Man, I made all those posts yesterday about upgrading my smoker and then ...
Got everything going this morning like normal. Everything was looking good at first, but the temperature wasn't rising like it should have. It was stuck at 150F. I opened all the air dampers. I cracked open the front access panel.
I messed around with it for a solid 20 minutes and then I fully removed the access panel and ... my water pan was leaking directly onto the coals. So, I had to remove the water pan. Got that out and got the temperature dialed in. I haven't cooked without a water pan (or some other kind of heat sink) for a while, so I've been really paranoid about temperature spikes. However, about two hours since adding the ribs and the temps have been holding steady.
Many years ago, when I was in the Army and stationed on Okinawa, we were in lockdown because of a Typhoon. I had a pal who was a Marine stay with us during the lockdown rather than him being stuck in the barracks.
He was Italian-American and provided us a shopping list to get before we were stuck in our apartment. He made some of the best food, but the best thing to come out of that, one of, if not the best cooking tip I've ever been given, is to rub some oil around the inside lip of your pot to prevent your pasta water boiling over.
It's been almost 30 years and I don't know that any cooking tip I've been given is used more frequently than that.
It's kind of weird to me when a pub punk band blows up and becomes huge.
Not because they've made it big (I'm glad THAT happened), but it's kind of weird to see that band whose energy fits a small stage suddenly have to fill a huge stage.
These are the kind of air dampers I replaced on my smoker. The old ones have been fucked up for years. One of them permanently fused shut a long time ago. I cooked a pork butt last weekend and they were all stuck in the position they were in. I've been wanting to replace them for a long time and having just done so feels like a huge accomplishment.
When I got the bottom section of the smoker up off the ground to clean up the bolts for removal, I noticed that the nuts for each of the damper had all rusted off. The dampers were basically being held in place by charcoal dust, grease, rust and the force of will that only an inanimate object can possess.
I quickly gave up trying to remove with a wrench and a screwdriver and went for the hammer. They popped right off with a solid whack.
I cleaned up the newly exposed area as best I could and the new dampers went in place with the nut secured just barely more than hand tightened.
More excited than I should be to have fully functional air dampers again.
I have posted about this before, but I just had to replace the grill grates in my Weber smoker and I faced the same kind of internal questions I have in the past: Do I replace parts or do I get a new smoker? Is it worth cost to buy a new one? Am I heppy with what I currently have?
I've had my 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain cooker for 16 years now. This is maybe the third time I've replaced the grill grates (it would have been less had I taken better care of them), and I'm in the process of replacing the air dampers on the bottom section that control air flow.
I know @selfiesandwinepics agonizes over this kind of stuff. I like to give the notion of buying a new smoker a good think, but I keep coming back to the same conclusions: 1. In 16 years there's nothing I've wanted to cook that I couldn't cook on my current smoker; 2. I'm always happy with my cooks; 3. Replacing parts is cheaper than replacing the entire cooker (even after three grill replacements I haven't topped the cost of a new cooker); and 4. This cooker is about as set and forget as you can possibly get with a charcoal/wood smoker.
Everyone's been talking about Widow's Bay (as they should), but I've not seen any talk about Devil in Silver (technically The Terror: Devil in Silver since it's the third "The Terror" season). I didn't watch the first The Terror, but @defiantpotato did. What little I did see when I walked through the room or something did not do anything for me. I didn't even know there was a second season. And, like American Horror Story, every season is its own story. Unlike American Horror Story, its not corny (and I don't really mean that as an insult -- there's a quaint quality to corny).
The Devil in Silver is like a wonderful mix of Stephen King and Clive Barker storytelling with a bit of Brian De Palma come Milos Forman filmmaking.
The lead is played by Dan Stevens (Legion, Abigail, The Ritual) who excels at playing someone who is both likeable and unlikeable at the same time. The supporting cast is also excellent and Judith Light (the fucking mom from Who's the Boss?) gives a stellar performance.
The penultimate episode aired released yesterday. I highly recommend giving this a shot unless you don't like dark supernatural thrillers.
I'd like to take a moment just to appreciate how pretty Novo guitars are:
When I went to Nashville recently my side quest was to put my hands on some Novo guitars and I accomplished said mission. In fact, I played at least two of these three guitars. I think I actually played all three though. And what I discovered is that they are just not for me. Not really made for what I play and just not my vibe.
