Author Archives: Nuchtchas

About Nuchtchas

Self proclaimed Artist, Dreamer, RolePlayer, The Podcast NINJA!, Gamer, Klingon, Walking Corruption and Geek Queen, Nuchtchas is the owner and operator of NIMLAS Studios with the life goal of highlighting the awesome and good in the world and to spread the love of all things geek!

Immortality? Or the Couch?

Posted on by
Reply

So I was listening to The WEIRD Show The feedback episode today on my drive up to CT, and it got me thinking. The question posed was, if we could cure death, if human beings would live forever baring freak accident or violence then would that mean people would be lazy and never strive to accomplish anything? If you knew you had forever, if you no longer feared mortality then would you work hard to leave something positive behind?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that my family has a long history of longevity, not only that but my family tends to have their faculties almost up till the end. I have known most of my life that my life expectancy is around 100 years. I am in no rush to have children, I never was in a rush to get married and I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that I have always known I have time to do all of that. I know a lot of people who complain to me that they are not married yet or have kids yet and I look at them thinking they are young, and I wonder now what if they just have less time then I do? Or worse yet, they think they have less time?

People think of 65 as the age to retire, my mother and father are that old and older and still going strong. My mother is trying for an executive director position and she would be perfect for it. She says her age might be a draw back to her getting the spot because people tend to retire around 65, yet my mother will be working till she no longer can. When you are good at what you do and like it why retire? What? Retire at 65 and have another 30 years to just sit around? What’s the point? My father works in a high stress field, most sea captains retire around 55 or younger, my father is 67? or so and is still going strong. He can work for quite a few more years. He keeps talking about retirement because all of his friends (who are younger then he) are retired but I know him, if he didn’t have work to return to not only would he be bored but he would be cranky as all get out.

So back to my point, does the fact that I expect to live longer make me live more for the moment? Because that is what I feel I do, I am living for the moment, I am very happy to be at the age I am at. When I was young I was concerned with making sure I had a good education and a degree that could support me. I knew I would be older longer then I would be young so I needed to take advantage while I could. Now that I am still young but older I am happy to enjoy myself now., To enjoy my freedom as an adult while slo enjoying my youth and not hurrying to get into the next stage of life, motherhood.

Now I am a married woman, not even a year married, I am almost 32 and loving where I am. I am happy to be here and not rushing to have kids. When I am ready to have kids I am sure I will want that stage of my life to last as long as it can, just as I would love this stage to last a good long while too. I’m in no rush, I don’t feel like I am missing out on anything.

Now, is that because I have a different mindset then most? Or because I feel I am on a different timeline? I don’t fear mortality? (Or is it just me being lazy?)

Healthy Recipe: Spicy Boneless Chicken Wings

Posted on by
1

chkwingsSo you have people coming over for a game, or some sort of shindig where snacks and fatty foods are expected, but you want to watch your figure, what do you do?  Trick people into eating heathy snacks.

For the first in my series of non-healthy to healthy recipes I’m going to tell you how to make a good alternative to buffalo wings.

What you need:

  1. boneless chicken breast
  2. fiber one cereal
  3. franks red hot buffalo sauce
  4. poultry seasoning
  5. eggbeaters
  6. skim milk
  7. lite or fate free blue cheese dressing (optional)
  8. carrots and/or celery (optional)

Prepare:

Cut the chicken into strips, dunk into a mixture of eggbeaters and skim milk.
take some fiber one cereal and put it into a belnder alone, turn the blender on until the cereal is a powder, breadcrumb like texture.  Put crushed fiber one into a plastic bag, sprinkle in some poultry seasoning in the fiber one and mix it up.
place moistened chicken into bag and shake up, remove and place on a baking sheet

Cook:

bake on 350 for 15-20 minutes or until center of chicken is cooked. (varies depending on size of chicken pieces

Finishing:

put cooked chicken into a bowl and pout franks red hot sauce on it.  Mix it up till all of the chicken is coated in the sauce
put chicken on a tray with celery and/or carrots for presentation and serve with lite/low fat blue cheese (or ranch) dressing.  (I suggest avoiding the Walden Farms 0 calorie blue cheese dressing as it tastes awful, but their ranch is good)

PS: I didn’t enter quantities as this recipe can be made for 1-100 people, how ever many as you need, simply buy the right amount of chicken per person and adjust each measurement accordingly, I normally cook by eye.

