Cooking

 

My mom taught me cooking, of course.

But I really started cooking for myself after moving out. For the first 2 years, I was preparing dishes that I remembered from my original home, such as spaghetti, chili con carne, Dutch stamp potten and nasi goreng.

I really started experimenting and exploring once I discovered the Korean cuisine, which I wanted to do for years, ever since I took an expanded Arabic cooking session with my step sister. And now that wish has come true.

So far, I have, with success, prepared the following recipes; Dolsot Bibimbap, Tteodokki and Japchae, while serving Kimchi, dumplings and vegetables as side dishes.2 of those main dishes were tolerable for me, but one of them was way to spicy for me ;P

Guiding me in this fun process and I suppose hobby of gathering the right ingredients, preparing the kitchen and cooking in the right orders and timing, I used the internet, Pinterest and certain YouTube channels such as Gordon Ramsay and Maangchi, which I recently found to deliver the right quality.

Looking for feedback, almost all of my friends and families visiting my current home are invited to join my dinner, either with traditional dishes known in The Netherlands, or foreign ones like the ones I described earlier.

So far, the feedback has been positive, save for my father who is very traditional and picky with trying out new stuff hehe. In any case, by trying out new recipes using not only the local supermarkets, but the local toko's too, my experience has leveled up.

Ironically, I think that my contributions towards brewing cocktails in the past for my birthday parties, as well as my food & beverage background as several jobs, naturally led me to become an amateur cooking chef back home.

In overall, cooking is fun, especially if you can manage and prepare well. At a certain point, you will feel and know when components during cooking will be ready, but at the same time, you will keep learning, as there are countless amounts of possibilities to try out!

Star Trek: TOS and TNG

I finally saw this ground-breaking piece of medium.

Star Trek has inspired numerous sources and pop culture itself by showing us futuristic concepts and themes, of which some of it has become reality, such as using smart devices to video call people.

The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise goes on many voyages and journeys together while discovering more about the universe. Most of the episodes were above average, some were exceptional, and some were utterly weird.

Captain Kirk and Mr.Spock lead the star ship and the stories encountered into intriguing ways, and the series is just iconic. Although it shows it’s age, I still admire it for various reasons.

Rating: 7.5

Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's five-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers set off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on their own mission to go where no one has gone before.

Bigger, better and more technological advanced, The Next Generation is a much more ambitious and fun ride to endeavor than the original series, and this cast has astonishing characters, with Picard, Data and Geordi being my favourites.

The various alien races such as the Klingons and Romulans return, but more are introduced, including the Ferengi, the Cardassians and the Borg. Some episodes are throwback to the 60’s, others are goofy, most are watchable and others are exceptional and memorable, especially the time related ones.

The screenplay and acting are the meat, as the science and technology fiction have deepened, which makes it compelling. Star Trek: The Next Generation was long overdue for me personally, and I suppose I am officially a Trekkie now.

Rating: 8.5

Wario Ware Gold

Intelligent Systems puts out a best of Wario Wario entry, alongside new micro games, while not really introducing a new feature, but to be fair, it has always brought something new to the table previously.

Twisting, touching, motion control, blowing, Do It Yourself, multiplayer and of course d-pad and buttons, the franchise has been going far with the mechanics and the controls. The older micro games have been polished and are welcome to see.

Of course, the all stars cast of Wario's friends return, including Mona, Orbulon, 9-Volt and my favorite one Dr.Crygor, although I miss his theme from the first game here. The categories this time include Fantasy, Sports, Anything Goes, Nintendo and That's Life.

Not as much categories as before such as Weird or Sci-Fi, but I am content with the quantity, over 300 micro games are available and for the first time in the series, there are cut-scenes with voice acting involved, so it was nice to hear Charles Martinet in here.

Wario Ware Gold is a very enjoyable edition and it's suitable for beginners and fans alike! I still really like this pick up and play concept.

Rating: 8.5

Marvel's Netflix TV Series

Or is it Netflix's Marvel TV Series?
 
As I previously said, TV Series have captured my leisure time for the time being. This includes all of the Marvel series on Netflix, which also all have been cancelled by 2019, for a number of reasons I can imagine, including profit, reputation, and Disney+.

Let's get on with the reviews! I watched all of it chronologically, except for 2 seasons which I will point out.

A blind lawyer by day, vigilante by night. Matt Murdock fights the crime of New York as Daredevil.
Daredevil is an incredible impressive TV series with consistent character development and story build-up. Matt as a blind martial artist is a highlight during the choreography, but Wilson Fisk/Kingpin played by Vincent D’Onofrio is the other highlight, as he plays intimidation physically equally as being intellectually inspiring.

