Burgers, Beers and Beatdowns… and Birthdays

So there is no UFC pay-per-view fight in January, but two in February. Or, as it is called in Casa de Zombie, Birthday Month. Seriously, there are at least four family birthdays that month. But for the purposes of this exercise we’ll focus on the mid-month. My son and I were born on the same day and we are the two (of three total people at Casa de Zombie) with the February birthdays. This means the Burgers Beers and Beatdowns is definitely happening, we just have to choose which one. I plan on posting to the “Facebook Machines” to get the feelings of the usual attendees, but I figured I would also post it here to get everyone’s opinion.

This of course assumes you have an opinion on the MMA fights put on by UFC and the women’s divisions they have started.

The choices are between…

UFC 156 – Aldo vs. Edgar (Feb 2)

Top card is a featherweight fight. Aldo is a striker, where Edgar is an ex-wrestler with more of a ground game. Complete with the dual heads of cauliflower on the sides of his head like he’s from Alderaan. Looks like a standard 145 pound fight.

Cons…

• The ticket looks to have only a half dozen listed so far.
• Not a strong fan of either Aldo or Edgar

Pros…

• Rashad Evans fights Antonio Nogueira in the undercard
• Alistair Overeem fights Antonio Silva in the undercard

UFC 157 – Rousey vs. Cartmouche (Feb 23)

Top card is the first title fight in the women’s ranks. A bantam weight fight between Ronda Rousey (a well-balanced striker and submission fighter) and Liz Cartmouche (a similarly skilled fighter). Looks to be an interesting fight between two equally skilled fighters, not to mention a historical one. Also, I’m interested to see Rousey fight live.

Cons…

• Only 4 undercard fights listed
• Most fights are feather weight and lower

Pros…

• Dan Henderson fighting Lyoto Machida in the undercard
• Chad Mendes fighting Manny Gamburyan in the undercard
• a couple of strong ground game/submission fights

Summary

I’m leaning towards the Rousey fight on the 23rd. Neither of the fights land on or near our actual birthday. By the strength of the ticket I am more interested in the later fight. I am open to debate to change in either direction.

Either way, I will be talking to my son to see what he’d like to see on our menu. Black and Blues will be there no matter what – tradition and all. Instead of cupcakes, we’ll likely see a cake of some sort in there.

Thoughts?

The Weekend Roundup: Burgers, Beers and Beatdowns

The first hosting of a UFC event went well. Okay, not perfect. I had to watch a couple of the undercards after the Silva fight due to not figuring out how to order the non-HD version of the fight. But all-in-all that’s pretty good. As with most things there is a list of observations from the weekend as a whole.

Choice of Beers

It was UFC fight night. I had dubbed it Burgers Beers and Beatdowns. And I was involved. What do you think would be the beer of choice for the night?

That’s right, Black and Blues. I stocked up on Blue Moon and Guinness special for the night. I even broke out the Guinness glassware. Of course I did notice the four cans I had sitting in the refrigerator (not the new cans) were losing their nitrogen fizz to them so weren’t floating as well as they should. I made sure I drank the rest of those during True Blood/Walking Dead preview on Sunday. Will definitely need to be a staple for fight night though.

The Burgers

For the trial run at Rhythm and Booms last weekend, we mixed some corn flake bread crumbs, an egg and a healthy amount of raspberry chipolte barbecue sauce with the meat. This time I did the same thing with the meat, but we left out the cheese (which melted into and then through the meat) and stuffed the burgers with thinly sliced zucchini and spices. I still wrapped them in bacon and then we just put your cheese of choice on it. Not bad, but with changes next time.

If I was to do zucchini next time I would put in a couple layers. It wasn’t enough to really stand out. That said, for the next fight night I would go all for the guys.  Which is to say I would be more likely to stuff them with jalapenos or some other pepper. Maybe a little onion, but I’m not totally sold on onions. Were we to have done that this time we would have lost the pregnant woman (who doesn’t like bacon either) and possibly my wife. She’ll eat the jalapenos, but under protest. Of course she wasn’t around for the fights and didn’t stay downstairs with us when she did get home. She had leftovers the next day.

