BBQ Pork Ribs and Pancakes!

God bless Alton Brown and one of the greatest TV series ever produced, "Feasting On Asphalt." This was from the second "Feasting", which took Alton and the crew up the Mississippi River. At Jim's Cafe in Greenville, Mississippi, Alton partook of what should be on some innovative BBQ restaurant's menu 15 minutes ago.

It's simple, too. Just parboil some country-style pork ribs for 40 minutes in some well seasoned water. Well-seasoned means using some beef base, salt, pepper, and the Trinity (no, not that one, the other one. No, not this one either...




the OTHER Trinity.)

Roast the ribs for 45 minutes in a 350 oven in a pan with a cup of the liquid from the boil mixture. Remove the ribs, coat in BBQ sauce, return to oven for 15 minutes, and serve over pancakes.

Guys, if you need Cialis after reading that, see the doc!

The Blue Box Rocks

Many of us are fortunate in that, as we become aged like fine wine, though some of us age like musty Boone's Farm, we get to experience a wide array of food and drink, expanding the range of our palates, exposing us to new ways of dining and thinking, and making us seem more refined than reality might reflect. When we grow up, we are supposed to leave behind childish things, unless of course we want to be an actor, a professional athlete, or a politician. That means we are supposed to avoid some things we loved as children because we aren't kids anymore, but doggone it that just doesn't work. This is especially true when mac-n-cheese is within your adult grasp.




To most grown-ups and those pretending to be, the above picture is macaroni and cheese, or as the normal, abnormal, and everyone in between should refer to it, "mac-n-cheese". The thought of boiling a half-pound of macaroni to al dente (Italian for how you caress someone during the initiation of, um, well, dang, where's the Barry White CD?), preparing a mixture of melted butter, flour, ground mustard, finely diced onion, a bay leaf, paprika, a tempered egg (one that might have produced Foghorn Leghorn), mix in almost a pound of shredded cheddar, grueyere, or whatever cheese you like, pour it into a casserole, top it with more cheese and a crust mixture of butter and panko bread crumbs, baked at 350, well it does a couple things to me. One, it produces the worst run-on sentence this side of Ulysses. Secondly, I need to clean up after myself, as there is more saliva below me right now than has been sucked out of a month's worth of Dr. Brad Durham D.D.S.'s patients.

However, earlier today, I was reminded of a pair of things I learned when I was six-years-old. The first is that Wiffle Ball is the greatest game ever invented. It's 174 degrees in the shade today, which was the average temperature when us brilliant kiddies would plant the mustard seed of skin cancer and learn the proper techniques of cheating by playing 12 consecutive hours of Wiffle Ball in one-day tournaments that seemed to take place every week. What, you didn't cheat at Wiffle Ball? You didn't really PLAY true Wiffle Ball unless you threw illegal pitches, soaked the runner (hurled the ball as hard as you could at your opponent's cajones) and wrapped enough duct tape around the end of you bat to where, if the L.A.P.D. got hold of it, Rodney King wouldn't have survived to see if we could all get along.

The other can of Endust spray on the memory reminded me that one of the five greatest foods ever invented is this;




Yes, comparing the flavor of the blue box to the "adult" mac-n-cheese (my personal recipe, by the way, with a little help from The Phenom, Alton Brown) reminds of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan's comparison of his man Ric Flair to Hulk "The Roidster" Hogan; "It's like comparing ice cream to horse manure." Yet in a smackdown, Texas bullrope match between the two, I'd take the Kraftmeister at least half the time, because the powdery-cheesy goodness, augmented by copious amounts of butter and a touch of whole milk (before whole milk was outlawed by Congress, PETA, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield) was the closest thing a six-year-old boy could get to a Beavis and Butthead "boioioiinnng" moment.

So I say be a good kid and enjoy the blue box every now and then. Also, do me a favor and help me find that woman who was on Good Morning America the other day who wants to outlaw all junk food so I can send her a 747 filled with boxes of Kraft. You know the type; they go on TV and show their kids pretending to enjoy eating berries off trees, bails of hay and bamboo sticks, approximately 17 years before those kids turn into jihadists or eco-terrorists. While I'm at it, I wonder if anyone stashed away some boxes of Oreos before they got rid of the trans-fat and killed the flavor? A little trans-fat is worth it.....if it saves the children!

