The house goes down

Well, it's official.
My fraternity just got kicked off campus.
Though I'm surprised that it didn't happen years earlier, it is still a very sad thing. Most of my best friends are ATOs, and we've shared many, many memories. Most which I will never fully remember.

The ATO Creed.
To bind men together in a brotherhood based upon eternal and immutable principles, with a bond as strong as right itself, and as lasting as humanity; to know no north, no south, no east, no west, but to know man as man, to teach that true men the world over should stand together and contend for supremacy of good over evil; to teach not politics, but morals; to foster not partisanship, but the recognition of true merit wherever found; to have no narrower limits within which to work together for the elevation of man than the outlines of the world; these were the thoughts and hopes uppermost in the minds of the founders of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.

- Otis Allan Glazebrook, 1880

The newer generation, getting too creative made some very dumb decisions. The last four paragraphs of this link roughly illustrate.
It's a damn shame isn't it?

Double fisted

Going through my archives I found this gem.



Mia, double-fisted...
One-year-old going on 21.

Land of the Lost

Check it out... Here's a pic of the frat house days taken by my buddy Rob.

I believe this is the "Land of the Lost" party 1997. Of course it could be any of the parties we had. Over the years all the different parties sort of melted together into one huge rager.
That would explain my horrendous academic performance in college. Since the parties were usually to celebrate the end of finals the party set-up would take place during dead week (the week before finals). Which meant I didn't study, ever.

Hey, fuck it I say. If the president of the United States can be a "C" student, get trashed all the time instead of studying and screw up everything he touches, then so can I!

A recipe for love

I know some people despise the idea of boiling or braising ribs. Some say that smoking them for tens of hours is the only true way to prepare ribs.
I submit that boiled or braised ribs are some of the most tender, delicious ribs that you can make and at a fraction of the time it takes to smoke'm.

We used a pressure cooker for the first time for my ribs. That cut the cooking time from 3 hours to 50 minutes. From now on, it will always be pressure cooking. I didn't notice any loss of flavor or texture using this process.

Here it is.

Get your ribs.
Rub them with generously spices. A blend of salt, pepper, cayenne, etc will work great. Or just buy the McCormick pork rub and use a jar of it per two racks. When it comes to spices, use your imagination. Like cinnamon? Give your swine a sprinkle of it. And don't worry about overdoing it, the ribs love it. The ribs want it. Give it to them.
Pop these bad boys in your pressure cooker. On top of that, pour in your braising liquid. We used 2 cups of apple juice, a cup and a half of soy sauce, and then we dumped in a mish-mash of other herbs and seasonings. Again use your imagination. Eventually you'll get a combo you love... then you'll have your own "secret-recipe."

Strap the lid on tight and let that bad boy cook for 40 minutes under pressure.

Release the steam and pressure safely and move the ribs to a foil covered (non-stick foil perhaps) cooking sheet and place it into an oven preheated to 450 degrees. Save some of the braising liquid.

Mix a cup of liquid with a cup of your favorite BBQ sauce (I love Bulls Eye Original Sauce), and baste the ribs two or three times as the ribs finish in the hot oven.

These ribs will literally slide right off the bone...

You can remove the meat off the bones and place them on a toasted bun for some ridiculously delicious Pork Sand-o's...

Monty plays poker

Certificate of Achievment

I just found out one of my photos was a finalist in the 2004 CNPA Better Newspaper Contest. I didn't win, but I guess being a finalist ain't half bad.

Here's the pic in the catagory of "Sports Photo"

newbie poker

AaronM brought a bunch of his buddies over last night for some poker. It was sort of interesting playing with a couple dudes who'd never played poker before. Interesting in a really annoying way. It's difficult to play against them. Of course they were the first ones to get knocked out, but it really threw a monkey wrench in my concentration.
At any rate, I came in 4th. Taken out when I made a horrible read against two-pair. ...$30 in the shitter...

Lesson: Never call an all-in with only second pair unless you are sure your opponent is on a stone-cold bluff.

A Real Mans Drink

A Real Mans Drink
Originally uploaded by habitforming.

Check this out... an old drawing I did at a random bar years ago.

Garden City - cold cards

Garden City after work.
An obnoxious dude was giving poker lessons. He was playing the small limits with his buddies and giving them a constant barrage of insults and threats. It was pretty annoying actually. Also he was raising the pot on almost every hand. He was sitting to my immediate left, making it very painful to limp in every time. My stack dwindled.
Furthermore, the cards were coooold. No flops were landing. And obnoxious dude was raising on pure bluffs and managed to actually buy a couple pots with absolute shit. Finally obnoxious dude and his friends left. It was like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately my cards were still cold and I had to rebuy a couple times. And alas, I was down $100, with one more hand worth of chips left. I was resigned to go all-in with K8 and a straight draw. On the turn, I hit my straight, took down the pot and was back to -$40. Cutting my losses, I called it.

