The Deuce Fo’

I’ve been just crushing worklife, hitting the gym, and trying to get in some other stuff here and there. Last time I was leaving off right before Tim Tebow, The Broncos, and The Almighty were taking on the Patriots with a snowball’s chance in hell (+13.5) and since then, they have fail miserably and everyone forgot about them until next season… The 49ers have also fallen, as have the Packers and Ravens… Leaving us a SUPERBOWL matchup!

This means that it’s time for the annual Poconos Superbowl Weekend Extravaganza!!  Every year my college buddies and their significant others rent out a bigass house somewhere in the Poconos that looks something like this:

Or something similar...

and have a giant Super Bowl weekend party/gourmet food/hot tub/mafia/skunnel/gambol weekend. It’s a treat every year and I love getting to see everyone again, win a bunch of money off of them all, indulge in all of the delicious foods that are prepared and maybe even squeeze in some time to watch some football.

The other thing that I’ve really been getting into lately has been the NBA. I used to like the NBA a long time ago growing up, even though the Nuggets were pretty bad back then and all we had was Mutumbo, I remember watching random basketball games that were on TV because we would always play basketball at recess. I saw the game where the 8-seed Nuggets knocked off the 1-seed Sonics in overtime (vs current Nuggets coach George Karl).

That moment where Mutombo is laying on his back holding the ball over his head, I thought was so cool. I didn’t even realize the gravity of the situation and how big of an upset it was. I lost a lot of the enthusiasm for the sport when I went to middle school as I didn’t really play basketball anymore and they had the lockout shortened season right around then also. I’m actually glad that there is a season this year; a lot of people don’t care about the NBA until the playoffs, but I love that there are so many games on. It’s obviously going to be rougher on the teams since they are playing so many games on a shortened schedule, but as a fan it’s great!

Galo!

I can’t help but smile seeing what a turnaround the Nuggets have had in the last decade by lucking out and getting to draft Melo instead another Nikolaz Tskitishvili, and then years later, instead of losing him to free agency like Cleveland and Lebron, they trade him and get a lot of awesome talent in return. I love where we are at right now; no superstar, team basketball, lots of points, really fun to watch. I can’t wait to go to more games this season.

I am going to find a way to add the following to the Arya painting in the Art Section: Weese. Dunsen. Chiswyck. Polliver. Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler. The Hound. Ser Gregor. Ser Armory. Ser Ilyn. Ser Meryn. King Joffrey. Queen Cersei. Valar Morghulis.

That’s all I’ve got for now!

-J

Things are certainly amiss as I am back blogging instead of slacking off or something; it must be Friday the 13th!

I recently got a chance to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and was very impressed. Knowing nothing other than that it was based on a series of books that are/were somewhat popular, I was very intrigued by the story and thought that Fincher did a very good job with it. Great, now I might have to read these books as well… Anyways, I’d recommend seeing it; best movie that I’ve seen in the theaters in a long time.

I’ve been to the gym twice the week so far and am going again tonight which is good. The hardest part about going to the gym BY FAR is the actual “going” part. Once I’m there, it’s easy to get to work get my shit done and get out. I envision hours of my time gone, but usually I’m finished up and done in 45min-1hr. Not bad at all imo.

Quinoa!

It’s really important to eat right after you get done with your workout, so I’ve been cooking up some tasty dishes for dinners as well. Last night I made this recipe and added in some grilled chicken and some Sriracha hot sauce. It was amazing and super healthy. I found this recipe through www.reddit.com/r/fitmeals, a pretty neat subreddit for eating well.

I’ve actually found a lot of sweet stuff on reddit, I never really knew that there was much more than just the front page on there, but there’s a subreddit for everything it seems like. The usual internet humor stuff is pretty cool, but stuff like /r/malefashionadvice, /r/scotch, /r/wine, /r/Denver are all pretty useful. There’s definitely a “seedy underbelly” of it too, but you get to pick and choose which sections you subscribe to.  Neato!

Timmy Teebs

Since the Broncos have already won a playoff game, this season is considered a success in my book, but seeing as how they are still alive and no one in Denver has talked about anything else all week, I’ll add to it and say that I’d like to see my boy Timmy at least play well so that we can hopefully not talk about him so much next year. I can’t wait to get my Tebow Jersey to rock for the Poconos Super Bowl weekend this year. It is an exciting weekend for daily fantasy sports as well. If you haven’t already get in on Draftday where you can draft a team for just this weekend or in the case of other sports like the NBA or NHL, you can draft a team just for the night.

