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Sledgstone

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Blog Entries posted by Sledgstone

  1. Sledgstone
    I've been having some problems with vibration, noise and pulsating brakes with my blazer for a while. Since I replaced the front brakes, the problem hasn't improved much. Its mostly because the back e-brakes need to be grinded down more and the brake lines need to be bled. Hopefully once I finish those things, my brake problems will be over with. If not, it'll be time to take it into a shop. x_x
    Anyway, I did some more front brake work on the blazer last week. I cleaned off the rest of the leftover grease from the calipers, sprayed disc quiet on the brake pads to stop the annoying squeaking noise (which it did take care of) and I cleaned and liberally re-greased the caliper pins and rubber boots they fit into.
    Disc quiet works by acting as a sticky adhesive on the back plate of the brake pad. It causes the brake pads to stick to the caliper so that when the brake pressure is released, the caliper pulls the brake pads away from the rotor and holds them in place so they don't bang around or continue to slightly rub against the rotor while you are driving.
    Heres a pic of the sprayed on disc brake quiet on the brake pads. Always remember to spray brakleen on the sides of the pads or the metal nub ends if you spray them by accident.

    The brake pads put back on, with grease applied to the connecting points.

    This is the caliper bolt pin I mentioned in my other blog post for the front brake job. I wiped it down and mostly cleaned it up.

    Here it is greased up and ready to go back into the caliper/brake pad mounting piece.

    And if anyone is interested, here is a pic of the hand goop that I use to clean the grease, dirt, oil and grime off my hands. This crap works amazingly well.

  2. Sledgstone
    In my previous blog post I showed my new smoker:
    New Brinkmann Smoker (ECB) El Cheapo Brinkmann
    But the smoker didn't work out all that good right out of the box. These are the following modifications I've made to it:
    When I first got my smoker I put a grate at the bottom of the charcoal pan because I read that a grate will help in keeping ash buildup from blocking the air flow. This was not entirely correct. What I needed to do was have the grate about an inch off the bottom so that air flow can reach every piece of coal while allowing ash to sift down to the bottom. So my first modification was to use some pliers and bend the air fins open more to allow more airflow. Because I'll be able to control the airflow with another modification, I wanted to make sure the airflow would not get restricted by ash buildup. The second mod I did was to install three carriage bolts with nuts 1 inch from the bottom of the pan. This allows me to set the grate on the bolts and gets me the airflow I want. Before doing this, I attempted to use 3 equally sized rocks to lift the grate up.. Not a good idea. It worked but it didn't. The rocks change the flow of air and also absorb heat and break. Installing permanent bolts was the only real solution. Using a drill I made three holes 1 inch from the bottom and installed the bolts. I didn't want to use carriage bolts but they were the only ones I could find for the size and length I wanted to use at the local hardware store. These bolts worked out fine in the end because they didn't sit to far away from the pan's sides to affect how it sits in the base pan.

    The next modification was the most time consuming. I needed to control the airflow of this smoker. This smoker has two vents. The bottom vent which is a hole about 2 inches in diameter and the other is the gap where the lid sits on the body of the smoker. The lid does not go on with a solid seal and is designed that way so there is no need for an air vent on the top. I have seen other people modify their ECB lids by installing an oven gasket around the rim to make it have a solid seal and then installing an aftermarket weber charcoal damper on the lid. However, I did not do this.. I am more concerned about the airflow coming into the smoker at the bottom than restricting or increasing the airflow from the top.
    Here is what I did.. I drilled three holes into my base pan. One of those drill holes was a mistake which I'll explain in a bit. I used one bolt along with a washer, lock washer and lock nut to connect a pickle jar lid to the base of the pan. I needed to drill 2 holes into the jar lid. One to keep it connected to the base pan and the other to act as a slot for the metal control rod. Using a washer, lock washer and lock nut, the lid will stay connected without unscrewing the bolt due to repeated opening and closing. I drilled another hole into the side of the base pan to allow the metal rod to protrude out the side. This is where I messed up. I drilled the hole too high up. Once I had everything in place, I put the charcoal pan into the base pan and realized it was weighing down on the metal rod preventing me from using it correctly. So I drilled another hole right at the bottom of the side and then the pan fit perfectly. Of course this left me with a hole I had to plug up. Thankfully I the smoker came with some extra bolts and nuts and I simply used one of those to seal off the hole.
    The biggest problem with this was the metal rod I was using. I had an old metal sign holding post that I decided to use because it was tough and it already had one end of it bent into a crude loop from a previous project. This was some sturdy metal. After cutting it to the right shape, I was unable to bend it by hand. My bolt cutters have metal bending rods on it and I was able to use those to bend the metal into the angles I needed. This was a pain. I forgot to take a picture of the underneath of the base pan. Its basically a piece of metal bent in three places. Once at a 90 degree angle to fit through the jar lid hole, then another bend to keep the metal from scraping the ground, and then a third bend to keep the metal from scraping the bottom of the pan. In the end it worked out good because the piece of metal has just enough weight to it that it feels sturdy and it won't disconnect. With this done, I now an adjustable damper and I have full control over the airflow.


