Category Archives: Entertainment

‘Elf’ movie review

By: Lily Sheldon & Sophie Elmstrom

*Warning: This review contains spoilers.

The movie ‘Elf’ is a comedy Christmas movie starring Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell. It was directed by Jon Favreau and was released on November 7th, 2003. This movie is a fan favorite amongst many Christmas fans and we will give you a rundown.

The movie starts when Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrell) is accidentally transported to the North Pole as a baby and raised with Santa’s elves. One elf (Bob Newhart) in particular stands up and becomes Buddy’s “father”. Buddy realizes that he doesn’t fit in when he starts towering over the elves, so he travels to New York to find his real father (James Caan). Santa (Edward Asner) gives Buddy a warning ahead of time informing Buddy that his father is on the naughty list and Buddy is determined to fix him.

Buddy goes through quite the journey while he is walking to New York City, including a scuffle with a local raccoon. Once Buddy arrives he soon realizes that people aren’t as nice as they seem to be. He visits his father’s office in the Empire State Building but Buddy is quickly kicked out by the security. With nowhere to go Buddy finds himself at the store Gimbels and gets mistaken for a worker at their Christmas area. He meets Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) who shows a cold personality towards the Christmas season and is just at her job for the money.

Buddy learns that Santa is visiting the store the next day and spends all night setting up decorations for “Santa”. Buddy then causes a brawl when he realizes this mall Santa is not in fact the one he knew in the North Pole. Buddy goes to jail and his father picks him up with resentment towards him, but he gives in and takes Buddy to get a DNA test where they soon discover that Buddy is in fact his real son.

Once Buddy finds a place to stay with his father and brother he begins hanging out with Jovie a lot more and introduces her to why Christmas is the best holiday. They soon fall in love with each other.

Walter, Buddy’s father, works as a publisher and gets fired once Buddy runs away from home and he has to leave his meeting to search for him. Michael (Buddy’s half brother) is concerned and scared for his safety while he and Walter frantically search for Buddy. While on this search, on Christmas Eve, Santa’s real sleigh crashes in Central Park, and Buddy and his family are left to save Christmas. In order to save this holiday they must make the holiday spirit come back to life as this is how Santa’s sleigh is powered. Many people in the park begin to sing Christmas carols and it generates enough energy to power his sleigh. Christmas is saved and Buddy makes a book about his adventure to New York with his father’s publishing company. Buddy marries Jovie and they bring their newborn to the North Pole to visit Papa Elf.

This movie received 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 7.1/10 on IMDb. Some audience reviews loved the humor aspect of the movie, and the light-hearted feel. People also really enjoyed seeing Will Ferrell as Buddy, as they think he fit the role very well with his humor. Reviewers think that this is one of the best Christmas movies out there and it will put you in the holiday spirit with a smile on your face.

Overall, we rated this movie a 10/10. It is very funny, and a classic Christmas movie. We have both watched this movie countless times, and it never fails to keep us entertained. We think the story line is very unique and that they casted the movie perfectly. This movie gives us more Christmas cheer every time we watch it. We are so glad to have this heart-warming comedy for the holiday season.

You can watch ‘Elf’ on Hulu.

“Thick of it” by KSI

By: Samson Belihu

KSI, a famous British rapper, released a song called “Thick of It” in early October 2024 connecting it to his life. It got a lot of attention for its catchy rhythm and people created their own videos with the song acting out how the song goes especially the part that goes “From the screen, to the ring, to the pen, to the king…”.

Let’s break down how that line probably connects to KSI’s life.

“From the screen”: Likely referring to when he started out as a YouTuber and he gained much fame through his video.

“To the ring”: Here, KSI is talking about his venture into boxing, where he participated in high-profile matches, including going against his fellow YouTubers and celebrities.

“To the pen”: This part is when he’s talking about how he wanted to be a musician, and that’s exactly what he became. He wrote songs that he personally was able to express himself through his lyrics.

