On Food Coloring and Pokering

In which we hit a couple of different topics.

A couple of weeks ago Tim’s parents came to visit.  They had recently joined a C.S.A.¹ with a local orchard so when they came up they brought a good deal of fruits and vegetables with them.  While they were here we used some of their tomatoes for BLTs.  I will tell you what, it is nice having people come up from a few hours south because those tomatoes were perfectly ripe.

After they had left we had a few tomatoes left over so Carrie and I decided that we should make Caprese sandwiches with them².  So we grabbed some basil from the garden and some bread and mozzarella from the store.  They tasted really good and were super easy to make too.

• Step one – slice the bread, tomatoes and cheese.
• Step two – put tomatoes, basil and cheese into the bread.
• Step three – add salt, pepper, oil and balsamic vinegar to taste.
• Step four – Cram it down your food hole.

Here is a picture pre-cramming.  It was very Italian of us.  So if you are into cheap, easy to make, delicious meals give this a try.  It will have you saying gustoso in no time.

Eating colorful food has not been the only way that I have passed the time this summer.  I have also been playing a lot of poker with my friends.  Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.

Now none of us are exactly super rich³ so we like to keep things at a low limit.  We have been buying in at between two and four dollars.  Additionally we set limits of 30 cent raises.

Now you may be asking, ‘How is that fun?’  Well in order to keep things interesting we play dealers choice.  This means that when you deal you pick the game.  This summer we have played: Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw, Have a Heart, Follow the Lady⁴, GUTs, eBay, Cash Register Control⁵, Indian Poker, Follow the William, Indian Seven Card Stud, Screw Your Neighbor, I even created a game called Wheel of Fortune.  Here is a picture of a winning hand, but if you want to know how to play you will have to join a game.

We will also throw in variations such as wilds and low spade in the hole wins half the pot.  This helps to keep things both interesting as well as keeps people in games longer.  In fact, the hand of our game the other night ended up being very crazy because of this.  We were playing guts, which involves each player receiving three cards.  If you think your hand can beat the other players (no runs or flushes involved) you stay in, if not you drop out.  People that stay in have to match what was in the pot, the winner takes what had been in the pot.  We added the twist of having the lowest card in your hand always being wild, which means you always have at least a pair.

In this game we saw the chip leader lost most of his stack, we saw pot sizes of over ten dollars (easily the biggest of the night), and I went from ending the night losing over $5 to walking away up $3.  It always amazes me hour you can spend $4 and be entertained for an entire night.  And remember: you can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle, but you can’t win much either⁶.

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¹ Community Supported Agriculture.

² She’s still a little obsessed with her trip to Italy.

³ Or even ‘regular rich.’

⁴ Also known by the more crass name Follow the B****.

⁵ Carrie and I are currently working on variations Cash Register Reach-Around and Cash Register Carnage respectively.

⁶ Thank you Rounders for your bookending quotes.

On Poetic Apocalypse

In which we investigate post-apocalyptic worlds via haiku.

Children of Men

Eighteen years, no kids
Clive Owen must save a girl
Humanity’s hope?

The Book of Eli

A lone man travels west,
He must protect his book which
Gary Oldman¹ wants.

Six String Samurai

Rock’n’roll wasteland
One man, a guitar and sword
Will he be the king?

Akira

Neo-Tokyo:
Past mysteries are revealed
As Tetsuo’s rage grows.

12 Monkeys

Killer virus let
Loose, time traveler’s mission:
Take back the surface².

I Am Legend

The Fresh Prince alone
A virus from a cure for
Matt Damon’s folly³.

Mad Max

All the oil’s gone
S&M gangs roam the wastes
It’s the thunderdome.

Wall-E

Earth has been ruined
But amongst all the rubble
A love story grows.

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¹ It is a well known fact that Gary Oldman makes any movie better.
² Still my favorite Brad Pitt performance.
³ See the World War II section of On War On Film

On Kingly Ascension

In which an imprisoned individual claws his way from the depths of a dungeon to rule over all in his domain.

A week ago I was fortunate enough to spend a week as an adult guest at a Young Life camp¹.  Which, if you’ve never been, is not like your typical summer camp.  When you here the words ‘summer camp’ you are probably picturing something like this:


Not so at Young Life camp.  These are some of the most beautiful, well run, intentionally designed camps around.  Middle school and high school students are told that it will be the best week of their lives and it is rare trip in which that is not the case.  This is where we stayed:


But all of this is a prelude to the actual topic of this post.  In the middle of camp, right near the dining hall, there was an incredibly sweet Four-Square court.  And we played, a lot.  It had been a number of years since I had played four-square and I forgot how much fun it was.  There were always people playing so when we had some free time Tim and I would join in.

Early in the week the games would be filled with a bunch of dudes  that played games that allowed slams and they enjoyed crushing the ball as hard as they could.  This wasn’t much fun, so Tim decided to introduce a new style of play.  King rules.