    A different angle:


    Now that I can open and close the damper to whatever amount of air flow I want to allow in, I need to be able to tell what the actual temperature of the smoker is. For this I needed to add a new thermometer. Adding a new thermometer was easier than I thought it would be. All I needed to do was drill one hole and then use a piece of simple lamp hardware found in my local hardware store's electricity aisle. Its a threaded feed-through with 2 nuts. I can't remember what the actual thing was called on the package in the store, but its basically a brass tube that is threaded for nuts to attach to it like a bolt. Its lamp hardware because electric cords usually go through the opening to the light bulb. But for me, the opening will be for my new thermometer. The hardware store only sold the things in a pack of 8 in varying sizes and the nuts were on the shelf just below them, also in a pack. I used either a 1 or 1 1/2 inch feed through with two nuts. Using a couple pliers I tightened the two nuts and kept the bulk of the feed through on the inside of the smoker to keep the thermometer level. I've seen some people recommend candy thermometers, but I chose instead to get a new Weber thermometer off amazon. Because the thermometer itself isn't installed, I can take it inside and clean it after every use.
    Outside look. I installed it right above the charcoal door:

    Inside look. Two nuts holding it in place. Pretty simple. I also bent this slightly downward to make sure the thermometer sits a bit more tight.

    This new thermometer is significantly better than the one that came with the smoker. I can now get the smoker up to 250 and using the damper on the bottom, I can make small adjustments to the airflow and maintain a constant cooking temperature.

    And here it is all completed:

    Resources I used for this project:
    http://home.comcast.net/~day_trippr/smoker_mods.htm
    http://brinkmannsmokermod.blogspot.com/2011/01/simple-modification-to-brinkmann.html
  3. Sledgstone
    I saw these at the store a couple weeks ago and decided to try them out. Cheetos Mix-Ups Cheezy Salsa Mix sounded like a nice mix of heat that would give my taste buds a good work out. Unfortunately, they left much to be desired. While the packaging looked great and the claim of hot spiciness lured me in, these cheese poofs did not deliver.

    Upon opening the package the smell was odd. A weird combination of aromas that I was not expecting. This product features 4 different flavors, Cheddar, Jalapeno Cheddar, Salsa Picante and Chipotle Cheddar.