And finally, I saw this and really liked it, so I figured I’d post it here:

Hemingway

That’s all for now!

-J

January in Denver

I snapped this picture this afternoon driving past Wash Park. There’s just something about those days where they sky is that white-grey, and the snow is coming down lightly and it’s just starting to stick… Welcome to January!

So, same old, same old. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I think that they are kind of junk. You shouldn’t need an arbitrary day change to get your ass in gear to change the things that you want to change about your life… I guess it looks like I’m about to make some anyways. This actually is more based on my Two-Eyed Joe getting his blog in gear and reminding me what a bag I have been over this past year or so. Check his out at thepiblogs.com. Back when I first started the Deuce Fo’, I really get excited about blogging and while that hasn’t really changed, there’s been varying stages of being too busy to remember to write some of it down, and not having enough going on in my life to feel like blogging about it. For a while this past year, things got really shaken up and a lot of my long term goals were placed on hold. The short term was also very shaken up and I was pretty unsure about even some basic life stuff. I had no idea where I would be right now and even though it’s very different than where I thought that I would be a year ago, I’m very pleased with how things have turned out and where I am at.

So it’s time to get those short term and long term goals back on track… I updated the Lists section of The Deuce Fo’ and plan on keeping those in check on a regular basis.

I am also going to be updating the Books and Art sections with some books that I (remember) read(ing) and after having completed some more work on that dastardly Mad Men piece, I have found my next project, I think…. Arya Stark.

Arya Stark

This is kind of a big leap because through my entire art “career” I’ve always had trouble drawing people. If you draw a flower and it almost looks like a flower, but is a little misproportioned or lumpy, it looks like a flower or a lumpy flower which people are ok with, but if you draw a person, specifically a face of a person, in a way that makes them look lumpy, then people see a lumpy face. If people see a lumpyhead in this case, that wouldn’t be the worst thing given the subject matter, but still I want it to look nice. I have a list of a couple of other project that I want to do that I’ll be adding to the Art section as well. I also plan to get good at photo shop so that I can have a way of expressing some of these ideas digitally.

As for Books, I am 3/5th the way through A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, better known as the Game of Thrones series named after the first book and the HBO series, witches awesome! I’m on A Feast for Crows which is the forth book out of the five that have been released already. I’m blanking on other books that I’ve read recently, aside from rereading the Dark Tower series with my girlfriend although after the first two books she’s off reading it on her own, but that’s great too! Like an old man, I feel like I need to reread the books that I’ve already read t get a fresh “feel” for them as well as see how they relate to me now compared to when I read them. ADVICE: To anyone out there, you should reread the things that you read  when you were younger. They will be different to you now, despite the words never changing. That’s the magic of books, the words never change, but the readers do. The first time that I read the Gunslinger, I was in 7th grade, and I read it in roughly a day. I read it again in 2007 over the course of a couple days before giving it to a friend to read. I really want to go back and read the Stainless Steel Rat series, something that I loved in 5th grade, and I think that I’ll add that to the list!

The Dark Tower

I have more things to ramble about, but that is for another night, I’ll say Tuesday night or sooner.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope that things are well for everyone. The Deuce Fo’ is back. There’s a lot that I want to say, and I am going to be making the time to say it. Bon Chance!

-J

As you can tell by the changes in the site banner recently (go to the damn site you lazy RSS readers!), Fall is in the air! For some reason there just always seems to be more stuff going on in the fall. More stuff means more things worth writing about and the long lazy days of summer beginning to wane means that I’m going to quit being a bag of shit and get back on the train with the Deuce Fo’. Good!

Speaking of winter coming… Game of Thrones aka A Song of Ice and Fire is sa-weeeeeeeet! After watching the HBO series, I have started reading the series and am about halfway through the second book. HBO did a great job and I’d recommend watching and/or reading. My only problem is that I will probably power through all of the books before the 2nd season comes out… #99problems. I think that I like how twisted and intertwined the plot lines become the most, and I also really like the medieval aspect of it all with the houses and their sigils. Dire wolves 4 life.

Quick summary on the rest of current/summer TV:
Entourage: Decent season but a very rushed (still good though) ending.
True Blood: Crazy, not in a good way. I’m still watching, but I’m not sure why.
Breaking Bad: Best show on TV right now.
It’s Always Sunny: Awesome. The Gang is back! I actually went to a Sunny only trivia night at a brewery here in the Denver area recently and had an absolute blast, despite only getting about half of the questions right.
Boardwalk Empire: So pumped that this is back too. Things are shaping up for all kinds of craziness (the good kind). I await with open eyeballs.

