LEGO, please explain this....

This little guy showed up in my list of characters in a freeplay session. I don't even recall him being in the grid of characters you've been assigned right before the level starts. I don't think I unlocked anything or did anything to make him suddenly appear. I just went to switch to a different kind of character and there he was. WTF is that thing?!

Meat Sweats

These are pork shoulders smoked overnight. I was on the couch anyhow because the coughing was coming back and I would have kept everyone up with that. What better for a cough than getting up every 45 minutes to check on your BBQ? At 14 hours on the smoke I got fed up and finished them in the oven. I pulled them at 195 and put them on the stove top under foil. This was taken 10 minutes later when the temp was still 190! They took forever to cool and were delicious. There's much left in the fridge and freezer. No rub was used and they were injected with a concoction of my own that included honey and Daddies (the strong brown sauce) and the liquid that came off of them while in the oven was a disturbing red color because of it.
The 2nd photo is 3 "fatties" on the smoker with the tiny fire burning on the bricks in the corner. We had made sausage and found that the kitchenaid is an excellent grider but a rubbish sausage stuffer. We gave up on stuffing and put all the bulk sausage in gladware containers. Then I figured that I would take a few out and let them thaw and then roll them into fatties. Then I decided I didn't need to roll them and just chucked them on the BBQ. The two on the bottom are small size bulk breakfast sausage (homemade extra black pepper and sage recipe) and the one on top was a large size gladware container full of bulk bratwurst (seasoning purchased from Buther & Packer and unaltered except the liberties I took with the liquid that went into the sausage... why use water?). All were delicious. The leftovers have made their way onto fried smoked-bratwurst-loaf sandwiches and the smoked breakfast sausage is ridiculously good when chopped up and tossed in some macaroni and cheese. Tomorrow I'll be at it again. I'll be smoking another giant bratwurst loaf in addition to a traditional homemade fatty as well as another bratwurst loaf in the shape of an additional fatty. The traditional homemade fatty is getting a rub first. Salt, brown sugar, smoked paprika, and black pepper. Sound good? It does to me. I'll be going down the hickory chunk road again although I did locate the gladware tub of pistachio shells, too. I don't know if I'll use them or not. I can't find anything concrete about whether or not it's a good idea. I wonder how long I could keep writing about BBQ? Hey! Anyone got any side dishes I can cook on the BBQ that don't involve corn on the cob, meat, OR wrapping something in foil to where I could just do it in the oven and it would taste exactly the same?

So...

Labor day is here already. It signals the end of summer. It is hard to believe that it is over already. I'm already bracing myself for winter's pending doom.

This weekend I'm headed back to Whackly's old haunts as I'm headed to Minnesota for the weekend. Guess I'll check out the Minnesota state fair...maybe have myself some baconated chocolate. Mmmmm

8tracks.com/whackly

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Sorry Mixwit. 8tracks.com is more like what I lost.

RIP Muxtape

Back in business, y'all.  Still hoping for the return of Muxtape but this'll do just fine.

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Lego My Eggo

The new Lego Discovery Store at the Streets of Woodfield in Schaumburg has a gigantic giraffe outside made of Legos...How cool is that? I want to take my Niece and Nephew there the next time they are at my place. Then I'll have an excuse to pay money to go play with a ton of Legos!!!!

Replacement?

www.mixwit.com/whackly

It's not the same.  There were a lot of songs and artists I wanted to include but couldn't find.  On the other hand I did find some cools stuff I don't have in my collection like the MC Chris/Gorillaz mashup.  I'm calling it a maybe.  What do you think?

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Muxtape Nuxxed

One week after I discovered the site...  One week after stumbling across the perfect venue through which to share my passion...  One week after getting as close to achieving true enlightenment as I will ever get...  It's gone.  Right now www.muxtape.com has this simple phrase posted on the homepage:

"Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA."

The giant fork is out and given what muxtape was I'm pretty sure it's done.

There are other sites like 8tracks and mixwit that allow you to do much the same thing but in those cases you don't upload your own songs.  You find the songs in their lists.  I might give Mixwit a try since a brief search did actually turn up some fairly obscure artists but I just know I'll lose interest as soon as I can find a song in my own music folder that they don't have in their library. 

So sad.  Please, even though it's almost certain that the end has come and my brief and wildly passionate relationship with muxtape.com is over, pray for muxtape.  Maybe, just maybe, this is the instance where the RIAA will realize that killing muxtape will actually stop people from discovering new music and actually cost them money rather than reduce piracy.  You can't download the music off muxtape anyway (at least not without the sort of knowhow that automatically means you could get the music easier and at a better sound quality via bittorrent, irc, or usenet).  Pray for muxtape.  I'll be at Amazon.com cancelling every CD order from an artist I found on muxtape.com over the last week (Goodbye Ratatat, Lullatone, Burial, and Loscil.  You are good bands and I was excited to own your discs but you understand, don't you?  It's the principle of the thing....).  Suck on that one, RIAA.

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I can't make the rant...

So, from time to time I will completely spaz on this forum or that forum or in the comments of this site or the other.  Typically I will invest more emotion in a subject than it really warrants.  Here is one such rant I dropped on Digg.com to little or no acclaim in response to a lament about lack of "hardcore" games for the Wii.

