Punch Out....

Feel so tempted to get a Wii JUST to play this...Such fond memories of playing the NES version in that little free arcade machine in the MCLLU lounge....

A Lemony trip to Austin

Spent this weekend hanging out with Lemon and half-BluPnutMM couple in Austin (other half in China). The weekend seemed to focus mainly on the taste of Texas over any actual touristy attraction so here's a brief summary of the eats:

Dinner-Friday: Louisiana Longhorn Cafe-We went here specifically to eat crawfish as Lemon had never had this before. I had hoped it would be fresh crawfish, but it turned out to be rather old crawfish that had probably sat in the pot for the whole day. The key to being able to learn how to efficiently eat crawfish is for the crawfish to be fresh. Because this wasn't true, Lemon had quite a difficult time learning how to actually peel the crawfish. The seasoning was good, but the crawfish really didn't taste good because of the non-freshness.

Brunch-Saturday: Kerbey Lane Cafe-Salt Lick was planned for dinner so this was to be a light brunch. Lemon had the full stack of pancakes and some sausage. To our surprise, he ate it all, and seemed none too worse for wear. It wouldn't be the last time he surprised us with his intestinal prowess.

Dinner-Saturday: Salt Lick-This was the big event of the trip. We specially ordered the marbled brisket for the occasion and it did not disappoint.


The pork ribs were a bit tough the first plate, but the following 3 plates all had tender ribs. I am not sure how much meat we consumed, but I think we were all sick of meat by the end...maybe.


Brunch-Sunday: Round Rock Donuts-I challenged Lemon to eat an entire Round Rock Donut by himself thinking it would actually be a challenge. Lemon annihilated the donut easily and even had a pint of chocolate milk afterwords to wash it down. We are not worthy!

It rained the entire Saturday so most of our outdoor planned activities were a scratch. As a result we had to resort to indoor activities to work off those calories. We bowled several games at a local fun center and played several games of pool at Slick Wiley's. I demonstrated my awesome aptitude in pool by losing 2 games by scratching the 8-ball and missing the 8-ball on an easy winning shot while setting Lemon up for the win. During the evenings, we played Texas Hold'em. Lemon won the first game, I won the second game, and PP won the last game with a pair of Aces on the River. The weather did finally clear up on Sunday and we were able to go kayaking before Lemon's departure.

...

...

Biggest Loser: Finale

The 10 week biggest loser competition at work is finally over and I finished in 4th place, losing 18lbs. The winner ran away with the competition losing 42 lbs for over -16% total weight lost. The pot ended up being $412 from the initial $20 fee and the accumulated penalties each week. ($5 for missed weigh in, $1 per pound gained). My goal for the competition was to lose 20 lbs and to not pay any money in. I was doing fine all the way until the last week when I gained 2 lbs and had to pay $2. Overall, I have lost 34lbs since the Vegas trip and hope to lose about 15-20lb more. Luckily, I am planning a trip to China in June where I will be eating super healthy, including but not limited to: Peking Duck, Pork buns, Fried Chicken Wings, Sweet and Sour ribs, Lamb-kabobs, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Austin Trek

Going to Austin this weekend to hang out with Lemon who is in town for a conference. The plan is for tasty meat from Salt Lick and death by donuts from Round Rock Donuts. Should be a good time!

I can't wait to wake up!

This brings new meaning to "the best part of waking up!" PewPew!

Dallas and WCG Ultimate Gamer

Going to Dallas this weekend to visit PP's aunt and to visit the Dallas Arboretum. Should be a good trip!

In other news, I have been keeping up with WCG Ultimate Gamer lately and the show is just nuts. It's about locking 12 gamers in a loft where they play games all day. Each week, they play a different game with half their ranking coming from some real life game based on the video game, and the other half coming from the game itself. It's pretty much a representation of life in a frat house. It's drama-tastic and totally amusing to watch. If you like emo, bang-straightening males feuding with drama-queen, cosplaying females, then this is the show for you.

Wedding Plans: VO: VII?

I know some of you (jOrange *Cough*) have been pestering me constantly on setting a date for the wedding ceremony. After some long discussion, PP and I have finally decided to have our ceremony next year on February 29th, 2010. 2010 is a great year as in Chinese '10' represents a wholesome and fortuitous number.

The ceremony will be held in Driftwood, TX as it has beautiful scenery all around and we wanted a ceremony that represents the more classic stereotypical view of Texas tradition. In order to further live up to deep southern stereotypes, we are both converting to the Catholic faith. I'll be spending the time between now and then rejecting all notions of evolution while reading the Bible and becoming expert on all things biblical, like when Moses parted the Atlantic ocean on his way to slaying Goliath. Another added benefit to having the ceremony in Driftwood is that "The Salt Lick" is also located there. Both PP and I were dazzled by its delectable meats last time round and thought it would be great to share the experience of "eating till you explode" with others.

