Friday, February 16, 2007

Rent-a-Bum: George "The Possum" Jones

George Jones did not, I repeat, did not live up to his nickname "No Show" ... George was in da house last night at the Owensboro Executive Inn's Expo Center ... along with 1200+ of his closest and dearest friends.

Top 10 "Bad Things"

Mobile phones are the second worst items ever invented, according to a recent BBC poll.

The communication devices were beaten only by 'weapons' as the worst inventions in a survey of 4,164 people for the BBC's Focus magazine.

The top 10 in full:

Weapons (35%)
Mobile phones (17%)
Nuclear power (9%)
Sinclair C5 (9%)
Television (9%)
The car (6%)
Cigarettes (6%)
Fast food (3%)
Speed cameras (3%)
Religion (2%)

...I guess I can be thankful I didn't make this list...

As evil as he claims to be I am equally surprised that Hugh didn't make the list either... or for that matter that CodeNut guy from Winextra.com ... (Smirk)

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

Borrowed from Bottom Line Underwriters, Inc.

"Seven Blunders of the World"

1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle

—Mahatma Gandhi

* Attributed to Gandhi in a December 15, 1998, article in 'Edupage', an online newsletter published by 'Educause', an international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming higher education through information technologies.

Borrowed from Doctor Hugo

Thank you.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Kitchen Church: Long Cooked Country Ribs

Got in late last night after Rent-a-Bum: Heartland ... folded three 18" pieces of aluminum foil together and laid out the country ribs, pork of course (Pork Fat Rulz!) ... rubbed 'em down with McCormick Grill Mates Pork Rub, folded up the foil tent all but one end, poured in half a can of Swanson's Chicken Broth (saved the rest for "Secret Dippin' Sauce" coming up later) Sealed it up and set the package in the middle of an industrial half-sized sheet pan, popped the whole thing in a 225F oven and ... went to bed.

Woke up sore and stiff as I always do after a Bums night to the smell of 'ribs'...

After my first couple of cups of coffee I carefully opened the package and poured off the 'liquor' - them cookin' juices that come from po'k ribs and chicken broth ... into a small sauce pan.

Ribs be falling off the bone so they are carefully transfered to a glass baking dish ... dusted with a touch more 'Rub' and drizzled with a few tablespoons of the 'liquor'... covered with foil and back into that slooooooow oven (225F)

The sauce pan with the secret dippin' sauce is set over a very low burner and gets the rest of the Chicken Broth... reduce by half to 2/3's

So all told it is 12 hours and 30 minutes later ... Ribs and a tossed green salad.

This is a pork-fest so there are no other 'sides' served... strictly spicey sweet ribs with the Secret Dippin' Sauce and contrasted by the crisp clean crunch of tossed salad with a sharp vinaigrette.

Rent-a-Bum: Heartland

Heartland - Comfortable southern rock shakers and crooners...


...last week it was Jason Aldean
of Hicktown fame... Good show, bad sound mix... muddy and muffled.

Current Read: Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Cayce Pollard is an expensive, spookily intuitive market-research consultant. In London on a job, she is offered a secret assignment: to investigate some intriguing snippets of video that have been appearing on the Internet. An entire subculture of people is obsessed with these bits of footage, and anybody who can create that kind of brand loyalty would be a gold mine for Cayce's client. But when her borrowed apartment is burgled and her computer hacked, she realizes there's more to this project than she had expected.

Still, Cayce is her father's daughter, and the danger makes her stubborn. Win Pollard, ex-security expert, probably ex-CIA, took a taxi in the direction of the World Trade Center on September 11 one year ago...
Engaging with tantalizing streetlife details unavailable to cube dwellers like myself.

. . .