“To the King”: This symbolizes how he has succeeded in many fields as a “king” of the industry.

The song “Thick of It” is a hit, but not for the reason he wanted it to be. A lot of people find it as a funny song, and social media has transformed it to how they felt, from a life story, to a catchy humorous song.

Many people have added their own twist to their songs. This includes a 1950’s version, 90’s Rap song version, Rock song, pop version, Kanye West version, and many more doing whatever they can to add their own pizzazz into the song.

In my opinion, I find the original song very catchy, and also a bit humorous only because of the way social media has shaped the song. KSI is very talented when it comes to many things, but when you publish songs on social media you have almost no control over how it’ll transform into an amazing song or just like this song, pretty catchy with the twist of it being funny.

Movie review of ‘Twilight’

By: Max Cahoon & Norah Hoglund

Overview

We did a review on the movie ‘Twilight’. The movie came out in 2008. It’s based on the book ‘Twilight’ by Stephanie Ann Meyer. The 2 main characters, Bella and Edward, are played by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. The movie is 2 hours and 10 minutes long, which is pretty average for a movie.

Summary

This story starts off by the main character, Bella Swan, introducing herself. She is moving from living with her mom in Arizona to living with her dad in a small, rainy town in Washington called Forks. She immediately notices the Cullen family at school, a family of adopted children with a local doctor as their father. She notices how beautiful and graceful they all are and is curious about them. She goes to her next class and sits next to Edward, one of the Cullen boys. He doesn’t talk to her and tries to stay as far from her as possible, and she wonders what she did wrong.

He doesn’t show up to school for 2 months, until one day he comes back and talks to Bella in class. He says he wants to be friends with her, but it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to be friends with him. They start talking to each other more and she notices strange things about him. His eyes change colors, his skin is very cold and he doesn’t want her to touch him, and when Bella almost gets hit by a car, she notices he got from very far away to right next to her in a second and blocked the car from hitting her.

He won’t tell her anything. She and her friends visit the beach on the Quileute tribe reservation and she hears one of the boys there mention the Cullens. She decides to ask a boy she knows about the Cullens, and he tells them the legend the tribe has about them being vampires.

The next Monday, she confronts Edward about it and it’s true. Edward explains that his family doesn’t drink human blood, only the blood of animals. He also admits that Bella’s blood was the most appealing he had ever come across and he had a hard time not killing her. Even so, they now love each other and she trusts him enough to believe he wouldn’t kill her.

They start acting like a normal couple would, and then one day Bella went with the Cullen family to a vampire baseball game. Another group of vampires came and found them, and these ones did drink human blood. The Cullens tried to hide Bella but they found out she was there. One of them was a tracker named James, and he hunted down humans. He wanted to hunt down Bella now.

The Cullens split up and Bella goes with 2 of them to Arizona while Edward and his brother and father go hunt James. In the end, he finds her in Arizona and tries to kill her, but Edward gets there in time to save her. She has a broken leg and lost a lot of blood. Edward sees how dangerous it is for Bella to be with him, and it’s clear he thinks leaving her would be the best option.

Review

This movie was very intriguing. There were a lot of small conflicts that intertwined with the main one, like the fact that Bella was so appealing to Edward and Edward’s family thought it was a bad idea. It also kept you wanting to see what was going to happen next.

The main conflict wasn’t introduced until pretty late in the story, but it was very intense. The story didn’t come to a full resolution.

The acting was pretty bad in our opinion. It was very corny and way too dramatic at times which got very tiring to watch.

Overall we rate this movie a 7/10 and would recommend it to anyone that is interested in drama, romance, and vampires.

You can watch ‘Twilight’ on Amazon Prime.

“We’re Alive” review

By: Munira Ahmadad

*Warning: this review contains spoilers for the short story “We’re Alive” (located in the PRIZM section of the Plaid Line)

“We’re Alive” is a short horror story written by HPSH student Daniel Kendle, and this article is a review of it and a discussion of my thoughts about the story.

