Not sold on Jimmy Fallon

            I must admit that last night was the first time I was able to stomach a full episode of Jimmy Fallon. My morbid curiosity got the better of me and I watched his show. When he mentioned that it may be the first time certain people may have tuned into watch him, I was one of those he was speaking about. I have caught bits and pieces of his show before, but most of what I’ve seen was too “hipster” for me. I couldn’t change the channel fast enough. The music leans more hip hop than I like. His brand of humor seems too sophomoric for me. Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel suffer from the same thing, but not as bad. I’m sure Jimmy Fallon is a really nice guy. He hit the nail on the head when he pondered how he ever came to host the Tonight Show.

            It was a fluke. Conan O’Brien was supposed to take over the Tonight Show and odds are, Conan would have had a 15 to 20 year run. During this time, Jimmy Fallon would have paid his dues on Late Night. Older people tend to go to bed earlier. Late Night is the perfect time slot for a young guy like Jimmy. Go watch early Conan episodes from Late Night and you’ll notice how Conan grew up and matured in his Late Night slot. Due to the Leno/O’Brien debacle, Leno got back in, Conan got out, and Jimmy sat there in the successor chair.

            NBC for some reason wasn’t happy with Jay Leno. He was #1 for his time slot and consistently so, but he must have unsettled somebody’s stomach there in management. The decision was made to force Jay Leno into retirement (technically firing an old person) and Voila! Jimmy Fallon, all green and unprepared, fell into the Tonight Show chair.

            It shows. Last night’s episode was certainly aimed at a much younger crowd. Even I felt old watching it. Yes, I grew up with U2 and Will Smith, but that lame ass bit about hip hop dancing? Come on! I tried to imagine my parents watching that and finding any entertainment in it. I doubt many people over my age bracket enjoyed it. It was so “Saturday Night Live”. I don’t think he’ll retain the older crowd that Leno held, you know, the ones who had the money to purchase Mercedes Benzes and other fine items whose advertisers paid big money to flaunt their wares during the Tonight Show. We’ll probably see more commercials for Cheerios and Crest toothpaste during Fallon’s tenure. Oh well, as long as it pays NBC’s bills.

            I saw an article that said that NBC wasn’t too worried about losing the older crowd because Jimmy Kimmel is a young guy as well and David Letterman won’t be around long. How nice. That’s like admitting that your guy sucks, and you don’t care because your viewers have nowhere else to go. Guess what? I’m willing to bet those older people will watch the news, drink their Geritol, and decide to turn in early. They won’t watch any of the garbage. I sure won’t.   

           

Weston Meat Grinder Review

Weston Meat Grinder Review:

Grinder with grey protective covering on yet.

Model # 08-2201-W
Number 22 Commercial Meat Grinder 1HP

Manufacturer: Weston
Country of Manufacture: China

Material: Stainless. The auger and head unit appear to be cast iron but I have been since told otherwise. 

110V/750 Watt

Retailer: One Stop Jerky Shop

onestopjerkyshop.com

Date of Purchase: 2/06/2014

Purchase Price: $549.99 ($544.99 after $5 discount)
Method Shipped: UPS Ground
Shipping Cost: Included

The Lowdown: My wife and I started grinding our own meat a year or two ago. We purchase meat from Sam's Club by the case and save money over our supermarket chain. Plus, the meat we grind tastes so much better than the ground meat that comes from the store. We also have the added benefit of knowing that only one or two animals are in our ground meat as opposed to hundreds, and we can visually inspect the meat that goes into our grind. The risk of contamination is also much lower.

A friend of mine loaned me his grinder a few years back. He drives semi and isn't home a lot, so he said I could hang onto it and take care of it while he was out trucking. It's called a Super Grinder and it's also Chinese made. It's a #12 in size, but the throat is really small and it takes forever to grind meat. It's ground a lot of meat for me the past year or so, but I've spent a lot of time with it doing so. You also have to cut the meat very small to go through the machine and grinding it a second time is a real pain.

We decided to make an investment in a real heavy duty grinder that would grind quickly and allow us to spend more time enjoying life instead of pushing meat through a grinder. After a lot of research, I chose this model of Weston. The price was right and it came with stuffing horns. The gentleman at One Stop Jerky Shop is a really nice and helpful guy. When you buy from him, you're buying from a real person with a real business. He told me that he keeps all his items in stock and doesn't drop ship. I had a problem with my payment. PayPal kept rejecting the sale. I was getting errors on his site and I sent him screenshots and he got it all figured out. He took the time to even call me and we visited on the phone for a little while. I highly recommend purchasing from him. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The Review: Well, right off the bat, the 40 mm stuffing tube was cracked lengthwise right out of the box. This should have been caught by QA at the factory. The machine was packaged wonderfully. Out of the box, the body of the machine has a grey protective film on it covering the stainless steel. When you see some sales photos of this machine and the body looks a dull grey, that is why. The grinding plates and the cutting blade are stainless steel. The power switch is on the back of the unit and has a forward and reverse. Reverse doesn't stay in reverse, but springs right back, like it should. Turning it on, you twist the switch and it stays on until you twist it back. Off position is in between forward and reverse. There is a pop out breaker next to the switch.