TIPS:

  • Don’t tell anyone how you made the wings till after they eat it if ever.  People will make up their minds they don’t like something if they know its good for them
  • 1/2 cup of fiber one cereal uncrushed per ever 2 chicken breast should coat well
  • Add lots of carrots/celery to the presentation so you can alternate as you snack between vegies and chicken, helps with the snacky feeling that comes during get togethers.

Debt

Posted on by
1

Yesterday I read a twitter from a young woman lamenting that she was still a teen and in debt and this got me thinking about debt and the current state of the economy. Everyone is crying about debt, upset at how things have turned out and yet it is clear that many people (not all) have made a lot of bad choices.

A few years ago SOMEONE asked me how I manage on such a small income (at the time she and I made the same and she still lived at home while I had been out of the house since I was 19). I told her that if she followed my practices not only could she pull herself out of debt but that she could be buying a house not long after. If she and I had the same going in but she had less NEEDed finances then she would have no trouble saving. She was interested and I started with the rules.

  1. get rid of all your credit cards (always have one for emergencies but NEVER use it)
  2. only spend what you have, if you don’t have the money you can’t spend
  3. write down everything you purchase, everything.
  4. remove your monthly expenses ahead of anything else, rent, phone, student loans, other debts already made. You only get to spend the left overs.

She then asked me about shopping, and clothes and when I explained how being careful with your washing means you don’t need to buy new clothes every season she just started shaking her head. She couldn’t follow my rules, couldn’t live without shopping or credit cards.

Three years later, everyone including SOMEONE is singing a different tune. It’s no longer about who your wearing or what your driving, it’s about paying your bills. Now the push is to spend less, be green and to be less extravagant. My way of thinking is much more accepted. Retail Therapy is now a dirty word. People are finally realizing they don’t need the latest dohicky. Of course we still spend, and people aren’t living as monks but has improved tons.

I admit it, I have debts, but all of my debts work for me. My car was financed, my interest rate is lower then the rate of inflation, so I have paid less for the car over the years then I would have if I bought it out right. My student loans give me good credit and help me out at the end of the year with taxes as all the interest I do pay is a write off. My wedding costs were low in comparison and put on a line of credit, paid most of it off and the interest is very low and being paid off monthly. Debt isn’t evil, it helps give you credit and helps you in the future, getting buried under it is evil. When you’re spending you need to think “Is this NEEDed? And will I regret it next year while I’m still paying it off?”

Tips:

  • don’t buy lunch, brown bag it
    the food will be better and healthier also
  • don’t drop 100 bucks at the club on drinks
    drinks at a club and bar are way over priced, if you must drink, prime at home before you get to the club
  • movies are fun but costly, only see movies that seeing them in the theatre makes a difference
    skip the drinks and popcorn too, look for daytime showings or half price nights
  • coupons, coupons, coupons
    don’t feel embarrassed, feel empowered when you whip those bad boys out at the cash register
  • AAA
    got a AAA or CAA card? You’ll be amazed how many places give you a discount with that. I use mind for 10 percent off dinner all the time
  • REBATES!
    most electronics have mail in rebates, that’s free money, don’t forget to submit those
  • bring back your cans
    you paid the deposit, why not get that money back? Do you like throwing nickels in the trash?
  • Walk instead of driving
    short trips and walking distance, why not walk?
  • brew your own coffee
    why spend 3 bucks for a five minutes of coffee
  • second hand stores are your friend
  • bring your old games in for cash
  • buy used games & movies
  • buy in bulk
    group up with your friends, a family of three doesn’t need 18 chicken breasts, but you can split up those big packages among families.
  • save your MPG
  • cancel satellite radio and start downloading podcasts
    half the shows on satellite are available for download anyways, why pay for it

Do you have more tips? make them known in the comments section of this post.

Facebook friends vs Reality

Posted on by
1

While driving home today there was a segment on CBC that talked about the fad of adding friends to your facebook. The man sharing his story admitted to having around 700 friends, he tried to throw a part inviting all of those friends to a local bar and was shocked when only one showed up. He realized that these facebook friends weren’t friends at all and just a myth

This made me shake my head. Facebook was never meant to be the new myspace, never meant for strangers. I would think the name facebook implies this is someone you have or have had face time with. Perhaps I’m wrong. I have three high school aged nieces who have hundreds of friends of facebook. Basically they make friends with anyone that goes to their school whether they know them or not, this seems a little dangerous to me, but they don’t see a problem.