The short story begins with an unnamed narrator in a jungle, they’re inside a garden sanctum when they watch a monstrous creature made of the jungle’s organic life become animated. Initially the being is referred to as the jungle’s newest creation which led me to think it never existed before, but it’s soon described as ancient and something of a folk story. The narrator watches, petrified and intrigued as it moves towards them. Spores surrounded them as they stared at each other. After the narrator’s reluctant escape, a month later, they remain haunted by the interaction with the garden’s monster and become unable to function normally. After dreaming of being with the creature in a physical and emotional loving bind, we see the narrator lose their grip on reality and by the end they harm themself with a crazed desire to return to the garden.

The story truly succeeds at providing the descriptions necessary to paint a detailed visualization of the scenes in the story. I don’t read much horror, but the narrator losing their grip on reality is a relatively common trope. After reading through, I wondered if the inspiration for this work was “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe since both use obsession as its element and have narrators you know next to nothing about. The plot itself reminds me of “The Black Cat”, also by Edgar Allan Poe.

One of the very first things that made me feel iffy while reading through was the literary diction. Written in the narrator’s perspective, they describe how they felt, what they did and thought, and what was going on. Since it’s all in past tense, I assumed this was a retelling of what happened, which explained the dramatic storytelling style. But as the speaker describes their loss of sanity due to their growing obsession, it seems as though readers are going along with the scenes at the same time as the narrator. This makes the descriptive writing come off as pretty verbose. The flowery language is prioritized over the plot which makes the first time reading through unsatisfactory, especially since the goal of the story was to capture the essence of what an all-consuming obsession feels like.

Speaking of the goal of the story, the attempt at disorientating storytelling by the narrator did not invoke any feelings of repulsion, suspense, or horror in me. It’s very tell-not-show, like instead of showing us the fear the narrator was experiencing during their interaction with the monster via description (hands shaking, heart pounding, stomach churning), we’re just told directly by the speaker that they were afraid. The conflicting feelings the narrator had towards the garden creature was very clear, to the point it feels tedious. Scary stories aren’t supposed to hold the reader’s hand and walk them through the entire thing.

For all the time spent making sure the audience was absolutely certain the narrator had an obsession, they aren’t given much of a reason to care. When we have an unnamed narrator of unknown origin, you’d assume their narration would give you more information of who they are and their personality as you read along. However, in this short story the narrator’s identity didn’t seem to matter. We’re given vague ideas about the characteristics of this person, such as their acutely aware of their flaws, immediately scorning their humanity and views themselves as a “mangy ape” in the presence of the monster that becomes their obsession. They call themselves a hedonistic wretch, and we just kind of have to take their word for it.

Overall, though, I liked reading this. Because I have my own bias against horror, I wasn’t the target audience, and so I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as someone who likes horror. I think the author definitely is a skilled writer and has the descriptive skills to create vivid imagery for the reader to enjoy. I feel as though Kendle would be an excellent fantasy writer and I hope he continues to share more of his work. This review was for fun and from the perspective of a reader despite my criticism, which itself may be flawed.

Ohuhu alcohol marker review

By: Persephone Pond

Ohuhu is a newer brand that produces all sorts of art supplies, from paints to markers.

Gaining traction in the early 2020s, Ohuhu quickly became popular for their lines of alcohol based markers. This article will be a quick review of all you need to know about these markers, and if they’re worth the money.

Ohuhu alcohol markers come with three choices of tips: chisel, fine, and brush. Each artist has their own preferences on which to use, and each set of markers purchased are double sided, including two of the three tips. My personal favorite is the brush tip doubled with the fine tip, which falls under Ohuhu’s Honolulu B Series. The combination of the brush and fine tips allow for easy coverage of larger areas, yet include the option of a smaller tip to fill in smaller details.

The quality of these markers are incredible. Coverage is smooth and consistent, and the life of these markers is impressively long. In addition to the long lifespan of these markers, Ohuhu also sells ink refills separately for about $5 each. These refills last even longer, and are a good investment if the markers are in use frequently.

