no top 25, but ill pick some games

So I'm not going to pick the Thursday night game, since I'm watching it right now. But I would've said WVU 20-13. No offensive coordinator hurts Auburn, but since WVU can't game plan against an offense they have no film on, they should look weak the first half, adjust at the half and pick back up.

So here are the rest of my picks for the top 15:

1. Texas vs Ok St. - Texas rolls. Colt is too much and the D is ferocious, giving up late points with the scrubs: 45-24

2. Bama vs Tenn - Bama has trouble with Tenn without Mt. Cody, but not that much cause it's Tennessee: 41-21

3. Penn St vs Ohio St - Pryor is the X-factor here. How will he perform in the big game. I like his attitude, but I like Penn's Spread HD and smothering D. But has either team really played anyone? Not Penn St and Ohio St. played USC and lost, so I call this a toss-up: 31-27 Penn wins.

4. Oklahoma vs K State - Easy win for Oklahoma: 45-17

5. USC vs Arizona - Both teams coming off big wins. But USC already had their "oops" game: 28-10

6. Oklahoma St.

7. Georgia vs LSU - LSU's only decisive win was against North Texas in the first game of the year. But Georgia's is banged up and injured. I think the Dawgs come in hungry: 41-24.

8. Texas Tech vs Kansas - Dammit can we stop ranking these overrated teams into the top 10. When you play NO ONE you don't deserve to be up here, I'm looking at you Texas Tech. Not that Kansas is all that good, but this will be upset city. 35-30 Jayhawks

9. Ohio St.

10. Florida vs Kentucky - Kentucky has great D, Florida has Tebow, and a run game. 30-24 Florida barely pulls it out.

11. Utah - Again, another completely overrated team. Look at who they have played. Their toughest game was 2-5 Michgan and they won by 2 points. Ugh, get these guys outta here. Joaj, you are retarded if these guys are your BCS buster. See #12 for the real buster.

12. Boise State vs San Jose St. - Boise State is the only real team that should get into a BCS game. They beat Oregon and they have history of beating other BCS teams. They have a strong D giving up 7 or less to everyone but Oregon. 38-7

13. LSU

14. TCU vs Wyoming - TCU is fo real, or at least can beat overrated teams. Wyoming sucks balls. TCU wins big 42-0

15. Mizzou vs Colorado - 2 straight losses for the Tigers, and they still haven't found a defense. Colorado sucks real bad though. Tigers gets back on track 52-20.

I'm only doing the top 15 for now. I might put up the rest of it tomorrow night, but probably not.

Short economy post

If you think you understand the current crisis in the economy.....you're a moron.

Here's a pretty good explanation from the smart guys at "This American Life". Listen to both of them and get smarter.

First episode

Second episode

ps - get ready for some awesome pics from my brother's wedding

pps - and my first post picking this weekend's college games

The Land of Ports

So for our 2 year anniversary we spent a weekend away in Portland, Maine. It was a lot of sightseeing, which is lame, but there was also a lot of beer drinking and lobster-roll eating, which is the opposite of lame. Here are the pics:

This is the place where we ate brunch, really great.


my first lobster roll, which we got at this rundown roadside diner (the best places to get food):



This is Bull Feeney's, an Irish pub, that Mrs. KTL had heard about. We got a beer.


I got a flight of beer with our lunch at some other place:


Here are some of the sightseeing places we went to:

a beach:


some more beach:


a beach full of rocks:


Mrs. KTL celebrating not dying getting to a beach full of rocks:



a lighthouse:


another lighthouse:

momofuku ko - not too shabby

For the past 3 months, everyday at work I have reminder set for 9:58am on my calendar. Because at 10am I log on to Momofuku Ko's website and try to get a reservation at this most exclusive restaurant in the city. The reason it's so hard to get into is the reservation system. No one is given preference, not food critics, family, or friends. Everyone must vie for 32 spots, and they usually go about 2-3 seconds after 10am, so you can see the difficulty. Recently, they auctioned off 2 seats for dinner for a charity, they went for $2000. But after 3 months of trying...SUCCESS!!

We initially were hesitant to even go because of the price, but how often are we going to be able to eat at a 5 star restaurant (last time was our honeymoon).

There were 10 courses, and we also got the wine and sake pairing that goes with the meal (again might as well do it up right, since we don't eat super fancy food). So without further ado. Here's what we ate (and lets all be proud of Mrs. KTL for eating everything placed in front of her, even with her distaste in seafood and mushrooms)

(These are just some pics I've scavenged from the web (we're not lame enough to take pictures while we were there))

Pork rind with salty seasoning:
light and lightly seasoned with togarashi pepper. great starter.