In king rules whoever is in the king square² makes up the rules that they want to play by.  This, at first, allowed us to easily do away with overhand hits and slams.  As time went on we introduced other variations.  Examples include, having to spin after you hit the ball, screaming after you hit the ball, saying a state or color as you hit the ball, quarters³, and even requiring that the player be off the ground when a ball is struck.

At first the kids weren’t really into this new style of play, but it slowly caught on.  Later in the week we walked up to the court and found a group of students playing king rules even when we weren’t involved at in the game.  It was pretty great.  The girls really enjoyed coming up with random, or embarrassing, things to say after you hit the ball and it was cool to watch the kid abide by the rules set up by the king.  It made me miss being a Young Life leader more than anything else in the last four years⁴.  It also made me want to play four-square more often.  So if you have a ball and a some spare time drop me a line and we can get a game going.  Just be warned, I have a pretty awesome serve.
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¹ Timber Wolf Lake in northern Michigan.
² In four-square the squares are labeled dungeon, joker, queen, king.  The king square, which is the best, gets to serve.
³ In quarters at quarter is placed in the center of the court.  If a player can grab the quarter after striking the ball legally and is able to remain in play he or she automatically ascends to the king square.
⁴ Not enough to actually lead again though.

On Vacation

In which I'm in Michigan

Be back in a week¹.
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¹ I've been waiting to make this joke for over a year now.

On Patriotism Through Athletic Competition

In which we take an anecdotal look into the love of sport and country.

Something you may not know about my friends is that we love a good chant.  Not in a Gregorian sort of way, more in a goofy, obnoxious sort of way.  For example, if you walk into a room with a large group of us hanging out there is a good chance we will start chanting, “Tim, Tim, Tim…¹”

This past weekend I had the honor being an usher at my good friends’ wedding².  At both the bachelor party and the wedding reception we got some fantastic chants going.  The best, however, came right before Brett and Jenny left the reception.  All the guests that were left had been chanting a ten second countdown in an effort to force the happy couple to appear, but to no avail.  Too keep the crowd into we switched chanting the ABC’s.   As we approached the last quarter of the infamous song I whispered to my fellow ushers.  The result was the following:

“…R…S…T…USA…USA…USA…”

Everyone around us quickly jumped on board, it was glorious.  The USA chant us one of our favorites and had been used as both the wedding and bachelor party multiple times.  But what was the cause of this sudden, and raucous outpouring of national pride?   A little thing I like to call the glory of sport³.

In case you haven’t heard the World Cup (in which either soccer or football is played depending on where you live) is currently going on in South Africa.  It’s only the most watched sporting event in the world, if you don’t count yourself among those that do watch you should probably get on that.  There have already been some memorable moments for the good ole US of A.

In game one versus England the US was down one-nil⁴ early on and things were not looking good.  Until the Americans had a strong shot on goal.  It seemed like England’s goal would field the ball cleanly until.




Whoops! USA…USA…USA!  Final score 1-1 (+10 national pride points for hanging with the limey brits).
Game two versus Slovenia was one that we absolutely couldn’t lose if we wanted to move on.  Slovenia jumped up to a seemingly insurmountable 2-0 lead.  But the scrappy Americans clawed their way back in and tied it up at 2-all (+7 national pride points for hanging tough New Kids style).  Then, out of no where, on a free kid the US scored a third goal taking the lead.


USA…USA…USA! But wait, the head ref call a penalty on the US and waves the goal off.  However, on replay there was no foul to be seen.  Commentators and pundits around the world can’t believe it.  Even Fifa benches the ref that made the call.  Final score 2-2, the Americans are officially robbed of a win (+20 national pride points for getting royally boned).

The final game of group play against Algeria has now become a must win game.  They manage to break the “fall behind early” streak that plagued them in the first two games.  Unfortunately they were not able to break the “mystery penalty that costs them a goal” streak and so the game remains tied at 0-0 for all 90 minutes of regulation. 

Then, in the second minute of stoppage time⁵, a ball is shot and bounces off the Algerian goalies hands setting up a shot for Landon Donovan, one of the US’s best and most well known  players.


USA…

 USA…

 
USA…


 USA!

Final score 1-0 (+15 national pride points for edge of your seat, last second heroics). So the US wins in spectacular fashion and moves on to the second round of the World Cup.  Which is great because now Americans cared about soccer for at least another week.

Yesterday, however, the hopes of our national team were dashed as they exited the tournament, losing to Ghana by a score of 2-1.  However, they fought bravely and forces an overtime period.  Hopefully the national interest in soccer will continue and in four years we will be ready to compete again on the world-wide stage.  For now I’m just happy that people are watching and me and my idiot friends⁶ get to chant “USA…USA…USA!”
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¹ Or whatever your name happens to be.
² Technically I was asked to be an usher, then forgotten about before I reminded Brett and was made an usher again.
³ It could have also been the beer consumption at the reception.
⁴ Nil is a limey soccer term for zero.  Other phrases include “the pitch was slippy".”
⁵ The time added to the game as a result of any penalties or injuries.
⁶ I apologize if you are one of those friends, I love you dearly.  Except for Tim (Felton) who never reads my blog anyway.  You don’t get an apology you buster.