The color options include a wide range of neons, grayscale, pastels, and more. With hundreds of colors to choose from, there isn’t a shade you can’t buy. The pressure control of the markers is also a big pro, creating an easy way to shade and blend colors together.

Price wise, Ohuhu markers are a good investment. Packs of markers are sold in wide ranges, from just 48 markers to up to 320 markers. For a pack of 48 colors, the price comes out to $39.99 (before shipping) from the Ohuhu website (but this pricing is consistent across retailers), which is about $1.20 per marker. Each pack comes out to around that same price per marker, which means buying in bulk doesn’t save money.

Overall, Ohuhu alcohol markers are a worthwhile investment, whether you’re a beginner artist, experienced artist, or just trying to learn how to use alcohol markers.

The 5 worst Burger King ad songs

By: Ian Larson

Burger King has made many songs for their ads that have been quite successful in making BK Popular. A surprising amount of people actually enjoy these songs even though they are ads. At the end of the day, some BK songs are just not as good as the others and I will be listing them in order of what I think is least bad to most bad.

This first song is called “Lunch Linner Dinner”. This song is meant to advertise the “Duo”. The thing where they say lunch linner dinner just didn’t really make a lot of sense and wasn’t very funny so I’m not really sure why they felt it was necessary. Other than that the song flows pretty well.

The next song is “Bring on the Flavor”. This song is advertising the “Royal Crispy Wraps”. The main thing that is wrong with this song is that they added too many syllables to one of the lines and it just made it seem really off and out of place.

Next is “You Rule”. This is the first BK song and just advertises BK in general. The only problem with this song is that it just doesn’t really seem right for Burger King. Making it be a rap song in my opinion doesn’t really make sense with how the company presents itself.

Second to last on the list is “Flame Grilled Layers”. This song is meant to advertise the “Burger King Melts”. My big problem with this song is that the singing somehow sounds AI generated. The singing also doesn’t match up quite right with the music in the background.

The worst BK song is “The New Fiery Menu Only at Burger King”. This song is meant to advertise the “Fiery Menu” at Burger King that has spicy foods, but the problem with the ad is the singers. It just seems like they got some random people who don’t know how to sing or make good lyrics.

‘Thunderhead’ review

By: Samson Belihu

*Warning: This article contains minor spoilers

The book ‘Thunderhead’ was made by Neal Shusterman and is a sequel to ‘Scythe’.

To help better understand this review, if you haven’t read ‘Scythe’, it is important to know that in this book, they don’t say “kill,” they say “glean”.

Thunderhead is an advanced AI and a perfect ruler of a perfect world; it has its own agenda, which is to protect humanity and ensure their well-being, but it has no control over the Scythedom (in another word, Scythes).

This book is set in the future, where death is conquered. They cured all illnesses, so now they’re immortal, but to keep the population in control, they created Scythes. Scythes are an order of individuals who are responsible for killing, or should I say gleaning, to keep the world’s population in check; once gleaned, they’re unable to be revived by the law. 

In the last book we learned Citra became a Scythe and goes by the name of Scythe Anastasia who is trying to be a good Scythe but Rowan, on the other hand, has taken a dark path. He is now known as Scythe Lucifer, and he embraces a more ruthless method. He believes that the system is corrupted, that he needs to take extreme measures to bring about change, and he is willing to do everything that it takes to accomplish his goal. 

As the story unfolds, we can see conflict ruin the traditional sides and the rise of a new group called the New Order. This group of people believe in a harsher approach to gleaning, and their plan is to maintain control over humanity so they may be feared and have power over anything, which goes against Citra’s ideals of mercy and empathy. Scythes who disagree with their method face dangers and challenges.

Scythe Anastasia and Scythe Lucifer, who were once friends, find themselves in conflict with their different ideals. But as the New Order rises, their power poses a direct threat to traditional sides as they implement harsher methods of gleaning.

