Naming Standards

Kelly and I finally got around to watching the premeire of Top Chef. Throughout the last couple seasons, we've begun a semi-tradition of giving nicknames so we can keep track of the contestants. The newest part of this tradition is that we'll actually document the names. So, here they are:

Cool Lesbo: Jamie

Fake n Bake: Ariane

Bug-Eyed Duck: Carla

Big Normie: Richard

Mr. Embarrassed: Patrick

Weird Face: Lauren

Capt. Kirk: Jeff

Bollywood: Radhika

Beard - 2: Daniel

K Fed: Fabio

Olive Oil: Jill

City Girl: Leah

Man Face: Melissa

Big Screech: Alex

Gansta: Eugene

Finland: Stefan

Wide Biel: Lauren

Bald Wayne: Hosea

After the first episode, Wide Biel and Mr. Embarressed have gone home. The former because of her poor peeling, brunoise, and ultimately her cooking skills (the lack, obviously); the latter was eliminated because he had the least favorite dish. Finland won the first elimination challenge.

The contestants have been conditioned on what to expect from the kitchen. Hopefully no one loses their head in with three minutes to go during the elimination challenge and starts smashing knuckles with a meat tenderizer. Not that that sort of thing is a frequent occurance on Top Chef, but you never know about a room full of strangers all cooking together. Hopefully some psych evalutations were performed to prevent that kind of outburst and prevent potential harm to themselves and others.

I'll have to wait a couple of episodes before I can pick someone to pull for, but after the first episode, I have to lean towards Bald Wayne (partially due to the name) and Capt. Kirk (although he can't hear my cheering because of how awesome he is).

State Of The Dude, Part II

I mean to pick up where I left of in Part I. Let me however journey back a few stanzas to the 5K. The results came in today, and as it turns out I came in 85th at 26:09, with an average mile time of 8:25. There were 185 people overall. You can view the official results here. Kelly's results are there as well. She came in 118th and was 4th in her bracket.

Back to the end. We concluded Saturday night with the Friend's Thanksgiving. The occasion and events are really there in the title. It's a Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of friends but before the actual holiday. Kelly made her macaroni & cheese. Good thing I was around to bring the cornbread since there were no other entries.

Breakfast with Scott & Beth was a lot of fun and at times, hilarious. Scott and I showcased our manly nature by order Mama's Pancake and Mama's French Toast Breakfasts, respectively. We marvelled at our ability to down two plates full of our title food, eggs, and sausage. Top it off with biscuits & jelly and you've got yourself one helluva meal. After the trip to the store, it was time to play the first ultimate frisbee held on Sunday. I took Jade and I don't think she could've been happier. It's unfortunate that I must say that taking her was the best part. While gameplay was good, the wind was a real downer for the whole day. 

Sunday night finally came and Stash and I got to play GOW2 together for the first time. While very nostalgic, I had some network problems that I'm not convinced are solved. I'm running the xbox wirelessly to our single router. Unfortunately, the router is upstairs so it's got a lot of walls and interference to run through. I changed the broadcast channel in hopes that would help the interference part of the whole equation. I think it helped, but I'm not sure it completely solved the problem.

State Of The Dude, Part I

It's been a week. I've got a few updates. First of all, I want to amend the recipe for the cornbread. Basically, make it two eggs instead of one. You're welcome to take down the milk a little, too...say 3/4 cup?

So I just got off the phone with He-man in good ol' San Fran. The big man's doing well. I'm sure he's got some more great artwork going up soon. Check it out. Speaking of Will, he mentioned I should try making jalapeno and cheese cornbread. Being the genius I am, I forgot to get jalapenos so I'll have to remember that when I go out tomorrow.

Gears of War 2 came out on Friday. Of course I had to get a copy of that. I gotta say it's pretty impressive. The weapons are all really great. The GOW2 team even revamped all the old ones so they perform more realistically, yes including the chainsaw machine gun. I haven't run into all the new weapons yet, but I have gotten to play with the flamethrower and shoot mortars. The monsters are more badass than before and they actually come in hoardes rather than half dozen hanging out in a room or hallway enjoying some coffee and scones. Another great thing about the game is the graphics and environments. The game employs the Unreal 3 engine with a few modifications made to it. Not much else to say except that it's a lot of fun to play. I'm still playing the campaign and working out some network issues (see next post).

Saturday we ran another 5K. This time we didn't have to get up before the sun and head out of state. The whole race was 15 minutes away at the local VA which hosted the fundraising event. The run was actually a lot of fun. What I mean to say is the area in which the run was held was a lot of fun to run in. The run itself made me wonder why I do these things in the first place. Out of a few hundred, I placed 89th coming in at just over 26 minutes. My first mile was about 8:05, the second mile was 16:40, and the third finished at just over 26. As you can tell, my mile times dwindled as the race went on, moreso between miles 2 and 3. Perhaps that was due to the lack of training or all the candy I've had to eat since Halloween drew to a close. The other reason was that by the time mile two was over, I didn't feel like running much longer. Some people from work and I are talking about a 10K come May, so we'll see how that goes.

So I had a little more here but I got tired of writing so I'll make another post tomorrow or sometime in the next couple of days.

Capt. Reynolds & Inara Serra

Halloween blew through wVA with its usual gusto. Last night was the costume party that we attend. Larry and Alex (the hosts) were Jason from the Argonauts and Medusa, respectively. We also saw a few of the main cast from Gilligan's Island, Dr. Horrible, Michael Phelps, Sara Palin, Marvin the a seductive witch, a vineyard vixen, a pirate, and a few others. Here are a few picture of us. I was Capt. Malcolm Reynolds and Kelly was Inara Serra, the Companion. Both are characters from Firefly, the show that ran for a season; and Serenity, the movie that served as a sequel to the show. The premise of both the show and movie is a space western.
We ended up playing, undefeated I might add, in beer pong. Yah us. After being sure we were set to drive (thanks to the Larry and Alex's breathalizer), we uneventfully made it home and got some sleep. Unfortunately, we forgot about the time change so we woke up just before 8 AM.
For breakfast, we made a sweet potato & egg concoction that hasn't been fixed in awhile. During breakfast, we watched Kung Fu Hustle. Now, if you've never seen Kung Fu Hustle, then I strongly recommend it. It's a parody of just about every other kung fu movie you've ever heard of with some similarities to the Matrix thrown in. Then again, even the Matrix was a very kung fu-ish movie. Anyway, ripping good laugh with some ridiculous action. Once that was over I played with the dogs.