The coming of fall also means the coming of football! 

Sadly the Broncos are going to be even more lackluster than usual, so I’m much more excited for fantasy purposes. Something just feels great about having games on all day on Sunday and a slight chill in the air. My boy James Starks didn’t quite live up to expectations last week and I tried to get him in every league that I’m in this year as a pretty solid sleeper, so hopefully he turns things around and flips into beast mode!

I would like to congratulate my kid brother who is finally almost all growsed up and just started his freshman year at Portland State University. I wish him the best and hope that he stays out of trouble, gets into trouble, and doesn’t burn the dormroom down. Either way I’m sure that he’l l love it. I’ve heard great things about the city of Portland and I hope that he explores it all so that he can show me the cool shit when I get out there to visit him. Congrats bro!

Finally, I figured this post wouldn’t be complete without a “fatty’s gotta get to the gym” as I’ve actually been back in the gym (it’s been a while) but I seriously feel amazing. This is obviously in large part to my boy Nate Green and his wonderful workout plans, motivation, and general kickass attitude towards life. I find that when I’m getting into the gym regularly, taking my vitamins (those huge ones!), and eating well, I just feel amazing! Some pretty major things in my life were kind of thrown off kilter and it feels great to just get back into doing the things that make me feel good. That actually includes writing this blog, and I’ve found that even if it’s something as mundane as writing about TV shows I watch, I enjoy doing it.

So with that in mind, I’ll be posting again in the not so distant future….

-J

If you don’t use it you lose it. Turns out that I can still read somehow… I am most of the way through Chuck Klosterman’s Eating the Dinosaur and am as usual pleasantly surprised by his style and content.  I used to admire authors that could “write the way that I wished I could write,” but that doesn’t even do Klosterman justice. I could never see myself writing the way he does, because 1.) I’ll never be that talented and 2.) his subject matter (pop culture) is often stuff that I can’t really ever tackle in an meaningful way. It doesn’t really translate well to other topics.

His books are also interesting because they aren’t transient like many other pop culture books, they are interesting and instantly relevant when they are first released, but they also have this bizarrre staying power  even years afterwards because he notices and cares about the past events often as much as he does about the present events when he’s writing it! That might not make sense. Oh well.

At the same time, things don’t always turn out the way that we imagine them in the present.  Odd that while I read the chapter about football and it’s constant evolution, there may not be a season next year due to the lockout. Also odd to think that had I gotten to this book when I’d planned to (some time in 2009), I’d have a very different experience than the one I’m having now. Even if I had read it now, there’s only a small chance that I’d reflect back on when I had read it and relate it to the events of the present. Weird.

In other news… It’s beginning to get really nice again! Time to love up on that beautiful Colorado outdoorsiness!

I may moving to this area soon, but as it get’s nicer out it’s time to really get out more. I’ve been kind of a bum trapped indoors, so time to turn that around!

That’s all I have for now, best of luck all!

-J

Last Sunday night, this man reduced me to tears. In a failed attempt to get tickets months ahead of time I went for the day-of option, and managed to get three reasonably priced seats in the lower orchestra section of the Paramount Theater. It was here the Louis CK turned me into a laughing, keeled over, ball of tears. It was so fucking good. Side note! I also saw Tony Hawk there as we were entering the theater, I guess he was in town and got tickets. I was a bit starstruck, but managed to contain myself and it made the night that much better.

Following along on that kick, I was able to get tickets to Daniel Tosh’s 1st show here in Denver, mid-January. I feel that the live comedy train is one that I missed a long time ago and am finally getting around to rectifying that. I love seeing the specials, DVDs, youtube clips, etc… but when you’re there! There becomes this vibe with the really good ones where they can just say anything and it’s unbelievably funny and even when you think back on it, it’s still funny! That’s when they’ve got ya!

So quick life update. Thanks to a little nudging from Travis Steffan’s “Shuffle and Flow” on DC, I am taking my health a little more seriously in order to boost my mental performance. While I’ve always eaten on the healthier end of the spectrum, I am really looking out for what I’m eating and cooking. I’m also eating breakfast everyday–a longstanding fault of mine. I now take vitamins that are look like they are intended for a horse; they’re HUGE. I am back into gym (except I’m actually sidelined until next week with what appears to be a pinched nerve in my left arm . I am drinking boatloads of water, taking both whey and casein protiens, and I am (trying to) get great sleep every night.