I hate trying to figure out what to write

So the solution is random crap, I suppose;

Stimulus money to save Savannah-Chatham teaching jobs

They forgot to include in the headline "for ONE YEAR ONLY."

Suspension Shocks Patrick

Ex-Jenkins star and current Cards tight end Ben Patrick tests positive for Adderall and is suspended four games next NFL season. He says he only took one pill from a friend to stay away while driving late at night. I have met Ben and believe him, but many folks won't, assuming that "one pill from a friend" is akin to "I did not have sex with that woman", Jude Law saying "I do", and Tom Cruise coming out of the closet to let us know that Prozac is a-okay.

FDA says Zicam nasal spray can cause loss of smell

Well, there goes my grand idea to become a billionaire building subdivisions near paper mills and powering them with cow patties.

Cats: Not as clever as we think

Wait a minute. I could have sworn that eating EVERYTHING off the floor, including their own hairballs, then licking the bathtub dry or drinking from the toilet instead of the water bowl was part of the Mensa exam! And taking a crap in FRONT of the litter box rather than in it, then having litter mate sister cat immediately take a crap on the floor on the opposite side of the house was some sort of feline feng shui, or Poop Shui. Say it ain't so, scientists!

Why is baseball the greatest game?

Because other sports couldn't have lists as fun as this one...

11 Major League Baseball Feats That Have Only Happened Once

For the unripened born prior the 70's, you must be crushed to know that you missed the era of porn-staches, sideburns, and...well...



Aw yeah, baby! Lord, please don't let 70's facial hair make a comeback. If a nuke hit South Carolina, Jon (from Jon and Kate) and the "Octomom" could repopulate the state faster than I could grow a 'stache.

Gimme Back My Tim Horton's!!!

A federal bankruptcy judge says the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League are staying in Phoenix, at least for now, blocking one of the smartest ideas the league has seen in a long time; moving a team that plays on ice from the city with 127 degree "dry" heat back to Canada. The current Coyotes owner, who has already filed Chapter 11, wants to sell the team to Frostback Jim Balsille. Balsille wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario, which averages 63.7 inches...errr, sorry, 161.8 centimetres of snow each year. But the NHL doesn't want that, which makes about as much sense as Herman Talmadge coming back from the dead and running to represent Cuyler-Brownsville on the city council. The Associated Press reports:

"The Coyotes have lost more than $300 million since the franchise moved from Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1996, and at least $36 million each of the last three seasons, but the NHL contends the franchise can be viable with better management and more success on the ice."

So, to review, the Wise Old NHL helped rip the team away from Winnipeg, where they lost money, though I doubt it was even close to 300 mil. The league, sensing the cri de coeur for hockey from the plastic surgically repaired population of Phoenix, sent the team there. The team goes bankrupt, but it's okay; they just need new "managers." Come on. Putting Donald Trump in charge and replacing the Coyotes with the Nekkid Coyote Cheerleader Skaters wouldn't make money in a place where everyone is obsessed with one of three things, golf, eating bamboo leaves and pea shoots at spas (or maybe that's bamboo shoots and pea leaves), and throwing guys through windows of bars. Oh wait, Charles Barkley doesn't live in Phoenix anymore, so they're obsessed with one of two things.

Send the Coyotes to Canada, which is hockey crazy, has non-fabricated ice, and WANTS more teams. I love hockey and think the players are tougher than football players and most other professional athletes, but the Sand Gnats' Jeurys Familia will pitch an entire game without adjusting himself once before the U.S.A. embraces the puck.

Just in case you missed the link...

Actual Responsbile Miley Reporting

Kudos to the Savannah Morning News for doing a story about Miley Cyrus that didn't sound as if it were written or presented by the country wolf in THIS, one of the ten greatest cartoons ever. The paper's Abby Lubbers interviewed, if you can believe they exist, NORMAL PEOPLE.

