Sorry About Not Blogging that Often!

 I want to let every one know why I haven't been blogging that much is becuse I didnt have a way to start blogging until now. Because I couldn't make the blog posts look right. So I waited until I got a new lap top now I hope to be able to blog more often.

Sorry About Not blogging that often!

Goodbye 2020 Hello 2021

 Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!

AS NEW YEARS celebrations are well underway across the world, with some countries already entering the New Year. I am here in Shreveport Louisiana celebrating New Years Eve!

It has been a very wired year for me, I want to thank God for bringing me through the Covid-19 Virus, because with out his grace I could have died twice. I took Covid-19 Twice, I survived it and beat it with Gods Help and quarantine in a RV camper in  Chicot State Park. 

Most of my public updates can be found on Facebook here Adventures of Captain Hedges Across Time and Space Public Facebook Page. 

I will be updating a Year in Review here as well. 

Highlight's

I spent a lot of time at the salvation army shelter as well this past year. 

I got a new I-Pad for Early November as this was to be an early birthday and christmas gift to me. 

More to come laters!

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year this Year! 

I made beef brisket today!

In one of my many lives I learned to cook one of my favorite things to make is beef brisket!

Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket is so tender and juicy, with a sweet & smokey hickory barbecue sauce, that no one will care that the meat wasn’t cooked by yours truly!

When I was growing up, my family usually had this easy, oven roasted BBQ Beef Brisket for dinner, during the winter months.  This brisket is another one of my grandmas recipe book that I copied and collected when we were living in Flagstaff  in the early 80’s. My Grandparents were living in Cottenwood at the time. I have made this for years now and it is always one of my most requested recipes, so I knew it was one I needed to share on this blog.

So why did I decide to make it today? Probably because I realize it’s the first of October and a round this time of year I start to get depressed because I  miss my family. Also I think it’s because I all of sudden got hungry for some beef brisket. I am staying at Tony’s Padigemas House and I wanted to treat him to some good beef briscut as he said he never had it before.

Here is the thing about brisket, if you have never cooked one before:  it needs to be cooked slowly, at a very low temperature for many hours in order to dissolve the tough connective tissues of the meat.  Do that and the meat will be so tender that is should practically fall apart when you cut it.  The general rule is that you need to cook your brisket for 1 hour for every pound of meat, although with this recipe I always give it an extra 30 minutes to an hour after adding the backed beans-barbecue sauce so that the sauce can heat up and combine with some of the juices coming off the meat.  So if you are cooking a 3-1/2 pound brisket (like the one in these photos), you need to plan on 3-1/2 hours of cooking time for the brisket plus a little extra time at the end for heating up the baked beans.  But it works just as well with a 12-pound brisket that would take 12 hours to cook.

I have enjoyed this incredibly succulent brisket every year since I learned to make and it has become a go-to recipe when planning food for a crowd.  My mom use to serve this easy BBQ beef brisket at countless family gatherings, large and small over the years, and I have come to rely on it just as much when cooking for the holidays.

It’s a great Sunday dinner, especially when you have company, or you can make it for a summer BBQ, no grill or smoker required and no one will be the wiser!  The meat comes out smoky and tender and sweet thanks to the hickory and brown sugar barbecue sauce and a long, low and slow roasting time.  And if you have a large electric roaster or a big enough crock pot and small enough brisket, you could totally cook it in there as well. I just prefer to do a Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket in the oven.

My favorite side with BBQ beef brisket is Bushes Backed Beans although I also really love serving it with twice baked potatoes or a cheesy potato casserole that I have plans to post on the blog at some point in the future. You could serve it with Biscuits, coleslaw, cornbread, baked potatoes, cold macaroni salad or any other Southern sides you like, Macedonia and cheese.

Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket

Prep Time

10-15 mins

Cook Time

3-1/2 hrs

Total Time

4 hrs 10 mins

 

Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket is so tender and juicy, with a sweet & smokey hickory barbecue sauce, that no one will care that the meat wasn't cooked by a Texas pitmaster!

Course: Dinner, Main Course

Cuisine: American from Arizona

Servings: 6 people

Calories: 867 kcal

Author: Earl C. Hedges Jr, originally thought to me by my grandmother Kay Hedges.