All of these things combined have allowed me to be more focused, and for longer periods of time. I really can feel a difference in my mood, energy levels, alertness, and focus.

With all that said, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so I’m cooking a full on Thanksgiving dinner for our close friends this weekend. So I’m sure that there will be some overeating and then back to the gym Monday…

Currently reading: Fooled by Randomness by Taleb.

Books finished since last update: Homicide by David Simon (BEASTLY I think this clocked in at ~650 pages), SuperFreakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, and World War Z by Max Brooks (ZOMBIES ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!).

The world cup is actually pretty friggin’ sweet.

Lots of cool action going on with it and I’m excited to be seeing a lot of these games even if most of them are in the early mornings.

Today was a pretty interesting day with the US rallying to a draw and what should have been a go-ahead goal very late that was disallowed because of ????????????? no knows… England also ended in a draw with Algeria, meaning that the US, Slovenia, and England all control their own destiny, while Algeria can still advance but that depends on the other outcomes. Things were looking pretty grim  at halftime, but all we need to do is quit moping about and put some goals in the back of the net.

There have been some other pretty disappointing performances and upsets as well. France is basically out. Spain lost their first game to the Swiss, Germany dropped one to Serbia, Portugal and Ivory Coast ended in a 0-0 draw.

Overall, I have a lot of picks going on:

Rando drawn from a hat teams: Cameroon, Mexico, England, Slovenia.  Have to win or be runners up.

Drafted teams: Germany, France (duff), Slovakia, Honduras. Get points for making it out of the group stage and each successive round afterwards. Also a small bonus for worst goal differential.

Bracket: Picked Brazil to win it all. Works like March madness, still unclear how bad mine is shaping up yet.

And the most interesting one is a league where you have to pick the scores to every match, pick the group winners, the highest goal scorer, the runner up and the champion.  On the match scores, 4 points for correct winner and score, 3 points for correct winner and margin of victory, 2 pts for correct winner (or guessing draw but not the right score).

I’m currently in 2nd place out of 18 people, luckboxed most of it. I’ve got no hope with the group winners because I picked basically the same as everyone else so no edge to be gained there.

Anyways, a lot of games left to be played and should be exciting no matter what happens. I really can’t wait til we get out of the group stage so that there will no longer be any draws.

Til next time….

-J

(Let me preface this with the fact that this post is entirely about LOST. If you don’t watch it or haven’t finished it , there’s not a lot else going on here so you might want to skip it and come back when you are done. You can still read it as there aren’t any outright spoilers, but you might not find it very interesting. Also, you SHOULD watch it, because it’s awesome. That’s all…)

So it’s officially over.

I’ve taken a few days to digest it all and what a long strange trip it’s been….My lady still has a lot to get through, but it’s actually been a really cool experience seeing some of the previous episodes from seasons past and how they relate back to what was happening for me while the show was reaching the finale. I think that I could have delved a lot deeper into the whole LOST universe than I did and I am still really pleased about my overall experience, hopefully she gets the whole shebang from the beginning (middle).

There was a really cool interview with Carlton Cuse (EP) a few weeks before the finale: Very sweet interview (audio) with spoilers up to 5/14/10.

“In television, the premise is much less important than the execution of the premise. “ -Carlton Cuse

Overall I typed up a good amount of my thoughts ont he finale, but it ended up me just mostly defending how I felt about it and telling people that didn’t like it that they were idiots. So I gave up on it. All that I can say is that I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed the entire series and am not only content, but actually fully pleased with how the creators decided to wrap it up.

LOST is so different than other television shows in many regards, but one of the most curious is the creators’ interactions with the fan community. No other show really gets that kind of direct interaction with people that are forging the show’s direction. That’s why I think that so many people felt “owed” something by the conclusion of the series. The fact that it uses the “what’s inside the box” trick/gimmick so often is part of why many people feel so driven for answers; that’s why we love it! However, as any small child that has awaited desperately or Christmas morning or a similar highly anticipated event, there’s a lot more fun in the actual mystery of something than there is in the answer. So are there still loose ends? Kinda… but not really. Everything that really mattered was ironed out and I’m pleased by that. So as Chuck Klosterman pointed out, it’s strange that the fan base feels owed anything at all. Cuse and Lindelof create the program as best they can, we merely get to watch it. It’s funny that we don’t feel that the writers of the Office OWE us anything, but those of LOST do. At the end of the day it’s just a show.

