Cocktail Confessions

Well, here it is, Episode 15.  I wish I could say I’m really happy with the outcome, but in my own humble opinion, it’s “meh” at best.  Why you ask?  Originally, I had sat down last weekend with my friend Brian Liles (yet again) and had made a sweet recording that was a good solid hour plus.  It could have easily been broken into two seperate Podcasts, and I think it was one of our best yet.  There was a myriad of interesting topics on the table as well as we had at least three to four craft beers in us each as we made it.

However, due to the fact that I hadn’t take the time to reboot my computer after some auto-installed patches from Microsoft prior to our recording, it seems that Audacity (my podcast recording software) somehow corrupted the data.  No matter how many times I tried to recover the orphan files after a failed save attempt, I just couldn’t resurect it.  As I say in this podcast, let that be a lesson to all you tech heads out there.  Always reboot your PC after critical patches are downloaded and installed.  I clearly should have known better, so I have no one to blame but myself.

Feeling somewhat pressed to have a new episode ready, I took my portable Zoom to work and made this recording on my lunch break while sitting in my car.  I’m happy with the audio quality, but as you’ll hear, there was really no set agenda for this one.  It’s about 40 minutes of me ranting on some of my political views, Howard Stern, and my upcoming business trip to Atlanta, GA.  Also, I was able to throw in a cocktail recipe, the ‘original’ Texas-tini (not my version from a few weeks back in which I thought I was so clever with the name), and a recipe for grilling artichokes.  Hence the title ‘Smorgasbord’.

In other news, I’m rapidly approaching my 40th birthday (8 days from this writing) and I am clearly having a mild midlife crisis.  I hope its not too evident in my recording, but I’ve been feeling a bit under pressure lately in various personal aspects: financial, work, trying to be a father to a teenage girl, etc. So perhaps that lends to my somewhat dour attitude in if you pick up on it.  Hopefully I’ll snap out of it soon because it really just doesn’t feel like me and I’m very aware of it.

I’ll work on the show notes and recipes contained within later if I get a chance, but suffice to say I will be out on business the next week (starting tomorrow) so I most likely won’t be making any updates here for at least a week. 

As I usually do, I try an pick an intro song that encapsulates either my mood or something that somehow pertains to the audio content of the episode.  Here, I chose “Take this Job and Shove it” by Johnny Paycheck.  I have two comments about this: 1) Yeah, I’m not gonna be quitting my job anytime soon, but the last few weeks, I really feel as if I’ve been holding back my frustration on various career related issues and I’m just not that happy overall, and 2) I really thought Johnny ‘Paycheck’ was a fake name and he was trying to cash in on the name Johnny Cash, especially when you have a song about a job and then shoving it.  Turns out, I was partially correct, as his real name was Donald Eugene Lytle.

Texas-Tini II

• 3 oz whisky (try a sweet or smooth blend like Crown Royal or Canadian Mist)
• 1.5 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz Blue Curacao (orange flavored liquer, but blue in color)
• Shake all three ingrediants over ice and pour in sugar rimmed martini glass, or mix all three in lowball glass over ice and skip sugar.

Grilled Artichoke

• 2 fresh artichokes, stems cut at least 1 inch from base.
• Place artichokes in pot of boiling water with the freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon to reduce oxidation of leaves (prevents leaves from turning brown). (Optional: zest some of the lemon peel and add zest (to taste) to fresh mayo.  Mix, and chill in advance for dipping.  Lemon zest adds a nice fresh, flavorful kick to the mayo).
• Remove after 25-28 minutes of cooking, drain excess water, and let cool enough to handle.
• Preheat grill to medium-low heat/flame.
• With sharp knife, cut artichoke in half, lengthwise and remove choke/heart (purpleish center with bristles) with spoon.
• Brush halves with olive oil and season with kosher or sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
• Place flat side down on grill, cooking approx 2-3 minutes, then turn 45 degrees and cook additional 2-3 minutes or until nice grill marks appear.  In the last few minutes, ‘drizzle’ some quality balsamic vinegar over artichokes for additional flavor and color.
• Serve with fresh lemon zest mayo (above), and/or melted butter and garlic combo.

Show Notes

• Coming soon

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For anyone who likes a truly unique way of grilling or cooking very moist and flavorful chicken, I give you this podcast.

The very first time I saw this take on grilling chicken was around 2001-02 and I had seen it on FoodTV.  I was fascinated on the method and idea of both basting and cooking a chicken from the inside out using liquid, and in this case beer.  It looked simple enough and guaranteed to be a talking point amongst friends who see you pull the bird of the grill.

