The time has come to discuss how Kim somehow crushed everyone in poker on Saturday night.

I tried teaching Kim how to play at some point in our lives. I think it was on an airplane, but we didn't have chips and there were only two of us. Teaching someone heads-up is a lot different than teaching someone how to play at a full table - I'm at best an average heads-up player, but my natural cheapness takes over at a full table, allowing me to just lurk and strike. So basically, Kim has very little idea how to play. I was prepared for an interesting evening.

There were seven of us, and we each bought in for 20 bucks.

The first big hand of the night involved Swannie and Kim. The board was ugly. Swann kept betting, and Kim kept calling. On the river, Kim lead out, and Swann all-inned. Kim called. Swann showed a royal sampler (nothing). Kim flipped pocket aces. That began the run.

What really kicked things into gear was a hand that I should not have been involved in. I think five people saw a pretty ugly flop that had two clubs. I had a gutshot with a Queen of clubs, so I decided to call. The turn and river both brought clubs, the ace of clubs was on the board. Three of us saw that last card. Yada yada yada, Kim flipped the king of clubs, and she had basically took out two more people. I was left with 125 in chips after that beatdown (blinds were 25/50, but we started with some odd amount like 1700).

Somehow, I quadrupled up. Twice. Things are foggy due to too much Highland Park whisky.

But I do recall Ben and Kim having multiple confrontations, with Kim coming out on top almost all the time. On one hand, Kim called a bet of 400 on a board of 10/10/6. The turn brought an ace, and Kim then led out on the turn and river. Ben flipped pocket queens, Kim showed ace rag. Ben was not pleased.

She even learned to bluff a bit, although her bet of 300 into a pot of approximately 1200 was more confusing than anything. It did get Ben to fold and walk around the house screaming "She's in my head!"

After Kim got some more chips, it was down to me, Ben, and Kim. Kim probably had a bit more than 2/3 of the chips in play. I had my original stack, and Ben had a little more than double that. In any other situation, the big stack would be a huge favorite. But Kim... well I believe the expression is "the deck was hitting her." She was just getting good cards, and her strange, almost nonsensical bets were somehow paying off. But we all knew, or at least Ben and I knew, that it wouldn't last. So negotiations for a chop began.

I proposed something very fair and equitable, given my precarious chip position and Kim's unsustainable stack. Ben would take 40 bucks, me and Kim would take the rest except for like 20 bucks, which the three of us would then play for. Ben was tired and still bitter from Kim betting him out on the river, so he agreed. Unfortunately, Kim said something like, "I have all these chips. I don't want to split the money. I want it all!"

Without unanimous agreement, the deal failed. We continued to play.

Ben and Kim got involved in the next big hand. Ben kept betting with like second pair, and Kim kept calling. On the river Ben bet a decent amount, and Kim called, showing her ace high. As Ben stacked up his chips, he proclaimed that his new price was 60.

At 1500 in chips, I was not in a good spot. I was the short stack by a lot, and Kim was in the process of leaking her chips to Ben. I found 8/7 on the button and raised. Kim called, and the flop was 7/x/x. Kim bet, I moved all in, and she called with 5/5. I doubled up.

Ben proposed the original deal (or so I thought), and I said no. I told him the new offer is 35, as I now have some chips to work with. Drunken negotiations continued, and eventually Ben informed me that he only wanted 40; leave nothing in the pot, we can just take it. I happily agreed, and Kim declared that she won all the money.

The rest of the night was drunken craps and elios pizza. I also spilled a glass of whiskey on the dining room (craps) table. Sorry about that guys.

I had quite the interesting Sunday.

I woke up with a crushing hangover from a bit too much Highland Park whiskey. Whose idea it was to finish that stupid bottle is anyone's guess, but Ben, Swannie, and I (with some help from Kate) did finish out the bottle fairly quickly. The results were not surprising, but thats a story for another day.

After a drive up to central NJ to visit one of Kim's ex-coworkers and her newborn, we went off to her brother's new business. He decided to open up a dollar store, and it is slated for a mid-August grand opening. In the meantime, the store needs to be set up.

