Blackjack

When I was first learning to play blackjack and hanging out at Casino Windsor paying 7$ for cans of Molson Canadian I picked up on something. The best people to sit next to at the Blackjack table are the old timers. The type of guys who know there way around the game and can shell out some advice that only 50 years of playing can earn. Although I haven't needed the advice on how to play my hands in quite some time, I still value the way generational gaps can disappear at the table.

A few months back I got talking with a man who looked to be in his mid eighties. He had that aura of a man who had lived quite the life. He had given his kids and grand-kids enough money to keep them at the slots long enough to leave him alone at the blackjack table. He started telling me about his life and I soon lost the count. But I found this guy to be more interesting than any 2% player edge. He told me of how he was stationed as a Marine at the base where I now work. About how during those times it was just an ammunition pier with 50 Marines and a few civilians. About how he met his wife at a dance at the gymnasium on a cold October night. About how he became the post master of a small town where everyone knew his name. Sure, it was like a poor man's Forrest Gump but I found it endlessly fascinating.

I was back at the casino this past Sunday night. As rounders so eloquently put it "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy... the outstanding tough beats of his career."

I'm sitting at close to a 3.5 count index. I had been playing for 4 hours and that was the best count I had seen all night. I had spent all night waiting for moments to strike, only to get beat by dealer 21's and the guy next to me not splitting his 8's against a dealer 6. I would slowly grind back up on minimum bets only to drop an hours worth of work on the variance of the game. But it was getting late and I had work the next day. I had an opportunity to get back close to even including the $10 I had lost on the Chargers not covering the spread against the Bengals. The cards came out; Ace, Nine, King, Jack, and then to me a Three. Everyone easily got 20's and 19's, but my second card was an eight and the dealer had a five up. This deck is mostly face cards and I have a 11 against a dealer five. I reached into my wallet to pulled out the cash to double down and the dealer gives me a whopping 3. Leaving me with an astounding 14. But the dealer still has a bust card and with this count, anything but a bust would be rare. His under card is a 10 leaving him sitting at 15 just like he should. But his next card is another five. It was a kick in the balls. I drove home in the rain knowing that I played it perfectly but the cards didn't have the same intentions that I did.

But that's not what I wanted to blog about. I wanted to blog about the guy who I was sitting next to for about 40 minutes of the night. Guy looked to be about 65, white with a mop of dirty hair that sat under a well worn hat. He was quite the character. Everyone else at the table seemed put off by him, but I really enjoyed him. He was chain smoking cigarettes and kept ordering straight shots of tequila and whiskey. But the cocktail waitress couldn't understand him as he was nearly unintelligible so I tried to interpret. No matter what he would get he would declare "Whiskey smells funny" before pounding the shot. He didn't keep his chips in neat stacks like everyone else but rather in a big mixed-up pile. After a couple more shot he started rambling about how he was going to sleep in his van that was in the parking lot. Then he started prodding the dealer about it. "I'm gonna sleep in yours [sic] parking lot whadda think about that!" I asked him about it and he started angrily mumbling about the "best damn biscuts n' gravy". Everyone kept looking at me trying to get me to stop talking to him, but I found it too amusing. Eventually he got up and announced to no one in particular "IM GOING TO SLEEP IN MY VAN" and then stumbled out.

Creepy Steve

Creepy Steve was our neighbor for two years in college. At first he was just known as Steve but his nickname was well earned. We originally knew Steve trough our neighbor Chris Orr. Chris was a legend in his own right having once been threatened by basketball referee Jim Burr and also for having this quote appear in the Michigan Daily:

Perhaps LSA senior Chris Orr has a better approach. Like Vinny, Orr started drinking early and took a few Nalgene bottles filled with Killian’s Irish Red to class just to “keep the buzz going.” Orr gets regularly bored in class on St. Patrick's Day.

Anyways, over the course of two years our group of friends got to know Creepy Steve rather well. Steve was a big lovable oaf. He was one of the kindest and most unintentionally funny people I ever met at college. But Steve's biggest problem was with women.




As much as Steve would try, he was terrible at talking to girls. But what he lacked in charm and charisma he made up for double in effort. But as much as Steve loved trying to get girls, he also loved booze. (As a short side story, Steve once had his mom coming to visit on gameday around 10AM and he got so drunk that his mom showed up and he was passed out on a couch at the BOX house covered with sharpie). But that worked well because Steve was kind of shy, so he could really only talk to - as he called them - "hot chicks" after having a few drinks. This might have lead to Steve's other problem; he was a rather sloppy drunk. So we would be at parties at our friends houses and for the first hour or so Steve would be in the corner drinking beer. Eventually at a certain point in the night Steve would let everyone at the party know that it was time for him to start hitting on girls. And what was this magical signal? Steve would be so drunk that he would completely miss his mouth trying to drink a beer and pour it all down his shirt. To this day the "Creeper Steve" look is a short sleeved button down with beer poured down the front.

So Steve would go around with his beer covered shirt and start macking on the ladies. Steve was equal opportunity and it didn't matter if a girl was way out of his league or already taken by another guy. Usually the conversations wouldn't last long. This is probably because Steve didn't have a great mastery of pickup lines. Generally he would go up to girls and open with a compliment like "You have beautiful eyes" which isn't necessarily bad except when the girl is with a group of her friends and the guy is extrodinarily drunk. He once told our very attractive female friend that "She had beautiful arms". Steve also once told me how he was going to hit on that hot girl in the corner and then went over before I could tell him that she was my sister. This almost always lead to girls coming up to us and asking who the creepy guy with the beer all over his shirt was. And to that we would reply "Well, that's Creepy Steve"

But the story has a happy ending as Steve now has a girlfriend, so his days of chugging beer and wrestling Chris Orr in the front yard of the BOX house may be behind him.

Routine

Everyday feels the same. Wake up / go to work / come home / pour myself a drink / eat / play video games. Life has gotten stale. But the cool thing is that every two weeks I get paid money, which is nice.

I'm still trying to live the dream on the weekends. Hitting the bars, staying out all night and crashing on couches. But to be honest, it's harder than it was in college. Tonight I was watching the Michigan game on ESPN 2 and they panned over Chris Orr. He was wearing his signature green hat and Neil Diamond vest. I could tell he was about 7 Molson XXX's deep. It made me recall last year when I could slam a bunch Tequila at the Cantina and then yell at Ed DeChellis to "SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN". It was then that I realized how much I miss college.

Texts from last night

My buddy Dan downloaded an app that reads his texts messages aloud as he receive them. This lead to me sending him a number of texts in various social settings last night.

As he is in the bathroom on the ferry:
Dan how is your dump going? Is it as stinky as you expected? Love, Frank

While he is taking a pee in some bushes:
Don't pee in the bushes

While talking with some girls at a party:
It's Frank, I left my underwear at your place last night. Love ya.

In front of our buddy's wife who is Beth and our friend Jon:
Isn't Beth hot? From Jon

While on the way to the bar:
I love to eat sausages all day long

While at a bar called the Alibi Room:
I heard about the time you crapped your pants at the Alibi Room.

