It's hard out here for a pimp

OK, that title has nothing whatsoever to do with this blog entry. It IS hard to be the daddy of a totally neurotic and time-sensitive 4 year old puppy.

First off, where the hell did the time go? WHERE?!?!

Secondly, she's a rescue pup. She was apparently left on the front step of the humane society in a doggy crate in the middle of the night. She's all sorts of emotionally needy and has abandonment issues and the whole nine yards. Maybe we should have let her keep sleeping in the crate, because now there's no boundary whatsoever. She sleeps in the bed with me and my wife. Every night. Takes naps with us too. She growls if you try to move her so you can get more comfortable. Maybe not the best situation?

Anyhoo, here's tonight's issue. It is now 10:45 on New Year's Eve. I'm watching Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy spoof. My wife is at work for another hour or so. My poor little puppy is in bed, because we normally get in get at 10PM sharp. So Ginger's in bed, and every so often she comes out of the bedroom to check on me and give me the body language that says "Get in the fucking bed already Daddy! Go get Mommy and let's get some sleep!!!!"

Unfortunately, can't get Mommy. Can't go to bed until she gets home. Too bad for Ginger, right?

But how do you say no to this face?

Same shit, different year

It is another New Year's Eve, and my wife is working tonight yet again. It feels like every year, some nurse calls off work, and my wife has to fill in. She might make it home just in time for the ball to drop.

So, I'm sticking around the house, drinking a couple of beers (not too many for a change) and watching the Family Guy parody of the Star Wars Trilogy on Blu Ray. Gotta love Target: the new movie was like $25, and the whole trilogy box set was $8 more. First up is Blue Harvest, followed by Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, and ending with It's a Trap! I'm trying to save them for later in the evening, since they are about 45 minutes apiece. I have pizza and wings and breadsticks, and I guess I'll try not to feel too lonely.

We're going to put off our Resident Evil rewatch until tomorrow. Four movies of craptacular action, who would want to pass that up?

Not much to say this week...

My wife had a four-day weekend and I'm on a break from school, which means that instead of having Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday-Tuesday, I had Friday-Saturday-Saturday 2-Saturday-3-Sunday, skipping Monday and Tuesday, and heading straight into Wednesday.

For me, it doesn't mean much except it is cool to have my wife around. For my wife, it means napping and lots of it. Hell, she's napping right now! I don't blame her though. Her job calls her constantly while she's home, even in the middle of the night, even on weekends. And since she had surgery earlier this year, she's long past having any vacation days. So this is her big stay-cation, and she's taking full advantage of it.

Maybe a little too much advantage of it, especially since we got a new reclining sofa. She's napping as much as the cats, and they've caught on to the good thing it is...

... I took pictures, but my wife would probably kill me if I posted them. Let's just say that the cats took turns on her lap, and she never woke up.

Merry Xmas

Sing along!!!

Joy to the world, there is no God.

Just Joe, and all his stuff!

Take every gift, give it to me, and I'll be a happy guy.

And I won't have to cry!

And Joe and his wife will have more stuff!


So, we had Smokemas yesterday, and that was much more fun than today will probably be. We're trying to figure out lunch today, because we're eating pulled poke for dinner again. It is good enough to eat two days in a row, maybe three of four. :) Other than that, not much excitement. No parties, no family visiting, nothing religious to do in my atheistic household. I didn't even decorate this year.

Anyhoo, here's my score from my parents:

A Jack Daniels marinade in a bag, teriyaki flavor.
Two packs of multiple bottles of seasonings, one BBQ and the other Italian.
Gift cards for Starbucks and Cracker Barrel.
A pair of slippers.

And this... the best gift I got all year. Better than the Dremel, the camera, the video game, and maybe even better than the sofa, since I sort of bought that for myself.

That's me... my mom's favorite kid. When I call my parents, I alway announce myself as "#1 son" or "favorite son". Mostly because I don't owe my parents any money, unlike the other two. Best present, because it was really the most thoughtful thing I got this year, and that counts for something.

Now I guess I'm going to try to find a Chinese restaurant for lunch, snag some brews, and do my best to stave off the cabin fever for a day, since there's three and a half more weeks until school is back in.

Happy Holidays!

MERRY SMOKEMAS!!!!!

OMS!!!!! (Oh My SATAN!!!)

Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow!