The Cost

We discussed future fight nights going down to BW3 or the like. We miss out on a lot of the commentary, but we don’t have to pay the $45 for the Pay Per View. Of course our food and drinks bill goes up. If it is two of us, it may be worth it to go to the sports bar. The more people who are even willing to toss in a bit to the Fight Fund and it becomes more worth it to have it at home. Let’s face it, the cost of food and beer is significantly less. Also we can do Black and Blues (see above).

The Summary

I would totally do this again, and will likely do it again. So, if you are local and are interested, stay tuned. Burgers Beers and Beatdowns 2 will be returning soon. As soon as I recover from the first one. 😉

Burgers, Beers and Beatdowns

Ah, the Three B’s. The 1999 movie Love Stinks had a different list of the Three B’s, but this one is all mine. For me this is a celebration. It’s one part launch party (even though the book isn’t ready) and one part wrap party. Camp NaNoWriMo was a personal success, even if my “cabin mates” dropped out early. Here is the run-down…

• $450 collected, near the $500 I had originally set as a goal. $150 over my revised goal of $300.
• At $450 collected, that is 9% of the pledges raised this go around. (Less depending on how far over their $5000 goal was reached.)
• 50,000 word goal was achieved. This involved a few 5k days and a week or two of two-a-days. (Writing from 6:30 until the day job and then back after work until the coffee shop closed.)
• Scenes were almost done. Hitting 50k doesn’t mean the story is over.
• Everyone who pledged was used in the book. Some were victims. Some were victims twice over. In one instance, thrice. (Sorry, Cara… please don’t mess with my coffee.) Some took on more of a role than I intended. It depended on how the writing evolved.
• Twice I threw someone under the bus. They were related to someone through friends and family in the book, so they tagged along for the ride. Sorry, Lauren. Blame Megan for wanting to be mauled by zombies.
• Two playlists made. Which is to say Dukes Playlist is done, but I’m still fleshing out the rock one for the detective protagonist. I’ll do a full post on it later this week.
• New characters created… 2. This is if you counts Dukes who was mostly done already. The other is Laurali. You’ll meet her once I publish this thing. She has a small part in this story, but may come back later. And yes, she was a sponsored character.

But this all leads into the party. Due in no small part to the efforts of a side character who is a local radio personality, I was forced to look at the ticket for an upcoming UFC fight. UFC 148 to be exact. And there are more than a couple fights on there I’d like to see. Add in that I have a new stuffed burger press that I totally need more excuses to use. Add into that mix my pouring turtle that I picked up specifically to do St. Patrick’s Day servings at game night of Black & Tans, Black & Blues and Blacksmiths. I can never have enough excuses to use that. This meant a party with me ordering the PPV for UFC 148.

If you’re local and interested, let me know. I’m not going to be shy about it. There is a caveat that I only have six pint glasses at home, so these are reserved for specialty pours. Mixes and standard beers get the Red Solo Cup treatment. I’m also going to ask if you’re local and you want to come, shoot me a heads up. Even if you’re not local and want to come. I need to know that we have enough room and/or food. And (let’s be honest) having enough food and beer is more important than room. We can always make room.

Story Donors

If you were a story donor or were used as a character in the story and are interested in the fights, please feel free to show up. This is primarily a story wrap party, so the people who helped me out should be there.

I’m not sure how good it is. The vignette model for it might not work, but it was something I needed to do to put in the donor requests. What it did do though is give me some new character voices, a challenge to work through, and motivation to dive into configuring a piece for self publishing.

Published Author Request

If you’re willing to help by judging a young writers contest (short fiction), let me know. Also, if you write YA and are interested in donating a book to the prizes I’m giving out, include that information. Either works, as I could use the help in both areas. I should have specifics ready before August. (Should you know any young authors interested.)