Priced out of the market
[Crunchy running late again today…]
$erial Killer
Just noticed that the Isekai Prime manga is available for Kindle, serialized at $3/chapter. That’s… “not cheap”, especially when you realize that the 8 volumes available have a total of 60 chapters. Even given premium prices for a standard translated edition, that’s a $100 markup for 8 books worth of chapters, cha-cha-cha-ching! Or perhaps more likely, given the almost-completely-absent reviews, “yo-ho!”
I took a quick look at a fan-translation of the original webnovel, and stopped dead when Our Shopping Hero said, “Blimey, what’s all this then?”. Either the first chapter was written rather floridly compared to the rest (“well, butter my biscuit”), or the translator was in a goofy mood.
The Three Behemoths, episode 4
As expected, last week’s cliffhanger didn’t take long to resolve, and didn’t change the status quo, except… A Wild Dragonewt Appears! And she wants Our Mighty Kitty’s D even more than the other two gals! Equally important is the flashback that reveals that Our Cup-Runneth-Over Heroine comes by it honestly, barely able to hug Her Equally Endowed Mom when she left her village.
Once she’s fully recovered, the reward money from the adventure (and the bonus for the dragon materials) is enough for Cat-Blacksmith-nya to outfit her in armor so high-level that she has to shave to wear it.
Verdict: there was a brief moment at the beginning of the bath scene where I wondered if they’d decided to tone down the fan-service a bit, but then the nipples came out to play, and the show’s focus was renewed, complete with some steam-blobs to hide their shaving patterns. Pity we also have to put up with way too much skin shown off by the guild’s “eccentric” receptionist.
(not Our Heroine, but an adequate if slightly overdressed substitute)
Solo Leveling 2, episode 3
This week, a whirlwind tour through 75% of That Big Dungeon and 2/3 of the ingredients acquired to save Our Hero’s Mom, a little bit of fan-service from Our Future Blonde Combat Waifu, a brief human moment with Our Rich-Kid Sidekick (who’s nearly fulfilled his dream), and the debut of a Very Important Person.
Verdict: next week, the dungeon gets harder. And with any luck, a whole lot cuter.
(last week’s Rescue Kitten that we’ll probably never see again was cute enough to get at least one piece of fan-art)
A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 2
Y’know, I’ve completely lost interest in the concept of a high-ranking party whose members are too stupid and arrogant to grasp basic preparation and logistics; it really feels like the authors of these stories are taking out their office/classroom frustrations on the world. The sooner they write these assclowns out of the story, the better; it will leave more time for the camera to slowly pan across Our Tasty Hot-Pants Dark Elf Gal. The redhead’s not bad, but her low-level armor covers far too much skin.
Anyway, we get the joy of meeting a slobbering noob who’s been trying to “recruit” our gals into being his party favors. Sadly, I’m sure he’ll turn up again, along with the bozo party.
Verdict: get the catgirl onscreen soon, and shove all the losers into the background. And while I’m dreaming, get the dark elf into a hot tub.
(more appropriate attire for a 17-year-old dark elf maiden…)
Velvetised for your protection
Hotel Chocolat is a British chocolate retailer that commissioned a custom-skinned Dualit hot-chocolate maker as a vehicle to sell their products at an even higher markup in single-serving sachets. The Velvetiser itself runs £100, and the ~35-gram sachets are £1.50 each. Their first attempt at a broad launch in the US failed, but they still have an online store offering bundles and subscriptions that cut the price a bit from the marked-up $150 (+23%) and $2.50/sachet (+37%).
But retail price is the number I’m interested in, since I’ll be comparing it to the Nespresso Barista Recipe Maker, a quirky but much more versatile device that retails for $169.
The Velvetiser is only capable of (wonderful) hot chocolate, and only with chocolate shavings not much larger than the ones HC sells. There are third-party shaved chocolates sold in larger containers in the UK (I brought some back; my parents have a Velvetiser), but they’re still more expensive than bulk chocolate.
The BRM is capable of a variety of hot or cold drinks, and can also crush ice and smoothly blend chocolate squares (although doing both at once would probably jam it up good), and a number of Youtube videos rank its hot chocolate texture just-slightly-below the Velvetiser when compared head to head (and I agree).
With the caveat that officially the BRM tops out at 4 ounces of milk for blending, and only supports 8 ounces for warming milk without foaming it. A lot of people on various forums complain about the BRM overflowing out the top when you put too much liquid in, but it only happened to me once before I figured out the 100%-effective method for preventing overflow: twist the lid as you seat it. It’s that simple.
With that out of the way, I took advantage of the BRM’s ability to work with larger chunks of chocolate and went looking for something that suited my tastes. Squares are still pricy, so I tried larger chocolate bars, and while they worked, I wasn’t thrilled with the flavor (unless you really like dark chocolate, most US chocolate bars are over-sweetened and full of “non-chocolate ingredients”). I found something quite promising on Amazon, however: a 5-pound bag of Ghirardelli Melting Wafers for $44.
Hotel Chocolat’s sachets contain 35-37 grams of shaved chocolate. The Ghirardelli wafers weigh ~3.78 grams each, so 10 of them is just about perfect for the same strength of hot chocolate. You get about 600 wafers per bag, so that’s $0.73 per mug of hot chocolate, a considerable savings. And it’s good chocolate.
I just bought my second bag of the stuff, and I’ve found that it’s even better when you add some espresso into the mix. I’m up to two Nespresso pods per mug, and I’ve found that a lot of the pods I don’t care for alone or as cappuccinos are terrific when diluted in a full mug of hot chocolate.
This is important, because the temperature will be dropping back to 0°F tomorrow night (-18° in French units).
Side note: pretty much the only way to jam the BRM is by evenly distributing the solids across the bottom in enough density to keep it from initially spinning up. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, you want to dump all the solids on the same side, creating an “unbalanced” load.
Well, admittedly there is another way to jam it, but that involves Xanthan Gum…
(“ask me how I know” 😁)
“But why?!?”
Media Blasters is releasing a Bluray of Amazing Nurse Nanako. I greet this news with the same enthusiasm as I did the re-release of Eiken. That is, none whatsoever.
(given her age, this is one anime gal who might actually grow up to approach Eiken size, although I’m sure hers won’t be as sloshy)
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