Ultimate Whiners: Heavyweights

After last week's Ultimate Fighter episode, they showed a teaser for last night's episode, with Rampage going nuts and ripping apart what looked like a prop door made out of cardboard, Matt Mitrione going nuts and yelling a lot, and Dana White going nuts and cursing about how good the fight was. I was excited, as the last few fights, while they were pretty good, barely lasted longer than my attention span when there's bears around (about 2 minutes). My excitement was confirmed when the actual fight started around 10:40, giving time for more than 1 round. My heart soon sank however, when I realized Scott Junk's tiny T-Rex arms couldn't punish Mitrione's face like I had hoped. Mitrione soon got gassed and started slapping at Scott, who for his part, couldn't do much either. Supposedly the best all around fighter on Rampage's team, Junk repeatedly failed at getting a take-down, often looking like a drunk 4 year old trying to fight Godzilla (or at least what I imagine that would look like). At some point, Junk had hold of Mitrione's foot, like a child throwing a tantrum. It was an awful, boring fight, and while both fighters connected on 95% of punches that weren't wild swings, 99% of those punches did no damage. If Kimbo had been in the fight, both Junk and Mitrione would be done dada.

Persnickitily Picking Pumpkins with my Phamily

Every year, towards the end of September or beginning of October, my sister and I face the biggest and most important decision for that year: which pumpkin are we going to take home. It's an agonizing and slow process, involving weeding out lots of weaker offerings and plenty of advice asking. Really, it's a collaborative process. And that's why I'm glad the last couple years I've gone with my entire family, since my sister shares the same pumpkin picking philosophy as me. Furthermore, there's no competition, since she prefers a yellow-orange and tall shape while I go for rounder, slightly larger, deep orange-red with deep ribbing. Adds more character.

We go all out too. We're serious about our pumpkins. There are still some fields out on Long Island that haven't been turned into every-single-house-is-identical "communities" our strip malls. We go for that real shit too, where you can cut the pumpkins off their vines. This is pumpkin picking like it was meant to be, not some silly city pumpkins sitting in a box in a corner grocery. My only rule is that neither my sister or I can cut any pumpkins off the vine until we're certain they're a contender. Top 1 or 2 pumpkins we've seen so far.

Elimination can take some time, as all aspects of the individual pumpkin are studied, the specimen must have lasting power to stay in the apartment for months on end, and it must speak to you, call to you in some primal way. If man's best friend is a dog, then man's second best friend is a pumpkin. Damn, they're beautiful. Every fall, I wish I could just be surrounded by different, beautifully colored winter squashes all year long. Pumpkins and hubbards and potimarrons and buttercups and kobuchas and red kuris. Sigh.

This brilliant piece of writing sums up my feelings for Cucurbita pepo, maxima, mixta and moschata. However, if I had written it, there'd be no traces of irony present. That's how close to my heart these wonderful fall wonders are.

NY State apples. Represent, yo!

The Mr. Peanut pumpkin almost came home with me. Almost.

Selflessly guarding our pumpkin choices with his life

Pumpkin quorum. That's mine, front left, huge stem. WOW.

My sister, smiling due to pumpkin presence

I'm BOUT Them Potatoes

My life was so bland until my friend Wiz got me a brand new potato peeler, which makes peeling potatoes joyful. I see a Yukon Gold, and I'm like BOOYA I wanna peel that sucker!

Other Awards

In keeping with the theme of why I'm so fantastically great, I add to the list that I'm the greatest wildlife photographer in the tri-state area. To back me up on that, here are some shots of animals I recently caught wandering around wildly in the vicinity of 81st street and Central Park West. You may think it's odd that I found some of these creatures, such as a badger, over there, but I think it has to do with global warming. Or possibly fall migration routes.

Even though this badger looks like I had just admonished it for not trimming it's claws, in general they can be very ferocious. Not realizing how small they are, they'll stand up to even bears to protect their giant heaps of dirt.

While he looks just like Benedict, the cardinal who hangs out in my backyard, this is actually probably his cousin or something

Ring tailed cats are quite friendly and approached me when they saw I had Butterfingers

My zoom lens allowed me to be safely far enough away from this drinking tiger

This young baboon was startled by some sort of large viper, which unfortunately moved too quickly for me to capture it

Kraven the Hunter Would be Proud!

As previously noted, I'm currently the 2nd best farmer in Brooklyn. I am, however, the number one greatest cat catcher in all the 5 boroughs and the realms and even any dimensions too. My method is real simple:

1. Put food in trap
2. Cat goes in trap and gets trapped
3. Flex on trapped cat
4. Bring cat to shelter so it can recover from trauma and awe brought on by my gun show
   

Kitty is NOT enjoying being trapped by L Bo the Hunter

Gardening Awards

I'm officially the 2nd best gardener/farmer in the entire borough of Brooklyn that I've seen. I wish I could claim to be the best, but that goes to the old Asian guy who lives a couple blocks away and produces a mind boggling amount of string beans, cauliflower and melons. Also, he's like 300 years old, which it makes it even more impressive.

Turkish eggplant, growing 1 per plant. Excellent. And useful.

Peppers of some sort that will never ripen, most likely.

Blueberry bushes turn red in the fall. Perdy!!

Finally got white sweet allysum, which my uncle assures me is the easiest thing ever to grow, to bloom.

Alana de la Garza, I love you!

That is all.