Ingredients

Brisket

• 3-12 pounds of brisket
• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons of Garlic Salt
• 2 tablespoons celery salt
• 1 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoons onion powder
• 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for every pound of beef brisket.

Sauce

• 20 ounces hickory-flavored barbecue sauce (In this recipe I used the following)

Instructions 

1. The night before you plan to cook and serve the brisket, combine the salt, celery salt, garlic powder, onion powder and brown sugar in a small bowl and set aside. Place the brisket in a large roasting pan and trim the fat if it is super thick, but leave at least a 1/4" layer on the bottom. Moisten the brisket with the Worcestershire sauce, then sprinkle the top and bottom of the brisket with half of the mixed seasonings, reserving the other half. Cover tightly with foil and place in the refrigerator overnight.
2. The next day, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then turn it down to 325 degrees. Remove the brisket from the fridge and uncover. Sprinkle it with the remaining seasonings, then cover it with foil again and place it in the oven to roast for 3-1/2 hours for this particular time around Sense the brisket was 3-1/2 pounds (you need to cook brisket approximately 1 hour per pound of meat). 
3. Remove the brisket from the oven and remove the aluminum foil. Pour off the fat. In a medium bowl, stir together the brown sugar and barbecue sauce, then pour it over the brisket. Increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees, add in Bushes Backed Beans then return the brisket to the oven, uncovered, and roast an additional 30 minutes to an hour, or until the sauce is hot and the meat is tender. Slice or chop and serve. 
4. Recipe notes: You can use whatever barbecue sauce you like, but I think a hickory flavored sauce adds a smokiness to this dish that you don't get from just the oven.
5. What if you want this to be a more New Mexican-Texas spicy style? Well the you add to your dry mix 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons of dry mustard, 1 tablespoon of paprika. Really is a simple fix! Don’t for get the secret ingredient 3 Table spoons of Jim Beams Whiskey. Rember Before last hour of cooking, remove brisket and add step 3 above. Then Return the pan and add barbecue sauce mixed. Cover meat with the sauce from step 3. Then cover, and cook for 1 hour longer.

I I hope you enjoy this recipe..... yep to answer your question was it tasty? It certainly did come out quite tasty I will take more pictures of people eating this conconction of mine. As well as my self later tonight and post them here.  Yours for Now Captain Hedges.

Starguild: Space Opera Noir my review and after thoughts

This is probly long over due concisering the Kickstarter was February of  2016 to raise funds to publish the game on Kickstarter. This blog post was started February 13th 2016, and never published until now Thursday September 16th 2021. 

 

Starguild Space Opera Noir found Here on Kickstarter.

So why after so long a period are you writing about this game now? Well mainly because it has become my quick to go to space game with my New Adventures of Captain Hedges Across Time and Space.  I am Mentioned in this game as a backer under backers section located on pg 238 under the Daring Smuggler, is listed as Captain Earl C. Hedges Jr. Why did I Kickstart this game? The Answer is for a couple of reasons one is Alex White is a friend and I wanted to support him and his game; the other is I was looking for a simple space RPG that I could make into my togo game for The Adventures of Captain Hedges Across Time and Space. His persona in this alternate reality is not to far fetched, we find out he is a very talented, never been caught smuggler with a fast ship beneath his feet, a member of The Martial Military, as a Star ship Officer. However, his  down fall seems to be the Femme Fatale/Gigolo NPC as he is always taken in by a Pretty Face and a long sad story. Another reason could be I am in need of running a new type of game at MaricopaCon 2018 this year, and looking at this as my to go game for that convention.

As I am writing this new blog post I am listening to Space Journey Music Mix two hours of Instrumental space opera noir music found here on you tube.

Before I get into the theme presented in this game, two admissions.

Firstly, I’m a relative newby to this RPG, although I have it in my RPG Cooleection have only ran it twice in 2016.

