All Swines Aftermath

I talked up the F’ing Monkey’s holiday, All Swines’s Day before it actually happened but I still wanted to give one more mention now that everyone’s arteries have started moving again.

A quick recap, All Swine’s Day takes place on the first Sunday of the New Year. The above picture was one of the shots I took before I really started cooking. When making the bacon weaves I cut off about two inches from the bacon. This bacon tips are stockpiled in a bowl and used when cooking the other pork and in the potatoes.

I didn’t take a picture of the scrambled eggs or all of the burrito fixings (cheese, sour creme, etc). The closest pan is potatoes and bacon. The other pan is a mixture of diced ham, bacon, and sausage. The recommend way for eating the All Swine’ Day breakfast burrito is starting with a flour tortilla, then the bacon weave, then adding everything else.

Hangover Thursday: All Swine’s Day Explained

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? It’s been a few days since New Year ’s Eve so hopefully everyone has fully recovered by now. Today I want to talk about what is quickly becoming my favorite holiday, All Swine’s Day. All Swine’s Day was created three years ago on this very site. So what is it? When is it? What do you do to celebrate it?


All Swine’s Day takes place on the first Sunday of the New Year, so this year we’ll be celebrating on the 6th. The day is important, because it is after all the other holiday shenanigans. As I got older, I found myself obligated to more and more family functions during the holidays. It was great to see that much of my family, but I was missing out on celebrating with my friends. That’s why All Swines is so important to me. I know I’m going to get to spend the day with those friends that are so close that I think of them as family.

I think the Swine came about because I was thinking that the day could be one last pig out before everyone returned to their post-holiday diets, etc. That somehow led to me making bacon taco shells for breakfast tacos. In addition to the taco shells we cook up scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, and a mixture of ham, sausage, and bacon. Everyone eats too much, we drink a bit, and we play offensive card games. I honestly can’t think of many better ways to spend the day.

Really I encourage everyone to celebrate it. You don’t need fancy bacon weaves, just surround yourself with some of your favorite people and enjoy yourself. And if you can make something awesome out of bacon, it just makes the day better.

Rub Some Bacon on It

I discovered Rhett and Link’s newest song on Wednesday and have been singing it ever since then. This is their second attempt at creating a song after getting a five word title from someone. The first song created like this was “Nilla Wafer Top Hat Time.” It’s funny, but they guys really destroyed with “Rub Some Bacon on It.”

The video is filled with hidden annotations. Also once the song stops do not stop watching. There is a fantastic cameo appearance at the end that you don’t want to miss. If the song gets stuck in your head like it has mine, you can go to iTunes and purchase it there.

Randomness and Site Updates

Brandon being snowed in didn’t just throw his post off track; it will also delay our review of the Guardian Project characters. These reviews should happen once a week and will be jointly written by the two of us. I’ll still color code the back and forth so you know who is who. It’s the first jointly written stuff we’ve done, so it should be fun.

I thought All-Star weekend was fantastic. In the skills competition we saw the big man Zdeno Chara break his own record with a 105.9 mph slap shot. In the actual All-Star game there was the first ever penalty shot after Ovechkin threw his stick across the ice to block a shot. Cam Ward spent the first period in net and as an on ice commentator. When the action was at the other end of the ice he was chatting it up with the other broadcasters. From the smiles on everyone’s faces you could tell they were having a good time, which in turn made it fun to watch. Best All-Star game I can remember.

I mentioned a second Mass Effect 2 appearance pack; well a foreign Xbox page had a picture! It isn’t full body, or even that detailed, but you get the idea. They have the pack set to release on 2011/01/28, I believe the US release is late February. Edit: BioWare says February 8th is the release date.  Miranda finally gets some armor. I still wish there was a way to remove the Cerberus symbols from my ships and my teammates.

Saturday when I was stuck at work; my wife hit a local comic shop’s moving sale. Everything was marked down super low and she cleaned up. 5 Spirit Archives for like 5 dollars a piece. On top of that she picked out two Flash variant covers, without knowing what they really were. Pretty awesome stuff on the cheap.  My house is often like an episode of I Love Lucy, with my wife complaining that she never gets to be in the show. So this is my thank you to her. 

Epic Meal Time shirts are coming soon.  Get your wallets ready for a next level clothing maneuver.  I can't wait.

