Nobody . . .

I’ve now got a timeline laid out for our Rib Fiesta this weekend, starting Saturday with cutting up the rib racks into 4 rib sections, powdering them in the rub/brown sugar/salt mixture, placing them in vacuum bags, adding 3 drops of Wright’s Applewood Smoke, and then sealing them up.

Then I’ll marinate them in the fridge overnight before setting them up in the cooker Sunday afternoon for the 24 hour cooking cycle. To speed things up I’ll start off using hot water from the faucet, which at 130°, will give it a big jumpstart up to our 150° cooking temp, rather than starting at the normal 80°.

Then about 30 minutes before the 24 hours is up on Monday afternoon, I’ll fire up our Weber out on the patio, and the ribs will go on the grill for basting with sauce for a final char.

Hopefully they’ll look somewhat like this.

BBQ Ribs Sous Vide

Going into work this morning, I saw a bumper sticker on a car talking about stopping crime. Which made me think about Crimestoppers.

Now days, they’re pretty much known for offering rewards for tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of criminals whose crimes are selected and highlighted in their online pages.

But back in the 1990-2000’s they were also known for the crime reenactments that showed all over television. They used actors from local colleges and theater groups for the criminal stand-ins, but they finally shut this down due to a problem.

People would recognize the actors on the street and report THEM to the police, getting them arrested, not the real criminals.

But anyway, back in about 2003, I had left Tech Services at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) and now WebMaster for the School of Business there. And somehow I got roped into doing one of these.

Hopefully it wasn’t typecasting, but I was the guy picking up young girl hitchhikers and then raping and killing them. My victim du jour was a cute redheaded student that I had worked with on several projects befoer so I knew her pretty well.

The premise was that I would be driving along and then pick her. I then would reach over, lock the doors, put my hand on her leg, and say, “Nobody rides for free”. (And no, I didn’t write this script).

Then the camera would cut to her terrified face.

We ran over this a couple of times, working on camera angles, etc., before we did a take for real.

When we were rehearsing, I had always put my hand on her knee since she was wearing shorts. But when we did the take and I put my hand on her knee, and before the camera cut to her leg, I guess she wanted to make things a little more realistic, so she reached down and slid my hand up her bare leg almost to her crotch.

Startled, but trying to keep going, I leaned over, and in my best menacing voice, said my lines.

But it came out as, “Nobodwy Wides Fowr Fewre”, said in an Elmer Fudd squeak.

And the laughter went on for almost 10 minutes. Every time it tapered off, someone would look at my bright red face and it would all start over again.

It wasn’t too long after this, and maybe because of this, that all these video reenactments went away.

Unfortunately I was never able to get a copy of this, so I’m hoping it’s lost forever.

I mentioned a couple of months ago how the magnolia trees around here were blooming like crazy, more so than I remember in the past. And I wondered if the big freeze back in February had anything to do with it.

And now it seems that maybe the same thing is happening with the crepe myrtle around here.

Crepe Myrtle 2

Crepe Myrtle 1

Again, I don’t know if the freeze had anything to do with it, but I don’t remember them being like this before.
 


Thought For The Day:


Teach your kids about taxes… eat 30% of their ice cream.