My Mom sent me this picture, which I thought was pretty funny.

Brystmar made this pumpkin which is awesome. If you don't get it. You need to watch this youtube clip:

I just looked at the standings (views on blogs) and noticed that I'm in danger of being overtaken by iverson. Not good. If there's anything that motivates me to blog, it's keeping my blog towards the top. I remember the days when I was a top 3 viewed blog... Of course that was pre daut/cts/raptor/verneer. Oh well. At least I never let zimba get by me.

I've noticed a disturbing trend. I've seen several people wear jeans to the gym lately. I think its just ridiculous and frankly it makes me angry. I'm not sure what makes me more mad, people wearing jeans to workout or to golf. Both instances make the person look like a complete jackass.


I gotta go with the working out. Just awful.

I recently saw Burn after Reading and liked it a lot. I started to think about it and realized I really like every Coen brother movie I had ever seen. I decided to look them up on Wikipedia to see what movies I was missing. There were a few that stood out because I had heard of them, namely Miller's Crossing and Raising Arizona. Fargo, O brother where art though, No country for old men and BIG LEBOWSKI are all possibly in my top 10 favorite movies. Big Lebowski is a top 5 movie easy. Love it. I watched Miller's and Raising this week. I though Miller's was good, but it didn't do anything special. It was a typical gangster movie and, frankly, not as good as quite a few of the gangster movies I've seen. Raising Arizona on the other hand was great. It was funny with some great acting. I highly recommend it.

I've been downloading a lot of discographies lately. Two that stand out to me are Bob Marley and 2pac. I've always been a fan of both, but I never really ventured past their greatest hits. I'm glad I have lately, because they have some amazing songs that I wasn't familiar with. I can't get enough of either one of them right now. 2pac's album, Don Kulliminati, is probably the best rap album I've ever heard. Below is probably my favorite song on the album (I had never heard it until recently).

The funny thing is I'm the whitest kid you will ever see. I think I've gotta look like Michael from Office Space when I'm driving around in my 2001 Neon bumping 2pac. Come to think of it, I actually had an instance in my life not too long ago where almost the exact scene from office space played out. We were heading to the beach in my friend's car. He actually doesn't have his own car, but he borrows his parents cabrio:

There were 4 very white kids piled into this car. My friend also tends to listen to some hardcore rap. I don't know what the song was, but it wasn't something that even I would typically be listening to. We rolled up to a stop light and a car with 2 thuggish look black guys rolled up right next to us. They looked at us with almost a look of disgust. We couldn't do anything but laugh at how ridiculous we must have looked.

I saw Body of Lies last night. I thought it was very well done. Behind Batman, it's probably my favorite movie of 2008. It helps that DiCaprio and Crowe are probably my two favorite actors and I also tend to like Ridley Scott. Crowe's performance was great. Check it out.

wow, it's been awhile. honestly, my life has been trucking along with the typical stuff. I just feel like I haven't had anything interesting to blog about. At least nothing fresh. Part of the reason I haven't been bloggins is that I HATE the new look of the blogs. There is also some issues with the functionality. Fear not. I saw the mockups for the fix today and they look great. Look for massive changes in the next couple of weeks. I know these blogs seem like a setback, but when the look is fixed and the bugs are worked out they will be a ton better then our old blogs. I couldn't really believe all the people asking to go back to our old blogs, because frankly they weren't very good. Anyway, I'm sorry for the mess that has been our blog network for the past month or so. Hopefully the improvements to the rest of the site made up for it.

The election is in full swing. I'm torn on who I'm going to vote for, but that's neither here nor there. What I want to share with you is some revealing picks of Sarah Palin.

How can you not vote for her???? Okay, that's actually a model for Hustler magazine. Looks a lot like Palin though...

In other news, I got a pedicure the other day. Was one of the best things I've done in awhile. It was definitely strange sitting in there at 2pm on a Friday with all other women, but I don't regret it one bit. My toenails were all nasty/dirty from wearing sandals out to the bars all summer. My nails have never looked better. I'm considering going back for the mani/pedi combo.