Secondly, I’m partial to a nice bit of space opera. I’ve always loved Red Dwarf and Hitchhiker’s Guide yo the galaxy. However, I am and Will always be a Trekkie. Really? Well recently I have defected to the Darkside and reluctantly overtime Disney+ and a new gaming group here in Shreveport Louisiana have got me writing a new version of my old d6 Star Wars game from the nineties. I have yet to pull out this game on them. Although I have been for more my lifetime a loving fan of Star Trek, and Space Marines than that of Dragons, Dungeons, and the like monstrous brings their in.  I’ll always pick up a book about plucky intergalactic ruffians, but am unlikely to wade all the way through Lord of the Rings again! I know your all haha at this one because you know I have been known to run a MERP, LoTR game. Thus, Starguild is already pretty much up my alley especially when it comes to space adventures for Captain Hedges Across Time and Space.

What’s it all about?

Starguild is an tabletop RPG – a role play game. To those of you unfamiliar with the concept, RPGs are games where you meet with friends, create characters and play through stories that are derived mostly from your imagination.

An RPG consists of two basic components: the setting, and the rules.

The setting is the context in which you play the game, which I think is a cool concept.. A Star Wars RPG is based in a galaxy far, far away, a Hobbits RPG is based in Middle Earth, an RPG about being a doctor seeing patients is based in a hospital, a Star Trek RPG is to boldly go etc.

The rules are the framework that help you to play the game. Some have very intense, detailed rules for every tiny possible occurrence, others give the merest hint of a structure, allowing you to mould the gaming system to flow and adapt to whatever you feel it needs.

In the last week I have read all 238 pages of the prerelease copy that Alex, the creator, kindly sent my way, with the gateway to adventures. I have As well downloaded and now reading the finalized 248 pg pdf copy from Alex in which he delivered to drive thro rpg dot com. The galaxy is presented in Starguild is one of opportunity, inequality, and flexibility.

There is an overarching storyline of human existence in Omega Centauris, with a very readable backstory – the 10 pages of Campaign history are perfect for bringing the galaxy to light, and pretty great prose in their own right.

What I love is how they aren’t prescriptive at all – you could literally set anything in this game: multi-ship, high-tech space battles; highly social political wrestling, emotions on tenderhooks; even a fantasy style rags-to-riches story on one of the less developed worlds.

There’s a detailed explanation of tens of planets, providing you with plenty of room to set your story literally anywhere you fancy, and loads of features in the rules that allow your characters to be shaped by their environment. For example:

 Planet Martell: The militaristic world of Martell dominates its neighbours in the Independents quadrant, and takes an aggressive political posture both externally and internally. Acutely aware that traffic from the capital has to travel via the hazardous Coltech nebula in order to reach the other worlds in the Union, Martell has established strong garrison forces on each of its worlds. This has led to an increasing degree of internal unrest. Union repre- sentatives have a reputation for being aggressive and confrontational.

Planet Erith: The Lord here runs a semi-feudal style of government. There are strictly defined lines of communication and citizens are expected to show loyalty to their immediate overlords and through them up to the Lord. Technically anyone can be called upon to do any service, although this is used sparingly except in times of emergency.

Planet Canopy: This world has a vast agricultural resource in the form of its seem- ingly limitless forests. The trees are huge, over 200m high and very broad. Most of the colonists live well up in the trees, traveling by simple cable cars and small balloons. The capital city of Haig is renowned for its intricate hedge maze of shrubbery which winds from the sunlit treetops where lovers meet for romantic trysts and into mid level parkland. But few consider that it also extends to the dark shadows of the undergrowth where eco terrorists meet and plot, and parents scare their children with tales of plant-men who spirit away citizens to secret vats.

Alongside these patches of flavour text are nearly 100 “adventure seeds” – ideas to help you kick start a new plot twist or campaign. Here’s a sample from Canopy 

Adventure Seeds

• Eco-terrorists bomb the starport concourse, causing it to be sealed for several weeks for repairs. Their real target was the cap- ture of a biologist whose virus samples could be used for a wider ranging biological attack against the civilian population.

• An experimental giant logging vehicle designed by MERCAL has gone out of control and is heading straight for a tree town. If nobody can stop it, hundreds will die!

• One of the eco terrorist groups could be traced back to a remote valley where the people have somehow merged with plants. Bark-like skin is the least of it. They have inhuman vitality and an implacable hatred of people. It turns out that they had entered an old imperial research station which was working on a hybrid project, and accidentally opened some vats... They now capture people and subject them to the vats to build their numbers.

