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Sledgstone

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Blog Entries posted by Sledgstone

  1. Sledgstone
    Kettle Brand Jalapeno Potato Chips are some of the best jalapeno chips available in stores. With that nice large red "Hot" pepper on the front of the package, I was expecting some good heat and these chips delivered.

    The chips are a nice gold color speckled with green jalapeno seasonings. But the flavor isn't just in those speckles, these chips are imbued with jalapeno flavor. After just a few chips you'll begin to notice the nice jalapeno burn sneaking up on you as an after taste. After about 5-10 chips you'll be approaching the full flavor profile of jalapeno perfection. Kettle Brand jalapeno chips are less salty and have less 'folded over' chips than other competing brands and that is what really sets them apart from the others. Every chip is very consistent with flavor and seasonings.
    The only downside to these are probably that they are a bit greasy, just like all potato chips. But the packaging does a good job at grabbing excess grease and seasonings and keeping it all stuck to the inside of the bag, mostly at the bottom. This reduces the overall greasiness of the chips to be a bit less than a regular bag of Lays. If you really enjoy the flavor of jalapeno and want every last crumb and bit of grease, after you eat a bag of these, cut open the empty bag and lick the inside for a special treat of unhealthiness. I actually did this once.. too much grease for me, but the flavor was very good.

    Should you eat these?
    Yes! These are some of the best jalapeno chips you can buy. Expect some good jalapeno heat. These are hotter than Lay's Sriracha chips.
  2. Sledgstone
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57526994-94/android-users-outraged-over-motorolas-broken-promise/
    Next phone I buy will be an HTC or a Samsung. I will never buy a Motorola phone again. I specifically bought this phone because it was on sale, it had basically the same specs as the samsung galaxy at the time and it was guaranteed to be upgraded to the latest android operating system.
    I never got that upgraded operating system. Android 2.3 is so outdated, that numerous apps are not even available for it. I cannot even run Google Chrome.. wtf. No Vine, no Time Warner app, etc. Numerous basic features on all phones are not available to me because I bought this phone with the belief that I'd only use the old operating system for another month or so. I remember when my brother's Nexus got upgraded to android 4.1, he was talking about how it was like a brand new phone again.. I was looking forward to this upgrade for so long.. and then my hopes were crushed.
    Say no to Motorola. Don't even bother buying their crap, because its completely unsupported.
  3. 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.
  4. Sledgstone
    A couple weeks ago the Blazer's service engine soon light came on. I went to Advance Auto Parts and used one of their scanners to find out I had a 'Coolant below thermostat threshold' error code. Basically, my coolant needed to be replaced and also my thermostat, then possibly the coolant temperature sensor. A couple days later I went to Valvoline instant oil change and had them do a coolant flush and also replace the serpentine belt. The serp belt I could have done myself, but the guy told me it was a lifetime warranty and they'll replace it free of charge whenever it starts showing alot of wear, so I figured it would be a good deal because I'll probably need at least one more belt in the next 3-4 years and it saved me the hassle of doing it myself in 30 degree temperatures.
    The service engine soon light did not go off. I figured it wouldn't, because I would need to replace the thermostat too. Then I got snowed in at my house after a 2 foot snow storm. The car didn't drive anywhere for a couple days. Then on last Sunday, when I was about to go to the local grocery store, I noticed a gas smell. I went to the store and when I came back I noticed the smell still. Turns out the fuel line near the tank started leaking a steady drip of gas. wtf. I didn't have much daylight left so I got under the car, eventually found the pinhole leak, and I proceeded to patch it by placing a piece of cut hose over the hole and then use hose clamps to tighten it down. I must have over tightened it and it started leaking again which pissed me the hell off because at that point I was soaking wet from melting snow/ice (2 feet of melting snow) and pooling gas. After my hands went numb from the cold gas and my arm was killing me because I was awkwardly positioned under the rear differential, I decided to do a really cheap ass move and cut the finger off a nitrile throwaway glove, wrapped it around the pin hole leak, and clamped it down with four zip ties. Its held for a week now with no additional leaking. I was going to take it off and hose clamp it correctly with my piece of hose, but another issue came up.
    About 3 days ago, the car started making a weird ticking sound after I initially turned the car on. It only lasted for a couple seconds, but I thought it was a bad sign. Turns out it would only do it when the car was sitting for more than a couple hours and the length of time the ticking would last for depended on how cold it was outside. I went back to Advance Auto parts and had them test the alternator and battery because alternators, batteries and starters are all connected to a ticking sound during ignition. The battery and alternator were fine. He couldn't test the started because it would have to be off the engine, and on top of that he said that test would only check to see if the starter can start a car, which is not the problem because the noise only happens after the car is turned on. The guy was pretty knowledgeable and he suggested I do an oil change and use a oil filter with a drain back valve. I guess he meant anti-drain back valve because he told me I probably had oil sludge starting to build up and after the car was sitting for a while, the oil would accumulate in the oil pan and that ticking sound was the thick oil slowly making its way back up to the top of the engine. And that a good oil filter would prevent the oil from draining down completely to the oil pan, which is what an anti-drain back oil filter does. While I was there, I went ahead and bought the thermostat.
    So, today, I did the oil change on the blazer. I spent the extra money and bought a penzoil full synthetic oil with cleaning additives ($28 for 5 quarts, costly), and I bought a Fram Tough Guard oil filter ($8, $5 more than other filters) which has a 'anti-drain back valve built into it'. I just finished the oil change, my coat is soaked because the tarp I put down over the melting snow/ice was a piece of crap and soaked straight through. Anyway, I started the car up after the oil change and no ticking sound. I'll find out tomorrow morning if the ticking sound is completely gone. I still need to do the thermostat, but my coat is soaked, I need a new tarp and I think I'm going to wait until next weekend when its 40+ degrees again. From what I read, a bad thermostat only causes a little worse fuel efficiency, so I figure if its not damaging the car, it can wait another week.
  5. Sledgstone
    Lay's Sriracha is one of the three new Lay's potato chip flavors available as part of the "Lay's Do Us A Flavor" contest. I haven't had the chance to try the other two flavors, but I did get my hands on a bag of these.
    I have to admit.. I have never tried Sriracha sauce before so I have no idea just how spicy the sauce is by itself. I've heard that it is intensely hot and based on the picture on this bag I can only assume its going to be extra spicy.