I was gonna wait to post this video when the embedding was working, but I gotta come back with a bang. I suggest sparking one up before you watch this. It's a movie where dogs are the actors. Incredible and hilarious at the same time.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/9/It-s-an-old-fashioned-dog-party-573200.html">http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/9/It-s-an-old-fashioned-dog-party-573200.html">http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/9/It-s-an-old-fashioned-dog-party-573200.html

I'll be updating on a more regular basis going forward.

I've had a number of people ask me if I'm still in Asia. I've been back for about 2 weeks now. I don't blame them. I'm so far behind on my blogging. This post is meant to get me back into real time.

Two Sundays ago I attended probably the most entertaining sporting event I've ever been to. I was in attendance for the Bulls double OT victory against the Celtics. It was Game 4 and must win for the Bulls. They were down in the series 2-1. It looked like it was over at the end of regulation, but Ben Gordon nailed a deep 3 to tie the game. I dislike Ben Gordon a lot. The guy has no basketball IQ. He is only out for himself. I think he fits in terribly with the Bulls given the addition of Derrick "the fucking man" Rose. You mix Ben Gordon's selfishness with Vinny Del Negro's lack of coaching skills and you will see some downright disgusting basketball plays. Nothing pisses me off more than the patented Ben Gordon dribble around and hawk up a deep contested 3 at the end of a game. That being said, the guy can hit shots when he's on. He hit this shot and it was clutch as hell. The Bulls were finally able to pull it off at the end of the second OT. Rose put up a near triple double (missed by 1 rebound I believe) to match Rondo's triple double. Rondo absolutely sliced and diced the Bulls. I'm not too surprised because the Bulls as a whole don't play D and Rose definitely doesn't play D. Although, Rondo put up a triple double against Orlando last night so you gotta give the kid credit. I digress. If you didn't watch the Bulls - Celtics series you really missed out. It was one of the best playoff series in the history of the NBA.

The Bulls have a deal that when they score 100 points in a home game that you attended, you get a free big mac. I've been at a few games where this applied, but I had never cashed in on it. Well, thanks to double OT, the Bulls easily scored over 100. We decided this was our day to take advantage of the deal. Maybe we shouldn't have. We went to the McDonald's right next to Wrigley still decked out in Bulls gear. We ordered a few Big Macs along with some fries and drinks. When we presented the coupons, we ran into trouble. We explained the situation, but the man at the window was still very confused. He went to get his manager who was no less confused. We explained that we just arrived home from the Bulls game and the Bulls had scored over 100 in a thrilling double OT victory. He wasn't buying it. We presented our tickets. The problem was the tickets were bought before the date and time that the game was announced, so they said Game 4, date and time TBA. He insisted that the Big Mac coupon we presented was from Game 2. We explained that Game 2 was in Boston. "Noooo" he replied, "Game 1 was in Boston. Game 2 was in Chicago." We literally went back and forth on this point for about 5 minutes. He wouldn't give in. Eventually we started to get pissed and the conversation got heated. He could tell we were getting angry and that we weren't going to give up, so he finally gave in. He tore our Bulls tickets in half too. Why? I don't know. What if I had wanted it for a souvenir? This guy spent over 5 minutes trying to stop us from getting a $2 sandwich that we rightfully deserved. Not to mention that McDonald's has been running this promo for at least a few years. Gotta love McDonald's.

Julia and I went to the derby last weekend. I decided to do it up and go the fancy route. We stayed at the Brown hotel which is a pretty famous hotel that is old as hell - like 1900 or so. I'd say we were the youngest people there by about 20 years. It was a fun experience though. I also got to try their famous "hot brown" sandwich. Not only does it sound like something you'd do to degrade a woman in bed, but it tastes amazing. It consists of turkey, bacon, tomatoes and some kind of sauce on top of a few pieces of bread. Simple, but brilliant. It was great for my hangover. See below.