The screenplay is stimulating, the direction is very good, and the setting of New York City, or Hell’s Kitchen, is well depicted.

Season 2:

Matt, Foggy and Karen return towards assisting and guiding the clients of normal to more abnormal cases, until a very violent vigilante named The Punsisher, starts punishing those believed to be connected towards murdering his family.
 
After a few episodes, that action arc is concluded, but after that, a shadowy femme fatale from Murdock’s past resurges, and together with his Shifu named Stick, they warn about the impeding danger of The Hand and his army, while the trials and tribulations of The Punisher’s crimes simultaneously escalate verbal and motion action. Daredevil Season 2 is a tremendous follow up.

Season 3:

As Matt mourns, regrets and struggles with self pity, pain and remorse, his spiralled life returns back to his alter ego once Fisk orchestrates and manipulates corrupt authorities Hell’s Kitchen, and he sends Bullseye after Daredevil, who imitates him. A more darker season, and if this is the end, that would be a shame.

Overall rating: 8.0

When a sabotaged experiment gives him super strength and unbreakable skin, Luke Cage becomes a fugitive attempting to rebuild his life in Harlem and must soon confront his past and fight a battle for the heart of his city. Luke Cage is another Marvel TV Series adaptation combining the streets of Harlem with his impenetrable ability, while working with his women sidekicks together to unfold the criminals looming and plotting.

Season 2:

After becoming the Hero of Harlem, Luke Cage gathers a fan base and develops stable relationships with brothers and sisters, but the search for exploiting Mariah and Shades continues, and a new menace named Bushmaster, a Jamaican with ambition, threatens Harlem. Season 2 is just as good if not better, and it also fits as a good closure after being cancelled.

Overall rating: 7.0 

A young man is bestowed with incredible martial arts skills and a mystical force known as the Iron Fist. The weakest of the Marvel TV series seen so far, Iron Fist is your typical kung fu based martial arts with a few special effects.

Season 2:

Wow, I don’t know how this happened, but somehow, I saw Iron First Season 2 on Netflix first instead of Season 1 o_O, that also explains why I got chronologically confused about Misty’s right prostatic arm appearing and re-appearing at The Defenders, Iron Fist S2 and Luke Cage S2. Anyhow, Iron Fist Season 1 is also average.

Overall rating: 6.0
 

After the murder of his family, Marine veteran Frank Castle becomes the vigilante known as "The Punisher," with only one goal in mind: to avenge them. The first Marvel based TV series I decided to watch, The Punisher starring Jon Bernthal is a solid underground revenge story based on the comics.

Season 2 

After his crusade and merciful last act, Frank Castle is driving aimlessly around the states of the country, until he stumbles onto a new violent situation inside a bar after having a ONS there previously, triggering a conflict with Russians and a religious community, and the past also comes back to haunt. Billy Russo survives, recovers and regroups in order to take down the Punisher, while the antihero in question has to take care of a teenager involved. Season’s 2 action is spot on, as is the acting, but the plot could had been more interesting.

Overall rating: 6.5 

Following the tragic end of her brief superhero career, Jessica Jones tries to rebuild her life as a private investigator, dealing with cases involving people with remarkable abilities in New York City. A film noir with comic book elements, Jessica Jones is a likable, grungy yet determined protagonist, and an antagonist with an intimidating mind control ability kept things tense and sometimes disturbing.

Season 2:

The origins of Jessica’s abnormal state are detailed here, while her friends Trish and Malcolm get more hooked, and she has more “meaningless sex”. Season 2 sees her reunion with her brain damaged mother, while Kilgrave occasionally haunts her mind. Not as much private investigation.

Season 3:

After her mother passes away, Jessica Jones struggles with loss and with coping towards her only friends Malcolm and Trish. The latter becomes a vigilante on her own, while a new serial killer looms New York City, and she eventually becomes too dangerous for Jessica and the authorities to handle. Season 3 is modest at best. And with this done, I have now seen all of Netflix’s (cancelled) Marvel series.

Overall rating: 6.5

I chronologically watched the seasons of the 4 involved vigilantes before watching this. Set a few months after the events of the second season of Daredevil, and a month after the events of Iron Fist, the vigilantes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist team up in New York City to fight a common enemy: The Hand. Exciting choreography, corny quarrelling with super heroes and interconnected arcs makes The Defenders worth seeing.

Rating: 7.0

Video Game Fatigue

I have been taking a break from this hobby.

It might have been 2.5 months since the last time I played a video game seriously on my own. The game that caused me to temporarily stop was Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the Nintendo Switch. I really wanted to get through it, but it's pacing was definitely not as stunning as part 1 on the Nintendo Wii.

