Lovely raclette, Prim. I still have this week's Surprise Menu left to post. "Cheese" was our motto, and I was thinking of those Swiss burgers that are currently still in my personal #1 spot in the Burgers Around the World series.
Remember them? The ones that are filled with emmenthal cheese?
I prepared an emmenthal based cheese sauce once again too.
You saw what goes into making those burgers last time, so there is no need to go over the single steps once again.
The final burger will contain a slice of cheese, a cheese-filled beef patty, a rösti, some diced bacon, cheese sauce and roasted onions.
I originally wanted to make some potato wedges as a side dish, but got a little overwhelmed with all the cooking stuff and simply made another rösti, along with the leftover cheese sauce.
Here you can see the cheese filling again:
It was good, but not quite as good as I remember them being. I guess I should have added a little more spice to the cheese sauce. More bacon could have helped too.
All right, so I teased the idea last weekend, and today, during our Skype session, the Trolls decided to make it happen: We are doing another Christmassy Cringe challenge, just like our masochistic Last Christmas trip two years ago. Once again, we were listening to obnoxious Christmas songs, and whoever quits first loses.
Shall we do Last Christmas again? Nah, it's been done... I found something else:
Yes, this is indeed a Christmas song. The Germans are a little weird, as you may have noticed.
I love how the auto-translation gives up halfway through the chorus as well:
It's not a loop, but you can easily make it one by right-clicking on the YouTube video and selecting the corresponding option. (in case you want to play along...)
Prim's faces were priceless... but she couldn't help but feel that this wasn't the most fair challenge, since I was familiar with this song already and didn't really cringe at all. So she requested that we went back to Last Christmas after all to even the score, after 10-15 minutes.
We kept playing for another 10-15 minutes... but this time, it was only me who was really cringing. Prim hates this song as much as everyone else does, I assume, but she seemed a little more used to it? We needed something else, to keep it a fair fight.
...and I had the idea. There is this well-known German writer of children's songs called Rolf Zuckowski, whose music has accompanied me throughout my early childhood, and who also released several Christmas albums, featuring some songs that I still consider an essential part of Christmas... but also featuring some absolute cringe songs. Those are the ones I had in mind...
There are several very annoying songs from his Winterkinder album, which were all used in our Cringe Challenge:
Those were very fair choices, I believe, because we were both cringing hard!
For moral support, Primrose was cuddling her Koopalings throughout this ordeal... and at one point, Bowser Jr. simply collapsed and rolled to the side, as if he had reached the end of his strength. There he was, having completely surrendered:
Wendy kept fighting bravely, despite cringing hard, being just as stubborn as the grindette:
Lemmy, meanwhile, actually kind of seemed to enjoy it. I guess the songs were meant for little ones like him.
Well, we made it though... But just look at Prim's Koopalings afterwards, they were really pushed to their limits, only Lemmy still sitting upright. And no, we didn't set them up that way, they fell into those positions themselves when Prim set them aside.
Christmas sure is fun with the Trolls... And once again, both of us refused to give in.
Dear CIA,
dear secret services,
dear police stations and jails,
look how easy it is to force a confession from a suspect, look how easy it is to torture people: And you don´t even have to hurt them! We got THE method for you. Just let your convicts, your enemies, your suspects listen to this song over and over and over again!
You know what made me consider this song for our challenge, Prim? I was listening to one of my old Christmas CDs while working on spreadsheets, and this one was on it. It kind of stood out to me among the more generic, traditional Christmas songs, so I looked it up on YouTube too.
At the end of the day, though, we still had fun. So much fun, in fact, that we decided to do something similar next Wednesday:
Cringe Tennis
To make this a little more competitive, next Wednesday, one of us will "serve" the other Troll a really cringe-worthy song, and after 15 minutes (or whatever time frame we choose), the other Troll gets to "return" another song that both of us will have to listen to. We will keep returning songs to get a good cringe-rally going... and then we'll see if one of us will have to give in before we are done.
Maybe we will add some additional rules too, because I expect we are both just much too stubborn to surrender once again.
Shall we stick with the Christmas theme, Prim? I think I would prefer it that way.
Yet another Christmas egg - this time featuring a reindeer on the outside. Sorry for the out of focus picture.
