End of Year Recap // Ranking My Best Posts of 2020

2020 was a hell of a year. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that, more than any year in recent history, "2020" stands out as what Mrs Windsor would describe as an "annus horribilis" (yes, worse than when Diana died). Some people say that our definition of the year's start and end are arbitrary and have no meaning outside our collective social understanding. 2020 seemed determined to prove that idea wrong, fitting so many catastrophic events into one Gregorian year that you could be forgiven for thinking the natural world followed a calendar too. 

I'd like to say that all that is behind us now, but of course that's not true. We are still in the midst of a global pandemic, not to mention the fact that climate change, racial inequality, and the rise of fascism continue to be urgent problems. 

All of the above is true. However, celebrating the end of one year and the start of another is not without purpose. Viewing the whole scope of human existence as one long, uninterrupted march from prehistory to the present might be useful for cause-and-effect analysis, but it can be a little overwhelming for the individual human. Breaking up our lives into years helps us make sense of it, enabling us to reflect and look forward in a way that seems somewhat structured. 

I am currently in the process of just such reflection and anticipation, specifically with regard to this blog. Every year I plan to do more writing, looking back miserably on the lack of writing I produced in the previous year. In this year, I'm actually surprisingly happy with the amount of writing I've done. I have written a total of 44 posts on this blog in 2020, almost a post a week, which is something I'm very proud of. 

But! Not all posts are created equal. There are definitely some posts I am prouder of than others, so I thought it would be fun to look back on these and rank my best posts of the year. So, in no particular order, here are my top five Extra Libris pieces of 2020:

A Book That Changed My Opinion About Something // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 26

The bulk of my 2020 posts (30 out of 44, to be exact) owe their existence to the 30-day book challenge I dragged out attempted over the course of the year. It's hard to choose just one of these posts as my favourite, because I truly am happy with most of them, but the one which sticks out the most to me is this one about Dreams of Joy. Writing it required being vulnerable about my past ignorance, which is always hard but still important to do. It also spoke to what I think is one of the great purposes of literature: to change people's minds. I'm pleased that I could share an experience like that, even if it meant owning up to some mistakes. 

Book Review: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

If there's one thing I particularly enjoy doing with my writing, it's being a bitch. I recently read an interview with Vigdis Hjorth in which she said that "anger is good for writing" - I'd be inclined to agree with her. Anger equals passion, and passion can help create compelling writing. 

My review of American Psycho is, I believe, an example of some such writing. Angry writing, that is. Whether it's compelling or not is for the reader to decide. Nevertheless, it was fun and cathartic to write, and it stands out as one of my favourite posts of 2020. 

Why J. K. Rowling is Not Our Ally

While this post didn't perhaps do as well as some of my others in terms of views, and there are several things I would do differently were I to go back and write it again, it remains one that I am still very proud of. I put a lot of effort into properly researching and structuring my post, making sure that everything I mentioned was correctly cited and that I referenced the opinions of trans people specifically. It felt important for me to write it, and in hindsight I'm still glad I did. 

5 LGBT+ Webcomics to Read Online Today

Unlike other posts which stood out in my memory for how they were fuelled almost entirely by anger and rage, I remember writing this post as a much calmer, more cheerful experience. Being the bitter bitch that I am, even my previous lists of LGBT+ media hadn't come without a dig at another creator (her name rhymes with Saylor Twift). This one, though, was driven purely by love for queer webcomics and a desire to share them with others. I hope that this comes across in the post. 

Film Review: Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

After the American Psycho review of January 2020, Bitchy Mary struck again in October of the same year, kicking off Extra Libris's Spooky Season series of posts with a some-holds-barred rant about the god-awful Slaughterhouse Rulez. Like American Psycho, this movie annoyed me so much that it seemed like its terribleness seeped into my blood, and writing a blog post was the creative equivalent of covering myself with leeches to suck the poison out (sorry Michael Sheen, but it really was a bad film). I felt much better after though, so I guess leeches creative outlets work for anger management after all.

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That's it! Those are my favourite posts of 2020. It was hard to choose just five, because I'm a narcissist and quite proud of my own work, but I think these ones are good representatives of the writing I did on this blog last year. If you're reading this, do you have a favourite post from Extra Libris? If so, why do you like it? Do you disagree with my choices, and if so, why? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Here's to many more posts in 2021!