Now I’ve been on facebook for a few years now (people complain about the new facebook software yet I’ve seen more then a few revisions of the software) it was originally presented to me as a networking site for business. Something like LinkedIn. I thought it might help with landing freelancing jobs so I was convinced. I never realized what it was until after I joined. After everyone else started joining too. I had to quick, back track and reformat my user profile. As it was, some people who I have only ever known online ended up finding out *gasps* my real name from the site. So far I have been able to keep my real name (the one that business contacts and prospective employers would be searching) away from my online name and identity. Work contacts do not need to know how I spend my off time, how often I game, how much I like cult hits, Joss Whedon shows and Star Trek. More importantly, work contacts don’t need to know the real me, they only need to know what I can do for them :)

Once I fell into the facebook thing I was often left wondering why I checked the site at all. What with the constant invitations to the werewolf applications, help my garden grow, and many others it was more a nuisance then anything else. Now though, it has finally become something I love, not for the software but from what the site gives me. Access to my family. Access to people I don’t get to see too often. Access to people who aren’t interested in blogging, podcasts, twitter or any of the other internet geeking that I enjoy.

After checking just now I have 147 friends on facebook. I admit that sounds like a lot but when you consider that around 30 of them are actually my family. I have a big immediate family and ALL of them are on facebook! Even my mother is on facebook, and that really was the turning point for me. (Everyone and your mother is on Facebook). Once my Mom started on facebook I really started to love the site. All of my siblings are on there and now all of their significant other’s are also on facebook and that’s awesome! I live almost 1000 miles away from most of my family so I don’t get to see them all the time, but thanks to facebook I am not out of their lives. I get to see the day to day stuff that happens that wouldn’t make it into a phone call, email or Christmas card. It is the same with the friends I left when I moved so far away.

Also, on facebook people from high school have started asking to be my friend (which is funny since I had no friends in high school :) and it is kinda neat to see what they have done with their lives and what they are doing. Some of them are still in the same town, some just still on the island and some have moved all over the world. It’s nice to see who had kids and who picked what career, but seriously, I don’t interact with them too often. I have just started to reconnect with people from college, and that really excites me as they were my friends and I really do want to know what they did with their lives. Of all of my college friends I would say I miss seeing each and every one of them. I love college and I loved the people I met there. Sadly there is only one person from college that I see often and if by often I mean a few times a year then yes, often. It’s really great to be able to connect with these people again, and while I would love to meet up with them again I know we will not be in each other’s daily lives in any way other then facebook, and that is good enough for me.

I have a whole bunch of people on facebook from my Role Playing community, I have known these people for years, some for 14 years. Some I have never met face to face and never spoke to on the phone, yet they still matter to me. Some I have met often, one I married :) Some are my best friends and came to my wedding. Some are my best friends but couldn’t come to my wedding. Some are in other countries, some on the other side of the world. Some are not far away at all. These people have known me as a student, starting out in my career all the way up until now. Some barely know me, others know almost all of my secrets.

Then I have the podcasting group, a bunch of people I have met through listening and contributing to podcasts. I can’t even remember how half of them ended up on my facebook. A mess of them are from Buffy Between the Lines for which I lend my voice in small roles and do some cover art. BBTL is unique since it is really a community with lots of emailing and a 24-7 skype chat that is open, I have made some good friends there. Some of which I met while going to the Scott Sigler signings for his book CONTAGIOUS. (Oh yeah, he’s one of my facebook friends too) I hope to meet more at a CON or two this spring. Some people met me at the Sigler signings or other events and asked to be friended, so I did.

Not everyone has the same access though. This is what I love about facebook, you can set your own limits. Someone wants to be your friend on facebook but you don’t really know them too well or trust them? Simple, friend them but limit their access. Some people are locked down tight, they can’t see any personal information, they can’t see anything interesting or any pictures I post, but they can see links and what I let them see. Some people just can’t see pictures I post of other people, like members of my family or my nieces and nephews. Also, if there is something I want to post, but don’t want a particular person to see it, I can block them. Almost all of my pictures are set to only allow my friends to see them, no friends of friends or anything else. Others, like the Signing party pictures, pictures of the cakes I’ve made and some bitstrips are open to everyone.

Most of my attention on facebook is with the people I know, and well I have to say of the 147 friends, I would say I know…. 100-120 of them? I don’t understand  friending someone just to friend them. Do you think having a higher number of friends will make people think you’re just that cool? Honestly, unless you are someone who needs to promote, like Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty, Tee Morris, JC Hutchens or anyone like that, and I see you have multiple hundred friends I think you’re a spammer.