Will the New Order have full control over Scythes, or will Citra and Rowan fight back in their own way that we are not sure of as they left us on a cliffhanger?

I personally am invested in what’s going to happen in the next book and in my personal opinion, I give this book 8.75/10.

Show recommendation: ‘Cobra Kai’

By: Beverly Stinson

‘Cobra Kai’ is a Netflix original show that was released on May 2nd, 2018. It’s a spinoff of the movie series ‘The Karate Kid’ and it has 6 seasons, with the 2nd part of season 6 coming out on November 15th and the 3rd and final part coming out sometime early 2025.

It starts off about a man named Johnny Lawrence who was one of the antagonists of the ‘Karate Kid’ series. He basically went from being a star to being a nobody but things change for him when a boy named Miguel moves into his apartment building. Miguel basically asks him to teach him karate to defend himself, and so Johnny ends up opening his own karate dojo which happens to be named after the one he was in when he was a kid  “Cobra Kai”.

This wasn’t something I thought I was gonna like when I first watched it but it immediately became one of my favorite shows. It has a really good plot and the characters are amazing. My favorite character is ‘Eli/Hawk’.

My only con about the show is that I feel like it goes too fast, like there’s a lot of time skips and I especially wish they went more in depth with the first 2 seasons.  But other than that, it’s a really good show, it has a lot of comedy but some serious parts as well, especially in later seasons, and if you watch the movie series you can understand a lot of references and cameos. I would give this series an 8.5/10.

That’s all I have!

-Beverly

Popular Hmong dishes

By: Seng Yang & Christine Yang

Background information about Hmong dishes:

A lot of Hmong dishes originate from different South and East Asian countries since Hmong people originate from southern China. That’s why some Hmong dishes are actually Chinese but have a twist. But later on some Hmong people migrated mostly to Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, which is why many Hmong dishes are from those countries too but again, not every dish are the same as the “originals”. 

Qaub Taub Ntoos (papaya salad):

Background information: Papaya salad is a dish that originated from Laos, which influenced recipes in Cambodia, Thailand Vietnam, and West Asia.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of shredded green papaya
  • 2 tbsp of roasted peanuts (optional)
  • 2 cloves of peeled garlic
  • 1-2 fresh birds eye chili (or more depending on tolerance)
  • 1 tbsp of dried shrimp (optional)
  • 7 cherry tomatoes
  • ½  juice of lime
  • 1½ tbs of fish sauce
  • 1-2 tbsp Thai snake beans (or green beans) cut into 1 inch sticks

Directions:

  1. Peel the papaya, shred it with a shredder (or a mandolin slicer) to thin strips and soak it in cold water
  2. Cut the green beans into one-inch pieces
  3. Take the chilies and peeled garlic and give them a gentle bash with mortar and pestle (bits and pieces) and add crushed peanuts and mix well (optional)
  4. Add shredded papaya and continue bashing (not too hard)
  5. Add tomatoes, beans, lime juice and fish sauce while lightly bashing

Fawm Kib (pho nooldes stir fried):

Background information: The dish is a very popular Lao dish known as Khua Mee or also known as Lao stir fry noodles.

Ingredients:

Noodles

  • 28 oz (1 lb 12 oz) dried pho/rice noodles soaked in hot water

Sauce

  • 2 tbsp oil (vegetable or garlic oil)
  • ½ cup chopped shallots
  • ½ cup crushed palm sugar (4oz)
  • ¼ cup water
  • ½ cup Kwong Hung Seng sweet soy sauce (5.5oz)
  • ¼ cup oyster sauce (2.5oz)
  • 2 tbsp Golden Mountain seasoning sauce (1.2oz)
  • 2 tbsp fish sauce (1.5oz)
  • 2 tbsp dark soy (1 oz)
  • 1.2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp chicken bouillon
  • ½ to ⅔ cups garlic oil

Eggs

  • 12 large eggs
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 2 tsp fish sauce
  • Garlic oil to fry

