The Deuce Fo’

Sometimes I get a hankering to do projects. That’s a really loose term obviously, but I am referring to building or making something, usually something physical, that I will later use in my everyday life. It’s driven by some urge to do something unknown and branch out from what I’m familiar and comfortable with. I want to learn enough about something to get myself into trouble. To fill in those gaps from stuff that I missed by playing too many video games as a kid instead of being a boy scout. For whatever reason I am finding myself becoming more of a DIY’er, and I like it.

For example, I have basically no woodworking experience. One time I used a sawzall and sandpaper to make a fraternity paddle; another time I made a very terrible CO2 that my teacher cut for me and I sanded down. Basically worthless if you ask me. Nevertheless, I’ve decided that it would be a badass, manly, awesome thing to build my own dining room table. I’m thinking something big and burly with some tricky leaf mechanism that I can have for the rest of my life.

[Tangent] This urge came similar to the urge to start painting 2+ years ago (which I’ve sucked at and will be working at more this summer). When I was in college there was an awesome store that had these screened paintings of celebrities. We ended up getting a 6′x3′  painting done in mostly blues of this famous Rat Pack picture:

Martin, Davis Jr., and Sinatra

Anyways, I ended up looking for some other sweet art like that and I kept finding that anything large like that was really pricey.  I eventually saw this Kill Bill painting that I liked and figured I would turn it into my own concept as seen on the Art page and make it as big as I wanted, instead of paying ~$400 for a smaller one from that shop. Even though I haven’t been up on my painting game lately, I did manage to finish it (still need a couple touchups). It was really an awesome feeling of accomplishment when it was finally wrapped up, and that’s kind of what I want to do with woodworking.

Like I said above, the end goal is that I’d like to eventually make a big, thick ass, dining room table that will last for forever and I can say “Oh yeah by the way, I crafted that table out of my own sweat and brawn, nbd.” These seem to retail for a couple thousand and aren’t even really what I’m looking for, so I figured “how hard could it be?” But I do want to try something smaller to get some experience and make sure that I can actually build something that won’t fall over. So I chose a coffee table:

Something that I can't mess up too much

My grandfather was a master woodworker. Back in the day, he built a HUGE sunroom as an addition to his house. It took him 3-4 years from plans to completitamon, but it’s been intact for over 30 years now (maybe even longer than that) and looks ridiculously good. He was hardcore though. He started from practically nothing, bought his tools, built his own drafting table, drafted his plans, built his own workshop, workbench, sawhorses, saw stand, etc… everything that he needed he built himself  and eventually put that sunroom together amongst other sweet projects. He was quite “handy”. Now it’s a lot easier to just say screw it and buy something, but there is a lot of pride to take in doing something yourself. Anyways, he passed away about a year and a half ago. He didn’t use his workshop in the last couple years anyways, but he still had all the knowledge of how to do something if you ever had a project that needed to get done. I wish that this urge to do this had come a couple years earlier so that he could guide me in crafting these things that I want to do, but my grandma tells me that he would be so happy that I’m just doing it. I’m fortunate to have everything that I would need at my fingertips instead of having to go buy all of the tools, buy/create a work area, etc… So I’ve bought the wood, I know my measurements, I’ve built a 3d model of it in CAD, I even picked up the stain I want to use. When everything’s said and done,  it should end up this color:

Matches the couches and some other decor...

I will post progress pics when it’s all finished up.

Speaking of building things, I build a sweet new desktop computer recently as well. I was able to get the parts off of newegg and assemble a very beastly system for relatively cheap. I wanted to keep the old system 100% intact as far as the tower and parts went in case I ever needed to set up 2 computers, but carried over the mouse, keyboard, speakers, and dual monitors. Thanks to those that added input on what I should get and the assembly itself isn’t really all that difficult (it’s hard to put something in the wrong way fortunately). The build is listed out below if the nerd in you wants to check it out:

Qty.	Product Description		Savings	Total Price
1	Antec Three Hundred Black Computer Case Item #:N82E16811129042 Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy			$69.99 $59.99
1	ASRock 970 EXTREME3 ATX AMD Motherboard Item #:N82E16813157280 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy			$94.99 $89.99
1	LITE-ON DVD Burner – Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 Item #:N82E16827106289 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy			$17.99
1	OCZ ZT Series 750W Fully-Modular High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom Item #: N82E16817341052 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy XFX Double D Radeon HD 6870 HD-687A-ZDFC Video Card with Eyefinity Item #: N82E16814150521 Return Policy: VGA Standard Return Policy		-$30.00 Instant -$15.00 Combo $15.00 Mail-in Rebate Card $20.00 Mail-in Rebate Card	$309.98 $264.98
1	AMD Gift – Dirt3 Game Coupon Item #:N82E16800995114 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy		-$49.99	$49.99 $0.00
1	CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Item #: N82E16820145345 Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy AMD FX-4100 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ Quad-Core Desktop Processor Item #: N82E16819103996 Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy		-$5.00 Instant -$8.00 Combo	$157.98 $144.98
1	Newegg Promotional Gift Card – $10.00Item #:N82E168GC000001

1

ADATA S510 Series AS510S3-120GM-C 2.5″ MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Item #:N82E16820211569 Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy

$164.99 $159.99

All that, plus Win7 Ultimate 64-bit and I now have a “real” desktop computer again! I can play all the games that I need to on the highest graphics settings, it’s fast, it’s quiet, it’s just really cool.

As for my next project, I saw this really cool deck garden idea on reddit. My girlfriend and I have tried having some fresh herbs in pots out on the back deck in the past, but they end up dripping muddy water down onto the neighbor’s deck below ours and she is NOT pleased about it. I’d somewhat written off the idea of being able to do that again without some serious tray system for the pots or something… but when I saw that post I thought that it would be pretty much perfect for our situation.

Built to fit!

I think that with this design, the rocks on the bottom and the fabric should help prevent that nastiness and we can have fresh herbs and vegetables despite a pretty small space. Fresh herbs are wonderful to have on hand when you’re cooking and they are really cheap to get and maintain. We’ll see how much of a headache the table gives me before I end up starting this, but it’s something that I would like to have up and running before summer officially starts.

Final note: The Lagavulin 16! I bought the bottle. It wasn’t cheap, but after how much all these scotch drinkers were raving about it I figured that now was as good a time as any to start rebuilding the sweet Scotch collection.

Palate: Peaty dryness like gunpowder tea.

It’s INTENSE. When you open the bottle, the fiery aroma of it can fill the room. It’s rich, smoky, peaty, and will warm your belly. One of the foremost authorities on Scotch, Michael Jackson, writes in the 6th edition of his Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotches:

• Color: Full amber.
• Nose: Sea spray, peat smoke. Stings the back of the nose.
• Body: Full, smooth, very firm.
• Palate: Peaty dryness like gunpowder tea. As the palate develops, oily, grassy, and in particular, salty notes emerge.
• Finish: Peat fire. Warming. A bear hug.
• Score: 95

Bear hug is right! Every dram makes your stomach feel warm and fuzzy on the inside! Typically I go for the smoother, slightly sweeter scotches, but in this case I enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone a little. I think that overall I like the richness of it despite how heavy the smoke and peat are. I’ve heard that the 12yo special edition is different, also very good, not as pricey, but a bit hard to find. So I’ll keep that on the radar, however, in honor of my boy, Chuck, the next bottle’s going to be Oban 14.

And that’s that. New post coming when I finish the coffee table (after this weekend) and I’m hopefully going to write up something for the Other Deuce Fo’ as well.

The next bottle that I'm going to get...

@jpeitrasiv: “I wish thedeucefo would do another post…it makes me sad”

TJ: “jordan just start writing”

Well…. ok. I’ve got a nice glass of scotch to my right and I think that it’s about time to fire up the old deuce fo’ again…

Less snow this year, but you get the idea.

So when I last decided to type up an entry I was headed off to a wonderful weekend in the Poconos with all of my best friends. It. Was. Awesome. There were many gambols had, many beers consumed, many great meals constructed and then demolished, and many alliances made, then subsequently broken. The Giants won which was good in the sense that most of the people I was with were Giants fans and the rest didn’t really care. So instead of everyone being bummed out Sunday night, it was a joyous occasion!

The alliance is strong!

Nerd Alert: Someone brought the Game of Thrones board game, and though pretty complicated (28 page rulebook) it was actually very sweet. Creative way to have a strategy game without all the dice rolling of Risk. In short, the weekend was everything that I could’ve hoped for and then some.