On Filling a Gap With History and Humor

In which apologies are given, pictures shared and laughs had, hopefully.

So due to completely foreseen circumstances¹ I was unable to get last weeks blog post put up.  It is currently about three quarters of the way finished.  I will most likely spend some time this week making some changes and streamlining it as it is running a little long already.  However, I didn't want two weeks to pass between posting so I figured that I would write something shorter now and then finish up the post I have started for later in the week.

History and I have always had an interesting relationship.  I really enjoy learning about and discussing the past.  Which, I imagine, surprises some people since I will often avoid really intense historical/political conversations and documentaries.  But there is something about the past that just grabs me, especially when history and pop culture collide².

This last week at work, or at least at the first half of work³, I had a lot of free time on my hands so I decided to check out Hark! A Vagrant.  I had heard about this site a number of times over the last few years and I have to say it is pretty rad.  Kate Beaton, the author, is a cartoonist who also enjoys history and so she started an online comic about that very subject.  I thought I'd share some of my favorites in an attempt to persuade you to check it out.

Let's all agree that a) it would be cool to hang out with St. Francis of Assisi and 2) birds bringing you muffins would be way rad.

Fourth of July, as see by a canuck.

Beaton doesn't always interact with history:

And part 2:

And sometimes she doesn't even deal with history (ps this is probably my favorite of all of her work).

I would totally read a longer story with mystery solving teens.

So that was Hark! A Vagrant.  Hope you enjoyed it, you should check it out right here.  You won't be disappointed, I promise.

Back soon with a game that I created.
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¹ I knew that I would be working a ton, and had a bachelor on Friday and Saturday so things just didn't get done when I wanted them to.
² See http://bravodeploysatchmo.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-war-on-film.html
³ Last week and this week I have been working two jobs.  One at Jackson Creek M.S. and also at a summer camp program.  It has been exhausting to say the least.

On Maintaining the Integrity of the Pouch

In which a long promised blog and a long blog promise both come to fruition.

This blog is the result of two conversations separated by a month's time.  The first conversation took place at Sarah and Tim’s graduation party.  I don’t remember the context, all I remember is the topic (which we will get to in a moment) and the phrase “maintaining the integrity of the pouch.”

The second conversation took place at Rodeo Ruby Love’s CD release show¹ this last weekend.  My friend Alena mentioned that she had read the blog which started a discussion between the two of us as well as Jon and Kevin.  At some point Kevin ask me if I could write shorter posts².  That’s really not my way, but this week I will do my best to keep things short, and have lots of nice pictures.  Anyway, I suppose I should start the actual, you know, content of the post³.  Think of these first to paragraphs as a preface, or introduction (if you are classless).

Getting old blows.  I’m not even that old but I still know that it can be pretty sucky.  One good thing that comes with getting older is the ability to complain about people that are younger than you and how things are easier/harder/lamer/more fortuitous for them then when you were that age.  For example.

Kids these days have no idea how easy they have it.  Growing up a staple of every youth soccer game that I was a part of was having Capri-Suns at half time⁴.  This is most likely still the case, but have you seen the Capri-Sun pouches they have these days?

That arrow?  It’s pointing to the hole where you insert the straw.  If you were to purchase some Capri-Sun for yourself you would discover that the hole is made of a thinner material than the pouch so that the straw is easily inserted.

This wasn’t always the case.  Back in the day there was a little circle designating where you were supposed to place the straw.  However, it was made of the same foil material as the pouch; the straw has a sharp edge to it so that you could break through the material.  This led to one of two outcomes.  The first was that in exerting the force needed to puncture the pouch you accidentally drove through both sides.  This caused the straw to become less effective and robbed you of your delicious halftime drink.

In an attempt to avoid this first outcome some people would squeeze the pouch to separate the front and back.  Unfortunately the meant that the juice was being forced upward placing pressure in the general direction that you were now going to cutting open the pouch.  Once the straw entered the pouch there was an eruption of juice, again wasting valuable liquid.

So what were young soccer players to do?  Ah, that is when youthful ingenuity comes into play.  Step one: remove straw from package.  Step two: turn pouch upside-down.  Step three:  with your thumb on the blunt end of the straw jam the sharp end into the bottom of the pouch in a swift downward motion.  Step four: enjoy.

Pretty smart huh?  I tell you what; kids these days just don’t have any idea how easy they have it.  It’s sad that in a few years we will be led by people who never had to overcome the Capri-Sun conundrum.  What a pity.

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¹ It was a rocking show, and they are touring all summer.  Check out http://www.myspace.com/rodeorubylove to see if they are coming to your town.
² I think he needs to man up, this ain’t no Twitter account.
³ See, short just isn’t my way.
⁴ Orange slices were the other staple.