But at the same time it’s not, it’s more than that. Part of why it was so awesome is that it brought a lot of people together who were all in the same situation of being “in the dark”. Crazy theories, fan art, sweet t-shirts, camaraderie, it was a great shared experience.  For these things and more you should check out fuckyeahlost.com (A LOT OF SPOILERS), because it has some of the coolest lost stuff that I could have ever imagined.

Overall, I think that Doc Jensen’s posts on the finale (AGAIN OBV SPOILERS, meaning that if you’re my girlfriend or anyone else that hasn’t finished all of LOST don’t read them!!!), one and two, pretty accurately reflect a lot of my feelings about the show. There is also this post which has been floating around that spells things out pretty clearly for anyone that is still a bit confused.

A real post is coming soon, but until then…

Thanks 2EJ for the sweet song.

That’s right, summer is actually just about to get kicked off here. I guess that that would actually mean that it’s just Spring. In the process of making some changes around the site (Tag Cloud in the right margin ——>) I discovered that similar to how I write, read, paint, etc…  when I have my camera, I blog a lot more when the weather gets warmer.  Or maybe I just didn’t have my camera over the winter. But whatever… I am pumped !

As I was reflecting on some of these old posts, I came across the one that said that I was going to finish 5 pieces of art this year. HA! I haven’t even messed with the Mad Men piece I’ve had for at least 4 months… But I actually think that a lot of that had to do with the fact that I didn’t know what I was going to do next. This is probably actually a theme of my life, who knows? But I had a minor brainstorming session and came up with some great ideas for some new pieces.  This should serve as some sort of impetus to get me back. I am going to toy around with these ideas and then post the concepts in on the ART page and actually provide a little bit of info on there other than just a few pretty pictures.

So as promised last time, details from the dinner party. What dinner party?! Good question actually, let me expand on that.  So last Saturday, my friend Gabe was kind enough to invite me over to his place to experience one of his gourmet meals that he likes to make from time to time. This happened to be a 5 course meal and I really think that he did an excellent job with it. The hors d’oeurves were light, delicious, and included some bread that he made himself.¹ For a summary of the meal with recipes check out his post here: http://evella.us/?p=552 outlining the entire dinner. I have to say that while everything was honestly amazing, the things that really stood out were the Marscapone as part of the duck salad, the olive bread, the duck itself, the earthiness of the Napoleon, and the desert was really well put together.

Here are my pics of the meal:

Lastly, I had a funny story that I came across the other day:

We were renting a car at Hertz and the guy kept on trying to sell me the Damage waiver, I declined stating that my CC covered it, he went on and about how he was the manager of the Hertz and it wouldn’t cover this particular car because it was a luxury car. I said okay thats fine, I still don’t want the damage waiver.

He basically wasn’t taking no for an answer telling us what a smart move it was getting the damage waiver blah blah blah, it must have went on for like 15 mins I had had enough I looked over at the other rental agencies and they all had a line so I resigned myself to getting the damage waiver and getting out of the airport.

The day I was returning the car I saw the manager dude outside in the lot and for whatever reason I decided to scrape the entire side of the car along a stone pillar while waving hello. I realize that the damage didn’t didn’t come out of his pocket, but I just couldn’t resist. As I exited the car and signed the return receipt I told him that he was right the Damage waiver was the nuts and I was glad he talked me into it.

I can’t rent from hertz anymore.

I was going to talk about the playoffs, but all I have to say is that the Nuggs had better turn this shit around.

-J

Russians. ☭ Maybe Ukrainians? I don’t know but they like the site I guess. I suspect that they are just a bunch of spambots, but they are taking a very interesting approach if they are. Instead of leaving me links for where to get 0nl1n3 dru9z & p1ll5 or g4mb000001 in their 0nl1n3 c45in0, they just leave seemingly innocent not necessarily irrelevant (but not necessarily relevant either) comments that get autospamfiltered out. Well comrades! This is your day to shine! (If somehow you guys are real, leave comments in English and they might get published!)

So here’s what they have to say in order of first to last:

Submitted on 2010/04/12 at 11:11am - Побольше бы таких тем! – We have no order!

Submitted on 2010/04/12 at 5:13pm - потрясающие идеи…нам перенять бы …великолепно. - awesome idea … we would learn … great.

Submitted on 2010/04/13 at 12:53am -Это должно быть в цитатнике – This should be in quotations

Submitted on 2010/04/13 at 6:25am -“Блог в ридер однозначно” – “Blog of the reader clearly”

Submitted on 2010/04/13 at 12:14pm -Автор, а вы из какого города ? – The author, and you’re out of town?