This grinder is heavy - very heavy. It's not just the power unit that's heavy. The head and auger are very heavy as well. The auger and head unit are both cast stainless. They appear to be cast iron but I have been told that they indeed are stainless. It's the first time I've ever dealt with unfinished stainless like this. The casting on my head unit had some spots inside of it where the metal didn't cast well and left a couple of little pockets. I will have to keep that in mind when cleaning it as that's a good place for meat to hide and bacteria to grow. The unit assembles easily. The metal pan that sits on top of the unit is stainless steel and is much thinner than I would have expected. They even make slight bends in the metal to help strengthen it. Why wouldn't you just go with a heavier guage steel in the first place and be done with it? The ring where the pan sits atop the head unit is sharp. The edges around the pan are also sharper than I'd like. I plan on taking some emery cloth to it and dulling it down some. There are also a couple of sharp areas on the body, at the front of the unit above the feet. Hopefully I can do a video later and show this.

We washed the machine up. It smelled of household oil which we assume they spray the parts with to keep them from rusting while in storage and transit. After we cleaned it up, we ran a little over 20# of pork Boston butt through the machine. The speed at which this machine grinds is amazing. We used the medium grind plate and ran the meat through twice. It took less than 15 minutes to double grind this amount of meat.You'll spend more time cutting and cleaning than you will grinding, which is why we bought this in the first place.

Just a minute or two into the second grind, the machine started making a tremendous rattling noise. I contacted Weston about this and they are currently looking into it. They are also sending out a replacement stuffer to replace the cracked one. When you open the box, you see a big red piece of paper that tells you that if you have any problems, not to contact the seller, but Weston directly. When you call the number, you get an American who speaks English on the other end of the line. You get a name and contact information for this person too. It's not often that you find customer service like this today. From what I've read, Weston stands behind their products and I assume they'll make it right in this case too, or I'll write about it if they don't! I'm not even sure if that rattle is normal or not. It didn't rattle like that out of the box. I'm hoping it's something simple. Otherwise, the machine is quiet.

The Good: It grinds fast. It's a very heavy machine. It seems well built for a Chinese made item. One Stop Jerky Shop is an excellent seller. Weston has a good responsive customer service department and they seem to stand behind their product.

The Bad: The 40MM stuffing funnel was cracked right out of the box. Nothing in the box moved or shifted. It was in the center of the box so it's impossible that it was damaged in transit. It should have been caught at the factory. The motor started rattling just minutes into the grind. The pan that sits on top of the grinder is too thin. The sharp edges need to be sanded more.

Would I recommend it? Yes.

Further thoughts about the TIR rating system......

     As I have been working with this new system to rate tornados, I came across a small dilemma; one I should have anticipated. When we went from the F system to the EF system, wind speeds were adjusted. The whole reason for the switch to the EF system had to do with studies that showed that it took far less wind speed to cause a certain degree of damage. In order to keep apples to apples, they made the EF system where the damage apparent in an F4 was the same as the damage done by an EF4, although the wind speed estimate was different. For my TIR system to work, I need an accurate wind speed, even if estimated. The problem I am running into is that the wind speeds from F scale rated tornados haven't been readjusted.
     The 1999 OKC tornado isn't a problem as that tornado was measured with a Doppler Radar and that is acceptable in my TIR rating. However, as I was attempting to get a TIR rating on the Hallum tornado, I realized that they didn't have a definitive wind speed rating. All they said was that it was an F-4, and that it was only in small pockets. Most of the damage was F-3 or less. In this instance, I would be inclined to say this tornado was on the lower end of the F-4 scale and I would "guesstimate" a wind speed rating. However, when you look at the wind speeds of an F-4 tornado, you notice that the F-4 range is now into the current EF-5 range. That makes the Hallum tornado appear stronger than many EF-5 tornados when you attempt to TIR rate it using F scale wind estimates.
     What I may have to do is just convert from F to EF scale, then "guesstimate" the wind speed rating since damage between F and EF scales are supposed to be relatively the same. If the Hallum tornado had minor F4 damage, then I assume it is safe to say that it had minor EF4 damage, and therefore we can make an estimated wind speed rating based upon this. Until someone goes through and reassesses these old F scale damage surveys and converts them to EF, it seems to be my only option unless there is other information available, like a Doppler reading.