Thus, I became a stock-boy for 4 hours.

The bulk of my time was spent in the bathroom aisle, trying to organize the random packs of toothbrush holders, soap dishes, shower caps, and loofas. At one point, we realized there was not nearly enough room in the aisle for all of the quality goods that dollar stores are known for. I then had a question / idea: Why was the toilet paper in the bathroom aisle? Isn't it more of a paper good, so it would belong with the napkins and paper towels?

This bright idea led to me moving all of the stupid rolls of toilet paper to a new aisle. Mind you, this is a dollar store, so there aren't 12 packs of toilet paper - it is mostly tons of individually wrapped rolls. And then I got to stack them neatly. It was enthralling and invoked memories of my earlier days as a stock-boy at Hallmark. I put up shelves. I put in pegs. I even broke down boxes and carted them out to the cardboard-recycler-dumpster thing. I was exhausted at the end of the day.

On the way back to NYC, it started POURING outside. I mean in the words of Ollie Williams, "It rainin sideways!" The bus took a "shortcut" through Hoboken to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. Another result of the monsoon was a massive cab line outside of the Port Authority, forcing us to take the subway home. After a 15 minute wait or so (including an A-train passing by... I couldn't begin to tell you where that goes or the last time I saw one before an E), we got out of the station and walked the final few blocks home. It was still raining, and I guess I forgot to mention that in addition to the bookbag full of clothes, I was also carrying a bag of golf clubs. And our only umbrella was one of those small compact ones that barely covers one person. The kind you might find in a dollar store (although it wasn't from her brother's).

Your Sunday was probably better than mine.

The greatest week in The Onion history continues...

Report: Majority Of Americans Proficient At Owing Large Sums Of Money

Grandfather Disrespected In Own Home

Holy crap, best edition of The Onion ever! The Onion sold to China!

A couple articles:

Nothing At All Happens To 28 Tibetan Protesters, Their Families

Internal Weakness Openly Shared With Coworkers

Yao Ming!

A man was arrested trying to force open a locked door to a house.

Police were called after a woman reported seeing a man trying to pry the front door open with his shoulder. When asked to identify himself, the man refused and began insulting the officer.

Clearly, the only plausible explanation is racism.

After a long day of the beach, a failed attempt to use our Olive Garden gift card, and a nice meal at Via Emilia, Kim and I settled in for a nice relaxing Saturday night movie. Unfortunately, our choices were basically between two Jessica Alba movies. We know how those usually go...

The first choice was Good Luck Chuck. I'm not sure why any girl ever thinks that a guy would want to watch a romantic comedy. Yes, even if the actress looks like Jessica Alba. The analogy essentially is:

Women : Sports ::
Men : Romantic Comedies

The other choice was Awake, a movie we both had no idea about. The one paragraph synopsis on Showtime on demand said it was related to a condition that some general anesthesia patients face, where they are in fact awake after being given the stuff, although they are completely paralyzed. Since I would rather rewatch The Happening than even be in the same room as a movie where hot women are throwing themselves at Dane Cook, I voiced my strong support for Awake.

The following contains a lot of spoilers about this surprisingly good movie, so if you have Showtime on demand you should consider watching the movie first. But I need to tell you the plot and resolution so you can see how great this movie could have / should have been. You probably won't watch it anyway.

The premise of Awake is that there is a condition called anesthesia awareness, where a patient is not given enough anesthesia. Thus, they remain conscious, although unable to move or communicate. Some of these patients unfortunately feel pain as well. It actually sounds extremely scary.

Anakin Skywalker plays the heir of some very wealthy family. His dad died awhile ago, leading to a very odd Freudian relationship with his mom. He needs a heart transplant and has been waiting for a year or so because of his rare blood type. In the meantime, he has started dating Jessica Alba, his mother's personal assistant. He's done this in secret, and even after proposing to her he refuses to let her wear an engagement ring. After revealing the engagement to his mother, Skywalker and Alba get married that night. An hour or so later, his beeper goes off, indicating a donor has been found.