Ms. Lubbers spoke to young people who, guess what, are excited because they are fans of Miley. That's because THEY'RE YOUNG, they are SUPPOSED to be fans of Miley, just as you (admit it) were a fan of Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years" 20 years ago. Ms. Lubbers also spoke to adults who, wonder of wonders, are intriqued by Miss Cyrus but are not drowning in their own drool while trying to get a glimpse of her. The quentessential quote was from Courtney Carter, age 31, a tourist from Chattanooga who simply but eloquently put it;

"Nobody is really talking about it," she said. "If it was Brad Pitt, it would be a different story."

How gratifying it is to know that the real world does not reflect some in the media, those whose coverage of Miley resembles Chipper Jones' past visits to Hooters.

OMG!! MFSB!! ICBTDBRHICBINB!!!!!!!

"I cannot BELIEVE I am within ten miles of MILEY! WOW, this is, like, the biggest thing to happen in the Lowcountry ever, in history even! This is something I will treasure all my life. Reporting from Tybee Island, I'm Salty Basket, Action Central News."

Is it just me, or are some grown-ups in Savannah a little too excited about Miley Cyrus coming to town? Those adults who feel a tear coming to their eye or a shudder where they shouldn't feel one when they think of the 16-year-old Hannah Montana Achy Breaky daughter better be careful, because they could possibly kill her burgeoning career.

Don't misunderstand. I know Miley's visit to film her movie "The Last Song" is a big event. It is especially big for the stores and restaurants raking in dough that was not raked in this time last year. It is big because Tybee gets to be Tybee in the movie and doesn't have to suffer the ignominious honor of being renamed Wilmington, North Carolina as was originally planned. I bet Wilmington would give all its gang members to be Tybee right now, especially since North Carolina's governor, Bev Perdue, likely cost Wilmington the shot at filming the movie with her premature eruption of a press conference announcement. That's par for the course for politicians in North Carolina, where Perdue's predecessor may have helped secure a six-figure job for his wife at Red Haired Stepchild University (N.C State for those unfamiliar), and the former state house speaker took bribes in a restaurant bathroom (the regular kind of bribe, not the toe-tapping kind.)

No sane person would deny that Miss Cyrus is a huge star or that her visit deserves copious attention. It is the salivating tone of some of the news stories and their presenters that has me worried.

"This could be the bedroom and, right here, THE very bed where Miley Cyrus slinks in every night after work. Of course she won't do that until after she has a relaxing time here, in her own private bath, where after a long, hard day of shooting she can soak and, I'm sure, Tweet, at the same time. Reporting from Tybee Island, I'm Red Whenexcited, On Your Side, On My Side, and On Your Underside."

The sound emanating from some in the media reminds me of the story of the 15-year-old guy who was "forced" to attend a Hannah Montana concert with his sister and her friends. "I hate her music" he protested, which in 15-year-old guy language should be translated as a nefariously pubescent "aw yeah, baby." This is not new. 15-year-old guys had the same reaction 12 years ago to a then-15 year old Brittney Spears, and 20 years ago, their muse was Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years." So the reaction to Miley Cyrus would be a-okay except for one thing. While I am far from the most-informed cookie in the jar, I am pretty certain that no one in the media is a 15-year-old guy. Thus, the collective drool actually may spell doom for Miss Hannah.

My evidence? Season 3, episode 310 of "South Park." In the show, the cartoon character "Chinpokomon" (think Pokemon) is loved by every child in the world, but the cartoon's creator is actually using it to hypnotize the kids so he can use them to take over the world. So how does the day get saved? The South Park parents pretend to start liking Chinpokomon as much as their kids, which according to the law of physics means that Chinpokomon is no longer cool amongst the children. Yes, life imitates South Park, and vice versa.

If Miley continues to elicit the current reaction among those much older than her target audience, "The Last Song" could possibly lose it's voice among the teens and tweens before it even gets to the cutting room. Again, do not misinterpret; I am not rooting against Miley. I just don't want to see or read any more of this;

"ARRRRRRRGHHHHH, LOOK, IT's MILEY!!!! HEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Squeek.....................squeal. Ahem. Reporting from Tybee Island, I'm Chastity Beltz, Coverage You Can Count Sheep In."

The correct answer to Jaywalkers vs. Cops is.....

