Today started quietly as I made an electric smoker out of a trash can. I gave the smoker a quick test before starting out on the other events of the day. When I get a chance, I'll write up a page about making the smoker.

We got rolling with a trip to the mall to get the girls some shoes. Success was found early with each girls getting two pairs of sneakers. We celebrated with candy and lunch at the mall.

Zoe had her soccer game at 2 PM and then went to go play at a friends house. That left me with time to mix up a dry rub and get a pair of top sirloin steaks smoking. I know that tri-tip is the preferred item to smoke, but the market was out and the butchers recommended this.

I got the meat into the smoker and sat down with a beer to wait it out. While I was sitting outside, supervising the smoke, I finished the Cory Doctorow book, A Place So Foreign.

The book was a good set of short stories. I had already read two of them in other publications, A Place So Foreign in the now defunct SciFi Age magazine, and Ownz0red at Salon.com. The other stories were good, but tantalizingly short. After tasting a full novel of a fully concieved world in Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom, all of the stories left me wanting more.

You can check out more about the book at Cory's site, where you can even download the book for free.

Around 8:30 or so, the meat was finally done and I pulled it out to rest for a 1/2 hour. It was most tasty as Michele & James can attest.

To wrap up the day I watched Samurai Rebellion. I had Tivo'ed it the day before and enjoyed it immensely. Toshirô Mifune plays the lead character and is fantastic as usual. The only bad thing is that the recording ended before the movie was over. I don't know what happens in the very end! If you know, please tell me what happens after the battle in the field.

Tomorrow I'll be looking around to find a place to rent the film.

Time for sleep.

Posted by michael at October 04, 2003 11:54 PM