In front of some hot girls:
I saw your craigslist ad about you looking for a guy to toss salad with. I have a bleached asshole so write me back.

Brian Gets kicked out of a bar at 6:30pm

I didn't get kicked out for being too drunk. Nope, I got kicked out for "being an asshole"

Is it THAT absurd that someone would come into the bar and order the cheapest beer?

Is it THAT absurd that a patron might ask if you serve a type of beer that you have a flag of?

Is it THAT absurd that if you advertise $10 buckets "during games" and there is a football game on TV that someone might ask you if they could get it, despite the fact that it didn't say 'During Husky Games'?

Is it THAT absurd that if a bartender asks you to move out of a "fire isle" that you joke that if there was a fire you'd be the first one out?

Is it THAT absurd to ask for a refund for the half the Tall Boy of PBR that she took from me after I was cut off?

Is it THAT absurd that I'm not going to tip you after you asked me to leave the bar?

I really enjoyed the part where she got on her soapbox and explained to me that "Since I just turned 21 that I might not realize that I can't come into the bar and be an asshole to her, and that maybe I shouldn't come back until I learn to watch my smart-mouth". Well maybe if she had been doing her job and actually ID'd me, she would know that I'm less than 5 months away from being 23. This isn't my first big rodeo, cowboy.

NFL First Quarter Results

Of my three NFL over under bets all of them are still looking like very good wagers. Remember I bet Detroit to win less than 5 games, Tampa Bay to win less than 6 and Miami to win less than 8. After the first 4 weeks of the season the three teams have a combined record of 2-10.

Detriot
To be on pace to get five games they would need 1.25 wins by now. They are at 1. They still have games against St. Louis and Cleveland, so this bet is by no means in the bag. As they just need to go 4-8 the rest of the season to make me look like a fool.

Tampa Bay
Tampa has still yet to win a game. To be on pace they would need to have 1.5 wins by now. This is a team that has been outscored by 53 points so far. For them to win they would have to go 6-6 the rest of the way. This bet is pretty safe.

Miami
Miami won their first game today. So they are now 1-3. They are also behind pace to reach 8 wins. Miami is not playing terrible football but I would be surprised if they went 7-5 the rest of the season. Especially when 4 of the remaining games are against the Jets and the Pats.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

One of the benefits of living on the west coast is that I get to watch the college football lines come out on Sunday night. Usually I have a pretty good idea about what the lines will look like. If I see a line that is far different than I expect it I know it might be a good game to bet on.

When the line came out Sunday night for the Michigan-Michigan State game I sat in awe on my floor. I had expected a Michigan -7 line. This means that Michigan was expected to win by 7 points. The actual line was only Michigan -1. I had a few guesses to why the line might be so low, but I mainly figured that the line was low because on Sunday night it appeared that Tate Forcier might be out/limited for this game. When I read that Tate was expected to be fine for the game I rushed home Monday hoping the line hadn't moved to much against Michigan. When I got home I couldn't believe it. The line had moved to Michigan +0. Basically saying you just had to pick the winner. I took line at Michigan +0 smugly thinking that the line might fall to as much as Mich -3. But I've sat in disbelief as the line keeps inching up to where it sits now at Michigan +2.5.

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS. The #22 ranked undefeated Michigan team is 2.5 point underdogs against a 1-3 Michigan State squad whose sole win is against D-2 Montana State. I mean MSU was 14.5 point favorites when they lost to Central Michigan. What does Vegas see in this MSU team? That two of their O-Lineman are questionable for the game? WTF?

Also an O/U of 57.5 seems mighty low considering these are both highly offensive teams with shaky defenses. I don't think a score of 28-25 or higher is out of the question, but O/U's are tricky things to bet on so I'll hold off on this at least until a decent weather report comes out.

Epic comeback

Quite the game in my NCAA '10 Dynasty. I'm returning Wyoming to their rightful glory and I go up against Texas Tech. At the half I find myself down 31-13 to the Red Raiders. I fight back during the third and by the start of the fourth quarter I have brought it back to a respectable 31-26 game. I get a key three-and-out and get the ball back in the middle of the fourth for what could be a game winning drive. I go the length of the field and complete a touchdown pass to my Heisman candidate WR making the score 32-31 in my advantage. I decide to go for a two point conversion to put me up by three points. But my pass is intercepted and returned 103 yards by Texas Tech. This gives them back the lead 33-32. I then have to kickoff to them. But my team is almost entirely white and they take the kickoff to the house to give them an 8 point lead. We are now down 8 with to 2:30 seconds left in the 4th when they kickoff to me. The kickoff is short and my Hiesman deserving WR makes a sweet juke and returns it himself for a TD. The 2 point conversion is good and the game is tied at 40. Lee Corso tells me this is why he loves college football.

They begin driving down the field and are almost in range of a game winning field goal when my All-American DT drives up the middle and hits the QB as he throws. My 77 overall MLB runs underneath it and picks it off. The game is now in my hands but all I need to do is drive the field and score, without giving them too much time to return the favor. I go no huddle and go 60 yards and get the touchdown on a 2 yard pass to my backup HB. I leave 10 seconds on the clock, but I make sure the ensuing kickoff goes out of bounds to prevent any returns. Texas Tech tries valiantly with their two remaining plays but ultimately falls to the hands of my tough as nail Wyoming team.

It is deemed the 7th best game to have ever been played on my Xbox 360. It is also the most exciting thing to happen to me this weekend.

Brian completes a survey.

I got a survey from my high school. It was a web based survey basically about my high school experience and what parts of it I use today. I anwsered everything truthfully until I got to the last three open ended questions. I couldn't help myself.

What would you have liked to learn in high school that you weren't taught?
2nd order differential equations, Critiques of gilded age post-romanticism art, Basic Rifle Marksmanship, Benford's law, The teachings of Jesus, Algebra, The fallacy of time travel in the Back to the Future series

What is the single best piece of advice you could give to a freshman beginning high school?
High school is 65% common sense, 10% hard work, 15% tomfoolery and 10% experimental drinking and sexual encounters.

Please describe a significant event in high school that made an impact on your life.
Once in 9th grade in order to get out of running during gym I decided to take a poo but there was no toilet paper and the toilet overflowed, needless to say it was miserable. Then one more time junior year, before a pep assembly I couldn't poo fast enough and instead of singing Hail to the Black and Gold, I spend the entire time making a mess in the toilet. It was possibly the foulest thing that has ever occurred. Since then I have been afraid to void my bowels in public. It is a determent to my professional career and physical well being.

I wonder if they are going to discount my entire survey. To be truthful my second answer is actually not the far off. But 10% hard work is pretty generous. That is unless your an idiot.

Youtubes Letdown

368 days ago I uploaded a video to Youtube. I then blogged about it. It has been 368 days and my goal was to have 10,000 views in the first year. My goal for next year is 20,000 views by September 10, 2010.

On a related note, the other video I uploaded is hanging in there with 234 views. My goal is 1,000 by March 27th, 2014.

