Dear Sweet Old Lady

with the large white translucent haze of hair. I followed you for only a couple miles today, and you used what you liked of all the available lanes, regardless of direction. You ran two stop signs, didn't use your blinker for any of your turns, and drove at 40% of the posted speed limit. I just want to let you know that even though your car says that Jesus is your co-pilot, he never had a drivers license. You are dangerous. I'm surprised you're still with us. I hope you don't kill anyone. It's bad enough how mad you made me today.

Dreams

WANT

Well...

So I've not exactly excelled at "The Great Blog Challenge" this month. I was going strong there at the start, and then the blog bot police (psudo)shut me down which sorta took the wind out of my sails. So maybe I'm not doing it every day, but I'm doing it, which is really the point, methinks. I sometimes meander off in my head about things to blather about on here. I've got one. I won't get into detail on it now because I've got work to last me well to midnight if I let it, and I'm not yet fully wrapped around the question. I'll probably do one of those rambles and figure it out as I write it, typing and erasing everything a few times before I get to where I'm going. Or, if I never get anywhere with it, I'll never do anything about it and never mention it again. You may never know.

Anywho-

I'm way into that heavy metal stuff. Keith has asked me, I think more than once, what it is about it that I like. I couldn't come up with a decent answer at that moment. So I've wondered about it. So I'm going to chase that when time allows. And I will listen to heavy metal while I do it.

As for now, I must return to processing TV and instrumental tracks of an album I mastered last spring. It's a good record and sounds quite nice, so what could be a mind numbing task is actually kinda nice. Just wish I didn't have to do it this late. And the rest of the stuff I have to do tonight.

Coffee.

kbye

EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!!

There is a picture on my mantle of a few Daleks on holiday, or an extermination invasion, not sure which, in Chester, England. I found it and many others like it on a display on that wall in Chester. I went into the little shop across from the display and asked about them, being the Dr. Who fan that I be. He was at lunch and I came back later. He was VERY surprised that some American dude came in asking about the Dalek drawings. I think he doubted my fandom a bit. Then I pulled out my iPhone and showed him my screen saver, which was a picture of the Tardis. He was well impressed.

There was some chit chat, we looked at some prints, I bought one, and then he signed and did some extra illumination on a sketch and gave that to me too. We talked a little bit about him doing pictures similar with Daleks and other Dr. Who characters in Nashville. I'd mentioned in front of Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Old Opry. I had some other ideas that I don't recall now. I was in England drinking. And I had been. So gimme a break.

Anywho.

I got this in the email today...

Hi Dan

Are you ready for Daleks in Nashville?
I've produced some sketches depicting Dr. Who characters in Tennessee and would like your postal address to send some copies.
I will also forward costings for the original drawing
Kind regards and hope to hear from you in the near future.

John

John Donnelly
JD Arts Chester

THE DOOD DID IT!! I am somewhat beaming with the green glow of geek. And I don't care. I'm going to get to see Daleks pointing their big paint roller looking blasters at places down the street and...uh...whatever it is that they do with the toilet plungers.

I.

CANNOT.

WAIT.

That Debate Moderator Dude

I watched the debate tonight. The first I've seen. I have planned to watch the first two and still probably will, but I kinda planned to have that done by now. Another thing on the list of things that I need to do but wait forever to do.

Anyway, I like the "duke it out" style of this debate. The moderator asked some uncomfortable and direct questions that I wanted to hear the answers to. I've come to expect these debates to be a bunch of softball exercises in avoidance and non-answering, and that's not what I got from this.

I just had a great, for a second, idea about a'la carte policy selection that popped into my head. Typed a bunch of it. Thought about it. Stupid. Deleted it. Another self negation. So much work.

I'm scattered. But at least I got a blog post in.

Hey, Look At That!

Maybe they only lock these things enough that a stupid bot can't go to it? 'Cause it still says I'm locked...but here I am posting...if this works I'll be back in business, plus I'll have that edgy "this blog might be questionable" warning at the front, which we all know just makes me seem mysterious and nearly outlaw caliber.

OR

I'm only as smart as an average blog user and everyone on this green earth knows how to get around that, and I'm just catching up. Wouldn't surprise me - I didn't know how the International Date Line worked. I can't believe I didn't know that. I figured time zones went 24 hours around, even though I knew there was GMT plus and minus hours. I blame it on the beer. And not thinking about...in...20 years. Maybe I should blame it on being old. But many thanks to Stacy for the wonderful real world illustration with a PBR can.

In Pursuit Of A Better Rib

Come on blogger people. Unlock my frikkin' account. There's nothing here that violates the TOS and I've now blown a Blog A Day challenge because you guys have locked me out :(

Well, except this. 'Cause I went 'round your locks :) Hope that's not a violation!

But, since now I know I can get around it...

For some reason my blog has been locked. Turns out, if you just go edit a post, you can publish that bad boy anyway. I'm guessing blogger doesn't care, because if I were actually a spam blog like it seems that they think I am, I wouldn't go to the trouble to try to get around being locked out. It's probably locked because I started this thing for the Great Blog Challenge, never set up any real profile info, no picture, no nothin'. Or else they don't like the Steelers, BBQ ribs, or ruddabeggas. It seems that random-ish text sets off their automated junk blog filters, so that could have been it. Whatever. This is a pain. They said it'd take two days to straighten out on their end, and they haven't dont it. If it's not back on tomorrow, I'll be trapsing over to wordpress for my blog. A blog a day won't be so cool if they are all stacked on top of this one. Soooooooo...

Below is the original post for whatever day this was...


I finally impressed myself with my ribs this weekend. They're always good, but I've always got something to nit-pick about every batch which is a big enough deal for me to not be completely happy with the result. I still see room for improvement, but they were so damn good this time that when reheating some for lunch today I couldn't stop licking my fingers. Then I chewed all the little bits off the end of the bone. I don't normally go anywhere near that far in my voracity of rib consumption. But, in the same way that the beers in England never reach the perfect score of 5.0, the ribs were not perfect. I didn't take the time to brine them ahead of time, so they were a little dry. I did keep them on the smoker for 8.5 hours, which is most definitely good eats. If I'd have brined them like usual I probably would have achieved that perfect clean release from the bone but not falling off the bone balance. I've pulled that one off before, but never with the insane flavor that came out of this batch. There was one end rib that was super smokey covered and had a big flap of fully rendered fat...just crispy spicy smokey delicious. Truly awesome in my rather humble opinion. I would have eaten more if it weren't for Carey's stupendous potato salad. She didn't forget the potatoes one bit.

The chicken thighs that were also on the can were beyond amazing. I don't know that I've ever had better chicken anywhere. Ever. Sorry Grandma. I kicked your ass.

The next big smoking adventure will very well be a couple small turkeys. Chuck and I are going to hook up the rotisserie in one way or another in the smoker so that we can get two small birds in there and put the hickory smokey delicious all up in their birdie bodies.

And the Steelers won.

Now I've got a date with the Bermuda Rectangle™ and Trueblood.

Ruddabegga