Sojka's Call

Music The best album of each genre was based on my ratings of songs on Jriver Media Player that I recorded during the year.   I figured ratings gathered over several months were more reliable of my overall impression than a snapshot of my tastes over the the last month of the year while writing this post. There was some really good hip-hop this year that got marred by excessive auto-tune.  I can handle some amount like what Future has become a multi-millionaire doing.  But, as an example, the excellent music on Khalid's Suncity was overshadowed on much of it by autotune that did not add anything and distracted from great music. The difference between the number of tracks I really liked on albums 5-24 was one song.  The top 4 were a cut above with Chris the clear standout. Here is my top 24 albums from 2018. --> --> Rank Artist Album 1 Christine and the Queens Chris 2 Masego Lady Lady 3 Ariana Grande Sweetener 4 Kali Uchis Isolation 5 DJ K...

SojkasCall Best Stuff of 2017 This is the 2017 roundup of best in entertainment, food, travel and whatever I did this year.  this is probably best consumed when stoned or in a weird mood.  If you just watched Jeopardy or the nightly news, then it will not make sense.  So, if you find yourself saying WTF, just tilt your head 5 degrees to the right and it will all make sense.  I promise! I might throw in a worst of this or that somewhere too - some people like that as well and I certainly have a cynical side that should be kept in check.   Let's start with music videos.  Personally, I found this one of the most disappointing years for music vids in recent memory.  The predominance of interactive make-your-own was not my thing.  I like to be entertained with ideas, music, and visuals that are on the edge and not seen before.  So, the list below was put together after much curation and thought and watching lots of stupid ones. ...

Here is part II with the results. The dough looked bubbly this morning and was very sticky. After rereading the recipe later I see the 15 minute rest after taking it out of the bowl got skipped. After shaping into a ball I let it rise for 2 hours. Then, baked it as recommended in the recipe with the lid on for 30 minutes except after about 7 minutes with the lid off I started to smell carbon and looked at the bread. It was starting to really brown so I took it out early. My oven always seems to cook things faster so that was not surprising. Here is the dough after sprinkling with cornmeal and getting ready for its' second rise (the 2 hour one). Here is the dutch oven I used. Over the years, I have not found much use for this so maybe it has found a calling. The bread after 30 minutes cooking with the lid on. It looked done to me at this point, but, I wanted to follow the recipe exactly the first time. Here are a couple pictures after I took the loaf o...

Funny vid on the food we eat... What do you think? Do you like this kind of food? Do you eat this food?