    I'm a fan of the Cheetos Puffs and Crunchy Cheese Flavored Snacks, but this "Cheezy Salsa Mix" was disappointing. First off, because this bag features 4 flavors, all of the residual seasoning is coating all the individual flavors. The normal Cheddar Puff is coated in such a mess of flavoring that it tastes nothing like a normal cheddar puff. Thats one flavored ruined. Next up is the Jalapeno Cheddar.. the little green ones.. when eating jalapeno, I expect a bit of heat, but these puffs had nothing but a mild hint of jalapeno flavor. As for the Salsa picante.. based on the packaging, I was lead to believe these would be the hottest puffs. But no, while they had a nice flavor, there was no heat. At all. A single drop of tabasco sauce is hotter.
    The only thing this bag of snacks had to offer what the Chipotle Cheddar puffs. This was the most unique flavor I have tasted in a snack in quite a while. Unfortunately, the texture of this puff was horrible. The waffle shape along with the size of the bite wasn't all that great. In fact, I'm not entirely certain if I would like it as a separate product because of all the other flavors in the bag skewing my tastes.
    Should you eat this?
    No. I will not buy another bag of these and I don't recommend you even try them. It claims to be spicy, but this is not spicy at all. I did not care for this mixture of flavors and textures whatsoever. However, if Cheetos made the Salsa Picante or Chipotle Cheddar puffs into crunchy versions sold separately, they might have a decent product.
  4. Sledgstone
    Combos were a favorite snack of mine as a child. I loved the pizza flavored ones with a passion. So when I saw Combos Buffalo Blue Cheese Pretzels on the shelf I thought I'd get to relive the pleasant snacking experience of my past with a great new flavor. I was wrong. I love buffalo chicken wings dipped in blue cheese and the art on this bag is misleading. Of course its a pretzel snack and I wasn't expecting it to taste like the image on the bag, so I assumed the filling inside would be a nice buffalo taste with a hint of blue cheese in it. But that wasn't the case at all. I opened the bag and the smell was horrible. It smelled like raw blue cheese and not the creamy kind like on the bag. While thats not so bad, it did not smell right at all coming out of a room temperature bag.

    The inner filling is buffalo flavored and the blue cheese that was so poignant was actually a coating on the outside of the pretzel. When eating one of these the blue cheese flavor is the first taste that makes contact with your tongue. The first couple pretzels tasted fine, but as I continued eating them I realized the blue cheese flavor kept tasting worse and worse to me. As the inside of my mouth started to get coated with the aftertaste, I realized how disgusted I was getting and I had to stop. The blue cheese flavor coating is horrible. After a while it started reminding me of rotten cheese and the smell started disgusting me. The odor is so bad that people around me eventually commented about how horrible it smelled. I gave this snack a second try a couple days later. I opened the bag, caught the scent and basically I got revolted before I even put one in my mouth. After eating another 7 I realized I should have bought a small trial size bag instead. I had to give these away.

    Should you eat these?
    No! I'm a big fan of blue cheese and this flavor is disgusting. In fact, I don't think any snack maker has ever made a blue cheese flavor that tastes good to me. If you see these on the shelf, pass on them and pick up some of their pizza flavored pretzels instead.
  5. Sledgstone
    I was looking through my old blog posts and I see this:
    http://www.ancientclan.com/blog/1/entry-33-worst-case-scenario-for-us-by-end-of-2008/
    I was watching way too much MSNBC in 2008. Back in the day I used to watch Fox News. I thought Bill O'Reilly was great with how he interviewed politicians. The no spin zone was a concept that I liked. My dad would listen to Rush Limbaugh and I'd hear many of his broadcasts. Years later I moved to NY. Democrats are more popular in this state. I ended up eventually watching some MSNBC instead of Fox News or CNN. After a few years and a presidential election I realized that all media is biased. Looking back on my days of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh I used to vote party line all republican. I didn't even know who any one was.. just the fact that it was republican was good enough for me. When I finally started voting in NY I eventually voted the same way. Party line democrat.
    Looking back on it all, I was controlled. Based upon the biased news I'd hear, I was manipulated into thinking a certain way without being out right told to do so.
    I no longer watch these channels when I can avoid them. Instead I'll look at twitter, see some headlines, then google search those words and read the news from a couple of random sources. I get a much better view on whats real this way. And if I see an article that is highly motivated towards a specific party then I disregard that website or channel and try to avoid them.
    I was easily manipulated for years by a one sided argument against the other political party. They are like religious leaders. Preaching their story and telling you how to think and behave but never telling you about the good things the other party actually does. Like religion, everyone is expected to pick a side and all other views and opinions are blasphemous and should not be considered or even listened to. I believe, because of my religious christian upbringing, I was, in essence pre-programmed as a child to accept things that are presented to me and keep coming back for me of the same speech. As well as stay true to the person or in this case, channel, giving me my information.
    I can honestly say that most of the reliable news I get comes from NPR. I can fact check a variety of stories or search for different views on some subjects they cover and they are not biased or necessarily pro government. Any other website or news source that says other wise is the equivalent of a pastor reprimanding you for looking into or asking about another religion. If you don't get your news fix from only them, then NPR and all other news is corrupt. What a load of shit.
    What also kills me is the ridiculous unchecked comments. Everyone has comments, but no moderators. I've seen sites where pro democrats say they'll move to canada if a republican is ever elected president again. I've seen fear mongering from democrats basically stating that many right wing nuts are about to push the boundaries for starting a civil war.
    I've also seen comments from pro republican sites where people talk about the day the south will eventually rise again and reclaim america, "but not in a racially motivated slave way".. I've also seen where people want to force god back into the country but refuse to admit that the founding fathers were secualrists.
    All of it is dumbfounding. US citizens are basically sheep following a flock. I'm just glad the flat earth society was never main stream. Imagine if I fell into that way of thinking.. lol. People alive today still believe the earth is flat. wtf.
  6. Sledgstone