J/WRPG's with grind elements are more likely to be less likable for me the older I get. Additionally, there isn't much on the horizon for me to get excited about for 2019, with the exception of Death Stranding becoming something impactful.

Thirdly, life just has been busy in general. My job consumes a lot, as do the regular chores, the social network, studies, country trips and being less energetic in general. It's not just video game fatigue, but I am highlighting it considering that it has happened.

It might be a buzzword, but it basically means that it's good to take a break once in a while if it gets too much. In the mean time, movies and TV-series are filling up my leisure time while I multi task it with daily activities.

I'm sure that once I return and start over with a few new games, that my passion and enjoyment will be, as well, which will also provide freshly newly written reviews for Flok Factory. After all, a factory without production is like a game without a gamer.

Current Career

I barely talked about career progress and my various jobs at Flok Factory before, until now.

After finishing my IT management degree back in mid 2008, I had a side job at McDonalds before finding my first IT job as a field engineer in early 2009 for the next six months. After that, I took a detour into electronics and solar energy as a quality control worker.

After those 3 jobs, I struggled finding a new job as a starter, because all of the companies I approached were asking for too much conditions. Then in the 2nd quarter of 2011, for the next 3 years, I would be working at my final food & beverage related spot which hosts various events for various companies. I worked hard there as a catering crew member.

After mid 2014, I almost searched for 6 months, but in early 2015 I finally returned and got my second chance at the IT sector with Unisys. Doing work at a service desk, there was a period back in 2011 that I thought that this was not the kind of work for me, but after a few weeks of training, I got used to it.

Because of a re-organization happening, my next job in the 3rd quarter of 2015 was at another service desk in Utrecht, but it also had onsite support at it's mayor client. This time, management thought that I wasn't up for the job after 3 months, but I think that more time was needed.

In late 2015, I would be working for Capgemini and it's sister company Sogeti for the next 2 years as local support. There was plenty of stuff to fix and do at this job, but I liked the personal contact with customers, I had most of the time fun with my colleagues(which goes for all of my previous jobs too), and I felt for the first time that I was going somewhere with my career and my CV.

However, the IT company that sent me to Capgemini in the first place, gave me fake promises in the end on October 2017, including a permanent contract, workshops, a promotion and more. I felt devastated by this, but after searching like hell in just 2 weeks, I found my latest employer in December 2017 named NEH Group, or Network Expertise Holland.

It was once again a position at a service desk, but it happened to be the most expanded and involved one I have been with so far. Supporting over 50 different client at once, managing over hundreds of servers and working with partners for 500 different kinds of software applications, I had more responsibility than ever.

It also meant I had to deal with more agreements and exceptions and knowledge than with any of my previous jobs. Not only giving support for incidents and requests, but also doing training and meetings regularly, as well as research and knowledge management, this has been the best job to get involved with for IT for me so far.

Working with the latest of Microsoft's technologies and systems including Server 2016, Intune, Office 365 and Azure, alongside virtualization, ticket management, remote tooling, monitoring, administration and basically delving into the deep with various situations, this is a challenging and stimulating job for me.

I got a little promotion this year and now I was able to research more complex incidents. Considering that NEH's customers work with various shells of policies including Windows, Citrix and Ivanti, as well as getting sessions hosted and devices remotely managed, while having WLAN, LAN and VPN environments, you have a lot of factors to weigh and consider.

And when circumstances such as synchronization between various applications and cloud environments happen badly, or when performance issues are suddenly happening, or when network or power outages happen, it's sometimes difficult to find the root cause and satisfy the clients, but luckily, I have a good team I work with, and other departments are willing to help too.

So my current career, development and job are going in a good direction. Since 2016, I have obtained and achieved several certificates, including ITIL, Windows 7, PRINCE2, Windows 10 and Office 365.

I almost have a modal income too, which would make me quite proud too considering that I studied only on an average term, although that I tried my best, and I also achieved a diploma into Business Administration Management back in 2014 too.

I'm quite relevant for IT now, and I get opportunities at LinkedIn on a weekly basis, but I am also trying to get up the ladder and get even more responsibility, experience and knowledge. My current employer is content with me, and I have had a good run so far.

As for the future, I'm thinking about becoming a cloud engineer or manager who mainly works with cloud environments such as Microsoft Azure, or Amazon and Google's alternatives. Some of my colleagues and friends have also advised me to get into other IT fields such as Linux, virtual containers and security, but it's tough to specialize in all of that. Most recently, I took a course into PowerShell 5.0, a powerful language tool.

This IT industry is big, man. And most interestingly, it is a dynamically changing and highly competitive one too, accelerating at high amounts too. There was a time that I hated that my personal printer at home wasn't working, but now I have made it my living to analyze, fix and improve IT situations.