You’ll be amazed, if done correctly, how moist the chicken actually is, especially after sitting on the grill for hours.  And despite the fact it may look a bit complicated, it really isn’t at all.  The most caution I can give though…and I learned this from my own experience is to be very careful removing the can from the bird without adequately letting it rest and cool down juts a tad.  That can is hot, and the left over brew is basically boiling (it did just turn to steam after-all), and you can easily burn yourself.  Oh, and make sure you leave the bird on long enough to cook thoroughly….no matter how good it may look on the outside, you don’t want to get sick from raw chicken (I’ve done that as well, and it isn’t pretty by any means).

Don’t be afraid to experiment with various rubs and spices, and of course if you have fresh herbs liek rosemary or thyme, don’t be shy to try them out either.

Like I say in the episode, best enjoyed in the company of friends and can be paired with lighter wines or like beer.  Enjoy on a nice spring or summer day, get the tunes going, have some light side dishes and I promise you, if done semi-correctly, your friends will want to know how you made such a good main dish.

Show Notes:

• Intro music: “I am a man of constant sorrow” - Soggy Bottom Boys
• Recipe: Beer Can Chicken

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DJ Hero

Eh, well, not because I’m an advocate of throw away episodes, but once in a while it’s just kinda nice to put something out there to let the masses know you’re still alive and kicking.  It also helps in remembering how to craft and use technology so you don’t forget it so easily if you don’t do it too often.

Like most things that I really get excited and interested in, it appears that putting this podcast together is a bit harder than I first anticipated.  Not so much from a  technical aspect, but more of getting actual content down and getting guests to commit.  It’s been much more difficult than I ever would have surmised to get friends and neighbors to agree on a time to sit and chat, and every time it seems we plan on something it generally gets delayed for one reason or another.

That’s not so much the case in point here.  As I stated in my last post, I’ve been under the weather as of late.  I can’t remember the last time I has such a bad cough or case of bronchitis that has more or less just put me out on my butt.  My throat has been a bit raw and I’m all jacked up on various OTC medicines…none of which seem to be doing me much good by the way.  The nagging and uncontrollable hacking at all hours has been very frustrating to me, and while I’m not 100% right now, it seems I’m finally on the tail end of a good eight day cough fest.

Episode 13 is a bit short, clocking in at just about twenty one minutes and it just informs you up on a few recent things in my life

Stone Smoky Porter

like Christmas goodies such as DJ Hero, my new Blu Ray player, some movies and Netflix we’ve been watching (like season 1 of Dexter), and of course Stone Brewery Smoky Porter (5.9%).  Speaking of DJ Hero, that game is bad ass.  As a child of the 80’s and really into old skool hip-hop/rap and more current euro dance/techno, this game is right up my alley.  Some of my friends have laughed at me spinning a plastic turntable and making up DJ names for me, like DJ Wingman (thanks Chip).  I hope the game does well enough to spawn some additional DLC because I just love it.

Show Notes:

Intro - “Come Again” by Beastie Boys & Daft Punk (as heard on DJ Hero)

2:08 - Cornocopia of OTC drugs I’m taking including Emergen-C bullshit.

6:30 - This & that and a little fluff.

7:15 - Stone Brewery and porter talk.

8:05 - Blu Ray and movie talk (Star Trek, Paranormal Activity)

11:45 - Microsoft + Xbox RROD blues 

12:29 - Dexter: clean versus ‘R’ versions for Showtime and CBS

13:49 - Xmas continued + DJ Hero

18:39 - SkurvyMonekys.com podcast discussed

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Through the miracle of digital crack addiction phenom known as Facebook, I was able to recently reconnect with an associate I knew back in highschool some 20 years ago.  I learned that he has his own podcast over at teh website: SkurvyMonkeys.  A variety show chock full of music, comedy, and random musings between two dudes. 

I’m currently listening to the episode entitled ‘A Christmas to Drink by (part 2)’, and am very impressed.  This episode has some particularly funny holiday themeds music ranging from Disney to The Kinks.  A nice change from the ever so predictable Howard Stern crapola.

Production sounds a helluva lot better than my own futile attempts (Erik, don’t mind if I hit you up on some podcasting questions at a later date).  You can find their podcast on iTunes and I’ve included the links (skurvymonkeys.com and blendedmonkeys.com) in the right margin right here.  Anyway, go check them out!