    Damn exhaust pipe

    By Sledgstone,

    As I was driving home from work last monday I noticed my saturn kept getting louder and louder. And then, right on the last couple streets to get to my house, my car started screaming at me. The car drove fine, felt fine, but the f*cking thing sounded like a drag racer. I got home and checked my exhaust and sure as hell, the joint where the exhaust pipe connects at broke. A car with no exhaust connected to it is so friggin loud you almost need earplugs.
    The joint was pretty rusted, but the reason it broke is because another support piece further down the exhaust pipe broke and that caused the pipe to have enough back/forth and up/down movement to finish off the joint. I don't have any pictures of it or my repair job. But it should be all fine now since I quicksteeled the support and main joint back together again. Thank goodness for quicksteel. Aside from duct tape, this epoxy steel is versitile as all hell. *rubs my sore fingers from all the kneeding* x_x
  8. Sledgstone
    This past weekend screwed us. While driving down the road the Blazer died. It completely stalled out 5 minutes from the house. We had to get it towed. There was a fuel leak that had to be fixed and the spark plugs, wires, distributor cap all had to be replaced.
  10. Sledgstone

    Ditto Catnip Box

    By Sledgstone,

    I took a series of pictures of Ditto's catnip box during the summer of 2013. He really loves his catnip. Watch the slideshow by clicking this link:
    http://www.ancientclan.com/gallery/slideshow/album-84/

  12. Sledgstone
    Doritos Jacked chips are thick, large, bolder tasting versions of their regular Doritos lineup. So when I saw the Doritos Jacked Ranch Dipped Hot Wings flavor I had to try them. The packaging details really jumped out at me and being a fan of the Ranch flavored doritos the blue color really grabbed my attention.

    The chips are huge like all the other Doritos Jacked chips and the flavor is almost spot on for what it claims to be. The Hot Wings flavor is a spicy buffalo flavor with a hint of vinegar that gives it a nice bite to the heat. Along with a nice hint of ranch these chips taste good. All the chips are noticeably coated with flavoring and smell great.

    Should you eat these?
    Yes. If this flavor sounds appealing to you, get a bag and enjoy the bold taste.
    (Update!) After eating these at work today the vinegar smell and taste of the chips was much more noticeable. A small change of environment and I realized I must have been getting used to the smell and taste at home. Turns out these are a bit stronger with vinegar than I thought they were and a couple coworkers seemed to notice.
  13. Sledgstone
    Doritos® Locos Tacos are the perfect combination of Doritos and Taco Bell. I'd say the perfect combination of tacos instead of "Taco Bell", but American tacos are completely different from actual tacos, but lets save that for another time. Currently there are two Doritos Locos Tacos available across the US, the Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese. Some parts of the US have a third flavor called "Flamas", these I have not seen yet in my area. I did however get one Cool Ranch and a Nacho Cheese.

    Its noticeable that these taco shells are large versions of Doritos. I like getting these as Supreme tacos, loaded with cheese and sour cream.

    The Doritos flavor really adds to these tacos. The key word is flavor, these are not full large versions of Doritos, but actually Doritos flavoring imparted upon taco shells. While Doritos are a very hard and crunchy chip, they did not do a full conversion, these are still taco shells. This makes sense because you are eating tacos. If these were full large scale chips, they wouldn't taste right because everyone is used to the taco shell taste when eating Taco Bell. You'll notice that the tacos come with thin cardboard sleeves, thats because these chips will impart their flavor all over your fingers and hands if you are not careful, especially the nacho cheese flavor. Even if you try to keep the tacos in their sleeves, you will still get seasoning all over your fingers.
    I recommend the Cool Ranch over the Nacho Cheese.. the nacho cheese flavor seems to blend in with the cheese of the taco and it doesn't seem to add much to the overall flavor. But the Cool Ranch tacos noticeably and completely change the flavor profile of the taco creating a completely unique taste experience.