NFL Team Analysis

Last night I finished my lengthy analysis of my calculated expected wins vs, Vegas odds. But while I was typing up this post I started to realize that teams bye weeks weren't lining up with this season schedule. Then I realized that I had done my analysis using the 2005 NFL schedule. Which means I had to redo everything. But all the information from the first post is still accurate. Again, the theme was bet on unders, and most likely there will be more teams that finish with less than 5 wins than Vegas predicts.

Tonight I redid part of my analysis, but unfortunately I didn't not have time to analyze every team, but I focused on teams that were expected to go under .500 and that had decent payouts.

After spending many additional hours developing odds for each team I am disappointed to realize that my analysis indicates that one of the safest bets is betting against the Detroit Lions. This greatly disappointments me.

My method was to determine a teams chance at winning by taking the square of the teams expected wins and dividing by the sum of both teams expected wins. So the odds of a home team winning are Home^2/(Home^2+Away^2). So if the home team was expected to win 7 games and the away was expected to win 11, the home teams chance of winning would be 7^2/(7^2+11^2) or about 29%. Using this I ended up with each teams expected number of wins. I then compared them to the over/under odds for that team. In my last post I determined that betting unders is the way to go, because there cannot be 132 wins amongst the 32 teams and there will be a few ties sprinkled in there too.

Here are 3 Under picks that I might consider making.

Detroit Lions, O/U: 4.5, Expected Wins: 3.62, +105
From the numbers it is quite easy to see why there is no likely way this team wins 5 games. They are only playing four teams that are expected to have sub .500 seasons. There opponents are expected to win 8.43 games on average. In order to get the 5 wins they are going to need to beat the four bottom teams they face. But even their computed odds of beating their weakest opponent (St. Louis) is 28%. There odds of winning all 4 is 0.5%. Like I said before, I would be surprised if the worst team in the league gets 5 wins. Plus this bet has a positive payout of $105 for every $100 bet.

Tampa Bay, O/U 5.5, Expected Wins : 4.61, +105
I would write an entire paragraph on how Tampa Bay isn't going to win a single game because they have absolutely no offense. But I'm here to look at quantitative numbers not qualitative. Tampa Bay is only playing ONE team that is expected to go under .500. That team is Miami who is expected to have 7 wins, but maybe you should hold off on this until you finish the entire post. To win this bet Tampa Bay has to win at least 6 games. My calculations indicate that Tampa has about an average 30% chance of winning any given game. Also this is another bet with a better than 2:1 payout.

Miami, O/U 7, Expected Wins: 6.32, +100
Miami doesn't have as much of a difference between my expected number of wins and the Vegas line, but it is still rather large. Miami is playing three games against opponents slated to win less than 8 games, but two of the are the Jets who are expected to win 7.5 games. The real thing to look at is Miami's overall opponents who are picked to win an average 8.84 games. That's some stiff competition for a team trying to win 7 games. Miami only plays one team which is expected to be worse than it, and that is Tampa Bay. For this bet to lose Miami would have to win 8 games in a division where every other team is expected to be better than you. Note: this bet offers even pay.

The one vital aspect to these last two picks are that the teams have to play each other. Not only do they have to play each other, but they are each others easiest game of the season. Both teams are counting on the win to get above their over/under. Miami will not win 7 games with a loss against Tampa Bay, and it will be equally hard for Tampa to win 5 without getting the easy one against Miami. This game should serve as to cover one of the two bets, and then if the winning team doesn't beat their O/U you have a double payout. If these two teams tie, I will be a very happy man.

Again, the great thing about these three bets is that they pay even money or better. Usually in sports betting you have to put up 110 for every 100 you want to win. So these bets should earn some cash.

Initial NFL Betting Analysis

As you all must know, I spend a lot of my spare time doing useless analysis.

But occasionally my statistical analysis can make me money. I spent so much time researching Big Ten college football teams that I've barely had time to look at NFL. I don't like betting NFL games. Mostly because both teams are very well figured out and the odds makers are much more accurate than college football. In College Football I have the edge because I can spend more time evaluating each team in a match up that the guy who has to handicap 60 games. But the only thing about NFL betting that really interests me is betting on regular season wins. Because sport books put out lines on all teams it is possible to look at each team compared to the strength of each team they face. Eventually you create a spreadsheet with each team and the expected wins of each team they play and that looks like this.

And now you can analyze each team compared to the teams they play. I'll do this analysis over the next few nights. A few drawbacks of this analysis are that; each opponent plays different teams and each team has a different strength of schedule which affects their line, the amount you have to risk to win $100 varies with each bet. I.E. right now you have to bet $135 on the lions winning 4.5 games to win $100, but you only have to bet 95 on the Lions winning less than 4.5 games to win $100. So the lines don't necessarily match up evenly.

But the only analysis that I have done is on some overall numbers, comparing predicted outcomes to last years actual outcomes.


The first row of this chart shows that teams are on average overvalued by an eighth of a win. There have to be equal amounts of wins and losses. The reason for this is that there are lots of casual bettors that will bet their team to win more games regardless of the O/U line.

The other noticeable thing about this chart is that there are a lot of teams that are expected to go over .500. This is possible and reasonable, but in order for this to happen there have to be a lot of above average teams and there have to be a good number of terrible teams. But the odds makers are predicting that there aren't. For last year to have 16 teams go over .500 there were 6 teams that achieved less than 5 wins. But this year the bookmakers expect 18 teams to go over .500 with only one team getting less than 5 wins. Either they're expecting all the teams under .500 to go 5-11 or 6-10 or people should start betting the unders.

Also only one team getting over 11 wins? Over the last 5 regular seasons there were an average of 4.6teams getting more that 11 wins a season. Maybe betting overs on some Superbowl favorites is in order.

Overall it appears that the odds makers are coming out pretty conservative. Last year there were 11 teams with over 11 wins or less than 5. Initial lines for this year have only 2 teams falling in those categories. Perhaps tomorrow I should also look at what the lines looked like going into last season.

Brian Analyses his Fantasy Football Draft

We just had our fantasy football draft and I've spent most of the night analyzing the results. Sometimes I think I do more engineering work at home than I do at the actual work. For reference my team is Power Dump. I'm sure you remember my team from last year.

I went through each team and looked at how their picks compared with average player picks. So for example Nick picked up Carson Plamer with the 68th overall pick. So far this year Carson Palmer has been taken with the 90.3 pick on average. So I took each teams average picks along with the average draft pick and compared them. I decided that many times the later rounds don't matter as much and people generally use those picks on risky players and players that won't really impact the team. So I also compared the first 12 rounds to drop out any crazy outliers from the final 5 rounds.

The average pick is the your average overall pick for those rounds. If you had a later picks then your average pick is obviously higher than someone who picked early in the draft. This accounts for the first 5 rounds being perfectly even. [We do a keeper league so the first 5 picks are preselected -ed] The average selection is the average overall pick that your players went for in all of Yahoo drafts.