English muffins soaked in pork fat:
Holy crap this was good. Homemade english muffins with whipped pork fat, then toasted and sea salt and chives


Pate with caviar:
This was a little blob of pate and caviar, bite-sized and good


Deep fried creamy(some kind of cheese maybe) something with quail egg on top:
This was the best of the appetizers. The cheese was coated with a light and crunchy shell, and a perfect over easy quail egg on top. This pic is close to what it looked like.


Mushroom and radish soup
Thinly sliced mushrooms and radishes, placed in a bowl and served, then a smokey broth poured over top. This was okay, I thought it was a little too smokey flavored because the mushrooms and radishes were very light.

Fluke sashimi with buttermilk and poppy seeds:
awesome



Poached chicken egg w/ caviar, tarty onions, and mini-potato chips:
My favorite dish of the night. (A little background) I watched this past season of Top Chef, and one of the judges always stressed the texture of food. I never agreed with him on this point, because I thought it should all be about how the food tastes, not how it feels. But after this entree, I totally understand. The silkiness of the poached egg, the way the caviar popped, and the crispness of the chips. Perfect.


Ravioli with a sweet corn and cochita cheese filling, chorizo , and pickled onions:
We got three raviolis, this was kinda out of sorts with the rest of the meal, but still amazingly delicious.

Shaved foie gras, lychee syrup, riesling jelly, and pinenut brittle:
Dammit this was good. The description says it all. You are less of a person for having heard about this and not have tasted it.


Roasted diver scallops - burnt onion, diced radish, pepperoncini puree:
Probably my least favorite dish. The scallops were great, but the radish and the puree was just too much.


Duck with cherries grapes, chinese string beans and water chestnuts:
They started cooking the duck when we arrived. I also realized that I do not use nearly enough salt when I cook meat, and according to CombatVet aka Culinary Ninja has backed up this assertion. Seared, baked, then rested. Perfect medium rare.


Pineapple sorbet on top of frozen apricot puree:
I love fruity deserts, so this was great. Simple and clean.


Yellow cake ice cream on top of peanut brittle served with small strawberries on a bed of some other kind of peanut butter stuff and a smear of raspberry sauce. Second best dish of the night.

The wine and sake pairings were well thought out. Except there was a beer thrown in there that didn't quite mesh well.

All-in-all, this was the best meal I've ever had. I'm glad we went, but I am not expecting to go back because it is price and effort prohibitive.

State College (that's Penn State for you fools)

Went to visit my bud, RBD and his girl, Cool Lady Friend, at Penn State a while ago. We went bowling, saw Dark Knight, and had an awesome time. Here are some pictures of us bowling. For some reason, RBD is better at real bowling than wii bowling. It's really amazing to watch.


Good times were had by all.

RBD needs a hug


Mrs. KTL running away. Once she found the 5 lb bowling ball her game improved exponentially.


KTL being awesome.....and fat


RBD and CLF giving us "Magnum"...try not to stare too long.

In the city with JoaJ

We had our great friend and fellow blogger JoaJ in town for a week. This will have been his 3rd time up here (almost a real New Yorker now) and he knew more about the cities' history than me or the Mrs.

I have forgotten everything we did, but it was a lot of stuff. Mrs. KTL kept him busy while I was at work. And once we met up the festivities began.

Here are some pics of us at Bastille Day celebration on July 14th.











And this interesting tidbit comes from our good friend, CV (aka. CombatVet aka. DanB aka Cap'n Dan): Fanta was created by the Nazis bc they couldn't get Coca-cola syrup from the US. This is also where we get Sprite (Clear Lemon Fanta).

CHA CHA!

Hey everyone. I just wanted to put this up cause it's one of the most awesome things ever (warning: no one knows how this venture makes money, but on their website they claim that they do not give out your number)....so here it is:

1-800-2 CHA CHA

It is a service that you call up and ask a question, any question, about anything. And after a short time, they will text you back an answer.

It costs you the time it takes you to ask your question and receive a text.

I used it probably 20 times over the weekend, and I have to say it is one of the coolest things evar. I heard that some MIT geeks used to do this back in the day, but now we have cha cha.

Example of questions asked to Cha Cha at our roof party:

What is the minimum distance that 747s coming into LaGuardia must maintain?

What is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?

Can you determine the distance from the Earth to the Moon without physics?

What are the 5 most populous cities in the world?

etc...



Enjoy everyone.