    The chips themselves are a bit reddish in color compared to regular Lay's. They smell very mild and not powerful enough to indicate any real heat. The flavor is the regular salty lays taste with a nice heat that hits lightly and then burns the tongue a bit. After about 5 chips or so the burn is a bit more noticeable and at its maximum heat. I didn't notice any back of the throat burn or "creeping up on you burn" like you would normally get with cayenne pepper so i can only assume these chips are more mild in heat intensity compared to actually dripping Sriracha sauce directly onto regular lays chips.

    Should you eat these?
    Yes. If you want to try a new kind of spicy potato chip, give these a try. But don't expect them to be the hottest chips out there.
  6. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    2-3 rolls of sushi
    Ingredients:
    - Sushi Rice - 2 cups
    - Nori (Seaweed sheets) - 2-3 sheets
    - Rice Vinegar -
    - Sliced carrots - 1 package
    - Avocado - 1x
    - Cucumber - 1x
    - Shrimp or imitation crab meat - 1 small package
    Instructions:
    1) Put two cups of rice in your rice cooker and fill the rice cooker to the "2" line with water, put lid on and set the rice to cook. Remember to leave the lid on the rice cooker through the duration of the cooking and and additional 15 minutes after the rice cooker switches over to 'warm' to ensure the rice fully cooks.
    2) While the rice is cooking, prepare your cooking area, get your sushi mat ready, take your nori out of the package so it can air out a bit. Peel your cucumber and slice it into thin length wise pieces (preferably discarding the seed portion or the cucumber but that is not necessary). Peel your avocado and also slice into length wise pieces but keep the avocado thicker for it's texture. Also rinse off and peel your shrimp/crab meat.