Site Maintenance:

• MapPress upgraded to v1.5.8.9
• Blubrry Power Press upgraded to v1.0.4

It’s been a long time coming, but I spent a lot of the day yesterday editing this podcast episode into something I really wanted it to be.  It took a bit longer than expected to put this together as I was looking for the perfect music (thanks Limewire) for the introduction to set the mood and a great tie in to an overall theme. 

I also kind pushed myself here at a technical level in editing.  First, I used my portable Zoom H2 in the field for the first time.  It worked pretty well, although I did misplace the manual, so I had a few hiccups at first.  I have to work on the microphone gain.  For my initial recording I had set it to medium, and although we were sitting only a few feet from it with no other background noise, the recording seemed somewhat fainter than I expected, so I boosted it in Audacity.  It also took longer than I expected to transfer the raw MP3 from the Zoom to my PC.  This Podcast has a total of 3 mono tracks and 2 stereo tracks that I spliced together, remixed into a single track (to help save on bandwidth and space), faded out some entrance music and for the first time added an end trailer, and I’m pretty happy with the result seeing this is the most complex editing I’ve done thus far.

I also used Limewire for the first time, trying to find the perfect lead in bumper.  I had a specific song in mind, and I actually own a clean copy of the song somewhere but couldn’t find the CD, so I opted to download from the wild-wild-web.  The thing is, you never know exactly what you are going to get in quality or length, and sometime the descriptions don’t always match what you’re looking for so there is a few trial by fire attempts to get the right track.  Anyway, in this case, I chose “Grim Grinning Ghosts“, better known as the overall soundtrack for Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  It appears in a few various incarnations and pressed a few times in some rare LP’s and CD’s many of which are now out of print.  To me it was worth it.  For those that really like the Haunted Mansion, here’s an interesting and detailed site about the ride, it’s history, the story behind it, and its look throughout the various theme parks: DoomBuggies.com.

Also appearing in this episode is yet another libation.  The website is called ‘Cocktail Confessions’ for a reason, and so it keeping that dream alive I bring you Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale from Michelob.  It’s a seasonal beer (fall) that clocks in at 5.5% alcohol with hints of cloves, nutmeg and allspice.  As I explain in the podcast, this years batch didn’t taste all that ‘pumpkiny’ to me, and I might suggest you try Buffalo Bills Pumpkin Ale or even Blue Moon’s, Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale.  Both of these have a richer pumpkin and spice taste, and there are plenty of others.  If you know of any good ones you’d like to suggest, please drop me a line.

The meat and potatoes of this podcast however is the interview I recorded with my grandfather Harold.  He recently just turned 91 years old, and I kinda wanted to get some time with him before it was too late.  We’re all lucky he is still around after surviving being a tail gunner in a B-17 during WWII, having had open heart surgery, a pacemaker installed and a few other medical issues.  He’s still going strong…at least mentally.  He’s 100% Italian, being born here but his parents were immigrants.  I initially wanted the recording to be about his days being a master carpenter and working on the early builds of the Tiki Room, some of the facades on Main Street, and other contributions he made at the park, but after 40 minutes of great stories, I realized I wasn’t recording properly.  So instead of having him rehash everything all over, we just segued into his early days growing up in Wakefield, Michigan then eventually moving out to Anaheim, CA.  The actual recording was almost an hour long, and for this podcast I decided to break it up into a smaller segment I’m calling part 1, which is approx. 20 minutes long.

Finally my garage door died a loud and expensive death last week.  We had to buy a new one, and thus opted for the Heritage 3000, triple layer door: steel + insulation + steel.  It looks very nice, much quieter than the old one, and will hopefully help in reducing both our cooling and heating costs in the long run.  The really funny thing to me is how my neighbors have reacted.  To me, it’s just a garage door.  It’s white, it opens, it closes and does what any other garage door was designed for.  However, many of the men on my street have taken a very keen interest in its look, its operation, and overall functionality.  A real ‘Tim the Tool Guy Taylor’ moment where they all had to check it out and kick the tires per-se.  I personally found it very amusing that the men were all into it as much as they were.  In the end, it’s still a garage door.

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After some self-induced procrastination as of late, I finally sat down earlier this week to record this ‘filler’ episode for you all.  I’ve been kind of disappointed with myself as of late allowing my recordings to fall slightly by the wayside and it’s actually surprising how much I kinda forgot in producing an episode.  That includes the formatting, the folders, the uploading, fiddling aith Audacity, etc.  I made a few mistakes along the way, but it all came back pretty quickly and I hope to get back on track soon enough.

Episode 11 is completely unscripted, meaning, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about or where I was going with my blathering.  I just sat down, turned on the mic, and went at it hot.  Before I knew it, I was at the 30 minute mark or raw recording and didn’t feel as if I stumbled too much. 

