Half a Pica of Uselessness

New digs

2010-08-05T21:34:00.003-05:00

Things have been growing a bit stale 'round here. I've decided to make the move to Tumblr.

You can find me at Alt + Left Arrow. There's not much there yet, but I am very fond of how Tumblr works so there will be stuff.

If you can't stand the heat...

2010-08-05T06:37:00.002-05:00

Don't move to Memphis.

I have been to some awfully hot places on this planet and this summer in Memphis is ranked right up with the hottest. Our heat index hit 130 the other day. That kind of heat is just hard to fathom. How do you even contemplate doing anything outside in that kind of heat? I remember training for football season this time of year when I was in junior high - I would call child protective services on someone who wanted to make kids train outside in this weather. We got ourselves a miserable heat wave and who knows when it's going to end?

However, about this time last year (middle of July, actually), our AC broke. And it was down for several days. We had to replace the entire unit, inside and out. It took time to get everthing installed and there were complications after that. Although them temps were 20 degrees cooler last summer, those few days made things plenty miserable.

So, even though my AC struggles to keep my house in the low 80s during the peak heat of the day, it's a blessing to have it. But my next house will have two units :)

The drive-time beat-down

2010-08-03T10:26:00.002-05:00

I used to be able to drive forever. Between J-Mom and me, we could have driven New York to LA in one continuous burst of tandem driving. But times have changed.

This past weekend we drove from Memphis to my parents’ home in north-central Louisiana then to Dallas and then back home to Memphis. It’s been a while since I’ve done that kind of driving and it was tough. Tougher than I thought it would be.

Daughter Number 1 and The Boy had been staying with my parents for the past couple of weeks. They had a great time, but were very ready to come home. After picking up the kids, we jutted out a bit further west to Dallas to visit some friends who moved from Memphis a little while ago.

Our visit there was nice. It had been a very long time since I’d last been in Dallas – though technically we were in a suburb – I was pretty impressed at their traffic management. Sure, there’s still gridlock, but for a city its size, Dallas does pretty well. DN1 said that the area we were driving into reminder her of Phoenix, but with trees. I think it was a pretty apt description.

We debated a bit over what to do with our time Sunday. There was some discussion about going to Six Flags, but rational thought won out. It was too hot, it would have been too crowded and a couple of the crew were not feeling 100 percent well. Instead we went here. Fantastic way to spend some time on a hot day.

Otherwise, a lot of time was spent watching shark-related programming and resting. J-Mom and her gal-pal got to spend a lot of time catching up and that made the trip all the more worthwhile.

Up to this point, we all doing pretty well (other than a few sniffles and a couple of oncoming colds), but the drive home was brutal. Next time, and there will be a next time, we’ll have to have some time between driving in and driving out.

Smile

2010-07-28T07:01:00.001-05:00

I saw this at Linkiest:

Can you spot the fake smiles?

My Results
You got 14 out of 20 correct

It's not as easy as it sounds.

Someone’s gotta do it

2010-07-26T08:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the break in service, but I just haven’t had much to talk about. Everything’s either been kind of the same old-same old or just too depressing.

On the same old front, things have been quiet around here. My parents took Daughter Number 1 and the boy with them back to Louisiana for a couple of weeks. We go to pick them up this coming weekend. It’s amazing how quiet the house gets when you only have one of three roaming around.

This Saturday I volunteered at a certified barbecue judging class. I’ve been judging for the Kansas City Barbeque Society since earlier this year and it’s a lot of fun to be involved in this kind of stuff. It was a full class. There were 36 wannabe CBJs and the event organizer had to turn away about 12 more because we simply didn’t have and more room. These classes are great because you not only learn about the KCBS standards for barbecue, you get to go through what is essentially a mini-judging. The organizers provide samples of the four meat categories – chicken, ribs, pulled pork, brisket – and they’re presented to the students like they would be at a real contest. It’s a bit more laid back, but very similar.

There is a contest coming up here in September that is part of the local International Goat Days Festival. I really wish I was clever enough to do something with all that information, but there it is. The local township has a goat fest, we’ve got a sanctioned barbecue contest as part of it and I can’t even find something funny to say about that. Goes to show my state of mind, I guess.

Happy 5th, Bo!

2010-07-15T07:55:00.005-05:00

My youngest turns 5 today! Five years packed full of moves, growth, change, craziness and barbecue.

Bo is a source of constant joy. He has a wonderful sense of humor and is always interested in making people laugh.

Below the fold here are a few things I've posted here about or inspired by my son. Happy birthday, boy.

Sept. 10, 2008

He's bugging me to customize his tricycle

That's completely untrue. He's upgraded to a bike recently. I just liked the biker gang image.

I guess I should explain. Bo's been potty training. He gets a sticker every time he does #1. He gets a tattoo for every #2. As you can see, he's been a busy boy.

He had another incentive. We bought him a Transformer and he had to go #2 ten times to earn it. He got his toy this morning.

July 13, 2007

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy

Packing sucks.

Sometimes, though, you run across an item that makes you pause for a minute.

Here's the most beautiful boy in the world wearing his dad's old beret.

His will probably be green.

April 21, 2006

The headbutt

I'm telling you, little boys are fun. And they make you contemplate things you never thought you would. My 9-month-old boy had me thinking, this morning, about the headbutt.

The kind of wild abandon with which my little boy approaches life makes me realize that only a boy could have invented the headbutt. Let me explain:

I have, on occasion, seen my girls headbutt. But it has only been because of an accident or because they have exhausted every other option available and to smack someone with their head is their only recourse. In their younger days, they might have lost some neck control or something and accidentally smacked you, but would never do it on purpose. I mean, that crap hurts!

But my boy, God love him, seems to think that the large blunt object sittin on his shoulders is a perfect offensive weapon. When play fighting/tickling with my girls, he will try and get involved and will launch his head at his sisters.

I can only pray for his future.

March 30, 2006

The difference sublime

You know, there's nothing like an infant to make throw the differences between men and women into sharp relief. You know, I don't mean to sound divisive, but there are more differences between the genders than anatomy.

Case in point: Both of my daughters, as infants, explored like most babies do. However, there was a sense of caution to everything they did. You could almost see the gears tick as they approached something, "Is this going to hurt me? Can I pull myself up on this?" And if they tried something, and it didn't work, they usually didn't try and do it again.

Flash forward to present day. My boy, God love him, approaches everything he does with reckless abandon. I understand that there are probably plenty of infant boys that don't have a daredevil spirit, but I do know that a boy will do the same thing, over and over and over and over, expecting to get different results than the first time.

It is with all this set up that I explain the main difference between my daughters and my son. At 8 months old, my boy has learned how to crawl down from things like ottomans and couches. My daughters never really wanted to do this, on purpose anyway. The huge difference is that my boy, while slowing his descent by holding on to the edge of the ottoman or couch, breaks his fall with his head.

Hitting delete

2010-07-14T14:58:00.001-05:00

I had a nice, long post worked up where I was talking about hobbies and the energies we pour into them and I just had to select all-delete. Too whiny. Too scattered. Too …

Whatever.

In lieu of any enlightening content, here’s a thing:

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

You too can try it!

Of course, I ran through the thing a bunch of times with a bunch of different posts. Dan Brown popped up a few times (and I almost jumped out a window) , Stephen King a few times, Chuck Palahniuk several times, H.P. Lovecraft a couple and William Shakespeare once (right). So, I’m a very uneven writer. Tell me something new.

It really wasn’t that bad

2010-07-07T07:24:00.002-05:00

I took Daughter Number 1 and a couple of her gal pals to see The Last Airbender last night. Avatar: The Last Airbender is her absolute favorite program on TV. I didn’t know that much about it, but was pretty interested based on the previews I’d seen at movies and on TV, but then it started getting crucified by reviewers. It has an 8% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes; for some perspective, Twilight: Eclipse has a 53% rating, Signs (Perhaps Shyamalan’s dumbest film ever) has a 74% rating. Obviously some people just don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

Anyway, the plot’s not all that important. It is suffice to say that a young boy has a great destiny and a great power and is going on a great journey. Beyond that, there are lots of big fight scenes, action sequences and special effects. It this a good movie? Well, not really, but it’s not bad either. It’s a popcorn flick and as such it really gets a bit more leeway in my estimation. Also, it’s a popcorn flick geared toward younger audiences based on a kid’s cartoon. I just really don’t understand why so many reviewers feel the need to pile on all this hate. Let’s take another perspective shot – Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel has a 20% fresh rating. Come on! Again, The Last Airbender is no high-minded fare, but it’s better than animated chipmunks.

My final analysis is to wait for video. It’s really not worth seeing in the theater. Oh, by the way, we saw it in 2D – after Alice in Wonderland I refuse to see any live-action film in 3D until convinced it really does something for the film – and it came off just fine.

Best therapist ever

2010-07-01T05:42:00.001-05:00

To have a new post

2010-06-30T07:01:00.002-05:00

I've been neglecting ye olde blog, here for about a week, so I guess I need to put something up here. It's so much easier to post stuff on Facebook ... sigh

The last of our company left Saturday. We drove them out to Little Rock to catch their flight. Next time we're gonna have to get folks to fly into Memphis! Little Rock's not too bad a drive, but it is three hours, one-way. Enough whining. We had a good time with all the family and they are already missed.

I have a link of the day: Johnny Depp is rumored to play the title role in a rumored Doctor Who movie. In a way, I'm happy that there's enough interest for a movie to be made, but I really don't want a movie to be made. I mean, why? Why do it (other than the obvious money reasons)? The series is great and rather cinematic. However, it would be nice to see the Doctor in action on the big screen, and I'm sure Johnny Depp would do well.

The biggest problem with the proposed film is that Russell T. Davies may write the screenplay. Expect a movie full of hope and promise that ultimately leaves you feeling bitter and unsatisfied.

Uncanny valley and botox

2010-06-24T07:37:00.002-05:00

The other day, my wife, sister-in-law and I were talking about plastic surgery and how unreal a lot of people are beginning to look because of botox and the like. We discussed how that unreality kind of inspires an unconscious revulsion in some people – admittedly, this is not a universal reaction, but I would argue there are enough to make the statement valid. Thinking along those lines, I was reminded of the theory of the Uncanny Valley.

Please take a moment to check out the link – it’s a quick read – but, basically, the Uncanny Valley theory deals with robotics and animation. It postulates that when robots and animation look *almost* like humans, it inspires revulsion. TV Tropes has a good section with some practical examples. Thinking in terms of animation, there’s a reason why animators cartoon-up their products. Think about the movie the Polar Express or the CGI in Beowulf – they were both *realistic* but still not quite right. For a lot of people, this was a huge turn off.

Now, to take this a step further and into the realm of plastic surgery, think about stars who have been accused of using botox (or Google). The Wiki Uncanny Valley link has this to say about the phenomenon as it pertains to what they call transhumanism:

According to writer Jamais Cascio, a similar "uncanny valley" effect could show up when humans begin modifying themselves with transhuman enhancements (cf. body modification), which aim to improve the abilities of the human body beyond what would normally be possible, be it eyesight, muscle strength, or cognition.[29] So long as these enhancements remain within a perceived norm of human behavior, a negative reaction is unlikely, but once individuals supplant normal human variety, revulsion can be expected. However, according to this theory, once such technologies gain further distance from human norms, "transhuman" individuals would cease to be judged on human levels and instead be regarded as separate entities altogether (this point is what has been dubbed "posthuman"), and it is here that acceptance would rise once again out of the uncanny valley.[29] Another example comes from "pageant retouching" photos, especially of children, which some[30] find disturbingly doll-like.

The TV Tropes link specifically mentions botox in their categories of where to find examples of the Uncanny Valley:

Botox (or any plastic surgery disasters for that matter) tends to send a real flesh and blood person sliding into the Uncanny Valley. Examples: Dolly Parton, Joan Rivers, Dr. Frederick Brandt (who is a client to his own products).
- Collagen injections make some vict... er, patients have faces bloated like someone with a shellfish allergy at an all-you-can-eat shrimp bar.
- You've seen nothing. Say "Hi" to Marijke Helwegen, a walking advertisement for plastic surgery.

All this to basically say that I’m fascinated by all of this. It makes perfect sense to me and it explains exactly why you can look at a photo of a recently botoxed film or TV star and think they look great, but feel quite put off when you see a video of them. Because that’s another part of the theory – the uneasiness is far more extreme in motion than in stills.

Again, I’m not really going anywhere with this. Just thought it was interesting.

Michael Yon still isn't right

2010-06-22T15:19:00.003-05:00

There are those who are calling the Rollng Stone article on Gen. McChrystal proof that everything Yon has been saying the past several months has been true. Maybe Yon called it on McChrystal, I think the jury's still out on that, but maybe. A Blackfive author has come out in support of Yon and U.S. Report has gone as far as calling Yon "prophetic." Again, maybe he was right about McChrystal. However my beefs with Yon (here and here) have nothing to do with his feelings about McChrystal and everything to do with his presentation of himself, his professionalism (the lack thereof) and the fact that he will not legitimately debate any point but rather launches attacks and slings expletives at those who would dare question him.

Take a moment to check out this audio clip from the G. Gordon Liddy show featuring Yon and Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo: LINK. Does Yon actually say anything here?

I must again say that I have been a fan of Yon for a very long time and it pained me greatly when he started launching all these attacks against the "crazy monkeys," etc. I would so like to see him go back to reporting, letting us know what the guys on the ground think. He needs to get his voice out of the story. And just one bit of advice for him: If it seems like the world is out to get you, maybe you need to think about why.

UPDATE: OK, maybe they had a little to do with his feelings about McChrystal, but it was more about the way he presented them than how he actually felt. One day he was praising McChrystal as brilliant, the next day (after losing his embed) he's criticizing him and the "crazy monkeys."

Findings on the Square

2010-06-22T11:34:00.002-05:00

I spent the majority of this past Saturday in Mountain View, AR. I had never been there before and it is quite a lovely little town. I was there for a barbecue contest, but what really captivated me was their old-timey town square. I wish I had gotten a better picture of the square, but all the barbecue teams were set up around it and I didn’t really have a good shot. This pic of one of the square’s main drags kind of gives you an idea of what’s going on there – all the little, eclectic shops right in a row.

After the judges’ check-in, there is usually an hour or so to kill before the competition starts. That’s usually spent shooting shit with your fellow judges or walking around and seeing what teams are competing (though we’re not allowed to fraternize with teams on judge day until after judging), but this time, with so many cool shops offered, I decided to walk around and see what there was to see.

There were a lot of flea market style stores masquerading as “woodworking,” “general store,” and “military surplus.” In the military surplus store I stumbled upon something I’ve been kind of craving for a while – old school cast iron pans. Anyone who has bought cast-iron cookware recently is familiar with the texture of modern pans. It has a rough, pebble-blasted texture that is nothing like the smooth finish of pans our grandmothers used. So, to find some old Griswold pans (stacks of them!) in this store was quite the find. Better than having found them was the price. I picked up a 10-inch skillet and almost dropped it on my foot when I saw they only wanted $22 for it.

Now, did I buy any? Of course not. I pretty much had gas money for the day and couldn’t really see myself spending the money for something I don’t really *need*, but, man, it was hard not to.

Sometimes window shopping has to suffice. But there will be future trips to Mountain View. Blanchard Springs Caverns is only 15 miles north of the town. It’s only a three-hour drive, so that’s a perfect family trip on a long weekend. Caverns and cast iron sounds pretty cool to me.

I've got company

2010-06-16T07:40:00.002-05:00

The mother-in-law and sister-in-law arrived Saturday and are staying two weeks. The brother-in-law and my three nephews arrived yesterday.

My house is exceeding max capacity.

It's cool though because we don't get to see everyone very often. It's been a year since we got to see MIL and SIL, about that long for BIL and longer since I've seen my nephews (tehcnically, I haven't seen them this time yet either, they got in after I went to bed last night).

The next few days should be quite interesting.

Happy 235th US Army

2010-06-14T09:16:00.002-05:00

I am proud of my 9 years out of that 235. I miss a lot of things about it. And there are a lot of things I most certainly do not miss. What's weird is that a lot of the things I find myself missing now are things that, at the time, sucked the most.

OPSEC, Michael Yon and STFU

2010-06-14T08:56:00.002-05:00

Uncle Jimbo at BLACKFIVE has yet another piece up concerning Michael Yon.

Please go read it, but for those of you who don't Yon received an email from a troop in Afghanistan who completely violated OPSEC by telling Yon all of the flaws in the security at the FOB where he is posted. Yon, rather than informing the chain of command, goes and posts it for the world to see on his HIGHLY-TRAFFICKED website and Facebook pages.

Now, for whatever reason, OPSEC tightened. Did Yon's post have anything to do with that? Who knows? But the truth is that this might embolden other troops out there to attempt the same thing. Or worse. And eventually this is going to bite us in the ass.

I’ve got personal ties to both fronts of this war, but OPSEC doesn’t only matter when someone you know has their neck on the live. It should always matter.

The soldier out there in the sand knows better and Yon should damn well know better too. Yon continually beats up McChrystal and Army PAOs for being kicked off embeds. Well, after publishing crap like this it doesn’t surprise me one little bit. Hopefully Yon never finds his way back onto the battle field. Dude went from being one of the greatest voices for our forces in the war to being a huge liability.

The trials of barbecue judge

2010-06-14T08:16:00.004-05:00

Barbecue contest number four took me to Nesbit, MS, on Saturday for the 2nd Annual Desoto Shrine BBQ contest. It was a lovely area and the Shriners have quite the compound out there. The contest was part of a larger event - the Shriners had a car and tractor show and a concert for the evening. I didn't stay for any of that - just the barbecue - but I got to see some nice cars and cool, old tractors.

It was kind of intimidating to be honest. The Shriners' compound was, as my choice of the word "compound" implies, a fenced-in area with several buildings. There were a lot of bikers helping control the influx of vehicles. Once parked though, they had tractors pulling trailors of hay bales giving rides to the back of the compound where there was a little pond where they held the contest. It was within walking distance of the parking lot, a good walk, but still a reasonable one, but the heat was so extreme that the ride was welcome. Temps were in the mid-90s Saturday with a heat index making the "feels like" temperture soar to the mid-100s. Fortunately our judging was inside where the AC was kicking.