Cheers!

Game Review: The 7th Guest

Note: I wrote this post way back in October 2020 and, up until recently, was under the impression that I published it around the same time as part of my Spooky Season series of posts. I have realised now that I did not do this, and in fact this post has been languishing in my drafts for about three months. Luckily for this review though, I have decided to publish it now for the world to see. So if you will excuse the seasonal anachronisms, I hope you can still find some enjoyment in it.

It's not very often that I can say I remember playing a game when it first came out, and I definitely can't say that in the case of The 7th Guest, a point-and-click horror puzzle game I completed earlier this month. Released in 1993, The 7th Guest came out a few years before I was even born, let alone able to use a computer. While 27 years isn't that old for something like a book or a movie, for a medium that advances technologically as quickly as video games do, something like The 7th Guest can seem extremely dated to modern players. 

Paradoxically, the fact that The 7th Guest was on the cutting edge of video game development at the time of its release, particularly with regard to its graphics, means that it has in some ways aged even worse than other games produced at a similar or even earlier date. Unlike retro arcade games like Mario or Pac-Man, with distinctive but simplistic and ultimately unrealistic design styles, The 7th Guest leans more towards the realist end of things. It uses 3D graphics for most of the game, interspersed with live action video clips that are overlaid onto the CGI backgrounds to create cutscenes. While innovative at the time they were first used, it is these clips that stick out most as indicators of the game's age - for better or for worse.

I mention all of this not because I think the game should be discounted because of its graphics - on the contrary, I believe it's a mark of a good game if it can hold the player's attention without depending on flashy visuals - but because I know this is the first thing people are likely to notice when seeing this game. For some people, that will be enough to put them off entirely. Others may find a certain charm in the game's visuals, while many people might simply be indifferent. In short, I thought it was worth noting.

Apart from the graphics, for me the most famous part of The 7th Guest appeared to be its story. The game has the player character (who we do not see and who has no memory of how they came to be in the house) exploring the mansion of famed toymaker Henry Stauf, where they must solve puzzles and attempt to discover what strange and ghastly events took place there in the past. These events are slowly revealed to the player through the cutscenes I mentioned earlier, which show six guests arriving to the mansion. They have been invited for mysterious reasons, and it is only as the game progresses that we find out the true purpose of their visit. Don't let the video game setting of this story fool you into thinking this is a child-friendly tale - it's a full-blown horror story, complete with some decidedly adult themes. Even though the scariness of the cutscenes is occasionally mitigated by the graphics aging poorly or the acting veering into campy territory, the horror of the story itself has stood the test of time.

The player begins the game with only some of the rooms in the house unlocked, with the rest opening gradually as you solve the puzzles in each area. While I'm sure there are people out there who have had a totally different experience to me, I found these puzzles ranged in difficulty from pleasantly challenging to infuriatingly difficult. With one exception (which we will get to shortly), I managed to solve all of the puzzles without resorting to finding solutions on the internet, although I will admit I did have to do some research just to find out what I was meant to be aiming for in each puzzle, which seems to be part of the challenge. If you ever find these puzzles too difficult to move past, an in-game clue book will provide you with hints or (after checking it three times) eventually solve the puzzle for you. In-keeping with the theme of Stauf's toymaking, most of these puzzles (aside perhaps from the infamous "soup can" puzzle) are inspired by children's toys and classic puzzle games, which I thought was a nice touch and added to the game's immersiveness. 

The one puzzle I had to get the clue book to solve for me was the so-called "Microscope Puzzle", which has apparently acquired a level of infamy undiminished by the decades that have passed since its creation. Unlike the other puzzles in the game, this one pits you against a hideously difficult AI in a game of something similar to Reversi. I spent much longer on this puzzle than I am willing to admit, and in fact I only gave up after I recruited a gaming expert friend to help me with it and found even she couldn't get close to solving the puzzle. Having looked up this particular puzzle more after finishing the game, I'm starting to think solving it without resorting to the clue book is so rare as to be almost an urban legend. That said, if anyone is able to beat the puzzle and can tell me what clip is shown after doing so, I would love to know. 