IN DRAFT ORDER here are the results:

Fuck you Brad Watson
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 46.5
Average Selection - 54.5
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 54.3
Average Selection - 62.9
OVERALL
Average Pick - 66.0
Average Selection 70.9

Power Dump
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 47.0
Average Selection - 50.3
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 54.,9
Average Selection - 55.5
OVERALL
Average Pick - 66.7
Average Selection 64.7

Caketown Spartans
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 47.6
Average Selection - 46.0
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 55.5
Average Selection - 56.8
OVERALL
Average Pick - 67.4
Average Selection 67.1

CMU
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 48.2
Average Selection - 50.3
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 56.2
Average Selection - 56.1
OVERALL
Average Pick - 68.1
Average Selection 66.7

*Nick you did really well drafting the last 5 rounds. All your picks were below their average pick.

Shit
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 48.8
Average Selection - 57.4
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 56.8
Average Selection - 64.3
OVERALL
Average Pick - 68.9
Average Selection 75.3

Cougar Cornbread
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 49.4
Average Selection - 53.8
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 57.5
Average Selection - 59.5
OVERALL
Average Pick - 69.6
Average Selection 70.0

*Evan you also did rather well for yourself in the last 5 rounds

Go Blue
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 50.0
Average Selection - 48.0
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 58.1
Average Selection - 66.3
OVERALL
Average Pick - 70.3
Average Selection 74.4

Believe in Now
FIRST 12 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 50.5
Average Selection - 47.2
FIRST 14 ROUNDS:
Average Pick - 58.8
Average Selection - 56.7
OVERALL
Average Pick - 71.0
Average Selection 66.7


So who had the best draft?

That is subjective to how much you value late round picks. But since it is my belief that the first 12 rounds are the ones that really matter I've computed the delta between the average pick and average selection to come up with a best draft ranking.

Best Draft Rankings:
1. Believe in Now (-3.3)
2. Caketown Spartans (-1.6)
3..CMU (+2.1)
4. Power Dump (+3.2)
5. Cougar Cornbread (+4.5)
6. Go Blue (+8.0) TIE
6. Fuck You Brad Watson (+8.0) TIE
8. Shit (+8.6)

Now we can look at who has the best team by average draft pick.

Best Team First 12 Rounds:
1. Caketown Spartans (46.0)
2. Believe in Now (47.2)
3. Power Dump (50.3) TIE
3. CMU (50.3) TIE
5. Cougar Cornbread (53.8)
6. Fuck You Brad Watson (54.5)
7. Shit (57.4)
8. Go Blue (58.0)

Finally we can rank the best teams overall.

Best Team Overall (All Rounds):
1. Power Dump (64.7)
2. Believe in Now (66.7) TIE
3. CMU (66.7) TIE
4. Caketown Spartans (67.1)
5. Cougar Cornbread (70.0)
6. Fuck You Brad Watson (70.9)
7. Go Blue (74.4)
8. Shit (75.3)


Note: This analysis doesn't include any transactions made after the draft.

I'm not pro-rape but rather anti-smear campaigns

I have long been a fan of Tucker Max. I started reading his website during High School and to a 17 year old kid it was pretty sweet. Even now I'll go back and read his stories from time to time and they still make me laugh. But ever since his first book came out freshman year of college and he became mainstream I've had that feeling where you start to dislike something because you knew it before it was cool. I met him one time, and I actually told him that he shouldn't let the fact that he wrote a book turn him into someone else. His response was "Who would I turn into? JJ Redick?"

I have long tried to emulate aspects of Tucker Max. I spent most of my college years trying to have one story that is Tucker Max worthy. I'm confidant that I have a few that are pretty close to some of the crazy things he has done. But a night that in Tucker Max Level is rare even for friends who are crazier than me.

Recently Tucker has been involved in bringing my favorite story, The Austin Road Trip Story, to the big Screen. This is great but I'm not really sure Tucker deserves to have a movie made after his adventures. His stories are great, but a movie sounds a little much, especially when everyone already knows the plot.

Right now he has been going around the country promoting his movie. If you've read any of his stories you know that he is usually involved in some sort of controversy. Many groups are protesting his film as being harmful and degrading to women. This is a flier from the screening at NC State.

I have a few problems with this flier.

Nearly 95% of men on campus DO NOT commit rape.

Is that to say that over 5% of men at NC State commit rape? That's like one rapist per class. I mean according to this flier one in twenty men at NC State commit rape.

National figures estimate that on a campus the size of NCSU at least 508 women could be raped or attempted to be THIS academic year.

If 508 could be raped does that mean the other 11,000 are impervious to rape? Also I've always had a problem with people using terms like "at least" and then listing an exact number. Especially when that number is an estimate.

I am very proud that Tucker Max has responded to these protesters with a very well reasoned and excellent response about how these protesters have no clue about actual issues. I highly suggest reading it now that the protests have gained some national media attention.

http://www.ihopetheyservebeerinhell.com/30-days-out-here-come-the-protesters/

Child Obesity on Wikipedia

I feel bad for the girl in this picture. Somewhere someone was looking for a picture of an obese child and spotter her. They thought "yeah, she'll do." Can you imagine going onto Wikipedia and seeing your picture under the article on obesity. That must be pretty hard on a child. I mean it's like a bad joke "look up obesity in the encyclopedia, you'll find a picture of her."

The wikipedia plot for the new Micheal Cera movie

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

First sentence reads:
Meet charming and jobless Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera)

What will actually be the case:
Meet awkward and jobless Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera)

For awhile I thought they were just type casting Michael Cera as the weird awkward dorky kid. But then I realized that he wasn't being type cast, he actually is that awkward in real life.

Brian writes a letter

I knew this girl who was going away to camp all summer. She wouldn't have telephone or internet so she made me promise to write her. So I came through and wrote her a letter. But not just any letter. I wrote her a love letter. But not just any love letter. I wrote her a Civil War era love letter. I even had Peter write it out in cursive. Here it is in all of its hilarious glory.

It's best when read in the voice of a Civil War movie narrator.

My dearest Kelly,

Pardon the affectionate familiarity but you know its all in joyous fun. Your charming little epistle has just reached me, and I do myself the honor to answer it immediately, thus complying with your request to write soon. I do believe I am indebted to you by way of letter, and for your kindness to me I will write you a few lines.

I have written a good many letters to other girls. Letters of friendship, but those I write to you. I want you to receive them for more than mere friendship. For let me say that your memory is ever dear to me and if we never again meet on Earth I shall ever cherish the fond remembrance of thee, and think of the pleasant hours passed in your society, but let me indulge the hope that we may again meet ere long.

I fondly recall our initial courtship, the gentle breeze in the fairest of Ann Arbor's midsummer and the plesent imbibing of Frederick Miller's High Life. Whilst our time together barely grazed a fortnight, nary a single eve passes without my cogitation meandering back to those most wonderful of times. I dont know how much pleasure it affords you to go over these days of the past, but to me they will ever be remembered as days of felicity. And how happy the thought that days increase the affection & esteem we have for each other to love & be loved.