    3) After the rice is done, you have to add 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar per 1 cup of rice. Since 2 cups of uncooked rice = 6 cups of cooked rice, add 6 tablespoons of rice vinegar to the rice in the rice cooker and fold the rice to mix evenly. Don't crush the rice while folding the vinegar in! Once mixed together, spread the rice out onto a pizza pan or something else covered in aluminum foil. I cover a pizza pan with aluminum foil because it gives you a flat surface for the rice to cool on and it makes cleanup a lot easier.

    4) Let the rice cool down for a while and finish any other prep work you have to do. Also, place a piece of clear saran plastic wrap on your sushi mat (makes rolling the sushi easier and less messer, also easier clean up). Place your nori, shiny side down on your sushi mat and spread sushi rice in a thin layer on most of the mat. Leave about a half inch at the top of the nori rice free so the roll can stay together.

    5) Place your ingredients length wise at the bottom of your sushi roll. Use a couple large pieces of avocado, a bunch of cucumber, carrots, shrimp/crabmeat, whatever you want to use. Its ok if things overlap too, but you don't want to use much more than what is in this pic or your roll might start falling apart while you cut it or when you pick up the individual pieces.

    6) Next, roll the sushi carefully from the bottom up. Apply some light pressure while you roll and tuck the ingredients in with your fingers if it starts falling apart or not staying in place while you roll it.
    7) Roll it back and forth a little bit and squeeze the roll slightly while wrapped up in the mat to get everything kind of solidified together. Not to hard tho, you do not want to crush the rice and ruin the texture.
    8) The top of the roll had that little empty 1/2 flap of nori, wet your finger and apply a moisture to that flap and push it against the roll. This will make that little flap grip the roll and keep everything together.
    9) Place your roll of sushi on a cutting board and use a sharp wet knife to cut your individual pieces. Sushi rice is extremely sticky, you will need to run your knife under water and gently wipe off any stickyness or rice off your knife before cutting each piece. Cut the pieces to the thickness you want, if the sushi starts falling apart on you while you cut, cut slightly larger pieces or clean your knife/wet it more. Let the knife be pretty much dripping wet even while you cut for easier cutting. The end pieces look ugly but are still edible. I usually give them to my kid or eat them myself before presentation.


    10) Next roll. Repeat steps above. Notice I used more shrimp? mmmmm.

    11) This is the amount of leftover rice I had. I'm pretty certain I made three rolls with 2 cups of uncooked rice, but I probably ate it while making the other two rolls I took pictures off. (I can't remember.)

    12) Finished sushi with leftover ingredients. As you can see, you shouldn't waste your time cutting all of that 1 cucumber and 1 avocado like I did unless you have a guinea pig that likes leftover cucumber like me. Probably half a cucumber and half an avocado is plenty for 2-3 sushi rolls.

    13) Finished sushi pics! Eat and enjoy!