As I mentioned before, The 7th Guest is an effectively immersive game, thanks in large part to its previously un-mentioned music. Composed by George Alistair Sanger, AKA The Fat Man, the soundtrack to The 7th Guest is so good that I would gleefully add it to my hallowed Halloween playlist if only it were available on Spotify (for now, we will have to content ourselves with YouTube). Featuring leitmotifs for different rooms as well as each major character, the music brings the setting of Stauf's eerie mansion to life - sinister, mysterious, and tauntingly playful by turns. It is a testament to the quality of the soundtrack that, even after spending over an hour on a single puzzle with the same song playing on repeat in the background, it never became annoying. I am listening to the soundtrack even as I write this now, proving that The Fat Man's score works in and out of the game.

In conclusion, The 7th Guest is considered a classic game for a reason, and it has a lot to offer if you go into it knowing what to expect. You might not get (modern-day) cutting edge graphics or a plot that answers all of your questions, but your sacrifice of those elements will be rewarded with brain-stretching puzzles, a frightening story, and a hauntingly good soundtrack.

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PS: After writing this, I realised that the version of The 7th Guest I played is no longer available on Steam, although I believe it is likely the same as the "Legacy Edition" now being offered as downloadable content for The 7th Guest: Anniversary Edition. This is only an educated guess, though, and I can offer no guarantees as to their similarity. 

5 Halloween Movies for People Who Don't Like Horror

Although today I would consider myself a fan of horror movies, I wasn't always so keen on them. My siblings and I weren't allowed to watch horror films as children, but even after becoming old enough to watch what I wanted, they still freaked me out. I used to get incredibly anxious when watching films that I thought would show violent scenes, and sometimes even reading about a gory or disturbing film was enough to make me feel physically unwell. 

I eventually managed to overcome this fear of violent movies through what basically amounted to self-imposed exposure therapy (an experience I might write a blog post about later, if anyone is interested), but I am still very sympathetic to those who prefer to avoid films involving violence or horror. Having such an aversion also shouldn't mean that you can't partake in Halloween, a holiday that I believe can be appreciated with or without traditional scary movies.

In order to provide some non-horror alternatives for Halloween lovers this year, I have compiled a list of 5 movies that offer spooks without the scares, so to speak.

Addams Family Values (1993)

The sequel to the earlier but less well-received 1991 film The Addams Family, Addams Family Values features the iconic family dealing with a new baby and a gold-digging nanny. It's funny and sweetly macabre, as the Addams family are, and as it is family friendly you can rest assured it has little to no scares or violence. Even without those aspects, the gothic aesthetic and black humour of the Addams clan is enough to make this a Halloween classic.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

Written and directed by New Zealanders Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement, who you might know from their involvement in Thor: Ragnarok and Flight of the Conchords respectively, What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary focused on the lives of a group of vampires living together in the city of Wellington. While I would warn any potential viewers that this film does contain some blood and a bit of violence (vampires need to find their prey somehow, after all), all of this is played for laughs and is not intended to be serious or disturbing. If you can see through the blood, you'll find a film that is fun, witty and doesn't take itself too seriously.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Henry Selick's beloved stop motion musical follows Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, as he attempts to steal Christmas from Santa Claus. But is it a Christmas film, or is it a Halloween film? The Nightmare Before Christmas's holiday-appropriateness has been debated so much, it might even rival Die Hard for the title of "Most Contested Christmas Movie". Personally, as I like this film a lot, I think it works well for both seasons - although possibly a little more for Halloween, simply because its aesthetic is so wonderfully spooky. Another family friendly option, this is a good choice if you love creepy Halloween vibes but can't stand any level of violence.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Recently, TikTok has been abuzz with people fawning over Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willy Wonka in the 2005 film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but personally I've always been more of a fan of Gene Wilder's interpretation. Besides Willy Wonka, I'd argue that Wilder's second best role was as a young Victor Frankenstein in Mel Brooks' 1974 movie Young Frankenstein. This is a live-action, black-and-white comedy, a satire of classic horror movies in general and the many adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in particular. If you want to avoid scary films but also want to watch something targeted at adults rather than children, Young Frankenstein is an excellent choice.