While this is drama is unfolding, another one is as well. Anakin's mom wants her super-surgeon buddy to do the transplant. Anakin wants his friend to do it, the surgeon who saved his life when his heart first went on the fritz. Eventually, Anakin breaks the hold his Mom has over him and chooses his friend to do the surgery.

As the surgery is about to begin, the surgery team is faced with a new general anesthesiologist. The one they usually use is not around for whatever reason. This perturbs everyone (the team and Anakin), but they can't afford to wait. Anakin gets put under, but remains conscious throughout the procedure. Thus, he feels the pain of being cut open, and also hears what his friend the surgeon is discussing with the members of the team.

I must say, Kim figured this all out extremely quickly. The doctors are basically in cahoots to kill him. They plan to inject the new heart with some substance which will make Anakin's body reject it. Why do they want him dead? Well, it wasn't a coincidence that the donor became available right after he married Alba. She is in on it, and she plays the role of "cold-hearted bitch" amazingly well. I would say its her best acting performance I've ever seen.

Anakin hears all this, but he's paralyzed and "dies." The quotes are there because he is on bypass, so while he doesn't have a working heart, he is still technically alive. They can't take him off bypass until his mother consents.

You can see where this is going. His mother, of the same blood type, kills herself so he can have her heart. This seems to set up an awesome final half hour. She could get her surgeon buddy to do the next surgery, Anakin's surgeon pal and Alba would think that noone is any the wiser about what they tried to do, and they would just live out their lives until Anakin got revenge on them all. I even figured it could go like this:

Anakin agrees to testify as like a character witness or something in one of his friend's malpractice trials. Why you would have a character witness at one of those things is beyond me, but its not like movies have been great about legal theories. He would be testifying, and Alba would be in the courtroom as moral support for him, and the other doctors on the team would be there as well. The lawyer would ask Anakin what he thinks about his friend, and Anakin would testify "Oh he's great, always tries his hardest and never makes mistakes, except when he tried to murder me to pay for all these malpractice lawsuits." Then all of them would be arrested and Anakin would have the final laugh. It would tie in perfectly with the premise of the movie - the doctors and Alba would never see it coming! How did he know?!?!

What happens instead? The writers decided that Anakin's mother FIGURED IT ALL OUT before setting things in motion (killing herself, having her surgeon guy come in for the second surgery, etc.) So basically, it didn't matter at all for the purposes of catching the bad guys that Anakin was awake and heard all of their plans. COME ON!!!! It would have been so simple, and made this movie a straight up "A," if it had played out as some variation of above. It even could have been Anakin just killing them all with a lightsaber. I wasbegging for anything where the people who tried to screw him thought they got away with it, but only to find out in some painful manner that because of the anesthesia awareness, he knows EVERYTHING.

Those reservations aside, the movie was very watchable and even engrossing at times. This is the best performance I've seen out of Jessica Alba (and it even includes a little side-boob at one point). It definitely exceeded expectations.

Grade: B+

I've eaten well the last few days. Here are some reviews:

Quality Meats

Its restaurant week in NYC, which means you go out for a $35 prix fixe dinner (which turns into over $50 after you get a drink, tax, and tip). Its still a good deal considering some of the places you get to eat at, even though you're not getting their top of the line entrees. I had always wanted to eat at this restaurant, so this seemed like a good opportunity.

Their restaurant week menu was fairly typical - 4 choices per course, with 2 or so appealing to me. I started with the steak tartare. It was of course, awesome. It came out in a bowl with an egg dropped in, four pieces of toasted crispy bread, and a small plate of seasonings - salt/pepper, spicy mustard, minced shallots, and capers. I stuck to the salt/pepper and shallots, but Kim seemed to enjoy the mustard. She also inhaled the diver sea scallops as her own app. Clearly, the appetizers were a big hit.

Kim ordered the baby back ribs as her entree. They were about as tender as ribs can be, basically falling off the bone. In fact, after Kim passed over the rest of her ribs, I used my fork to just peel off the meat - no knife needed. Very flavorful almost in an Asian sparerib type of way.

I obviously got the hanger steak with brandied cherry sauce. The steak was pretty sizable, and cooked perfectly. It tasted different, but in a very good way, as the cherry sauce added a bit of sweetness to the meat that is rarely present. I'd order it again in a second. My only gripe is that there was not even a small amount of carb served with it - so I subsisted on the bread that was brought out earlier. it wasn't a huge problem though.

Dessert was solid as well. I ordered the vanilla ice cream, and it was served with a cookie underneath. I'm not sure what the cookie was, but Kim loved it. I took the bulk of her raspberry pomegranate sorbet, which was placed on top of a collection of raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. It was as if they knew my usual pinkberry order.

Overall Grade: Extra-Quality

Kwik Meal

Gibbs had circulated a listing of the best street-meat places in Midtown Manhattan. Pursuant to said list, Gibbs began a week of eating street meat for lunch. He tried the number one place, Kwik Meal, and proclaimed it "blew his mind." Many things blow Gibbs' mind, but I wanted to try it anyway.

It was kind of an accident that we went, however. Kim and I had gone to Dave and Busters to celebrate her recent promotion, and we decided to walk home. On the way, we just kind of accidentally ran into Kwik Meal. It seemed like fate. We were somewhat hungry so we stopped.

The first thing you notice is that this is not your normal street-meat cart. You can frickin get tiger jumbo shrimp over rice if you want. Not that I would ever get seafood from a street cart, but still, the option is there. We ordered a mix plate (chicken and lamb).

I must say, it really does seem like Kwik Meal doesn't belong on the list. It is just a different type of food. For instance, the famous 53rd and 6th cart that I so dearly love is your typical shaved meat, just done in an awesome way. This cart serves actual chunks of lamb, like you might get in a restaurant. In fact, if I were served this food in a restaurant, I wouldn't really think twice. The lamb and chicken are both succulent tasty, and the white sauce was above average as well. The rice doesn't seem like it would be anything to write home about (as it isn't the orange color I'm so fond of), but it actually is a nice base for the food. I stayed away from the hot sauce that was placed in the corner of the container, but Kim said it wasn't too hot.

I do have two concerns with the place. First is the price. 8 bucks for a mix plate is a significant cost when compared with the 5-6 bucks I pay at other places. The second is the amount of food - it isn't as much as the other places. I'm just not sure that the higher cost, smaller portions, and only arguably better taste make this number one. It probably depends on what you're looking for. If you're wasted at 2 AM, I say 53rd and 6th. If you're looking for something of a bit higher quality, then Kwik Meal is where you should go.

Overall Grade: Kwik and Mealerific

Rack & Soul

Ah yes, the part of the blog post that will really pique the interest of the Ben / Gibbs Dinosaur BBQ contingent. But first, lets put things in context.

I like Dinosaur BBQ. I think the bbq is acceptable, the ribs are pretty good, and salt potatoes are one of the best side items I've had anywhere. Unfortunately the brisket is abominable, so I stay away from that. The Dinosaur wings are their calling card, and while I am not a big wing guy, I still appreciate a good wing. So I like eating at Dinosaur.

On the night of the Bar Pentathalon, we were pretty drunk and hungry. We first tried to get 99 Miles to Philly cheesesteaks, but oddly they have closed that place down. So it was then suggested we go to Dinosaur, which is approximately 10 billion miles away (read: 20 dollar cab ride). I, in turn, suggested Rack & Soul, which is equally far away and also had great ribs at the BBQ fest at Madison Square Park. I was mocked for such an idea, and off we went to Dinosaur at like 10 PM.

As we waited for our table (for a half hour or so), Gibbs and I entered into a spirited debate over whether Fette Sau or Dinosaur was a "better" BBQ place. I stated that as each of the three items I ate at Fette Sau were better than their counterparts at Dinosaur, I thought Fette Sau was better. Gibbs took an opposing viewpoint, and many opinions, some soundly reasoned and others beyond ridiculous, were exchanged.

So last night, as part of the extended "Kim got promoted" celebration, the two of us went to Rack & Soul. We ordered combo platters - I got ribs and BBQ with beans and fries, Kim got ribs and fried chicken and beans and mac and cheese.

Lets start with the first thing that was brought out to us: biscuits. The biscuits are warm and incredibly sweet. They are glazed with honey, and maybe infused with it as well. They are awesome, and Kim wrapped up the extra to bring home. How about the rest of the items?

Fried Chicken: This is one of their specialties. I will give it the highest praise I can - it was comparable, if not better, than the Publix fried chicken we look forward to every year in Ft. Lauderdale. Kim got a thigh and a wing with her combo. I will say this - best fried chicken wing I've ever tasted.

Ribs: These were what got us here in the first place, as we sampled them at the Big Apple BBQ Festival. They were as good as I remembered, and I won't go into details again.

BBQ: As good as the ribs and fried chicken was, this was the best item of the night. You know how you run into those incredible bits of pulled pork that were on the outside of the meat, so they have a good char on them? Now imagine that almost every piece has some good char on it. That's what you've got here. And when you use the term "fork tender," this is what you should refer to. Seemingly solid chunks of bbq suddenly falling into smaller strips at only the slighest provocation by your utensil. Just out of this world BBQ.

Beans: Not as good as I remembered from the BBQ festival. There were pepper bits or maybe green beans floating around in the beans, and it gave it a funny taste. There also didn't seem to be much bacon flavor anymore. I probably wouldn't get them again.

Mac and Cheese: Greasy and good. A solidly above average preparation of the classic carb. No hint of jalapeno or any spiciness, but I don't like that anyway.

Lastly, the portion sizes. Enormous (that's what she said). I can usually put down almost any dinner, but I had trouble with this one. Kim didn't even come close. So after we asked for a box, I basically had a full meal leftover.

And that brings up the real proof of how good this was. It is easy to say something is awesome, but actions never lie. I decided to bring the leftovers into work today. This is generally not done. In fact, I don't think I've seen any lawyer bring his or her lunch to work. It didn't matter, I was having leftover BBQ today. So I lugged it to work in a plastic shopping bag and put it my floor's fridge. But the story doesn't end there.

The box was one of those foil things, so I couldn't microwave it. Thus, I had to go to the cafeteria to get a plate to microwave the food on. This forced me to walk through the halls, ridiculously carrying an empty plate. Then, I had to go into the document production room where the microwave is located, microwave my food, and proceed to walk back to my office with a smoking plate of leftover BBQ. These were not walks of insignificant length. All this tomfoolerly, simply so I could eat the leftovers from last night.

It was worth it.

Overall Grade: The Best

We watched a couple movies yesterday afternoon. Both ended up being pretty similar in that we watched them to completion, they held our attention, had some cool scenes, but were not anything awesome. I'd say 6 to 6.5 range scores.

Wanted



The protagonist is a loser with a crappy job. Interestingly, he learns that his father (who walked out on him when he was very young) was the ultimate assassin. Now, he has to avenge his father's death, by killing his father's killer. So the usual plot of uncoordinated goofy guy who has innate killing abilities ensues, with the hero learning how to be a bad-ass.

The twist in Wanted is this - some people's hearts, in times of great stress, will beat upwards of 400 times per minute. This has the effect of pumping massive amounts of adrenaline into their brains, which makes time slow down for them. This allows these individuals to do things requiring extraordinary coordination and almost precognition. Examples include shooting the wings off of a fly, or firing a bullet from well over a mile away, having the bullet pass through windows, traffic, someone's doughnut, etc. before eventually striking the target. Interesting concept.

There is, of course, a related problem I have with the movie. You are asked to buy this adrenaline story, and fine, okay I'll bite. There have been studies regarding how basketball players (and other athletes) get "in the zone" and time basically seems like it slows down for them. The human brain is an enigma, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility. The writers even created some sort of scientific explanation for their version of the phenomenon.

So how on earth does this translate to someone being able to curve bullets? Or how does it give someone the ability to run down a hallway, jump out of a window of a building, cross an avenue in mid-air, and crash through a window of the building across the street? So now your heart beating 400 times a minute allows you to jump the equivalent of 8 lanes of traffic? I can stomach incredible coordination. I can't stomach superhuman speed and jumping ability. Well, I can't buy it when the premise for the ability is a mental, not physical one. But aside from these issues, the movie was very watchable, aided largely by Angelina Jolie.

Eagle Eye



This movie could have been so much... more.

I caught it 25 minutes in, so it is possible that I'm giving it too much credit. But the first hour of the movie was pretty sweet. There are these two people, and they are basically being shepherded around a city by this strange female voice on the phone. It seems to know everything about them. The voice also seems to be able to control random things, like trains, cranes, traffic lights, etc. Its kind of like Live Free or Die Hard in that respect. Anyway, it is not really clear what is going on, or why these two people were picked, so that adds to the movie's suspense. You keep thinking, how on earth did the voice on the phone do that? And what is its plan for these two?

SPOILER ALERT



And then you find out that the voice is a sentinent computer system that was built to analyze threats to homeland security. It has decided that the executive branch is a threat, and the Declaration of Independence empowers it to eliminate approximately 14 members in the chain of succession to the presidency. So now the movie is sort of like I, Robot. It would have been so much cooler had it just been a covert organization or something, but the computer thing... meh.

Before we headed up to Leeitnam (our apartment) for the final two events, we stopped by Benidad and Tobago to drunkenly play with that country's newest citizen, Mork Elliott. Ben got out some sangria and beer and we took a break from the Bar Pentathalon.

Things are somewhat fuzzy, but I do recall this: Kim was sitting on the floor with her sangria. On two non-consecutive occasions, Kim stopped paying attention and accidentally allowed Mork to drink sangria out of her glass (which was also on the floor). It was pretty funny and awesome. I think Mork enjoyed it.

We caught a couple cabs up to Leeitnam, and readied ourselves for flip cup. During the first Bar Pentathalon, Gibbs annihilated Ben in this event, leading to a Ben boot. We hoped to see a re-enactment.

In the days leading up to Bar Pentathalon II, Ben did his best to have flip cup removed from the competition. This was likely due to his fear of booting yet again. His "idea" was shot down. Then, on the day of Bar Pentathalon II, Ben incredibly lobbied for a HALF beer to be spread out among the three cups per side. This idea was eventually ridiculed into oblivion, and the usual full beer per three cups was used.

The first match was between Leeitnam and Sarah Leeone. Sarah Leeone might have had a slight advantage, because the rules allowed them to use both of their representatives; one of them would have to double up, but having two people take on one is pretty nice. However, it didn't matter, and Leeitnam advanced to the finals fairly easily.

The next match was reigning flip cup champion Papua New Gibbers facing reigning booter Benidad and Tobago. What ensued was quite embarrassing.

The two countries were tied after the first cup. Ben took a slight lead after the second cup, and then he inexplicably just stopped doing... anything. He held the third cup in his hand and frowned; he just stood there with a sad look on his face. Gibbs continued going and eventually "won." Meanwhile, Ben ran off to the bathroom and continued his streak of booting during flip cup. We took turns listening through the door. It was NOT pleasant, but was hilarious.

After he got done booting, we informed him he was up. Benidad and Tobago had to face Sarah Leeone in the third place match. Ben refused. We all told him he could not refuse. He demanded (multiple times) for us to give him the zero. I weighed the consequences of this disgraceful action - allowing him to do so would virtually guarantee victory for Leeitnam, as the minimum two points for making the finals would give Leeitnam a four point lead over second place Benidad and Tobago, with beer pong as the final event. I advocated for the zero.

Ben finally was coerced into playing, and he miraculously defeated Sarah Leeone. He did run to the bathroom right after the match, but he held it in, declaring he was "fine." After that, Papua New Gibbers steamrolled Leeitnam in the finals. We didn't have any carbomb supplies, and Benidad and Tobago might have just quit outright anyway if we did, so it was just as well. Event four = finished.

Leeitnam: 11
Benidad and Tobago: 8
Papua New Gibbers: 7
Sarah Leeone: 2

That brought us to the final event, beer pong. Leeitnam faced off against its old enemy Benidad and Tobago in the first match. A victory for Leeitnam would clinch the Bar Pentathalon victory. A Benidad and Tobago victory would keep its hope for victory alive.

The match went back and forth with no big swings. The death setup was voiced, neither country could get a bonus, and soon enough it was 2 to 2, Leeitnam ball. The cups Leeitnam were shooting at were in the dreaded "horizontal line" setup (the "2" and "3" cups), which is MUCH harder than a 1/2 or 1/3 cup diagonal line. I threw my first ball, and it plopped into the 2 cup. That clearly bothered Ben.

I took my second shot, knowing this was for the whole Bar Pentathalon (there are no redemptions if you double down onto or on the last cup).

Splash.

Leeitnam had clinched victory in the most satisfying way possible - with a crushing victory over Benidad and Tobago in beer pong. Sarah Leeone then unexpectedly defeated Papua New Gibbers, and Benidad and Tobago wrecked Papua New Gibbers in the third place game. It was about this time that we heard an unexpected knock on the door.

It was FISHMAN!

He declared he had to catch up, so we got out the chuggler. The leftover beer from both sides of the Ben / Gibbs match was poured in, and Fishman strongly put down a full chuggler - approximately two beers of dubious temperature. We were re-energized, and the rest of the evening was spent playing craps, more pong, eating leftover tacos, and taking a 10 PM trip to Dinosaur BBQ.

You may have noticed that the finals of beer pong were not played that night. I guess we just forgot about it, with all the Fishman hub-bub and also because it wouldn't have had any impact on the standings. Well, we played the game the next day, and to its everlasting shame, Leeitnam lost to Sarah Leeone. Sarah Leeone declared a national holiday, as this was on par with Buster Douglas defeating Tyson or the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid. Just let it be known that, unlike Tyson or the Russians, Leeitnam has the gold medal.

Or it will when Kate gets around to making it.

Final Standings for Bar Pentathalon II

Leeitnam: 13
Benidad and Tobago: 9
Papua New Gibbers: 7
Sarah Leeone: 6

Bar Pentathalon II started with representatives from Leeitnam (me) and Sarah Leeone (Kim) walking into Plug Uglies at 1:30 PM. We were the first people in the bar, and the bartender seemed somewhat annoyed at the early start to her workday. The representatives from Benidad and Tobago (Ben), Papua New Gibbers (Gibbs) and the co-leader of Sarah Leeone (Sarah) soon arrived, and the competition began.

The first event was bar shuffleboard. We threw in credit cards for a random pick of who would face who in the first round. Unfortunately for Leeitnam, it drew Benidad and Tobago, the likely top-ranked bar shuffleboard country.

It wasn't always this way.

The first time I played Ben in bar shuffleboard, we were pretty wasted after going bowling with Gibbs on a Sunday afternoon. I soundly defeated Ben three straight times, surprising him with both my skill and tenacity. Money may have changed hands too, but I don't recall. Anyway, this past Wednesday we had a bit of a Bar Pentathalon warmup, and bar shuffleboard did not go so well for me. I created more points for Ben than myself with ill-advised throws. I lost to Ben three straight times, losing $15 while being demoralized 15-2 in the last game. I was rattled going into the first event.

Predictably, I lost 15-1. It was UGLY. I will not elaborate. Papua New Gibbers defeated Sarah Leeone, although the match was closer than expected. The finals and 3rd place game were without drama, and after the mandatory carbomb, the standings at the end of one event were as follows:

Benidad and Tobago: 4
Papua New Gibbers: 2
Leeitnam: 1
Sarah Leeone: 0

The second event was Word Dojo. It initially was pool, but with the late entry of Sarah Leeone replacing Banglairdesh, we thought this would at least give that female-dominated country a fighting chance. Word Dojo, for those of you who don't know, is a game that you can play on the MegaTouch machine in most bars. That machine is usually used for Photo Hunt, and I actually advocated us playing that instead. But I was soundly overruled by the other countries. So Word Dojo was it.

In preparation for this event, Ben claimed he memorized every three letter scrabble word during his unusually slow Thursday at work. We all predicted numerous arguments between Ben and the machine.

The rules stated that the initial matchups for the round are based on the finish of the previous round. So Bendidad and Tobago would face Sarah Leeone, while Papua New Gibbers would square off against Leeitnam.

Playing any type of MegaTouch game as an individual is different than when you play with friends. In Word Dojo, getting full bonuses in the first two rounds is fairly easy if you have a teammate. But when you are by yourself it is incredibly difficult, as you don't have any crutch to rely on. Getting 99 letters in the second round is actually somewhat challenging. If you get flustered, you feel the urge to just hit random three letter words and pray that the machine recognizes it. "Roo?" "Dan?" Sure, why not. Sometimes it works ("Ben" actually counted), but usually those letters flash red as if you are some sort of ESL student.

The only intrigue in Word Dojo came during the initial match between Benidad and Tobago and Sarah Leeone. Kim (representing Sarah Leeone) put up around 810,000, and halfway through the bonus round Ben was on pace to beat that score. Inexplicably, he tried a four letter word that was a derogatory term for members of a particular religion. It was of course denied, and we all started laughing. Ben got rattled, and he ended up with 780,000, just a few words short of victory.

I put up a couple scores of over 900,000 and noone else came really close. It was decided Word Dojo would never be an event again, unless I got some sort of handicap. I didn't advocate for its inclusion, and in fact railed against it, so I didn't feel too bad about the four points for first. I did feel slightly bad after the carbomb (and the fact that we were charged ten bucks for each), but that was to be expected.

Standings after two events:

Leeitnam: 5
Benidad and Tobago: 5
Sarah Leeone: 2
Papua New Gibbers: 2

The third event was darts (cricket with no points), and it was really the wild-card. Noone knew who was the favorite, and the results could really swing the event. Papua New Gibbers had won darts in the initial Bar Pentathalon, and that gave him the confidence to win flip cup and eventually the whole Pentathalon. If there was a swing event, this was it. We left Plug Uglies and headed to McSwiggins. It was also empty, which was nice.

As the winner of the previous event, Leeitnam faced off against Papua New Gibbers. Gibbs jumped out to an early lead, closing out everything except the bull. I, on the other hand, still had a couple numbers that had zero hits. It wasn't looking good, except for the fact that Gibbs could not for the life of him come anywhere near the bull. We're talking at least 5 turns of no bulls. I chipped away, closed out the numbers, and hit an outer ring to tie us up. Gibbs missed on his turn, I hit a double bull, and Benidad and Tobago's representative slumped in his chair. Leeitnam was into the finals of darts, guaranteeing two crucial points.

I won't elaborate too much on the Benidad and Tobago and Sarah Leeone darts match, other than it took about a half hour and was absolutely awful to watch. Sarah must have missed the dart board around 10 times, and one dart almost hit Gibbs in the head while he was standing around two feet to the right of the board. It was an ugly affair that mercifully ended with Benidad and Tobago barely advancing to the finals.

The finals was almost a replica of the match between Leeitnam and Papua New Gibbers, with the exception of two "accidental" outer ring bulls by Leeitnam early in the match. Benidad and Tobago, however, took a commanding lead aided by THREE triples. Two turns before the end, Benidad and Tobago had only the bullseye (with zero marks), while Leeitnam had 15 (with zero marks) and the bullseye (with the two previously mentioned accidental marks).

I threw my three darts. Each of them hit a single 15. Ben got rattled, missed his throws, and I came right back and hit an outer ring bull. Darts was completed upon the third carbomb.

Leeitnam: 9
Benidad and Tobago: 7
Papua New Gibbers: 3
Sarah Leeone: 2

More to come tomorrow...

Bar Pentathalon II is scheduled for tomorrow.

Participants:

Evan, representing Leeitnam
Gibbs (reigning champion), representing Papua New Gibbers
Ben, representing Benidad and Tobago
Sarah and Kim, representing Sarah Leeone

Events:

Bar Shuffleboard
Word Dojo
Darts
Flip Cup
Beer Pong

4/2/1/0 scoring for each event. And of course, carbombs in-between each event.

LETS COMMENCE PREPARATIONS FOR RUMBLINGGGGGGG!!!!!