We're not allowed to photograph any of the entries, so this is as close to that as I can get. My judging plate, scoring slip, pencil and water - all the essentials - are ready to go. Unfortunately, the fact that this was still a young event was pretty evident. There were a few experienced teams out there, but my table didn't seem to get any of their entries (except maybe for the pork category). Overall the entries we judged weren't as good, on average, as my previous three competitions. But none were as bad as the worst I've had, either.

According to the contest reps, this was the first year the event was sanctioned by KCBS, so I guess it's to be expected that the majority of teams were going to be newer to the competition circuit. The event itself was very well organized and went off without a hitch on our end of things. I plan to judge the event again next year. Hopefully it will pull some teams away from some of the other nearby events that go on the same weekend. This has a superior prize purse to some of them. We'll have to wait and see.

Next weekend - Mountain View, AR.

Plug and a post

2010-06-10T09:29:00.003-05:00

The plug: Hey, check out the snazzy new poll I posted today in my sidebar. Let me know what you use to cook out with.

The post: Earlier J-Mom called me to let me know that my son, yet again, was being cute.

Some background - The Boy has never approached playing with toys quite the same way I did as a youth. He's always thought of playing with toys as "making movies." He'd set everything up and play with them, but he wasn't "playing" he was shooting his movie. At first, he wondered why he couldn't see them on TV, but has since come to realize that he has to shoot them with a camera, etc.

Over the past couple of days, he's gotten very interested in the concept of making real movies. He wants to make a movie that pits his hero - All Powers Man (who he portrays), against the villain - some kind of guy who freezes things (portrayed by me, apparently). He was talking to J-Mom about the costume - see, All Powers Man cycles through his powers by punching a button on his costume.

He's four years old, people. OK, almost five. But still.

Is this what a budding filmmaker looks like? If so, it’s pretty freaking cool in my estimation. I think we’ll be breaking out the Flip cam over the course of the next few weeks and see what we can do with it. I have some video editing software too, so we may even be able to add some special effects!

I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with this.

Making better barbecue part 4

2010-06-09T12:02:00.011-05:00

Having covered some of the essentials in cookers and cooking (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), I thought I’d cover some outdoor cooking accessories that, while not necessarily essential, make outdoor cooking easier.

You have a cooker. You have meat, rub, sauces, etc. You’re ready to get your barbecue on! And, well, that’s pretty much true. But what I’m about to list are some items some pitmasters consider indispensible while some are just nice to have.

Chimney Starter

While I’ve spent many years using that demon juice – lighter fluid – I’ve repented and come back from the dark side. There is no more important an item outside of cooker, meat and fuel, than a chimney. You should buy this along with your cooker and if you already have a grill or smoker, you should go out and buy one now and give up that lighter fluid right now! It’s amazing the difference you’ll realize in the taste of your meat. If you’ve been using lighter fluid for some time, the best thing to do would be to get yourself some Greased Lightning or Simple Green and clean out your grill. Coat it lightly with some vegetable or canola oil and get a good, high-heat fire going and burn it out. It’ll be like starting over and you’ll get most if not all of that old lighter-fluid buildup out before starting anew with your chimney.

Barbecue tongs

The next thing I think of when I think of a “must have” barbecue tool is my set of tongs. This seems like a no-brainer – how else are you going to tend to your smoked products? – but you need to think about some things when buying your tongs. You don’t want to just buy the first set you see on sale at Target or whatever. If you’re cooking pork butts and briskets, you’re dealing with big hunks o’ meat between 8 and 16 pounds. You need to make sure that 1) Your tongs can support that kind of weight, 2) They can open wide enough and get a good enough grip on that Boston Butt you’re spending 12-plus hours preparing.

Heavy-duty foil

Foil is the duct tape of outdoor cooking. I use heavy-duty foil for so many things. I wrap ribs, butts and briskets to help capture moisture and increase tenderness after the meat’s cooked for a few hours. I wrap meat to rest it after a cook (which, by the way, you should always do). I use foil to help dampen air flow in my grill. I use it to wrap my water pan in high-heat smokes. If you can think of something you want to add to your cooker, chances are you can kludge it with foil until you figure out a better way.

Chef's knife

A good chef's knife is an invaluable tool for preparing your products for the grill. From removing the membrane from your ribs or slicing up your veggies, one really good knife will quickly earn its keep. I'm not knife expert, but we have a couple of five-inch Pampered Chef utility knives that are priceless. I've read that you can't go wrong with Wusthof or Henckels. What I do know is that you certainly get what you pay for in a good knife.

Instant-read thermometer

There are tons of quick-read standard or digital thermometers out there. Some are good, some are bad, but the absolute best product – according to its users FWTW – is the Thermapen. You will pay a motha-flipping premium for it though. While your Kitchenaid or similar portable therm may set you back $20 or so, that Thermapen is going to cost your $100 or better. Do you really need a three-second read time (or better)? That’s up to you. I will say, for long cooks, the longer you take that lid off, the more time you add to your cook. But I don’t own a Thermapen; my $20 digital thermometer works just fine.

Remote thermometer

Remote thermometers are awesome. For a really long cook (anything longer than 5 or 6 hours in my book) they’re a Godsend. They allow you to monitor the temps of your meat or cooker (or both) while you’re inside relaxing. When I ordered my WSM, I ordered this Weber remote thermometer at the same time because the site I ordered from had a good sale on it. Had I done a little more research before hand, though, I would have ordered the Maverick ET-73. The Weber only allows me to monitor one meat and it has presets – it is similar to another Maverick’s product – their ET-7. The Maverick ET-73 allows you to monitor a meat and cooker temps or two meats and is fully programmable. The remote therm is not a necessity, but, man, it sure is nice.

Welding gloves

You can go spend a premium price for a set of specialized barbecue mitts that are cumbersome and make it very difficult to manipulate your tools or cooker, OR you can spend far less money and get a pair of welding gloves that do the same job and give you the full mobility of a five-fingered glove. My barbecue mitt predates my getting this sage advice, so I hope I preempt some of y’all.

Meat injector

I mentioned in an earlier post about marinades and injections. For big cuts like Boston butts or briskets, a marinade is only going to do some good if you inject it. You can go and spend five bucks at Wallyworld and get one of those cheap, plastic injectors with the flimsy needle. Chances are you’ll use it once and decide it’s not worth it to try again, or you might wind up buying one every Thanksgiving to help out with your turkey. If you really want to get into flavoring your meats and want to inject, you need to consider a higher-quality injector. A four-ounce all-metal injector will run you $20-$25, but you can shoot the moon. There are pump models that have external reservoir tanks and vacuum models that shoot the injection in for you.

Have fun looking at and playing with your toys, but the most important thing is to practice!

One-handed handstand FTW

2010-06-07T13:24:00.001-05:00

Daughter Number 2 is awesome.

Making better barbecue pt. 3

2010-06-04T13:36:00.002-05:00

In Part 1 I talked about the various types of barbecue smokers and some of the pluses and minuses of the different types. In Part 2 I talked about meat prepping and cooking. In this installment, I want to talk a little about seasoning. In the barbecue world that means rubs and sauces.

Just like finding the right smoker, picking the right meat and cooking it correctly, spicing well enhances your barbecue tremendously. I have mentioned that “less is more” in both parts one and two and that advice is perhaps most important when talking about your rubs and sauces. It’s easy to put too much rub on your meat. It’s easy to drown your meat in sauce. It’s easy to put too many spices together in your rub. It’s easy to add too much of one ingredient or another when making a sauce. It’s best to add slowly, taste often and remember that you can always add more later.

Rubs
If you were to ask 100 Pitmasters what the best rub is, you’re likely to get 1,000 different answers. I think the reason for that is because we all like different spices on different meats, we like different spices at different times and we like variety. There are a wealth of rubs available in stores and online. Here are a few I have tried or want to try:

Corky’s
Rendezvous (Not terribly fond, but it is unique and makes for a decent change now and then)
Dancing Pig
Blues Hog
Striplings (I linked their barbecue seasoning, but their gourmet steak seasoning is amazing, too! I really miss living close to this place.)
Big Bob Gibson

Of course, a lot of the fun of barbecuing at home is making your own rubs. It makes the end product more you own. I live in Memphis, and I think Memphis-style rubs are a wonderful place to start if you want to start making your own rubs. A basic Memphis rub is simple and can be easily tweaked to individual tastes.

I found this simple recipe here:
- 2 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons cayenne

And here’s another I found here:
- 1/4 cup paprika
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons black pepper
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon celery salt
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons dry mustard
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

I think the amount of cayenne is a little aggressive in the first recipe and the amount of cumin is aggressive in the second. I would reduce the amount to 1 teaspoon in both recipes. This second one is very close to what I make. I don’t use celery salt or dry mustard, but otherwise this is pretty much the flavor profile I shoot for.

I have been playing around with fennel and coriander. It’s a work in progress. Fennel gets very strong quickly, but I’m finding it difficult to use enough coriander to get the flavor to come out to my liking. Anyway – the point is, start simple and experiment.

There is some debate over the use of sugar in rubs. I like it. Many folks don’t like the sweetness or think the ribs will burn. If you don’t like that much sweetness, I suggest cutting back on the sugar but not removing it entirely because it helps form the bark. If you think your rub will burn, well, it won’t if you’re barbecuing. If you’re grilling, it very well could.

This link provides a wonderful explanation of one backyard barbecuer’s experimentation on the use of sugar and sweeteners in smoking (as well as some other spices and sauces). What led him to experiment is the knowledge that in candy making, sugar does not burn until it exceeds 350 degrees. Since low and slow barbecue is generally done below 275 degrees, the chances for the sugars to burn are pretty minimal. If you cook ribs on a grill, though, you might have some problems.

A final note on making rubs, I am not a spice purist and will more often than not shop for the cheaper price, but I will say that there is something about grinding your own spices. Fresh-ground pepper has a flavor that a bottle of McCormick does not. That said, I have a problem going out and spending tons of money at Penzeys, so I pick up some peppercorns at Costco. I buy some dried peppers at Walmart. But even going this economy route, there is a flavor difference in those spices. I like Paprika as a base for a rub, but grinding some dried New Mexico or Ancho peppers instead makes quite a difference. Food for thought.

Once you have the rub you plan to use, it’s time to season your meat (which doesn’t sound as euphemistically nasty as I first thought). I found the following photo (here, check out the entire blog BTW, lots of cool info) which I think perfectly illustrates good application technique:

I season my ribs similarly. I like to use a light coating of mustard, sprinkle my rub on, wrap the ribs in plastic wrap and put ‘em in the fridge overnight. For butts or brisket, I don’t put any mustard on, I just rub ‘em and wrap ‘em. The amount of rub to use is a bit tricky and relies on a few variables.

The first thing to consider is how strong is your rub? If there are a lot of strong flavors like cumin and cayenne, you probably need to use less than if you’re using a rub that’s got a lot of mild flavors. Salt is another ingredient that can quickly become too heavy. Like the instructions in the photo illustration mention, you can leave salt out of your recipes and add it to your taste individually. In my experience, nothing ruins a cook like over-spiced meat. I don’t want to waste those hours of cooking because I stubbed my toe when putting the rub on.

The next thing to think about is what kind of meat are you cooking? Chicken needs less strong flavors because it flavors so easily. Pork ribs suck up flavor more easily than beef ribs, or perhaps I should say that the strong beef flavor can handle more spices. A pork butt and brisket can handle more spices still because of their size – the rub-to-meat ration is less on those thick cuts. Start small and build your way up. It helps to remember that you can add some more of that nummy rub after you’ve cooked if you need some more spice.

Saucing
If there are 1,000 answers for every 100 barbecuers concerning rubs, there’s probably double or triple that concerning sauce. The reasoning is similar – people like different things for different reasons. Variety is a big factor, too.

For those who like to use sauce (yes, there are many barbecuers who don’t like sauce), I think there are two camps – those who sauce while cooking and those who sauce after completion. There are benefits to both. If you sauce while the meat’s on the grill – you can that nice caramelization which adds more depth of flavor to the rib. The downside of this step is that some sauces are prone to developing a burnt taste even if the sugars aren’t legitimately burnt. That’s why if you do sauce on the smoker, you should limit it to the last hour or less. Saucing on the cooker also increases the risk of making a mess. Saucing after you pull and rest the meat means that you won’t get the same caramelized flavors form the sauce, but you can address a lot of that with your rub. The sauce itself is complementary to the meat, so you’re not trying to make a candy-coated barbecue treat. As for me, I do both.

Just like rubs, there are a lot of commercial products available. If you follow the links I provided above for rubs, you’ll see that most also offer sauces. Making your sauce is fun too, but I think it’s a bit more complex than making a rub. While you just throw together some spices to get a good rub, getting a sauce to come out well often involves more than just simmering together liquids and spices.

I’ve been experimenting with a lot of sauce recipes the past six months. Some I’ve concocted entirely out of the blue, others I’ve made from recipes I’ve found around and about the innerwebs. I’ve yet to stumble on one that’s made me stop and think, “THAT’S the one!” but I’m trying. What I have found is that starting with a very simple recipe and modifying it to suit your needs seems to be the best way to go. So, following that advice, here’s the best simple barbecue sauce recipe I’ve ever found:

No. 5 Sauce
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon rub
- Opional but v. good: 1/4 cup meat drippings
- Simmer to marry the flavors and thicken as desired.
(Recipe by Steve Petrone as posted on the The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board)

There are a lot of good things going on in this recipe. It’s very easy to make. It’s both sweet and tangy. It’s very easy to add, subtract, change and modify and still get great results. It’s already your own because the recipe is vague in that “1 TBL rub” ingredient.

The first time I made this, it was bit too vinegary for me. So, in future batches I’ve cut the ACV from 1/2 to 1/4 cup. Other additions I’ve tried include honey, apple butter and soy sauce. The “Optional” meat drippings is a necessity in my book, and if you don’t have meat drippings, try a little chicken stock or even a seasoning packet from a package of Ramen.

I’ve also tried a couple of recipes from the About.com BBQ pages. The classic sauce and Kansas City recipes are kind of like No. 5 Sauce in that they’re a good place to start. I am not a vinegar or mustard sauce kind of guy, so I stay away from the recipes that veer that way. My ideal sauce is one that is a little sweet and very savory. I haven’t found it quite yet.

Saucing is a simple, quick way to add flavor and moisture to your meat, but be careful with it. If rub is your rifle, sauce is your artillery. Unless you like a little meat with your sauce, go easy.

So, what now?
You’re armed and dangerous pal. You’ve got your cooker, you know a thing or two about meat selection and preparation and you’re ready to start slinging your own sauces. One of my favorite things to do is make micro batches of sauces in-between barbecues. Instead of making a full-serving, I’ll make cup-sized batches to get an idea of how a sauce is going to turn out. So far, I’ve made a heck of a lot and I’ve only really liked maybe a tenth of what I’ve whipped up.

So, the big lesson I’m trying to impart throughout all of these tips is to practice. Learn a little technique, get your solid ground and get comfortable cooking things you like to cook. I promise you, as good as that first rack of ribs taste, they’ll be nowhere near as good as the tenth time.

Making better barbecue pt. 2

2010-06-03T21:36:00.007-05:00

This one is about meat. Oh yes. Meat.

In Part 1, I covered educating yourself about types of smokers, learning to control your temperatures and practicing. Now, assuming you have a grill/smoker, have good temperature control and/or are ready to practice getting there, today we’re going to cover some basic tips concerning meat preparation and cooking.

In keeping with my Kansas City Barbeque Society affiliation – I am going to cover the four categories they judge: Chicken, Ribs, Pork and Brisket. I am not going to talk about preparing them for a competition, just some simple tips to make good ‘que.

There are some things to keep in mind before you begin preparing your meat and getting ready to cook. I feel I need to reiterate what I said in my prologue. One of the easiest and certainly one of best things you can do to make your barbecue better is to stop using lighter fluid. Lighting coals with a chimney starter or paraffin cubes is a very simple way to make this very effective change to your cooking.

The next thing you need to think about is weather. When are you going to cook? How long is it going to take? What’s the weather supposed to be like and will that impact your cooking. I have a small overhang on my patio. I can scootch my smoker or grill under there and cook away, but plenty of folks out there have uncovered cooking areas. Keep this in mind and make sure you don’t cause any fire hazards if you do need to move your cooker under cover.

Give a little thought to what kind of wood you’re going to use to smoke with. I was watching the Food Network last night and on both Good Eats and Unwrapped they referenced some grilling statistics. Something like 3 in 4 homes in the U.S. own grills and more than 50 percent use them year-round. That says a lot about the popularity of outdoor cooking. As we continue to seek out different ways to do the same thing, we seek out obscure and exotic spices and materials. The nationalization of our goods and services went a long way toward normalizing the kinds of goods we find across the nation. It’s true there are still regional specialties, but the majority of products you find can find in a Walmart in Dothan, Alabama, are going to be the same that you’ll find in a Walmart in Bend, Oregon. Let’s not argue the merits or pitfalls of this, rather I bring this up to say that, in general, a cook can now find pretty much the same spices and cooking products just about anywhere in the U.S. It wasn’t that long ago that regions outside the Southwest had a hard time finding mesquite, now it’s everywhere. Anyone who wants to should be able to easily find the following four hardwoods for smoking: Hickory, Mesquite, Apple and Cherry. You may only be able to find chips, you may only find chunks, but these four kinds of wood have become very common.

What wood gives you is that deep, rich smoke flavor associated with good barbecue. As a point of reference the four woods I mentioned above will provide you the following flavor profiles:
Hickory – A very strong, deep smoke. This is the wood most commonly associated with Southern barbecue. You have to be careful with this because too much hickory can be bitter. Hickory is great with every meat.

Mesquite – Provides a distinct, sweet, strong smoke flavor. While many of the fruitwoods have similar flavor profiles and vary in strength, mesquite has a quite different taste. It’s very common in Southwest (particularly Texas and Arizona) barbecue. Mesquite compliments chicken and pork very well, but in the Southwest you’ll find it used on everything.

Apple – Lighter and fruitier than hickory, but still leaves a good smoke flavor. It’s a great wood to compliment hickory. By itself, Apple goes well with everything, but pork particularly benefits from a good application of apple.

Cherry – Fruiter and lighter still, cherry compliments all meats.

Other woods you may have access to and make for good smoke include oak, pecan, alder, maple, and peach. Just about any hardwood or fruitwood can be used. Just don’t use softwoods and particularly avoid pine or cedar.