Yours endearingly,

Brian Russell

Things to think about whilst driving across the country

Usually when I drive on road trips I like to set goals for reaching certain destinations. My favorite one is trying to figure out when I will reach the next state. I'm usually within a couple of minutes. But when I was driving out to Seattle I started to notice that my estimates were far earlier than I actually got there. This started in North Dakota, and it was almost until I got to Idaho before I figured out why. Google maps and road mileage signs don't account for changes in elevation.

So think of going over a hill that would be one mile if a person was to travel straight through it to the other side.

If travelling up a 5% grade and then down a 5% grade the traveller would actually travel 1.015 miles. If done at 60 MPH it would take 61 seconds to travel the one mile, instead of the expected 60 seconds. The drivers speed in the x-direction would only be 59.77 MPH. While this doesn't seem like much, over the course of many miles it can cause the assumption of a flat earth to yield substantial errors.

So I kept my mileage from Ann Arbor to Seattle and then went into Google Maps to compare my car's mileage with the flat Earth mileage. Now I'm driving a new car and I believe the odometer to be pretty accurate. I added a handful of miles to the Google Maps mileage to cover the times I got off the highway. I found that the Google Estimate was 2,346 to my odometers 2,389 miles.

43 miles seems like a lot of elevation. In one shot it would take me well into the stratosphere and back down. But when you think of it as going over over 22 one mile high mountains it doesn't seem so that unfathomable.

But I think it wasn't just elevation that caused my odometer to be higher than the Google estimate. I started to think that if Google thinks the earth is flat, then it also isn't accounting for the curvature of the Earth. I wondered how much affect this had on the difference in mileage. I determined the radius of the earth at 45 degrees north to be about 2,805.8 miles. Ann Arbor is at 83 degrees west and Seattle is at 122 degrees west. This means that I traveled about 10.8% of the way across the world. Here is a diagram:



Google says it is 1883 miles, but actually it is 1903 miles with the curvature. That is just a straight line due west at the 45th parallel which is why it is much less than the actual route which twists and turns and goes north quite a ways. So I believe that 20 miles of the difference between my odometer and the Google estimate can be accounted for by the curvature of the Earth. This would also mean that I could account for some error due to the curvature of the Earth from south to north, but since I traveled less than 400 miles north I'm going to ignore that. That means for every 144.45 miles I drove, I had to drive an extra one to make up for the curve of the earth.

The final breakdown would be:
2389 actual miles
- 10 miles spent off of route
- 20 miles of curvature
- 2336 miles of Google route

Which leaves me with 23 miles of elevation changes. That is about the same as driving up and down the height of Mount Everest twice.

Brian makes someone named Gina laugh

Madison is an amazing college town. It is great. On a lake, with beautiful buildings and a great downtown. I was about to declare it one of the best college towns that I've been to (and I've been to lots) when I realized its fatal flaw. You can't buy booze in the city after 9pm. Can you imagine having a party and running out of beer but the only way to get more is to drive to the next town over? So that's a boo.

Anyways while I was wandering around Madison wondering why every liquor store I went to was closed I came across a cat. So I posted it on Craigslist.

Tonight I was wandering around Madison in an attempt to buy beer after 9PM. While I was disappointing with the realization that it is impossible to buy a 6 pack of High Life at a time when I actually want to drink, I was pleased to discover a feline friend. I'll try to describe her. She had hair. It was black in some parts and greyish/white in some parts it was kinda long. She looked like she had eaten her fair share of Friskies.

It was dark and she did not like it when I tried to read the phone number on her collar. But the collar was elastic and it had a single small bell and a tag. The tag had a name and a phone number that started 608-. I know, I know, I should have read the last 4 numbers or the name. On the other side of the tag was yellowish orange with a little catlike thing raised up on the metal.

So that could be you're lost cat. Or it could have just been an outdoor cat that lives in the house whose driveway I was suspiciously hanging out in. Either way, I'm sober and there is a cat at Allen and Van Hise.

Then while I was reading my GMail while driving through construction today I came across this email to me.

Hi

I just wanted to let you know that I loved how you worded you post. It made me laugh my ass off. Not many people can put there humor into words.

Gina

So I totally made Gina laugh.

Campus Legend

Stories I can only tell now that I'm no longer living in Ann Arbor/enrolled.

I've always insisted - to no opposing argument - that the Law Quad is the most romantic place on campus. If I were to ever write a screenplay, it would be a coming of age teen dramedy where the quintessential plot zenith would take place in the Law Quad. The main character would be walking the girl he was madly in love with through an empty law quad at night. It would be one of those winter nights where fat snowflakes fall heavily on an already thick layer of fresh snow and despite the snow falling it would feel strangely warm. As they quietly walk together in front of the doors to the Law Library he would stop her and turn her to face him. With the yellow glow of the two lights from Hutchens Hall illuminating the snow around them, he would tell her how he felt about her and without her having to say anything they would kiss underneath the falling snow. The kiss would be unsure at first until the warmth of each others lips let them know that it was meant to be. Then the camera would slowly lift above them and zoom out until the entire Law Quad was visible, and then the entire campus and then the entire city. The movie would probably go straight to DVD.

Anyways. About a month after I graduated I was walking home from the bar through the Law Quad when I realized that for all the beauty I had admired for the past 4 years, I had never actually been in the Law Quad. So I decided that I needed to break in. I was able to jimmy a window and sneak into the Law Quad. I found myself slightly inebriated and wandering around room to room. I finally made it to the top floor and found that one of the rooms had a window that let out to a roof overlooking Tappan Street. I leaned back with my body resting on the roof line enjoying the warm summer air and recalling some of the good times I've had at Michigan. As I was sitting up on the roof, I watched the drunks stumble home and I was just about to get down when I saw a familiar gait walking up Tappan. It was my buddy Craig. I called down to him and he looked up in a state of disbelief upon seeing that his friend was perched on the edge a building. I went down and let him in and we stood up on the roof talking about how it would be the perfect place to take a girl.

Two nights later I was at the bar with some my mates and one of the girls at our table happened to be a former GSI of mine. We must of hit it off because I found myself on the roof of the law quad making out with my old GSI.

How many other people can say they have done that?

I read a book

I read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I was told that it would change my life. It didn't.

I'm not a literary critic but my major complaint was Rand's neglect for certain parts of the story. Like when Lucious Heyer dies and leaves Peter Keating with $200,000 in the 1920's. That was a huge sum of money, but it is merely mentioned and then doesn't seem to affect any aspect of his life.

The other thing that pissed me off while reading the book is the storyline between Peter and Toohey's niece Catherine. She appears and then disappears for years at a time. Then they get engaged but then on page 262 Toohey encourages Peter to go after Dominique knowing that he was engaged to his niece. On page 329 Toohey again has to be reminded that Peter was engaged to his niece but this is like 2 years later and there has been no mention of Catherine in between. Then on page 376 Peter and Catherine decide to get married the next day. That night Dominique proposes to Peter and he says yes despite that he is supposed to get married to another girl the next day. WTF? Then she isn't mentioned again for years.