    Don't forget you can use a little wasabi sauce or soy sauce or mix them together a bit for dipping your sushi. I sometimes use duck sauce because soy sauce usually tastes too salty for me just like wasabi is way to friggin hot. I'd rather taste the sushi and the different textures in it than have the dipping sauce overtake my pallet.
    Pickled ginger is usually served with sushi, but its mainly used to 'reset' your taste buds when you have a variety of sushi on your plate. Its best to eat a little piece of ginger inbetween different pieces of sushi or sashimi to fully enjoy the taste and texture of each different piece. If all your eating is just the one sushi roll like I have made here, I'd pass on the ginger and just enjoy the flavor of the sushi.
  7. 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.
  8. Sledgstone
    Well, I did the oil change for the Blazer for the first time last Sunday (09-20-2009). I had to buy an oil filter wrench because my grip wrench would not budge that f*cking oil filter no matter how hard I tried. What a pain in my ass that was. Everything went well, but then on monday I noticed a weird humming noise and a stiffness to the steering wheel. Afraid I f*cked something up, I checked all my fluids. But no, it wasn't the oil. My power steering fluid was out. WTF. So I hit the gas station down the road from work, put some power steering fluid in and got home with no problem. I had to to do this a couple of times. I ended up getting some power steering stop leak at NAPA. It seemed to have stopped the leak thursday night. But! I started driving to work friday and the steering gave out completely. I tried putting my fluid in, but the car vomited it all over the road.
    As of today, I removed the air filter cabin and the front left headlight. It seems that the power steering fluid is leaking from a metal joint that connects to the ps cooler. I'm trying to put a hose over top of the broken section of pipe and clamp it down to fix the leak. I should be finished with it tomorrow, rain permitting. If it doesn't work, I might have to cut that section of pipe off and replace it with a high pressure hose... I'm just hoping that that is the only place it is leaking from. And I have to say this... what a horrible f*cking design flaw. With the way the headlight is positioned, the excess rain water or salty water during the winter that hits in that crack between the headlight and the hood would drip down the back of the headlight and rust the shit out of this metal joint. Why in the hell would someone design something to be rusted out like that? Its like it was made to break.
  9. Sledgstone
    If anyone can remember the old bulletin board software wars from years ago, you would remember an old major player called ikonboard. This software was a phpBB, UBB and vBulletin rival back in the day. But after they got purchased by a bigger company they lost alot of their users when the old developers of ikonboard broke away and created invision power board. Shortly after ikonboard became pretty obsolete.
    Now the same thing is happening with vBulletin. vBulletin was purchased by Internet Brands and became more commercial and money hungry. The main developers of vB left the company and just recently announced that they are making a new forum software called xenforo. Which can be found at http://xenforo.com/
    Could this possibly be history repeating itself? Will xenforo replace vbulletin in the near future just like invision power board replaced ikonboard? Only time will tell.
  10. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    Sledge's Sweet and Spicy Rib Rub
    This dry rub can be used on pork or beef ribs, chicken, chicken wings, beef, pork, steaks, etc!
    Ingredients:
    1 1/2 cups brown sugar (firmly packed in measuring cup) 1/4 cup white sugar 1/3 cup paprika 1 tablespoon ground black pepper 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder 1/4 cup + a little over.. half seasoned salt, half bucks seasoning 2 1/2 teaspoons chili powder 2 teaspoon cayenne pepper Instructions:
    1) Mix all the ingredients together. If you don't have a food processor to mix it with, then use your hands and really work the mix in a larger bowl to break apart the brown sugar so everything is equally mixed in.




    2) This recipe will yield a good sized batch of rub that should last you all summer! Just remember to separate the amount of rub you plan on using ahead of working with raw meats or other foods so you don't cross-contaminate your main batch! So when you are ready to start cooking, set a small bowl of your rub aside and store the rest of your rub in an airtight container. Or do what I do and put your rub mix in a freezer bag and store it out of the way on a refrigerator door shelf. It does not need to be refrigerated, but it will stay fresh longer in the fridge! But keep in mind, regardless of how you store the rub mix, the brown sugar in this rub will cause the rub mix to re-clump after it has sat for a few days/weeks. This is normal, just simply break the clumps apart and its ready to be used again!