By the way,
Check out The Shield... It's a great fucking show. It's worth renting the first two seasons... Ultra gritty, violent, intense.

Speaking of FX, July the cable network will be airing a series by Steven Bochco called Over There, a show about the Iraq War. The commercials look fantastic, and the show will most likely be a huge hit.

FX is stepping up television. It's intense shows such as The Shield and Nip/Tuck have given new life to TV. It has made it worthwhile to stay up late and to finally relinquish the remote control.

Garden City

I took a shot at the Garden City Casino Sunday.
I had a slow start and played a total of one hand in the first 30 minutes. The following 30 minutes would bring my total up to 100x the big blind. I caught a rush, my suited connectors turned into a full house to my opponent's straight; I chopped a huge pot when a dude to my left and I both caught the nut straight. My set of 4's destroyed two high pairs on another hand.
Just as the dealer was changing, and they searched for a cut-card, I got up from my seat and logged a $300 win,... for less than 2 hours of play.

I'm on a streak...

The ultimate beat down

The season finale of The Ultimate Fighter was fantastic.
As popular as The Contender is, The Ultimate Fighter is much, much better. On one hand, The Contender, starring by Sly Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard and produced by Mark Burnett (Survivor) is a very slick boxing reality contest. It is extremely produced to maximize it's dramatic effect. The fights are over edited and cut down to about a minute.
The Ultimate Fighter feels more like MTV's The Real World. It feels more real. The people seem more real. The fights are way more brutal.
The season finale of The Ultimate Fighter made for some of the best television I've seen in a long time. I would rate it at the TOP of the reality TV spectrum, and also at the top of the sports spectrum as well. The finale featured 2 final battles between the top competitors of the 2 weight classes. The highlight was easily the bloody contest between Stephen Bonnar, and Forrest Griffin. It was a good ole fashioned slugg-o-rama. These guys really beat the shit out of each other. I was on the edge of my seat. At the end, the fight was so exciting, both fighters were awarded a six-figure contracts to fight on the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
After that, the legend Ken Shamrock took on some tough guy named Richardson. Shamrock got his ass beat down. Inexplicably, he slipped twice giving Richardson the opportunity to mount and beat Shamrock's face in. Shamrock's professional fighting days should be over. Today's fighters, all of whom, are influenced by Shamrock, have officially exceeded him in fighting skills.
Being a huge fan of the "mixed-martial-arts" or what I call, "Ass-kicking," I'm stoked to see these dudes beat each other up in the future.

Four-peat baby!

Tourney at Dylan's house:
2 tables, 15 players, $30 buy-in freezeout (no rebuys or add-ons)... top 3 get paid.

I won.

Whew,...
It was a miracle. I was shortstacked from the get-go, and maintained last place until the table merged, at which point only SamD was shorter-stacked than me. I was able to stay in the game only by stealing blinds from late position and the occasional early position bluff.
By the time the final table slimmed to the top 5, I was still almost worthless in last place.
Patience brought me to the final 4 when everyone gambled against each other and knocked each other out. Having doubled up once or twice kept me barely alive and I squeaked into the final two.
A few all-ins, double ups and BBOOOOOYYYEAAAH!!
Somehow, I won the damn thing; giving me a jackpot of $300!

I'm not a fluke, I'm not a fluke!

4 tournaments in a row. Wow.

a little poker lesson

I had a losing night at Bay 101 last night.
Sucks.
I played poorly early on. Probably just a bit antzy. Upon reflection, I played too loose after the flop. Tight is right... after the flop. Fine, a $60 lesson learned.
At least it was a small loss. But the worst part isn't losing the money, it's logging it on my poker record, because it makes the loss permanent. Anyway, I dread it. Of course when I win, I run home and log it immediately. I might wait another day before I log this loss.
All in all, I'm up more than a $grand$ playing poker these last couple months, so what's a $60 loss right?
Oh well, time to move forward. Anyhow, the game's at Dylans tonight... $30 rebuy tourney... We'll see how this "re-buy" crap works. Looking to four-peat tonight.

Good Luck to me.

A landwalker

Check this thing out.

A real landwalker...

I found it at Cinematical.com while surfing.

Honestly, even though I am a bonfide nerd... what would one do with a contraption like this. Besides being an overgrown weed whacker, what service would it provide?

Sin City

Caught Sin City last night.