The cool thang about the Martial Union is I got to influence the faction and name the capital city on Canopy, and name a feature the city was famous for so I did. I named it Haig and added my famous hedge-mazes. I meant to write a source book on this subject but never finished it. (Just a foot note about what happens in real life just got in my way and my computer crashed with the file and then when I retrieved it it was courrpted so I will need to rewrite it again).

Overall, the flavour I get from Starguild is a universe I’m always keen to visit. I think there’s plenty of hand-holding, if you want it – just use one of the detailed, multi-scene sample adventure to get you started.  Yet, for those of us keen to run before we can walk, there’s enough ammunition to let you start imagining a story with a very helpful backdrop to orientate yourself, hence The Adevtures 9of Captain Hedges Across Time and Space.

How does it play…

Simple answer: It plays like a fast paced Sci Fi game, which can get bogged down by players, wanting to do stuff, most of the adventures can be played in a two to four hour block. Some times longer if the pcs go off script. I have run it twice and I like it a lot. Although some of my players have had a few characters in this campagin few have ever played them twice. 

Starguild is based on the d20 Open Game license that Wizards of the Coast released back in 2000. So, if you’ve played Dungeons & Dragons, or many similar games, you’ll have at least a foothold into the basic structure of play.

What appeals to me is the adaptation of the engine to fit the theme. From the kickstarter page:

“The game treats social conflict – the ability to alter someones emotions and thinking – just as importantly as the more traditional kinds of conflict of fist and gun.”

This appeals to me. I’ve enjoyed playing D&D but I find the battles a bit unfulfilling.

• In a fight in D&D, two characters fight over about 50 turns, with magic spells, and special moves. They have a number of hit points, and slowly wear down the other player’s hitpoints until someone dies.
• In real life, when two people fight, they each have a knife, it lasts about 2 minutes, and someone gets rather injured.
• In Starguild Space Opera Noir just a few rounds for combat.

I’m sure you could try to play Spaceguild the D&D way, but it seems much more focused on the social dramatics, and the intensity of choice in high pressure situations. That rather appeals. I know I’m roleplaying as a fictional personal, in a made-up situation, in a fake galaxy, in my imagination – but I want to feel like disturbing a guard and getting shot is as weighty as it would be in real life.

As a new game-master to this system, it’s setting, and the various sections on guilds, weapons, vehicles, etc… all seem well put together, but I don’t think I’ll have a real handle on it until I put another game together. I definitely feel these rules explain the system enough that I wouldn’t have any big problems running a game. Well that’s what I thought until I actually ran a free for, game of a written adventure, someone pointed out I should have made Pregens. So sense them I have had a set of Pregens to choose from but if players want to make Thier own characters I allow it. There is also an excellent set of reference table appendices and a comprehensive index – too often lacking in rule books.

From giving it a re-read, and comments from others on Alex White’s Website, which I do read from time to time and use when prepping my games. It seems like the addition of “Conviction” is an interesting feature, where you gain conviction points for doing actions that fit with your character’s personality. For example:

Captain Hedges (a new notable character) 

“Vargon, (a noteably strong character) nonchalantly crushes cans in one hand, whilst waiting for the action to start”.

You keep tokens to represent your conviction in front of you as a visual reminder, and you can spend it to help you out, such as adding a D6 to the score of a D20 role. I feel like conviction could be gamed quite easily – “Vargon quickly crushes 4 cans, gaining 4 points” – but if you use it in the spirit of the game, it rewards you for roleplaying, and even the advantages it gives can be RPed to cohese the theme even better…

Vargon tries to kick the door down. The DC is 20, and he rolls 12. This, plus his physique (1) + his characteristic of being “burly” (+2) = 15. He spends a conviction point, bunching up his huge arms to increase his effort to the extreme, and rolls a D6, which gives him a +5, just making the DC… and the door tears off its hinges, leaving the gang free to run into the corridor.

Go on, support it.

All in all, I’m excited about Spaceguild, I’m keen to play it with some friends and I think it will look fantastic with more artwork, once the kickstarter is finished.

Speaking of that, why not support it now on Drive Thro RPG dot com

Also Alex maintains a new website for this game.

Starguild: Space Opera Noir Website Found Here!

Starguild RPG Wordpress Blog about the game found here!

Yours For now Captain Earl C. Hedges Jr.