But if they were in love before Toohey drove Peter towards Dominique why did years go by without them seeing each other. Also, why didn't she do anything except sit at Toohey's house and wait for Peter to show up? It was like 'Oh hey, by the way Peter is still courting this girl even though he promised to marry her several times but then never did but we're not going to talk about that for another couple of years until it is convenient'.

Also, she didn't mention the fall of the stock market in 1929. It was briefly touched upon a few years later that no one was building. I would think that the Great Depression would have a bigger effect on an Architect in New York City.

Texts with a stranger Part 2

So my new friend Joel texted me again this morning and a great conversation ensued. Only this time Joel texted me from a different number, which I thought was weird but he explains why. Read on.

Joel: hey it joel again !$exy time!
Me: Hey Joel. I gotta know, did Morgan agree to go out with you?
Joel: Is this morgan or brian !$exy time!
Me: This is Brian
Joel: o sorry brian who !$exy time!
Me: I don't think we know each other. Anyways did you ever get a hold of Morgan?
Me: She sounded like a babe when you called her 'sexy pants'
Joel: ya she said yea so wot ur last name !$exy time!
Me: Why do you want to know my last name? And what's which the new phone number Joel?
Joel: idk cause i want to meet u and this is my friends fone so waz the other 1 !$exy time!
Me: Why do you want to meet me? I already told you that I just see you as a friend.
Joel: ik i'm not gay i jus wana know ur last name come on please !$exy time!
Me: Perhaps sometime in the future once we're better texting buddies. Anyways do you ever get blackout drunk and hit on ugly girls? Because that's what I did last night.
Joel: how old r u !$exy time!
Me: 22. How old are you Joel?
--20 minutes later--
Me: Where did you go? Are you taking a really smelly dump? Because I don't mind if you text while you take a crap. Just as long as you aren't jerking it to my responses.
Joel: wot? !$exy time!

Texts with a stranger

248: Hey morgan it b joel booth how r u
Me: Hi. This isn't Morgan. I think you might have the wrong number
248: O sorry
248: Wot ur name
Me: Brian. Don't worry about the wrong number.
248: Hey do u wanna go out sexy pants
Me: I'm sorry Joel. You seem like a really nice guy but I've always seen you as more of a friend
248: Is this morgan?
Me: No man. It's not Morgan. It's a dude. A dude who doesn't want to go out with you.

Where Should I live?

I'm moving to the Seattle area in about a month and I still don't have a place to live. I'm planning on figuring that out once I get there, but I would like an idea of the location. So I am going to use some of my Industrial Engineering skills to figure out where I can live that will minimize transportation time and cost.

I figure that I have three destinations and their corresponding weekly round trips:
Work (5)
Supermarket/Shopping (1)
Downtown Seattle (.5)

I have a few towns that I could live in:
Bremerton
Bainbridge Island
Silverdale
Seattle
Poulsbo

Here is the breakdown of total weekly transit times in minutes for each location based on Google Maps directions:
Bremerton - 324
Bainbridge Island - 464
Silverdale - 183
Seattle - 660
Poulsbo - 244

I also want to look at the cost of transportation. This is the weekly cost of gas and the cost of riding the ferries:
Bremerton - 26.87
Bainbridge Island - 33.50
Silverdale - 13.44
Seattle - 74.20
Poulsbo - 18.71

This all assumes that the housing in each location is similar. It appears that Silverdale will minimize weekly transportation times and costs. The one downside of Silverdale is that it will make the weekend trips to Seattle a rather long trip.

Brian Makes Friends

What's weird is that I haven't made any new friends in about three years. I mean actually went out a met someone and became their friend on my own. I know that doesn't make any sense because I'm friends with tons of people I wasn't friends with a few years ago. But the difference - I just realized - is that everyone I've met in the last couple of years I've met through people. Most everyone I know I can trace back through other friends people.

Now that people have left town for jobs and summer I find myself down a few friends. But a couple weeks ago I was at beer olympics and was placed on a team with a couple random guys. We got eliminated early and I ended up drinking with these two 5th year seniors for a couple of hours. They were pretty cool, and I went home not thinking much of it. Over the next couple of weeks I saw them at the bar a few times. In spring term the crowds move between the bars depending on the day of the week. So I saw them at Mitch's on Wednesdays and The Jug on Mondays.

Last Wednesday Mitch's blew a circuit and weren't serving $2 pitchers and Peter and I were about to leave and the guys happened to be there and said they were going to grab a case and drink. We ended up drinking with them for another couple of hours and I think that I might have made some new friends. But I won't be official until we've exchanged numbers which would be way awkward. So perhaps I'll stick to the random bar encounters.

I seem to have a knack for meeting people right before I move out of town.

Not a great day

June 21 is my favorite day of the year. It is my favorite for two reasons. The first is that June 21 was always the beginning of the summer throughout my primary education. June 21st still means that the summer is just getting into swing and lazy days and the beach are in the near future. The second reason that I love June 21st is that it is the longest day of the year. I really love having the not set until 9:15 at night. I wish all days would be like June 21st.

Today was not a good June 21st.

I woke sideways on a bed in Las Vegas and was too drunk to tie my shoes. I then endured 9 hours of epic-hangover traveling to get back to Ann Arbor only to find that my room had been broken into. Luckily I had my computer with me, but even if I didn't I do have my much discussed computer lock. I'm not sure the total extent of what's missing but I can tell you I am down a Maglite, Airsoft pistol, switchblade and digital camera are all missing. The most disappointing loss though is my American flag with a semi truck superimposed. It will be missed. Also, let me know if any of your friends just picked up a totally sweet American Flag.

Brian Accidentily Makes $28

The University often sends me emails asking me to participate in research experiments. But because they need a certain number of people to show up they usually double book the sessions to ensure there are enough participants. For those who show up after the session is full they give them $5 for showing up and send them on their way. I have come to learn that it is much more lucrative to show up near the start time and get the $5 then to actually spend an hour on the experiment for the $15.

So today I was working up near north campus and my shift ended at 6:50 and there was an experiment that started at 7. I decided it would be perfect. I could stop on the way home and pick up a fiver and then use that to drink for free all night. That $5 would mean that I could have two $2 pitchers and Mitch's and even have enough for a dollar tip. Those are 60oz pitchers so I could have a great night out on the $5 from stopping on the way home.

When I got to the lab it turned out that they weren't full so I actually had to participate. The basis of the experiment was to study decision making where you sat at a computer and were put into random groups of 6 students. You then had to rank letters based on certain payouts depending on which particpants had the highest priority which changed often. It was a little too complicated to explain on here but the basic premise was that the better you were at ranking things with high payouts the more money you got for the experiment. I quickly realized that this was just game theory and with a little bit of strategy I was able to find the Nash Equilibrium. I was able to consistently get a high number of points. They said at the beginning that the average payout was about $15. I made $28. Too bad that because I am a university employee it will come in my next paycheck (with taxes removed). Unlike the $5 cash that I could have gotten.

So my scheme of taking the $5 by showing up late might not be as good as my scheme to dominate choice experiments.

I have a dream

Notes are in red. Most of the people in this dream were people I went to high school with and still occasionally see. I'm not using full names though.

