Micheal Farmer

In the episode I reminisce about gaming in the early 1990’s. I discuss Alex Kidd in Miracle World while simultaneously mulling over how I first got my Sega Master system 2.

This brief audio segment provides commentary on the current state of affairs in regards to humanity’s battle against man made climate change. It also reveals the authors perspective for the future if nothing changes. But don’t panic!

Current Attitude: Optimistic

Current weight: 71.4 kg

Current record attempt: 7 days.

Well, that’s seven days down the vegan rabbit hole. It’s a start. That’s for sure. However I am already starting to crave simple pleasures such as cheese. Did I mention how addictive this stuff is? It really is no wonder they use cheese on mouse traps to lure mice to their deaths. If someone set up a trap with a huge block of cheese in it I would probably be a victim to a cheese laden trap as well. The science of cheese addiction is as follows. One of the compounds to be found in cheese is an opioid. Yep, you heard me correctly. While it is not identical to the opioids that one can find in the opium poppy, yes the same one used to make heroin, casomorphin is mildly addictive and lives up to its morphine derived name. How’s that for a piece of strange yet true knowledge? It really is no wonder why cheese sandwiches and pizza sounds so good right about now! I need to get my fix man! I hope I don’t suddenly relapse during the night, I could see myself at four in the morning holding up a hot dog stand demanding that the cook give me all their cheese other wise I’m gonna flip out man! Perhaps I’m being a little over the top. And than again, from what science has to say maybe not. Na, I definitely being over the top. So, why does casomorphin exist in cheese I hear you skeptically asking? Well Cheese has casomorphin in it because milk has casomorphin in it. And milk has it in it because cows evolved in such a fashion as to release it into their milk. The evolutionary benefits of casomorphin was to keep baby calves on the tit. It’s addictive as it is beneficial to young calves. As one bloke so adequately put it. “Cows milk is baby-calf growth fluid”. Just to put it out there for the world to hear it’s apparently the reason why you grow man titties of you drink to much of it. And here I was becoming so proud of the fact that I had finally grown a handful. Awkward…

And that’s it for day seven of my vegan experiment.

Quick note. Three nights ago was the first time since my last vegan attempt begun that I experienced “the night munchies”. Night munchies! What’s that? I hear you ask? Well, that’s basically what happens when a new vegans body is craving anything to replace the lack of animal products. It’s also a vegans way of saying that I plowed through half a packet of plain potato chips without any remorse what so ever.

Cherrio! Mmmmm Cheerios….

Current weight 71.3 kg

Current attitude: Optimistic

Current attempt record : 1 days.

The first time I attempted a plant based diet was a shock to the system. My body simply didn’t know what the hell was going on. I had grown up my whole life eating meat, drinking milk and loving cheese. In fact my love for cheese bordered on an addiction. As it was to turn out this analogy wasn’t far from the actual truth. This cheese addiction I will perhaps discuss in another episode. One of the biggest issues I found going Plant Based was the constant struggle to find what foods I could eat and which foods I couldn’t. Going to the shopping centre had quickly become a deep dive into ingredients lists. This process of picking over foods had quickly become slow and tiresome. You will find yourself saying “It was supposed to be easy. Simply don’t eat meat or animal based products”. But, when you attempt to be more plant based you will quickly discover that a lot of processed foods have animal based products in them, even the ones you would least suspect! In fact, the more effort you put into trying to avoid animal products the more time shopping will initially take. There is good news though, like all things, the more you practise something the quicker it becomes to do something. So over time you come to know which items you can eat and which ones you can’t. Oreos for example are vegan. Who would have thought? So, without understating it in any way, starting out as a vegan will be initially difficult. Well, it was for me anyway. Now on my fourth attempt at being plant based I find it a lot easier. The obvious truth is, I have been here before. After all, this is not my first animal free rodeo. During the previous attempts I was fortunate enough to have developed some habits that have never changed. For example, for the majority of my life I drank my coffee with a dash of cows milk. This is simply no longer the case. Those days are over. Now whenever I get a coffee it is a flat white on soy if I am out. And a shot of coffee with a dash of oat milk if I am at home. This practise continued whether I am trying to be plant based or not, it’s what I have come to call a plant based hangover. It’s something that has remained with me from previous attempts. Now if I could just get all the other eating behaviours to fall in line with my coffee drinking habits I would be set.