Garlic Oil

  • 1 cup oil
  • ¼ cup minced garlic (1.25 oz)

Mix in and Garnish

  • 3 cups chopped cilantro (stem included)
  • 2 cups green onions (slice thin, julienne)
  • Sliced omelet
  • Bean sprouts
  • Fried garlic (optional) 

Directions:

Noodles

1) In a bowl, add in 28oz dried noodles. Soak in cold water overnight. Once soaked, drain well and then pour in hot boiling water over the noodles. Stir and cook for about 30 secs to 45 sec until the noodles are cooked to your liking. It should be cooked but also chewy and slightly firm. Do not overcook the noodles or leave the noodles in the hot boiling water for too long or else they will break apart while mixing. Depending on which size noodles you use, cooking may take longer.

2) Once cooked, drain the noodles and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Drain well for at least 15-20 before adding in the sauce.

Sauce

1)  In a pan, add in 2 tbsp of oil and chopped shallots. Cook and sweat the shallots for a good 1 minute or so. Then add in the crushed palm sugar and 1/4c water.  Cover for 1 minute or so under medium heat to allow the steam to melt and break apart the palm sugar.  Then add in all the other sauces and seasoning. Stir well for a good 30 seconds or so to incorporate it in with the shallots and palm sugar. Then take it off the heat and let it cool before adding it into the noodles if you desire.  Feel free to taste the sauce before adding it into the noodles. You may want it to be sweeter, saltier, etc.

2) Make the garlic oil as well if you desire. 1 cup oil in w/ 1/4 cup minced garlic. Medium cook until the garlic are golden crispy. Drain the oil and separate the fried garlic to be used later.

MIXING

1)  Pour the drained noodles into a big mixing bowl along with all the sauce. Add in the 1/2 cup of garlic oil and mix everything well. You will notice it may be a little wet in the bottom of the noodles. That’s okay. Let it sit for a good 15-20 minutes to allow the noodles to soak up all the sauce. Taste and adjust at this step if needed. Make sure to mix it every 5 minutes or so while it’s sitting to ensure the noodles are fully coated with the sauce.

Toppings

1) Add 12 eggs into a bowl along with the black pepper and fish sauce. Mix well. Then cook it on a non stick pan brushed with garlic oil. Cook like an omelet so we can cut it into strips. If you have a big pan you may do 2 rounds of cooking the eggs. I did four rounds so I can get a medium thin thickness.

2) Wash and cut the cilantro and green onions to your liking

3) Wash the beansprouts

Finishing

1) Once the noodles are well soaked in with the sauce, add in the chopped cilantro, green onions, fried garlic from earlier, and sliced eggs. You can also add bean sprouts at this point too. However, if you want to save some noodles in the fridge for tomorrow, don’t mix in the beansprouts with the noodles overnight due to the amount of moisture they contain. Just garnish the bean sprouts when you want to eat a plate of noodles.

2) Serve with fried garlic, shallots, and other herbs/proteins you desire. Serve cold, room temp, or warm.

http://foodgeneralist.blogspot.com/2009/08/khua-mee-fried-noodles.html

Fawm Kauv (steamed rice rolls):

Background information: Steamed rice rolls is a Cantonese dish originating from Guangdong Province in southern China. Steamed rice rolls are also one of the popular Vietnamese dishes, bánh cuốn. Even though fawm kauv/Hmong steamed rice rolls are the “same” as those countries or more, the ingredients are different to some of them.

Ingredients:

Rice Roll Crepe

  • 1 pack rice flour (16oz)
  • 1 pack tapioca flour (16oz)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 14 cups water

Pork Filling

  • 2 lbs pork
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp chicken bouillon
  • 1 cup cilantro
  • ½ cups green onion

Dipping Sauce

  • 4-6 Thai pepper
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¼ msg
  • Roasted peanuts (optional and as much you like)
  • Water (as much you like)

Directions:

Dipping Sauce

1) Put 4-6 Thai pepper into the mortar with ½ tsp salt, ¼ msg, and roasted peanuts (optional and as much you like)

2) Crush them with a pestle

3) Add water (as much you like)

4) Stir

Meat Filling

1) In a frying pan, add in the ground pork. Saute until the meat is cooked. Then add in the seasonings and herbs. Taste and adjust. Set aside.   