Play around with amounts and combinations. The only wrong way to do it is to use too much.

One of the most important things you can do when considering what meat to cook is to give some good thought to where you’re going to buy it from. There’s nothing like developing a good relationship with your nearest butcher. I compare prices between Walmart, Kroger and my meat market and not only does my market often have the better price, they ALWAYS have the better cut of meat.

The last thing I want to talk about is restraint. Less is more. This applies to the spices you use on your meats and the amount of wood you smoke with. Start with a little. Go crazy with how you make your rub or whatever, but be careful in how much you put on your meat. You can always add more. You can’t take anything away once it’s there.

Chicken
While one of the most common foods on plates around the world, chicken is difficult to smoke or grill. We all know the dangers of underprepared chicken, so cooking thoroughly is a must. But cooking the chicken to doneness while maintaining juicy tenderness is challenging. There are many, many ways to prepare your chicken, but I want to just briefly touch on some generic issues.

Smoking is usually done at low temperatures while grilling is normally done at high-heat. Chicken kind of needs some in-between. The basic rule of thumb is to follow baking instructions. So you know that cooking in the 350-degree range is going to yield good results. If you’re cooking individual pieces, you’ll cook for less time than cooking a whole chicken (duh). Personally, I like to cook beer-can style chicken (where a rack of some kind suspends the chicken butt-down and a can of liquid is inserted and provides steam to the bird). Cooking that way, I know I can do a full-sized bird in about 30 minutes at 350.

Some tips in preparation – chicken soaks flavor like there’s no tomorrow and it’s easy to overpower the natural flavors. Be careful how much spice you put on. If you leave the skin on, lift it up where you can to season the meat directly. Spices won’t get into the meat through the skin very well. A bird sprinkled with a little lime juice and rubbed with some fresh-cracked pepper is pretty amazing – even more so smoked with some apple wood.

Ribs
There are probably as many different ways to prepare and cook ribs as there are people cooking them. Add to that the different cuts and styles – spares, St. Louis cut, baby backs, short ribs, rib tips, country-style, etc. – and you can easily see how one person’s idea of ribs can vary greatly from someone else’s. The tips I’m providing here are generally applicable to pork spareribs, but are equally applicable to St. Louis cut and can be easily adapted to baby backs just by cutting the cooking time a little.

Ribs can be very flavorful and very tender when cooked properly. They can be bland and tough as sin when they are not. Following a couple of simple steps can improve your ribs tremendously.

First, you have to select your ribs. Look for racks with plenty of meat. Also look for ribs with a bit of fat on them. You don’t want there to be fat pockets all over them, but you do want to see some. The fat is going to provide moisture and flavor while cooking.

The next thing you have to deal with is the membrane. On the back side of the ribs, there is a thin, tough membrane that covers the ribs. If you want your rub to penetrate into the meat on this side, that membrane needs to be removed or scored. It’s a fairly simple process and if you Google “rib membrane removal” you will find tons of information. However, if you get your ribs from a butcher, you can just have him remove it for you.

I like to prep my ribs the day before I cook, but you certainly don’t have to. You should rub them no less than an hour before you cook them, though. This gives it a bit of time to sweat into the meat. Regardless of what anyone tells you, rubs, marinades and the like aren’t going to penetrate far, if at all, into your meat. With a rub, the sweating pulls some of the moisture out of rib and helps create a nice coating that caramelizes and adds a lot of flavor. You can help this process out by coating the ribs with a little mustard first – a very light coat – and sprinkling on your rub. Your ribs can take more spice than chicken, but still be careful. You want a nice, even light coat; you don’t want the rub caked on. If you prepare much in advance, wrap the racks in plastic wrap in put in store in the fridge until about an hour or so before you’ll put them on the smoker.

If you do some research into cooking barbecue, you’ll hear the term “Low and Slow” a lot. Generally that means cooking for a long time between 225-240 degrees. While it’s perfectly fine to cook ribs in this range, I’ve found that ribs, spareribs anyway, can handle temps in the 275 range. The outer bark (that nice crusty exterior) is a little crustier and the ribs seem more moist.

To ensure jaw-droppingly awesome and consistent results, the best way to cook ribs is to follow the 3-2-1 method. The first time you do this, aim for a 240-250 degree temp range. Once your cooker is at temp, put your ribs on and let them cook for three hours. Don’t lift the lid, don’t mess with them, just make sure your temp stays steady. After three hours, pull your ribs, wrap them in heavy duty foil (you can add a little moisture – apple juice, wine, sauce, whatever – and some brown sugar to add some more flavor) and put them back on the smoker for another two hours. After those two hours, remove the ribs, unwrap them, and put them back on the grill for one final hour. During the final 30 minutes, you can, if you like, brush on some sauce so it will caramelize.

This 3-2-1 method will guarantee good results, however, it is a guideline. Some people find that this makes the ribs too tender so they only go with one hour in foil (3-1-1). Some like the two hours in foil, but cut down the initial cook to two hours for a 2-2-1 cook. It’s going to have a lot to do with your individual preferences. I find 3-1-1 is about perfect for me, but my wife likes ‘em a little more tender, so I’m going back to 3-2-1 next time I do spares.

Ribs are fun to cook and allow you a decent margin of error.

Pork butt
Blah, blah, it’s not really a butt, blah, it’s a shoulder, blah. The internet, books, articles and Alton Brown have talked about the cut of meat enough. All you need to know is that if you’re cooking pulled pork and you want to cook what the pros do, look for a bone-in Boston Butt. Boneless may be quicker to cook, but something about that bone-in produces better results and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as pulling that bone out barehanded when it’s all done.

Choose a butt that has a good fat cap on it and looks like it has some good marbling throughout. These things are going to cook for so long, you need that fat to keep the roast moist through the cook.

When you get ready to prepare the butt, you have to decide if you’re going to rub, if you’re going to marinade and whether or not you’re going to inject. I’ve done all three and the only one I always do and am suggesting that you always do is to make sure you apply rub. Not only does this help create tasty and thick bark, it’ll help flavor the entire batch of pulled pork when you go to pull it and start mixing it all together. I personally think a marinade is worthless on a piece of meat this big. Alton Brown’s recipe calls for a 24-hour brine. I haven’t done it, but he suggests doing it because he worries that the butt will not stay moist enough for the entire cook. Well that’s crazy. A Boston Butt has the largest margin of error for success than any other cut of meat you can throw on your smoker. A butt with a good fat cap will stay perfectly moist your entire smoke if you follow some simple steps, but more on that in a minute. The last flavor-enhancement method is injection. The jury is still out on this, IMHO. Pros like Myron Mixon swear by it. It has been said that if you want to win the pork category, you have to inject. Again, I’m not sure about that. I’ve done side-by-side butts where the only difference was one was injected and the other was not and I could not tell which was which. More than any kind of pre-cook liquid, I think a post-cook finishing sauce does much more to enhance flavors, but more on that later, too.

So, basically, rub your roast. It really does help.

The butt is where the low-and-slow term really applies. These hunks of meat require a nice, long cook at low temps to shine. So make sure your cooker keeps a 225-240 temp range and throw your butt on. It will cook for an hour to an hour-and-half per pound. It is not uncommon to have 20-hour cooks for 8-to-12-pound roasts. When you put your meat on to cook, let it go five-to-six hours without messing with it. Do make sure your smoker is maintaining those steady temps, but leave the meat alone. After that initial five or six hours, you can wrap the butt in heavy-duty foil, or put it in one of those disposable foil pan and cover with foil. This does two things – it protects the meat from drying out and it helps you collect the drippings from the roast which will become important later.

Once you get three-quarters of the way through your cook you need to start checking the temperature (for an 8-pound roast, estimate that the earliest you would be done would be 8 hours, so at six hours into your cook). You’re shooting for temps between 195-200 degrees. You need to check your temps hourly. Keep in mind that pork roasts plateau around 170 and can, in fact lose temps as the connective tissues begin to gelatinize. So you could see your 175-degree roast dip to 172 and not rise more than a few degrees for a couple of hours. What’s happening is all the heat energy is being transferred into the gelatinization process. Once that has completed, your butt will begin to rise in temp pretty quickly. That’s why it’s important to stay on top of it.

An aside – one of the best devices I ever bought is a remote digital thermometer. It has a temperature probe with a long wire. You stick the probe in the roast and it connects to a sending unit that sits outside the cooker. Inside your nice, climate-controlled home, you have a receiver that tells you what temperature your meat is at. This obviates you from having to check the temp hourly since you’ve got your remote sitting next to you.

When your roast hits 180-ish, remove it from the foil. This will ensure that the outside bark crisps up before the cook is done. BE CAREFUL in this step, because all those nummy juices in the foil are going to be put to use. Bring them inside and use 1/4 to 1/2 cup of them in your finishing sauce. Basically, mix that amount of the juices with about 1/2 cup of wine or apple juice or apple cider vinegar or whatever floats your boat. Add about 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon soy sauce and some rub. Bring all that to a boil and simmer for half an hour or so. Or concoct your own combo – but remember to collect those drippings from the roast – it adds so much.

Once the roast has reached temp, pull it off the smoker and wrap in foil. You want it rest at least 30 minutes before doing anything to it. It can rest in foil, on the counter for about an hour. If you need to go longer than that, a competition trick is to use a towel-lined cooler. Put a towel in the bottom of your cooler and put your foil-wrapped butt in then put a towel or two on top. I’ve held pork butts up to five hours this way and they were still too hot to touch when I got them out to pull.

When you go to pull the roasts – like I just mentioned – the meat is going to be hot. You can use forks or chop when knives, but nothing works as well as getting your hands in there and pulling and mixing the meat. So, a pair of gloves is a nice thing to have for this. A thick pair of disposable latex gloves works OK, but there is food-grade, heavier-duty gloves out there perfect for this very thing. I’ve not yet procured them for myself (I’m stuck with latex right now), but it’s something that’s on my list.

As you pull, be conscious of getting pieces of the bark mixed in with the interior, this will help get the smoked flavor better distributed. Once you’ve got everything pulled like you like, it’s time to add some finishing sauce. A good rule of thumb is to add 1/2 tablespoon per cup of meat. Be careful! A little of that sauce goes a long way. You’re just looking to add a little bit of flavor, not overpower the meat. You may also want to throw a little more rub in there. Hey, whatever is your preference.

I STRONGLY suggest that you do not add barbecue sauce to the pulled pork. Put your sauce on the side and allow the individuals to add sauce to their liking. Barbecue has a lot of strong flavors and some folks prefer their meat without it.

Brisket
The last meat on the KCBS competition turn-in is the mother-hunk of beefiness – the brisket. Probably the worst cut of meat on the cow, this huge roast becomes one of the most flavorful, beefy, tender roasts when cooked properly. Unlike the pork butt, there is not a lot of a margin for error on this roast. If you don’t get the meat within a pretty tight temperature range within a pretty tight timeframe, it will be tough or dry or mush.

When shopping for brisket, it’s important to realize that there are two main parts to a full-sized brisket – a “flat” which is the thinner, leaner side, and a “point” which is thicker and fattier. If you look at the picture I posted here, the “A” is the flat portion and the “B” is the point. There is a section of fat in between the two and after a long smoke, they are easily separated.

Cooking a brisket is considered the more expert level of barbecue. Because there’s not as much margin for error and it requires such a long cook time, many cooks shy away from them until they have more practice. But if you have some tools (a remote thermometer is a VERY handy tool for a brisket cook) and use some technique and some patience, you can produce reasonably consistent results every time.

If you want to cook brisket like most competition teams, you’ll need to look for a brisket with the flat and point intact. This, in barbecue and butcher circles is known as a Full Packer. However, if you want to try your luck with a less ambitious cook, you can purchase just the flat portion, but for the purposes of this post, I’m only talking a full packer.

As with the pork butt, you want to find a brisket that has the fat cap untrimmed. One side of the brisket will have a solid fat cap across the entirety of the flat and a lot of the point. It’s important to have this intact, but you will be trimming a portion of it off. Your butcher could probably help you out if you ask. When trimming it yourself, you’ll want to leave 1/4-1/2 inch of the cap behind.

Preparing the brisket is similar to the pork butt also. You should almost certainly rub it, but think of spices that compliment beef. You may have a rub that works well for both, but often pork rubs are sweeter than ones for beef. Many Texas rubs use a simple salt and pepper mix. There is the marinade and injection debate with briskets too and as with marinade, I don’t think there’s much point for a brisket, however, injections can help the brisket a lot. A simple injection of apple juice can add a ton.

Briskets require a well-controlled temperature. They don’t like fluctuations very much. If you get outside your range, which should be 225 – 235, for too long, you can wind up with a dry brisky. Foiling, which in the brisket world is known as the Texas crutch, can help keep this from happening. As with your pork butt, you want to cook the brisket on your smoker for about four to six hours and then foil. The brisket will take one to one-and-a-half hours per pound and you want to look for a target temperature of 190 – 200 degrees, measured in s thick portion of the flat.

Ideal brisket is generally judged via slices from the flat. You cut 1/4 – 1/2-inch thick slices. Take the slice in your hand and pull from both sides. The slice should pull apart easily, but offer a little resistance. The brisket should be moist and have a good beef flavor. This is what a brisket consumer is looking for.

Now the point is another matter. When you pull the brisket, the flat will be done, but the point probably needs some more time on the grill. Put it back on the smoker and bring it to the same temp. That will help render out some more of the fat in it. While the flat is best sliced, the point is great if you chunk the sides for “burnt ends” and pull the rest.

So, what now
Now you need to go out and find yourself some meat and start practicing. There are a lot of recipes and resources out on the net. Work yourself up a craving for something and then make it.

Let me know how it turns out!

Better barbecue

2010-06-03T15:55:00.002-05:00

I am working on part two, but it is taking longer than I thought and I've been busy doing real work and getting my teeth scraped. Hopefully I'll have something up tomorrow.

Making better barbecue pt. 1

2010-06-02T09:13:00.009-05:00

Memorial Day kicks off the summer season in the U.S., and the week after is traditionally heavily focused on grilling and grilling accessories. So I’ve decided to devote this week to barbecue and grilling related posts.

Grilling and barbecue is taken pretty seriously here – in the U.S. and in Tennessee. Regardless of the alleged Caribbean origins of barbecue, the process as we know it today spawned out of the slave culture of the Southern States both as ways to preserve meat and to render tough, cast-off cuts of meat edible.

Before I go much further, I want to get some terminology straight. While different cultures can argue the merits of definitions and etymology, this is what I mean when I say “barbecue”: meat that is cooked with indirect, low heat for a long period of time using some kind of smoke wood to impart smoke flavor. Grilling is cooking meat over a direct source of heat. I accept that there are plenty of variations of terms, but when I use either of them I am only referring to these definitions.

There are three steps to producing good barbecue: education, temperature control and practice. You need to understand the differences between the various types of grills and smokers, you need to be able to maintain steady temperatures for long periods of time and you have to practice doing it to learn the particulars of your pit. While you can read plenty of books and scour the internet boards for advice, nothing will make up for practice, and while you may buy the best pit out there, every individual cooker has its own quirks. There’s only one way to learn them.

Types of smokers

This is the Weber kettle grill. This is probably the grill most people think of when they think of a charcoal grill. It was created in 1952 and has been sold constantly since then, with little modification because it is awesome. There is no other style of grill that gives you the same kind of even heat distribution and is as versatile as this grill. While this is primarily meant for direct grilling, with some practice a Weber kettle can also be an effective smoker.

The bullet-style smoker is the one most people are probably familiar with. It features a heat source in the bottom (which can be charcoal, electric or gas), a water pan above that and usually two cooking grates above the water pan. These cookers are efficient, simple and usually very economical. The downside is that the cheaper models can be very difficult to keep constant temperatures in.

This is an offset smoker. The fire is off to the side the cooking chamber is long allowing you to either move your meat closer or further from the heat source or to use the entire cooking space for large amounts of meat (or a whole hog!). This particular offset is a cheaper, introductory model, but many professional barbecuers use variations of this design in their high-end pits. The basic concept of having a separate firebox providing the heat for a large drum is very sound. You have tons of cooking space, and you are able to monitor and make changes to your fire without disturbing your meat.

This is an electric smoker. These are becoming more common. Most look like small refrigerators and they aren’t much different. They are highly insulated and use a small electric heating source. Most have some kind of tray to feed wood chips or pellets into a tray above the heating source to make the smoke. The benefits of these types of smokers is that they provide an easy way to dial in temperatures and are well-insulated to maintain temps in just about any kind of weather condition. The downside is that their heating elements are notoriously finicky.

When you’re choosing your smoker, you have to consider which is best for you. If you want “authentic” barbecue or have aspirations to compete in barbecue events, you need to get a charcoal or wood-fueled smoker. All KCBS and MBN events require that cooks use charcoal or wood fuels only. However, if you live in an apartment, you might not be allowed to use charcoal, so electric or gas may be your only options. Since I am in the land of “authentic barbecue” and I am a certified barbecue judge and it is my preference, I’m only going to talk about charcoal/wood-fueled smokers beyond this point. Gas and electric smokers are either very easy to achieve and maintain temperatures in or offer little or no adjustments anyway.

The Brinkman smoker is, I would hazard to guess, the most common smoker in the U.S. It is either responsible for igniting people’s passions for making good barbecue or for turning them away from cooking it themselves. Known in barbecue circles as the El Cheapo Brinkman, or ECB, the Brinkman’s greatest benefit is its price. For $80 - $90 you can be up and smoking in no time. The downsides are that because they’re made to be inexpensive, they use very thin steel and cut corners in some areas of functionality. This means that it can be very difficult to reach and maintain steady temperatures on an ECB. If you live in a moderate climate and don’t have to worry too much about extreme cold, then you can probably get good results from a Brinkman year-round. Look for the upgraded models that have a separate charcoal bin where the body drum lifts off the bottom (link the one pictured).