    Should you eat these?
    Yes! Especially if you are a fan of Cool Ranch Doritos.
  14. Sledgstone
    With the highly successful Doritos Locos Tacos giving Taco Bell a huge boost in sales, Doritos decided to try and cash in on more of that revenue and hype with Locos Tacos flavored chips. I say "try" because thats exactly what these chips are good for. Trying once and never buying again. They come in two flavors, Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch just like the Locos Tacos. In each bag there are two flavors. The flavored chip and the crunchy taco chip. Doritos has made other products two flavors in a bag on numerous other occasions and they never seem to work right at all.

    You might wonder what flavor of chips are in this next picture, but it doesn't really matter because both bags when poured into bowls look and taste exactly the same. The Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese bags basically contain the exact same product as I tasted no difference between them. If I had known they would be identical in flavor I would have only bought one bag.
    These chips taste interesting at first but like all snack foods with multiple flavor coated items in them, there was no distinguishing if you were eating a nacho cheese, cool ranch or taco chip. All the flavoring basically mixes together in the bag and the result is a taco flavored chip that noticeably tastes more like broken taco shell pieces with Dorito flavoring than a taco flavored chip. They're not that bad, but not amazing like the Doritos Locos Tacos they are named after.

    I had so many of these chips because I had two open bags that I lost interest in the flavor and decided to use them in soft tacos to try and get some Locos flavor in a home made meal. This is when I realized these chips tasted much better with actual tacos. If anything, these chips would be a good companion chip for a taco dip. But as a stand alone snack they don't seem to hold their own.

    Should you eat these?
    Sure. Try them once to see how they taste, but don't worry about which flavor you buy because they all taste the same. If anything, I recommend buying one bag of the original regular Taco flavored chips and one bag of Cool Ranch or Nacho Cheese. Then eat two chips at once, Taco and the flavored one. That would taste far superior than the flavor of these Locos Tacos chips.
    What Doritos and Taco Bell should do is sell the actual Doritos Locos Taco shells in the supermarkets. Forget these chips, instead sell those shells. Whenever I'm at the store, I always pass on buying Taco Bell shells in favor of the superior Old El Paso brand. But if Taco Bell wants to make more money, they should work with Doritos and bring these shells to the stores. I'd buy them in a heartbeat for my own home made tacos.
  16. Sledgstone
    This service was done on 07-17-2010
    The miles were at 4928 for it's first oil change and tire rotation! Because this is a new car I'm only going to use full synthetic oil for the life of the vehicle to make sure the engine lasts as long as possible.
    The dealership also finished one more pedal recall that I wasn't aware of. He told me to disregard the letter I'll get in the mail this week because I'll already have it done.
    On a side note, the discount card I bought at the dealership for $200 when I bought the car is going to pay for itself pretty quick. It already saved me $100 off the rust proofing job and all full synthetic oil changes get $25 off and tire rotations are $13 off. It was only $42 yesterday. For the price of the oil and the price of the oil filter, the oil job is pretty much done for the same price it would cost me to do it myself, but I don't have to! ahha. My tools will be sitting gathering dust for quite a while now.
  17. Sledgstone
    So lady's laptop has had a power jack issue for almost a year now, but almost a week ago it got even worse and would hardly stay plugged in or charge unless the plug at the back of the laptop was pushed and held into place just right. I've seen this issue before with a PS2 and I was able to fix that by re-soldering the DC power jack connection to the motherboard. Well, turns out that getting access to the DC power jack on a laptop is a hell of a lot more complicated than a slim PS2. I have to give credit were it is due, and this website had a complete walk through for her exact laptop with pictures:
    http://www.insidemylaptop.com/
    I was able to finally get to the motherboard and the DC power jack after 18 steps of disassembly. x_x I re-soldered the connection and her laptop powers up perfectly again. I also cleaned out a major blockage of dust and lint out of the cooling fan area. Its practically running like new again and doesn't kick on the fan after 20 minutes of use anymore. Yay.
    Here is a pic of the inside of her laptop with a circle around the DC power jack. A pain in the ass to get to, and the part I had to solder was only about 1-2 cm big, but we saved over $100 because thats the cheapest price I found to get it fixed at a shop.