"I think that's because "hardcore" is a convoluted and meaningless term. Games should be challenging, fun, and hopefully fresh/innovative. Apparently all a game needs to be hardcore is some headshots, blood, tits, a fuck here and a shit there and BAM... HARDCORE. Battallion Wars 2 is a seriously kickass game. No blood though so it's obviously not hardcore. Meanwhile, yet another dead simple FPS that's the same as everything before it is cock slappingly hardcore and sends low IQ adults and underdeveloped teens into paroxysms of uterine style hysterics. Everytime I see the phrase "Hardcore gamers" my mind instantly replaces it with "Gamers who are fascinated by explosions and aren't very good at spelling." Fuck the hardcore mold. If you people want to play games to pleasure the same part of your brain that tingles when you touch your penis then buy an xbox 360 or a ps3 and shut up about the wii. If you want to play good games regardless of whether they are bloody or controversial then a wii is a good addition to your arsenal."

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Is that a snake in your pocket?

30 foot anaconda staring out of the water. Glad there was glass between me and him!

A new hobby project (soon to be abandoned along with the others)

http://whackly.muxtape.com

I'm going to try to change one song each day. Maybe more if I get ambitious.

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"We will return triumphant to the blog space!!!!" -EzMezzo

Can you have a comeback if nobody ever gave a shit in the first place?

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Kids are idiots! You can all get di-icked 'cause I've got condoms.

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No..... no....... not me...... NOT TO ME!!!!!!!!!!

The unthinkable has happened.  The horribly unspeakably unthinkable. 

Red

Ring

Of

Death

This isn't happening....

This ISN"T HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Surface tension?

Is it some property of surface tension that causes the mirror effect when you're underwater looking looking up at the surface (i.e, below).

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That sure would taste good with butter...

Spider crab at the Shedd Aquarium.

Dear Computer browser(s)...

We've had a long relationship, in fact when I first met you you were just a grad student project from a couple of guys at the University of Illinois, I think they started a little company called Netscape. But I've found another, sexier one to take my attention. I never meant to replace you, and I swore that l never meant to this to happen, but there is another. Safari browser mobile...I didn't think it could happen, but it has captivated me like no other.

It's not that she is better than you, in fact she has some major deficiencies because she's a mobile browser. But... She does have one major advantage, she's always there for me. When I was at a Thai restaurant and wanted to know the origins of baby corn, you were not there. When I was at the grocery store and needed an ingredient list for hot German potato salad, you were not there. When I was sitting through tornado like conditions in a parking garage the other day, you were not there to help me check radar. Guess what, Safari was.

Ever since Safari came into my life, I've found less and less excuses to boot up a computer and use you. I never thought I would be happy with a mobile web experience, but my thoughts have changed. Safari mobile has made me rethink everything I thought about mobile browsing. Now that I'm hooked, there's no turning back.

P.S. Since whackly had such a genius post about flock, I thought I would do one of my own. Thanks for the idea. This is a tribute to your creative blogging style. Humorous AND informative.

Flock Opera. Flock it right in the ear.

Opera,

We were once in the deepest love.  I thought it would never end and I felt like you did too.  But...  I've been cheating on you...   with Flock.   I know she's not as pretty and I know she's Firefox's sister and we all know you've got a huge inferiority complex about Firefox.  I was going to give you the "It's not you, It's me." speech but it's just not true.  It's not me.  It's you.  You are better than Firefox.  You are faster and more useable.  You are prettier.  You... well... you're still great... but...  Flock is better.  You just don't understand.  Flock is like all the compatibility and ease of Firefox and all of your coolness together in one package.  I know you can do all the things that Flock can do but damnit... too many floaty and "always in the way" widgets detracts from the sleek and streamlined experience that attracted me to you in the first place.  It's not that you're bad.  It's not that you're not good enough.  It's not that you aren't better than IE and Firefox.  It's that... well... Flock is sexier.  There, I said it.  You did everything I could have ever asked a browser to do and did it flawlessly.  But flock does all of those things within a micron of just as well as you AND Flock fucks my brains out too.  Hell... Flock probably goes A2M.  You see what I'm saying, Opera?  You've been replaced!  Take your widgets and EUDouche programmers and go.

-Whackly

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Un-Banned

Digg un-banned me. There was a post from the Chicago Tribune about the Cirque du Soleil contortionists and one of the threads consisted of some fairly lude comments about the girls in the story. Another Digg user made a comment that the girl on the left that these pervs were drooling over was only 11 and he was being dugg down for saying so. I made a sarcastic comment on behalf of the gentleman who was pointing out that the girl was 11 years old but when somebody alerted the Digg moderators that a bunch of sick fucks were making sick ass comments about an 11 year old girl the whole thread was removed and everyone in the thread was banned. It didn't matter, I guess, that I was one of the people saying "Dude! She's 11 years old. You guys are sick-ass." Dumb. Oh well. When they told me why I was banned and I called bullshit they un-banned me. No harm, no foul.

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Banned!

I've been banned from Digg.com.  I can't imagine why.  I didn't post links to anything illegal or say anything generally forbidden.  I didn't post the HDDVD crack key in a comment or anything.  Still... digg.com/users/whackly is gone.  I emailed support hoping to at least find out why.  Fuck a duck.

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Japanese garden at the Chicago Botanic Gardens

For RTJumper

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1249

Act One. Choosers Not Beggars.

You'll know the part that made me think of you when you hear it.

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Testing Flock

I am composing this post in flock.  I must admit that I am very impressed so far.  I would say I am as impressed with flock as I was the first time I tried opera.  In fact, if the experience is this good ongoing over the next few days I may be saying goodbye to opera.  :(

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