  11. 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.
  12. Sledgstone
    I haven't liked vBulletin for some time now and mostly put that forum software behind me except for the occasional jab about how bad their software is. I came across this interesting update from PC Gamer the other day... with a part that I emphasized:
    http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/26/why-forums-and-comments-are-still-offline/
    http://mos.futurenet.com/forum/
    I don't visit PC Gamer's website, so I'm not certain what version of vB they were using, but this is pretty huge. The took all of their entire network's vBulletin powered forums offline because it was exploited.
    Well PC Gamer, I suggest you switch to Invision Power.
    vBulletin has really gone downhill and I'm glad we stopped using their software when we did.
  13. 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
  14. Sledgstone
    One of the people at vBulletin posted a blog entry showing what we should expect the new default vb style to look like. Seeing as me n lady like to make new styles based off the vbulletin default one, it should change the overall look of the forums. Click this link for some pics of what it'll look like:
    http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/blog.php?b=2360
  15. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    Sledge's Dry Rib Rub and how to cook some pork ribs with a dry rub, smoke and no sauce!
    Serving size: 1 (or more if you cook more ribs)
    Ingredients for dry rib rub (enough for probably 2 or 3 medium sized racks of ribs)
    - 1/2 cup of paprika
    - 1/4 cup fresh ground black pepper
    - 1/4 cup salt (or fresh ground salt)
    - 2 tablespoons of onion powder
    - 2 tablespoons of garlic powder
    - 2/3 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
    And of course to smoke cook your ribs on your grill you'll need:
    - 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 pounds of pork spare ribs
    - A couple handfuls of flavored wood chips
    - A cast iron smoke box for your wood chips
    - A piece of aluminum foil
    Instructions:
    1) Gather your ingredients for the rub and add them put them all into a bowl.

    2) Mix all the rub ingredients together. Its best to mix it with your hands, a fork, spoon or whisk just wont work as good.

    3) Rinse off your ribs and then pat them dry with a bunch of paper towels.

    4) Use one hand to grab rub and drop it liberally onto both sides of your ribs, and then use your other hand to rub it in. This way if you have extra rub left over you can save it in a baggie and refrigerate it without any contamination from touching the pork. If you don't plan on saving leftover rub, just dump it all over your ribs and put it on thick! You'll want to let it really permeate the ribs now. Cover it with plastic and refrigerate it, or if your ribs are still cold from the refrigerator, let them sit on the counter for a half hour or so while you warm up the grill and soak your wood chips.

    5) Put a handful or two into a bowl of water and let them soak for about a half hour. You can also turn on your grill and let it start heating up.

    6) Now that the grill has heated up, put your smoker box on the far right side. Grab a handful of wet wood chips, let the wood chips drain for a minute in your hand and then put the wood chips in the smoker. Not too many tho! Those wood chips need air to burn once you put the lid on. Also, turn off the left burner. You do not want to cook your ribs over direct flame. And turn the right burner down to about a medium flame.

    7) Before you put your ribs on the grill, lightly tap the ribs on its sides to get any excess rub off. Excess rub will look like dry patches of rub if as long as you let it soak into the ribs like I said. Now put the lid on your smoke box and put your ribs on the grill.

    8) Look at those ribs one more time because you won't be looking at them again for a while Close that grill and walk away for an hour. Within a half hour you'll probably see a light smoke coming out of the grill, you shouldn't have any flare ups because the ribs are not over direct heat. And by leaving the grill down for a full hour the grill will be cooking more like an oven and the smoke from the smoke box will circulate inside the grill filling the ribs with more flavor.

    9) An hour later, I flipped the ribs and added another small handful of fresh chips to the now fully burnt looking chips inside the smoke box. And now close that grill and let it cook for 1 more hour.

    10) After two hours of total cooking time, your ribs should be fully done. You can check with a meat thermometer, pork is well done at 170 degrees. When you take the ribs off the grill, immediately wrap them in aluminum foil and let them sit on a plate for a good 15 minutes. This lets the ribs reabsorb their moisture and allows more flavor to fully saturate the meat. If you don't wrap it in foil, the moisture will evaporate and collect on the plate. So wrap it!

    11) After 15 minutes, look at those ribs!

    12) Cut them into portions and look at the juicy results!