I promise you it tastes much better than it looks.

There were a ton of people who clearly had a ton of money staying at the Brown. It was funny because everyone at the hotel was so dressed up the entire weekend. Besides when we went to the race I was wearing jeans. I definitely looked out of place. We saw a bunch of Bentley's and Rolls parked outside. We got a picture in front of one of them.



We were running kind of late on race day. We had been out drinking the night before and got a slow start to the day. It didn't help that I had to go pick up the tickets. I burned about 45 minutes doing that. We also had to eat. That's when the hot brown entered into my life. When we were finally ready to leave there weren't any cabs hanging around anymore. There were, however, unmarked police cars. Apparently some huge baller had the police on retainer. They would escort his Bentley stretch limo with a police car in front and one behind. After they dropped him off, they were hanging around the hotel and taking people for $50 a trip. I figure a cab would have cost about $40, so it was a very good deal. We obviously jumped at the opportunity. Our police officer driver turned on his lights and hit the gas. We knew we'd be in for a fun ride when on the first corner a car didn't slow down to let him out and he yelled out a few curses and honked his horn. He probably averaged about 70 mph on the way there. The speed limits on the streets we were on probably averaged about 35 mph. We blew through numerous red lights. When we got to the long line of traffic at Churchill downs, he just drove up the wrong side of the street. He then drove in through the gates and dropped us off literally 5 feet from where you walk in. It was great. Julia had never been in a cop car before. For me, it was much more enjoyable than the last time I was in the back of a cop car.

I got seats that were on the second deck but front row. I had been inquiring about seats for a few months, but I decided I'd wait unto the last minute to buy them because of the economy. I figured I could get a good deal. I paid about 1/3 of what I would have paid a few months earlier. Not bad. I had never been to a race before so I wasn't really sure what to expect with the seats. To be honest, I expected them to be like seats at any normal stadium. The way they actually worked was there was a "box" area that had room for 6 folding chairs. I liked that because we got to meet 4 other people that were in the box with us. They were all really nice people.

Here are a few pictures of our view and some zoomed in horse pictures.











If you aren't familiar with the Derby, they run a new race every 45 minutes or so. It provides you with a lot of gambling opportunities. I don't know shit about horse racing, so I naturally lost everything I took with me to gamble, but I half expected that to happen. It was a blast anyway. Everyone is there to put down some drinks as well. We started drinking as soon as we got there and hit it pretty hard. Mint Julips are terrible by the way. After our first Julip, we stuck to beer.

The main race was pretty amazing to watch. I said that I don't know shit about horse racing, but I've watched a decent amount of horse races in my day. I've never seen anything like what happened in the derby. The horse that won just took off. It cut across like 4 horses and then just put a burst on. Call it an old school Iverson crossover if you will. It was like the horse had a rocket attached to it's back or something. It made everyone else look slow as hell. The craziest part was that he was a 50-1 shot to win. Here is a shot of him burning the others down the stretch.



I would bet good money that my neon was the only neon to ever have been parked in the Brown hotel parking lot. I thought it looked pretty funny sitting out front. I'm somewhat pissed that there were average cars parked around it. This picture would have been amazing if it was sandwiched between a Rolls and a Bentley. Long live the neon!

This is great stuff.

Once I got over the willies from the mold and got my head straight, I decided not to burn the car. Ok, I was never really going to burn the car. I did like the idea of driving it to the south side, leaving the keys in the car and running away as fast as possible. It would probably take all of 2 minutes to have it get stolen. That's if I didn't get killed for being the most gringo mother fucker around.