Day one of attempt 4 at being vegan. The struggle is real.

Current weight. 71.75 kg

Current attitude. Pessimistic

Current attempt record. O Days.

Here we go again! I have once again decided to try going vegan. This will officially be my fourth attempt. You would think that after three previous attempts at being vegan I would just give up. But no. I’m stubborn and I don’t give up so easily. So why do I keep trying? Well because I don’t want the world as we know it to end. It’s that simple. If the science is to be believed and I believe it should be, if we continue on our current consumerist trajectory than humanity doesn’t stand a chance. Science proves this. And to be honest it doesn’t take a genius to work this out. The real question should be, why do I keep failing at being vegan? Now that’s a little more complicated than one would first think. Transitioning to vegan is not straight forward. It’s a battle but it’s a battle that I believe is worth fighting. Man made climate change ain’t gonna fix itself and if I need to make an example of my self to help contribute to a solution than so be it. Now, you too know that I’m trying. I would appreciate it if you helped keep me on track. Before wrapping this little conversation up I would like to say the following. Trying to be vegan is initially hard because of our past behaviours. So that’s what needs to change. Changing ingrained behaviours is never easy. The problem I have is that I have grown up eating meat and cheese and the fat of the land. Separating myself from the memories I have made while eating animal products is the problem. Sunday night roast is a good memory, Sunday morning bacon and eggs is a good memory but if I don’t help to change the world, the way we currently live will be exactly that, a good memory. This isn’t political, the only outcome I hope for is that I finally stay vegan. I would also like to share something that was, to me at least, a little disturbing. I have had a recent thought that I can’t shake. It played out as follows. I imagined a future where I am much older than what I am now. My own grand children are around and they keep asking me one question. The question is as follows. “If you knew climate change was happening than why didn’t you try to stop it?”.

This is my declaration stating that I am trying. I acknowledge climate change is real and I endeavour to do my best to stop it in its tracks. Perhaps this train of thought is a little over zealous but what else can I do? This blog is a start, being vegan is the next logical step.

This is the review of Nomadland stating Francis McDormand and directed by Chloe Zhao.

On this episode I take the time to share my thoughts on The Mosquito Coast TV series now available on Apple TV. Spoiler! It’s actually worth watching!

The Saltwater Chronicles. Preface.

This is the objective. It’s simple. I love finding things of value. I always have. I have often found myself wondering how big Buisness gets started and the answers are often more than not very simplistic. The main reason, I discovered over time, was that big Buisness is successful is because they have something people need or the have something people perceive as something they need.

For example. Apple produces and sells electronic consumer products that customers perceive they need, they don’t really need them, it’s more of a want then a need, so it’s a perceived need. However K and C the company behind table salts around the world produce something we need and that is salt. Yep, Simple salt. Before you start pounding comments into the comment bar with your disagreements about humans actual need for salt it must be stated that without salt humans die. There, I said it. That’s a fact. Did you know that the Aboriginals of Australia had to mine rock salt from the earth in the middle of the Australian Pilliga forest in order to survive? Mind you they were at least 1000 kms from the sea so they had to get their salt intake from wherever they could get it. This included the Salt bush, which was another source of salt for the aboriginal people. Salt bush was simply picked from the plant and chewed, it tastes salty for anyone wondering…. So there’s two examples of humanities struggles to fulfil its’ need for salt. Another is possibly more well known. Are you familiar with a man by the name of Mahatma Gandhi? Well, he lead a mission across India in the 1930’s to harvest sea salt from the ocean

X-men Apocalypse. Also known as How the Professor lost his hair.