That's a 17" by 14" roasting pan filled 2-3" deep with pork BBQ. That's pronounced POKE BAR BEE CUE fer y'all damn yankees! It must be 8-9 pounds of meat total. The skin and bones just fell off, nearly all of the fat was rendered, and there was just enough fat left for the meat to still be moist and juicy and delicious. I dumped salt and homemade vinegar BBQ sauce in the pan and stirred it all up.

Put it on a bun with some cole slaw, hog heaven and all that.

The taste was... well... reminds me of when my wife and I were dating and I would sneak out of work to get some dinner at the Double B BBQ joint. Good memories, and incredibly good food. The restaurant has since closed down, and I have been trying to replicate it ever since. I have FINALLY nailed it.

We're doing this every year from now on. Xmas Eve is now officially SMOKEMAS!!!

YEAH!

And this time we're not letting the dog get ahold of any bones. Seriously.

Smokemas part two!

First, Lucy helping me keep an eye on the smoker this morning:

Well, after almost six hours of smoking, I was pretty much at the point where I was going to have to clean out the charcoal bowl and start over. So I figured I'd just finish the pork in the oven, since my research tells me that the smoke flavor gets into the meat in the first few hours, and I can better control the temperature from here on out.

So, in about 4-5 more hours, I'll have more pulled pork than any human being should. YAY!!!!

Plus, since I have a bigger cut and a smaller cut, I can be sure to get some cooked food fairly early in the evening and then let the rest keep cooking until it is done. Not bad planning overall, and we'll see if this is a something I can do every year.

In the meantime, I've made up a couple of quarts of Carolina-style BBQ sauce. Yes, quarts. :) A couple of drops of it will go in the cole slaw here in a minute. OK, maybe more than a few drops. We likes our slaw a little less mayonnaise-y than some. Slap some pulled pork and slaw on a bun, and you're in...

... wait for it...



...not quite yet...



... you know I can't help but say it...

... OK, you asked for it...



...HOG HEAVEN!!!!!

Smokemas has begun!!!!!

I blame everyone for this. It is 7:33AM on Xmas Eve, and here's what I've got going on:

Let's see how long I can keep the fire going....

We're trying again... lots of talk about smoking, actually

My wife is trying to quit smoking again, and I'm again going to quit drinking as a sign of solidarity. It would be nice if I could stop coughing, considering I don't smoke, but what the hell right? My wife had almost completely stopped smoking since she's been sick a week or two ago. She figures she can quit the rest of the way, and I'm going to do my best to be supportive and such.

In other smoking news, I'll be smoking a 10-pound pork butt for about a million hours on Xmas Eve. I've got 20 pounds of charcoal and 20 pounds of wood chips. I'll start the flame up at the very first moment of the day, and let it cook all day long. I'll season it up, maybe inject some apple juice directly into the meat, and then keep it cooking low and slow until the fat renders out and I'm left with skin, bone, and yummy meat. Delicious meat, glorious meat. Hell, I might throw a second smaller pork roast in the smoker so I have plenty of leftovers. Reminds me of North Carolina BBQ, so I'm going to make a vinegar-based sauce to go over the finished product.

I never get anything on Xmas!!!!

Seriously.

I get stuff for the whole month preceding Xmas, but nothing on the day itself. Bummer.

Anyhoo, here's a picture/list of what I have already gotten:

To be fair, the sofa was our gift to ourselves. We needed a new sofa so so so so so so so bad. 

Oh, and I bought myself a cheap smoker so that I can make some kick ass pulled pork for Xmas dinner. I guess I'll be unwrapping the Alka-Seltzer for Xmas this year. 

Ginger's got her jacket on!!!

Finals are over, blah blah blah, cheating dude surely failed yadda yadda, I made killer chicken noodle soup.

None of that matters. None of it.

GINGER HAS A NEW GREEN JACKET!!!!

'Nuff said. Carry on with your holiday plans.

All I Want For Xmas...

World peace? My two front teeth? A Red Ryder BB gun?

No, honestly. I'm good. For a change, for a shock, there's really nothing I'm particularly crazy over getting this year. We're getting a reclining loveseat with console for ourselves, which is exciting in that our current furniture is sort of crap. Other than that? I dunno... nothing seems like a big deal to get.

There are books I want, but there will always be books I want. I'd like to someday get everything Stephen King in hardcover. I'm interested in giving Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels a try someday. Movies too. There are some movies that I used to own on DVD that I'd like to get on Blu Ray. Some neat shirts with various obscure science fiction logos as well. Wouldn't mind someone buying me $1000 worth of guitar parts, but if not I'll somehow live without.