Submitted on 2010/04/13 at 5:56pm -Классно всё: и картинка ,и информация – Cool all: the picture and information

Submitted on 2010/04/13 at 11:06pm -круто..взяла почти все)) – cool .. took almost all))

Submitted on 2010/04/14 at 8:27am - “Очень познавательно” - “Very informative”

Submitted on 2010/04/14 at 2:37pm - Вот решил вам немного помочь и послал этот пост в социальные закладки. Очень надеюсь ваш рейтинг возрастет. – Here you decided to help a bit, and sent this post in social bookmarking. I hope your ranking will increase.

Submitted on 2010/04/14 at 8:40pm - Шикарно, возьму в дневник – Elegant, take in a diary

Submitted on 2010/04/15 at 2:44am – И правда креатив…супер! -And really creative … super!

Submitted on 2010/04/15 at 7:22am – Благодарю ! Статья интересная. - Thank you! The article is interesting.

(since I started the first draft there have been about 15 more of them…)

So it’s not like this guy/these guys are malicious (at least not yet) but it does seem weird that they are all Russian, all different email addresses, and all the same Latvian IP. My only guesses is that they are they are trying to get whitelisted by my spam filter and then start sending L1]\[K5! Or there are a group of Ruskies out there in Latvia are all huddled around their public library computer, that are super interested in my life, waiting their turn in line for days on end to comment on my posts (looooooooool!).

Weird. In other news, I need to post the pics from TAG because I enjoyed some AWESOME food there! It was so damn good!

As I mentioned before TAG has a sweet ass bar. This is what I dream of having when I m making cocktails. Fresh herbs, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, fresh other things that aren’t even in these categories! More impressive is that the bar staff actually spends time experimenting with them to figure out how to actually use fresh tomatoes in a cocktail. Although the have a prominently featured wine collection, the thought of anything but signature cocktails with dinner never crossed my mind.

The meal at TAG was one of the most enjoyable meals that I’ve ever eaten. Some of the things that I enjoy about quality well constructed “foody” food is that the tastes all fit together for lack of a better word. Flavors shine through, there are complimentary tastes, everything is there for a reason, and above all else, portions are very appropriately sized. I never really come away from a meal at one of these places overly stuffed, and rarely wanting more. It allows you to get appetizers that actually get your palate warmed up instead of exhausted before you actually get to your meal. It allows you to have desert if you want. Fortunately for us, we did exactly that and if there is one thing that stands testament to how good TAG is, it’s the fact that there was not a single item on the menu that I didn’t want. I literally wanted to try it all and eventually settled on a daily special that wasn’t eve on the menu! Between the party of 6 of us I would say that we sampled about 40% of the menu items and as expected, all were superb.

I wasn’t able to get pictures of the appetizers (sushi tacos, pot stickers, my mother’s beet salad, maybe something else that I’m forgetting), because they were devoured before i remembered, I was able to get the main stuff.

House salad with a soy sauce vinaigrette:

Filet Mignon:

Sea bass:

Bacon wrapped scallops with brussel sprout salad. That’s right, even the brussel sprouts were good:

Ahi Tuna, this one was mine and the fish was cooked absolutely perfectly:

My kid brother opted for less exotic fare, but ended up with delicious Kobe beef sliders. Wowsers!

And to finish it off they had some pretty ridiculous desert selections, including a bleu cheese ice cream, I was torn between some of the ice cream flavors but narrowed in on caramel or butterscotch and bourbon. My mom got the caramel and I got the B&B. It was a very pleasant mix.

So that was that, I have more food porn, but I think I’m going to save that for next time to avoid a complete wall of pictures…

So then what else does that leave us with? A little Gamboooooll! Last week I won a small prop bet that i had going with my girl. This involved making it to the gym throughout the week and though it really kicked my ass I’m glad I am back into it. I had a couple of weeks where I hadn’t really gone regularly and I ended up actually losing weight below to where I had been when I originally started going! But now that I’m back and armed with some advice, protein, and vitamins I am back on pace for bulking up a little. Hooray!

Next time on The Deuce Fo’: A dinner party (more food porn), the playoffs, some interesting tales from others, summering, and whatever else comes to mind. Look for it this week!

Good luck comrades!

-J

P.S. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of The Deuce Fo’ in it’s current incarnation. Weeee! I’m sure the Ruskies will be overjoyed. ☭