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

Fires Rule

As well as ribs. And I'm good at them.

I only have three minutes.

Ya. Hi. Kinda late tonight. Just in under the wire. Now two minutes. I've been to Wilhagan's for the usual poker and had to deal the late game.

Screw it. This is lame and I don't have time to be interesting or clever or anything.

But I did master a REALLY good song today for a guy named Flynn Adam. One of the coolest songs of the year for me. Hope it does well.

One minute to make the day. If you're nice, maybe I'll do two tomorrow to make up for how lame this one is.

Ok. Gotta click the thing.

Love and radiation...

What's This Rush Hour You Speak Of?

Today I tuned Reid's studio. It's a very snappy spot. Rather living room-esque, aside from that big huge console in the middle. But still, it's pimp. And I'm jealous. And now it sounds good. However, that is not my tale for today. My blathering stems from my 90 minute drive from my house to Reid's studio in Green Hills, near the mall.

I had intentions of being there at 8:30 so that I could get the tuning knocked out quickly, get back home for my house guests arrival at noon-ish and be there for my termite inspection dude. So I got up, got cleaned up at headed out the door at 8. There was a good chunk of traffic on Murfreesboro road but just the expected stuff. Then there was more. A lot more. And school buses. And School zones. All slow, but to be expected and manageable. A ways in, text to Reid, "rush hour sucks. prolly 9" or something to that effect, possibly not politically correct. Well, not possibly. Blah blah blah...wait wait wait...through Berry Hill toward 8th South. Train tracks. At the last available moment before committing to go over the tracks, the lights and bells start. There was one train stopped just past the road crossing. One more set of tracks beyond that stationary train. Don't be a youtube video. I stopped with some considerable flying around of stuff in the truck. The stationary train comes to motion. Slowly. Across the road. For five minutes. Slowly. It stops. Across the road. For five minutes. It backs up. Still on the road. For five minutes. It stops, Across the road. For just a minute or two. IT PULLS FORWARD, ACROSS THE ROAD for five more minutes and finally clears the traffic path. Then, on the second set of tracks and from the other side of the road, there's another train hauling some major booty all honkin' and whatnot, and takes another five minutes too pass. Never ever have I seen so much road blocking at a train crossing. During this, I text Reid again, "trains suck" or something more inappropriate for public display.

Then I made it to PB, where Aron made a killer 8oz double for me and a chocolate chip scone was party rockin' delicious. Sandy asked a couple trivia questions off the iPod where I showed some embarrassing knowledge.

Drive drive...traffic traffic....wrong way...shortcut to fix it....garbage truck on a two lane road. I think he was counting the garbage on the way in the truck, 'cause he took forever. Plus five minutes.

Get to Reid's place, groan, curse, talk about traffic, have a laugh. Reid joked that he was worried that the last thing he may ever hear from me is complaining about trains while driving, surely just pre-self demolition. But I ain't no youtube video.