Unfortunately, what followed was gross, disgusting, and debilitating… I got some weird rash around my midsection in a couple different places and a nasty sinus infection. Ugh. Horrible sinus headaches, tons of mucus, coughing, hacking, gross, so bad I’d only sleep like 3 hours a night off and on. I ended up using this ridiculous device known as a Netipot to pour hot salty water through one nostril, up my nasal cavity, and out the other one. It’s a bizarre feeling, akin to drowning, although it’s not actually that bad once you get used to it. The payoff is that it feels good to finally clear all that gunk out and be able to breathe freely again… well worth it.

Thumbs up!

Unfortunately it hit during a really busy time and I was basically forced to work through it and wasn’t able to rest the amount of time that I should have. Such is life though… I’ve managed to get through the worst of it and with antibiotics to take the rest out. So that’s part of why I’ve been such a scrub about updates…

The other part is that it’s difficult to sit down and force myself to write. I’ve always had difficulty with this for most of my adolescent/adult life. So how do I get better at it? Find people that are better than you and get their help! As part of a new project at Deuces Cracked, I got the opportunity to write high stakes baller/co-creator of the Micros, Jay Rosenkrantz aka Krantz, some questions about writing.

“I’d like to ask you about writing. I don’t enjoy writing; I’m not particularly good at it either, but I do enjoy when I write something well. So my question to you is, what do you like about writing? How do you keep yourself motivated to continue writing? What have you written that you’re most proud of?”

In his whimsical,  all over the place manner he answered something along the lines of…

What do I like about writing? Well, that kind of takes me to ‘what do I like about entertainment? and watching entertainment?’ I think that what I really enjoy about it is not only does it transport you to another place but it allows you to sort the chaos and randomness of the world into some kind of order. There’s something about looking at something that you’ve written and then deconstructing it and reconstructing it in a better way that’s very satisfying. I am so humbled by writing, there are just so many incredible writers and storytellers.

It’s honestly, it’s very difficult. It’s just like going to the gym; it’s everyday. I know it’s good for me so I keep doing it and it becomes easier and easier and you get to the point where you feel bad if you don’t do it.  But I enjoy it and I enjoy learning. If I’m going to impart one lesson out of this whole video, that lesson is just to have faith in yourself and your process and know that with time the results will come. If it’s something that you want to do and it’s the path that you want to walk down, the journey that you want to take, and you can imagine yourself doing it… Think about yourself actually doing the things kind of things you need to do and living that life. And if that’s something that you want then just, just do it, because there’s literally no other way to get there.  The key is just enjoying it, finding enjoyment as you do it.  So with that… screw it I’ll quote Star Wars, ‘may the force be with you.’

I mean, I’m sure that he didn’t set out to blow any minds with this info, but I found it seriously fascinating… I mean he’s right and since this is something that I want as a semi seriou part of my life and I want to get better at it I need to work on it just as I would anything else that I wanted in life. Thanks Jay.

To finish this up I wanted to include something just for fun. I have some topics already in mind for the next post (coming soon!) so I’ll just share something else that I’ve been enjoying. My latest whip has been Super Meat Boy. I know that this game came out in 2010 and I’m a little late to the party, but I’m hooked.

An "easy" level...

You are meat boy; you’re very fast and made of meat.Dr. Fetus (a baby in a tuxedo robot suit) has punched your girlfriend, Bandage Girl, in the face and abducted her. You have to run and get her back, but as you get to the end of each level, he appears out of nowhere and snatches her away again. It’s almost like Super Mario World, but meatier, harder, many more interesting levels and obstacles, a lot harder, and some awesome throwbacks to Atari, Gameboy, and other old game systems. Once again, it’s hard as hell and I hate it. And I love it. With every level that I beat, comes such a awesome sense of accomplishment, only to punish me the very next level with another ridiculous set of obstacles.  It is the first video game in like 10 years+ to put some serious blisters on my thumbs, particularly my right thumb. I actually make myself take a break every couple of days due to the combination of frustration and blistering thumb pain! That’s a serious game!  But it’s sooooo good. I think that one of the genius aspects of the design is that you’re like 90% to blame for your fuck ups. You know what you should’ve done differently but your hand eye coordination just wasn’t good enough to do what your brain wanted you to. Dammit.

Coming next time… Neil deGrasse Tyson! Projects! Woodwork! A silent auction! and… whatever else!

-J

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…