Beetlejuice (1988)

It wouldn't be a list of Halloween films if we didn't include at least one Tim Burton movie, would it? (And no, I'm not counting The Nightmare Before Christmas.) The one I have chosen for this post is Beetlejuice, although really most Tim Burton films meet the criteria - The Corpse Bride specifically was a close runner up. Like Young Frankenstein, this is another non-violent Halloween film that isn't made for children. Its plot revolves around a ghost family who are disturbed by the arrival of some new humans into their home, so they decide to recruit an eccentric and borderline-demonic entity known as Betelgeuse to drive the invaders away. It's creepy, funny, and frequently downright bizarre. Plus, it features a young Winona Ryder as the human family's goth daughter Lydia Deetz.

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I hope that this list has offered some ideas for non-horror Halloween viewing. Halloween was my favourite holiday even before I stopped being scared of violent films, so it's certainly something you can celebrate and have themed movie nights around without having to watch movies that make you uncomfortable. 

I would love to hear any other suggestions for alternative Halloween movies, if anyone would like to share them with me either directly or in the comments of this post. Happy watching!

Game Review: Haunt the House: Terrortown

Before we get into the meat (or rather, the vegan frozen pizza) of this review, let me say that I am very sorry for the colon catastrophe happening in the post title. I wanted to keep to the formula of "[Medium] Review: [Title]" that I used last post, with Slaughterhouse Rulez, but I didn't anticipate the awkwardness which occurs if the title of the game itself includes a second colon. Yet if this is indeed a type of grammatical horror, perhaps this is fitting for a Halloween post? I'm going to choose to believe this is the case, while I leave the title as it is instead of spending any more time looking for a viable alternative.

Since my last spooky review ended up more on the negative side, I am happy to be continuing my series of Halloween posts with an entry about something I actually enjoyed. The chosen topic of this post is not a film or a book, but a game, specifically Haunt the House: Terrortown (as you may have already guessed from the title).

Terrortown's "Mansion House" level is based on the
Haunt the House browser game

Haunt the House was first released in 2010 as an in-browser flash game on the website Armor Games. It was free to play and featured only one level, in which players controlled a cute but vindictive ghost whose home has been taken over by unwanted human guests. The goal of the game is to fly around the house, possessing objects and scaring the humans into leaving the house, allowing your little ghost to return to their peaceful, guest-free afterlife. 

Haunt the House: Terrortown is both the expansion of and sequel to the original Haunt the House. Unlike its predecessor, Terrortown was released for multiple gaming platforms, including Playstation Vita, iOS, Android, and PC. I naturally purchased the PC version, which you can buy through Steam for about 4 euros if you just get the base game or a little under 6 euros if you get the soundtrack with it. 

If you're thinking it sounds a bit exploitative to have to pay real money for a game you could just play online for free (if it's still up on Armor Games, that is), it's worth noting that Terrortown comes with many features that the original game lacked. Besides improved graphics, Terrortown includes three extra levels, new ghosts, a full soundtrack, and more detailed gameplay. You will also have Steam achievements to aim for, should you buy the game through that platform. 

So Terrortown has a bunch of new features, sure, but is it worth buying? I would say yes. If you enjoyed the original Haunt the House, I'm confident you'll like Terrortown. Even if you never played the 2010 browser version, there is a lot to love in its successor. The art style is the perfect combination of spooky and cute, the gameplay is simple but fun, and the jazzy soundtrack is worth the price of the game alone. That's not to say there aren't negatives of course: Terrortown is quite short, even with the new levels, and it will occasionally glitch in the most frustrating ways, like stopping your last guest from exiting the house no matter how much you scare them. It also doesn't offer huge amounts of replayability, unless you are strongly motivated to discover every possible type of object you can haunt. 

With all that said, Haunt the House: Terrortown offers enough charm and entertainment to be worth the purchase, especially this Halloween season. It's endearing, funny, and a nice spooky-themed alternative for those who don't like full-blown horror games but still want something Halloween-related to play this season. 

Film Review: Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am currently on a binge of Halloween-related media to celebrate our now being in the spookiest month of the year, AKA October. After Netflix very helpfully notified me that Slaughterhouse Rulez had arrived on the streaming platform about a week or so ago, I decided that this was the perfect film to kick off this fear-stive (get it?) season. 