What's going to happen is that I'm going to buy some more bookshelves, and then the shopping will be on again. Right now, everything is packed to the gills with stuff and there doesn't seem to be room for anything else. Once there's room, I'm going to need a giant AT-AT toy.

OK, really what I want is a half-dozen of them, plus all the other Hoth playsets, buckets of fake snow, and I want to reenact the opening of The Empire Strikes Back in my front yard. Since I can't have that? Really don't want anything else.

Random Monday stuff

• This is the last week of classes. Next Tuesday I have two final exams, plus one online I can do over the weekend, and I'm finished. Good riddance! My enthusiasm level has been exceptionally low this semester.
• I woke up this morning with Improbable Joe's Unlikely Animal Entourage. I had all three cats and the dog following me around the first hour or so I was awake. I never expected to be a cat person, and now I've got a trio of them worshiping the ground that I walk on, so long as it is on the way to the kitchen and their treats eventually. No, seriously the cats huddle around me in bed and mill about my legs while I'm at my desk. Ellie, my #1 favorite cat, is pressed firmly against the back of my laptop right now. All I can see of her is her tail. 
• Trannies are weird. Dudes in dresses and chicks in suits is weird stuff. I don't think it is any sort of special strange: grown men dressed up in motorcycle leather or people dressed like cartoon characters at comic book conventions are just as much "in drag" as dudes in dresses as far as I'm concerned. Trannies being weird doesn't excuse discrimination, of course. On the other hand, every time I run across a tranny on the Internet, they seem to think that they should be granted a special pass from being treated like they are unusual and out of the norm. Fuck that, and fuck their shitty overly-entitled attitude. I just hope this phenomenon is an online-only issue. Weird people should stay home and be weird in private... and that goes double for Harley douchebags, since their drag comes with really loud engines. 
• I'm buried up to my eyes in zombies. The Walking Dead TV show is over, but I've got a pile of zombie books, movies, and comic books to wade through. It makes me want to stockpile guns and ammo and food. Of course, by the time you can actually prepare for the zombie apocalypse, your neighbors think you're like the meth heads down the street from me, and life isn't very much fun anymore. I guess at that point you are actively hoping for a disaster, just to validate the work you put in. Me, I'll stick to the video games. 
• I made a giant pot of soup yesterday. I guess I know what I'm having for lunch all week. Spicy clam chowder is my specialty, and I love the hell out of it. Maybe not so much by Friday. Learning how to make it properly has been a long process, and it all came down to patience. Once you introduce the cream, you have to be very gentle with the soup to avoid curdling or separation. I'm not good at patience or gentleness with my cooking, which is why I suck at baking. :)
• My wife has caught the plague from me, and she's suffering through the lung butter and all the rest. At least I can sleep in my bed again. I only worry that we're just going to pass the flu back and forth between us for the next two months or so. Yay? Also, this disproves the nonsense about lemons and limes being some sort of food that prevents illness. We drink quarts of lemon and lime juice every month, and here we are sick as hell... take that, hippies!

What up peeps?

Holy crap, I'm still sick! Like crazy sick, aching all over and coughing up the nasty. I'm barely holding myself together, and I absolutely have to go to class tomorrow at 11... even if I have to go without drugs and sit there and hack and sweat and suffer. The alternative is to dope up with drugs and feel moderately OK and be high as a kite, and maybe STILL hack and sweat and suffer. Wish me luck.

I've been trying to play Call of Duty: Black Ops online multi-player. The drugs and the sweats and the coughing and the shakes and everything else? Not conducive to tactical decision making or accurate shooting. If it wasn't obvious that cold medicine impairs your driving skills, it sure as hell impairs your gaming.

In happier news, Wall of Stratocasters is complete! This last one is an older red American Strat, that I'm planning on making my "project guitar". Don't tell my wife... oh, crap, she reads my blog at least once a week. OK, guys and gals, we have 3-4 days for me to finish the project before she finds out I've started it. And since I don't have any money, start sending me some STAT!!! :)

Just here and there, certain specific things a few bucks at a time. I was going to do all of these things anyway, but I'm feeling better about not tinkering any with my brand new $1050 Strat. I'm MUCH more comfortable swapping parts and screwing around with a used guitar worth about $450-500. This should be all kinds of fun, right? By 2012-2013, I might even be done!