About to cause a lot of shaking.
After-show edit: Still an awesome live show. Had not gotten their latest album until tonight, but from what I heard earlier tonight, it's just as good as the rest. They had a poster on display with some critic reviews. Each review deemed the album as top-notch.
And no JG, I still say they are not a "jam band".
A bit more challenging than initially thought.
Ever since watching the ribs episode of Good Eats, I wanted to try and cook ribs just like Alton.
Well, I gathered almost all the necessary ingredients over the weekend (minus one of the +1 parts of the dry rub) and gave it a shot Monday. I discovered that it's best to be completely prepared before starting. To the bullet points!
- I ran out of Worcestershire sauce making deer jerky (more on that in a moment) so I found a recipe online on how to make a decent substitute using ingredients I already had. It was close.
- Baking equipment. I need better stuff. Got too messy dealing with the braising liquid while adding it to the ribs and afterwards trying to make the glaze.
- The oven temp was in flux. Not horribly, but at times would get too hot. Too much heat is not good. And since the temp was in flux, I allowed some extra time for cooking.
Final verdict: fair to decent ribs. Not great, maybe not even good by some folks' standards, but I ate about half a rack and am still standing today.
Now I know what I need to use and need to do for next time. Oh yes, there will be a next time.
And speaking of that deer jerky. Again, I tried Alton's setup. Had all the necessary ingredients. Let it marinate for the appropriate time. Before dehydration, the meat was good and tasty. As for the dehydration? Well, I tried to replicate Alton's method. Only thing was, I don't have a box fan. So I figured the biggest fan we got on high could come close. Yes, I used air filters just as he did. I let it sit in the garage most of the evening and overnight. Just tried a piece and it is good.
Now on to my next Good Eats attempt. This one isn't as ambitious. In fact, it should be quite simple: croûtons.
Memorial day is a day known for ... cooking out. This day though, I'm not firing up the grill. Nope, I'm trying a recipe for ribs that involves slow cooking in the oven.
Where am I getting this from? Why the culinary expert, Alton Brown.
I'm also going to try to make deer jerky, also by Alton's methods. This should be fun.
Time to kick back, relax and ... do nothing. Well, I might try a couple of rib recipes. Mmmmm, ribs.
Happy Memorial Day, and all that.
I knew I should have checked myself out, but no, I wanted to go to the available teller because I had some produce. The last time I did the self-checkout with produce, I had to get a teller to help me because the produce was not listed in the system. Now this time, I lose $3 trying to make things easier on me.
You see, Kroger had a special on utensils and equipment. Buy two, get one free. Sweet, because there were a couple of items I was wanting to get. So I pick the three items. $2.19, $2.79 and $5.19. Well, guess which one got scanned second. That's right, the $5.19 item. And guess which one was scanned third, therefore free. Yep, $2.19.
At least the coupons balanced it out.
Ok, if you haven't watched CSI: yet, DO NOT CLICK THE READ MORE LINK!
Quick mention of the others:
- Criminal Minds was ok. Next week's finale looks interesting.
- CSI:NY brought an end to the 'Cabbie Killer' storyline. Some suspense, a couple of twists.
- SVU made sure just about everyone of the characters were knocked down a notch. Or in one case, knocked off completely.
Now for the shocking episode of CSI:. I don't know where to begin. All the previews showed them revisiting Warrick's trouble with the mob guy. There was a known (to viewers) mole in the department. Warrick was haunted by this.
A dead man they investigate turns out to be connected. Then to really make things interesting, Warrick is found holding the gun that killed the mob guy. Only he doesn't know what happened.
Turns out, he was framed. Hey, I said don't read on if you haven't seen it yet. They finger the mole cop, but haven't caught him yet. Warrick's free and a few questions are answered and things seem to be resolved. Until the under-sheriff walks up to Warrick and shoots him in the head, twice.
Yeah, they killed off Warrick. Why? Well, could be for two reasons. One it leaves a huge storyline to build on for next season. Two, turns out Gary Dourdin (you know, the actor that plays Warrick) was going to leave the show anyway because of contract negotiations. Oh, add on that he was busted on drug charges not long after this, and it was pretty much a given.
I'm glad I hadn't heard about that until now. I just got curious and searched the web for CSI: chatter and found those stories. All I can say is wow.
Well, that just about does it for these shows until the fall. A couple more finales coming, then it's a long, long wait until new episodes.
Not to mention the long, long wait until new Heroes. But that's for another blog entry.
I say 'watching' because the DVR is paused right now. Why is it paused and I'm posting on my blog? I'll tell you why.
Because the first 43 minutes of this episode have absolutely rocked my pants off. Well, that's not accurate, because I'm not wearing pants. Settle down ladies, I am wearing shorts. So technically, it rocked my shorts off. Again, settle down.
I'm assuming you've seen it by now. So here goes. Since the episode revolves around Toby leaving, I was expecting a whole storyline involving Toby revealing how he feels about Pam and the resulting fallout. It is being setup perfectly because Jim announced he's going to propose to Pam. Then a nice little curve was thrown in with Pam saying she thinks Toby is cute. Oh happy day, let this happen and let it be awesome.
Again, notice above, I mention the first 43 minutes. Well, the 44th minute, oh sweet manna from heaven. The Office just leaped all other shows in the history of ever to take over the #1 spot.
Alright, enough of this. I need to fix me another drink and prepare myself for the ending of this awesome episode.
I am a good son. My sister and I went home for Mother's Day. Well, also to carry some things home, but mostly for Mother's Day. I even got to give my mom and grandmother my gift. A new picture of me. Not just any picture, a professional portrait done by Olan Mills (done for our church photo directory recently). Fancy frames and all. Considering that the only other good picture of me my grandmother has is from high school, I'd say this is a good thing. Besides, they both loved them. The cool thing is, my dad knew I was doing this and didn't tell her.