First released in cinemas around October of 2018 (for Halloween, of course), Slaughterhouse Rulez is a comedy-horror set at a prestigious English boarding school that comes under attack after mysterious demonic creatures are accidentally released from the ground by a fracking operation on school grounds. 

I remember watching the trailer for this movie when it first came out and being quite excited about it. It didn't look especially ground-breaking, unless you count the fracking, but it looked fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, as so often happens, the trailer proved to be a lot more fun than the film itself. 

My biggest gripe with the film is that it never quite seems to know what it's doing, going in several directions (comedy, horror, and even social commentary) at once, but never quite managing to succeed in any of them. The funniest moments in the film come from the performances of Michael Sheen and Asa Butterfield, who play the school's headmaster (known as "The Bat") and the protagonist's snarky roommate, respectively. Sheen is delightfully hammy, and the enjoyment he seems to be taking in playing the comically pretentious schoolmaster is contagious. Butterfield likewise is a pleasure to watch, bringing a level of dry cynicism and vulnerability to the character of Willoughby that almost makes up for his clumsily-handled backstory. 

The rest of the cast no doubt did their best with the scripts they were given, but in most cases the result is just... okay. Simon Pegg is under-utilised in his role as a housemaster who spends most of his time making emotional Skype calls to his evidently uninterested former lover (Margot Robbie), in a subplot that was perhaps intended to be humorous but gets boring around the third scene of Pegg crying and holding a phone. The two other main characters, middle-class new boy Don (Finn Cole) and upper-sixth "goddess" Clemsie (Hermione Corfield), are dull and forgettable. Don is cast as the status quo-challenging newcomer, who holds little charm outside of being the audience's surrogate, while Clemsie serves mainly as a love interest to Don and as fan service for the viewer (really, there didn't need to be that many shots of Corfield in a bra). Clemsie has a few token Strong Female Character scenes, such as her standing up to the headmaster and taking control of the car during a chase scene, but the film still ends with us having little conception of her character outside of being appealing to Don.

Like the main characters, the horror aspect of the film is similarly unmemorable. Balancing laughs and scares is an achievement most horror-comedies fail to reach, Slaughterhouse Rulez among them. The monsters unearthed by the fracking operation are your fairly average hellhound type of creatures, forgettable enough that even at this point I am struggling to recall what they looked like. There is some gore and a few jump scares, nothing terribly impressive but the sort of thing which might have been satisfactory had the comedy side of the film held up. Sadly, this wasn't the case.

As for the social commentary aspect of the film, the writers seemed to take the opportunity of a plot set at your classical, posh English boarding school to make some criticisms of British classism and public school culture. At times this went so far as to imply that the monsters themselves are in some way symbolic of the toxicity of the school itself. It's an intriguing idea, to be fair, and it's a shame that most of the film's allusions to the school's harmfulness comes across as so shallow. The more villainous of the school's students refer to others as "plebs" or use homophobic slurs that go unchallenged even by the heroic characters, but there is something of a disconnect between these moments and the times when pupils like Clemsie state that they hate the school for vague, undefined reasons. Granted, treating topics like bullying and classism with the seriousness they deserve might be too great of a challenge for a simple horror-comedy, but that didn't stop the writers from including a subplot in which an old pupil kills himself after being subjected to homophobic bullying, leaving his surviving boyfriend depressed and on the brink of suicide himself. On the other hand, scenes of a young pupil being bullied as part of various hazing rituals (such as being tarred and feathered or gagged and tied to a sink) are played for laughs. Bullying is the tragic cause of suicide in one scene and a source of humour in the other. Like the rest of the film, Slaughterhouse Rulez's handling of bullying is uneven and confusing to watch. 

While it is not among the best of horror comedy films, nor is Slaughterhouse Rulez among the worst of its kind. The humorous performances of Michael Sheen and Asa Butterfield provide some spots of light in a film that is otherwise mostly dull and thematically confusing - hardly good qualities for a film of any genre, much less one that depends on frights and laughs. If you are a particular fan of any of the creators involved, you might find it a justifiable watch. For everyone else, I'm sad to say that it is simply, tragically average.

Welcome to Spooky Season!

