Soupergenius

I have decided to smoke two different foods this weekend.  Tonight I am starting with a Dr. Pepper marinated pork shoulder and a standard dry rub pork shoulder.  Tomorrow (since it will only take a few hours) I am going to smoke some chicken breasts prepared in a Jamaican Jerk style.  Hopefully this little experiment with the Dr. Pepper works out well.  Everything is at home waiting to be thrown on the grill thanks to the grocery store run last night.  I was worried I would not be able to find all the ingredients that the recipes called for, but I was able to get everything except the Habanero pepper (substituting Jalapeno instead).  Pictures and tasting reviews tomorrow.

Last night was the seanson premier episode of So You Think You Can Dance.  For some reason this show is very interesting to me.  They did not have a lot of bad performances like some other shows have, but they definitely had some super talented people.

So apparently on both shows the underdogs won, but not really.  I don’t really see how Kris Allen was the underdog as I think he was able to get all of the Gokey votes after he left.  Plus he is probably the more marketable choice of the two that were left standing.  I was not a huge fan of Adam Lambert, but I think vocally he was much better than Kris.  I only caught a little bit of the show, but the group sings were not all that great and Rod Stewart is a little too old to still think he can perform.  Queen was decent, but I heard Kiss was a little bit hurting.   I think Steve Martin can definitely pick a banjo, but those two singing were atrocious.  I just love the internet, as that gave me the opportunity to see the Kara DioGuardi/Katrina Darrell duet, that was pretty funny.

Now onto Orlando.  I guess I understand why they are the underdogs as they don’t have Lebron, but they do have Superman (Dwight Howard).  I also think the supporting cast around Howard is much better than what Lebron has.  One person cannot win an NBA title, but a team can.   I think Orlando has a serious chance of knocking of Cleveland in this series.  Secretly I am hoping for that since I am not a fan of Cleveland. (Go Wizards!)

I guess with American Idol over, it is time to start watching So You Think You Can Dance.

The Craftsman Auto Hammer has got to be the coolest new tool to come of in a long time. It takes no room to hammer a nail. I will need to check this out in the near future.
As a side note, the NBA lottery is a freakin joke. I think it is the only sport that punishes bad records with bad draft positioning. The second worst record picks fifth and the worst record picks fourth? This is almost as bad as the BCS.

This Memorial weekend is National Smoke Day.  I have not decided what I am going to try and smoke, but I am leaning towards either doing some jerk chicken or Dr. Pepper pork.  If anyone has any suggestions, I am open to them.  The only issue is I will need to do it overnight as I may have no time on Saturday.  This would be good for doing the pork or maybe a brisket as the time lends itself to that.  Also tomorrow night is the NBA draft lottery.  I think after that, I will be more interested in the NBA again as all the mock drafts will be able to be more accurate as to what team should get what pick.  I am hoping for a top two pick so that the Wizards will hold onto it, but I would not be surprised if they were to end up with the fourth or fifth pick.  Then I would not be surprised to see the Wiz trade out of the draft.

Also, as a side note, my 20 year high school reunion is this year.  This should be an interesting event, especially since I have not kept in touch with one person from my high school.  I have kept in touch with people that I knew during high school, just none from my school.  As the time grows closer, I feel myself getting a little excited.  The weird thing, if I did not get on Facebook, I probably would not have found out about any of the information.  I am not a big user of Facebook, but I do think this is a good development.

I believe that I have one green button polyp growing.  Here are some bad pictures from my phone.  It is hard to get it to focus through the glass close up.

I had the need to build a table to keep a subwoofer off the pee zone of Gio.  I could have bought something, but instead, I said …. Hey I bet I can make a table for less.  Well, I was able to make the table, but it would have probably been cheaper to buy one.  The good thing is the sense of accomplishment of actually creating something that kind of looks like a table.  I went to Home Depot and just started wandering around looking for inspiration.  In the lumber area, I stumbled accross a section of premade table/chair legs.  I thought to myself, well golly gee, this should make it easy to build a table.  Four legs and a top and I am all done.  The legs came with a stud built in.  Since there was a stud, I went to the hardware section and low and behold I found inserts that can fit into drilled holes that will accept the studs.  Now it was time to find a suitable piece of wood for the top.  There were quite a few to choose from and since I was cutting it down, it was ok if there were imperfections on one end or the other.  Now I have all the pieces to put it together.  Oh wait, I need to finish it and make it look pretty.  Well, over to the stains.  I spent 45 minutes looking at different colors and different types.  I settled on a one step Poly stain in Red Mahogany.  I figured that would sort of match the coffee table.  Then I had to get sand paper, wood hardener, paint brushes, steel wool, etc.  All of the sudden the $20 table was going to cost $50.  Well, I got everything home and got Kyle to help cut the wood down to size.  Then I realized that I did not have a drill bit big enough for the inserts.  That meant a trip over to my friends house to use his drill press.  After drilling the holes and inserting the inserts, I used a router to give the edge a little personality.  I cleaned up my mess and headed home.  The next morning I started the finishing process.  Sanding, apply wood hardener, staining, waiting, sanding, staining, steel wooling.  Finally it was time to unvail my master piece.  It is not perfect, but for a first go around I am reasonably satisfied.