After the ceremony, our plan is to stuff as many close friends as possible into a wagon, and reliving the pioneering days of the US with a journey to Oregon via the Oregon Trail. In preparation, we will set up a wedding registry. The most critically needed components include:

1. People familiar with the bovine family of animals (we want the most healthy oxen to pull our wagon)
2. Experts in wagon repair (those axles break all too easily)
3. Expert marksman (Those capable of killing 4~5 buffalo in one hunting trip)
4. Quantum physicists (for fitting 2000lbs of buffalo meat into a wagon that cannot hold over 200lbs)
5. Pirates (Need to ford lots of rivers with only makeshift materials)

While doctors and medicine might be useful, we wanted this to be as close to the original as possible. Therefore people will just need to tough out those bouts of dysentery/measles/snakebites that always happen.

Overall, I think this will be a fantastic adventure and wonderful bonding experience for us and all of our friends. Please send me any suggestions as to how to plan it better as we want this to be as memorable as possible!

So Useful....

I can't wait to try out this new autopilot feature from Gmail. I especially like the analytical relationship recognition AI!

De-evolution

I cannot believe the ignorance down here and am truly ashamed to be living in Texas where people simply ignore centuries of evidence-backed research in order to promote a fictitious theory completely unsupported by evidence.

The Evolution of Online Dating?

This discussion on design concepts for a "new" genre of gaming is quite amusing. Even though online pR0n sites are probably light years ahead of whatever these industry big shots can come up with! -_-;

Birthtionary

Party on Sunday turned out to be pretty cool. The original purpose was for everyone to meet Mrs. deathKnight, but she canceled at the last moment because her aunt called and they decided to go shopping instead. There was a bit of confusion about when the party was supposed to begin so most people arrived late. Lunch was a potluck of sorts with many people bringing different dishes. PP's ribs (2 varieties) were both delicious and very well received.

After the party, we played pictionary! =VGI= regularly plays games of iSketch so most of them can attest to my tremendous drawing capabilities, especially when it comes to bugs of all shapes and sizes. We had 9 people so we split up into 3 teams. Papaya/Mango/SSS (Team PMS) vs BluPnutMM couple/nCubic (Team BMW) vs Cucumbernator/PP/deathKnight (Team CPK). Our team sprinted out to a pretty commanding lead of at least half the board when BitterPotato arrived on the scene after his church services and joined team BMW. His impact soon changed the balance of the game as our team got stuck on an all-draw orange square and saw our lead dwindle down to 3 spaces. However, after 4 rounds we got out of that orange square and proceeded to run away with the rest of the game to pull out a hard-drawn victory! Pizza > Car > Moodiness

Size does matter?

You thought your gaming rig was uber....Check out this one. I especially liked the test where they opened up all programs.

Curiosity killed the...

So I have been morbidly curious about Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li since the film's release. I have read the reviews and they are all universally bad. You would think I would take the hint, but I remained curious about the movie but didn't want to pay the money to see it at the theater. It was at this juncture that PP came to the rescue and found the awesome "DVD" version. It took forever but eventually, I fully acquired this "DVD."

This movie sucked....bad...The fighting sucked, the acting is atrocious, I can't believe they got 1st Lt. Buck Compton to play M. Bison, the plot was retarded, even the ambient noise in the theater where the guy video taped it was bad. At the end of the movie, you can hear members of the audience mockingly cheering that it was over. The movie ends with a ridiculous lead up to the next movie as Gen (Liu Kang from mortal combat) lifts this flyer and talks about some fighter named "Ryu."

And they would have gotten there faster if they accepted me!

Congrats to the MIT Basketball team on making it into the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. However, they probably would have gotten there sooner if they had accepted me when I was a 7 foot 11 high school senior applying to their school! Apparently, on my application to MIT, they misread my height to be 7'11 instead of 5'11. One day, I received a call from the MIT athletic director:

Director: It says here that you are 7'11 and listed basketball among your extracurricular activities? Is this true??
Me: ... Sorry, that must have been some kinda mistake, I do like basketball but I am only 5'11..
Director: Oh...well you know MIT doesn't offer any athletic scholarships right?
Me: I didn't know that....
Director: Okay, well good luck on the application process.

Extreme Deliciousness: Day 2

Sunday started off in the morning with a visit to Round Rock Donuts. BluPnutMM told me about this awesome custom donut shop that made rather large donuts. I wasn't really impressed until I actually walked in the shop and saw it. This donut was humongous and was probably about the size of a life preserver.



This donut was not only large, but extremely tasty. It was even featured in the Travel Channel program: Man Vs. Food. The glaze they use is a special proprietary glaze developed completely in house. They also offered donut holes, danish, kolaches, and regular sized donuts (stuffed, glazed, cake). The donut was so good that I decided to bring one home to share with the coworkers.

After the early morning sugar rush, we decided to have a nice picnic outdoors at a park. We got some Schlotzskys sandwiches and fruits, picked up the lovable Teddy and drove to the park. The weather was perfect with the sun shining and a nice cool riverside breeze blowing in. I attempted to tire out Teddy by throwing his toys as far into the lake as possible, but he just kept retrieving it and bringing it back. Sadly, we had to leave after a couple of hours in order to drive back to H-Town. This weekend was fantastic and I would like to thank the BluPnutMM couple, as well as MasterMusician for their wonderful hospitality. Much thanks to GooseLiverLover for the awesome photography!

Extreme Deliciousness: Day 1

The spectacular weekend in Austin was filled with much fun in the sun and deliciousness. We left on Saturday morning and made it into The BluPnutMM couple's apartment complex at around noon. After a light lunch, we headed off to park with lots of rocks #1. We did a bunch of hiking over some relatively rough terrain while GooseLiverLover took many amusing photos of us. The wind was super strong that day causing all kinds of chaos with hair. Afterwords, we had some hot cocoa and latte at a nice riverside coffee shop while taking some more pictures then went to park with lots of rocks #2 which featured these sheer cliffs on the side of the highway. There was a lone tree at the top growing out of the rocks causing the whole scene to look like it was out of some Wu-Xia movie...minus the sound of traffic right below of course.

The highlight of the day was a trip over to the Salt Lick in Driftwood, TX. This BBQ restaurant is the mother of all BBQ restaurants. The meat is cooked over an open flame as opposed to the usual closed grill and the meat is as fresh as you can get it. The Salt Lick is essentially surrounded by ranches where cattle and pigs are raised. The place is so popular, they had multiple police officers on the premise just to keep the traffic flowing and the crowd orderly. When we finally parked and went to the receptionist, we found out there was about an hour long wait for a table and that this waiting time was actually considerably shorter than the regular weekend waiting times of 2-3 hours for a table. It was a rather chilly and windy day, but Salt Lick had these giant tents set up with space heaters for the waiting masses. They even had live performances inside the tents for entertainment. It's also BYOB for drinks so you had families with big coolers filled with beer and wine just sitting inside the wait areas drinking it up.

We finally got a table about 40 minutes into the wait and the food was on! We had 6 people and 4 of us got the $18.95 all you can eat family deal. Basically, you get this big dish of meat (sausage, brisket, pork spare ribs) that is infinitely refilled. The first bite into a pork spare rib was pure euphoria. It was tender, perfectly seasoned, and the meat basically melted in your mouth. The sausage was good, but not super awesome OMGWTFBBQ good, while the brisket at first, didn't appear to be that good. However, MasterMusician soon requested the marbled brisket and it made a huge difference. The marbled brisket blew my mind as I had never had such good brisket before. Soon, I was struggling between deciding which to eat as I only had limited stomach capacity and two delectable meat factions battling for dominance. We managed to pull through 3 plates of food and just a little of the 4th platter. To our delight, we found out that you could actually bring whatever you couldn't eat home! Don't think I have ever gone to an all-you-can-eat restaurant that allowed patrons to bring the food home..at least legally.

We tried to hit up the Elephant Lounge afterwords for a little jazz bar experience, but the artists there were covering Myles Davis that day and the line was literally out the door. We managed to get a little jazz experience while waiting in line, then headed home shortly afterwords for a fun-filled night of Pictionary.

Amazing Prophetic Previous Post

Last post spoke of hard fouls and the game yesterday did not disappoint in this category. While individually, we had a couple of pretty good players; overall, our team was completely outmatched by theirs. The other team had played more together and had way better chemistry with cuts and plays. Our team was pretty disorganized and whenever the decent players subbed out, it became all out chaos on the court for our offense/defense. They basically swarmed whenever I was inside and I got fouled a lot. Got my glasses bent, had multiple scratches including a deep one that's about 3 inches long, and several nice hacks to the head.

Eventually, we started clicking a bit more and the second game (L12-8 was a bit more competitive than the first game (L12-5). After the loss, we mixed the teams and played a pick up game. With the teams more balanced, the game turned out to be really competitive and less of a hack fest for me. We ended up winning that last game 16-14. A good time was had by all. Here's to having more games in the future.

Six Hard Fouls!

Company basketball game today between team DBA/Asset Systems (Team: The Ren) and team Infrastructure (Team: The Axis of Evil). Our team really has not had any practices and I don't even know if half the people on the team know the rules of basketball. However, I have full faith that with these members, the least we can get out of them are 6 hard fouls. The following is a Venn Diagram of our team concept:


Either way, it should be a fun game as we actually have 4 teams going in a pseudo-tournament style with the winners playing each other next week.

Addendum: Check out the awesome logo for our tournament:

Biggest Loser

Company is hosting a "Biggest Loser" style competition as a means of going with the theme of health and fitness. Being the IT department, it is full of people who probably spend more time seated than standing and more time thinking about exercising than actually exercising. Each participant has to pay $20 to enter. Then at the weekly weigh-ins, each pound over the previous week's weight results in a penalty of $1. Missing a weigh-in results in a $5 penalty. Winner at the end takes all with the winner determined by the person with the most % weight loss.

I could stand to lose about 30 more lbs which is about 12% of my total weight. This is what troubles me, assuming I get close to it and only lose 20 lb (8%). Would that be enough to win? Some of these people around the office look like a 30% loss wouldn't be an unhealthy weight loss for them. Should I resort to less ethical measures like putting giant vats of extra rich ice cream out in the kitchen?