Despite the shadow of a global pandemic still looming over most of the world, personally I am still finding a level of excitement in the fact that we have now entered my favourite time of year (autumn) and are rapidly approaching my favourite holiday: Halloween! 

As someone who loves Halloween with the passion some feel for Christmas, I like to celebrate the holiday as more of a month-long affair than just a one-night event. Since COVID-19 (and my lack of friends, but let's pretend this is due to the virus) has made marking the occasion through parties next-to-impossible, I am celebrating by doing the next best thing: voraciously consuming as much spooky media as I can before the month ends. 

Fortunately for this blog, which has been left gathering dust for about two months now, this media binge means I will hopefully be getting plenty of fresh material to write about on here this October. Of course I can't guarantee that I won't suddenly lose all motivation and leave this blog unattended for weeks on end (again), but that is at least not my intention. 

So! If everything goes according to plan, you can expect some spooky posts arriving on this blog very soon. As always, I would love to hear if anyone has any suggestions for topics they'd like me to write about and especially recommendations for movies/books/tv series/etc that in some way capture the spirit of Halloween. Until then, happy Halloween month!

The 5 Worst Things I Spent Time on During Lockdown

A few days ago, I posted "The 5 Best Things I Spent Time on During Lockdown". As I mentioned in that post, I anticipated following it up with another post detailing the less enjoyable ways I occupied my time during confinement. This, esteemed readers, is that promised post.

If you read my previous post, you already have the gist of this one. Like most people, I tried to find new ways to spend my time during lockdown/confinement/quarantine/whatever you call it: some good, some bad, some painfully misguided. The pieces of media listed below all belong in the second and third categories, and they all share the privilege of being things I spent far too long consuming while imprisoned within the four walls of my apartment. As before, these terrible time-wasters will be rated with bread.

5. It by Stephen King

I can't really give this that low of a rating, as I didn't actually finish it. This is approximately my second or third time trying to finish King's great tome of a horror novel. It doesn't seem bad, exactly, but it was evidently too much of a slog for my quarantine-brained self to manage. Back to the library it went, only half completed.

Rating: a peanut butter and jam sandwich that you forgot about and now it's all hard and stale

4. The Pisces by Melissa Broder

I was excited to read this book. I really was, although in hindsight I can't remember why. It had been on my to-read list for literal years before I got the chance to borrow it in ebook form from my local library during the pandemic. I had expected a "bracing satire of love in the age of consumer capitalism" that was "bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic". Instead, I got uncomfortably bizarre relationships, vaguely offensive allusions to lesbian sexuality, and a bathroom scene which haunts me to this day. I finished it, but only out of spite.

Rating: a fresh baguette that you accidentally dropped on the floor of the Metro

3. All Bad Cards

This is a Cards Against Humanity knock-off I played online with some friends during a lockdown games night. It has the dubious honour of being worse than the actual Cards Against Humanity game, which is saying something. However, it maintains CAH's ability to coax your closest friends into making jokes about r*pe and child abuse, among other upsetting topics. Somehow both boring and repulsive.

Rating: an "Elvis" sandwich of peanut butter, banana, and bacon (maybe other people like it but I think it's disgusting).

2. Sims 4

The higher they climb, the harder they fall - thus Sims 4 has gained a higher ranking than it truly deserves, simply for the sin of disappointing me. The Sims has always been an amazing time-consumer for me, ever since I was little, so I was excited to download The Sims 4 and wile away some quarantine hours in Simland. Unfortunately, it turns out Sims 4 is just Sims 3 plus good graphics and minus all the charm of previous instalments. Not a good trade-off.

Rating: veggie wrap but it's made with lettuce instead of bread and is filled only with more lettuce

1. Space Force

Finishing Middleditch and Schwartz, my number one best time-user during lockdown, left me desperate for more Ben Schwartz content. I was over the moon (so to speak) to find out he was soon to star in a new Netflix TV series alongside Steve Carrell and John Malkovich, Space Force. The series made me laugh until I cried, but only because I was forcing myself to laugh until it became physically painful for me to continue. Sadly, no amount of fake laughing could save this one. I'm sorry, Ben Schwartz.

Rating: a "toast sandwich" (two slices of bread with a plain slice of toast in-between)