The next kind of bullet smoker is the Weber Smoky Mountain, or Weber Bullet. Like all of their products, the WSM is very well-constructed. Functionally, the WSM works similarly to a Brinkman – the charcoal is in the bottom, there’s a water pan next and then two cooking grates. But that’s really where the similarities end. The WSM is made of a much higher-gauge steel and is porcelain coated. This means the cooker maintains temperatures longer and with fewer spikes or dips. The WSM also offers air-flow vents along the bottom and top. This allows cookers to “dial-in” temps and keep them rock-steady for hours. Weber offers 18.5-inch and 22.5-inch models. I own an 18.5-inch WSM and I consider it to be one of the best things I’ve ever purchased. I have owned ECBs and to cook for more than five hours you have to dump charcoal in it all the time. With the WSM, I fill it up, put in some lit coals and maintain cooks forever. Honestly, the first brisket I ever cooked on it – the very first cook on my WSM – took about 15 hours. I never put any extra charcoal in it. That’s how awesome this cooker is. The downside is that even though it is made of thicker steel, it is not insulated so it is affected be extremes in weather. Because of the bottom vents, wind is also an issue. But these are easily overcome with some wind breaks or insulation. I’m telling you, for the money, there is no better smoker. Go to a barbecue competition some time and count of the number of WSMs out there. Then look for other brands. While you may find more offsets, you will not find any single brand that outnumbers the WSM. The major fallback of this, as far as competition is concerned, is that the WSM isn’t big enough to do whole hog, so if you’re interested in doing MBN comps, you’ll need something bigger.

Recently, a lot of folks have gotten into a very ancient kind of outdoor cooker – the ceramic/clay cooker. Pictured here is the Big Green Egg Product line, but there are a lot of similar products. There probably isn’t a grill or smoker out there that holds and controls temperature better. The thick ceramic or clay walls hold absorb and hold heat for hours. This means that it takes very little fuel to bring the cooker to your desired temperature and keep it there. Big Green Egg fans are affectionately referred to as “Eggheads” because of the fanaticism their products engender in those who use them. There is good cause. Your fuel usage will go down tremendously. For example, a 12-to-16-hour cook on my WSM will use about half a bag of Kingsford. Folks use lump coal in these kinds of cookers and they use handfuls to get the same length of cooks I get from my WSM. Ceramic/Clay cookers are amazingly immune to temperature spikes – regardless of weather they plug along. The downside is that they’re prohibitively expensive. Eggheads would argue that you get what you pay for, and perhaps they’re right. I’ve also read a lot about these cookers cracking over time. It makes me wary. However, Bubba Keg products makes a steel cooker variation called the Big Steel Keg that is in every functional way just like a Big Green Egg, only its made from high-gauge steel and is cheaper.

The high-quality offset smoker pit is pretty much the standard for the professional barbecue pitmaster. This is a Jambo pit which is the kind used by Tuffy Stone from Cool Smoke who was featured on the TLC show BBQ Pitmasters. These pits have very large cooking areas and separate fireboxes, like I mentioned above. The thick gauge steel offers great insulation against even the most extreme weather. These pits are “stick burners.” Instead of using charcoal, they use sticks of hardwood to provide both the heat and the smoke. I have no experience with these high-end models, but when so many winning teams are using them … well, there’s gotta be a reason.

Now what?
So, you’ve chosen your smoker and are ready to cook. Congratulations! Having the right tool for the job is the most important part of process. Next is temperature control. You know that you’re going to have to cook different cuts and kinds of meats and different temps for different periods of time (a future article for sure), but the consistent factor for all cooks is that you have to maintain your temp throughout your cook.

We’ll use Boston Butt as a reference. When you mention barbecue in the U.S. the chances are people think of pulled pork. These butts take a long time to barbecue. While pork is considered done between 160-170, you won’t get the amazingly tender pullability until you hit about 200. For a 10-pound roast, this can take more than 15 hours when cooking in the 225-240 degree barbecue range. So you can see when maintaining your temps is important. Dips and spikes will cause uneven cooking.

This is where practice comes in. Regardless of which pit your purchase, you’re going to have to use it to know how well it maintains temps over long periods of time. We know from other people’s experiences that ECBs are notorious for being difficult to stabilize temperatures, cheap offsets have similar stability issues, WSMs are generally very good at maintaining temps for several hours, and ceramic cookers are some of the best out there. But you’ll never know how your smoker works until you use it.

So, spend some time figuring out which kind of cooker will work best for you. Some people give the advice that you should figure out what you need, then buy the next bigger/better model. That’s sound advice; as soon as you’ve figured out the cooker you’ve bought, you’ll want to move on to the next challenge. Factor that into your decision-making process. If you don’t know how well you’re going to like it and just want to start with an ECB, maybe you should think about shelling out a little more money and buying the better models.

In the long-run, it doesn’t matter which kind of cooker you choose. With a little practice you’ll realize that you can make much better barbecue at home than you can get in just about any restaurant and that makes the whole process worth it.

Making better barbeque prologue

2010-06-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

To help kick off the grilling/barbecue season, I’m going to put up a series of outdoor cooking tips.

The first is this: The best, easiest, and MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do is to stop using lighter fluid!

Buy a chimney starter or use Weber’s lighter cubes. There’s not much worse you can do to your coals than dousing them with that nasty stuff, and this is coming from a recent convert! I didn’t used to think there was much difference until I honestly did some comparisons. You won’t believe how much cleaner your food will taste.

Grill pizza

2010-06-01T09:04:00.002-05:00

As I said in the post below, I grilled some pizzas this weekend. I had a fellow BBQ forum-er ask me for the recipe, so I complied and decided to go ahead and blog it also.

I’ve been messing around with barbecue pizza for a while the past three or four months and this last time, I had the best results. I had good recipes and good fire management. After talking over the recipe, I’ll talk some about how I grilled:

I used a very simple dough recipe that I found here, but I’ll go ahead and put it here too:

Ingredients
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (may substitute whole wheat flour for 1 cup of the all-purpose)
* 1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup warm water
* 1/2-1 tablespoon olive oil
* Cornmeal, for sprinkling

Directions
1 Mix a little sugar into the warm water.
2 Sprinkle yeast on top.
3 Wait for 10 minutes or until it gets all foamy.
4 Pour into a large bowl.
5 Add flour, salt, olive oil.
6 Combine.
7 Knead for 6-8 minutes until you have a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (add a bit more flour if you need to).
8 Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes.
9 Lightly grease two 12-inch pizza pans.
10 Sprinkle with a little bit of cornmeal.
11 Divide dough in half.
12 Place each half on a pizza pan and pat it with your fingers until it stretches over the whole pan.
13 Try to make it thicker around the edge.
14 If desired, pre-bake at 425 F for 10 minutes (I don't always do this).
15 Then spread with pizza sauce and use the toppings of your choice.
16 Bake at 425 F for 10-20 minutes longer or until bubbly and hot.
17 Makes 2 12-inch pizzas.

If you go to the original website, you can change the servings and it’ll automatically update your recipe amounts. This one says it makes two pizzas. I changed the recipe to make five, but I actually made four. It was plenty of dough. I probably could have made five easy. I wound up with one thick crust, two medium thickness crusts and one thinner crust. This dough is light and kind of spongy, it doesn’t get crackery thin.

The one modification I made is that instead of putting “a little sugar into the warm water” in step one, I put about two Tablespoons of honey. This made the dough a bit sweeter. I recommend this.

I made two pepperoni, one cheese and one barbecue chicken-bacon-onion pizza. Since there are plenty of recipes out there for the standard pizzas, I’ll give you the one for the barbecue chicken pizza.

Ingredients
* 16” or larger pizza crust
* 5-6 Grilled chicken tenders
* 5-6 Sliced of bacon
* 1 Medium-Large sweet onion
* 1-2 Cups barbecue sauce
* 2 Cups mozzarella cheese
* 2 Cups cheddar cheese
* 1/2 TBL barbecue rub

Directions

1 You can use any kind of cooked chicken, but I find you get the best results if you grill tenders. Tenders seem to be best because they get a good smoky flavor through the entire piece – a breast might not get smoke flavor all the way through. Grill them until you get an internal temp of 160 and then dice them into 1/2-inch cube (larger or smaller depending on your preference).
2 Fry your bacon, slice it into 1/2-inch pieces
3 Slice your onion and caramelize it. This adds so much to the flavor. You can use fresh onion, but you’ll be missing out.
4 Apply the barbecue sauce to the pizza crust. I don’t like it too thick, but it’s good to get enough for the flavor to be pronounced. A sweet sauce is best here. I used a homemade Peach/Mango/Orange barbecue sauce.
5 Sprinkle half the mozzarella and half the cheddar.
6 Sprinkle the chicken and bacon on as evenly across the pizza as you can.
7 Put the caramelized onion on as evenly as you can. I find the best way to make sure you get the onion on without clumping is to be a bit meticulous in picking out the slices and laying the on the pizza. Takes time, but makes for a much better end product.
8 Sprinkle the rest of your cheese on top
9 Sprinkle the barbecue rub on top

Now the pizza is ready for cooking. You can cook in an oven as stated above in the dough recipe directions, but I’ve come to prefer grilled pizza.

Grilling
The most important part of grilling pizza is temperature and fire management. I use a pizza stone to cook my pizzas and that protects the crust from getting done too quickly, but it still crisps quickly. If you’re going to cook a pizza on a grill, and I mean a pizza like above – topped and ready to bake – you have to do something to protect it from the fire. I highly suggest getting a pizza stone, but you can have some success with pizza screens. Cast iron would work very well too. If you try to cook directly on the grate or with a screen, you’ll have to use a much cooler fire and more distance than you would if when using a stone or cast iron. The following instructions are for using a stone or cast iron.

You need to get your grill between 400-425 F. You need to monitor this and make sure that A. You’re not getting any huge temperature spikes, and B. You’re not getting any flare-ups. A flare up will ruin your pizza quick!

If you’re maintaining a solid 400-425 F, slip your pizzas on the grill. I do not preheat the stones, I put pizza and stone on the grill at the same time (I make my crusts directly on the stone). At this temp, the pizzas take 10-15 minutes to cook depending on the thickness of the crust and how much you’re opening the lid, which you need to do often to make sure your crust isn’t burning. I check my crust about every two minutes to make sure it’s not getting too done. I use a spatula and pick up the edge of the crust on different sides of the pie. The crust is going to get nice and crisp, so expect that.

When it looks like the bottom of your crust is at the desired level of doneness, your cheese should be good and melty and toppings cooked. Pull the pizzas off. Be very careful – those stones are SUPER HOT!

Well, that was my recipe to success with grilled pizza. It requires a lot of hovering and close attention to get it right. It is in no way a “set and forget” kind of cook. But that wouldn’t be very fun, would it?

I would think, if you were attempting to cook without a stone, you would probably have to have temperatures in the 300 F range. You would probably also need to go very light on the toppings so everything would cook evenly. Still, not something I would try unless I was making personal pies – something naan or pita-sized, but that’s a whole different process.

Next time I’m going to experiment with some different smoke wood. I didn’t add much this time because it gets too smoky too quick in my console grill.

The great grilling weekend

2010-06-01T05:16:00.003-05:00

Ah, Memorial Day. A time to remember our veterans, and a time that Americans traditionally fire up their grills and smokers. Now, I'm a year-round outdoor cooker, but that doesn't mean I don't capitalize on the spirit of the weekend!

The weekend's cook focused on the beef ribs pictured here. That was what I barbecued on Saturday (Smoke Day VI). They were wonderful. It had been years since I cooked beef ribs and they have quickly become my favorite rib to cook. So flavorful.

On Sunday, I grilled up some chicken tenders. A quick affair, but they weren't really planned for Sunday night. No, I had Monday in mind - I fired up the grill once again last night for Grilled pizza! I've been playing around with grilling pizza for the past few months, but last night I finally nailed it.

I made four pizzas, two pepperoni, one cheese, and one barbecue chicken, bacon and onion. They all came out so good. If you haven't ever grilled a pizza, give it a go. It's the only way you'll want to cook a pizza in the future.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Mississippi Springfest, Ashland MS BBQ Contest trip report

2010-05-23T07:24:00.003-05:00

I spent my Saturday morning judging barbecue in Ashland, MS. This was my second-ever contest and it was a great time. Unlike my first contest in Little Rock, this was a relatively small event. The Little Rock contest had more than 250 teams and is one of the largest events in the country. We had about 40 in Ashland. The practical upshot is that the event had a more relaxed feel and I was able to meet more of the KCBS judges and reps.

The bad: I don't know if it was just my table, but the quality of the barbecue wasn't up to what I had in Little Rock. Not that it was bad, but it wasn't A+ competition quality.

The event is part of Ashland's Springfest which involves a car show and a small carnival. In retrospect, I wish I could have brought the kids; they would have had a great time at some of the different attractions available.

Anyway, if you're interested in good barbecue, visit kcbs.us and look for a barbecue judging class near you. It's a lot of fun.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

2010-05-20T08:33:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I don't have anything deep to say, so here's a comic strip about Muhammed eating a pulled-pork sandwich.

LOST: The final season: The second to last one

2010-05-19T09:40:00.004-05:00

Am I the only one enjoying this season of LOST? Talking to my wife, looking 'round the nets, It sure seems that way.

There are SPOILERS below this in case you haven't seen the ep yet.

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Was there ever any doubt that Jack was going to be the man? Any?

I'm left wondering two things. One, is Jack really going to be the man or is he gonna get wasted and Sawyer will step up and be all emo protector, and two, which reality is going to wind up on top when the two reconcile?

I am really looking foward to the finale on Sunday. Gonna miss the show when it's gone, but I am happy they decided to put a cap on the storyline.

The best fried chicken you could ever possibly ever have

2010-05-18T18:41:00.003-05:00

I am not a fan of chicken. I grew up eating it every Sunday if not more often. It took years for me to start eating chicken again. So, trust me when I tell you that Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken is amazing. I didn't just eat this chicken, eating understates what consuming this food is like. A piece of Uncle Lou's chicken is a spiritual experience. It's that simple.

If you ever find yourself near Memphis, you have to do yourself a favor and make your way to Uncle Lou's.

RIP Ronnie James Dio

2010-05-17T05:42:00.003-05:00

Well, our heavy metal elf has passed away.

We're all brought down, Dio, brought down:

boPAD (11 March 1952 - 11 May 2001)

2010-05-11T10:37:00.005-05:00

Douglas Adams …

I first learned about Adams’ work from a friend. This was, oh, ’86 or ’87. I was at his house and he asked if I’d ever played the Infocom Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game. Not only had I not played the game, I had no clue what HHGttG was. I quickly learned. After playing the game endlessly at his house, I found the books at the library. Then I found the radio scripts and the radio show. Then I found the BBC miniseries. I was hooked – a fan for life.

Looking back on HHGttG now, there are certainly some dated references. Some of the humor was structured to make fun of things happening then or social mores of the time. But it doesn’t lesson the impact. It’s easy to understand that digital watches can just as easily mean cell phones or tablet computers. The concepts are sound even if the references sometimes aren’t.

Considering the Guide itself, Adams was a visionary. He didn’t just envision the Guide as a tool for his fiction, he genuinely thought about having an electronic compendium of man’s knowledge accessible from portable devices. It sure didn’t take long for that vision to become a reality and every Kindle and iPad and like device brings the Guide closer to parity with the books.

The Dirk Gently books came along shortly afterward and while it didn’t resonate with me like HHGttG, it was still Adams. It was still great. The way he wove humor into plot was brilliant. No one does it quite the same way.

As a fan, you find yourself wanting more. That’s the reason another HHGttG book was published and Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer was tapped to write it. This book not only didn’t resonate with me, it just wasn’t the same. The pacing was off, the humor wasn’t as good or too different … It’s just not a world someone can come in and start writing in again. HHGttG was something unique to Adams and unlike the worlds of James Bond or Cthluhu, the adventures of Arthur Dent and crew don't lend themselves to having their torch carried by anyone else.

We fans, we need to be satisfied with what we have. I hope for everyone’s sake that we don’t have another book. Maybe we can figure out a way to make a better movie, but I’m not holding my breath.

P.S. boPAD is because that's what his signature looks like:

RIP Frank Frazetta

2010-05-10T21:28:00.002-05:00

Sad news. I mean, it's been a while coming, but it's still very sad news.

What can I really say about Frazetta that other folks haven't experienced? His work is amazing and everyone knows it. There's a great documentary out there about him called Frazetta: Painting with Fire. It was there that I learned he had had a stroke years ago and had to re-teach himself to draw.

Amazing guy who leaves behind an amazing legacy.

2010-05-04T08:20:00.001-05:00

The Flood

2010-05-03T20:59:00.003-05:00

For those of y'all who aren't my friend on Facebook, I want to let y'all know that we were right in the flood area and survived without getting any flooding at all. Our neighbors across the street from us got six inches in their garage and two inches in their house proper.

Our next-door neighbors got some flooding in their garage only. A friend a few streets over from us had several feet of flooding. I am in awe over how a little distance can make such a difference in damage. I mean, I realize that flooding isn't as arbitrary as a tornado or hurricane damage, but it still boggles the mind how certain areas get hit so hard and other areas escape damage.

The picture here is of of Navy base where I work. My building got about two feet of water in it. So, there's some fun going on there.

I'm back

2010-04-30T10:47:00.004-05:00

Well, the family and I spent the last few days in Pigeon Forge doing Smoky Mountainy things. You'd know this if you were my Facebook friend.

We did not do Dollywood. The weather was too bad on the days we had considered going. We did wind up going to the Comedy Barn (much funnier than I anticipated) and going to Wonderworks. Wonderworks was a bit of a disappointment to me, but the kids loved it, so, it was worth the time. We also drove through Cades Cove - which was just amazing. We also took a quick drive through Gatinburg and discovered why everyone wants to go there.

I think the biggest lesson learned is that there are probably more timeshare agencies per capita in the Smoky Mountain area than anywhere else on Earth. I also learned that I really should have taken today off too.

Damn

2010-04-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

Bill Maher is an idiot. That is all.

The game is called SlugBUG for a reason, folks

2010-04-21T08:42:00.003-05:00

What the hell is up with this “red one,” “blue one” Volkswagon commercial shit? I hadn’t thought about slugbug in years. Decades. Then this freaking semi-funny commercial comes on and they’re all “red one,” and we’re all “Yes, Mr. Wonder, you’re right,” even though it's a yellow cab.

Because of this commercial, my kids have picked up the habit. My middle child, Daughter Number 2, has developed the ability to pick out a Volkswagon with laser accuracy. She keys in on them in a 360-degree perimeter before anyone even realizes their approach. “White one!” she yells and smacks someone. I think she’d make a hell of a forward observer.