    For my own records, I fixed this on 10/06/2010. Hopefully it will be a permanent fix, because if not I'll have to replace the power jack itself next time instead of just fixing one solder point.
    MAKES
  18. Sledgstone
    I didn't take pics of this fix.. but thanks to this website:
    http://anythingbutipod.com/2008/03/creative-zen-disassembly/
    I was able to figure out how to take it apart. Those are some really really small screws.. and thankfully her mp3 player only had a loose battery. Whenever the mp3 player was lightly shaken the power would cut off and only come back on after it was connected to a computer usb. After taking it apart, the solder connections were fine, but the battery wires seemed to be loose on the battery itself. Probably because the battery was floating around dis-lodged from its seat.
    After I fixed the connection on the battery and re-glued it into place (with double sided heavy duty glue foam), it works fine now. I wish I had an actual plastic tool for removing plastic shells because now the seem looks a little marred, but at least its working fine now.
  19. Sledgstone

    Fushigi Yugi

    By Sledgstone,

    Fushigi Yugi, the mysterious play, is the story of a young girl named Miaka and her adventure into a magical book known as "The Universe of the Four Gods". Upon opening this book, Miaka is ripped from her world and placed inside the story. Miaka quickly discovers that she has a destiny to fulfill, for in this story her role is that of the Priestess of Suzaku. As the Priestess, she must seek out the seven warriors of Suzaku so that she may summon the beast god Suzaku and have her wishes granted.
    But when Miaka's best friend Yui also becomes trapped in the book, a bitter rivalry ensues as Yui takes her place as the Priestess of Seriyu. While all of this happens, Miaka's brother Keisuke and his best friend Tetsuya, read the book and follow Miaka's progress throughout the story.
    Fushigi Yugi has proved itself to be one of the most powerful animes I have ever had the priviledge of watching. The depth of the characters made me truely feel for them in their times of pain and happiness.
    The dialoge that passes between each of the characters can be quite funny at times, but serious issues can sometimes lead to drastic events. The drama that unfolds leads way to intense battles and situations that drew me deeper into the story. With each episode, more of the story is read and The Universe of the Four Gods comes ever closer to an end. How will the story finish? Watch it yourself to find out.
    The epic drama that is Fushigi Yugi is an anime that I will always admire and recommend to everyone.
    Animation: 10 Sound: 10 Voice Actors: 10 Characters: 10 Plot: 10 Overall: 10 Platform: Series Genre: Fantasy / Drama Publisher: PIONEER Released: 1995
  20. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    3 different flavors of Grilled Chicken with Grilled Corn on the cob and a baked potato.
    Serving size: 3 people.
    Ingredients:
    - Package of boneless chicken breast, with two breasts
    - 3 ears of corn
    - 3 large potatoes
    - Italian seasoning
    - Basil seasoning
    - BBQ seasoning
    - Italian dressing
    Instructions:
    1) Rinse off your chicken breast and cut the two breasts so you have four separate pieces.

    2) Rub italian and basil seasoning on both sides of two of the pieces of chicken. (I had a request for two italian/basil ones.)

    3) Put a piece of chicken in a bowl and pour a bunch of italian dressing on it to marinate it. Make sure you move the chicken around in it a little to ensure its coated good. You can then put this in the fridge for a 1/2 hour or more, but it really only needs to sit about 5 to 10 minutes in it.

    4) Rub BBQ seasoning on both sides of your last piece of chicken. This seasoning from KC Masterpiece is actually pretty good on chicken as well as hamburgers.

    5) Set your grill on a low flame on both burners and place your chicken on the top rack. And feel free to pour the italian dressing thats still in the bowl over that italian dressing chicken breast.

    6) Let them cook for about 20 minutes and then flip them.

    7) About 10-20 minutes later the chicken should be around 170 degrees inside. Use your thermametor to make sure the temperature is right. If you get it much higher than 175 or 180 the chicken will start drying out.

