ggoooodd mmoorrnniinngg mmrrss ssmmiitthh”

This made me feel even more shite. I was the one trained first aider on this course and the rest of the shit for brains knew more than me!

So, I took a deep breath and politely questioned, “I thought it was 3 to 15?”

Biddy nurse replied “It used to be but they changed it 3 years ago…it’s more effective this way.” And smiled as if she were the fucking fountain of knowledge itself.

I then questioned again, “I’m sorry but if this is the way we are trained to save a life, don’t you think it would have been a better idea to try and get it right the first time? It seems like something you don’t want to try experimenting with too many times…”

HA HA!! One all!!

“W e really don’t have time to discuss past failings! If you notice on your dolls in front of you…..”

And it was over. I think i’ll try and swot up the next time I think I know more than everyone else. As it happened, I passed the course nice and easy so I couldn’t give a shit now.

Biddy Theresa got one more kick in the dentures, however, when she spoke to a wood worker (who wasn’t unlike Lenny from ‘of mice and men’ ie- a retard)  in the ‘wrong tone of voice’ on the last day and he started crying, put his coat on and walked out. This had never happened to her in her years of training and, subsequently, she lost the St John Ambulance a lump sum of government funding for failing to pass a pupil.

(I’m gonna call that 2-1 up! - cheers Stuart)

I hope she dies soon!

Keep bleeding same-heads, Horseys got the plasters!!

Till next time peeps,

H.

In any case, whilst sifting through my usual job results, crap special offers and other bullshit I have to delete on a daily basis and I spot an email from The Cock and Balls Project. I wondered what the fuck those cunts wanted and had to say in an email entitled Cock and Balls Project Recruitment. I opened it up with baited breath…

Dear David,

My name is Herman Goering and I am Head of Recruitment at the Cock and Balls Project. I
recently came across your CV on Monster.co.uk.

The Cock and Balls Project is the company behind WeDigCocks, the world’s first “Cocks2″
Network. We are a multi award winning leader in the development and
commercial exploitation of broadband entertainment.

Our team is made up of the cream of video game industry talent who, not
content with life in the console industry, have traded in their years of
experience for a role within a dynamic and exciting firm where their
skills are enjoyed by millions of viewers each and everyday.

Based in the heart of London’s Soho we have a relaxed and yet explosive
office with no dress policy and in a good location for shops, bars,
clubs and restaurants.

We currently have a position available for “Broadband Entertainment
Software Developer”.

Our corporate website is www.CockandBallsproject.com where you will find the above
position listed in the Recruitment section. To view our “Cocks2″ Network
please visit www.wedigcocks.com. We currently have a selection of
interactive shows that you can enjoy and we are currently expanding our
horizons to meet a global audience.

It would be great if you could look at the two websites to see if we
would be of interest to you as a potential employer and then give me
some feedback one way or the other.

Please be assured of my best attention should you require any further
information about us in the meantime, and I look forward to hearing form
you.

Kind Regards,
Herman Goering

I could’ve just wrote “Go fuck your own arseholes you bunch of cunts” and this would’ve been a more than fair response but I chose a more eloquent reply.

Herman,

You sacked me from this role on the very first day of my appointment as family trouble meant I could not get to London on the Sunday prior to starting, and even though my many attempts at contact were in vain, my “unannounced” no show sent “shockwaves” through your board of directors. Even if I was interested in the position still, which I most definitely am not, I hardly think it would go down too well if you suggested rehiring me as I was obviously the best candidate at the time. My second choice has quite obviously had a short tenure suggesting your non-compassion as a company was actually a blessing in disguise!

It would be great if you could have a look at my website at http://delmorpha.com/the-cock-and-balls-project.htm and let me know what you think of me being a potential employee and give me some feedback in one way or another.

Regards,
David

I’m yet to receive a response…

Being Friday night we picked up some beers and settled in back at his place with some hockey (this is Canada after all), some beers, a pitcher of a Bloody Mary made with Clamato Juice called something I can’t quite remember and a shot of Rye before bed!

I’m awake at 6am in any case and after watching TV for a few hours everyone is up and ready to head out on our road trip. We were heading up to British Columbia to see one of Mikes friends new baby, and using it as a good excuse to drive through the Rocky Mountains.