I've spent a lot of time in the last week working to remedy this problem. It turned out that there was a leak in a back taillight that was allowing water to get in at an alarming rate. What really sucks is I spent an entire afternoon shamwowing the shit out of my car and demolding it. The next day was when I took it into the shop. They had to use a hose to determine where the leak was. It was pretty logical really, but I hadn't thought that far ahead. My car was again filled with water. That meant I had to shamwow the shit out of it again. I did learn a lot about ripping up the interior of a car. It was easier than I thought it would be. Today is basically the end of the saga. The car is dry again and the leak is fixed. I took my car in to get detailed today. It should be really damn clean now. I'm pretty pumped to see it.

We have a Cardrunners NCAA bracket that we have setup. It's free if you want to join it. You can also join the sidebet pool if you want to get some money on the line. If you win, you get a free lesson from nutte or citizenwind. Pretty cool stuff. We're also giving away some gear and random other stuff.

I have a ton of traveling coming up and the preparation has been keeping me really busy. Next week I'm going to Mexico for a week. It's Julia's spring break so it was a good time to travel. We are going to Maya Riviera. It's the area with all of the Mayan ruins. I've always wanted to see those, so I'm pretty excited about that.

In two weeks I'm going to Asia with Spud, Irockhoes, and Mr. Plastic. Checking out Asia is something I've been trying to do for a couple of years. It takes a lot of work to organize. We are mostly done with the legwork now, so that feels good. We're going to check out Tokyo, Hong Kong and Thailand (Phuket and Bangkok). Any suggestions on things to do is appreciated. We're going to be in each place for 4 or 5 nights so we should have plenty of time to do things. One question I have is about Sushi. Is it safe to eat sushi in Tokyo? I was advised not to, but fuck that. I love sushi and want to eat a lot of it while I'm there.

Good times. Bad times. I've had them both over the last few days. When I say bad times, I'm mostly referring to the sub zero temperatures. Right now its 1 out and that's a noticeable improvement from yesterday.



The low last night was -15. That's not talking wind chill. Its brutal! I avoided leaving the house until about 6pm yesterday which helped, but I couldn't keep my apartment warm. When I finally did leave, it was like a gut punch. I had to dig out my car again and I about lost my fingers. I had to turn on our stove and hold my hands over it for 5 minutes when I got back inside. Speaking of digging out cars, here is a picture from earlier in the week.



Goddamn that's a good looking car. Luckily my car wasn't this buried yesterday, because it took me at least 30 minutes to dig it out from this. The problem is I have to shovel the entire area behind the car too. I've never been one for shoveling. If I can get out of my alley, my car does perfectly fine. It's not always a lock to get out of the alley though.

My brother and I went to the Bulls game last night. I was really excited to get an up close look at Lebron. Lebron has been the anchor of my fantasy team the last 2 years, so I fucking love the guy. Not to mention he is incredibly exciting to watch. I was also looking forward to getting an closer look at Rose's speed. The only thing that worried me was the game being a complete blowout. After the first quarter it was looking as though that was what it was going to be. The Bulls were down 15 right away and looking like their typical selves. That didn't last too long though. The Bulls started to turn it on and ended up playing a great game. It went to overtime when Derrick Rose drove down the court, got fouled and made both his free throws to tie the game. Lebron then had about 5 seconds to win, but the Bulls were able to stop him. Lebron didn't play a great game and he still almost put up a triple double. Guy's a beast. Bulls won in overtime. I was loving it.



That's me and my bro.



Here is the view from our seats. It was pretty badass. I got to be within 10 feet from Lebron a number of times and I really liked that.



Benny the Bull dressed up in a purple suit to mock Craig Sager. I liked that. Here is a pic of Benny. I actually got Craig to point and wink at me. He was walking by on the court during a timeout and I yelled, "Yo, Craig" and gave him a fist pump. He smiled, pointed his mic at me and winked. I thought that was pretty cool.

All in all, getting the good seats was definitely worth it. It was just awesome being so close to the guys on the court. You can see how huge they are, how quick, how strong. It's just a lot more impressive when you can basically touch the guys. You can also hear their trash talk. The one thing I would say though is that I would probably either go for court side seats or go back a few rows so that you're higher up. I think that's the way to get the best view. I'm definitely gonna buy some court side seats in the near future. I'm sure I can get them at a reasonable price if they are playing someone shitty. That's one of the advantages to the Bulls sucking. You know that shitty teams will play them close (ie. I almost bought court side to OKC last week and they ended up beating the Bulls).