In this episode I speak briefly about a new hobby of mine I stumbled into not too long ago and really found myself enjoying it: Model railroading, and my foray into n-scale structure modeling.  I then talk a bit about my experiences in multi-level marketing and how my wife has recently jumped on the pyramid band wagon and my chagrin about it.  But maybe she’ll prove me wrong (I hope she does actually) and make some money at it.  Finally, I attended the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con this past weekend, took some pictures, bought some artwork and action figures, and my overall critique of it….hopefully it is better next year.

Show Notes:

Intro - “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down as a tie-in to the comic con.

 1:00 - Powerade cocktails: Grape Powerade and Rangpur gin - good.  Grape and Jack Daniels - bad.

 1:52 - My mid life crisis in defining yet another new hobby for myself and my foray into the world of N-scale train modeling.

 7:50 - Multi-level marketing scheme’s and the wife’s recent plunge into it.

15:48 - Long Beach Comic Con - My critique and observations of has-been stars, artist alley, the worthless DC Nation panel, and organized chaos. (See pics in gallery).

34:10 - Wrap up.

Long Beach Comic Con Gallery

[View with PicLens]

Map

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This episode/entry was fun to do for a few reasons: we (that is Brian Liles and I), had already had a few pitchers of Sam Adams Summer Ale under our belts that we enjoyed over at a beautiful day at Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, CA.  Then as we proceeded to records this, we had a surprise visit from Chip Gahagan of Smogtown who popped on by for a few minutes, and lastly we discuss a little bit of G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie as well. Listening back to make show notes was a little embarrassing as I caught myself being tongue tied and repeating myself multiple times.

Cook's Corner

So to start with Brian of Brians4×4adventures.com, or friend Scott W and myself headed out to Cook’s Corner (Wikipedia entry) for a little Sunday afternoon beer bonding.  The short synopsis of the place is as such: Built by Andrew Jackson Cook around 1884, the original building was meant to supply local miners as a mercantile and a few years later a place to eat as well.  It survived the prohibition era and was converted into a bar.  In 1970 a motorcycle accessory shop owner from Santa Ana bought the property and publicized it as a place for motorcycle clubs to enjoy.  It has changed hands once again a few years back and actively participates in the promotion of several charity motorcycle rides.  It’s now considered a historic landmark and is enjoyed by numerous social clubs and O.C residents.

It’s a great place to spend the afternoon, especially the weekends where one can typical witness 200+ motorcycles parked out front.  They have a very large outdoor patio area that has seen many improvements the last few years including new picnic tables, umbrellas, outside bars (three portable at last count), and a place for local merchants to sell various motorcycle accessories.  They have a small kitchen that turns out various burgers, tacos, and finger foods along with a inside band stage and the occasional outside band as well.  I’ve been coming here for at least 7 years now, and it really never gets old.  I have yet to run into a bad situation with a ‘biker’ and quite the contrary all the ones I have met or spoken to have been pretty personable for the most part.

Music for this episode

I’ve listened quite a few bands there over the years, and while I’m not a huge fan of classic rock they have the occasional bluegrass or jazz band out there and it always sounds good under the Southern California weather and sun with a couple of pitchers of beer and friends.

In this podcast episode Brian discusses his recent FJ Crusier trip across Canada and into Alaska that he took part in with his friend Luke from Radrod57.com.  Head over to Brian’s site for some gorgeous high quality pictures he took and read some of his continuing exploits.  You can ever read more over at Luke’s page as well.  Makes me wanna cash everything in, grab an RV, and do a roadtrip across America myself and hit up some hidden bbq joints, some town festivals and make some new acquaintences in local camp grounds.

Baroness

Finally we discuss G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie (hence the ‘criminals’ in my title).  For those of you who grew up on the property that made it famous back in the 80’s, you may be slightly disapointed in some of the character origin reboots in this 2009 feature film.  Being a comic book purist in my own right, and being a huge fan of Larry Hama’s creativity for the Hasbro line and the yarns he spun for Marvel, I have a few problems with the treatment that gave Cobra Commander, Zartan and the Baroness.  Also the Ripcord/Scarlett love angle and the CC/Baroness sibling reveal really bothered me.  But if you can put those issues aside ,(and the accelerator suits) then this was a pretty darn good matinee action-comic movie.  Good fight scenes, neat technology, grand in scope….but clearly sets up and demands a sequel.  I mean it is called ‘The Rise of Cobra’ after all, and we just get a taste of things to come towards the last 15 minutes of this movie.

