Category Archives: General

Recipe: Chicken Satay

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Nothing spells summer in MA like a freak tornado, and when we aren’t hiding in the basement, we are usually out grilling. Today I prepared my Chicken Satay (aka Chicken on a stick) for Luigi and his family and friends. After enjoying a great Saturday afternoon cookout, I thought that perhaps other people would like to enjoy this dish as well. This is not your typical Thai chicken satay, but is a slightly different version. As I understand, this recipe was initially published in Times magazine in the early 1980s.  My father used it every year for a cookout we had in the summer.  It was such a hit with his cowerkers, that it was eventualy cached away on the Realtime Software Engineering Group Notes server inside Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). From there, it was eventually passed on to me and  today I pass it on to you.

Ingredients:

  • Wooden grilling skewers
  • 4 Chicken breasts
  • 2/3 cup of soy sauce (Low Sodium)
  • ½ cup of sesame oil
  • ¼ cup of brown sugar
  • The juice from 1 whole lemon
  • 2 fresh garlic cloves (pressed)
  • 1 tablespoon of ground coriander
  • Pepper to taste

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients (except the chick and skewers) together in mixing bowel to make your marinade. Take the chicken and pound it flat till it is only ¼ inch thick. Once flattened, cut the chicken into strips about ¾ of an inch wide (and as long as you like). Once all the chicken has been cut, combine it with the marinade for at least 6 hours. The longer your leave the chicken marinating, the stronger the flavor will be. I would also recommend submerging the wooden skewers in water for the same amount of time. The water soaked wood keeps the skewers from burning away when they are on the grille. Just before you are ready to grille, you want to thread the chicken pieces onto the skewers, folding it back and forth as you go. At this point, you just go ahead and grille it. A few minutes on each side should be enough to cook it all the way through.

Bon Appétit!

Movie Review: Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

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Johnny Depp and Disney are back again in a 4th attempt to make money off an amusement park attraction. This latest installment is not quite the same as the other 3 since it does not have Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) or Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley). Instead we find Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Hector Barbossa, and Captain Blackbeard all searching for the fountain of youth. The addition of Penélope Cruz worked nicely as her role made for many a laugh as well as an intricate part of the story. Along their travels they encounter the British and Spanish navies, zombies, and mermaids.

In my case, I went to go see the movie in IMAX 3D. IMAX movies have always been good to me. The large screen and high power sound system coupled with tempurpedic seats makes the experience enjoyable. However, the 3D in this movie seems like it was more of an afterthought. Time after time, it seemed like it was flat images just moved forward, instead of being filmed properly like the effect in the movie Avatar. This left me struggling to grasp the sense of realism that came with the amazing set designs and special effects.

Speaking of special effects, they were excellent. I really thought that the way the mermaids were done made them seem very realistic for a fantasy creature. The fight sequences were well choreographed and seemed to time perfectly with the environmental elements that were part of the surroundings.

All in all, the movie was good. The movie might not have much of a plot, but it’s full of the classic one-liners and expansive special effects that I have come to expect from the other movies in the series. It’s no wonder this movie grossed more than 350 million worldwide this opening weekend and I expect it to do even more over the coming weeks and the possibility of a 5th movie in the series.

 

 

Game Review: You Don’t Know Jack

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If you were a fan of trivia games in the late 1990s then you have definitely heard of “You Don’t Know Jack” and are well aware of the addiction people had to it. Unfortunatly, the questions are now horribly out of date and a new version hasn’t been available for the last 10+ years. Well I’m proud to announce it’s back and better than ever!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, the ”you don’t know jack” games pitted 1 to 4 players in a quiz show style challenge that combined knowledge with comedic pop culture references. If you got the questions wrong, the game would publicly shame you in front of the other players.

This year, THQ Games has brought the series back to life with a whole new version of the game featuring all new questions with a modern twist. Players are treated to two rounds of 5 questions followed by the “Jack Attack” where players can go from last to first (and vice versa). Along with that, players can “screw” another play and force them to answer a question in 5 seconds or less.

Reviews of the games found on https://www.rivalry.gg/matches/dota-2-betting will get you inspired for my like this game, it is narrated by your host Cookie Masterson who is full of colorful commentary for every question. With more than 70 episodes contained on disc (and even more in the various DLCs), all the comments are fresh and rarely repeated. While it’s fun to get the questions right, it’s even more fun when you get them wrong (especially when you get the “wrong answer of the game” and are rewarded with an extra bonus prize).  While playing together with friends is a great way to share in the laughter and fun, this game can also be played online as well.

If you can’t tell already, I absolutely love this game and have even hosted evenings dedicated to people playing this for hours. And what makes it even better is the price. Instead of the standard $50 – $60 that games cost these days, You Don’t Know Jack can be had for an MSRP of $30 (and with the right deals it’s more like $15 – $20). I urge you to pick up this game and join in the excitement. If you have this game already and an xbox live account, let me know and we’ll start a match.

Greetings and salutations!

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Welcome to Thulin’ Around.  This is my first self-registered domain and my first major blog.  Many of you may already know me from various message boards and twitter.  You can come to expect a variety of different subjects on this blog including technology, automotive, photography, movies, current events, travel, or whatever is on my mind.

So why “Thulin’ Around”?  To answer that, I have to give credit to Koset Surakomol.  He suggested it as part of an impromptu twitter contest.  As you know, my name is Sean Thulin (pronounced “too lean”) and when you say the domain name fast, it sounds like “tooling”.  After tossing the name around in my head for about an hour, I thought it would be a perfect fit for a blog that covers so many different and unrelated subjects.  Koset is a Advisory Technical Consultant with Greenplum (a subsidiary of EMC2) and collector of watches and fast cars.  If you’re not already following him on twitter, you should be.

I also want to give thanks to Luigi Danakos.  He helped me register this domain and guided me through the WordPress setup.  As this is my first blog an my first post, do expect things to change around here before I get it into final form.  With that being said, I hope you enjoy my posts over the next months and years.