    8) Take your corn and cut off both ends of the ear and peel away a couple layers of the husk. Then soak the corn in water for 10 minutes, making sure to move them around in the water every once in a while.

    9) Have your grill on a low heat and place your corn on the bottom rack. Flip them every five minutes and let them cook for about 15-20 minutes. Because the husks were soaked, the moisture prevents the husks from catching on fire and burning, and it also provides the humidity to cook the corn.

    10) Now that the corn is done, you can take it off the grill and then peel away the husk and rub butter all over it and maybe give it a dash of salt. Very tasty. You could also, remove the husk and place the corn back on the grill for another 2-5 minutes to add a little smoky flavor.

    11) I forgot to start cooking baked potatoes on the grill at the beginning of all this, so I cooked 3 potatoes in the microwave. (ah, baked potato button, how I love thee, even tho each potato needs to be cooked twice.)
    Don't forget, you can cook the corn on the cob on the grill after your first 20 minutes of cooking the chicken so they'll be done at the same time. You could also rinse off your potatoes, wrap them in aluminum foil with some butter and cook them on the top rack of your grill alongside your chicken. Or just cook them in the microwave like I had too.
    And unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the completed meal. I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture. The italian dressing chicken was the most moist, because it was a liquid marinade. The other chicken was a little more dry because the dry rubs absorbed some of the moisture out. Because of that, they could a little faster and they got up to about 182 degrees. Oh well, a little Chicken & Ribs sauce for dipping took care of any noticeable dryness. mmmmmm...
  22. Sledgstone
    I followed the directions in this video and what an improvement!
    This was way easier than manually installing reshade and sweetfx and then fine tuning the effects I'd want. Instead it took me about 5 mins and everything looks amazing.
    Here are some before and after shots. Click on an image to open it in the lightbox image viewer, then hit the left and right arrows on the sides of the image to easily compare.
    Guild Wars 2 Max settings:

    Max settings with Reshade/SweetFX:

     
    Guild Wars 2 Max settings:

    Max settings with Reshade/SweetFX:

  23. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    Lasagna
    Serving size: 12+
    Ingredients:
    - 1 package of Lasagna noodles
    - 2 1/2 pounds of hamburger meat (browned)
    - 2 cans of pasta sauce
    - 1 can of diced tomatoes
    - 1 jar of parmesan cheese
    - 2 eggs
    - 1 1/2 - 2 pounds of mozzarella cheese
    Instructions:
    1) Gather your ingredients.

    2) Brown your hamburger meat and strain it. I like to break the meat up pretty fine while it is browning. I don't like meat chunks too big in a lasagna.

    3) Start boiling your lasanga noodles as per the instructions on the package.
    4) Use a mixing bowl and combine the browned meat, 2 eggs, 1/4 to 1/2 of your parmesan cheese, and diced tomatoes (strain the liquid from the tomatoes first).

    4) This sauce is thick and good for a single pan of lasagna, but I like it a but saucier so add another can of pasta sauce.

    5) Don't overcook your lasagna noodles! If they are still slightly firm, good. Strain them and then place the noodles in layers on a plate in a criss cross pattern so they can maintain their shape while you are making your lasagna.

    6) Lightly spray some pam or another non-stick spray on your bakeware so your lasagna does not stick to your pan. Also, start pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees.

    7) Start off your lasagna with a layer of meat sauce

    8) Then a layer of noodles. Then repeat with another layer of meat sauce and noodles.

    9) Usually around the first or second layer of noodles I add a layer of mozzarella cheese. You can use pre-shredded cheese, but like all pre-shredded cheeses, the little pieces of cheese are covered in a layer of wax, and that creates a greasy lasagna. So get a brick and shred it yourself or cut pieces that will melt in the oven. Also, layer some parmesan in there too if you want the extra cheese.

    10) Keep repeating your layers until you get close to the top of your pan. If you have extra ingredients, make a second lasagna in a smaller pan like in these pictures.

    11) When you get to your top layer, finish off your lasagna with a light layer of sauce, generous amounts of parmesan and a generous amount of mozzarella.