The one that did surprise me however was the Joe’s dropping the “Shit” bomb as gratuitous as they did.  There were a couple of things in the movie that may have made the old cartoon watchers smile, like “Knowing is half the battle.” and the of course the reference to the “Kung Fu grip”.

Show Notes

• Bumper Music: “My ‘98 Old’s” - Public Enemy, Yo-Bum Rush the Show (1987)
• 00:35 - Introductions
• 01:10 - Discuss Cook’s Corner memories and atmosphere.
• 07:55 - Brian talks about recent trip with Luke across Canada, including camping, camera’s, and food.
• 29:59 - Brian gives us an update on his incredible wieght loss thus far.
• 33:30 - We talk G.I. Joe the movie (lore vs current re-imagining), Transformers, comics

Cook’s Corner

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Crackpot

Here is the long overdue is a 30 minute podcast catching us up the last 3 weeks of Big Brother season 11.

I didn’t really realize how hard it was to keep up with this once a week and before I knew it, time slipped by pretty fast and I was three weeks behind.  To those that have sent me e-mails asking where they are, I’m happy you find them somewhat interesting enough to point out I’m behind. 

For this recap, I was surprised how hard it actually was to try and remember all the stuff that happened.  Needless to say I cut alot out just to get to six pages of written notes.  That works out to be about two pages per televised episode.

Anyway, suffice to say Chima is a crackpot and I’m glad her days are numbered.  Natalie the gnat is annoying and has a warped sense of reality when it comes to the game….she forgot she’s actually playing a game and takes everything so personal and now that Jessie is also gone, Natalie actually has to start playing her own game and not riding on his coattails.  The funniest line from her was this week when she says she was ‘running’ the house…..LOL….No ‘Gnat’, you weren’t, Jessie was manipulating everything and you were his ‘Yes’ girl.  Then to hear her explain and actually convince herself of the truth of her ‘alterted’ facts is mind blowing.  I told Monica I don’t even think Gnat can comprehend her own reality right now.  Jeff of course is level headed, and Russell has calmed down quite a bit.  Michelle is finally emerging as a player, and I give props to Kevin for being a very smart player, but he’s just hooked up with the wrong people.  Finally, my thoughts on Lydia are really shifting now.  Her messianac complex when it comes to Jessie is down right disturbing and she’s next for the loony bin.

Anyway, enjoy….

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Disaronno

Okay, I know I start this podcast by calling it number 7, but in fact it is actually episode 8.

I wanted to try something in a new direction, and seeing that I got some favorable response from a Facebook entry I posted recently on a grilled steak sandwich recently, I decided to devote an episode to basic grilling.  I’m not sure I’d call it Grilling 101, because I could talk on and on in regards to different subjects as it pertains to outdoor grilling, but I thought this was a good place to start, especially for those that are just sick and tired of plain hot dogs and hamburgers or may be afraid of the grill.

I’d be interested in what you think about this episode.  It ran a bit longer than I initially expected, but I’d like to think there’s a lot of good information in this episode.

Disaronno (pictured) is an Italian almond tasting liqueur which strangely does not have any nuts it anyway has an alcohol content of 28%.

Show Notes:

• 01:11:  Intro Song: Holiday for Strings (written by David Rose, performed by The Voice of Walter Schuman).  I ripped this segment from one of my Ultra Lounge CD’s.  I like it because it has a real ‘camp’ factor to it, and should transport you somewhere back into the early 1950’s.
• 01:55:  Disaronno liqueur and A&W root beer cocktail.
• 04:35:  Grilling 101 (charcoal v. coal, picking oils, cleaning, meat choices and quick grilling tips)
• 31:10:  Grilled steak sandwich recipe.

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Casey faces eviction in week 3

 In this Podcast recap I run down episodes 7, 8 & 9 from Big Brother season 11 on CBS.

I played a litte bit with the settings on Audacity (recording software) and how I did my recording.  Seeing that this is just a recap and nothing fancy, I recorded this in mono (single channel), and tried to cut to the chase in many instances of what was going down in the house.  This made for a leaner and overall shorter podcast both in size and length.

But long story short: Ronnie is an idiot, Jessie loves Jessie but not as dumb as he looks, Russell is a snake, Casey is getting the short end of the stick, Kevin is smarter than he lets on, Chima is starting to chill out (for now at least), Lydia is a whiner, Michelle is a cautious kiss-ass, Jeff is sane, Jordan is not, Natalie likes to stir up trouble.

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