Rice Roll Crepe

1) In a big mixing bowl, add in the rice flour, tapioca starch, and salt. Mix well. Then add in the water. Mix well to get starches from the bottom well incorporated with the water. Set aside

Cooking, Rolling and Filling

1) Have a bowl of oil and a brush ready. Brush a flat tray with oil so you have that ready for the cooked crepe as well as your non-stick cooking pan. Heat the pan on medium heat. Add about 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan and swirl it around until the bottom of the pan is well coated with the batter. Cover with a lid and let it cook for 30 seconds. Uncover and quickly flip it over the oiled flat tray. Fill with the meat filling and roll the ends and then bottom all the way up (just like a burrito). REPEAT THE PROCESS until all the batter is used up.

2) MAKE SURE to stir the rice roll crepe batter once in a while because the starches will settle down to the bottom.

Kan Yuab (egg rolls):

Background information: Lika most Hmong dishes they’re mostly inspired by different countries/cultures from Asia. Egg rolls originate in China (date back to ancient China). 

Ingredients:

  • 1 (10 ½ ounce) bag rice thread noodles
  • 24 egg roll wrap
  • 1 (10-12 ounce) package coleslaw mix (or 1 sm cabbage and 2 carrots shredded)
  • 1 bunch green onion
  • 1 ½ lb ground pork
  • 1 egg (+ xtra 1 for sealing egg rolls)
  • 2 teaspoons black pepper
  • 2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1) Soak noodles in very hot water for 10 minutes.

    2) Drain.

    3) Rinse with cold water.

    4) Cut into 3-inch lengths; set aside.

    5) Chop green and yellow onions and cilantro (also, cabbage and carrots if not going with the packaged coleslaw).

    6) Mix all ingredients together.

    7) Heat oil (med high heat).

    8) Peel rice skin wraps apart, put about 1/2 cup mix on egg roll wrap.

    9) Roll it up.

    10) Seal with egg.

    11) Cook for about 10 minutes.

      https://www.food.com/recipe/hmong-egg-rolls-37355

      Qhaub Piaj (thick chicken noodle soup):

      Background information: Qhaub piaj (thick chicken noodle soup) is a Hmong and Laotian dish, it’s also called khao piak sen in Laotian.

      Ingredients:

      Noodles

      • 1 cup rice flour
      • 2 cups tapioca starch
      • 1 ¼ cups of boiling water

      Broth

      • 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
      • 48 oz chicken stock
      • 1 stalk lemongrass
      • Salt (choice of amount)
      • Pepper (choice of amount)
      • Fish sauce (choice of amount)
      • 1-2 cups of water if needed

      Directions:

      1) Put rice flour in a stand mixer

      2) Add 1 cup of boiling water and mix

      3) Add a little bit of water at a time

      4) Add a little bit tapioca starch until the dough puts together

      5) Divide the dough into thirds

      6) Roll ⅓ of the dough until it is ⅛ inch thick using tapioca starch on the surface so it doesn’t stick

      7) Cut it into ¼ thick (or depending on how thick you like)

      8) Dust the noodles in tapioca starch to prevent sticking to each other

      9) Add noodles in boiling water

      10) Stir so they don’t stick to each other

      11) Noodles are done when they float

      12) The broth will be thick

      https://chawjcreations.com/qhaub-piaj-thick-chicken-noodle-soup/

      Explaining all of the fan-made character designs for ‘Life Series’ and ‘Hermitcraft’

      By: Julia Yang

      The ‘Life Series’, as previously stated in a past article, is a Minecraft server where the members have a certain amount of lives and must be the last one standing in order to win.