I have been apprised of all the arguments in the ongoing battle between those who believe pedestrians are being harassed by Savannah-Chatham Metro Police and the cops who say they are, in a civil manner, enforcing the law against jaywalking and other offenses. I have heard both sides, and I genuinely like the principals of both point and counterpoint. In adherence with the good ol' boy referee-type I am, I even completely understand both arguments and agree with portions of both. But fence-sitting is boring, and it's painful if you aren't wearing your cup, so I suppose I must pick one side or the other, so here goes;

Suck it up, jaywalkers. Now you know how the cigar smoker feels.

Whenever I hear the term 'jaywalking', my first thought is always what I imagined as the definition of the word when I was a child. Back then I was called Little Ray due to the fact that there were 18 men named Ray in the family (Big Ray, Little Ray, Regular Ray, Daddy Ray, Big Daddy Ray, Ray Ray, Irregular Ray were some of the others). When Little Ray first heard that jaywalking was a crime, he immediately wondered how could this be? He knew his friend Jay walked funny. After all, Jay was six-nine and weighed 103-and-a-half, but he didn't understand why walking as gangly Jay walked could earn you a ticket.

Now that I have learned the proper definition, it isn't that I don't sympathize and, at least partially, agree with my friend Michael Gaster and his "Savannians Against Ticketing for Jaywalking" Facebook group. Gang bangers trying to shoot their way into their own version of a promised paradise or folks randomly breaking into homes are a much more pertinent danger than some jabroni who wants to risk his life by darting across Bull Street right smack in between the traffic signals. However, I have a hard time grasping the concept that a crackdown on jaywalking is cannon fire in the war on personal freedom, as if Washington, John Adams, and Ben Franklin are waiting with bated breath in Heaven to know if all their hard work will written off with a $208 ticket.

"So why are you siding with the cops" the Facebook jaywalking groupee may ask. Well, I am not exactly doing that. I do think the fines are excessive, and so does Police Chief Michael Berkow, but those fines are proscribed by Georgia state law, not local ordinance. It does appear that Savannah City Council and other folks within government have had their palms greased....errr....I mean, are taking steps to possibly change the law, which is how this country is supposed to work, so good for the Facebookers for bringing about that change.

The reason for my position is that I wonder just how far the Facebook group's defense of liberty goes. Will the group rally again if politico or a school determines that we aren't supposed to use a certain phrase because if might be "offensive?" Are anti-marijuana laws also an infringement of the pothead's personal space. And speaking of smoking, if you believe liberty bequeaths jaywalking with impunity, why am I almost certain that at least some members of the group would tell me I can't smoke a harmless cigar, in a place where the smoke wouldn't bother anyone, because I would be killing the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, poisoning the water, causing ground clutter on the weather radar, killing talk radio, burning down Santa Claus' s house and making their cheese moldy?

I know what you are thinking, but I have typed too much for today and don't have time to fill all of the Tobacco Nazi arguments full of empirical lead. I just hope that when we toss about big words such as freedom and liberty, we are talking about liberty for all, not just liberty for those things with which we agree.

The only thing wrong with yesterday's Braves' moves...

....was that Jeff Francoeur wasn't included in the trade. Of course, there isn't much market for the man who somehow managed to inherit the ghost of Mike Lum, but I can't dream, can't I?

Nate McLouth is not a great player, but he's good, and he's better than the entire current Braves' outfield combined. The Braves gave up prospects who might...MIGHT...be good, but none of the three is likely to be better than good, so unless Nate gets hurt, the trade is a steal for The ATL. In fairness, can't we give those prospects some fried chicken and collard greens as consolation for being forced to live with the stink and the not-so-attractive women in The Burgh?

There will be much horking (sorry, been listening to cats having hairballs too long) about Tom Glavine's release. More than one member of the punditry has already compared the outrage the pundit apparently was trying to foment to the wailing and renting of garments among many fans when the Braves made no effort to re-sign Smoltz in the off season. I admit it; I had my panties in a wad when The ATL hosed Smoltzie, but I am not affected as much by T. G.'s departure for two reasons.