This time, there is no deer on the outside, however. Hmmm... didn't we get that figurine several times as well last year? It does seem familiar.
After putting it together, though, it turns out that this figurine is similar, but not identical. This one is not on skis, but is instead posing in a dress.
Normally, these Christmas figurines come with sticker sheets, and that's what I assumed this extra sheet would be, but it is cardboard. It's badly out of focus again, sorry.
The cardboard sheet has some shapes in it, and you can push them out of there to give our sassy little figurine some new accessories.
And once again, a case of "same, same but different". This year's gingerbread man has a slightly different pose compared to last year's version, and comes with a different stand.
Like last year's version, the stand can be used as a template for drawing, in case you forgot what a bell looks like.
Well, that's one way to avoid repeats - just make them all slightly different.
I'm looking forward to our "Cringe Tennis" match tomorrow... in a way.
Prim told me that she has prepared a selection of five songs, some of which were supposedly suggestions by her Koopalings. There are a few songs that I really hope won't come up tomorrow... one of them was briefly on the radio at work today. I'm not going to say which song or by whom, though. No need to make this any harder on me by giving Prim ideas.
Last Christmas was playing on the radio today too. I immediately had to think of our challenge.
As for myself, I too have compiled a list of currently eight songs, including Vorpal's Chipmunk song. Four more good old Zuckowski songs, and three American classics that some may consider "enhanced interrogation techniques".
The only rules are that the songs we pick will have to be Christmas-related, and that they can't include anything that bothers us on a political/religious/moral level, because I feel that this would be cheating. Just plain old cringe, clean and annoying. Drive the other Troll insane and have fun looking at the faces they make. This is one of the times where I regret not ever having set up a proper stream...
Picking a song that is not annoying to us, but highly annoying to the other Troll, is still fair game, btw.
Will we get a good "rally" going? Or will one of the Trolls finally crack? Let's find out tomorrow.
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Got some horror-songs for you, but I´m sure yours are not nicer.
As long as they are Christmas-themed horror songs, or horror-themed Christmas songs, it's all good.
I have no idea what to do if you end up actually liking one of my picks, though...
By the way, I had the idea for a similar cringe challenge where we would pick each other's songs a long time ago already, but I was always hesitant to do it because I feared what Primrose would offer me in return... I guess that's what you call "mutually assured destruction".
Well, what's the worst that could happen... I guess I will find out.
Late Night Update: I clicked my way through YouTube links, and have expanded my list to 15 songs of various degrees of cringe, so I should be able to retaliate no matter what the grindette will throw at me.
Do you know this guy, Prim?
If not, you may get to know him... if we really let this escalate to DEFCON 1 levels.
Quiet, please... Yes, it was time. And as planned, Vorpal's chipmunk song was the "serve". It had both of us cringing, but Prim a little more, I believe.
As we had planned before, we let some of Prim's koopalings pick the "return" songs, and Lemmy got to start.
This was his pick:
Cute... but only slightly cringe-worthy.
My own returns were pretty mild as a result too. Then, it was Wendy's turn.
She had some... fitness Santa song?
A bit weird... and a little more cringe, but still mild.
Finally, it was Bowser Jr's turn...
Boy, did he have a doozy...
Sido? You gotta be kidding me. This was number one cringe for sure.
I had to get a move on. My first Barney video actually didn't make Primrose cringe a whole lot:
Nothing, however, had me prepared for what was Primrose's ultimate cringe video:
Ugh... The "normal" song is bad enough!
Well, we made it through, but I guess Primrose won this, because she made me cringe harder.
Harrier: You asked for it! I wanted to save the ultimate HORROR for our next session, but you insisted, that as "la grande finale" I present my CIA-Guantanamo-song! So I did!
Hey, guess this one wasn´t bad either, was it? ♠_evil:♠_biggrin:
I still have this week's Surprise Menu left to post. "Cheese" was our motto, and I was thinking of those Swiss burgers that are currently still in my personal #1 spot in the Burgers Around the World series.
That could be my "serve" in our upcoming Cringe Tennis match.
There are a few songs that I really hope won't come up tomorrow... one of them was briefly on the radio at work today. 
So I did!