So that means I'm good for doing nothing for a while now, right? Right?
I've got my four shows that are must-see TV: Law & Order:SVU, Criminal Minds, CSI:NY, CSI:. After watching this week's episodes, I have rated them thusly.
Criminal Minds: Typical episode for them. A slight tweak with the team split on two different cases. Nothing really out of the ordinary with either case. A nice surprise at the end to lead to future storylines.
CSI: Guest stars out the wazoo. Katey Sagal, who I will admit is still looking good, as the sitcom star found murdered. Tons of corny jokes throughout the episode. A few appeared to be inside jokes. The revelation of the suspect and cause for death was kinda weak, but the slight twist involving others was nice.
SVU: Crazy ordeal after finding a woman murdered. The fiance' was the prime suspect, then the guy's father, then both. And in true SVU fashion, a nice twist to reveal the real killer and a revelation that the killer was under their noses the whole time. Almost got away with it, too. And the ending, wow.
CSI:NY: The running storyline of the killer cabbie has been intriguing. Last week's episode hinted at a member of the crew being the next victim. Turns out, that was a swerve. Sort of. Now it's even more personal. Next week's episode looks like it will rock.
Speaking of next week, SVU looks to pull out all the punches. Corruption, cover-up and more. CSI:NY, already mentioned how awesome it looks to be. CSI: revisits Warrick's recent indiscretion with a stripper and the club owner that nearly ruined his life. Looks like some ruining is coming back.
Thank you for the money. Now I can do all the things on my 'want to do' list.
- play golf
- buy that pizza stone and other kitchen stuff
- add on the stadium seat and parking pass (maybe) to my MSU football ticket order
- feel better about making the road trip to lovely Ruston, LA
- go see North Mississippi Allstars *and* Jubilee JAM!
- set aside the majority of this stimulus package in a CD or other account so it can make more money
Also, I wonder if 'large stimulus package' is a good pick-up line?
I got nothing against people who don't want to harm animals. I wouldn't label myself that way, but I'm also not going to purposely run down a critter if it's in or near the road. Tonight, I saw a weird conundrum involving vehicle and critter.
As I was making my way home tonight, I come upon a vehicle stopped in the road. There was at least one vehicle in front of it, with their blinkers on. Engine die? Flat tire? What?
They either hit a raccoon just enough to maim it or came upon the already injured raccoon. Will never know what exactly happened, but apparently this person was trying to get the raccoon out of the road. I guess they figured that would help it.
Well, they didn't succeed. They got the raccoon over to the other lane at least, I guess so they could get in their vehicle and get out of the road. There were a few other cars behind me at this point.
As the now convoy started to move, I noticed that it was indeed an animal that they were trying to move. I also saw it twitching around, which was very, very bad. There was another instance a month or so ago where I saw a similar scene. Someone had hit an possum just enough to injure it (I assume). It was fluttering around the road when I drove by.
Same with this raccoon. It appeared both were injured to the point where it was likely better to end it. What this person (people?) did was admirable, but maybe a bit too much. I don't see this as a similar situation as my co-worker experienced recently. A dog >>> wild animals.
I remember hearing many moons ago that if you were driving and an animal runs out in the road, to not even try and swerve to miss it. I try to add to that by thinking that if you're casually cruising, you could likely slow down enough and stop to avoid it. But if I'm on the interstate, I just pray that all critters big and small stay out of the road.
Another week is done. Another project finished at work. I can't link to it yet, but I'll let the outdoors guru tell you himself.
Outside of that, it's been a pretty unproductive week. I had been hoping to take a day or two off to do some golfing and goofing off. Rain and work stopped that. But nothing will stop me next week.
So in the meantime, here's some various, insignificant items that I've done lately.
Doubt you can notice, but I edited the HTML of the blog template today. The middle column wasn't wide enough to hold YouTube videos. So I bumped it up a few pixels and now things look like they fit.
Speaking of the blog, I decided to check out all the reports generated by SiteMeter (located in the right column) and Google. The number of hits is low, which is expected because no one clicks here. Some of the referring pages was interesting. Here's a sampling.
- shortcuts.com: This is a coupon site. I'll say that it's not the greatest thing, but if they offered more coupons, it would be awesome. I talked about it here.
- joe gant ms football: Coach Gant was my football coach back at Weir. He's now the offensive coordinator, after sitting out a few years of retirement. Look up 'MS high school football winner' in the dictionary, and his picture is there. He took tiny Weir (a small 1A school) to the state championship game at least 7 times and won 5 of them. Flat out, the man could coach and win with a bunch of small-town boys. Where does he fit in my blog? Oh, I don't know.
- at&t roadside: Oh boy, what a night that was.
- tmbg widget: Linked to my They Might Be Giants concert report.
- There were a number of Google image links to this post about Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. ("Open it.")
I gotta give a special shoutout to one reader. Mariann, thank you for the tens of clicks. :)
Now if I can just get the Topiary back.
Speaking of getting stuff back, I'm trying to figure out why I can't post photos from my cell phone anymore. I took a couple recently and now, have no way of displaying them. This sucks.
I haven't posted about how much I'm glad my TV shows are back. Law and Order: SVU is ruling, as always. CSI:NY is kicking serious hind end. The Office, the greatest. Even Earl is picking things up. 30 Rock still rocks. And I still can't miss CSI: and Criminal Minds. Good stuff going on.
I'll end this here. I got some important stuff to get to. That PlayStation isn't going to play itself. Oh, be on the lookout for a post about JubileeJAM! coming Monday.
By the time you read this, I will probably be neck deep in, uh, stuff at work.
So enjoy this video:
