QQ vs QQ [Lester]

Dealer: Hand #100617560
Dealer: bears826 posts the small blind of 80
Dealer: jamiz27 posts the big blind of 160
Dealer: You have been dealt [Qc Qs]
Dealer: NickPoker folds
Dealer: mast1 folds
Dealer: PokerGeek raises to 560
Dealer: pig folds
Dealer: bears826 raises to 1,620, and is all in
Dealer: jamiz27 folds
Dealer: PokerGeek calls 1,060
Dealer: bears826 shows [Qc Qs]
Dealer: PokerGeek shows [Qh Qd]
Dealer: The flop is [6h 9c Tc]
Dealer: The turn is [8c]
Dealer: The river is [Kc]
Dealer: bears826 shows a flush, King high
Dealer: PokerGeek shows a pair of Queens
Dealer: bears826 wins the pot (3,400) with a flush, King high

macgyver stylings [Liam]

ok so the other day i bring a heineken upstairs and i wanna open it, and i can't find a bottle opener anywhere. i says to me: "well fuck if i'm gonna climb all the way down the stairs into the kitchen again, it's PUZZLE time!"
what follows is most analogous to those scenes in Terminator 1 and 2 where we flash into "arnoldvision" as the cyborg examines items or people, looking for a target that meets some specific set of specifications... in this case i initiated a search for any common household object that could be used to pry the cap off a bottle of beer. by the way if you are wondering about the absence of capital letters or certain grievous grammatical or spelling errors i'm sure i've strewn in my wake, it's because i've been practicing the soon-to-be-revealed bottle opening technique while sitting here (and i'll be damned if i let a perfectly good beer go to waste).
So anyway, it goes a little something like this:

scanning my room...

scanning my desk...

scanning my random junk drawer...

scanning dbo's old desk. TARGET ACQUIRED!!!!

basically our problem requires any rigid metal object with an edge that can catch the "teeth" ringing a bottlecap, and a gap of at least about a thumb's width but no greater than the diameter of said bottlecap. what makes a 3-hole punch especially good for this task is that the length of this gap can be adjusted at will by way of the spring-loaded hinge that opens the front of the device.
1.
beer, 3-hole punch. 3-hole punch, beer.

2.
the jaws of the contraption. this is where the magic happens.

3.
catching the lip of the cap.

4.
(closeup)

5.
that psssshhhk-clink sound we love to hear.

6.
bottlecap vanquished. enjoy! the wonderful liver-rotting potion that clearly brought you this thoroughly boring post. GNITE! :-D

client dinner aftermath [Lester]

Start at bottom.

-----Original Message-----
From: CE (VP of B2B Sales and Marketing)
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 4:11 PM
To: Lester Lee; JM (Network Sales Manager); MK (Senior VP, Global Sales); CB (VP Global Sales)
Subject: RE: Intel Corp - Intel-Multiport - Mattison

Someone ought to teach her how.



-----Original Message-----
From: Lester Lee
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 4:11 PM
To: CE (VP of B2B Sales and Marketing); JM (Network Sales Manager); MK (Senior VP, Global Sales); CB (VP Global Sales)
Subject: RE: Intel Corp - Intel-Multiport - Mattison

What can I say? She's the only gal in the bay area that doesn't screen my 1am calls. ;]

-----Original Message-----
From: CE (VP of B2B Sales and Marketing)
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 4:11 PM
To: Lester Lee; JM (Network Sales Manager); MK (Senior VP, Global Sales); CB (VP Global Sales)
Subject: RE: Intel Corp - Intel-Multiport - Mattison

Now are we supposed to keep it quiet that Lester passed out on BART on the way home from this dinner? His mother called me this morning to ask if I would pick her gas bill for having to collect her son.....

I won't tell ANYONE. ;)

CE

client dinner [Lester]

7:30- Arrive at Boulevard with Josh

7:35- Hendricks Gin and tonic

7:45- Hendricks Gin and tonic

8:00- Meet client, get seated

8:15- talktalktalktalktalktalktalk

8:30- Copain, Syrah, Eaglepoint Ranch (Mendocino, 2000)
Rich with dark fruits, this wine is full of chocolate, anise, and firm dusty tannins.
$97.00

9:00- talktalktalktalktalktalktalk

9:15- SWEETBREADS WRAPPED IN PANCETTA WITH VEAL RAVIOLI
Roasted Marrow Bone, Braising Jus, Mesclun & Crouton

9:30- talktalktalktalktalktalktalk

9:45- WOOD OVEN ROASTED HERITAGE DUROC PORK LOIN CHOP
Stuffed with Braised Morel Mushrooms & Wild Nettles Fresh Sweet Corn Polenta, Roasted Pork & Mushroom Jus Sidney's Baby Mache Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

10:30- talktalktalktalktalktalktalk

11:00- Grahams 1980 Vintage Port

11:15- BOSTON BANANA CREAM PIE
Bittersweet & White Chocolate Cream Chocolate Crisp, Banana Chiffon
Banana Caramel Sauce

11:30- drop client off at hotel

11:35- get dropped off at BART station, cant find cell phone

11:40- taxi back to restaurant to find missing phone

11:45- phone not there.

11:50- taxi back to bart station

12:00- get on Dublin/Pleasanton train

12:15- transfer at Lake Merritt

12:20- in bed with christina, sleeping the night away

12:30- my little pony shows up on a cloud

12:35- okay, Duke from GI Joe just rode my little pony off into the sunset. weird.

12:45- muppet sounds. "memememememe"

1:00- wake up in Fremont

1:03- station agent says no more trains back to south hayward, take the bus

1:04- attempt to get change so I can use a pay phone, no $5 change machine

1:06- call mom collect

1:20- Sony PSP runs out of batteries

1:25- mom shows up!

1:40- get back to my car at south hayward BART

1:50- home.

Double Deuce Action! A Short History of Drinking Water & Kathakali 2K5 [Mowgli]

A Short History of Drinking Water

Drinking water begins as ground water, which filters slowly into a well.



The water is taken by an electric pump into a holding tank on top of the house.





The water in the tank is essentially unfiltered - an open invitation to an intestinal safari. It must pass through three stages of filtration - charcoal, UV radiation and ceramic towers - before it is ready to drink.



After the filtration is complete, the water is finally safe to drink. Enjoy!



Below are some pictures from a Kathakali performance (traditional S. Indian dance form).

Dsc01047.jpg

Dsc01048.jpg

Dsc01049.jpg

Dsc01051.jpg

In other news, NeoRage started working mysteriously, so I've been putting some time into kof98. A gamepad'd be nice, but it's actually easier to do some of the double half-circle moves on a keyboard, and Iori's SDM maiden masher is probably the funniest thing ever. They should have used that animation for cvs2.

Anyway, now I can post pics. Huzzah!

Mowgs out.

Kung Hustle Foo [Liam]

So basically this weekend I was holding it down union city style, missed out on the San Diego festivities and whatnot... did however peep Kung Fu Hustle which was dope.
Wait, I need to back up, think about it and take a running start at this one...
(ahem)
Kung Fu Hustle was SOO FUCKING ILL IT RIPPED MY EYES OUT AN--
ow. i think i pulled something trying to force the quantum ridiculousness that is "Kung Fu Hustle" into mere words. I'm gonna take it easy and just say you should probably watch it if you think Kung Fu is cool and also kinda funny. I need some time to digest what I saw before I relate anything more articulate here.

in other news, i was talking to brian and i decided a funny term for a sweaty drinking gathering with few or no girls was "Cocktoberfest."
How 'bout it? Has this one been coined already? I consider it a worthy alternative to the slowly dying (but still descriptive and hilarious) "Sausagefest."

also, here is a cartoon i drew a while ago. can you tell he's doing the pony dance? b/c yeah, he's supposed to be doing the pony dance:

that is all.

(:-O) [Liam]

Bad:
I received an epic papercut today in the line of duty while doing document stuff. It runs under my fingernail and back out onto the side of my finger. I got it from card-stock paper which is like damage as well.

Also, I missed like an hour of sleep this morning to find out that a guy nicknamed Der Panzer Kardinal was made pope, solidifying another piece of the future for backwards thinking.
Bush had this to say: "He's a man of great wisdom and knowledge. He's a man who serves the Lord."
Thank you, you fucking twit. Is THAT what they are about at the Vatican?
Way to represent for that kid in highschool who isn't smart enough to BS his way through a presentation and get away with it. I can almost see Bush folding a piece of binder paper back into his pocket and shuffling to his desk in the back of the classroom (all the while looking down at his shoes).

Good:
At the very least I got to sport some Irish pride for the bookmakers who called not only Cardinal Ratzinger but the name Benedict. I'll have a pint to that. Here's to those visionaries who can at least turn a fast buck on the downward spiral of our species. Booyah.

Enough about all that, though. Something cool has happened lately. I got this totally bitchin' stuffed gorilla in the mail for my World Wildlife Fund donation:

A new habitat has been set aside for him on the top of my monitor. He pretty much owns all he surveys. Or he could if he jumped down b/c he's a bad mutha.
Working on a name. Any suggestions?

WWW.BROG2.COM [Liam]

Ok, so I still haven't finished all of the polishing but BROG2.COM is now up and running... I want to add some new bells and whistles when i can think of some, right now the obvious benefit is not requiring a ridiculous bookmark to visit this page. booyah. I had a whole redesign planned but nothing could fade the louis vuitton black so i figured i'd just add on top of what was there. your existing blogger acct will post here without any reconfiguration or anything, and the old version is still viewable at s88715763.onlinehome.us/brog2/broghome.html.
look it's a robot--> +[O_O]+

EDIT: Upon closer examination you should do "OPEN LINK IN A NEW WINDOW" when you click brog2.com, or just type the whole www.brog2.com url in your browser. Otherwise it will open inside this frame which is just way too much.

so, yeah [Liam]

I went to go see Sahara with Brian, Monika and Jen today, and at some point after the movie I decided I wanted to just drop a post on my blog. I mean, I always have ideas for stuff I should talk about, but I never remember them when I actually sit down to start typing. It's like a variation of the amnesia that strikes me when I walk into a record store and completely blank on every piece of music I am actually interested in listening to. Fast forward like 30 awkward minutes and I'm trying to convince myself I'm digging some random electronic or hip hop album I dropped a twomp on and know nothing about; it's like trying to be the cool mom and shop for my kid (based on vague assumptions about what he listens to), except that kid is myself. Bizarre.
...And just like that I find myself retracing text on the tail end of an odd tangent, because I have no idea of how I got here or what I was going to say when I started.

This reminds me of another tangent-- I've come to realize that I have a horrible completion rate when it comes to finishing ideas in my head; especially in conversations I have a tendency to constantly find myself at a crossroad(s?) between continuing what I originally wanted to talk about and exploring some (seemingly more interesting) offshoot that springs to mind and bears further discussion/investigation. I do not know why this happens. I am far too much of a worrywart to consider myself impulsive, yet I think in the most random and impulsive way. One possibility I could site is my work; I probably use about 5% of my total thinking capacity doing my day-to-day routine, so in some ways it would make sense that my train of thought behaves like a cooped-up 4-year-old. But that's not fair to my job, because I was like that in college too. And college kept me reasonably busy a fair amount of the time.
I was thinking I'd offer you an example of what I mean by not being able to follow exactly where my train of thought takes me, but the whole fucking page above this sentence is an example, so I think that'll do.

How did I get here... right. Sahara. Let's talk about that.
I was prepared to ream this movie. I really was. I mean, I loves me a good adventure but I can play the "realism police" card with alarming frequency when I feel a movie is trying to sell one too many implausible, effects-laden "money shots" to impress the crowd cheaply. And, well... if you watched the trailer, you really could not walk in expecting much else. But-- there was some kind of magic to this adventure movie. It's been a long time since I was talked into accepting the type of super-size "suspension of disbelief" moments Sahara offered, but it really worked for me. Maybe it's a totally subjective 'Liam thing' that took place here, that I just needed a little kick in the movie-curmudgeon pants, but I thoroughly enjoyed the stupid and spectacular thrills of this PG-13 adventure. For one thing, I really really appreciated that this movie did not take itself seriously; it's insulting to your intelligence when xXx pulls some ridiculous stunt bullshit and then does the movie equivalent of mugging in your face and basking in its own untouchable awesomeness... when the protagonists can have a good chuckle about it and play up some of the silliness it pays off for miles in what the audience (or at least jaded bastards like myself) will allow. Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn deliver great buddy hero chemistry, William H. Macy is William H. Macy, and Penelope Cruz is... hot. Not gonna spoil any of the story, not that it's espcially worth keeping a secret.


I liked.

I was gonna do a blog on movies that are good for about half their runtime-- entertaining stuff that falls apart but at least fails valiantly. Shoot me a comment if you have any suggestions, these come immediately to mind:
The Beach
28 Days Later
13th Warrior
Bourne Supremacy
Last Man Standing
The Mosquito Coast
X-Men (part 1)
LOTR: two towers (horse-plow action)
The Stepford Wives


Ok, what else...
I recently registered the domain www.brog2.com, which this webpage will be smoothly transferred to later this week or next time I get the motivation together to do it... I designed a new front and a couple bells and whistles to accompany the "new brog," more on that to come.
PEEEAACE

Singapore Diaries, the dramatic finale! [Mowgli]

So... bit of an anticlimax really. Exploring terminal 1 again was pretty boring, though they had a nice rest area I read in for a while. Picked up Life of Pi in a bookstore, and I'm liking it so far. Other than that it's just been wandering around and using the free internet. Oh, and someone's playing Halo 2. First one I've seen. Boo Halo 2. Boo! Oooh, I just noticed there's a web cam. I'm not sure how to work it though, since these computers are really locked down tight. Maybe since Yahoo messenger works you could videoconference with that or something.

I wish I had a camera with me, there are some great signs around. One of my favorites is a picture of a bunch of cocktails and beer bottles and such with the slogan "Drink up before your flight!" and a rack of pamphlets to help you. Then there are the posters that say "Your voice, our vision" and "Enjoy it" underneath. I enjoy it more when my voice reflects MY vision, but eh. Oh, and more props to Johnnie Walker advertising. Besides everything else, they also have clouds of hanging ad signs over the travellators, which are also covered with their ads.

Well, my session's about to run out, so this is it until the next update from India.
Mowgli out.

Singapore Diaries, part II [Mowgli]

We now rejoin our story in progress...

Johny Walker wins the advertising contest, hands down. Its not just that they have the full length of all the travelators decorated with JW ads. That's pretty good, but the deciding factor is their store-sized station in the main terminal. They have some kind of golf promotion stuff, and hundreds of square feet with displays of scotch. Lots and lots of it.

I had to search for a new free internet terminal. The one I wrote part I on was equiped with a jittery little optical mouse the size of a gnome's cellphone, with a recently polished and greased scroll wheel. Anyway, I found a place with free internet and free XBox live. Free XBox live sounded like a good deal, but as it turned out every station was full. Every station, that is, except Halo 2. Nobody wants that here either, apparently. I briefly considered it, then wandered around more. After drinking a Pepsi Ice (slight flavor of mint, strong flavor of ass) and looking through cds, I came back only to find that the live component didn't work. It was in japanese too, so I gave up on troubleshooting. Then I headed for the free internet, which brings us up to date. Now, to find snacks that aren't prawn flavored...

This concludes the second installment. Stay tuned for the final explosive chapter, coming soon to a brog near you!

Singapore Diaries, part I [Mowgli]

Hello from Singapore! I haven't posted in a while, but I'll be here in Singapore airport for the next 8+ hours and I figured I'd make a blog series of it.

The flight to Singapore was fine, about 17 hours including the layover in HK. I mainly slept and watched a string of movies. I hadn't seen The Incredibles before, that was the best part of the flight. I liked Spiderman 2, but the storytelling felt really heavy-handed at times. If they'd gone a bit more subtly I think it could have been a better movie. It's still good though. Ocean's Twelve, on the other hand, was not. I didn't even finish watching it once it got into the whole Julia Roberts playing Tess playing Julia Roberts part. Bleh. On the two hour leg from HK to Singapore I watched I, Robot, which is fun in a Cyber-Will Smith teams up with robot messiah to fight Shodan sort of way.

Something I'd never tried out before, the audio-on-demand on SIA flights is really good stuff. You can either listen to entire cds (218 choices) or pick tracks from them to add to your playlist. There wasn't much to listen to other than Franz Ferdinand, but the system was pretty tight.

That's it for the first part of the Singapore Diaries. We'll be updating in the next 2 to 4 hours with exciting news updates as I wade through the layover!

on religion and poker. [Lester]

If Christians and Buddhists could agree that heat vents on the ocean floor with the single-celled organisms that consumed chemicals were like hell, we'd have religious unity.

Dealer: Hand #86572160
Dealer: bears826 posts the small blind of 10
Dealer: steeler247 posts the big blind of 20
Dealer: You have been dealt [2d 4d]
Dealer: bears826 calls 10
Dealer: steeler247 raises to 40
Dealer: bears826 calls 20
Dealer: The flop is [9d 9h Kd]
Dealer: steeler247 bets 80
Dealer: bears826 calls 80
Dealer: The turn is [5h]
Dealer: steeler247 bets 100
Dealer: bears826 calls 100
Dealer: The river is [Kc]
Dealer: steeler247 bets 100
Dealer: bears826 raises to 1,865, and is all in
steeler247: damn k....you have a nine huh
steeler247: JJ
Dealer: steeler247 folds
Dealer: Uncalled bet of 1,765 returned to bears826
Dealer: bears826 shows [2d 4d] (two pair, Kings and Nines)
Dealer: bears826 wins the pot (640)