I got into a bit of a scuff on my way out. My car was frozen over (remember -30 degree wind chill). I didn't want to sit in my frozen car so I decided to pray for guidance and start driving with very minimal visibility. It didn't take long for that to go wrong. As I was backing out of my spot, I heard a nice CRACK! I had just run into the parked car behind me. I didn't hit it too hard, but it made a loud sound. I was pretty sure no damage had been done (that's what bumpers are for, right?), I drive a neon, and it was fucking freezing outside, so I didn't stop to investigate. About 10 seconds later I had an angry dude banging on my window. I couldn't see out my window, nor would it roll down because it was frozen, so I had to open my door. It was a big dude who was not happy. He was yelling at me about how I had just hit his car and he was pissed that I didn't stop. I had to back up my car, get out of the line to leave the parking lot and find a place to park momentarily. By the time I did that and got over to his car, he realized it was not his car I hit but the car next to him. I pointed out how the car next to him didn't have any damage and he said, "your car probably has damage." I still don't know if it does, because I haven't looked. I just replied, "it's a fucking neon, man." With that I walked away.

My roommate got a discount on Live Lobsters for some reason and decided that would be his Christmas gift to everyone he knew. He gave everyone in his family a live lobster and them for everyone he lived with. I thought it was a strange gift, but I liked it. The lobsters came in a styrofoam container and were definitely still alive. He got bread, soup, and corn to go with it. We had a feast. It wasn't cheap, but it was fun and very delicious. Always nice to do something different. They recommended we massage the lobsters before we brutally killed them by boiling to death. I found that funny for several reasons, one of which being I didn't think petting their shell would do anything. I was wrong. They loved it. At least I was able to deliver some pleasure before I murdered him.

My friend, Higgins - yes I hang out with a kid name Higgins - posted this in our FFL forum. It's titled Goat Screaming Like a Man. Hilarious.

He also posted this video which is pretty damn good as well. It's John Tesh rocking out the roundball rock. If you're a NBA fan, you have to check it out.

We had a video meeting yesterday discussing some upcoming video series. There are some really cool ssplo and msplo things in the works, so I'm going to hold off on my moving up series for the time being. Things have gotten pretty hectic with CR stuff and I'm just not feeling PLO atm. It'll be better to take a break.

One of the main things that got me off PLO was MasterLJ coming into the office last week. I've been so down on NLHE for so long, but sitting down and talking strategy with an excellent player like him gave me the itch back. The only difference is that I don't have much desire to play HU. HU is a lot about game selection. I've always been terrible about game selection and that's one of the reasons I gravitated to PLO recently (most of the games are pretty damn good). Luckily, most of the FR nlhe games tend to be pretty damn good as well.

The plan is to grind out some solid money at FRnlhe. I need to get some solid wins under my belt after my disgusting downswing with PLO. I think it will help my peace of mind and game. So far, I've been doing well in 2/4 FR nlhe and I'm up 7 buyins over 4k hands.

I got a chance to hear a bunch of the tracks on the new The Game album. I think it's a classic The Game album with some great tracks. I shared My Life a few weeks back. I still love that song. I'm hard pressed to think of a verse in recent music as good as the first verse in that song. This song is tight as hell too. It loses some in the edit, but you get the idea. If you like rap, definitely get this album when it comes out next week.

People seemed to get pretty defensive of Barack in my last post. Maybe I'm just around it more because of the type of people I hang out with (young people who don't know shit about politics), but I just encounter tons of people who are voting for Barack for no particular reason. I think Barack is very impressive both as a person and when you look at what he's accomplished in such a short period (makes me think of Tommy Carcetti with his plans to hop from Mayor to the Governor to Pres haha).