To set the scene it is nighttime in the midwestern city of Ann Arbor. The first part of the dream that I can remember is that I am at Charley's with Danica and someone else. I can't remember who this other guy is but I get the feeling that I despised him in the dream at least. We go to leave and this guy and Danica start walking ahead of me like 20 feet or so. We are walking down South U and they pass Paul who they both know but don't stop to talk to him. This is weird because Danica and Paul are dating. I see Paul who is wearing a loosened up suit and I talk to Paul about why he wasn't at the bar/talking to Danica. It turns out he was at work.

I keep walking alone and then turn down Tappan and see Jacque D. walking a few feet behind Emily W. and Leila O. I catch up to Jacque and I joke with her because we are both wearing big headphones. She asks me if my parents bought them for me and I joke that I am 22 and I buy things for myself, like a haircut. I'm pretty sure this was shameless flirting. When we get to South U, I turn towards state and she turns the other way. I then start talking to Emily and Leila. All of the sudden Neela jumps on my back piggyback style. This probably was in the dream because we gave each other piggyback rides to Rick's last week in real life.
We almost fall then I do the "elevator" and lift her back up. I specifically remember them referring to me going from a squatting position to standing up as the "elevator".

We notice that we are in front of Kappa Sigma and there is a painting drying on an easel in the front yard. I inspect it and it appears to be a self portrait of an Asian kid that was painted in the yard. Some passerbys are talking about stealing it and I am indifferent to them stealing it. All of the sudden the Asian kid comes out of nowhere with a golf club. I don't really see what happens because I am looking at the painting but when I turned around one of the kids that was joking about stealing the painting had the golf club and the Asian kid was cowering in fear with a math textbook over his head. Like we did in elementary tornado drills. Mark A (he showed up out on nowhere, which is why dreams are so much fun) and I are now both wearing or Cruise09 leisure jackets and talking to the guy with the club. I'm asking him what happened and I am a little upset that he hit the artist in the head with a 3 wood. The passerby's eye is all bloodied and he is explaining what he did when Mark tells me we should get out of there. I go back to the easel to pick up my swede jacket and see the Asian kid all bloody and hiding in the bushes across the street and talking on his cell phone. I then run around the east side of Kappa Sigma alone. While I'm running through a narrow wooden area I pass by some girls on the path who appear to be going to Ricks. I tip my hat towards them all as they pass. I think one of them was Jackie W. Who I haven't seen/talked to in years. The wooden path begins to descend into a stairwell with walls on either side. I can hear the sounds of a children's tune while I'm walking down a short hallway. It turns a corner to a set of an amusement park ride that had been built in a hallway intersection. It was much like that of It's a Small Would with flowing water but it looked more like the quality of the waterfall in the basement of the DKE house during Tahitian weekend. I instantly knew that I had found the secret path to Ricks. I jumped some rocks over the river and followed the curve of the hallway on the other side. It came out to an open doorway near the back bar of Rick's. I went into the bathroom to splash water on my face and to drink some water but there is a big guy in a white tux there and I have to wait for him. Then I drink water from the sink and wake up with a really dry mouth but with the feeling that the secret path out of Rick's goes back to Neela's apartment building. The best part about the secret path is that it's only about 100 feet long but it magically goes the distance of several blocks.

Interpret this dream and find the secret path to Rick's.

Brian saves a frat, takes a homeless man off the street and makes $11

Impressive huh?

A few weeks ago I was walking up to Gayle "The Hailstorm" Lawyerlady's office to discuss how dumb Wilson White is. I was walking by Shady Phi (the frat with the volleyball court in their yard) and I noticed that their grill was on fire. There was a dude on their porch who was wearing a backpack who I assumed was doing something about the fire. What he was doing was throwing things onto the fire that normally don't put fires out. Like big plastic trash cans. A few of the people on the sidewalk started looking at each other and wondering why this guy was fueling a fire right next to the house. I told everyone "I got this" and whipped out the old cellular and called the police. While I was talking to the police the guy started drinking all of the leftover beer on the porch and then walked away, this lead me to believe he was a bum. I waited for a couple of minutes for the frat bros to come out or the fire department to show up but since neither seemed to happen I just walked over and put the fire out myself by pulling off the burning parts and throwing them in the lawn. Don't worry I didn't use my firehose. Eventually the fire department showed up and the frat dudes came out and I got to be the hero. I didn't really care about the frat that much seeing as they already had their pipes burst over winter break. But I did find out later that if the house had burned down they could have rebuilt it into a much nicer house, so take that greek system!

Later that day the cops called me and told me that they had captured the guy. I think it was because of my awesome description of a scruffy guy in khakis and wearing a backpack. Later they asked me to be the lead witness in a felony arson case against the guy. If there is one thing I love more than blogging it is putting this nations homeless behind bars. I gladly said I would be there and told my boss that I had been subpoenaed which I think they had to believe because who would make that up?

Today I showed up in court ready to nail this homeless bastard. But before I got my chance to tell of that fateful day the judge decided that the bum should get a psychiatric evaluation because he might not be fit to stand trial. All this means is that there will be another hearing. But the good news is that you get paid to be a witness, even if the case doesn't end up going to trial. So I made $11. Plus I have the future opportunity to make another $11. Which doesn't really compare to the opportunity cost of going to work all afternoon today.

So when the future date arrives I will be sure to let you know how long I'm putting him away for. I hope they don't give him the chair, I wouldn't want that weighing on my mind.

VICTORY!

Hi Brian

Maintenance confirmed that when they repaired the side door it was operable and could be opened at the time.

FYI, maintenance provided us with another picture which was taken back in September 2008 before the door was repaired. However, as a gesture of good will, we will credit your account for the legal fees and repairs to the broken door in order to foster good relations and in the hopes that the house will be treated more kindly in the future.

Thank you.

Yours Truly,

Michelle

Note how they never admitted that they were wrong. Like they were doing us a favor by not charging us their legal fees. Either way I'm very pleased that I won. But it wasn't without the help of my free lawyer Gayle "The Hailstorm" Lawyerlady who referred to my emails as "brillant". This calls for a celebration tune.

I don't post much but these guys might

Two of my extremely smart friends are abroad for periods of time and have decided to blog about their experiences in other parts of the world. I expect them to be fascinating and I would highly suggest reading both of their blogs even if you don't know them. They are both much better writers than I am and are probably living more exciting lives than me.

Brian - Brian is one of my fellow industrial engineers. He is crazy smart and will probably be the first person I know to be a billionaire. He is spending this summer in Indonesia working at a shoe manufacturing plant (aka...). He is blogging about his experiences and life in a developing third world country. Read it at:

http://indonesianink.blogspot.com/

Rob - Rob and I lived on the same hall freshmen year. We have been buddies ever since from this to the spring break cruise this year. He is crazy smart and will probably be the second person I know to be a billionaire if he survives his travels. He is going to Peru for a year to do volunteer work and plans on blogging about his trip. He isn't going as part of a group or organization like the Peace Corps so he will probably die. But as long as he is alive you can read about it at:

http://robcerato.blogspot.com/

I've added both links to the sidebar, so when I'm being too boring to post you can read about their exciting lives.

