Music: B-52's
Link o' the Day: Barbecue 101 - Traditional Texan Fare by John Raven, Ph.B.

You know who could use some lessons in clear writing? The folks who write assembly-instruction sheets for barbecues, that's who.

I spent an hour and a half yesterday putting together a barbecue grill--a fairly easy job in theory--but due to muddy instructions, I had the hinges on backwards, had to undo my work, then figure out how they were supposed to go on.

Anyways. We now have a grill. We tried it out on chicken last night, but we still have a few bugs to work out. (No, no bugs in the food.) I'll admit right here and now that I'm barbecue lore-deficient. It's been ages since I've grilled anything outside and even when I was--I never did chicken. I stuck with your basic burgers 'n dogs.

Fortunately, Pretty Maggie did the grilling, but neither of us had a real clear idea as to how long the chicken had to stay on the grill. Even a fancy space-age fork I bought that purported to reveal the secrets of meat readiness did little to keep us from finding pink chicken meat. We had plans later that evening, so we packed up the chicken for further cooking in the oven and put the grill down for the night.

Still, it was a promising experience for the both of us. Sort of a test run. I want to try out some steaks on the grill next. Or maybe some chops. Pretty Maggie wants corn on the cob which is more than fine with me. I just need to find "how-to-grill.com" or somesuch.

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I finished The DaVinci Code yesterday. I think the ending started to weaken a bit. Sure, the revelation and the resolution worked as far as the story went. There was no cop-out ending or anything like that, but at the same time I felt that with the stakes that the characters were playing for should have resulted in a more earth-shaking ending.

I am still going to recommend it. The arguments used in the book for the setup are more convincing than Umberto Eco's paranoid fantasies in Focault's Pendulum and while the writing still wasn't all I had hoped it would be, it was by no means bad. (It's better writing than Stephen King's) Pick it up. You won't be disappointed.

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Speaking of writing, I'm working on some plotting. So far, so good. It's a fun story, with (I hope) fun characters. I don't want to say too much about it right now as I tend to jinx myself when I speak of something not-yet-completed.

But it goes well.

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And what the heck... speaking of backyard grilling--here's a page with some good tips and recipes: Barbecue 101 - Traditional Texan Fare by John Raven, Ph.B. There's an obvious Texan slant, but ah well. No one is perfect. (Look also for Barbecues 102 and 103)

Cheers!