    13) Feel free to use a sauce on the side, but these ribs have all the flavor and tender flavor you need!

    14) Eat!

    This rub is a good sweet and spicy mix, but next time I cook ribs like this, I think I'll use a full cup of brown sugar to sweeten the rub a bit more. These ribs turned out quite good, but I think I still prefer my other rib recipe over this one... probably because its less time consuming and easier.
    Heres a link to my other rib recipe:
    St. Louis style ribs
  16. Sledgstone
    *blogging my VB vs. IPB crap for future reference*
    ________________________________
    vBulletin = FAIL
    [ame=http://forums.ancientclan.com/showthread.php?t=9752"]vBulletin = FAIL - Ancient Clan Forums[/ame]
    Here is the email I received from vbulletin:
    The vbulletin team announced that vBulletin 4.0 would come out by the end of June 2009. It is October 14th today and with an announcement like this and a new website, you would think vbulletin 4.0 has finally been released! But no! It is still in alpha testing, there is no demo available and I have been given the opportunity to purchase the upgrade to the suite for the $130 discount for only 16-17 more days. And they still have not announced when the vb 4.0 version will even come out.
    And even though I bought the blog add-on for $50 a year ago, I get the same discount price as someone who only owns just the forum license. wtf.
    When my license support renewal is up, which last year would have costed me $40 for updates, will now cost me $195 for the new license if I haven't paid the $130 or more by then to download vbulletin 4.0 which may still not be out by then considering they are 4 months behind schedule with no product.
    So. We will probably continue running vb 3.8 until we find another alternative or vbulletin changes their pricing structure (which I'm sure they won't). I wouldn't mind paying for new forum software, we've spent plenty on vb over the years with renewal costs and one time purchases. But I can't justify staying with the company because of the part I have put in bold above.
    If we use just the forums and pay the initial upgrade price of $195 or so in january and switch to a free blog system because the version we have won't be compatible with vb 4.0... we'll still be stuck with another issue. Once vb 5.0 comes out (which should be 12-18 months according to a staff member), we'll have to buy a brand new vbulletin license for version 5 at the full price of another $195. And assuming a new major release then comes out every 1 or 2 years, it'll be hundreds of dollars every year or two just to keep using this software that still doesn't do everything I want it to do.
    I'm really starting to hate vbulletin. If I want to stay with this forum software, the only way I'll save money is by paying the cheaper upgrade cost of $130 which gives me the entire suite, but I only have 16 days to make my decision or pay $200 in January and only get the forum software.
    WTF!
    Anyone have any forum or blog recommendations? I was thinking about invision power board, but they're in the process of releasing a new cms like system and I don't know if that will be bundled in with their current suite. But even ipb is $250 for the suite with $60 renewal costs. But even that price is better than the new vbulletin price structure. Apparently, I have to make a decision within 16 days. *kicks vB in the balls*
  17. Sledgstone
    I got a mini burger grill kit for my birthday and I figured I'd celebrate the new years with some white castle style burgers. Except they turned out nothing like white castle burgers. X'D
    I didn't do anything special with the meat so there is no fancy recipe, its just basic burgers made small.
    1) Heres the mini burger press.

    2) I put a couple small meatballs size balls of meat and made some mini patties:

    3) Heres what the mini burgers look like compared to regular size:

    4) To try and get some white castle flavor, I sprinkled some season salt on the burgers and loaded them with chopped onion:

    5) I put the top on the mini burgers and put them on the grill over a medium heat:


    6) I had to put it on the grill so the handle sticks out the side. Turns out that the front of my grill has a bit of an over bite to it and pushed the mini burgers up in the air when it closed. With the handle sticking out the side tho, it wasn't nearly as bad.

    7) After about 7 minutes the burgers were almost done, so I flipped them over and covered them again for another 5 minutes.

    8) Here they are done, you can see how much they shrunk. Next time I'll use 90% instead of 80% meat. They shrunk way too much.

