Bullpen

It’s late.  You’re at the bar and you’re eyeing someone.  Just keep this factoid from Your Smart Phone Says a Lot About You in mind…

OkCupid.com asked its users what kind of phones they use, and then for the 9,785 users who had smart phones, collated that data (on an anonymous basis) with their number of sexual partners. The findings: Women iPhone users had an average of 12.3 partners by the time they turned 30, compared with 8.8 partners for their counterparts who use a BlackBerry, and a mere 6 for those who use Androids. The numbers were similar for 30-year-old men iPhone users.

According to a recent news story, napping is permittable at the workplace.  At first, I thought it was great news.  I can have that long lunch, with the extra side of nice-full-belly.  Hell , I can even knock back a few wobbly pops knowing that some shut eye is just around the corner.  But then I read this in the article: “If you have employees working 16-hour days, you want to give them an opportunity to take a power nap.”

And that sucks.  Who needs 16 hour workdays?  Let’s be real – people are already short changing themselves on sleep, and with footbtall season upon us, that only worsens the matter. For most fellas, football season means less sleep and more hangovers.  The male species has spent decades perfecting the ability to awakewn on Monday, hungover and stinky, yet somehow getting to work in a comatosed state and coasting through the day in a “laying low” kind of operation.  My friend Matt used to refer to this as his “tax day” for the week.  You know, the day at work you don’t do anything to make up for the money you lose in taxes. I don’t care what you call it, but work naps plus football season equals win in my opinion.

Hurricane season is still in full swing and much of the East coast is experiencing it first hand with Hurricane Earl barreling through. With that in mind, we wanted to take a few minutes to talk BBQ safety. Maybe this post should better be labeled, “love your smoker”.

Make sure you don’t leave your BBQ partner in crime sitting out in the rain for the storms, guys. First, your smoker treats you better than that so you should take care of the lil’ guy. Second, the last thing you need is some poorly named hurricane (Earl? Seriously? What’s scary about as storm named EARL? Call it the Kraken and I’ll run.) picking up your grill and hurling it into your house, your neighbors house, the woods, or all the way to Oz to land on some bitchy lady with bad socks.

So do what it takes to keep your grill and safe and in good condition. Take the extra time to put her to bed in the garage, your shed, or at the very least put a cover an secure it to something solid with a chain.

OK, Some of us here at Bully Life are giant nerds. Even those of us that aren’t, can certainly appreciate the genius-level DIY projects that get featured regularly in Make Magazine. Recently, make featured Peter Rauch, who put together a great little smoker and meat timer from scratch.

Any BBQ junky or foodie that watches Alton Brown has probably seen the terracotta flower pot smoker before, but Rauch took this approach to epic proportions by making a DIY controller that manages the heat of the electric heating element and provides alarms for the meat temperature. All bundled up in a sleek little touchscreen interface. Here’s to you BBQ Man! Go check out the article at Make, but be sure to tell us about your own DIY BBQ exploits. If we think your story is praise worthy, we’ll send you a big Bully Life shout out here in the blog and maybe even send you some swag!

So, two weeks ago we made the 430-plus mile drive from Boston down to Salisbury, Maryland to judge Pork In The Park.

Not only is this registered as the Maryland State Championship, we learned that the 134 teams competing helped qualify this event as the largest on the East Coast and the second largest contest in the country for the 2010 season.

We’d like to thank all of the teams who competed, especially iQue, a New England team that placed 4th in chicken.  We’d also like to congratulate the teams that placed well in their respective categories:

Chicken
1 Smokin Eddy’s
2 Acme Brothers BBQ
3 Lava Pigs BBQ
4 IQUE
5 Feeding Friendz
6 Wilbur’s Revenge
7 Chix, Swine & Bovine BBQ
8 Old Dominion Smokehouse
9 4:20 Que
10 Widespread BBQ Team

Ribs
1 Fat Angel BBQ
2 Good Smoke BBQ
3 Hickory Prime
4 Chix, Swine & Bovine BBQ
5 Mr. BOBO’s Traveling BBQ
6 Lazy Ass BBQ Crew
7 Who are those Guys?
8 Hambones by the Fire
9 Ribs Within
10 War Pigs

Pork
1 Serial Griller
2 Smokey Bottom Boys
3 Mr. BOBO’s Traveling BBQ
4 Dizzy Pig
5 Hog Feathers BBQ
6 Chicken Chokers
7 Chop Shop
8 Jacked Up BBQ
9 Buckner Brothers Barbeque
10 Chix, Swine & Bovine BBQ

Brisket
1 PA Midnite Smokers
2 Feeding Friendz
3 3 EYZ BBQ
4 Gonehoggin.com
5 White Dog BBQ
6 Dizzy Pig
7 Lakeside Smokers
8 Florida Skin N Bones
9 Acme Brothers BBQ
10 Chix, Swine & Bovine BBQ

Our congratulations goes out to Chix, Swine & Bovine BBQ, who took the Grand Championship, and Serial Griller, who placed second overall.

Until the next time…

Why does MSN gotta tease me and talk all dirty?  I mean, bacon cupcakes…BACON CUPCAKES!  Man, c’mawn.  And if that’s not enough, bacon gumballs and bacon ice cream.  Don’t believe me?  Check for yourself.  Oh dear Lord, don’t take me now!  Please, oh please, keep me on this earth long enough to make it through April 24th for the Boston Beer and Bacon Festival.

So a while back, the Boston Globe posted a round-up story about barbecue joints in New England.  And last Sunday, the Patriots had their bye week, so you know what we had to, right?

Armed with a bottle of Russell’s Reserve bourbon, some Grappa, and New England’s own maple spirit, Cabin Fever, our journey began.  Thankfully we planned ahead for this one – there was a sober driver, courtesy of First Choice Limo.  We trudged over an hour to Sturbridge, Mass.  Aside from a quirky village, Sturbridge is home to B.T.’s Smokehouse, where we scored a rack of pork ribs, a brisket sandwich, and a pulled-pork sandwich.

Well, on this particular trip, the ribs sure looked pretty to the eyes.  Sadly, they were a let-down to the mouth.  Our rack was a little overcooked, and may have sat around a tad too long.  It’s a shame, too, because the ribs have potential – gritty rub, nice bark, pinkish meat and a light smoke flavor all hinted at the promise of what could have been.

The brisket sandwich was a home run.  It went so fast that – gone before we knew it.  After the initial meat sampling, we slathered on a bit of the house sweet sauce with a touch of the hot.  The hot sauce is hot, perhaps ridiculously so to a barbecue pallet, but if you like it hot, then this is for you.  The sweet sauce was nice, thick enough texture so that some of it sticks to the meat.  The pulled pork fell a notch below the brisket, but was also an excellent sandwich.  We tried a touch of the house mustard sauce on the pork sandwich….then a touch of the Eastern Carolina-style vinegar sauce.  Both of these sauces were also good, but this sandwich is a pleasure served plain!

BT’s should be commended for the extremely fresh bulkie rolls our sandwiches were served on – very noteworthy.  Also noteworthy is the simple fact that these guys really know what they’re doing.  We’ve crisscrossed the country in search of barbecue – Kansas City, Memphis, Lockhart – and BTs serves up real good barbecue, that is very reasonably priced, and goes great with bourbon!

Good thing we ate light…because an hour and twenty minutes away Chester’s Barbecue awaits in New London, CT.