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Day 283: Parrot, Fish, Elephant

How to Tie A Bow Tie.

How to Tie A Bow Tie.

My wife and I attended a black-and-white party celebrating our friends’ company’s 10-year anniversary. They’re a real estate and mortgage firm that threw a successful soiree tonight, which is not how I would describe my bow-tying skills.

I’ve only become a fan of the bow tie over the last year or so. I don’t wear them often, but I’ve grown to like the look.

I spent a good 45 minutes trying to figure it out before tonight’s party. I was getting frustrated and no amount of pictures or youtube videos could get me to tie the bow tie correctly.

Thankfully, I’m married to a saint. She took one quick look at the video and showed me what I was doing wrong.

We were late to the party, but my bow-tie adventure was worth it because I’ll never forget how to tie it again. Watch the video below and repeat after me: Parrot, fish, elephant.

Day 282: Superman and Clark Kent

The Dodgers' Greinke and Kershaw.

The Dodgers’ Greinke and Kershaw.

The Dodgers lost the opening game of their playoff series against the Mets. Sad to say, it wasn’t as shocking as Clayton Kershaw’s meltdown against the Cardinals last year.

With how much Kershaw looks like Superman during the regular season, he has quite a few Clark Kent moments during October. It’s hard to knock the best pitcher in baseball, but the truth is with each postseason loss, opposing hitters are gaining confidence against him. They’re being patient and aren’t scared of him, knowing that he can be cracked at some point.

While I had my doubts about these Dodgers going to the World Series (hard to get too fired up about a team that was no-hit twice during the season), I was hoping Kershaw and Greinke could do their best Johnson-and-Schilling imitation and drag this team to the promised land.

Greinke is pitching tomorrow. He better be in great shape because that additional weight he’s carrying is the entire Dodgers organization.

Day 281: Oktoberfest

Octoberfest has begun.

Octoberfest has begun.

I met a buddy of mine to watch football, discuss our fantasy football teams, and have a beer tonight. A local brewery brewed its annual Oktoberfest beer last weekend so we celebrated with our mugs filled up with the tasty concoctions. For $9 we each received a beer in a souvenir mug and refills were $4.

We talked about Octoberfests past and laughed at the memories, which were basically the same: learn a few German words while drinking beers with friends and family. For years, I saved my souvenir stein from the Alpine Village Oktoberfest in Torrance. I never drank anything out of it or displayed it or even remembered I had it until I was packing up my stuff during my last move. When I found the stein it brought back some good memories.

It went straight into the trash. There’s nothing that I drink that requires a 64-ounce tankard.

My new Oktoberfest mug is a more reasonable 16 ounces. It may not have as many memories yet, but it will certainly be used more often.

Day 280: Star Trek Catan

Star Trek Catan.

Star Trek Catan.

I’ve now played three of the most popular gateway games, thanks to my local gaming group. I’d played Ticket to Ride and Carcassone (also with the group a few weeks ago) and Catan was the last one on my list.

I was somewhat familiar with the game and actually own a copy (a birthday gift), but hadn’t played it yet. Tonight the first game the group put on the table was Star Trek Catan. The basics are the same, but the added “helper cards” featuring the Star Trek characters were fun.

The rest of the group was familiar with the game and each player seemed to prefer Star Trek over the original. I loved the theme and I’ll have to see how it compares to Catan. Somehow trading brick and lumber while avoiding the robber won’t seem as exciting as trading Dilithium and Tritanium while avoiding the Klingons.

Day 279: Laughs in the Empire

After the show with the hilarious Jenny Yang.

After the show with the hilarious Jenny Yang.

Me and the missus skipped tonight’s episode of Fresh Off the Boat and the Internet after-show Fresh Off the Show. We’re not weekly TV series watchers, preferring to binge on shows on Netflix whenever we have time, but we always watch FOTB and FOTS.

Not tonight, though. While we missed the show and Phil and Jenny’s always-funny recap, we couldn’t miss Jenny at the Improv in Ontario. She was the host for an event that featured Asian American female comedians and that’s something we don’t get very often in the Inland Empire.

There was no way we were not gonna be in the audience tonight … especially after Jenny tweeted out a code for 50 percent off tickets.

We laughed, we were inspired by seeing each woman (and one man for “diversity”) own the stage, and my wife got a kick out of Jenny giving me a shout-out at during the show.

I like to think my wife thinks I’m cool (I mean, she married me and all), but having the host call out your name onstage? My coolness factor just grew exponentially and I finally get to use the hashtag #humblebrag.

Thanks, Jenny!

 

Day 278: First Win

Fantasy Football ... not really.