Loved it.
First, I'd like to say that I am a comic book fan, therefore I was a Frank Miller fan. Miller created some of the grittiest stories ever. He embraced the crime thriller genre for comics and eventually gave titles like Daredevil and Batman the dark flavor of violence that they needed. His reiventions of those characters marked a turning point in comics. Miller really turned popular comics on its head with The Dark Knight Returns. This is a MUST READ for comic book fans.
Sin City retains that spirit. Director Robert Rodriguez holds so true to the Sin City comic book and to Miller's vision, Rodriquez defied the Director's Guild and has a double director credit with Miller.
The ultra-cheeze was Sin City's only negative aspect. Brittney Murphy's line delivery is an especially bitter pill.
Mickey Roarke makes a show-stealing, career invigorating performance as Marv, the ugly, ruthless, meathead, and does the best narration in the movie. Frodo also makes an appearance as Kevin, the agile, silent-but-deadly mass murderer nemesis.

I left the film feeling as if I lived in this crazy world of sex, extreme violence and brutal grit and didn't have any desire to leave.

my ankle, and ole Bill

I rolled my ankle last night while walking in downtown Mountain View.
I heard the 'pip-pop' as my ankle folded onto itself. With backpacking season approaching, ain't it just what I need?


Had dinner at my buddy Dave's house. His dad, Bill, died this weekend. We talked about the old days when Bill grew up in the 50's. His widow and best friend told about his shennanigans as a teenager, how he loved a good party. He loved adventure. When I was a teenager my pal Dave would have parties at his house, and ole Bill would always come out and mingle with our friends. He would partake in the meat on the grill, and have a beer.

During his last days at the nursing home, he tried to escape. His widow Margie got a call in the middle of the night saying, "Your husband is giving us some problems, come right away." She got to the facility and as the elevator doors opened she saw two old ladies in their wheelchair blocking the door. Ole Bill in his wheelchair was trying to get through.
"Get outta my way, I'm goin home" he says. "If you don't get out of my way, I'm calling the sheriff!" I could just picture him in a mexican standoff with 2 old wheelchair bound ladies.

He was a great guy. We'll all miss ole Bill.

a home somewhere, anywhere

Housing is a problem here. A huge problem.
I make a decent living. I guess that's relative. Between the GF and me, we make enough that we should be able to own our own home. Except that we live in the bay area of California, which makes homeowning an extreme unlikelyhood.
My pops says that it actually makes fmore sense for us to rent a house than to buy one; that you would actually LOSE money buying a home because the prices are so prohibitively high. That's such BULLSHIT!
My buddy just bought a house down in Gilroy. It's about 40 minutes south of San Jose. They bought their house (3BR, 1900 sq ft) for somewhere around $500,000. That was a year ago. Now, the house is probably worth near $700,000. I bet in Arizona, it'd be worth $300,000,... tops.

They say that in order to buy a home a family needs to make an average combined income of $120,000 a year... that's for an average priced home.

If anyone is reading this from another state, country etc... what could a couple making $80,000 a year buy where you live? And are there any job openings for a newspaper photographer in your area?

3 time winner

Did I mention that I played 3 sit'n go tourneys at my weekly home game last night? I might have mentioned it in an earlier post. Did I mention that I won all three?

Well I won all three! Ha!

That's right! I'm no fluke. I'm not dumb, I'm smart! Not like everybody says.

So with a $30, $20 and $20 buy-ins I was up $310 at the end of the night.

yup,... gooood stuff.

Frat-party Flyers

My buddy Rob has a page on his photo blog which has a bunch of my old fraternity party flyers.
It's so fucking sweet. Like a dumbass, I never archived my old drawings, so seeing these is really a blast from the past for me.
These flyers each took me a couple hours to draw. Each flyer represents a legendary party. ATO SJSU used to throw the biggest and best parties... (sigh) ah, the good ole days.
Habit-Forming

3 in a row

I'm not a fluke! I'm not a fluke.

We started with a $30, 10-handed, freezeout tourney. I won. Next, we did $20, 7 handed. I won. After that, again we did $20 buy-in, 7-handed. I won that too.
Pretty unbelievable. Especially because these players weren't jokers. Or maybe that's why I performed better. Players weren't making ridiculous calls. They were considering pot odds and generally playing solid poker, which made the game better. It allowed more bluffing for me and less sucking out by my opponents.

The truth is, I played some of my best poker last night. My opponents were unable to put me on a hand. I pushed hard from the button and stole a bunch of blinds. I never "did anything stupid," which is what usually kills me.

Making a conscious effort to change gears at different points in the game also helped. This is important aspect of tourney play. An early loose pre-flop call set me up with two-pair which gave made me the strong stack early in game one, and set my table image up for the duration. I mixed up my game quite a bit, and though my opponents did call my hand a couple times,... they weren't really sure what I had most of the time. A couple of my opponent's bluff all-ins resulted in disaster for them when I flipped a hand.

All in all, it was a good night of poker. We had a ton of fun,.. which is the point after all. And I made money. AND I redeemed myself from my last place finish against these guys last time.

3 in a row baby.