      The ‘Hermitcraft SMP’ is a server where around 27 friends/YouTubers/stream-ers come together and play Minecraft. That’s basically it.

      The fan artists enjoy taking aspects of the events in those series’ and seasons and input them into what they think the Minecraft skins should look like, or just have fun with it. Today I’m explaining each fan design for those who don’t know what they are or why they’re there.

      First, what’s up with Jimmy and yellow feathers/wings? Most people who are fans know this already, but the yellow wings and feathers are a callout to the canary bird. The reason why fans draw Jimmy with canary wings is because they’ve all collectively decided that he has something called the “canary curse”. This curse is rooted from the fact that in every season of the ‘Life Series’ he’s the first to die. I know, “well what’s the connection to the canary?” It’s a canary because in the past, canaries were used by coal miners to tell if danger or hazard was near because there would be potential gas leaks that would kill the canary first before the miner. Jimmy is the canary of the server as he dies first, which always signifies in the server that things are going to go downhill very fast.

      Grian is often drawn with rainbow parrot wings; the reason for this is actually very simple. One time Grian was being annoying in the ‘Hermitcraft SMP’ and was called a “pesky bird”. That’s about it for this one.

      Another thing you may see on Grian is purple eyes and wings. This one ties back to lore and a complicated story, but to put it short, Grian is a “watcher”, hence the eyes, and the purple wings I believe just tie back to the parrot wings. Both however, people like to draw as biblically accurate angels, because why not?

      BigB will sometimes be seen drawn with dog ears and tail, or very recently, as the creaking creature in the new Minecraft update. The dog ears and tail is because he was Ren’s soulmate in ‘Double Life’; Ren’s full YouTube name is RenDog, and his skin has dog ears and a tail. BigB changed his skin to match Ren (giving him ears and a tail), which fans found adorable and ran with it.

      BigB is drawn as the creaking creature in Minecraft recently because in the new ‘Wild Life’ season, he lives in the Pale Garden (where the creaking resides), and fans thought it would be so cool to draw him as the terrifying creature.

      Doc will be drawn with goat horns and sometimes legs, basically all the time. This is because he calls himself the G.O.A.T. Usually when people call themselves the G.O.A.T. it stands for “Greatest Of All Time”, but in Doc’s case, it stands for “Grind. Optimize. Automate. Thrive”. You see, Doc loves making automated machines, grinding for materials, and doing some of the most absurd activities like bringing the Ender Dragon to the over world just to have it as a pet.

      Mumbo is sometimes drawn as a moth, this one is because of ‘Hermitcraft’ season 8. In season 8, the moon started to grow at an alarming rate, and to “calm down” the moon, Mumbo decided that he was going to never sleep. Fans then thought of Mumbo as a moth because, well, moths love their moon.

      Tango is sometimes drawn with fire for hair and a tail, and this one doesn’t really have a solid reason. Tango’s skin has slicked back blonde hair that fans just interpreted as fire since it was cool, and the tail is because Tango’s skin has red eyes and used to be drawn with horns too. They used to make him into a demon/devil type creature because of his red eyes, but then Tango said at some point “just because I have red eyes doesn’t mean I’m a demon”, so fans took away the horns and made him have a tail, making him his own species of creature.

      Impulse is drawn with horns and a tail, just like how Tango was, but for a very different reason. Skizz, Impulse’s friend of 20 years, nicknamed him “Impy”. Of course Impy is short for Impulse, but fans immediately thought of the type of demon “Imp” and made him an Imp. You can thank Skizz for this one.

      Scar is drawn with scars on his face. I think this one is self explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway— Scar is drawn with scars on his face because of his name, and because it’s easier to differentiate between him and another player (Scar’s skin looks like a normal person otherwise).

      I’ll admit, this may not be all of them, but it’s definitely the most recurring ones. Just keep in mind that if you ever see one of the members drawn with a characteristic that isn’t on their Minecraft skin, there’s always a reason for it.