    12) Now cover your lasagna with aluminum foil (this prevents your top layer of cheese from burning during the cooking process), wait for your oven to finish pre-heating and put it in the oven on the center rack for about 35 minutes.

    13) Take your lasagna out, take off the aluminum foil and it'll look something like this. Now put the lasagna back into your oven for another 10-15 minutes with the foil off to melt down the top layer.

    14) And the lasagna is done! If you have a good brand of mozzarella, cutting pieces usually works fine, but the store brand that I was using didn't melt perfectly, but you get the idea... its still incredibly tasty.

    15) Let the lasagna sit for about 5-10 minutes to cool and solidify, then cut into pieces and eat!







    When I have leftovers, which I usually do because this is alot of lasanga... I put individual servings into ziplock sandwich bags and freeze them. To eat them from the freezer, put it on a plate, set it to auto-defrost for 1 pound, break it up with a fork and heat it again for another minute and it should be perfect.
  24. Sledgstone
    I made chicken wings last night and I figured I'd share my latest recipe.
    Instructions to make:
    Honey BBQ Chicken Wings
    Ingredients:
    - Package of Chicken Wings - 2 to 2.5 lbs
    - A couple cups of flour
    - 3 eggs
    - KC Masterpiece Original BBQ Sauce - 1 1/4 cups
    - Honey - 1/4 cup
    - Soy Sauce - 1/8 cup
    Instructions:
    1) Rinse off the chicken winds and cut them into three pieces, discarding the tips. I'm using a 4.5 lb package of chicken wings because half of this package are used for my Honey BBQ wings and the other half I used a McCormick Buffalo Wings Garlic and Herb dry rub.

    2) Pat the chicken wings dry with paper towels.

    3) Crack 3 eggs into a bowel and wisk it up to make an egg wash.

    4) Once the chicken wings are mostly dry, dip them in a ziploc bag of flour to coat them, then coat both sides into the egg wash and then put them back into the flour so you have a double coating of flour.

    5) Put your wings on your grill at a low temperature and cook them for about 15 minutes, flipping them once. Notice that the other half of my chicken wings look different (the ones on the left), those are the ones I patted dry and coated with the McCormick mix.

    6) While the chicken wings are cooking, mix the three sauce ingredients together. You can add more honey or soy sauce to taste. With the mix I made it turned out to be a bit more of a honey/sweet&tangy sauce.

    7) After the first 15/20 minutes take your flour coated wings off the grill (I did it right at the grill, one at a time) and dip them in your honey bbq sauce. Then put them back on the grill and turn the temp up to medium. Keep flipping them every 5 minutes or so and cook your wings until their internal temperature is 180 degrees. It takes about a 1/2 hour to 40 minutes. To do this easier on a grill, cook only a 2 - 2.5 lb of chicken wings at a time and place them on the top far left of the grill. Turn off the burner directly below the wings, the left one and crank the temp on the right burner to full. Because the chicken wings get cooked with indirect heat you don't need to keep flipping them constantly and they should cook faster.

    8) Finished Honey BBQ Wings. They look burntish, but they taste good to me. The only problem I had was that the wings just weren't crispy. I think breaded wings cook best fried, but in the end grilled wings turned out pretty decent and the sauce tastes quite good.

    9) Finished McCormick Garlic and Herb Wings. Cooking these on the grill, they turned out very crispy and tasty. Of course being a dry rub, there was no flour or sauce involved to moisten the skin. I honestly think for cooking wings on the grill a dry rub has a much better result.

  25. Sledgstone
    Once every two years I buy a couple packages of socks. And every time I get a new package of socks I wonder to myself, why the hell do they come in resealable bags? There is even a graphic on the package saying "Resealable bag!" Does this mean my socks have a shelf life? Should I be concerned that my sock might expire if I don't reseal that bag after taking a pair out? And why are they so excited about the sock package being resealable that they had to add and exclamation point to the graphic phrase.. like its a long awaited feature sock purchasers have been waiting for for years.
    Or should I be more concerned that someone could have worn these socks, washed them, ironed them and repackaged them in the "resealable bag" and thus returned them to walmart whose employees just throw shit back on the shelves. And lady looks at me odd when I sniff my socks out of the brand new package. I can only hope my socks aren't tainted, but for $3 a package I have no guarantees.
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