Mango got his first haircut

by   •   General
 

This post is over 9 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

An interesting thing about Yorkshire terriers is their changing hair color. Baby Yorkshire terriers are generally mostly black, but as they age, their hair turns more silver and tan. This usually happens as they get closer to adulthood, but for Mango, it seems to be happening a lot earlier.

Mango taking a nap after his first haircut

You can’t really tell the difference from that photo, because he still looks pretty black – this was taken after his haircut and bath, which clearly exhausted him. The color change most likely isn’t noticeable because he’s curled up in a ball, and the lighting in the bedroom wasn’t really that great.

But, if you take a look at this “before and after” comparison photo that Karen posted:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX6799Ng_h3/

Yes, that is still the same dog. I actually like him a lot better like this – he actually looks like an alert and intelligent puppy now, rather than a shaggy old man.

 

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I finally found a place that sells raw lamb

by   •   Food
 

This post is over 9 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

… Albertsons. It actually wasn’t that hard.

Homemade lamb

Ever since I moved to California and tried lamb, I’ve really liked it. I had never had it before when I was still living in the Chicagoland suburbs, and I thought the flavor of the meat and fat was interesting. The lean meat itself wasn’t too noticeably distinctly different, but mixed in with a bit of lamb fat, it had a very unique flavor.

In an attempt to eat more lamb, I searched a bunch of different areas, and ended up getting lamb at a few different restaurants. But, lamb (possibly due to the fact that it isn’t often ordered) was noticeably more expensive than any other meat, and seeing as I cook pretty often at home, I wanted to find some raw lamb that I could just throw into a frying pan and prepare on my own.

I looked at a few grocery stores at which I often shop, and none of them had it … but then I realized I forgot one of the most obvious locations – Albertsons – and found it pretty quickly in their “unique meats” area. This is a small section in their regular meat area where they stock lamb, veal, grass-fed angus beef, and other meats that are a bit different than the normal beef, pork, chicken, and fish.

It actually wasn’t substantially more expensive either, so I guess that means I’ll be able to eat lamb a lot more often now.

 

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Expectation vs. reality

by   •   General
 

This post is over 9 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

Expectation vs. reality

 

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Mango the Model

by   •   Tempo
 

This post is over 9 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

We had a professional photographer/videographer come out to one of our team houses for a photoshoot and filming session, and of course, we had to get Mango in on the action. We had Mango be Tempo Storm’s sponsorship model for SecretLab, Red Bull, and SkyTech:

Mango the Model

Mango the Model

Mango the Model

Mango the Model

 

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Guys look, I wrote a thing

by   •   Hearthstone, Tempo
 

This post is over 9 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

If you haven’t heard yet, a new Hearthstone expansion is coming out that revolves around the Lich King. Tempo Storm partnered up with Blizzard to do a website takeover, and we rebranded to The Frozen Pwn. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you may have noticed that we held a special Fireside Gathering named the “Frostside Gathering,” and the festivities are still continuing.

Blizzard allows community members (esports teams, streamers, broadcast personalities, etc.) to reveal new cards, and Tempo Storm as an esports franchise was able to claim one for our own (rather than specifically having some of our players do it). Most card reveals end up just being very simple and straightforward – people either write an article or make a YouTube video sharing the card. We decided to do things a bit differently.

For our card – Thrall, Deathseer – we decided to integrate it straight into the Hearthstone Standard Meta Snapshot. It was protected under a non-disclosure agreement, so after being told what was going on, from that point, this was mostly a solo mission.

https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/decks/freeze-evolve-shaman-standard-meta-snapshot-july-31-2017

Here’s a small excerpt:

The Lich King was dissatisfied with all the decks with sub-100% win rates, so he decided to construct his own. After using his great, brilliant mind to craft a fully legal Standard deck (and I promise that the Lich King is definitely, absolutely not standing behind my shoulder right now forcing me to write this), he’s gone undefeated until #1 Legend, which is why we are featuring this deck at Tier S.

At the moment, there are no decks that stand a chance against Freeze Evolve Shaman. The popular aggro decks are unable to push for damage, as they are constantly frozen. Before long, the Shaman develops enough minions and tokens to evolve into an unstoppable board, retaliating with enough face damage for OTKs.

The control decks are unable to outlast the Shaman’s endless stream of evolved resources. Responding with minions results in getting frozen, while trying to use area-of-effect board clears in response to the Shaman’s army results in being Counterspelled.

It is clear that the reason for this deck’s strength is its hybridization with Mage, as well as the extremely powerful new Shaman hero, Thrall, Deathseer. Essentially giving you unlimited evolutions, opponents are put into a kill-now-or-never-kill situation – attempting to kill the Shaman’s minions over multiple turns is impossible, as Transmute Spirit is able to effectively heal a minion back to full health.

We can only hope that deck hybridization becomes a thing for lists not only created by the Lich King, so competitive decks can be created again by commoners. Otherwise, this deck is going to remain dominant for ages to come.

Basically, we tweaked our deck building system so I could create a deck with the new card. I also made it a hybrid deck of both Shaman and Mage cards, just in case people actually thought we weren’t joking (even though the 100% win rates and the all-caps archetype explanation sort of gives it away).

 

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Meet Lucky the cockapoo

by   •   General
 

This post is over 9 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

This is Lucky the cockapoo.

Lucky the Cockapoo

Lucky the Cockapoo

If you’re not already aware, a cockapoo is a mix between a cocker spaniel and a poodle. Lucky wasn’t exactly intended to be purebred (or designed to be a specific breed in general), so I’m sure there are some extra mixes in there as well. He is Karen’s mom’s new dog.

 

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