random thoughts and thoroughbred selections

Friday, February 01, 2008

Distracting You From Links Below

Watch This Instead!

[>>]posted at 2:56 PM by BG - click to email
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Ugh

Bad enough.

Even worse.

How did G-Rob not end up doing anything on camera as embarrassing as the rest of us?

Yikes. Just fucking yikes. I am not a proud man.

[>>]posted at 1:52 PM by BG - click to email
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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Is It Chili?

Matty and I disagree - so VOTE!

[>>]posted at 12:28 PM by BG - click to email
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Louisiana, Where Nothing At All Happened

Congratulations once again to CJ and Lady Luck on their wedding. I remain flattered and pleased to have been invited, and I managed not to spoil the whole rehearsal dinner by keeping my mouth shut. Mostly. I knew a goofy little quirk (nothing big, I assure you) about the couple that, apparently, her family did not, which would have made for the type of thing I would normally have said out loud (e.g., busting my little brother's balls in front of my parents by casually broadcasting his secrets at the dinner table - it's a family sport) to endear myself to the crowd. Alas, Mrs. Otis' mind tricks caught me as we were introducing ourselves around the table, and I simply stated my name, said thank you and sat down.

Ah, brevity. I should engage that philosophy more often. Actually, one of my areas of improvement on my last performance review was (essentially) "should shut the fuck up more often."

Yup.

Anyway, I flew out of Newark at a gawdawfully early hour on Thursday, and managed to get exactly zero hours of sleep on the plane. I did, however, have a layover in Memphis right around lunch time...

Score! That's a camera phone picture of the variety plate at Interstate BBQ in the Memphis airport. Chopped pork and pork ribs, presumably shipped in from the Interstate home base a few miles out of town, and it was fucking delicious. Big fan.

After eating that, I spent the next hour lying prone on the floor fighting off the bloat. It was that good.

Landed in New Orleans in the early afternoon and made it to the hotel with the idea that I'd get a nap in before meeting up with the guys. No dice. One of the sincere drawbacks to staying just off Bourbon Street is that the bars have loud-ass bands playing at three in the afternoon, and it's nearly impossible to sleep through predictably recognizable takes on MOR/Classic Rock Radio staples banging in through your windows.

So, no sleep. I showered, changed, and hit Harrah's to catch up. Sat down at a blackjack table with G-Rob and Todd, ordered a drink, and hung around near even through the shoe-and-a-half Mervin dealt the table. Then, the pit boss tapped him out, replacing him with a tubby woman named Janelle who couldn't stop hitting to 24 through three long shoes. I have never been party to a blackjack heater like this. It was fucking gorgeous. Hell, it was stay-on-sixteen-with-an-eight-showing good. G-Rob even split tens once, just to get more money on the table (yes, she busted).

I walked away +$250, with Todd and G-Rob bettering my profit by round number multiples each. It was gorgeous. Sadly, the affably chatty Janelle gave way to the all-business Jersey dude, who promptly pulled twenties in his first two hands in the new shoe. Cooler!

Whatever, we had steaks to eat.

Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse is a New Orleans institution, and the easy choice when your guest of honor is this guy.

Playing with your food may be what the doctor ordered
By KATY MCLAUGHLIN
March 4, 2006; Page P7

Three months ago, during a poker-playing trip to Las Vegas, C.J. ___ feared what he might face at the tables -- the restaurant tables. That's because Mr. ____ is a seriously picky eater who cringes if friends order rare lamb and fears the sight of mayonnaise, bits of onion and spaghetti sauce with tomato chunks. So he stuck to the few foods he likes: well-cooked steak, baked potato and a lobster tail.

His fussiness makes him feel a bit unsophisticated, says the 29-year-old ____ in Lafayette, La. Another liability: "I can't tell you how many girlfriends have told me they're going to get me to eat sushi. They're crazy."

So yeah, we weren't about to go nuts on the gumbo or anything. I had a crawfish appetizer on a fried green tomato (B+), a bottle of Masi Campofiorin (B+, $30 on the wine list), a New York Strip (MedRare, my go-to temp for more marbled cuts) with a whiskey peppercorn sauce (B+), and some fries (D+). Actually, "some fries" isn't exactly right. The waiter warned us that the sides were big, and talked us into getting a single order of fries for the table. In actuality, this left each of us with a fry-and-a-half from the dish, and irritation that this was somehow someone's idea of "big."

Anyway, food was good, company better (including poor Mrs. Otis, who was tagging along after missing out on the bachelorette party festivities), and we moved on to some bar where we pretty much huddled around one of those trivia machines (all seven of us) and pumped in dollar after dollar to try to get high score on that game where you find the differences between two pictures.

If it wasn't for one slip of CJ's finger, we might have beat TACOS Y BURROS for the top spot. Sadly, we were simply chasing a ghost and failed to wrest the crown from his (presumably) bean-smelling Mexican fingers.

NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED THURSDAY NIGHT. Then I went to sleep.

Todd made us walk from the hotel to the casino parking garage with all our luggage in tow on Friday morning, which was just fucking miserable. ~~The rest of the night~~ That trivia machine took a lot out of me, and we needed breakfast badly.

Here's where I need to ask a question... I swear to fucking god there are commercials on the tee vee for Denny's that advertise a BUILD-YOUR-OWN-GRAND-SLAM. The waitress in the Nawlins Denny's had heard of no such thing before. Am I fucking nuts?

Anyway, breakfast, coffee, 45 minute traffic jam in Baton Rouge (WTF? Seriously, what the motherfuckityfuck?), and then on to Lafayette and the rehearsal dinner, where Todd enjoyed a Bloody Mary:

He was probably still too drunk not to be giggly, but that is a big goddamn Bloody Mary.

Unfortunately, Friday ended there, as G-Rob, Otis and Todd had played Pai Gow for too long on Thursday (Friday morning, actually), and needed their sleep.

More later, gotta run...

[>>]posted at 3:42 PM by BG - click to email
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

For Your Tuesday AFTERNOON Viewing Pleasure...

Now that you have had a chance to digest Otis shaking his thing (see below), how about everyone's favorite Ivy League Metalhead engaging in some line dancing?

[>>]posted at 11:53 AM by BG - click to email
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For Your Tuesday Morning Viewing Pleasure...

It's Otis, dancing at CJ's wedding.

No, he does not fall.

Note the grab-assing that goes on at about the :40 mark, and how it prompts Farmer Ted to immediately cut in to spare Mrs. Otis further embarrassment. Enjoy.

[>>]posted at 8:21 AM by BG - click to email
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