If Christ leaves Bethlehem traveling 60 MPH...

Standing here on the train, getting a little creeped out. When people read their Bible, that's one thing. When they highlight and underline as they read? Yikes.

What are you studying for? Is the Rapture your (very) final exam?

The WildMan Cometh

I am very excited to see that Thomas "WildMan" Denny will be fighting on national television this coming Saturday in the Elite XC "Saturday Night Fights" on CBS. Now, if you are a regular reader of this blog, or if you know me at all, you may be saying to yourself, I had no idea Brendon was a fan of mixed martial arts fighting? You would be correct; I am not a fan of the sport. But I am a big fan of the WildMan. He is the star of one of my favorite poker stories. Here it is.

A couple years ago, I was playing a poker tournament at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. We had been playing long enough that the opening jitters were gone, we had lost a table or two, and we were at that stage where people were starting to relax and talk a little more. I had a decent chip stack, so I was more than happy to loosen up and chat. However, there are two consistent questions at Vegas poker tables that I am not a big fan of answering, mostly because of the perception that comes along with both.

Question number one, where are you from? And question number two, what do you do for a living?

When I tell people I am a lawyer, you can imagine the grief that usually comes along with that. When I tell people I live in San Francisco, you can equally imagine the grief that comes with that. Put the two together, and it's a non-stop laugh riot.

So the questions were working their way clockwise around the table, and were fast approaching. Do I lie, and take a chance? Hell, I've been bluffing all morning...what's a couple more? Or do I tell the truth, and let the fun begin?

The guy to my right had been keeping the hood of his sweatshirt up most of the morning, giving him a vaguely Phil Laak-type table presence. He was playing pretty well, mixing up his play and getting aggressive when he needed to. The "what do you do for a living" question got to him, and I'm thinking I need to decide whether to lie or not, when this guy pulled down his hood, revealing a neon green mohawk, along with crazy sideburns shaved to make him look like the devil. He looked around the table, and very calmly said,

"I'm Tom...and I'm an Ultimate Fighter."

The questions never got to me.

For the rest of the morning, every guy at the table sat in child-like wonder as "the WildMan" talked about what it's like being an Ultimate Fighter (not much money until you get a real name for yourself), what his training regimen was like (brutal and regular), whether he would beat up people in real life (no money = no punchy), and so on. He was a real gentleman, patiently answering question after question, and I think he even signed an autograph or two. My favorite moment was when he and I got involved in a big pot; I ended up taking it down after some semi-bluffing that let me catch up on the river, and he acknowledged the bluff. My response was simple: "This felt is the ONLY arena where I have a prayer against you!" He seemed to get a kick out of that.

I had a great time chatting with the WildMan, and I am very excited about his getting national, network television exposure. Good luck on Saturday, Tom, and best of luck in the future as well.

Jimmy Dean...James Dean...

Inspired perhaps by Jen's love of the 80's song, I recently finished the book Rock On, by Dan Kennedy. The book is supposed to be a mostly non-fiction recreation of Dan's work for Atlantic Records in the 90s, and how he sort of slacks through a year and a half making a salary most of us would dream about to work in the music industry, and yet be as far away from the creativity of music as possible. Dan worked in marketing, which explains the lameass description on the cover as this book being like The Office meets This is Spinal Tap. It is difficult to express in words how tired I am of that description of anything. I guess it's like Cliche meets Lazy Writing.

Which, if I am honest, is cliche and lazy writing on my part as well. Damn you, irony.

I love San Francisco

...and its myriad of fascinating, multi-culti advertising...



Limang just happens to be one of my favorite flavors.

Her britches

As you can see by comparison, the wee one is getting less wee by the day...

Success!

[This is us, when we finally arrived at the front of the line, waiting for the next available Apple store employee to sell us our fun new gadgets. This should also be the last photo I take with my old cellphone!]

After an embarrassingly long wait this afternoon, I am finally home, sitting on my couch, and blogging on my new 3G iPhone! How cool is this? I haven't quite figured everything (read: most things) out, but I have a sense I'll get better as the weekend goes on. For now, I'm typing with one finger and having a blast.

More soon...