The only time I had heard anything about Apocalypse was when I was recording another podcast I once hosted. The podcast was called Offtrack’s Podcast and my fellow cohosts and I were living up to the namesake, we were thoroughly Offtrack. Somehow we had ended up on a discussion regarding the after credits scene of X-Men Days of Future past when my weakness was revealed. I had never heard about Apocalypse. And that, my friends is the only time I have indeed heard of Apocalypse… I got berated for my lack of knowledge, lost some serious geek creed and have since never lived it down. As such the only reason I want to watch X-Men Apocalypse is so I can learn who the fuck Apocalypse is. It’s a little late but better late than never right?!?

It should be mentioned that my expectations have flatlined for this one. I feel as though this could be a good waste of two hours of my existence. But anyways, it’s time to press play.

The man loves his Egypt. Anyone who knows me knows this. I love Egyptian History, especially Ancient Egyptian History. So the opening scenes to this film were a pleasant surprise. They were also jam packed with clever action sequences and booby traps. I love booby traps, the unseen mechanics of these hacks of sand and earth have always fascinated me ever since watching Raiders of the lost Ark and golden afternoon sessions of Ducktales. Straight up this film gave me enough to satiate my desire for adventure, I thus decided to hang in there for the ride just to see where it would take me.

First up it must be said that Apocalypse is one unfortunate looking fella. Not sure how he got his head but he should have left it in the sand whence he was born. However! Head aside, he does have an interesting back story. Legend has it that he’s s as old as humanity and has links to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yep, he’s that Apocalypse…. As a mutant of the old earth he had the freaky ability to be able to transfer his consciousness from one person to the next so just as he is about to cark it he transfers into a new body and whammo! He’s good as new. However somewhere along the way he figured out that if he simply transferred his consciousness into that of a mutant he would take control of their powers thus inheriting them as he went. So technically speaking over time he become a mutant collector harvesting powers as he ventured across the landscape. Interesting fellow, no doubt about it.

So what happens when this talented mutant gets unleashed upon the earth in the 1980’s? Well, that’s what this movie is all about. Well that and the back story regarding the underlying divisions that run deep throughout society of the 1980’s. This film works well as an analogy of the numerous divisions that exist throughout the world today as well but basically put, this is the story of one mutants quest to press the refresh icon on his search browser.

Now I’m not gonna lie, the film is a little hyperactive. It sadly suffers from the same faults that a lot of recent super hero films do but as hyper active as this film was in places there were a couple of enjoyable highlights. The first highlight, truthfully also a welcome comic relief to the darkness of Apocalypses very presence was the Quick Silver scene. This was simply an absolute joy, as they nearly always are. So was the Quicksilver reveal. Turns out he’s got daddy issues. All I know is that one day he’s gonna work out that he is indeed the only X-men who is able to time travel and than the shits really gonna get knocked into 12th gear!!!

The many expectations of Mandy.

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Prior thoughts.

Well, the cover of the DVD certainly makes me interested. The inspiration it draws from the Sam Raimi’s Evildead is uncanny and I like it. It also stars Nicolas Cage so that’s a bonus, the film will therefore have at least a spark of hope to it, in fact this film has my expectations higher than usual. I was actually looking forward to watching it!

Fleshed out review.

The entire movie was dream like even somewhat nightmarish. The use of colour is interesting to say the least. The colour palette is that of the cosmos with different shades of purples which does a great deal to help direct the psyche of viewer to feel as though they are indeed watching a nightmare. And for good reason.

The use of story telling is of particular quality. One story, shared earlier on in the film has a tendency to stay with you. In fact, the story is so detailed, peculiar and horrific that one has to wonder if it was indeed a fictional story or if it was perhaps something that had happened to the author of the film Pano Cosmotos as a child.

The underlying fear of cultism that existed throughout 80’s rings true within the film with many hints at satanism peppered throughout. To top off the uneasiness of the movie the villains of the film ride around in a creepy Scooby Doo van typical of the time period. The use of clever trick photography makes the films visuals trippy in places. But it’s not enough to save the film, especially earlier on.