First of all, as much as I'd like him, Glavine doesn't have anything left in the tank, and the last two seasons, one with the Epitome of Evil In Flushing and the last with The ATL, proved it. Pitching six scoreless innings in Class A ball, then declaring yourself ready for the bigs again? The Sand Gnats' Jeurys Familia could just as easily say the same thing, after making the requisite adjustment to his cup of course, and everyone would call him (en Espanol) ridiculo. Smoltzie, though virtually the same age as Glavine, can still bring it, at least it appears that way.

Secondly, Braves' fans don't love Tommy the way they love Smoltzie. The culprit; the 1994 work stoppage and cancellation of the World Series while Glavine was the Braves' player rep. Glavine was among the most boisterous in touting the player's claims that they had nothing to do with the early end to the season. While baseball owners are a group of corporate thugs who have tried to hose the players since at least the 1890's, the players, by and large millionaires in '94, were more than complicit in the ruination of that season. To refuse to acknowledge that tainted Glavine, and even an explosion of Oxy Clean and Sham-Wows couldn't completely remove that stain 15 years later.

Smoltz might have believed all that Glavine believed about labor, but he also pitched his guts out until his arm could take no more, had surgery, then let it all out again until the next surgery, time and again. Smoltz is also very funny and should have gone straight from the field to the Braves' broadcast booth when the time came. Smoltz became an Atlanta lifer when he arrived for Doyle Alexander in '87, or at least he should have been.

Tom Glavine may be the better overall pitcher for his career, but Smoltzie without question is the better Atlanta Brave and the one Frank Wren should have held on to. Now, if we can just get the Mets to re-sign Glavine, that will be one less roadblock to another Braves' division title, and we'll rekindle our love for Tommy when Cooperstown calls.

Hork Hork, Hork, Blah

You think cats have ESP? Or perhaps just "convenient" ESP is a more apt description. Happens every time. You're having a rough start to the morning, and just when you ask yourself (in your head, not aloud), "what else can go wrong this morning?", you hear the ever familiar 'hork hork hork, blah....' If you are unfamiliar with the feline world, that is the sound effect of a hairball. A giant hairball. A hairball so big you have no idea how it made it's way out of your cat and, especially, how it managed to fit its entirety inside your shoe.

Of course, how does the cat follow up the magnificent expungement? By stroking your leg and asking "hey, can I have some more food? More food please? Even though I just horked up three days worth? Please? No? Fine. I'll just go stare out the window. Hey, where's the window?"

Perhaps the cat owner has a disturbing form of ESP also.

And It Makes You Wonder

It's easy to read this account from the Savannah Morning News and ask the simple but eloquent question, why?

Savannah woman charged in son's murder

By Jan Skutch

A Savannah woman was indicted Wednesday on charges of murder and child cruelty in the March death of her 3-month-old son.

Ashley Latoya Mims, 21, inflicted blunt-force trauma to the head of Ervin Eugene Terrell on March 26, the Chatham County grand jury charged.

The indictment also accuses Mims of child cruelty by causing Ervin to suffer a fractured rib in February and uttering false statements by telling police detectives the baby's injuries were caused by a fall from a bed.

---

The more profound question for me is why this woman was allowed to give life and waste life so easily while a dear friend who loves and values life had two loved ones cruelly taken from him? This week, Rev. Gary Brittain, Baptist Campus Minister at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, a man whom I regrettably did not treat very well at times when I was a know-it-all young punk of a human being, lost his 12-year-old daughter to cancer. Just a few years ago, Gary lost his wife, Sharon, one of the nicest people this side of Mother Teresa, to breast cancer.

Gary and his eldest son, Ian, are Godly men who will probably understand all this more than I, and I know many folks who have said that, painful as it is, it is all part of "The Plan." But just once, I'd like someone to say what I believe they are really thinking; it stinks, it is blatantly unfair, and there is no justification for two wonderful lives being taken from a beautiful family while simultaneously Ms. Mims and her ilk who obviously have a callous view of life are allowed to procreate.

I should have been a gossip queen

MAYOR JOHNSON'S FEDORA HAS A FEATHER! DOES HE PLAN TO TICKLE OUR FANCIES WITH IT, OR IS THERE A SINISTER HIDDEN MEANING? FIND OUT, NEEXXXXXXT, ON RAY'S SAVANNAH RAG!!!!

