I've also noticed many, many searches for Julian Hopper. You'll all remember Julian as the guy who impersonated Dennis Hopper's son at the bar Gatsby's. Looks like he's been using that line enough to get people Googling.
My brother has come out of the proverbial "blogging closet," and also permanently disabled his blog — making the first decision a little perplexing. Oh well. I blame it on that little grey box.
I'm home for Thanksgiving. Coming back to the small town I grew up in is always fun. It's nice to experience life at a slower pace. Reading the Police Log from the local paper reminds me just how small a town it really is.
At 1:08 p.m. [on Wednesday, Nov. 8], a motor vehicle was stopped for a general traffic violation. Later in the afternoon, a cell phone was turned in as lost property to the police station. It is being held at the station for safekeeping. A caller reported a sick raccoon, but the animal was gone when officers arrived. Lost keys were turned in to the station at 10:05 p.m. and are being held for safekeeping.
Nathan Goulding [Visitor] - Edit 2006-11-15 @ 00:16
This guy is me. Wonderful picture, isn't it? You should see the full-color bleached-out version...
Sure enough, his IP address (129.138.36.62) is located near a place called Socorro, New Mexico, and a reverse DNS returns a domain owned by New Mexico Tech (altamarino-62.rcn.nmt.edu). After some in-depth research, I've also discovered that my alter ego spends time having milk-drinking contests.
Why I Won't Vote Tomorrow
I live in New York but am registered to vote in Massachusetts. Sorry. I bet you were hoping for some insightful exposition here.
Poker Tournament
Thanks to Dawn and Karol of IHO for inviting me to yesterday's poker tournament. Out of eleven players, I came in fourth place. Considering I'm not a good poker player, especially at tournaments, I felt pretty good about it. The highlight of the tournament was when I "dropped The Hammer" (playing, and winning, with a 7,2 offsuit). Dawn describes it best:
Nate dropped the sickest Hammer I have seen since Garth dropped it at SoxLover's house.
He raised to 300 - I believe that was six times the big blind. I called with nines, Ari called, Karol called and Evin called.
The flop came out A Q T - all diamonds.
It checked around to him and he bet out 500.
Evin raises, he calls.
Heads up, he bets out again, she folds her queens face up. He shows 2c7s.
The table falls into silence.
I was so busy counting my chips I didn't realize until I read Dawn's post that Evin folded trip Queens. Now that I know that, I actually feel a little guilty about it. She seemed so nice, and I was the new guy — not even a poker blogger.
The other memorable moment was when SIF busted out. Dawn describes:
Somone standard raises, and six people call. SIF in the SB then reraises to like 2000.
"Dammit, I knew one of the blinds was going to do that," Karol says, "I was just about to say 'Evin, don't do anything crazy.'"
"well, it's the right move, right? To pick up all the dead money," I say.
Anyway, I folds around to Nate, who calls.
Heads up they see a flop of 7 2 9.
SIF moves in.
"That's a surprise," F-train says.
Nate thinks awhile and calls.
SIf shows AJ to Nate's A4.
River? 4.
I had no business calling PF, but I think the flop was actually 2,5,5 which makes my second call a little less ridiculous. There was a large pot and I had a gutshot straight draw with seven outs (four 3s and three 4s). I thought Bradley hadn't hit his flop and wanted to buy the pot after his large PF bet, given his smaller chip count. I think I had pot odds too (granted this was because of my terrible PF call). Anyways, those were my reasons.
"Julian" Hopper
This past Friday night I went to a bar called Gatsby's somewhere near Lafayette and Spring with a few friends. A couple drinks into things, a guy came over and started "dancing" with one of the girl's in our group. He introduced himself as Julian Hopper and quickly said that he was the son of Dennis Hopper.
I decided to look into it today and see if this could actually have been possible. Sadly, it seems as though there is no Julian Hopper. From Dennis Hopper's Wikipedia entry:
Spouses & Children
Victoria Duffy - 1 child (daughter Galen Hopper)
Katherine La Nasa - (divorced) 1 child (son Henry Lee Hopper)
Daria Halprin - 1 child ( daughter Ruthana Hopper)
Michelle Phillips - (divorced)
Brooke Hayward - 1 child (Marin Hopper)
Hey, I'm Walkin' Here
While walking to my apartment from the subway this evening I almost got mowed down by a delivery boy on his bike. I have now learned that, in New York City, you must look both ways before crossing a one-way street.
You Know You're Riding the NYC Subway When . . .
. . . you see a sign like this:
Coming in a close second place was the time my roommate and I were riding the N train to Brooklyn (we thought) to visit an apartment. Before we got anywhere close to Brooklyn, however, we were told over the speaker, "We've experienced some switching problems and are now on the tracks for the 6 line at Astor Place. Please walk over to 8th Street and Broadway to get onto the next N train heading to Brooklyn." Right then we decided to start looking for apartments in Queens.
Mami's a narcoleptic, always sleepin’ on Hov',
Gotta tie the back of her head like Deuce Bigalow.
— Jay Z
As a rapper, part of your unspoken contract states that you are only permitted to reference or show interest in three movies: Scarface, Carlito’s Way and The Godfather. There is also the Wu Tang Clause that states that a certain type of East Coast rapper is permitted to quote kung fu and blaxploitation films, but that’s it. All other cinema is off limits. [...]
Also, please note that from a song that is abhorrently misogynistic, and invokes almost every single racial stereotype in the book (literally every single one: black, white, Asian, Indian-dot, Indian-feather, stewardess—we challenge you to create a racial stereotype to which he doesn’t refer), we chose a line about Deuce Bigalow. Why? Because rappers are allowed to be misogynistic racists. They’re just not allowed to acknowledge that they watch Rob Schneider movies.
Some Cool Tools
I've updated my services page with a few new things, notably:
Color Palette Creator - This can help you design attractive color palettes for websites. To share a color palette you've created, click the "Permalink for this color palette" link. (FYI: The Java applet does not work in IE 7 beta.)
IP Locator - This displays your IP address and (if possible) shows what city, state, and country you're coming from — integrated with Google Maps, too. You can also search specified IP addresses.
De-spammed
I just deleted 600+ items of spam from the comments. You'll now notice a image with some numbers in it on the comments page. That's to prevent those 600+ items of spam from coming back.