Which is a good thing, really, because they are priced like unobtanium.
Now, I also got to play another brand, Knaggs:
The tobacco burst-y looking one is one I actually got to play. The purple one is from another store and I threw it in the mix because it's so damn pretty.
What's a damn shame is that I immediately fell in love with the Knaggs which is priced unobatanium-er than the Novos.
If I had a nemesis, and I was able to choose their eternal torment, it would be having to find replacement parts for moderately dated household items. Not shit from the 40s-60s that could be fixed. No, shit from the 80s-00s that breaks and is just old enough to be next to impossible to find online.
Not to undermine the post 'cause I completely agree, but to comment on the photo. Have y'all ever actually tried a toast sandwich? Deceptively good. With some butter and jam? Come on, now.
I want to conduct a quick poll because I believe a lot of the folks I interact with here represent a pretty good cross-section of the American (probably North American) population.
Have you heard about the recent legal issue regarding Fender guitars?
Yes
No
Voting ended onJun 2
No more context than that. Please don't search before you answer. Just a yes or no answer, please. Oh, and reblog for a larger sample size, if you desire.
I am particularly interested in hearing from non-guitarists if they have heard of this and how they did.
To follow up on this, the results were much as I expected. Most of y'all don't know about what Fender Musical Instrument Corporation is up to.
TL;DR version: FMIC is sending out cease and desist letter to companies that are making guitars that look like the Fender Stratocaster even though the Strat body shape was found to be in the public domain in a 2009 U.S. court ruling. The recent action has to do with a German court decision in December 2025.
The lengthy version below the cut:
I make a point to distinguish FMIC from just plain ol' Fender because FMIC is basically an investment group whose majority owner is Servco, a company that had nothing to do with musical instruments until it invested in FMIC. They became the majority holder in 2020.
FMIC is itself the largest guitar company in the world, and they also own other guitar brands. The most obvious is Squier which Fender acquired in the 80s and turned into their budget brand. Other brands FMIC own include Jackson, Charvel, Hamer, and Tacoma, among others. They are partnered with Gretsch and EVH guitars as the manufacturer and distributor of their guitars, they just don't own the brand.
Alright, enough background on FMIC.
When people talk about guitar lawsuits, most people who care about this kind of thing think of Gibson. Gibson Guitars are notoriously litigious, but companies who are attempting to protect a trademark have to be in order to maintain the trademark. But because Gibson is always going to court (with mixed results), the guitar community shits on them for doing so AND because Gibson and Fender are the two big guys in the guitar market, Fender has always kind of been thought of as the "nicer" company.
Then in December 2025 news came of a ruling in a German court that Fender had won a case against a manufacturer it claimed was making copies of its Stratocaster shape. In May 2026, Fender's law firm began sending out cease and desist letters to different manufacturers citing this ruling.
The problem? The manufacturer Fender sued was a fly-by-night Chinese company that didn't even show up to court. The case that Fender "won" was a summary ruling.
Additionally, the demands from the cease and desist letter became public and they were ... a little crazy. First, they demanded that these companies cease to sell their guitars in Germany and the EU (since that is the only area this court has jurisdiction). That's the sane part. They also demanded that all of those guitars that had been sold in that area had to be recalled and destroyed along with all the current stock in stores. They also demanded that stores that sold these guitars had to turn over a list of all the customers who bought them. Finally, they demanded some extreme sum of money for damages.
I'm not a lawyer and I'm not going to pretend to be one and I'm not going to attempt to parse the legalese of the issue. Suffice to say that the guitar community has not reacted well to this.
The biggest problem with all of it is that trademarks require you to file for one within a reasonable amount of time of the creation of the thing you're wanting to trademark. Fender waited 70 years to try and do so. Gibson has suffered court losses for the same issue. These cases sour guitarists on the brand, and that, more than anything is what these companies are now -- a brand. They're not trying to just sell you a guitar; they want to sell you a lifestyle. A litigious investment group is not the lifestyle a rock and roller wants to invest in. Nor is it the lifestyle brand a 50-something dude who's trying to recapture some feeling from his youth by buying some of the things he could never have in his youth wants to follow.
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