I missed the season finale of Ultimate Fighter last night, as I was at SuperHappyDevHouse 5. Fortunately, tivo is my friend (and yes, tivo is now a verb, so it has lost its CamelCaps spelling status and is no longer TiVo).

This season has been relatively blah compared to last year. The editing hasn't shown the fighters' mental anguish or victories, there have been no overwhelmingly (or even just whelmingly) dynamic personalities to capture the attention of the viewer, and there have been no huge rivalries, pranks or, yes indeed, big fat babies.

In short: no compelling reason to love or hate these guys.

Which makes for boring television. But, hey, it's ultimate fighting, so the season finale is surely worth watching, right?

Maybe.

The decor of the octagon at the Hard Rock Cafe is, well, the Hard Rock decor, which includes, in the background, a hit record, surrounded by radially placed guitars, all with a spotlight on it. And there are two of them.

So they look like breasts.

Lovely.

The season finale starts out with the cheesy shots of a gladitor putting on armor to Gregorian chanting and humming as a sound over. Cheeeeee-zeeeee! Cut to Luke and Joe talking smack. It works okay, but, eh, Luke seems too mellow to be an ultimate fighter. Good mental strength (omg good!), but, man, he's a small'un.

And then there's Rashad talking smack about Brad. Okay, yes, Rashad has fought two fights already. Yes, Rashad won both fights. But, dude, Brad is the 800 pound gorilla, you're an idiot.

To my surprise, shots of Diego and some other dude (Nick Imez) came on next. Diego! With long hair! We love Diego! He's the main event, with Kenny Florian, also from season 1 with Diego, fighting Kit Cope (note the one T - he's a boy). Who knew that Kenny could be good?

We just realized at this point that we missed the fight between Joe and Jason. Jason reminds me of Ariel Garza (like, Jason could be Ariel's cousin), so I wanted to see that fight. Oh, well.

Okay, so the announcers are introduced, blah, blah, blah, and they start to introduce the fighters. Somehow, who knows how, the fighters get to pick their nicknames. The announcers start with Joe "Daddy" Stevenson.

What the er...?

Daddy?

Daddy?!?

How fuckin' intimidating is the nickname "Daddy?" Clearly this fighter has been hit one too many times.

Luke and the others, thankfully, have no nicknames.

Ooooo, Diego and Nick have "bad blood" between and "these two hate each other." Might be a good fight. Ahhhhh, complete with words at the weigh-in.

Introducing the other fighters, we're still dumbfounded that Kenny is any good. He's actually fighting down a weight class from what he did on the show. Later, he was described as a "master of ju-jit-su, possessor of lethal elbows," which had both of us cracking up. Kenny landed a lucky shot on Leben in the semis last season to get the finals. And now, it's his seekrit weapon.

Someone tell me, what is he thinking? "Hey, this elbow has something! It worked for me the first time, let's keep it going!"

I so cannot listen to his smack talk. He says, "I'm the one who works hard for ..." and all I hear is, "I have lucky elbows! Whoo!"

Kit "the Havoc" Cope? The Havoc? Lord, someone rename these guys. Just because you're a four time Welterweight weenar doesn't mean you can give yourself a stupid name. Ooooo, he's a bare knuckle champion, too!

At least he has a good first name.

Blah blah blah, commercials, chest thumping, fight announcement. While being introduced, Kenny looked at the ground the whole introduction. I kept screaming, "Look up! Look up, you moron! You're being introduced, stop shuffling your feet. Look up!"

Kit weighs only 170 at 6'0". When I commented on it, Kris replied, "Look at his legs. He has chicken legs! Chick chick chicken legs!" Indeed. Kit's got nothing below the waist. Chicky!

Okay, yay, the fight started. Wow, lots of moving. One of the things that really cracks me up is the various positions these guys get in, and no one thinks anything of them. I mean, seriously interesting sexual positions if they weren't beating the crap out of each other.

Holy crap, Kenny managed an arm bar (a hyperextension of the elbow - "think of the arm as a lever, the elbow as the fulcrum, and pull") on Kit and the end of round bell sounded less than half a second before Kit tapped out! Kit stayed in for another round. Jeez! These fighters are clearly insane! He's lost the use of his right arm.

Okay, 35 seconds into the second round, Kit tapped out in a rear naked choke that was turning his face purple.

Oh, joy. Ring girls. Amber, if I really cared what your name was, I'd be downloading your photo from the UFC website. Oh, and that "mole" on your chin? Looks like a big zit. Lose the eyeliner.

Blah blah blah, human interest stories, blah blah blah, fight introduction, blah blah blah, CHUCK!. Cameo of Chuck Liddel, looking terribly stoned. Heh.

Joe against Luke. Before watching this, my money is totally on Joe. Luke, oh, Luke, do you really have a chance? Of course, "Joe Daddy" is a freaking retarded name, so style points to Luke. At some point, Joe's mother is put on camera. What is she thinking? "Good lord, what has my son gotten himself into? What the hell? He's going to get the crap beating out of him, and I have. to. watch? He's getting paid to do this?"

Luke, lose the retarded ski mask. You don't look like a ninja, you look like a kid playing dress up. Retarded dress up.

Oh, Luke, you have no chance.

Nice move, Joe. Go, Luke, go! Color me impressed with Luke's ability to escape Joe's takedown. Er, well, the first one anyway. Luke, Luke, Luke, keep the fight on your feet. Boxing good. Grappling bad. Sure, you can avoid the full submission, but it doesn't score well to have the bell save your ass two rounds in a row.