I can’t stand this though. First, I don’t like the kids hitting each other. Not in the car anyway. It just makes them too angry at each other and it gets too noisy too fast. Mostly, though, I hate the fact that they’ve perverted the game of slugbug. Think back, folks, you didn’t smack your best pal remorselessly on the arm when you saw a Mircrobus or a Rabbit; no, you saved the best, knuckle-forward smacks for when you caught the rare, faded orange VW Bug puttering ‘round a corner. It was never (or rarely) a free-for-all. It was a rare thing.

So, DN2 asks, “Why does it have to be a slugbug?” My wife answers, “Because your father doesn’t like change.”

Pshaw. I am fine with change. I just respect tradition.

UPDATE: FYI, this "punch dub" nonsense must be stopped.

Michael Yon and Milbloggers: A growing chasm

2010-04-20T11:38:00.001-05:00

It’s really sad to see what’s happening between Michael Yon and a variety of military bloggers out there. If you’re not up-to-speed on what’s going on, I suggest reading this post at Blackfive, this one by Grayhawk and even looking up Michael Yon’s Facebook page for some perspective on what everyone’s talking about.

I wish I was better informed about what’s all going on, but all I really know is this: Michael’s been really critical of Gen McChrystal and of PAOs. He’s been “disembedded” from a recent embed and lays that blame squarely on the PAO. But this isn’t the first time this has happened (in fact, if Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive is to be believed, this was the fourth time he’s been disembedded). I remember reading some time ago about his getting pulled from an embed and he blamed the PAO then. I also remember him cutting into the PAO for not providing adequate facilities for journalists.

When I first read his dispatches about this first disembed, I just kind of wrote it all off. I was a bit upset about his rough treatment of PAOs (hey, being one, it’s hard not to side with your occupational brethren), but I figured it’d been a pissy experience for him and I let it go. However, his Facebook posts over the last month or so have just been wild. He refers to all the PAOs in-country as “crazy monkeys” and says that Gen. McChrystal “needs to be watched.”

I don’t know where Michael is coming from on a lot of this. I respect everything he’s done. I think he’s a hell of a patriot and a hell of a photojournalist. However this all seems so out of character. I get that he might have had one bad experience with on bad PAO – but four freaking times? That just doesn’t make sense. And how can every PAO in country be against you?

There are several milbloggers who have written to and about Michael’s recent FB postings. A lot of folks are reaching out to him; asking him to take a look at what he’s doing and what he’s writing. But there are a lot of folks who are coming to Michael’s defense. It’s sad. I can only comment on what I see and it looks like Michael’s in the wrong here, but all this is really going to do is further factionalize the folks out there who are trying their damnedest to provide us information about our War. That’s the shame, regardless of who’s right or wrong.

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

2010-04-19T07:31:00.001-05:00

A fun, fast-paced, campy adventure in WWII-era England.

The Doctor has been summoned to England by Winston Churchill, but when he arrives it’s a month after the prime minister made his call. In that time, an English scientist has created a devastating new weapon – the ironsides which look suspiciously like a Dalek. Of course it’s all a Dalek plot and their scheme winds up firmly planting the Daleks back into the Doctor Who continuum without having to keep coming up with rebirth storylines.

There are tons of nods to Star Wars in this episode. Spitfire planes in space attacking a large spacecraft, an android who gets his hand blown off – there’s a lot of fun going on here.

Also interesting to this episode is how Amy Pond once again swoops in to save the day. Producer Stephen Moffat has talked about how fifth Doctor Peter Davison is his favorite and how we’d see a return to this style somewhat – given how prominent companions were to the fifth, it makes perfect sense to see Amy having a very active role in things.

That said, next week’s episode is one I’m really looking forward to. We’re getting a return of the angel statues from Blink.

Kick-Ass: Meh, it was OK

2010-04-18T14:04:00.004-05:00

I started reading the Kick-Ass comic series when it came out in 2008 because it was All. Anyone. Was. Talking. About. I swear, I couldn’t put up with another, “This is the story of what would happen if a kid REALLY put on a costume and tried to fight crime!!!!oneone!gasm!” No. It’s not. It’s a slightly more realistic story about a kid who decides to put on a costume and see what would happen if he tries to fight crime. By slightly I mean that the story should have ended shortly after his first encounter.

So, I can’t really do a decent review of this movie without giving too much away. So, for those who don’t want SPOILERS I’ll just leave it at this: If you like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez movies and aren’t bothered by that level of violence and profanity, you’ll be fine with this movie. If those things bother you, avoid this movie. Now, for the rest of you, there are SPOILERS below:

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There are three big problems with the movie Kick-Ass. The first problem is that you have to greatly suspend your disbelief for the central thesis to work. Two, as I said above, the kid should not have survived his first encounter. Three, it’s nowhere near as good as the comics are.

The primary story focuses on 16-year-old David Lizewski, a comic-book geek in a single-parent household who decides to start wearing a costume (a wet suit) and see what he can do to fight crime. So far so good – this isn’t too far out there. There are plenty of comic readers who want to do this. But on his first real trip out, David runs across a pair of hooligans who are trying to steal a car. When he tried to fight them, he winds up getting his own ass kicked and stabbed in the stomach. After the stabbing, he stumbles into the street where he is hit by a car (the driver of which promptly drives away). In the comic and movie, he survives. His body is put back together and in a few months he’s pretty much as good as new. Heck, in some ways better – he’s only got about 15% of the feeling left in most of his body.

I’m not saying that a person could not have survived what happened to the character, but it would have been a hell of a long shot. On top of that, to make a full recovery is beyond disbelief. So, there are problems one and two – you have to believe that not only does this kid survive, but that his injuries provide him with “special” properties – metal plates and pins “protect” him rather than hinder (like they do to every other person who’s ever had a pin or plate) and the numbness means he can take a hell of a punishment. But, hey, it’s a movie. In fact, it’s a comic-book movie. We can write all that off.

Problem three is a bit more detailed. See, in the comics, David gets the hell kicked out him, winds up falling in with these two other costumed characters – Big Daddy and Hit Girl – and barely survives taking on the mob. When all is said and done, his life as David does not change. He’s the same person. His second life had some unintended consequences on his civilian life, but not so much that he became anything more than he was before. However, in the movie, it is completely due to his Kick-Ass alter-ego that he becomes a cool guy and is eventually able to hook up with the girl of his dreams. There’s a happily ever after ending that just doesn’t exist in the comics. Not like it’s presented in the movie, anyway.

The other issue with the comics vs. movie is that all the primary characters in the comics have pathos. We understand their motivations or we’re at least given enough to identify in some way with why these things are happening. It’s even heavier for a comics reader, I think. The movie doesn’t give us this. Rather, we’re fed some pap that’s as clichéd as every other action-comedy out there.

This following comparison and contrast, to me, illustrates the difference in the execution and mentality between the two. In both the comics and the movie, David Lizewski is infatuated with his classmate Katie Deauxma. Katie is an attractive popular girl who doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. After the mugging and car accident, though, Katie is suddenly chatting him up and wanting to have coffee with him. He eventually finds out it’s because everyone at school thinks he’s gay and that Katie has made him her gay best friend. David wants her so bad that he doesn’t deny, goes along with it just to spend time with her. Now, in the movie, he eventually gets fed up and appears to her as Kick-Ass only to unmask, apologize, almost leave, but then be welcomed into her bed. They wind up hooking up and becoming a couple. It winds up being a primary motivation for him in the movie. This happens to him about 3/4 into the film. In the comics, David ALMOST approaches Katie as Kick-Ass. He stands in the Alley below her window and yells out to her, but before she can show up, he runs away. She catches a glimpse of him running away. At the VERY END of the book, he finally comes clean to her and she is so offended that she has her new boyfriend kick his ass. She and her friends send him abusive text messages and she even sends him a sexually explicit photo of her with her boyfriend.

The comic book ending seems like something that’s more likely to happen in real life. It doesn’t make you feel good inside, but it rings more true. There was no catharsis to David’s stupidity. Not in the comics anyway.

Hit Girl was great though. They pinned her character to a tee. The movie’s worth seeing for her alone.

Taxed enough already

2010-04-15T09:03:00.005-05:00

Yeah, yeah, think what you will of all the word associations that have been made recently to TEA Parties, but I count myself among them ideologically. The point I disagree with them on, though, is the "taxed enough" part. I mean, it makes for a catchy acronym, but I think the "enough" bit needs to be fleshed out some. I think it needs to be further nuanced - we need to be taxed fairly. I don't mean that in some hipply, lib, commie way, so hear me out.

I earn a little bit more than the U.S. median income, but because I am married, have three kids and am a homeowner, I actually get a refund on my taxes. Here's the rub, though, I didn't pay any federal taxes. Why do I get a refund? Of course, I'm a hypocrite. Although I'm disturbed by the fact that the government's giving me money for nothing, I willingly take it. In principle, it's wrong though.

So that's what I'm getting at. If we (the big, national we, that is) didn't pay out to folks like me who live at a certain income level and still qualify for refunds, we'd probably lop off a good bit of fiscal expenditures.

The second TEA Party ideology I want to talk about is one with which I'm completely on board: responsible spending. You can go ahead an talk about how bad the Republicans were with spending during Bush's administration and you'd be completely right. For those of us fiscal conservatives, it made us sick to see the fed grow and grow. It hurts people's feelings when we say that we can't or won't provide a service they want or that we have been providing, but the simple truth is that until we get our deficit under control, we have to reign in spending.

Although I won't be out carrying a sign today, I am with my countrymen in spirit.

Doctor Who: The Beast Below

2010-04-11T16:01:00.005-05:00

The second episode featuring our new Doctor sees he and Amy Pond visiting a space-bound England (literally a flying megalopolis) 1,000 years in the future. Of course, strange things are afoot. The pace is high, the setting is amazing and the quotable quotes are a-plenty. Amy Pond really came into her own as a character this week. I was wondering last week. It wasn’t that she was bad, but just didn’t really stand out. Her role last week was (understandably) a far second to the new Doctor. This week she settles into her normal companion role and does an admirable job of it.

I love it when the Doctor episodes keep a good pace where so you’re never wondering when the episode’s going to move along. I also like it when they don’t get too preachy. This ep cruised along wonderfully and didn’t venture too far into preachy land like the majority of last year’s specials did.

Matt Smith again, proves that he’s the right man for this job. I just hope he chooses to stick around for a few years.

The Eleventh Hour

2010-04-07T17:37:00.003-05:00

Wibbly-wobbly, timey, wimey, indeed! The Doctor returned recently with Matt Smith taking the mantle in the longest-running science fiction series. I admit, I was rather skeptical about him. His age - he's just too young for the part! His looks - he just didn't seem right. But as soon as he climbed out of a tipped-over TARDIS, he was immediately the Doctor. It was like when Tom Baker finally stepped out the TARDIS in his long coat and scarf - he became THE Doctor. I haven't had an immediate reaction like that until this episode with Smith. Which is exactly what the series has needed.

David Tennant admirably stepped into the role after Christopher Eccleston revived the character in 2005. Eccleston was, to me, the very embodiment of what the Doctor could be. He added both an edge and a sophistication to the role that hadn't existed since John Pertwee rangled the time tubes back in the 70s. Tennant was a different Doctor than Eccleston and, at first, that really upset me. I still have problems with, but I admit that Tennant's run became quite good. His supporting cast was stellar and he shined even when the scripts did not - and those scripts increasingly worsened toward the end of his tenure. Still he rose above them and owned every scene. It was sad to see him go.

If you haven't seen The Eleventh Hour yet, you're in for quite a treat. Much has been made about the Doctor's new companion Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan), and there's no denying that she's an attractive young lady. In my opinion, the jury's still out on how much she'll add or detract from the show. In the episode the character appears as both a young girl and her current-day self. It's probably not saying much for Gillan that the young Amelia Pond stole co-star spotlight. I still have hope for Gillan though. It's not that she came across poorly or anything, it's just that the pacing of the show didn't really allow her the opportunity to do anything other than be very reactionary. This episode belonged to Smith's Doctor and he took possession with style.

Watch it for yourself and see. I think we're in for quite the treat with this Doctor and this Season. Many of our favorite baddies are returning. Don't blink or you might miss 'em ;)

LOST: Final Season: The episode that aired last night

2010-04-07T10:18:00.002-05:00

Good to see Desmond back, always like his character.

For the life of me, I can't remember if they explicitly said that Faraday was Widmore's son last season, but they made it painfully clear well before they dropped it on us.

I couldn't stop saying - "See what we did there? Aw, yeah, we flipped that bitch" because that's what last night's show was all about.

Even though every single they did last night was easily spotted well before they executed it, it was played out very well.

I sold out long before you ever even heard my name

2010-04-06T08:59:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, reading Cara Ellison’s blog, she made a quick comment about “selling out” on a post about Kurt Cobain.

Selling out … it’s something I’ve been trying to describe and define, mostly to myself … to attribute some kind of qualification or quantification to for some time. And I’m really just talking about music though the term applies across the creative spectrum – music is where most people apply it.

For a long time I have said that selling out is when a musician or band stops making music for the purpose of making music. It’s always been an oversimplification, but the obvious implication is that the artist(s) is now putting profit before creativity. And while that may be true in some cases, I’ve always had a problem with it because I DON’T really have a problem with people making money. In fact, I think it’s kind of crazy to expect someone to go out and make a product – consumable or no – and expect them to not want to make money from it.

So, I’m tossing out my previous definition. Instead, I lit upon something yesterday when I was mulling this over. I think the best simple description of selling out is when an artist starts “phoning it in.” When the music starts to lack passion and it seems as though they’re only going through the motions – that’s selling out.

To me, it’s kind of like Kevin Spacey is to acting. A lot of people like Kevin Spacey’s acting. I would go as far to say that most people think he’s a rather good actor. I would be one of those people. I think Spacey is capable of being a really good actor. He has all the requisite skills. He has shown in some of his films that he can really embody a role. However, the dude has been riding his early success for a long time. I’m not going to defend that point (it’s a pretty big rabbit hole); suffice to say, I think he’s become overrated.

So that’s where I’m going with this – selling out, to me, is either an artist(s) who was once good and now just kind of phones it in, or was never good but is strangely popular.

One of the best examples, in my mind, is Aerosmith. Aerosmith is a band full of amazing musicians. Individually these guys are outstanding in both their musical knowledge and their ability to play. However, they consistently put out pap. There’s that one song that’s on Guitar Hero that’s kind of good. Dream On is an overblown nightmare, but hey, it’s a ballad so you kind of have to sing along here and there. Walk This Way was improved exponentially when Run DMC covered it. Aerosmith is a musical debacle that somehow found their one-trick pony in the 80s and has been riding it ever since. Ever noticed how Every. Single. Song. they make sounds the same? The time signatures are similar. The keys are similar. The tone is similar. It’s formula rock. It’s Enfamil for the ears.

This next example is sure to be more contentious, but in my mind Metallica did the same thing with their Black Album. Sure, it can be argued that they opened up their music to an entirely new audience, but as they did so they alienated their original fan base. The Black Album in and of itself isn’t necessarily a “phoning in,” but after its success they began the process of churning out more formula rock. It was at this point that they started riding the waves of their past successes.

But heck, Aerosmith and Metallica are just more recent examples of the phenomenon. How long has the Rolling Stones been churning out the same tune? How long has Eric Clapton been relying on Cream and Derek and the Dominos (and that’s a real shame because Clapton is a monster guitarist)?

Perhaps I need to clarify the “riding their past success” point a bit. There’s formula rock and then there’s formula rock. Take Slayer. They’ve put out the same-sounding stuff since they gelled it in their 1986 release Reign in Blood. But here’s the thing – they didn’t break from their mold to achieve some kind of commercial success. They’ve been the same band forever. There’s a difference between that and a band like Nickelback who achieve an amazing degree of (stupefying) success and continually churn out songs that don’t deviate from that mold. They don’t challenge themselves creatively because they’re afraid of losing their success. The guys in Slayer don’t challenge themselves creatively because they’re afraid of losing fans. There’s the rub, I guess. Which of these points shows the most integrity?

The supposition in “selling out” is that those bands that haven’t sold out have some kind of moral high ground over those who have. I’m not making that argument. In fact, the point of this post (beyond working through a definition) is kind of to say that it’s silly to think that. Who’s laughing – the musician who ekes out an existence being true to their roots or the musician who embraces audiences that bring them financial success? Selling out, while I believe it is a real and true phenomena, is less about integrity or ethics and more about a philosophical justification that lesser successful artists, or at least those with low self-esteem, use to make themselves feel better at the end of the day.

How much of your soul do you really "lose" by making music for money? You're still doing something you feel passionate about, right? There's a line, I'm sure.

I don’t find much parity between Metallica and the Monkees, for example. Metallica is an entity whose members made their own choices and marketed themselves based on those choices. The Monkees were a marketing gimmick from the beginning. I just stopped enjoying Metallica’s music when it became noticeable to me that they weren’t making music for me any longer. Like pop music isn’t my niche, these bands that attempt to broaden their horizons aren’t really in my shot group either.

But who am I? I’m just one guy with an opinion. My disposable income isn't very, so it's not like my spending dollar is going very far. And that’s what really matters in this game. Feel free to agree or disagree with me in the comments.

For a little more perspective, here’s Maynard James Keenan’s take:

All you know about me is what I've sold you,
Dumb fuck
I sold out long before you ever even heard my name.
I sold my soul to make a record
Dip shit
And then you bought one.

All you read and
Wear or see and
Hear on TV
Is a product
Waiting for your
Fairly dirty Dollar.
So shut up and
Buy, Buy, Buy,
My new record.
Buy, Buy, Buy,
Send more money.

Hm

2010-04-05T11:16:00.002-05:00

I just noticed. Two posts ago I takled a little bit about subjecting moral authority on others and in the last post I talked about an encounter where I was faced with that reality.

Maybe I should write something about winning the lottery.

Other people and their children

2010-04-04T17:53:00.000-05:00

I was in Walmart yesterday doing some last-minute Easter shopping. During the trip, I had an encounter that made me want to hit a man more than I can remember ever wanting to hit someone.

Before I get into the incident, I want to preface this by saying that I play with my kids. I mean, we have a banter. I tell them that I’m gonna smack ‘em upside the head. I tell them that they’re wusses. I call them weak. But it’s in fun. They say the same things to me. It’s only when we’re playing around. I also make sure that I only say things like this at appropriate times. When we’re wrestling around, physically or verbally, or whatever – we’re playful folks but there are no doubts whatsoever how we feel about one another or how close we are.

