how to convert your car into a tank

In a previous post I wrote about wanting a tank to drive around town.  Unfortunately, tanks tend to be out of the budget, and I don’t know of a used tanks surplus emporium.   But now that’s okay, because someone has figured out how to convert your car into a tank.  You use the frame and engine of your car as is.  You drive up on the tank tread assembly, remove the tires, make some changes to how it’s all connected, and then your car drives like a tank.   The video below illustrates this.

My Russian translation skills are somewhat lacking, but I’m pretty sure somewhere in the video they said the equivalent of “this is one of the coolest things ever”.

BTW, if you do this, you’re on your own.   That would probably void your warranty.  And I’m pretty sure the highway department would frown upon such use, at least on major roads.  But in the deer woods, this would be great!

Buffet o’ Bacon 4

Last night I had the Buffet o’ Blog staff at my house, and I knew there had been rumors of more bacon “research”, but I wasn’t expecting much, given various circumstances.  But this turned into quite the bacon extravaganza!  We had five (5) bacon dishes to test.  Of course, I took some pictures to go with my analysis and commentary.  First up is bacon-wrapped pineapple — on a stick.

It seemed weird to mix bacon with a fruit, but it didn’t taste too bad.   The texture was weird to me.  But pineapple by itself has a somewhat weird texture.  Nonetheless, it was pretty good, but was overshadowed by some of the other bacon experiments.

Next up in our buffet of bacon was bacon-wrapped Twinkies.  How would you expect this to be?

We were skeptical about it before, but it proved to be the tastiest of them all.   The key here was cooking the bacon prior to wrapping the Twinkies.   Once wrapped, we placed them in the oven just long enough to heat the Twinkies (and we did it too much, as evidenced by the creamy overflow).  The taste was great — a pleasant mixture of bacon and sweetness, and it was not greasy at all (which was my main concern before trying it).  I would definitely eat these again… and again… 🙂

Next we made small sausage balls (of just pork / breakfast sausage), wrapped in bacon, and held together with toothpicks.  We had intended to apply the BBQ sauce before cooking, but didn’t add it until about halfway through cooking.

These were very delicious.   (Would you expect otherwise?)  You just have to make sure the sausage gets cooked thoroughly.  And be sure to cook these on a raised rack of some kind to let the bacon grease and sausage grease drain off.  Failure to do so may result in a “gut-bomb”.  (For a documented example of that, see the second comment about our initial Buffet o’ Bacon.)

Next up was a BLT — bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich, with Miracle Whip.  Nothing revolutionary, and tasted like you would expect.

Last but not least in our “research” was chocolate-covered bacon.  The bacon was cooked first, with all grease drained, then dipped in molten chocolate.   The molten chocolate was made from semi-sweet chocolate chips plus butter.

Chocolate-covered bacon may sound gross if you haven’t tried it, but it’s quite delicious.   The salty bacon goes well with the sweetness of the chocolate.   You really should try it for yourself sometime.

If you would like to read about our other Buffet o’ Bacon events, here’s a link to search the blog for “Buffet o’ Bacon“.  (It will find a few other posts which reference it, but using a search will also find future ones, too, once they’re published.)  You could also have your own bacon research parties.  It’s a really fun time (as you would imagine).  You could post your results on your blog, and be sure to link back here so we can check it out.

caption contest, mounties on fake horses

I watched part of the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics last night, and the finale involved various aspects of Canadian culture.  Seeing the mounties reminded me of this picture I had stored away in my stash of future caption contest photos.  So I figured this would be as good a time as any to use this picture.

As you can see below, the photo features what looks like two Canadian mounties (police officers) on fake horses.  Of course, there is no actual context provided, so you can make the scenario be whatever you want.  Just keep it clean and funny.  And for the record, this photo and the ensuing comments are not intended to dis’ (disrespect) Canada nor their mounties in any way.  It’s just for fun, and two guys on fake horses seemed to have some humor potential.

For ideas, think of what various people might say in that situation.  For example, what might the mounties be saying to each other?  What might the onlooking civilians say or think?  What might these mounties be responding to?  Why do they have fake horses?  And of course, your caption can be completely random — that’s what we specialize in here at this blog.

(To see the other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)

four years of blogging

February 2010 marked four years of Buffet o’ Blog.  Can you believe it?  It seems like only yesterday this was an obscure blog, trying to find its place in the blogosphere.  Speaking of yesterdays, check out this cool graph showing our monthly growth.

As the graph so poignantly illustrates, traffic is up something-eight percent, which surely puts us in the upper percentiles of blog growth.  Obviously I should be getting paid for this!  (So if you feel led to be a sponsor or to make a donation, have your people contact my people.)

Now, for some detailed statistics, for those of you who care about such things…

Total # of posts: 822
Total # of comments: 4,131
Total # of spam comments blocked: 73,461
Total # of page views: 368,604
Best day of traffic: 2,286 hits (page views) on Sept. 28, 2009

Last year at this time, we had only 161,241 page views / hits (over 3 years), so in just the last year, we’ve had 207,363 hits.  Inconceivable!  It boggles the mind.  I’m amazed that so many people have seen and perhaps read some of my ramblings.   Does this mean I’m famous?  Is my blog now officially not obscure?  I think I’m becoming a seasoned veteran at this now…  🙂

Last but not least, I’d like to thank you, the loyal reader, who makes this possible.  Without you, I’d just be rambling, but with an audience, I’m an author or something.  So thanks and stuff.   I wish I could host a crazy-huge party with unlimited nachos for all the regular readers, but since there’s no budget, there’s no money.  (If someone wants to host a party for the Buffet o’ Blog staff, we do parties!  And let me tell you — if you think the snippets of randomness you read here is something, consider that our randomness quotient increases exponentially when we’re all together.  It’s a guaranteed good time.  More fun than you could shake a stick at!)

BTW, if you’ve read all the posts here, you deserve a gold star.  You know who you are!