I hate my landlord

Wilson White like all property management companies are evil, soulless and unethical. Recently Wilson White attempted to evict us because we refused to pay for some damages that we didn't cause. When we showed up in court their lawyer said that they had decided to drop the case. Then Wilson White tried to charge us for their legal fees even after they dropped the case. This lead to a few emails which I have presented below.

Hi Brian

After reviewing the inventory checklist (dated 2007) and deliberating with the owner, it has been determined that you are responsible for the damages to the doors as the inventory checklist states that it was in good condition at move-in and the house has renewed since then. However, he is willing to meet you in the middle concerning the charges once the legal fees have been paid. Attached is a transaction listing for you to view.

Please let me know if you accept this offer.

Thank you.

The damages were there when we moved in and I talked to the old guys who lived here and they agreed. Since I knew I was in the right I decided to play hard ball.

Michelle,

I thought I was pretty clear when we discussed the door. Let me reiterate, the door was functioning when we moved in but soon after stopped working due to pre-existing damage. I have discussed this with the previous tenets who have confirmed that the door frame was damaged while they were living there. Since we did not cause any damage to the door frame we will not be paying for the repairs.

As for the legal fees, it is absurd for you to think that you can charge us for your legal fees. You attempted to evict us and then dropped the suit without reaching an out of court resolution. We have no responsibility for your legal fees and attempting to get us to pay your fees shows a lack of ethics on behalf of Wilson White.

We will be paying our $4,350 in rent this month and we expect that both the charges for the door repair and the legal fees will be taken off of our account.

I thought this would be the end of it and they would drop the charges but:

Hi Brian

Let’s be clear the reason why the case was dismissed in court as rent was paid and we eventually received the signed mediation agreement that brought your balance down to $9.69. Please see the attached transaction listing and mediation agreement.

We have also attached the pictures concerning the door and door jam. The charges in question refer to both the front and side doors we repaired. Referencing image, “IMG00140.jpg”, with regard to the cracked side door of the house; the deadbolt and the strike (the means by which to lock the door) is missing which can only be caused by blunt force trauma. Referencing another image, “IMG00139.jpg”, with regard to the door jam at the front of the house; a strike plate is missing and three of the four 6 inch screws have been ripped out that would normally be screwed into the house. And again, the only time we seen this is because of brute force and not normal wear and tear as you claim it to be. If, however, we accept your assertions as true we don’t understand how a door that cannot be locked or stay closed for the entire time that you have lived there and is noted as in “good condition” on the inventory checklist would not have risen to a level of importance before now. Again this just seems mystifying to us that over summer, winter and any other breaks that this would not have been an issue before now.

However, we are willing to meet you in the middle with regard to the repairs once the legal fees have been paid. Per lease agreement points 5 & 6 and also by law, we are charging you the statutory legal fees which we are entitled due to that the rent was not paid in full by the fifth.

Thank you.

So I guess they thought that I wouldn't be able to come back from those harsh blows. But I don't take no shit from no one and I had a few punches of my own to throw.

Michelle,

Any attempt to argue that Wilson White dropped the case cannot be attributed to us not paying rent. The transaction listing clearly shows that our rent was paid on or before the fifth every month since the first of the year. The only exception to this being April when the fifth did not fall on a business day. The issue of the damages to the door was never resolved and therefore you dropped the case of your own freewill and thus we are refusing to pay your legal fees.

As for the side door. The damage to the side door was caused during our tenure at the house. Instead of fixing the side door your maintenance staff simply made the door inoperable. Currently the door cannot be opened from the inside or outside of the house. As a side note, I am sure you realize that this constitutes a violation of building code with regards to the minimum number of emergency exits per livable floor, and should be fixed prior to our upcoming housing inspection. Since the door still doesn't function we are refusing to pay for repairs that never took place.

In regards to the front door, your assertions that the damage was caused by blunt force trauma could very possibly be correct. We don't know how the door was damaged because we didn't live here at the time. Upon move-in the piece of the door frame that was missing was filled in with wood putty. Eventually due to the cold and the fact that wood putty isn't meant to be used in that manner the filling popped out of the doorway. This lead to the deadbolt only being held in place by the piece of metal which subsequently was dented because there was no wood behind it to support it. Because of this we spent a year without a locking front door. We put in numerous calls to Wilson White over the course of 2008 to have it repaired and I still have emails between the members of our house in which we discuss having Wilson White repair our door. In an email dated January 7, 2008 one of the roommates sent a inter-house email with the following quote "I went down to Wilson White today and put in a repair request for the deadbolt on the front door (again -- since apparently they didn't fix it the first time)" So it is quite clear to me that this didn't just rise to a level of importance it was an ongoing issue for over a year. What mystifies me is how your maintenance staff could apply the same ineffective solution to the door frame numerous times until I had to instruct them on how to properly fix the door frame. Perhaps you should discuss with the maintenance staff why wood putty would not be a robust solution to a large hole in a door frame. Now you should be able to see why we feel we are not responsible for your maintenance staffs shoddy work.

In summation, we refuse to pay your legal fees because you chose to drop the case without resolution. We refuse to pay for repairs to the side door because the door is still not functional. We refuse to pay for the front door because the damage was pre-existing and the damage was only exacerbated by your maintenance staff's inability to preform their jobs. Please send out a transaction listing with the legal fees and door repair fees removed.

Brian

So this is where we stand right now. I'm pretty much pooping all over them. I was about to ask for an apology for wasting so much of my time but thought that might be over the line. Plus, if anything I should be apologizing for tearing them a new asshole. I'll post with any new juicy emails.

The Best Michigan Sporting Events

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Helping the enconomy has never looked so good

Yesterday in a fit of drunken rage I bought a car. Well, to be more accurate, yesterday I went out and ordered a car. I went with the new 2010 Camaro. Not only will I be helping GM and the economy, I am also getting a car with a feature that I've always wanted since I was 16: an auxiliary input jack. That and 304 horsepower. Sucks to your assmar Detroit radio!

I'm going to pick up sooo many chicks in this thing it will begin to look like the Cooper Howell Honorary Chicken Coop.

Brian goes to Iowa again

I made yet another trip to Iowa this weekend. It was for Val's birthday and since I could easily get out of work on Friday and Monday Mark and I made the 4 day trip. I think this is either the 7th or 8th time I've been to Iowa City.

The first night they we got to one of the bars where they let you buy thirty pitchers of beer for $30, and they must all be finished by 10pm. This lead to me blacking out soon after at a Piano bar.

The second day we started drinking around 3 via some card drinking games. After dinner we went to a couple of bars, and if you read my Twitter you would know that I blacked out doing shots of Jeager and Tang. Not a great combo.

The third day was spent playing Cornhole in an alley and drinking. No Blackout Brian on Sunday night.

Today was spent buying 4 30-racks at the Hyvee for $60 and driving back to Michigan. I think that was detox.