OK, so the wife and I are in Walmart and it’s a bit of a madhouse. We’re in the seasonal aisle picking over the slim remainders when I overhear a dad verbally disciplining his kid. He tells the child, “Your attitude is disgusting. You need to change your attitude or we just might cancel Easter.” Perhaps a bit harsh, but I’ve had to make such threats before. I don’t know what this guy is getting on to his kid for. Heck the kid could have been threatening to run over his sister with a lawnmower for all I know. I didn’t think much about it.

Seconds later I’m on the other side of their cart where I can see them and the dad’s still going at his boy. Now I see the young ‘un is about 5 or 6 and is now sitting in the cart, legs pulled up to his chest, arms circling them, and is just bawling. Then, THEN, the dad says to the boy: “You are such a wuss. I’ve never seen such a wuss as you.”

I’ve got to tell you folks – I almost went to jail last night. Were I more of a man, perhaps I should. I feel guilty that I didn’t at least say something. I don’t know though, on the other hand, I don’t want other people butting into my life. I guess I hope that that kind of verbal abuse isn’t common. I hope that if it is, the mom sees through it someday soon and realizes what it’s doing to their kids. I’ve got that poor boy’s image burned in my mind and if I ever see that dude in Walmart again, he better hope he’s being nice.

Hey Larry!

2010-04-02T09:25:00.002-05:00

I was a huge comic-book geek growing up. I learned a lot from comics. Sure, I read a lot of “real” books too, but many ethical and moral issues that many people suss out in literature, I got through comics.

Comics is a wonderful medium that, at its best, condenses good and evil into easily recognizable actions and personas. The best comics put the good guys into moral quandaries such as those oft-visited: “Do I save one person I love or sacrifice him/her for a large group of unknown people?”; “Am I becoming what I hate by fighting evil on their terms?”; “Do the laws of man supersede a higher moral authority?” and in a similar vein, “What gives me the right to ignore the law in lieu of my own moral authority?”

It can be pretty heady stuff. Again, at their best, comics delve into these issues and at their very best, don’t offer any real answers. The characters find solutions, or justifications that suit their needs, but it’s obvious to the reader that it’s not a universal answer. There is no panacea for soul-searing ambiguity.

I’ve been going through some of the comics of my past. My favorite comic when I was in the 11-13-year age range was The Badger – an independent comic by prolific comic writer Mike Baron. What I find great about the book is that is does not seek to answer any of the “best comics do this” kind of questions. The premise involves a mentally disturbed, multiple martial arts expert, Vietnam vet who dons a costume and whups up on wrong doers, animal abusers and guys named Larry.

It is a glorious celebration of fists to the face, spin kicks upside heads and multiple personalities appearing at the most inopportune times. The lack of any high-minded moral exposition accomplishes two things: it makes the book approachable and fun, and it leaves the reader to make his own high-minded moral exposition based on the events portrayed. It’s not that Badger doesn’t cover the same oft-tread ground other comics do, it just that it doesn’t patronize the reader by having the characters climb atop tall buildings for pages worth of thought-bubbled introspection. While Spiderman laments his great power and great responsibility, the Badger is downing a six-pack of Point and smacking some dude upside the head with a bo staff.

When I was first reading these books, I had friends that were into their own books. One pal was into an underground sci-fi book called Albedo Anthropomorphics. This was the beginning of the hey day of anthropomorphic comics and cartoons. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the most commercially accessible, but there were tons of books: Boris the Bear, Albedo, Usagi Yojimbo, etc. Anyway, my buddy who was into Albedo, was also trading letters with the creator, and I decided to drop the dude a note as well. I had attempted to write the creators of Badger, with limited success (artist Bill Reinhold wrote me back!). Anyway, I started a conversation with Albedo’s creator and talked to him about the Badger. As many people, he dismissed the book as childish, violent and inane. And that really ticked me off. I couldn’t quite verbalize it then, but in retrospect, to have a guy who wrote space operas involving anthropomorphized forest creatures call your favorite comic “childish” is kind of ironic, especially considering his particular brand of comic helped fuel the furry explosion.

There was going to be a point to all of this, but I lost it somewhere along the way. I’ve kind of gone and pissed myself off remembering the whole Albedo crap. How fucked is it to essentially call someone’s favorite book a piece of crap? Well fuck you Albedo creator dude who I’m too lazy to look up at the moment. Fuck you and your anthropomorphized world. Except for Boris the Bear. Cause he’s cool.

Thrown into the pit

2010-03-26T08:15:00.002-05:00

Last night I had a specific DRI song in mind (Do the Dream), so I cued it up and started rocking it out. A few seconds into the song I noticed a strange but wonderful phenomenon. My four-year-old boy began to act like he got a shot of crack cocaine right into his supercharger. He started jumping around, shaking around, having all kind of fun moving to the music. I decided it was time to teach him what a mosh pit was.

I pulled up Youtube and searched mosh pits. Surprisingly lame results out there, guys. But I did find a Slayer show with a good example. Rather than play out the video, I cued up the song itself (Reign in Blood) and we got a very funny pit going - me, my son and my nine-year-old daughter.

We then went to Anthrax (I AM THE LAW!), Megadeth (99 Ways to Die), Metallica (Trapped Under Ice) and the below song I found on YouTube kind of typifies the sentiment, "Kick your friend in the head and have a ball ..."

LOST: Final Season: I forgot to post the other day

2010-03-25T08:43:00.006-05:00

It was an enjoyable episode. We have some better idea of what the island is (the devil's prison?), but the big thing that came out is that apparently guyliner is the source of immortality:

So, at this point in the story and earlier, Richard/Ricardo has little to no cosmetic enhancements to his eyeline:

But later he returns to his eye-shaping ways:

I pulled this interesting nugget from Nestor Carbonell's (the actor who plays Richard) IMDb page: Carbonell revealed on the "Lost" (2004) fifth season DVD extras that not only does he not wear eyeliner, mascara, or makeup of any kind to make his lashes and eyeline appear as dark as they do, but the makeup artists for "Lost" actually use concealer on his lashes and under his eyes to try to tone down the natural darkness of his eyeline. He also said that the unusual appearance of his eyes caused him to get teased and bullied when he was a child.

I smell BS, but hey, whatever floats your boat buddy.

It's a philosophy

2010-03-23T05:57:00.002-05:00

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

History is made

2010-03-21T21:52:00.001-05:00

Made like the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Fuck.

Food coma

2010-03-20T17:51:00.004-05:00

I judged my first barbecue contest today! It was the Smoke on the Water USA Barbecue Championship in North Little Rock. The contest is considered the world's richest and it kicks off the competition season for many competitors.

Here's BBQ Pitmasters star Harry Soo. His site was right next to the judging area.

This was a Kansas City Barbeque Society contest, the largest barbeque certification agency. For those not familiar with KCBS competitions, teams compete in four categories - chicken, ribs (pork only), pork butt, and brisket. We judges grade six samples of each category. So each judge samples six pieces of chicken, six ribs (or racks, depending on presentation), six pieces of pork and six pieces of brisket. I gotta tell ya, even just sampling a bit or two of each, it is A LOT of food!

The entries we received at the table I was at were stellar. Each piece of chicken was wonderful, we had some great ribs, very good pulled pork and good brisket (one sample was phenomenal). I was looking forward to the pulled pork least - it's something we get a lot of here in Memphis - but every entry just floored me. It was so good!

The contest was held right on the banks of the Arkansas River in North Little Rock.

If you like barbeque, I highly suggest checking out a KCBS contest near you. Or look into a certified barbeque judge class. It's a great way to spend a day!

On metal

2010-03-19T08:10:00.000-05:00

I discovered what heavy metal was in 1986.

Prior to 1986 I had heard AC/DC. There was Van Halen and the Scorpions. There was even Quiet Riot. All these bands had their place in laying the hard rock foundation that would become heavy metal, but I never realized what heavy was until I heard those thunderous drums and machine-gun guitars that Metallica laid out in Kill ‘Em All.

That year I was living in Air Force housing in Biloxi, MS. I was new to the area, having moved from Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs just a little before this. At 12, I was still trying to find my place in the world. I liked reading and writing, but I also liked certain sports. I liked my southern heritage, but there were things about it I despised. Musically I was raised on country, 50s rock and gospel, but there was always something about the faster beats and harder-edged music I craved. Little Richard’s Keep On Knocking was probably my first clue of the potential of fast music.

I’m not sure how exactly, but one day I met one of my neighbors who was a couple of years older than me. We started talking about music and my lack of knowledge became quickly apparent. He was asking: “You’ve never heard Metallica?” “How about Megadeth?” “Slayer?” I had to admit that I had not, but he quickly remedied that. I’m pretty sure the first thing we listened to was Kill ‘Em All, but the album I remember liking best was Ride the Lightening. It’s still my favorite Metallica album. And then Megadeth. Oh, how much I liked them. I guess I’ve always been attracted to intricate music and Megadeth had it all over Metallica in that regard. After a couple of hours of listening I was hooked. In no time, I was bringing over blank tapes to dupe so I could listen to them myself.

It’s also important that 86 was a watershed year for heavy metal. Metallica released Master of Puppets, Megadeth released Peace Sells … and Slayer released Reign in Blood. There were other great albums released that year as well, but these thee albums are considered to this day to be some of the most important albums in heavy metal history.

This was all so exciting to me. Not only because it was an entirely new kind of music to my ears, but also because it felt kind of wrong. I was raised in a very religious environment - the kind that frowned on all things rock and roll. We went to the kind of churches that taught about the dangers of “subliminal messages in rock music” and the “backwards messages” secreted in rock recordings. So listening to this “evil” music added an extra element of excitement. It’s similar to what the Ramones sang about in Rock and Roll Radio: “Do you remember lying in bed, with the covers pulled up over your head? Radio playing so no one can see.” Maybe I didn’t pull the covers over my head, but I totally understand the sentiment. At the time it was something I had to keep secret. Something I had to hold as my own.

In retrospect, that was all kind of silly, but I’m sure it’s what helped make that music, music in general, feel that much more special to me.

Mike Patton, renaissance man

2010-03-17T20:49:00.002-05:00

Sheila posted what has to be the definitive post on Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter. I didn't know why, but reading the post, I kept thinking about Mike Patton, Faith No More frontman and purveyor of all things music avant-garde. So, yeah, I didn't get it at the time, but the more I think about it, Patton is to music what Depp has been to film (though with far less commercial success). He melds into each new form or shape effortlessly.

Let's inspectorate, shall we? Patton started in Faith No More when FNM was doing rather prototypical 80s schlock rock. There wasn't much outside the firing lane with Epic, but there was something about Patton. Something that demanded attention. Something that screamed that he was more than just another long-haired glam rocker. Faith No More's next entry - Angel Dust - proved the band had far more going on than many thought. Still they had some commercially accessible songs in A Small Victory or Mid Life Crisis (though I doubt many of those who remember the song know the lyrics to MLC). Still, they had some amazing tunes on that album and at the same time did a cover of Easy:

Patton's voice and manner meld perfectly in this cover.

At the same time that Patton was fronting FNM, he was busy working on his side project, Mr. Bungle - a band that defies description. They are at times surf rock, they are at times ska, they are at times metal, they play circus music, arcade themes and whatever else comes to mind. Yet, even though all these disparate styles go on, somehow it all works, and Patton has a lot to do with that:

WTF, right? But it works.

After Bungle disbanded and FNM split, Patton worked on a lot of different projects. There's probably my favorite, Tomahawk which features members of The Melvins, Jesus Lizard and Helmet:

He also fronted noise-experiment-rock-ish band Fantomas where he did a lot of experimentation with the voice as an instrument:

Another one of his many projects was a "love song" album called Lovage:

He's also worked on soundtracks (the bastards disabled embedding): He used his experimental vocals to provide the voices of the monsters in I Am Legend.

Lastly, his dissing of Wolfmother is legendarily hilarious:

I can't think of any other vocalist who jumps genres like Patton. I can't imagine anyone doing with his success.

Thoughts?

LOST: Final Season: Ep. 8

2010-03-17T07:15:00.002-05:00

Wow. Not much to that, huh?

So. Sawyer's a cop. With Miles. Whee.

Widmore's there ... whoopty doo. We knew that.

Umm ... wow, a whole hour spent on that.

I was more intrigued by the trailer for next week than this week's entire episode.

Erin go bragh!

2010-03-17T06:31:00.003-05:00

Or, as Emily says, happy excuse to get drunk on Wednesday in fake honor of the patron saint of American binge drinkers day.

So yeah, I prefer Guinness to Murphy's, but Bing beat me to it.

Kissing elephants

2010-03-16T07:41:00.003-05:00

I love our zoo here in Memphis. It's very well-designed and growing - a new exhibit just opened, another big one is planned to open next year and they're building a giant nature hiking trail.

We're season pass holders; you only have to go twice to make your money back. I had the day off yesterday, so I drug the kids out to give J-mom some time to do schoolwork, etc.

One of the things I dig about the zoo, is that you never know what the animals are going to be doing. For example, I didn't think the elephants were going to be so affectionate:

We went through our nocturnal exhibit and, I don't know what this is, but he was either not fooled by the artificial darkness or was dead:

Bring a bag lunch, some bottled water and it's a great way to spend a few hours.

Grilled pizza success!

2010-03-14T19:48:00.002-05:00

As many years as I've been grilling and barbecuing, I had yet to try grilling a pizza. Well, that changed this weekend!

I made three - two barbecue, one cheese. The two barbecue pizzas when on the grill. One was a pulled pork pizza, the other was pulled smoked chicken and caramelized onion. Here's the pulled chicken ready to go on the grill:

And here it is after being pulled off the grill:

Let me tell you how amazingly simple this was. First the recipe:

Crust (I made three large pizzas, so this could be used for four medium, or even five medium thin-crust pizzas):

> 5 cups of flour (I used 2.5 white and 2.5 wheat and it was great!)
> .5 ounce active dry yeast
> 1/2 teaspoon salt (give or take)
> 2 cups warm water
> 1 heaping TBL of honey
> 2 TBL olive oil

1. Mix the honey and warm water.
2. Add yeast to water and let sit for about 10 minutes - until it gets all foamy.
3. Pour into a large bowl.
4. Add flour, salt and olive oil.
5. Knead for 6-8 minutes. I used my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook on medium until it got kind of stiff.
6. Let rest for 30 min - hour.
7. The dough is ready.

I divided the dough as evenly into three parts as I could. This was enough to get a hand-tossed-style thickness on each. You could certainly divide more to thinner or thicker based on taste.

Some folks use cornmeal on a greased pan - I can't stand that. So I put a little grease on a pizza stone, sprinkle just a little granulated garlic and a bit of salt. The stone is the key for this - a well-seasoned stone doesn't need any further oil to release whatever is cooked on it, but I find a little oil helps crisp up the crust a bit.

I used about four tablespoons worth of barbecue sauce on the pizza - in retrospect I would use more. I craved that tangy bite from my sauce and I just didn't get enough of it.

I had about approx. 2 cups of shredded chicken. Let me let you in on a secret here - without going to the trouble of smoking your own chicken, if you don't have leftovers - Walmart has some of the best chicken you can get your hands on at a great price! Their Rotisserie Backyard Grill Seasoned Chicken is amazing! At just under $5 it's a hell of a bargain too.

Caramelize one Vidalia onion (or more, to taste). I didn't measure cheese, just look at the pic above. I use enough cheese to cover but not overload. It's easy to use too much cheese.

Of course, this works great in an oven, but on the grill it was just phenomenal! I had the grill up to about 450. Then I put the stones on the grill. I had some problems with flare ups and that's something I'll have to address in the future. Also, the pizzas cooked much faster than I expected. They were well charred done after 10 minutes; I think they were probably perfectly done at about six or seven minutes.

If you've never tried pizza on the grill, I highly recommend giving it a go. If you don't have a pizza stone, or don't want to temp it breaking, you might want to try a pizza screen or just some heavy duty foil. I'd be interested in hearing about any of your attempts!

Team story

2010-03-12T14:31:00.002-06:00

I recently bought laptops for my two girls. Since we homeschool and are moving to a completely computer-driven curriculum, we really needed to do so. But I got them before they needed them (read: We had the money to do so at the time). We’re not starting them on the new curricula until their next grade level, so I didn’t allow them to just jump in and start using their computers right away. J-mom and I felt that they had to earn them.

Daughter Number 2 is in gymnastics. Very recently she was in pre-team and working toward getting on team. Our stipulation for getting her laptop was that she had to either perfect her back hand spring or make team. DN2 is our hard-headed child, but she loves gymnastics. It’s interesting to watch the different desires at war in her head. On one side, she wants to slack off, talk to her friends and be the social butterfly that’s inherent to her nature. Fighting this is her competitive nature and desire to excel in gymnastics. She recognizes her ability and she really does want to progress. The practical upshot of this is that some nights she tries really hard. Other nights she does not.

DN2 and three other girls were accepted onto team on a trial basis last week. They had to prove that they belonged there. “You’re going to have to prove you belong there. You have to work your hardest all the time.” The salient point to her was: “How much would it suck if you didn’t try your hardest and they told you almost made it?” She took that advice to heart for two nights of practice, but her final night, she seemed to just kind of blow it off. This Monday they found out whether or not they made team. DN2 and one of the other girls made team. While proud of her, I was actually kind of surprised that her behavior the previous Friday hadn’t doomed her chances.

I love that I learn as much, or perhaps even more, through these experiences. I was defining expectations to DN2 based on my perceptions. Without being provided any real objective criteria, it was kind of hard not to. So when she slacked off that one night, I was under the impression that it was the deal breaker. It would have been under my set of expectations, but the coaches were able to see the talent and drive DN2 possesses even if she still needs to sharpen her discipline. I probably need to start looking more toward a person’s talent, skills and abilities and stop defining things by my expectations. That applies to lots of things in my life – both in how I measure successes personally and professionally and in how I base encounters in everyday life.

Daughter Number 1 had to write a story. She is a voracious reader and likes to express herself artistically. It seemed the natural thing to do. Get her to write some kind of story. We didn’t even try and hedge her into any kind of mold. Just write something. She balked at the idea for weeks. However, when DN2 plopped down to start surfing the webbernets on her own laptop, it lit a fire under DN1’s butt.

