This was a really fun weekend

June 30th, 2008 • chatter
Tags: weekend

And we didn’t even DO that much! We had our shoot on Friday night and just hung out at home after that. I spent Saturday getting the Focus ready for tomorrow’s drive to Orlando and generally screwing off by sleeping late and grocery shopping. But today, today was fun. I finally broke in my Luhr-Jensen smoker and smoked all my fish — which was insanely delicious — and some chicken for later in the week. The salmon got a nice coating of Dales Seasoning and brown sugar while the Mahi Mahi got some kosher salt and lemon pepper. The chicken was split in half, one half got kosher salt while the other got a good mix of a cajun rub The fish was simply delicious and was complemented by some yellow and white corn as a side. It was all too much to eat and there’s still about a pound of it left that we’ll eat for lunch.

I think we’ll have the chicken Tuesday night since we’re working late and that takes all the guesswork out of cooking except for a side dish. I’m thinking rice or couscous or maybe some black eyed peas. Whatever it is, it’ll be good. Smoking all the food was as easy as my brother said it was, I barely did anything but add wood chips and check the temperature every so often.

I also changed the oil in my car today, it’d been so long. I was also running this thing two quarts short so I’m surprised it didn’t cease up at any point in the past. That took a whole lot longer than it should have since I had to send Jess off to get a new gasket for the drain pan as mine was nearly non-existent, another reason I’m surprised the thing even ran. Now, given how much I drive per year, I shouldn’t have to do this for another year or something, in that time I may accumulate 300 or 400 miles, tops. I’m not wasting my time in three months to change basically new oil.

I also just finished a new post-metal review that’ll be published later tomorrow at Band Names Not Brand Names — no direct link yet since it’s not published. It’s over Swallow The Ocean’s debut self-titled album from Forgotten Empires. I’ve been meaning to write this one for weeks but have just been putting it off, for no good reason. I’ve got a few grind reviews slated and I’m trying to scrape up some new black metal albums worth a damn to review. I’m so disappointed in BM over the last year, it’s just been so…generic. Can’t say that grind isn’t generic either, which it is, but at least I can get obvious differences in style but most BM is just one-dimensional “true” scene garbage. I want more Lurker of Chalice and Leviathan and Sargeist and on and on.

I really liked this weekend, I hope we can do fun stuff next weekend too. I didn’t get to build my shelves…again, I just ran out of time…again. We’ll be going to Shisha Cafe on Tuesday which should be awesome. I’m going to bed now to hopefully get a lot of sleep.

Workin’ for the weekend

June 29th, 2008 • chatter
Tags: building, good magazine, weekend, work

As iconic as Loverboy’s hit from the 80s is, I’m actually doing some work this week and not simply working towards it! I found a nice tall piece of 1/4″ pressed plywood today — it looks like thick wood paneling — that will go great with the found-in-a-dump wood I’m going to use for my hookah stand (most of that wood went towards making a spice box). Now I just need to cut the thin wood and find suitable mounting. I’ve got some small right angle wood brackets for the actual stand that’s for the hookah but nothing for this new wood which I’ll use to make small shelves for all of the shisha and accessories I have. I just need to plan this carefully as I’ve only got so much of this wood to use so I can’t afford any mistakes and I certainly don’t want to buy any wood.

Tomorrow I’m also hooking up my brand new Luhr-Jensen smoker to smoke a pound of Atlantic salmon, a pound of mahi mahi, and a massive 4 pound free range chicken. I can just taste it all now. I’ve also got to change the oil in my car which I did in the Focus today and man, was it HOT today. I was only outside for maybe an hour and I was dripping in sweat, I can only imagine the same fate befalls me tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll start the day off right with tasty breakfast burritos I’ve been begging the girlfriend to make, now I’ve made that request complete with some spicy salsa verde. I may have to sacrifice one of those delectable dried peppers for this meal, they would compliment so well.

I also managed to pick up the latest copy of GOOD Magazine since my subscription starts with the next issue and I’m totally thrilled about a travel issue. I sent the China Issue off to my dad to see what he thinks about the magazine and see if he likes it, maybe I’ll send him this one as well.

And for now, it’s 2AM and I’m off to finish up some feed reading and head to sleep.