Coming to conclusions that you are, and have been for a very long time, wrong are very often difficult to swallow. The realization that the Braves aren't going to the World Series every year hurts the heck out of a little Georgia kid. Figuring out that the nice-looking girl in high school will never give a hoot in Hades about you is hormonally painful. Discovering that your war against eating beets and turnip greens was a lifelong exercise in futility is deliciously wrong, but wrong nonetheless, and who wants to be wrong?

I discovered this morning that I not only was wrong again, but that I have been wrong for the entire 15 years I have spent in news. All this time, I thought I was supposed to be pursuing news. It turns out I should have continued to pursue my youthful affinity for being Mr. Gossip.

GNATE THE GNAT, UNMASKED. IS HE REALLY A SKEETER? THE LARVAL TRUTH, NEXXXXTTTT!

This latest profundity smacked me in the medulla oblongata this morning while perusing the top news stories of the day. The top story; what appears to be the tragic disappearance of a jetliner carrying 228 people, justifiably the biggest story in the world. The second biggest story; General Motors filing for bankruptcy? Nope. The murder of a late-term abortion doctor in Kansas? Nada. Today is the first day of hurricane season and you will die, your kids will get swine flu, and your cheese will get moldy if you don't tune to your super duper officially official hurricane station? Not even close. According to all the "news" networks and shows, the story that could only be upstaged by a possible plane crash was news that Susan Boyle had to be taken to the hospital.

What, you haven't heard of Susan Boyle? Well, the news channels say, you just aren't hip are you? I bet you don't even Facebook or stay glued to your smart phone all day or Twit on Tweeter, or Tweet on Twitter, whatever it's called. Dad gummit, you need to keep up with the gossip if you're going to be one of the cool kids according to today's "news media". Susan Boyle is the lady on the show "Britain's Got Talent" who came out of Nowhere, Great Britain to be the You Tube sensation of 2009 with her gorgeous voice that, the media suggest, doesn't match her physical appearance.

SONNY DIXON TO BE REPLACED BY THE MUPPET NEWS FLASH MAN, OR ARE THE MUPPETS TAKING MANHATTON INSTEAD??? MAH-NA MAH-NA INDEED!! NEXXXXTT!

Poor Susan has been followed by every "news" organization obsessively since she burst on the scene, so much so that she justifiably went ballistic on some of the muckrackers. Reports indicated that some "reporters" were greeted with Susan's fickle finger of fate, and that at times the only words eminating from her golden throat were colored blue. Last night came the "media's" grandest dream of all, as Ms. Boyle finished 2nd in the "Britain's Got Talent" finals, then was rushed to the hospital for "exhaustion." How was this "reported?" A composite of the "news" this morning was..."This ugly woman who sang really purty was a nut job after all." No they didn't say it that way, but that's exactly what they meant. And were it not for a jumbo jet disappearing, this would have been the number one news story of the day.

What a sweet life the gossip "reporter" has. They can invent things out of thin air, give the info to the public, and when anyone questions their story, they can cite their anonymous "sources" who claim the information is chastity-belt ironclad. The gossipist is then lustily used as an "expert" by "news" shows and organizations, as was the case with Susan Boyle this morning.

So henceforth, my career shall take a new path. I will use my "sources" to give me information leading to the misleading headlines above, and I will finally be rich, wealthy, comfortably well off! Now, what shall comprise my first "story?"

WHO IS THE REAL LADY? CHABLIS AND PAULA'S CHICKEN LEG SWASHBUCKLER ON RIVER STREET! DID PETE LIAKAKIS SELL TICKETS TO THE FIGHT TO MAKE UP FOR FLAT PROPERTY VALUES? DID METRO PD RACK UP 10 MILLION IN JAYWALKING FINES THAT DAY? THE STORY, PLUS THE LEOPOLD'S ICE CREAM FLAVOR TO BE NAMED AFTER YOUR HUMBLE CORRESPONDENT...GOOD LORD, WHO'D WANT TO EAT THAT......NEXXXXXXTTTTTTTT!!!!