Monday, April 21, 2008

UFC 83

Christie and I went to a friends house to watch UFC 83; the Georges St. Pierre vs Matt Serra fight. Well this is a friend but also one of Christie's old bosses from when she worked at the furniture store. The guy has a really nice house and loves to host parties, and we just happen to enjoy going to the parties. He had about 40 people or so over for the fight, every time he has one of these it seems like there are more people there.

Christie had to work until 7 so we missed the first couple fights, but here is what I thought of the ones we did see.

Nate Quarry vs. Kalib Starnes:

I was rooting for Nate in this fight. He is from Oregon and trains at the Gym where my Mom works. She has talked to him there before and said he is pretty nice. He actually looked really good in this fight and it looks like he is over his long layoff from fighting. Kalib was just embarassing, he was running from Quarry almost the whole fight. There are some rumors that he was doing this to protest the UFC's treatment of fighters but I don't buy it. I think it might be time for Quarry to really face some top competition. A fight with Jason McDonald could be good.

Travis Lutter vs. Rich Franklin:

Rich Franklin is one of my favorite fighters. He got into some trouble early as Lutter had the top position and almost secured an arm bar on him but Franklin was able to keep his cool and roll out of it. After the first round Lutter looked really gassed, I think the kick to the head definetly had something to do with it. Franklin won and again looked impressive doing so. I think the hardest thing for Franklin right now is he is running out of people to fight at 185. He probably doesn't want to fight Anderson Silva again quite yet. The UFC might need to think about brining in some more competition for him. Quarry would be good if they hadn't already fought though Quarry might be anxious to try and avenge his vicious knockout.

Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre:

This one was a mismatch and everybody knew it. I really like Serra and I like to root for the underdog but I knew Serra didn't have much of a chance. St. Pierre is just at the top of his game right now and he completley underestimated Serra last time around. Pierre controlled the whole fight. It would be fun to see Serra fight Matt Hughes, and I think Serra would stand a chance against him because of his striking. I really don't want to see Serra or Hughes fight St. Pierre again, but Jon Fitch should be a good fight for Pierre. The fight that would be just amazing would be St. Pierre vs. Anderson Silva, that fight would be just incredible.

What did you think of the fights?

Sunday, April 13, 2008

My iPhone

I got an iPhone almost 8 months ago now. I still love the thing as much, if not more than the day I got it. It is really a shame that it gets tagged as being a cell phone. It really is more like a hand held internet device that uses AT&T (or any GSM or wi-fi) network but it also happens to make phone calls.

On the phone front it is the best and easiest to use cell phone I have ever had. I have always had the ability to do conference calling on my cell phone but never used it till the iPhone. It also makes it very simple to manage more than one call coming in at a time, it gives you options of; Answer Call and Hold Current, End Current call and answer, or ignore incoming call and continue current. It makes it very simple, that and the visual voice mail are my favorite features.

I have my phone jailbroken so I can add whatever applications I want to it and also customize the look and feel. Here is a screen shot of my first screen.



On there I have some of the basic features. Maps, weather, calendar, stocks.

The maps feature is actually very useful, I have used it many times to figure out where I am and where I need to go, I used it once going to a Seattle Seahawks game and it got my Mom and I there perfectly.




Chat is an app that I added that lets me connect to AIM.

Contacts just takes the contacts out of the phone section and lets me access them with one button.

Facebook is just a link to the facebook web app, same with the ESPN icon it is just a link to the mobile espn site.

iFlix is one of my favorite apps, it lets me manage my current netflix queue. (a screen shot of that is below)



This is very useful if I am out somewhere and want to add a movie to my netflix queue.

Another cool app that I have started using is the Twinkle app, it allows me to update my twitter status and it posts a location along with the status. A screen shot of that is below.



On the next screen I have some games, like bejewled, and chess and solitaire. I would say I complete at least one game of solitaire a day, i might be addicted.



So to me it really is like a portable computer, I love the thing and I highly recommend it. With the iPhone 2.0 update coming in June I look forward to many more exciting features and can't wait to see what programmers bring to the iPhone.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Beer Can Chicken

So I decided to make Beer Can Chicken today. It seemed to combine 3 of my favorite things. Chicken, Beer and BBQ. I am still not sure what i think about the combo of the three.

It started off kinda weird. I have never reached inside a chicken to pull out the innards before and that was a little weird. I then dried off the chicken and then rubbed oil all over it. It was awkward, i don't even know the chicken's name and here I am giving it a Swedish massage. I then put salt all over the chicken followed by a pepper scrub. I am really convinced that I could probably sell the same thing at some posh salon in the Pearl District. I then put a spice rub that I had made on it and it was smelling really good and was very messy. I have come to realize that the messier the preparing of the meal the better it will taste in the end.

The weirdest part came when I had to stick the chicken over the beer can, um it was just really awkward, and it looked even funnier. Raw whole chickens just look really really funny. I almost expected it to break out into a dance.

I then put the chicken on the grill standing up straight. It looked like this.


It was actually surprising how well the thing stayed upright, I thought for sure it would tip over and I would have beer all over my grill. (Oh also I used Pabst, only the best beer for beer can chicken).

The biggest problem that I had was the grease from the chicken kept dripping down onto the grill and it would shoot flames up the backside of the chicken. So I was ending up with a very burned chicken. I am not sure how to make it not catch on fire. Eventually it got cooked and I actually finished cooking it in the oven because I could not stop it from catching on fire.

The chicken turned out really moist and tender. It was really good, you couldn't really taste the beer in it, but the spice rub that I put on it was really good. I think I will make it again but I need to figure out how to make it not catch on fire. If you have any ideas please let me know.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Mexico!

I don't think I ever blogged about the best Christmas present I got this past Christmas so here goes. After a long day of gifts and food Christie and I finally made our way to my Parents house

(Side topic: Being married and doing holidays is one thing that you never think about but is actually a pretty big deal, you are just so used to doing what you do on major holidays and then you get married and everything changes, you have to accomodate two families. It is fun because you get twice the presents and twice the food but it is just something I had never thought about.)

Anyways so we start opening gifts and we got some really cool stuff, some clothes, some video games, and my wife got a bike. But then the last thing we open is a box that has two ornaments in it. The ornaments are two tacky pink flamingo tourists like this
Tacky Tourist Flamingos

And in there was a note saying that we were going to puerto vallarta for 8 days. Turns out my parents thought we had a rough year. (My Mom lost both her mom and her dad this past year) so they thought a family vacation was in order. So on June 19th Christie and I, my Mom, Dad, two brothers and a sister will all be off to sunny Mexico. The place we are going is called Marival Resorts, in Nuerto Vallart (just north of Puerto Vallarta). My parents got a 3 bedroom suite so we have our own bedroom and bathroom. To top it off the place is an all inclusive too so all the drinks we can drink and all the food we can eat. Should be pretty exciting. I am really looking forward to it.

Well I think that is all for now, this has been a long post.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Ad Wars: McCain Returns Clinton’s ‘3 A.M.’ Phone Call

Hillary Clinton is bringing back her now-famous “3 a.m.” ad, this time using it to highlight for Pennsylvania voters her readiness in an economic crisis. However McCain has turned the Ad back on Hillary and Obama. McCain points out his differing views on taxes.

read more | digg story

Paper or plastic? You may pay 20 cents either way

Seattle would impose a 20-cent-per-bag "green fee" and outlaw foam food containers next year under a proposal announced Wednesday. Aiming to persuade Seattleites to ditch disposable bags, the city hopes to send a free reusable bag to every Seattle household, Mayor Greg Nickels said.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

New polls show Obama surge in Pa.

So a story I submitted to digg totally made the front page!! That is really exciting for me.

The story is about Obama surging in new polls in PA. I am not sure how accurate the poll actually is but hey it shows that with at least some subset of people he is doing better than expected in Pa.

I think I am going to support Obama. Usually the election for me comes down to the lesser of two evils. Hilary I definetly think is evil, she has something very sinister about her and she has been involved in too many scandals and been caught lying one too many times. I also think that it is time for someone besides a Clinton or a Bush to be in the white house. If Clinton were to win we would have gone Bush Sr.(4 years), Bill Clinton (8 years), Bush jr. (8 years) and Hillary Clinton (4 or 8 years) that would make 24 or 28 years of the same group of people being in office.

I don't agree with everything McCain or Obama say but I really like the ideas that Obama has and his views on Racism and I think he is someone that our country can feel good about. I normally would not vote Democrat but I don't think that McCain is a very strong Republican either. I am a little worried about foreign policy but I feel like the presidency is more about who you surround yourself with. Beyond your cabinet I think it is the president's job to be a figurehead for America and to be someone that everyone can look to and be proud of.

Oh well, that is my political rant for the day.

Here is the link to my digg that made the front page. Digg Story