Audio Palindrome

I was following one of the tbtl topics and decided to look into working audio palindromes. I came across this one, "You're pretty." from Statler & Waldorf of The Muppets. Luke read it on the show and the reverse didn't turn out but the original actually works. I had to generate some silence at the end of the reverse copy for it to play properly in Audacity.

Try it here:
http://www.koktavy.net/tmp/youarepretty(reverse).mp3

------
http://www.iansouter.com/brain/sounds/youarepretty.mp3

http://iansbrain.com/2007/12/19/audio-palindrome/

This is an audio palindrome I found while working on a lipsync animation one
time. It sounds the same whether you play it forwards or backwards. Download
the MP3 and give it a try. The sound files is a clip of Statler and Waldorf
from the Muppets.

Smoked Pulled Pork Recipe (shortcut)

Pork shoulder (also known as Boston butt) is a tough cut of meat that is undesirable to most people other than barbecue cooks. At roughly $1 per pound, typically a shoulder cut in half is sold in a 12-16 pound package. The proper way to smoke pork can take up to 24 hours and requires smoking experience and the right equipment.

My shortcut recipe takes about 10 hours of low maintenance time using a regular Weber grill and a crock pot -- a dish we serve two or three times a year typically for large gatherings. This shortcut does not achieve the balance of crispy and moist that a well smoked shoulder would, but is nonetheless a great dish and introduction to smoking without delving into the time and equipment necessary to maintain a steady 200 degrees F for up to 24 hours.

Ingredients and equipment:

• 1 Pork shoulder
• 1 jar mustard powder
• charcoal
• chunk hardwood (I use mesquite or our native pecan wood.)
• charcoal grill
• foil double loaf pan
• crock pot
• instant read thermometer
• BBQ sauce & buns

Typically I coat and rub the shoulder with mustard powder the night before. Doing so just before smoking will work fine. The purpose of the rub is to help form a "bark" which will seal the moisture in the meat while it's on the grill. There is no noticeable mustard flavor in the final product.

Indirect grilling - Prepare the grill with charcoal. When the coals are ready, place a foil double loaf pan in the center of the grill, surround with coals, and lay the wood chunks over the top of the charcoal.

Place the shoulder fat side up over the pan. Place cover on with vents open and heavily smoke the meat for 2-3 hours. Additional wood need not be added.

Transfer the meat to a large crock pot and cook on high for approximately 7 hours. Check the internal temperature with an instant read thermometer. The temperature should reach 175 degrees F and the meat should fall off the bone and be easy to "pull" with two forks. Remove bone, turn crock to low and serve when desired.

Serve on buns with your favorite BBQ sauce.

Summer Projects

Now that the landscaping and Sky Fort project is coming to an end, Summer projects are queuing up.

• Complete the security gate on the alley entrance. (Having a metal shop fabricate something this week.)
  
• Remove trees along East fence line and continue setting fence posts and hanging cedar panels. Build SE kid/dog gate and set another steel security gate.
  
• Reconfigure the built-in media center to accommodate an HDTV.

Side projects:

• Replace glass fronts on McIntosh power amplifier and pre-amplifier.
• Do network and cable wiring for guest room xbox and tivo.
• Move personal computing off of Vista and over to Ubuntu.
• Try to get boxee or some other PC based streaming media server operational for new HD setup.