    9) While the burgers were still hot, I put some thinly sliced pieces of cheese on them and the cheese melted a bit which turned out great.

    10) Heres where they don't taste like white castle anymore. I decided to use potato dinner rolls instead of regular rolls or buns. If I knew they'd turn out this small I would have bought the party size mini rolls. Oh well, I doubled up the burgers and put half a stackers pickle and some ketchup and mustard on it.

    11) Instead of french fries, I decided a good side dish would be some ribs and a baked potato. So I tried some dinosaur bbq sauce for the first time on ribs. It turned out really good.


    12) And heres my new years eve dinner:


  18. Sledgstone
    vBulletin went straight from beta 28 to Gold release with no release candidate versions and they even upgraded their official forums to it. WTF. There is no member list, no users online list. Notifications are horrible, its buggy as hell and looks like crap.
    http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/
    The only thing it has going for it IMO is that the mobile version looks decent on a cell phone screen.. but even then I came across some 503 errors and pages that failed to load. So buggy. They say "Enjoy a clean, up-to-date design that supports easier forum navigation for members and visitors alike." I don't care for their idea of 'clean, up-to-date' it doesn't look up-to-date to me at all. In fact the page navigation floats at the top of the screen in large forums with multiple pages of topics. It took me a minute to even realize it was there. For a basic default skin, this looks horrible.
    It has less than half the features of vB 3.8 and searching doesn't work. All the search results are "unexpected_error"
  19. 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.
  20. Sledgstone
    Here are some possible scenarios that could take place as the year progresses.
    Bush will insist upon Iran's nuclear plans, furnish proof of their 'evil plans', insist on Iran's involvement with terrorism and start a war with Iran near the end of his presidential term.
    With a war booming and the possibility of Iran literally attacking US on its own soil and with the war having the potential to go nuclear, gas prices will jump exponentially and other countries now severely burdened by oil prices, others may join with Iran and a potential WW3 could start.
    A war with Iran could also be a potential cover up just to have a nuclear factory 'explode' or a nuke could be dropped on Iran. Because Iran has large reserves of oil under their soil the oil could be potentially contaminated with radiation and all the massive reserves under their land could now be unusable thus creating a world wide oil based recession.
    All of this is also a potential way for Bush to pass some new bill to keep him in office past his two terms because of the world crisis he has caused. Thus our president becomes a war mongering dictator.
    If this does not happen and McCain becomes president, he will try to pick up this exact same course minus the dictator part.
    Of course, Bush could always start up a war with Iran or set things in motion for it to take place, leave office and screw the next president into a position of having to declare war.
  21. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    Onion Steak Burgers
    Ingredients:
    - Package of ground beef round tip roast (you could substitute 90/10 or 80/20 hamburger if you want) - 2 to 3 lbs
    - 1 packet of onion soup mix
    - A splash of worcester sauce
    - Cheese (I prefer extra sharp cheddar or maybe colby jack)
    Instructions:
    1) Gather your ingredients.

    2) Hand mash the meat with the onion soup mix until thoroughly mixed.

    3) Splash some worchester sauce onto the mix and mash that in as well. You don't need worchester sauce, but the meat I'm using is less fatty than the usual 80/20, so I want some more liquid in the mix to offset the dry onion soup mix. If you are using 90/10 or 80/20 go ahead and skip this if you want, but I'd leave it in for flavor. Just make your burgers slightly thicker in the end so the meat doesn't fall apart when you go to cook it.

    4) Use a small plat to make to make your hamburger patties with. Using a small plate instead of just your hands makes a more even patty and you can round the edges easier.


    5) Plate of finished patties. These are pretty thick burgers. When hamburgers cook, they loose alot of fat and thus the finished hamburgers are much thinner than the initial patties. But I'm using steak meat so these bad boys won't loose much size. hmmm..