So she asked us to help her out. To get her some examples of what a story contains. I forgot, so J-mom was good enough to do the Google for me. What DN1 came up with was fantastic. I’m tweaking it right now and getting her to expand some sections, but I’m thinking about asking her if I can post it here. It’s a micro hero’s quest.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the moral is or anything. I guess it has something to do with the power of bribery.

With both girls soon to be tick-a-tacking away on their own laptops, I do think my boy is gonna be jealous.

Just one curiouser for me, thanks.

2010-03-12T06:34:00.004-06:00

Went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D last night. It is by far Burton's best remake, but not his best movie. It's an enjoyable romp that's gorgeous to watch.

Everyone in the movie was perfectly cast. Everyone in the film seems to have done exactly what Burton wanted them to do as far as their portrayals are concerned. My problem is that I'm not sure if I like Burton's take on some of the characters -particularly the Mad Hatter. Mia Wasikowskaas Alice was wonderful, Anne Hathaway as the white queen was great and Helena Bonham Carter as the red queen just stole the show. Johnny Depp as the Hatter ... well, he played the part amazingly, but I just think the characterization was a bit off and that's the issue with the whole movie. The Hatter in many ways sets the pace and tone and since his was always off, the movie kind of seemed that way at times, too.

That's not to say that it's not a worthwhile flick. Far from it, it's quite worth your time to check out. For the visuals alone, it's worth it. Crispin Glover's turn as the Knave of Hearts is another huge plus for the movie. Stephen Fry's Chesire Cat revives the film in spots.

While I think the movie suffers from an uneveness - there are plenty of high and low points (and no that's not a "Drink Me" "Eat Me" pun) - it's better than having a solid two-hours of mediocrity. Because when it's good, it's very good, and when it's not it's just OK. Which is a lot more than Charlie and Chocolate Factory ever was.

What’s your favorite …

2010-03-11T09:28:00.000-06:00

OK, don’t think about it, just answer with the first thing that comes into your mind:

What’s your favorite song? GO!

My son asked me this the other night and it took me aback a little. First, because I thought it was so cool that my four-year-old was asking me the question, and second because I consider that a pretty hard question to answer.

However, without thinking, the first song I would say is We Are 138 by the Misfits. It perfectly encapsulates the aggression and energy of rock and roll and it’s short.

RIP Corey Haim, how I didn't know ye

2010-03-10T08:42:00.002-06:00

It's kind of extra sad when one of the stars from your childhood passes away. Especially sad when that person went through so much turmoil in their life. I can't say much about Haim because outside of the few movies I saw him in, I don't know jack about him. I'm with most folks, I remember him best, and most fondly from Lost Boys. I'll probably have to have a Lost Boys viewing this weekend along with my peers. However, if you want to read the definitive RIP remembrance, Shiela has a great piece up about Haim in Lucas.

LOST: Final Season: Ep. 7 – Finally, some answers?

2010-03-10T07:05:00.002-06:00

SPOILERS.

I went to bed last night thinking that they finally answered some questions, or implied answers, or at least laid groundwork for answers, but this morning I’m feeling a lot more questiony.

It was a good episode. It was nice to see that Ben was capable of being a decent person given the right set of circumstances. It was also interesting to learn that they had in fact gone to the island but somehow left – which fits in with the alternate reality’s theme of many things being different.

The most we got out of this episode were the things dealing with Richard. Astute viewers had assumed that Richard had been a prisoner on the pirate ship. We got confirmation of that. We learned that it was through Jacob that Richard was given his “gift” on longevity. That was also assumed by many, but we got confirmation and insight in that he didn’t really know how it worked.

Answers that were implied because of Richard’s situation:
> We know then that Jacob was a conduit for some energy because he was seeking his replacement guardian. This means that whatever power he possessed came from whatever whacky place the island gets its power.
> It also seems like Jack’s the obvious choice for the new guardian, but I’m wondering if that’s too easy. It’s kind of a softball, but I’m going with it because it ties into my overarching prediction that I’ll address here in a minute.

I originally felt that this episode kind of tied of some of Ben’s loose ends, but this morning I was thinking that if Ben had been working for Jacob this whole time, how come he slaughtered all those Dharma people? Jacob could be cruel, but not cruel like that. I’m still under the impression then that Ben was being led by Smoke-monster-man most of the time.

The most annoying thing to me, though, was the end. How the eff did Whitmore find the island so fast? They went to all the trouble of setting up the whole island-physically-moving thing and Whitmore just nonchalantly pops by in a sub. Does this mean that the island did not in fact move, but was just dislodged from time for a while?

I’m ready to make some predictions about the show’s finale. Even though I don’t know the HOW, we do know that Jacob and Smokey played some kind of balancing roles on the island. It’s obvious that Smoke thinks he’s won and that this is the end game. It is, of course, not and just the conclusion of Smoke and Jacob’s reign. This is the set up to a new regime. We’re going to get new black and white guardians. I’m going to go ahead and say that I think those guardians are going to be Jack and Sawyer. They’re playing up Jack’s Luke Skywalker-esque introduction to the “force” of the island while they’ve laid plenty of emotionally scarring groundwork for Sawyer to go to the “dark side.” The simple fact that Jack will take Jacobs place will serve as impetus enough for Sawyer to take the opposing role – he not only feels comfortable in the role, but he also feels like he owes Jack for taking Juliet’s life.

They did kind of throw out a red herring with Ben. The idea that Ben could be the new “black guardian” crossed my mind, but I think they did it to make Sawyer a bit less obvious. But, the way I look at it, if Smokey is Palpatine and Sawyer is Anakin, then Ben is Count Dooku – a key operative, but ultimately expendable.

So, whatever the HOW is in how they do the things they do, and whatever the WHY is in why they do it, I believe this all boils down to a big changing of the guards.

Cause I need all the motivation I can get today

2010-03-10T05:50:00.001-06:00

Get the move on, tired ass

Funny how that works out

2010-03-09T09:45:00.001-06:00

Communicators are notoriously poor communicators. What I mean by that is those who are good in the field of communications are usually really good at telling other people how to become more effective, yet are usually horrible at doing the things they tell others to do.

Like many people, I get wrapped around my axle in my domain. I like researching stuff on my own. I like coming up with my own products. I like compiling, editing, and designing on a deadline – just leave me alone and let me work. But whenever I start talking to some other folks in the nearby cubicles I often find, “Wow! There’s so much of X already done. Had I realized this, I wouldn’t have wasted Y amount of time doing it myself.” You’d think I would have learned by now.

In our office space, there are a few different activities. There is my branch – communications, there are some customer service folks, and there’re some data management guys. We are grouped by function, but a lot of our cubicles butt against the other branch folks. There is so much information that flows around here – I can’t, rather, I won’t begin to describe – suffice to say I am amazed at how many moving parts there are to what many people think are simple procedures.

Today, I spent HOURS trying to identify a guy in a photo. I sent the picture around to many different people. I called the POC for the activity where the photo was taken and couldn’t get through to anyone. I happened to be working with one of our customer service guys on something and thought to ask him if he knew the person in the photo. “No, but I’m going to see (the person who will know who that is that you can’t get a hold of) right now.”

We like to be jacks of all trades, we PR/editor/journalist/media types. I talk about communicators because that’s what I know, but I’m sure there are plenty of other career fields where this is a common trait. I just find it humorous that those of us who tout the benefits of clear and constant communication are so poor at practicing it in our own work lives.

I made a poor transition

2010-03-09T07:23:00.001-06:00

I don’t know how many of you out there still wear glasses, but I do. I’ve tried to make the conversion to contacts, but I just can’t. They’re not comfortable enough … etc. So I went in and got new glasses a couple of weeks ago.

When going over frame and lens options, I was talked into getting Transitions lenses. It’s my first time having any kind of photochromic glasses, so I finally caught up with 1991. I’ve always had a slight interest, but they’ve either been out of my price range, not an option or just always seemed kind of gimmicky. But my insurance now makes them relatively affordable (cheaper than a pair of prescription sunglasses anyway), so I decided to take the plunge.

So far? Not very impressed.

I have two main problems with the lenses. The first I was expecting: While the lenses transition to dark quite quickly, the lenses take a significant amount of time to transition back to light once inside. I knew this to be the case, but it’s a gripe nonetheless. My second problem? Well, I spend probably 95 percent of my outdoor time in a car. Guess what happens to transition lenses inside a car? They almost completely lighten. The windshield and windows in cars are UV shielded and the UV rays are what trigger the photochromic response in the lenses. So, inside a car, they’re pretty much worthless.

If you’re a glasses wearer and haven’t tried transition lenses, my caveat would be this: If you spend most of your outside time in a car, don’t bother. If you’re active outdoors, it may be a good product for you. Me, I’ll be sticking with sunglasses in the future.

Can you hear me now?

2010-03-06T08:35:00.002-06:00

I'm totally ripping this off from Ace, but this is fascinating: the Noise Addicts Can You Hear This hearing test.

They say that most people over 25 can't hear tones over 15 kHz. Sho'nuff I pegged out at 15 kHz. My four-year-old was next to me while I was doing this and he heard all the way up to 19 kHz. I wonder if he's already suffered some hearing damage from me listening to loud music in the vehicle with him.

Certainly makes me think twice about turning up the volume in the future.

Also cool on the linked page, they link to a couple of products to help save your hearing - a set of earplugs that don't just block sound, but reduce the volume to a normal level; and some noise-blocking headphones so you don't turn up the volume so much.

Late LOST: Final Season: Ep. 6

2010-03-05T08:29:00.001-06:00

I’ve been sick. Here’s my quick review. SPOILERS below.

Dude told you guys that Sayid was going psycho. But no, don’t listen to the samurai.

I don’t know that this episode answered much of anything, but it was certainly an entertaining show. It was really cool to see Sayid go awesome on that dude who killed Ben’s daughter.

Funny how one of the biggest marketing tactics for this season of LOST is, “All your questions will be answered,” and yet the creators say “all those loose ends won’t be answered.”

Not that I really expected that to happen. As long as we find out the major stuff, I’ll be OK. During a promo for Flash Forward I joked: Cast of Flash Forward find out that everything they’re experiencing caused LOST to happen.

We’ll see.

Government efficiency

2010-02-26T11:00:00.002-06:00

Do you remember all those pleasant, completely trouble-free experiences you've had at the DMV in the past? You're about to become nostalgic:

The new rules are part of a federal law called Real ID, which Congress passed in 2005 out of concern that drivers' licenses were too easy to get.

The law is controversial and many states have rejected it as too costly to implement. Florida, where some of the Sept. 11 attackers got drivers' licenses, is among the first states to comply.

To get a state ID or driver's license, even if it is a renewal or replacement, you must come in armed with your original birth certificate or passport, Social Security card and two items mailed to you that contain your address.

If your name has changed because of marriage or divorce, you must provide certified copies proving it.

Those who make it through this document juggernaut become Real ID-compliant and get a tiny gold star on their licenses. At some point, this will be needed to go into a federal building or to board a commercial airliner.

And yet, people think that government-run health care is a good idea.

Fuck you, Walking Dead #70

2010-02-26T08:37:00.000-06:00

The Walking Dead is one of my favorite comics. Not just, “lately,” or, “of those being published today,” but, “of all time.” It’s a great book about a group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse. So, they’re not breaking any new ground, they’re just doing what they do in a very compelling way.

One of the very best things about the book is its realism. That is, once you accept that there are zombies, you don’t have to accept anything else. It’s a study in human nature. It’s a Jack London story of survival, but they’re facing the ravages of wraiths rather than weather, nature or time. I know there are those who scoff at comics as not being “real literature” or something like that, but you’re wrong. Books like Walking Dead give proof to the power of the genre.

OK, selling point over. This is why I’m pissed: While the characters in the book regularly have to deal with the horrors of their plights, and that can be intense on a reader, you’re able to deal with it because it is fiction. I mean, you become as attached to these characters as you would in any good novel. It’s hard to watch them go through their pain – physical and mental – but in the end, it’s fiction. It’s all “what if.”

However, in the most recent issue, a character recounts a story from the past. It so happens that the story he tells is a real one. This makes sense. Adds some realistic depth to the post-apocalypse. The story he told is not one I ever wanted to hear again, though. It’s one I had put out of my mind after first hearing it and, truly, caused me a lot of mental anguish then and now.

I won’t go into too much detail to spare you (read the issue if you really want to know), but there was a tragic event in the news about a year ago where a drug-addled father mutilated his four-year-old son in a life-altering, permanent kind of way. However, they printed a comment from the boy who just very matter-of-factly recounted what happened to him. The words sting. I can’t even think about them without nearly tearing up with a mixture of revulsion, a desire to want to protect the child (all children), and a deep sense of lament that something like this could ever happen.

The quote was just four little words, but it just made the book a bit too real.

DRI FTW

2010-02-24T21:26:00.002-06:00

DRI, March 28 at the Hi-Tone.

This one goes out to Cara

2010-02-24T14:48:00.003-06:00

Not a shark, but the end result is the same:

Witness: Whale Killed SeaWorld Trainer

I mean the thing is named a KILLER whale. It really was only a matter of time, right?

UPDATE: Now they're saying that the whale involved has been involved in two previous deaths. WTF guys? When do you take the hint?

Women on subs

2010-02-24T08:42:00.002-06:00

Meh. I just can't seem to get too worked up about it. The Navy announced the change months ago. Not news until the SecDef makes it official though, I guess.

What I find interesting is that since I don't have issues with this, I guess I don't have issues with women serving in front-line combat units. And, surprising to myself, I don't.

But I'm not the one having to live with these decisions in the field. Feelings on the subject are, at best, mixed.

LOST: Final Season: Ep. 4 5

2010-02-24T07:25:00.002-06:00

Everything below this sentence is a SPOILER. That’s all the warning there is. UPDATE: I forgot that the first airing of the new season was two espisodes back to back, so I've updated my numbering on this post.

Last night’s episode almost seemed like a throw-away. What did they really accomplish? We learned:
* Jack is important! (Well no shit, show)
* Things happening in the alternate timeline don’t necessarily marry up with what happened with our folks in the plane-crash timeline.
* Claire is crazy.
* The folks at the temple are toast.

My problem is that all of these point could have been handled in an episode that did a lot more to advance plotlines. Instead we get a lot of huggy-feely Jack and son time. It was interesting in its way, but frustrating realizing that there’s so little left to the show. To deconstruct for a moment here: I thought it was pretty obvious from season one that Jack was the man. I felt kind of cheated that we spent so much time dealing with that kind of a story line when there are so many other things going on. Though I did find it amusing when they got to the lighthouse, I asked aloud, “Right. How come they never saw that before?” and Jack asks, “How come we never saw that before?” Nice.

Essentially what we got last night was 5 minutes worth of meat and a whole lot of filler.

Killer hot dog

2010-02-23T09:57:00.001-06:00

So, the they want the hot dog redesigned.

Didn't Tiny Toons already have that handled?

I've got half a mind ta ...

2010-02-22T08:19:00.003-06:00

I had to take Daughter Number 1 to the doctor on Saturday. All is good, but I saw this article - among many other health-related articles - stapled to a bulletin board in the examination room. Just too funny.

Apparently, it's a decade-old study.

Pertinent quote FTA: "We're not really suggesting anything about ability or performance of the task," Phillips said. "But what we have shown here is that the processing is different ... It may mean that men and women's brains are different."

MAY be different. Ha!

Best intros

2010-02-19T07:10:00.004-06:00

Most of the workweek tends to be a bit too uptight to listen to music loud enough to matter, but Fridays are bit more relaxed. It's pretty much the only day I even bother to listen to anything at work any more.

Anyway, I put on the shuffle and what pops up as song 1, Into the Void (I hope that's a decent link, I can't actually watch these at work). Does this song not have one of the best guitar intros ever? I don't have the time or mental capacity at the moment to make a list, but I'm pretty sure that song would be on a top-10 list were I to make one.

There are many great ones out there: Anthrax's I Am The Law, the Misfits' London Dungeon, Pink Floyd's Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Megadeth's Peace Sells, But Who's Buying? ... that's what I can come up with off the top of my head.

Suggestions? I just might have to make a mix CD of best intro songs.

Today in guitar

2010-02-18T08:48:00.001-06:00

Because, I am, or was (I guess), all about the guitar, I wanted to link to Ace’s micro-review of It Might Get Loud.

I’ve been wanting to see this for some time. I don’t care much about Edge or Jack White. I don’t have anything against them, but nothing for them either. I do care about what Jimmy Page has to say and find the idea of having his input couched by a couple of more modern guitarists interesting. To be honest, without having seen more than a couple of clips, I think this documentary would probably be better if the guys from Them Crooked Vultures had been in it instead (with Page still, though).

Anyway, Ace offers up a couple of other music documentaries and while I think they’re interesting, I thought I’d offer up my own suggestions:

~ New York Doll: Here’s my review of this wonderful documentary about the New York Doll’s bass player. Moving.

~ Les Paul – Chasing Sound: Made more poignant by his recent death, this documentary delves into Paul’s history and his relationship with ex-wife Mary Ford and the guitar that bears his name. For a guitar-fetishist such as myself, it was light on technical details except the multi-track recording he pioneered, yet it’s an invaluable video about a American legend.

~ End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones and Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone: How fitting that the band featuring two polarizing personalities needs two documentaries to do them justice. I think End of the Century does the better job of balancing the history of the Ramones, but it is very Joey-centric. Too Tough to Die doesn’t really give you any new Ramones information that you don’t get from End of the Century. However, you get to see a side of Johnny that fans never saw until this point. And because of that, I think we get better insight into one of the America’s greatest bands. I found TTD more poignant because of the setting, the fact that much of Johnny’s story was told through close friends. Heck, it even made me like Eddie Vedder again.

LOST: Final Season: Ep. 3

2010-02-17T07:25:00.003-06:00

Everything below here is a SPOILER. Consider yourself warned.

So, it’s pretty obvious now that the island is a prison for Locke-Smoke Monster/Esau. We can use some supposition to figure out that Jacob and those who he brought there are the jail-keepers. That leaves us to wonder over the true nature of Smokey and some of the particular properties of the island.

I have some thoughts on the former. I’m still thinking about many of the issues regarding the latter.

On Locke, the first thing I wondered aloud last night was, “Is he the devil?” I sort of don’t mean that literally, but I do mean, is he some force of concentrated evil? See, as the episode played out, and we got hints about it being a prison for Smokey, I started thinking back to my favorite Twilight Zone episode - The Howling Man. In that story, a man comes upon a castle and is taken in by what appear to be monks. During the night, he’s drawn to a cage by a wailing man. The caged man winds up convincing the other man to set him free. Winds up that the caged man is the devil.

