The Musings Of The Consensus

 I would like to dedicate my latest cheese-tasting blog to my sister, who was gracious enough to see about procuring the cheese I tested for this review from her local cheesemonger and sending some my way. This is not going to be an overly long post, as I only tasted two new varieties, but both are fairly unique and deserve some discussion. The first cheese I tasted was Westminister Rustic Red Cheddar. Red cheddar is a bit interesting in that its creation was the result of a happy accident. Specifically, it was originally created by the accidental mixture of Lactobacillus helveticus starter culture into what was meant to be a cheddar cheese. This starter culture is commonly used in Swiss and Emmental-style cheese, so the original cheesemaker was worried it would taste terrible. To their pleasant surprise, the final product tasted great. As the name suggests, it's distinctly dark orange-red in color. The texture is similar to cheddar but more crumbly like an Italian hard cheese. The

 This is just a retrospective post on what I vowed to myself when I decided to become a regular games reviewer (and this applies to all other relevant media). This is NOT anything with official backing or sanction from my current employers at ChristCenteredGamer, this is just my personal code of honor, though to my knowledge none of it is in conflict with the expectations of my current employer. 1. The subject I'm reviewing must be the primary topic, and nothing else. These days, some of my more politically and socially partisan brethren in the games journalism business will typically derail a review about a game to complain about not enough people of some sort of minority group, how capitalism is evil incarnate, sexual identity and gender politics, and other things that are clearly more interesting to them. The game review part is practically a sidebar to what they actually want to talk about. Not me. I work as a volunteer, but even if I were paid, my first duty is to primarily di

 I have been a longtime Bethesda game fan. Their Elder Scrolls and Fallout games haven't been the greatest, and often are deeply flawed, but each had its own unique charm that Starfield lacked, which is the core of why I just could not enjoy it, so let's do a retrospective. Be advised, will contain spoilers. Arena was the first Elder Scrolls, and I'll admit, never really got into it. It was clearly a game that was more a tech demo experiment repurposed from a completely different game concept (it was to be generic arena fighter before it became an open-world RPG prototype), and it had some really cool ideas married to horrible balance, a game engine that was clunky even when it first released for DOS, and wasn't even a true open world game, the open world being more a series of looping randomized maps with some unique dungeons. That said, even then it had a few good ideas I hope to see fleshed out in a better game. Daggerfall was my first RPG love. Sure, it was even MOR

 Today, I had to make the incredibly painful but necessary decision to cease, now and in the future, having anything to do with contributing to the website Nexus Mods. I have broken no rules there, I had no posted any comment in any fora there that was the slightest bit mean, cruel, inflammatory, or hateful. In fact, I made a point to avoid causing trouble there. Unfortunately, it seems certain people from there (whose names and identities I will not reveal out of respect for them) found my blog here, and took severe umbrage to a certain blog post I made and my comments, particularly my opinions on transgenderism and being nonbinary. This, to be exact: https://gethn7.blogspot.com/2021/06/i-was-recently-globally-banned-from.html The party in question contacted me via private message about their offense to what I wrote OFF the Nexus and revealed they considered it a personal attack (it was never intended as such, that was their choice). I told them yes, I wrote it, and would not recant m

 These days, if anyone asks what political affiliation I am, I generally reply "The popcorn affiliation". I of course have actual political stances, but I find it less stressful to get into political arguments than I do to munch popcorn as other people get flustered over the same, the drama is rather amusing. On a serious note, however, a recent discussion I was in about monarchy and its being bound to the same law it enforces had me thinking hard about my ideal political leader. The 'Code of Hammurabi" the oldest known legal code, has this in its lede as to why Hammurabi considered it his duty to make sure there was a legal code; When Anu the sublime, the King of the Annunaki and Bêl, the lord of heaven and earth, who fixed the destiny of the country, had committed the whole of mankind to Marduk, the son of Ea, the god of right, when they made him great among the Egigi, had pronounced the sublime name of Babylon, made it great upon earth, had established in it an et

     To continue a trend from my last review, I went again for young, low-sodium (or at least far less sodium than my usual choices) and my mother and grandmother taste-tested some lemon ricotta, fresh cheddar cheese curds, and some young Parmigiano-Reggiano. Ricotta is an Italian classic dating back to the Bronze Age and a long staple of their cuisine. It comes from the word meaning "recooked", as it goes through at least two preparation phases that result in cooked, slightly sweet curd. It is also made from buffalo's milk as opposed to cow. We got some lemon-flavored Ricotta in a small puck (even resembling a rather large hockey puck), and it was a massive hit. We all found it was rather like cheesecake, and we unanimously considered it an ideal breakfast, dessert, or snack cheese. Bit expensive in large quantities, but it is rather low sodium and very sweet, hardly tastes like cheese at all, though the texture is unmistakably that of a cheese, albeit a very soft and ap