Links and Stuff

It’s time for another little collection of life’s ephemera. This week, I face the Tower of the Gods and the Forsaken Fortress, make vast quantities of English pancakes, and take a minute to consider an important moment in American politics.

Legend of Zelda Update

Cold weather this past weekend encouraged me to spend a little more time with our green-tunicked hero. With the ever-present and much-needed guidance of SecondBorn, I navigated my way into and through the Tower of the Gods. This “dungeon” required some thinking, and careful shooting with arrows. Zelda games like to give you a weapon at the start of a dungeon, and then expect you to use it copeously in that dungeon, especially in that dungeon’s final Boss battle. In the Tower of the Gods, I received a bow and arrow. With that I was supposed to shoot targets, sometimes while on moving platforms, and then at the end, face the Guardian of the Tower, Gohdan. In theory, he was an easy Boss to fight (I’ve faced worse), but you have to be quick with your arrows, and I’m not always that zippy (“Dad, why are you so SLOWWWWWW??!”). I managed to make it out alive. Then SecondBorn had me fight a whirlwind (using arrows, of course), and then on to the Forsaken Fortress. Here I fought a phantom Ganon (Ganon is the Big Main Boss–I’ll have to defeat the real one at the end to finish the game). This involved playing a deadly game of tennis with him. He shoots a ball of blue light at me, and I have to hit it back to him with my sword. I played something like this near the end of another Zelda game (“Twilight Princess” I think), and it was a challenge then. This time wasn’t too bad (at least phantom Ganon wasn’t destroying the floor around me in between rounds), and I managed to best him. For my efforts, I was given a Skull Hammer–a big hammer that can be used for smashing large objects. As you might expect, I needed this to remove obstacles on my way up the fortress to face the Helmaroc King, a giant bird that wants to peck me to death. The Helmaroc King wears protective armor on his beak, which can be broken using… you guessed it, the Skull Hammer!

I defeated the Helmaroc King, but my Master Sword needs some kind of funky magic before I can dispose of Real Ganon. The next quest is… actually, I’m not sure. SecondBorn says I have two more dungeons/temples to complete before I can take on Real Ganon. I guess I’ll find out next time!

Other Stuff

Last Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday–Pancake Day! I’ve written about Pancake Day and English pancakes before. To sum up, English pancakes are flat, more like a crêpe, only a bit thicker. English Pancakes are also one of a handful of things I fix that others don’t mind eating. In fact, my family loves them. The recipe is very simple (2 eggs, one cup of flour, 1 and 1/4 cups of milk–makes about 8 pancakes, depending on the size of your pan), and I quadrupled it for the number of people eating (we had a couple of guests with us). I don’t know exactly how many pancakes I ended up making; certainly more than 20. It’s labor intensive whisking all the ingredients, then standing over the stove making sure the pancakes don’t over-cook, but the rewards are quite full-filling. Har Har. Dad humor. 🙂

Here’s a picture of one I made:

You can’t tell, but it has Nutella inside. The traditional filling is sugar and lemon juice, but you can use strawberry jam, honey, butter, or anything else you might want to try.

This past weekend, Chief Justice Antonin Scalia passed away at age 79. Any death is sad for those close to the deceased, but this particular passing is of great significance to the U.S., especially in an election year. In the United States, we have three branches of government: The Executive (the President and his/her cabinet), The Legislative (Congress), and the Judicial (the Supreme Court). These three branches form a system of “checks and balances,” designed to ensure that no-one is able to take power and rule without the consent of the people, or push legislation through without proper scrutiny and debate. The President’s legislative bills must be approved by Congress, and legislation can be challenged, and determined “Constitutional” or “Unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court. This court, the highest in the land, is made up of nine justices, who serve for life (or until they decide to retire). They are not elected officials, but are appointed by the President, and approved by Congress. While the Supreme Court judges cases based on the Constitution, each justice is not without liberal/conservative bias, which affects the way they interpret the Constitution. Left-leaning Presidents usually appoint left-leaning Judges, right-leaning Presidents favor right-leaning Judges. Up until this weekend, the Supreme Court was tilted slightly to the right. I think it’s fair to say that Justice Scalia was the leader, and most outspoken of the right-leaners.

Hopefully, now, you see why Justice Scalia’s death has major implications for the country this election year. President Obama will want to hurry to fill that appointment. But will Congress share his urgency? We’ll have a new President come November, and there’s a Republican (right-leaning) majority in Congress that might want to drag its heels in the event the country elects a Republican President. I don’t know that our system can tolerate waiting that long to fill the post. But President Obama will have to think carefully and strategically with regard to the next appointment. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how this plays out.

That’s all for this week! 🙂