Yeargh! Kris! Tell me if this goes to the judges! "You have to watch." Boo! Boo to that!

"Oh, press that, Luke, I know you don't weigh for crap, but press with all your weight!"

Okay, so Luke lost, but the judges scores were close: 29-28, 30-27, 29-28.

The heavy weights. Rashad is annoying. My hope is that he loses, so let's watch... Daaaaaamn, big dude (Brad), get a move on, do more than just walk around and take a swing (and a miss!) or grab the neck and knee up. How about a jab jab jab? Stop getting that close! Ah well, Rashad won 29-28, 28-29, 29-28. Close.

Diego Sanchez versus Nick Diaz in the featured fight. Holy crap, what an amazing fight. Diaz is like another Diego, matching him move for move, countering each attack and returning them blow for blow. I can't imagine how tired these guys are going to be at the end of the fight. Oh, Diaz, don't land on your ass when you do a flying kick. Though, the dodging of the dropping punches from Diego is terribly impressive. Diaz! You almost had Diego's leg in a leg-bar! Man, oh, man! What a fight! Lots and lots of exclamation points! I might need to save this fight on tivo for a while. ARGH! What's with the crappy camera angles? If Diego is applying an arm-bar, let me freaking. see it! Well, looks like Diaz is going the distance with Diego, but if I were a judge, I'd have to call it for Diego, no question (and I'm right: 30-27, 30-27, 30-27).

WTF? Diego "the Nightmare" Sanchez? Good lord, what is up with these retarded names? How many times do I have to ask that?

Okay, end of Ultimate Fighter, season 2. I think the best part of this season just might be, "Hey, did you know that Ultimate Fighter Season 3 will air in spring 2006?"

Yeah.

Jessica and family are in town this weekend, SHDH5 is tonight, Mark's opening night was last night, and the group is going to see one of his shows tomorrow afternoon, and at some point I need to finish up the work for Messina.

Oh, and bake cookies for SHDH5.

Full weekend, and a lot of it up in the City, too.

I was supposed to be in the City each day starting on Thursday (SFUC, client work on Friday then visit Jess, more visiting of the Jess today), but circumstances changed and I haven't gone up yet.

I'm looking forward to heading up today. Here's hoping the weather is as pleasant up there as it is here.

Wow.

Apparently fulfilling the belief that just because you can afford the car, doesn't mean you can afford to drive the car. I know my first thought went this "Wanted Item" came across the Freecycle list, I thought, "WTF? Too cheap to buy floormats?"

To:   	 LosAltosFreecycle@yahoo...
Subject: [LosAltosFreecycle] wanted: Jaguar car floor mats

Does anyone have any still in good condition floor mats for a Jag?
Currently using towels.  Please advise.

But, come on! Jaguar floor mats? Sheesh!

In college, and after college, I dated John Schmidt. Self-described BeanHead, John grew up in Indiana, leaving only to go to Caltech. If I recall correctly, he went to Tech because it was the school farthest away from his family (a hauntingly familiar theme amongst my exes). John's father died when John was in high school, an event which caused enormous relief to John, as his father was an overbearing man.

John would tell me stories of his youth. He rarely told me a story if it didn't have relevance to the situation at hand, and the relevance was usually some brilliant, awe-inspiring, soul-revealing lesson he had learned.

One of the first stories John told me was about his father. John was youngish, maybe ten, and was being yelled at by his father. I don't recall what John had done, but he thought what he had done was the right thing to do. His father disagreed, and was screaming at the top of his lungs at John, telling him what a bad person he was, how could he have done such a thing.

Some point during the scream fest, when John insisted what he had done was right (he might have been clocked for his response, I don't recall that either), he realized that his father didn't know all and that his father was wrong. Most importantly, John realized that, no, being older or bigger or louder didn't mean you were right, it just meant you were older or bigger or louder.

The event taught John to believe in himself, because he was right.

Another story John would tell me, on more than one occasion, was about his paper route.

He had a paper route for a number of years, and would get up in the cold, dark morning and deliver the paper in his neighborhood. One particular cold morning, he was trudging along on his route, it was dark, and snowing, and freaking cold. Cold, cold, cold. And wasn't he just the most miserable person in all the world. Here he was outside, delivering the newspapers, and his feet were frozen, and his toes hurt, and his fingers were pained, and woe, oh woe, is he.

At some point along this particular route, however, he realized that he had work to do, and complaining about what he was doing wasn't getting the job done any quicker, it wasn't making the load any lighter, and it sure as hell wasn't warming up his feet.

So he stopped complaining, and just did his job. Because at that point, there was nothing to be done about the cold - it was going to be cold, and the only way he was going to go home was by finishing his route. So he did.

For as long as I spent time with John, complaining was never his style. Probably because of that paper route.

John had a long sleeved, white cross-country shirt from high school. The shirt made it to college with John, but didn't make it much past - I kept the shirt when we broke up.

It's one of my favorite shirts. I still wear it. Frequently.

And when I do, I'm reminded that, in some situations in life, when things just plain suck, but there's no way to improve the situation, well, then, accept it and move on.

Because sometimes, sometimes, there's nothing to be done about it.

Well, it was raining five minutes ago. It's brilliantly sunny at this point.

When it started raining, Doyle commented, "You could totally do donuts in the parking lot with the S2000 in this weather!"

When I smiled, he lamented, "If only we didn't work two blocks from the Sunnyvale police department!"