They’ve made no attempt to mask the fact that Jacob represented a good force and that Smokey is all bad. Now that we know the island is preventing him from being let loose upon the world, we have to wonder what it is that world is being protected from. The problem here is that our sense of a time frame is a bit askew. The temples are ancient – almost Egyptian. So, we could guess that Jacob/Smokey could have been on the island for thousands of years. However, in the episode where the pirate ship crashes, we get the impression that they were just settling in on the island, so maybe that’s only a couple of hundred years. I was trying to think about what things existed in those time periods that we don’t have now but I’m beginning to change that way of thinking.

What if Smokey isn’t a particular evil incarnate – not the devil or baphomet, etc. – but rather a manifestation of plague or something like that? He does say to Sawyer that he’s “A man, just like you,” but what does that really mean? Could easily be a lie, subterfuge, or a very literal description of his anthropomorphism.

I’m willing to bet that they tie this either directly to, or make some connection with, Pandora’s box. We’ll see.

What’s fun is that while J-mom gets more and more frustrated, I get more excited about how they’re going to resolve everything.

Things I useta

2010-02-17T06:37:00.003-06:00

I don't know if it's the changing nature of preference or practicality, but when I saw the sun cracking the horizon at 6 this morning, I was happy. See, I used to look forward to the darkening days of fall, but, while it's still my favorite season, I find myself longing for the extended daylight hours of spring and summer.

The loss of an hour isn't pleasant though. That's something that spring has against it. The longer days meant longer play, but losing that little bit of extra sleep is tough. Tougher as the years roll on. Perhaps that's something that always set me against the warmer months.

It was just weird to experience a longing for those long hours of daylight when for so many years I've wanted just the opposite.

Photos of the week (ending 2/12)

2010-02-12T17:14:00.006-06:00

I decided I needed to start taking more pictures. So I have been.

Our snow and ice woes are no worse than anyone else's, but when I came home one day and saw icicles hanging from my porch lights it drove home to me just how odd it is for this to happen to us.

Sure, it's a crappy photo, but if I climbed the stairs at all I would have ruined her pose. In fact, I got off two shots before she raised her head to try and figure out what I was doing. Isn't that just the saddest face you've ever seen? Surely she is the most abused dog ever.

This shot requires a bit of context. I am obviously the father of a girl, huh? Well, her older sister couldn't be less interested in clothes. Or shoes. But don't think that she's some anti-materialist. No, she just craves things like books, baking and cake making ephemera - and she made a list. A long list of all the cake-making items she wants. As soon as Daughter Number 2 realized what DN1 was doing, she made her own list.

It's official

2010-02-12T11:26:00.003-06:00

They just e-mailed me my KCBS member and Certified Barbecue Judge number. I'm on the list now!

It was moist

2010-02-12T08:47:00.002-06:00

There are words that bother me regardless of context. I'm not referring to words that are typically thought of as being profane, I'm talking about normal words that just seem off to me.

Moist is one of those words. Getting into barbecue, this word is used a lot and every.single.time. it makes my cringe.

Another one - gelatinous. Another - rectify.

Y'all got any?

I need some help y'all

2010-02-11T11:41:00.002-06:00

Longtime friends know that I've been dealing with back problems for many years. Well, even after a couple of surgeries, I'm still dealing with back problems. I have two herniated discs. Only one was causing problems though, but it continues to re-herniate after surgery and the second disc is now getting worse.

I'm faced with some decisions. My doctor is suggesting doing the same kind of surgery I've done before - a microdiscectomy. That's where they go in and cut off the piece of the disc that pushing against the nerves. The other surgical option is to get a spinal fusion. For that they remove as much of the disc as possible and fuse the vertebra with screws and braces. My issues here are plenty. I kind of feel like why should I keep getting the same surgery done when it doesn't seem to be doing any good. From what I've seen and read up on the problem, my discs are likely to keep herniating as they degenerate. And the fusion is scary.

I want options. So I went to see a chiropractor yesterday who deals with a type of procedure called Vax-D Spinal Decompression. The doctor claims that the procedure - type of traction - straightens the spine, helps increase the space in vertebra again, and can even heal the herniated discs. He even claimed a 90% success rate. But, everything I've read online seems to dispute the effectiveness of Vax-D decompression. It's all nonsurgical and I wouldn't be putting my body on the line, but the procedure is very expensive and time-consuming.

Lastly, I'm considering just sucking it up and seeing if losing weight and getting some more exercise will help. This last one has got to help regardless, but I wonder if getting healthier alone will alleviate my issues.

I'd like to know if any of y'all have had, or know anyone who has had any experience with spinal decompression. Any advice would be appreciated.

LOST: Final Season: Ep. 2

2010-02-10T06:48:00.002-06:00

These conversations are SPOILERTASTIC, so if you haven't watched the ep yet, be forewarned.

So, not much was answered last night. The whole thing about stuff going south for Sayid was something that could have been easily guessed given what happened to Ben. The revelation about Claire was a little something, although we've known for some time that she's been working with the Esau/Smoke Monster to manipulate Locke.

On the "what if?" side of things, I found the circumstances surrounding Kate and Claire very interesting. Far more interesting to me was the appearance of Ethan as the doctor who first sees Claire. This doesn't jibe with pre-established events. We've already seen that Ethan was on the island when the plane crashed and was sent to post as one of the survivors. So, if in the "what if?" timeline he's not on the island and at the hospital, a heck of a lot more than just the passengers' histories have changed.

I guess we have to have some well-established set up for the finale, but I still don't feel any closer to having any answers.

Thoughts?

Monsters in the closet

2010-02-09T09:11:00.001-06:00

At what age do you make your kids sleep in their own room?

That’s the question that’s been pinging around my skull the past few months. Until recently, my daughters have always shared a room. Heck, they’ve mostly slept in the same bed even though there’s always been another one available. They’ve just wanted that closeness. The security.

About a year ago (probably more, my memory is shoddy on this), my oldest daughter began begging us for her own room – partly because she was getting older, but mostly because she doesn’t share any of her sister’s interests. A few months ago we broke down and converted our spare room into a fourth bedroom. Every kid now has their own bedroom. All is well, yes? Well, no.

Daughter number 2 still craves that security of sleeping in the same room as someone. She no longer needs to be in the same bed, but she finds it difficult to sleep in her own room. So, she’s been sleeping on the top bunk in her brother’s room, effectually making her room one big closet. I can accept this emotionally. I understand that she’s scared. However, I can’t keep letting that space go to waste. She’s gonna use it for her bedroom or she’s going to lose it.

DN2 turns 9 March 1 and I’ve set this date as her must-sleep-in-her-own-room cut-off date. After the first I’m requiring her to sleep in her room (of course there’s some flexibility here – weekends, special occasions, etc.). I’ve given her plenty of notice – I told her last night. I’m being rather accommodating – I told her to let us know what she needs to make her more comfortable. I’m willing to help within reason. Night light? Sure. Lamp? You bet! Set you up so you can watch movies? Uh huh. I stopped short of running satellite to her room, but I’m even thinking about how I might be able to do this (I’m short a line. I’ll have to splice an input and she’ll have to watch whatever’s on another TV).

Am I being unreasonable? Is it too much to expect for a nine-year-old to sleep in her own room? I realize that some kids grow up sleeping two or three to a room their entire life, but that, in a way, is my point. She’s got this benefit (that she doesn’t want to lose, by the way – she just doesn’t want to sleep in there) and she’s kind of abusing it. I want her to learn to be able to sleep by herself, too.

Maybe I’m just being a mean old daddy.

Never thought I'd see the day

2010-02-07T20:45:00.001-06:00

Great job, Saints.

Home maintenance

2010-02-04T06:57:00.001-06:00

I used to have a red door. Now I have a white one. I think I like it better. Is that racist?

The beginning of the end of Lost

2010-02-03T09:26:00.003-06:00

The first of the last, so what did y'all think?

I wasn't sure where they were going to go. And honestly, I had forgotten some of what happened last season (I didn't watch any of the catch-up programming). There is promise here.

Oh, here there be potential SPOILERS:

What I liked: The pacing. Nice going keeping things moving instead of dawdling over any one point for too long. Great way to start off a season.

> Benjamin being out-of-sorts. After season of this guy being the heavy, it's great to see him on edge for real.

> That they tied up things with Juliet. Instead of just having her disappear, they sent her out with style.

> The Locke-Smoke Monster knocking the shit out of Richard.

What I didn't like: MORE PEOPLE? How big is this freaking island?

> Sure were a lot of commercials for a two-hour episode.

> That Desmond was on the plane kind of throws off the theory that the bomb really did work, doesn't it? So, alternate reality? Dream? Quantum potential? Ugh. They should have just left him off the damn plane.

Snowed in? Smoked in.

2010-01-31T20:20:00.003-06:00

So, we got a lot of snow and ice in Memphis this weekend. Pretty nasty for this area, really. Thickest ice I've encountered in years.

So, of course I did what anyone who doesn't want to leave their house would do, got the smoker going.

We have some friends who raise their own cattle. Completely grass fed. They sell what they don't eat and we get a pretty good deal on it. Before this, we'd used some of the ground beef and I've grilled some steaks, but this was the first low and slow smoke.

The meat came out quite well. The problem with the roast is that they dry out so quickly after slicing. I made a simple sauce with the drippings from the roasts and it helps. They were great for dinner and made a good sandwich the following day.

Then the ice started melting and I started craving something else. The roasts were good, but they just weren't ribs. So today I ran out and picked up some spares. My goodness these things were dinosaurs - they were huge!

All in all a great cooking weekend. Hope you all had a great one as well.

Not psyched about last night's Psych

2010-01-28T07:26:00.003-06:00

Do y'all watch Psych? Did you see last night's episode? Did it make you feel as stabby as it did me?

Let me qualify what I'm about to say. Normally I'm a fan of the show. Yes, it's mindless entertainment, but it's FUN mindless entertainment. I dig the '80s pop-culture references and the banter between Shaun and Gus. It is normally a pretty funny show that follows USA's well-estbalished hour-long comdey/drama format. That is, most of the characters are completely incapable of doing or seeing or whatever anything that the main character is supposed to be able to do. Even if it makes them look like total buffoons. It's the main gripe I have with USA's shows. They don't hire really good writers to make their lead characters extremely brilliant or find really clever ways to solve issues. They just dumb down everyone else. Sometimes the formula gets tiresome - many episodes of the last two seasons of Monk suffered. But I digress - last night's Psych:

As I see it, there were three main problems - John Cena as an actor, the writer's complete lack of knowledge about how the military does anything, and them forgetting plot points they'd made earlier in the show. The first one's kind of easy - um, John Cena is a large, charasmatic wrestler in the WWE. If you watch wrestling at all, you probably have your opinions about him. If not, well, he's a likable enough guy, but he's no actor. He's got the range of a light switch. He's serious or not, and that's about it. However, you can overlook a lot of that. The problem is that they didn't play to his strengths - beating people up and doing action sequences - they actually tried to portray him as some kind of super-spy. In a move akin to trying to squeeze gravy from a kidney stone, they actually tried to get him to display emotion. The writers would have been far better served by just setting him in the mode he does best: Kick Ass.

Point the second: I can normally forgive a lot of military ignorance. If you haven't lived it, or done a good degree of research, you normally don't get it. But there's a difference between faking it well and what Psych did last night. I facepalmed about every five minutes. "Late at night, he snuck off base ..." There are many problems with that statement alone. "What are you doing out after lights out?" THIS ISN'T BASIC TRAINING Psych writers. "You civilians don't have authroization to be on this property!" If you're in the Army in Psych world, you live in a constant state of basic training, as a seasoned officer, you constantly talk about your experiences in war allegorically to current situations and you swallow your dog tags when you commit suicide. Just ugh.

Point the last: The climax of the ep totally ignores the character establishment throughout. SPOILER ALERT:

So, throughout the show, Cena is portrayed as some kind of military super spy taking orders from some shadowy figure. It's obviously government. Yet, at the end of the show he's about to take out the bad guy - as he's been ordered to do - and is confronted by the Psych crew who try to stop him from doing it. Not in a, "You don't have to do what your bosses tell you" kind of way, but in a "don't murder him" kind of way. They go as far as to arrest him for "attempted murder." Dumbasses. Even if the situation could have possibly been misconstrued as that (they made a point earlier in the show of basically saying he has a license to kill), later they have a scene where he's supposed to be carted off to a holding facility and he's mysteriously disappeared. Um, again dummies, he wouldn't have made it to the PD without an MiB there to "clear things up."

/SPOILER

Look, it's not like I expect great things from the show. I realize, like I've said, that it's mindless entertainment. What upset me so is that they obviously thought they could tackle a more complex plotline and they proved they suck at it horribly.

God let's hope they get back to doing what they do best - making mindless fun.

yay /sarcasm

2010-01-27T12:49:00.002-06:00

Oh. Boy. A 10-inch ~~iPhone.~~

UPDATE: Pardon me, a 10-inch iPod touch. The thing doesn't have a camera nor can it make phone calls. I can understand the phone thing, but removing the camera doesn't make any sense.

BBQ Weekend

2010-01-24T18:32:00.009-06:00

Whew! There were many things barbecue going on for me this weekend.

First, on Saturday I attended a Kansas City Barbecue Society Certified Barbecue Judge class. Participants are or become KCBS members are after completing the class are certified to judge KCBS-sanctioned barbecue contests. You get to eat a good amount of barbecue in the class, too. That's a plus!

I have already e-mailed eight different contests nearby to see if I can get in on the judging team. It can be difficult to get into a contest - you can imagine, people are always wanting to eat barbecue! - so the earlier you get a hold of folks the better. I need to contact a few more. I'll be happy if I just get to judge two or three.

Secondly, the parts for my smoker came in Wednesday and I was able to inaugurate it today. I put a brisket on at 4:30 a.m. and cooked a few ABTs (explanation forthcoming).

The brisket was pretty big - right at 16 lbs. It was pretty fatty though. I must have trimmed at least three pounds of fat from it. It was long though. You can see on the right-hand side that I had to fold one side under - in fact I had to do it a little more than this so the meat didn't touch the lid.

I cooked the brisket at 225-235 for four hours. Then foiled it and tried to keep the temp in the 240 - 250 range. It's amazing how well the Weber Smoky Mountain both keeps temperature and is easy to adjust. It really is a set and forget cooker. I cooked the brisket until I got an internal temperature of 205F. A total cook time of 10 hours. Moist, tender, but not mushy. It was the best brisket I've ever cooked and one of the best I've ever eaten.

After I pulled the brisket off I put on the ABTs:

This was my first time cooking or eating these things and THEY. ARE. AWESOME!

Here's the recipe I followed: Atomic Buffalo Turds - Cream cheese, pulled pork and barbecue rub. Jalapeño Peppers and Bacon. Simple huh? I mixed the cream cheese, pork and rub in my Kitchenaid mixer. It broke the pork down and spread it out evenly and distributed the rub nicely. I couldn't have done anywhere near as nice a job with a mixing spoon. The cream-cheese filling itself is wonderful.

Cut the peppers in half (use gloves!) and scrape out the seeds and membrane. Fill with the cream cheese and wrap with a slice of bacon. Use a toothpick if necessary. I didn't need to.

Don't those look wonderful? You have to cook them over a relatively low heat so the peppers get tender and the bacon fat renders. I cooked them in the WSM for a couple of hours and then threw them in the oven under the broiler for a couple of minutes to crisp the bacon a bit more. Done properly, everything just melts in your mouth and the flavors will bowl you over. Amazing!

All-in-all, a great weekend with a lot of good food!

Turning that frown of a day on its bitch head

2010-01-22T05:39:00.000-06:00

For a day that started off miserably because of lack of sleep, it turned out quite good.

The parts for my smoker finally came in last night. Brisket this weekend!

I had been trying to get into a certified barbecue judge class this Saturday. They had said it was all full, but I asked them to let me know if an opening became available. I got a call last night and was asked if I still wanted to go. Hell yeah!

Now, I finally did wake up yesterday and stopped walking around like I was in Romero flick, but these things really put a nice cap on an otherwise blah day.

Hope you all have as good of a weekend as mine is shaping up to be.

To sleep, perchance to ... no, all I care about is sleep

2010-01-21T07:05:00.000-06:00

I do not do well on little sleep. If I can get eight hours, I like to get eight hours. I'm OK with six-and-a-half or seven, but once you start getting below that, it's not a good thing.

Last night I could not sleep. An army of sleep deprivation was marching through my head.

What makes it particularly weird, though, is that I just got some Lortab and that usually knocks me out. Last night I was wired. This morning I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience.

It's only 7 a.m. and I already want to go back home. God help me.

Chops!

2010-01-18T16:28:00.001-06:00

Pic 1: Since I didn't get all my parts for my smoker, I went ahead and threw some chops on the grill. I kept it pretty simple. I seasoned them lightly with pepper and salt and a little lime juice and let them sit overnight in the fridge.

Pic 2: I got this product in with my smoker. It's a remote digital thermometer. This is a beautiful thing. There's a thermometer probe that runs to a sending unit. The remote unit sits inside with you. You just wait for it to hit the right internal temp and all's good.

Pic 3: The finished product. After the chops hit 170, I sauced them over direct heat with my sweet/spicy sauce. I thought the sauce might overpower the taste of the pork, but it just wasn't the case. It added a nice, sweet dimension allowing the flavor of the meat to shine.

Very nice.

Smoking update

2010-01-18T09:24:00.000-06:00

My smoker arrived Friday almost completely intact. That is, the box was missing some parts. The interior brackets that hold the grill grates and water pan were absent. Customer service was great though and I've got new parts in route, they just aren't supposed to get here until tomorrow or Wednesday. That put a real damper on smoking this weekend, but I am grilling some boneless pork chops today and I'm going to use the sauce I mentioned in the last post.

There's been a barbecue sauce smell permeating my house almost every night for about a week as I've run through different sauce recipes. For those of you who like strong vinegar sauces, this one, the No. 5 sauce, via Steve Petrone at the Virtual Weber Bullet Forums is really good and very simple. Too much vinegar for me, but I can appreciate it for what it is. There are some good flavors here, especially if you have a well-rounded rub.