Epic Cross Over talked about on Twitter:

@EpicMealTime If you have a proposal that makes EMT fit into the ME universe I'm all ears. No lie, half our Montreal office watches EMT

EpicMealTime @manveerheir selling Elcor ribs in the Citadel obviously! Just give me some dialogue wheel responses!

Finally, That F’ing Monkey has hit a wall. Readership has leveled off and I’m not sure how to improve it. At this point I’ll be at Megacon doing some interviews. And both Brandon and I will be at Heroes. I think those interviews will be unlike anything you've seen on other comic sites.  But other then that, I’m going to ask for your help. If you know someone who likes Comics, Games, Booze please share the site or the Facebook page. The more readers the better.  Now that I've finished the shameless pleading, I can say that I should have T-Shirt news sometime next month.

Weekend Recap! Hockey, Bacon, Bioware!

I have a bunch of things I want to discuss briefly, all of them happened this past weekend. So let’s jump right into it.


Winter Classic

Did you watch the Winter Classic? Someone besides me did. It was the most watched NHL regular season game ever with 4.5 million viewers. The weather seemed to be the big news, first the delay and then the rain. It was the first Winter Classic played at night. I enjoyed the game, but there seemed to be a lot less going on then in the other years. Less bands playing, other off ice things, etc. It seemed more like just another game then a giant hockey celebration. This will not be the only outdoor game this year. February 20th Montreal and Calgary will be playing at McMahon Stadium.

All Swine’s Day

The first official celebration of That F’ing Monkey’s made up holiday was a huge success. Bacon tacos were enjoyed by all. So were potatoes cooked with bacon, and a mixture of ham and sausage cooked with bacon. Throw in some scrambled eggs, hot sauce, salsa, cheese, and sour cream and you’ve got bliss. The point of the day is to cap off all that holiday over eating with one last hurrah. So for me personally I’ll no longer be buying coke/pop/soda, buying candy/chocolate, or eating at any place with a drive through for as long as possible. Back to the holiday, it is definitely happening again next year. The first Sunday of January, mark it on your calendars. For a few more pictures of All Swine's Day prep, check out our Facebook!


Mass Effect: Cerberus Daily News

The CDN is going off line. Here is the official message:

“OUT-OF-GAME NOTICE: The Cerberus Daily News will begin a hiatus on January 24th, finishing its run of one full year. Daily postings will cease except for three weeks in 2011: a week of posts will precede a downloadable content release, and two more weeks will lead up to the release of Mass Effect 3. The CDN team thanks fans for their attention, comments, and feedback (both in and out of character!). We are sorry to go, but we had fun -- we hope you did, too!”

This means two things. First, new DLC is coming!! Yay!! Second, the team responsible for the CDN put up messages every day for a year. To everyone on that team, thank you. Some times informative, some times funny, the CDN was awesome.


Dragon Age 2 Avatar items

The last thing I wanted to throw out there. Dragon Age 2 has Avatar items on the Xbox Live Market place. Now, the original game was way late to the party with Avatar stuff, only offering T-Shirts for a long time before realizing people would rather have Legion of the Dead armor. Now the pendulum shifted in the other direction. There are items for characters we don’t even know yet. Very strange.

Hangover Thursday: Beer, That’s Smart

Somehow I wasn’t drunk last night and still ended up at Dennys. I am on track to have my beer list finished on New Years Eve. I’m kind of sad about that. My easy post material on Thursdays will have dried up also. That is okay though, I have some cool beer history and such that I’d like to share.

Beers 108-111 are all interesting to pronounce, which is probably why I hadn’t ordered them yet. Aventinus, Flensburger Weizen, Flensburger Pilsner, and Konig Pilsner. The Aventinus has a pretty decent ABV, somewhere in the 8s, so that was a nice start. The alcohol didn’t come through on the taste but it still was not something I’d really go back to.



How about some booze for breakfast? Check out the video above. I’ve been showing this thing off to everyone I can get to watch it. I’ve been a big fan of the bacon lattice for a long time, I even made a bacon taco the other day, but these guys are on a whole other level. One day I will make that battered, bacon wrapped ham. Who am I kidding, I’ll probably make the stuffed pancakes at some point too.