    6) If cooking on the grill, get your grill nice and hot first, then put your burgers on for a good initial searing to get those grill marks. Turn the grill down to low and close it up. Let them cook about 6-7 minutes on each side. If you are pan frying, Cook 1 or 2 of these at a time, because you'll probably only fit 1 or 2 of these on a pan. Cook about the same amount of time. You could also use a george forman grill, but burgers taste best when they are cooked on the grill.

    7) After 6 minutes my burgers look like this, and that means its time to flip:

    8) Look at those grill marks. mmmm.

    9) Cut some cheese for you burgers, I'm using colby jack today.

    10) Give your troublesome cat some cheese so he'll leave you alone.

    11) You'll know when your burgers are done and safe to eat when you stick a thermometer in one and its at 170-180 degrees.

    12) Put the cheese on your burgers, close that lid and turn the grill up to full heat for about 1 minute to melt your cheese.


    13) Finished burgers! Enjoy!

  22. 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...
  23. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    Sirloin Steak with Bourbon Marinade
    Serving size: 2 people.
    Ingredients:
    - 1 Sirloin Steak (probably 2 pounds)
    - DX's Marinade
    Instructions:
    1) Make the marinade as per DeathscytheX's marinade recipe.


    2) Rinse off your steak, stab it with a fork about 10 or so times on both sides and place it in the marinade, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 6 hours or more.

    I pan seared this steak on the stove. Normally I would have grilled it, but it was too damn cold outside (its winter atm) and I thought the steak might burst into flame because of the alcohol content. X'D
    3) To pan sear it, pour some of the marinade in the pan and get the temperature up really high.

    4) Place your steak in the pan and let it cook for about 5 minutes.

    5) Flip your steak and cook it for another 5 minutes.

    6) Flip it again and its already done at this point, but I wanted to make sure it was well done (which it probably was at this point already), so I turned the stove off and covered it for another 2 minutes.


    7) Take the top off and the bottom side will be more done looking than the top. Here is what it looks like on both sides.


    8) While the steak was cooking, I threw a potato in the microwave on the baked potato setting a couple times for a side dish. Here is the completed steak with baked potato:

    I think I'd recommend only 1/4 a cup of bourbon for the recipe, even tho DX's recipe calls for 1/2 a cup. I swear there was enough alcohol left in the marinade after cooking that I got buzz after eating this. X'D It has a good strong flavor and no real need for a bbq sauce. But I'll grill this next time as the house smelled like a bar for a couple days after i cooked this inside. X'D
  24. 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.
  25. Sledgstone
    vBulletin Suite vs. vBulletin - vBulletin Community Forum
    Once again vb is pissing me off. We spent the extra one time fee of $50 for the blog addon. But since they are changing their packages and price structures around, they are going to dick people over. They still have not announced their price structures or upgrade fees, but now we definitely know that upgrading to vb4 suite will cost us money.
    They will no longer sell their add-on products individually anymore, which means that we'll have to upgrade to the vBulletin suite to continue getting updates for the blog add-on we already have. This is retarded. I wouldn't mind getting the vbulletin cms, I was planning on it actually. But unless it was worth another $50 (or whatever the price they're changing it to now) I wouldn't buy it. But, now we'll have to buy the suite upgrade which includes the CMS, Blog and Project Tools just to continue getting updates for the blog! WTF!? We have absolutely no need for the Project Tools add-on. If we were still a hosting company we could have used it for a support desk, but we no longer have a need for anything like that now.
    So thanks alot vb. I hope to god the cost to upgrade to the suite is low because if the price is to high, I'll be willing to spend the little extra cash to switch over the IPB just to spite your fucking money hungry, non-supportive, no major scheduled updates company. And their CMS better be something fucking amazing and have a gallery built into it, because if its just a page maker or a rip-off of vb advanced (free) like the blog is a slightly better rip-off of wordpress (free), then I am going to be even more seriously pissed off.
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