Fantasy Football … not really.

I can’t believe it’s October and I’m only now gloating posting about my first fantasy football win. Technically, I did win during Week 1 of the season, but that was in my second league. My main league — the one I’ve been in for 16 years — will always be my “A” league and it’s the toughest one I’m in. I’m a two-time champion and narrowly missed my third championship last year.

Last week’s Monday night one-point loss put me at 0-3. Not only has Andrew Luck transformed into Rick Mirer, but three of my players were either Out or Doubtful. Ugh.

Somehow, I managed to win my matchup this week. I’m still in the cellar of my division, but hopefully Luck will find his magic touch again and my roster will get healthy. My patience with Todd Gurley appears to have paid off … although I’m feeling a little silly for paying $34 of my $100 free agent dollars on Matt Jones, even though it was a great bid at the time.

I’d like to think this is the turning point of my season, but we’ll see. I’ve seen too many weird things happen over the years and one of them happened in August: one of our owners had $50 left over after our auction draft and we all gave him grief, joking about how that money wasn’t going to be carried over to next season. Afterwards, he conceded having a bad draft. It was understandable since he’d come straight from work that night to draft his team.

Of course, since he’s the only undefeated team in the league, I’ll be adopting his save-money approach next year.

Day 277: A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings

I’m one book away from reaching my goal of reading 26 books in 2015. This will mark my second consecutive year of doing this, after three years of missing the mark. You can see the books I’ve read on Goodreads, where I also review everything I’ve read for the year.

The book I’m reading to reach my goal is A Clash of Kings, the second of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. Most know it as the second season of Game of Thrones.

I checked out the book from my library at the start of the summer and got through 442 pages before returning it. Last week I borrowed it again so I could finish it.

I stopped watching Game of Thrones after the second season so I could get caught up with the written version, but it’s been slow going. As much as I’ve enjoyed the series so far, there’s part of me that wishes the books were shorter. Much shorter.

I know there’s a good Tyrion Lannister joke here, but I can’t think of anything clever.

Day 276: Random Saturday Thoughts

Tastykakes from the freezer are the best!

Tastykakes straight from the freezer are the best.

A few random thoughts on a Saturday night:

  1. Tastykakes: They’re an East Coast treat, but over the years I’ve seen them more frequently in Southern California. My local grocery store was having a 2-for-1 sale and I couldn’t resist the power of the Tastykake.  I LOVE the peanut butter Kandy Kakes, which taste like a Reese’s peanut butter cup in mini-cake form. They’re even better when frozen.
  2. Dodgers: The good news is they won the NL West again and are going to the playoffs. The bad news is long-time organist Nancy Bea Hefley is retiring after this season. I hope the Dodgers don’t get rid of the organist position; as much as I love the snippets of today’s pop music during a game, there’s something very soothing about being at Dodger Stadium and listening to the between-innings notes from the organ.
  3. Jeopardy!: It’s always fun to see a player dominate on my favorite game show and Matt Jackson’s five-show run has been terrific. I liked this first-person account from one of his vanquished opponents.

Day 275: Star Wars Reads Day

Star Wars Reads Day

Star Wars Reads Day

What’s not to love about Star Wars Reads Day? It’s Star Wars, it’s books … it’s two of my favorite things rolled into one ball of awesomeness.

Star Wars Reads Day is set for October 10th this year and libraries, bookstores, and other retailers will be celebrating with author signings and all kinds of festivities.

I’m fortunate to live in a town that still has a Barnes & Noble, something I did not think would still be possible in this day and age. I’ve got a few unread Star Wars books on my nightstand so I was able to resist the temptation of the store’s display shown above.

Then again, there’s still a week left to go … hopefully my wallet will resist any and all of B&N’s Jedi Mind Tricks.

Day 274: Batman Begins

Batman Begins

Batman Begins

My wife and I have been watching season one of Gotham. It’s a good cop drama based in Batman’s world, with lots of the DC universe re-told from the perspective of good cop James Gordon.

When I learned Batman Begins was streaming on Netflix tonight, I couldn’t resist jumping ahead in the Gotham timeline. It’s a terrific film, at the time the best comic-book movie I’d seen (and which would be surpassed by its brilliant sequel The Dark Knight). The Ra’s al Ghul backstory is terrific, as is the process of creating the Batman. And Michael Caine’s Alfred is still my favorite depiction of the character.

The re-imagined world of Gotham the TV series was a great prelude to Batman Begins and I have my hopes up for a mini-series starring the Dark Knight, a la Daredevil. Until then, Christopher Nolan’s trilogy is a good way to get my Batman fix.