The trip was dramatic and breath taking throughout; the sheer mountain faces were far more extreme than anything I have ever seen before. I was surprised at the lack of barriers on the roads in some areas given the drop on the other side, but it was probably just my anxiety attacks and paranoia kicking in for the most part.

Eight hours and several funky stops later (see The Last Spike and The Enchanted Forest pictures in the images section) later we land in British Columbia; Kamloops to be precise… and don’t forget the Tournament Capital of Canada part. Seriously… they had an enormous plaque honouring its title and this became the rolling joke throughout the whole of our stay there.

So we meet up with Mikes friend Sebastien who takes us to the renovated house were staying at, only for him to have forgotten to mention it has no running water or no toilet. It also used to be a crack den (seriously) and had a plank of wood nailed across the back door instead of a lock. Two words escaped our mouths; Fuck That! We hit up a Motel instead, probably the wisest $300 we spent on the trip!

The next day we headed over to Sebastian’s house and tried to find something that was still open to do in The Tournament Capital and of the list of things on the Tourism Kamloops website, a trip to The Centre of the Universe seemed like the obvious choice… I mean how can you pass up that opportunity when you’re 4500 miles from home!?

A phone call later and we find that there’s a $10 a head cover charge to visit and reading the website there isn’t a sign for us to take pictures next to. Still, this is the Centre Of The Universe, how can it fail to be awesome??

An hour or so later the 8 people and a baby, 2 cars are approaching Dead Mans Valley and to me it feels like exactly that. We had 50km to go of narrow winding roads on the edge of mountainous terrain, in between Native housing. The whole build up felt like something out of The Blair Witch Project or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, not helping my already fragile and anxiety-ridden head. We passed a Christian graveyard of stick crosses which was probably the point at which I snapped and began to freak out.

To most Canadians, this was probably a little too stereotypical for anything bad to happen, but baring in mind everything I have been led to believe is plausible in movies and being so far from home, it was just a little much. The journey along the trail was intense enough, but passing by huts with deer antlers nailed to them like trophies, through a creepy ass forest and mountain trail was sending me down a pretty dark spiral. We even hit a patch of fallen stones that pounded the bottom of the minivan, just like what would normally puncture the fuel tank!

After the longest 50km drive I’ve ever been on in my life we arrive at a Y in the road, with a sign in red paint hand written the word “resort” going down and a hill to the right. For all intent and purposes, it could’ve been written “rEsoRt” with a backwards R and in something looking suspiciously like blood. As we take a left into the resort a pickup truck comes storming down the right path and continues in the direction we’d come from.

We pull up to a wire fence and the resort looked particularly un-resorty… well, certainly by my First World standards but this is supposed to be nature after all. Sebastian and BJ get out the van, and again reminiscent of a bad horror movie they start shouting “Helllllloooo” as a couple of dogs appear barking like mad. “This is it…” I thought “..I’m about to die”.

A woman appeared from the house on top of the hill, who fortunately had good North American teeth welcoming us. Had she have had anything less, I think I’dve been done in Canada right there! She explained a bit about the Centre of the Universe and told us where that, and the waterfalls were. We weren’t allowed in the gold mine as it was too dangerous to go alone and her husband I guess wasn’t around. The best bit? She gave us an discount to view The Centre of the Universe at $60 for the 8 of us instead of $80. I mean how excellent is that?!

So we drive up the other path, round the S bends like she said to the barbed wire fence. The paths lead into forest and a hut, and to the view on the left from The Centre of The Universe. As far as views go, it was pretty impressive; $60 impressive? Probably not, but it was pretty tranquil and relaxing up there. Having stood on top of Ska Fell for free after an exhilarating hike through non-horror movie terrain though, this certainly felt like we’d been conned!

The overall experience of The Centre of the Universe was a massive letdown given the cost in mental fatigue, petrol for a 400km round trip and the awesome $60 discounted price for the 8 of us. Even the Amazing Waterfall 3km away was a suckfest, given the one I had seen on our way through the Rocky Mountains at Crazy Creek. Thankfully, the journey back through the Rocky Mountains was even more breathtaking than the journey there, making up for things.

So… you want to see The Centre of the Universe without paying $10 a head for the privilege?? Ok, ok… here it is:

What? You look almost disappointed…

As Amy said to me… “WTF… is that not just a rock with money on??”… and to which I responded “Thats EXACTLY what it is!”. Hey ho… maybe it’s supposed to be symbolic!