Basin is BACK

This year, inspired by what a friend did last year (I gave up booze last year: it didn't last) I have gone vegan for lent.
As many of you may well know, I tried this last year, but failed, mostly because at friends houses I found myself turning down all their suggestions for feeding me, which felt bad. Now being at Uni I am not bothering my parents or freinds by my eccentric lifestyle choices.

So, day 3, and things are going well. Before I started this, I was already eating a veg heavy diet, as cheese is expensive, and I'm already a vegetarian, so the main areas in which I have had to cut out animal products are:

1) Breakfast cereals. Unwilling to spend money on soya milk (which smacks of cheating if you ask me) I have taken up a breakfast of toast, scones and massive amounts of fruit.
2) Tea. Goodbye black tea with milk, hello green tea. I'll be honet, the transition isn't too bad.
3) Baking. I have taken up using vegan cake recipies.

Things are going well so far. I feel like I could go vegan for the rest of my life*. I made a vegan chocolate cake. This was soggy (which I don't mind), but light, and tasted right.
LURPS on saturdays will no longer be fuled by chocolate bars and pies, but since I already started bringing packed lunches to save money, that's no problem.
Losing Tea and Cakes after Christian Fellowship is a major blow, yesterday I found they were using up the pancake batter leftover from shrove tuesday. Sorry Nick, I wanted those pancakes very badly.

Next update will come at an indeterminate time in the future.


*with the following exceptions: Dining out with people (I don't want to cause a fuss. If there's only a veggie option, I'll run with it), and dining at other people's houses (if it's too much trouble for them).

So, in these cold winter months, my feet are cold when I want to use my laptop.
Solution! I rest my frozen toes on the transformer when sitting at a table, and the
lost heat gentlly warms my body. Saving waste energy and making me fell like a
better person.

So, as you may know, I joined the roleplaying society at Lancaster university.

This occurred this evening, although the campaign is 3 weeks old by now.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only, well, peace actually. The Church ensures no demons, eldritch horrors, or heresy threaten humans, and life is, more or less pretty good.

Noel Gallagher has had a pretty rough time of things. He was misdirected by his scientist identical twin brother Liam to the inside of a mysterious artificial cavern, which the church destroyed, and all in it, on the grounds that it was heresy. Rather than be melted by the giant space laser, the chamber teleported the inhabitants to the middle of a desert. It seems to be going quite well, then Noel faints of heatstroke with a lion attacking. He spends the next few daze in delirium, waking to find the party in possession of a shuttle, and a teleporting chamber.

After a while, they end up on the desert planet again, 150 miles from a space elevator. Across a sea of acid. After much (much) deliberation, and low on fuel (water), the party decide to set out across the sea in their shuttle, running on acid, pumped from the sea itself by a jury rigged pump (my ideas. I was also calculating probability and science on behalf of the scientist character). I made a "Death or Glory" announcement too. Then we realised we could just fly back to the teleporter. Our pilot, however, had other ideas. Acid sea it was to be.
(sorry for shifting into the first person)
We went on, tense. The pump held, but the acid was burning through the engine despite our efforts to neutralise it, filling the ship with hydrogen. "OPEN A WINDOW!" the hydrogen ignited off the engine jets behind us, buffeting the ship. "SHUT THE WINDOW!"
We cruised on. the pump held. It was turning into the bit in Doctor Strangelove where the bomber crew are flying a heavily damaged plane. The engines cut, hacking restored them. The acid ate through the heavy water store for the fusion reactor. Over half way, but things had gone badly wrong. I decided the best thing to do was a cigarette for the nerves.

BOOM!

the moment when I said "I'm sorry, I just killed us all" was priceless. Only judicious DM'ing could save us: we crash landed on the beach with minimal damage before being teleported home. Suffice to say, I won the bonus roleplaying XP.

Two years of student life have taught me, by trial and error (mostly error) many valuable lessons about how to make stuff taste good. I thought I'd start a topic to pass my experience on to you lot who will no doubt be flying the nest soon.

1) Boil some lentils in about twice as much water and add to spaghetti Bolognase (spag bol) in place of meat. Lentils are cheap and protein filled.
2) grated carrot is great for thickening soup 'n' stuff, including lentil bol (see above)
3) Celery adds deliciousness to dishes, even if you can't taste it
4) cover boiling pans so they cook quicker. You may need to turn down the heat so the pot doesn't boil over (or use less water)
5) Meat and cheese are $%&&$£^$&£^%^&&%&^"&^£%$&^%ing expensive, use veg whenever possible.

STOP PRESS!!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-15017484


I was so shocked I had to run around the room a bit. If this is true it turns reality on its head. Gosh.