Amen!

Brothers and Sisters gather near, for this is surely a momentous occasion. From this day forward I shall be known as Reverend Scheinberg, having today been ordained as a minister of the Universal Life Church, Modesto, California.

I received my ordination just today, here it is:

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Dear Rev. Scheinberg ,

This is to confirm that

Martin "JK" "Tiltdad" Scheinberg

[Sacred Street removed to keep the unbelievers away]

[ditto with Sacred City, State, Zip]

has been ordained as a minister of the
Universal Life Church, Modesto, California.

Date of Ordination: 3/28/2008
by Kevin Andrews, Pastor

Your request for ordination has been processed and submitted to the Universal Life Church Headquarters in Modesto, California for recording.

Please retain the above date of ordination for your records, as you may need this information in the future to fill out the various forms of the clergy. If you were ordained previously, the above date will constitute a valid date upon which you were RE-ordained. Ordination is for life, without price, and without question of your specific beliefs. You do not need to pay any tithe, donation, or offering of any kind, now or in the future.

Please note that you have NOT been ordained "by Internet" or "online." The Universal Life Church is a "regularly established church or congregation" and all ordinations are done as the deliberate, thoughtful, and responsible act of a human being, not by a computer. As is the case with nearly every church, organization and business, the ULC makes use of the Internet and email for administrative communications, but the ordination itself is not done online and should not be referred to as such. Also, it is important to note that you did not ordain yourself.

The church holds regular meetings every Sunday morning in Modesto, and has congregations in all 50 states of the USA as well as countries throughout the world. Upon ordination, you are a minister of the church in Modesto, though you may establish a separate congregation or join an existing local group if you choose to do so. ULC does not require you to relinquish your membership or participation in any other church or organization, as the ULC doctrine is not in conflict with any peaceful belief system.

Universal Life Church ordination is not limited to the officiation of marriage. This is an important distinction, as in some jurisdictions, ministers who are ordained for the sole purpose of officiating marriage are not authorized by the state to officiate marriage in those jurisdictions. As a minister, you are authorized by the church to perform all peaceful rites and ceremonies of the church, including weddings, funerals, baptisms, blessings, and to preach, teach and hold meetings. Prior to conducting any civil ceremony (such as marriage), you should know and comply with the laws pertaining to your area of jurisdiction.

You are entitled to all privileges and courtesies normally offered to members of the clergy.

Your commitment is to always do the right thing. It is your responsibility to peacefully and sincerely determine the right course of action, and to avoid infringing on the rights of others. You alone are responsible for your actions as a minister.

We value and respect your privacy. Your name and other information will not be made public on any listing unless you specifically ask to be listed this way. We will never furnish your information to any outside agency, or allow it to be used for any unrelated purpose.

It is not a piece of paper which makes you a minister. However, many people wish to have a certificate, wallet card, or other record of their status as a minister. Such items are particularly useful to those who wish to perform marriages as part of their ministry. It can serve to reassure the bride and groom (or their parents!) that the minister has been ordained.

Best wishes in your ministry!

With warm regards,


Kevin Andrews, Pastor
Universal Life Church Online
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I'll be choosing my Doctorate degree and my official Title, and the name of my church (high up in the running right now is "The Church of the Holy River") soon. These are exciting times my brothers and sister, exciting times.

Give me a Hallelujah!!!

Hideki Matsui: Honorary Tiltboy

What a r00l3r.

Hat Tip: Ace Bailey

Lab With Green Onion?

My brother-in-law sent this from a restaurant that he ate at recently...

The Porcelain Anniversary

Saturday (March 22) was our tenth wedding anniversary.

Early Friday evening I get hit with a migraine and take an Imitrex. It's a great drug which almost always kills the pain, but unfortunately also makes me nauseated. After three hours of low-grade carsickness, I realize the moment is nigh, and place a lined garbage can next to the bed.

JK asks, "If you're going to vomit, could you please do it in the bathroom?"

I start to protest but he insists,

"Honey, please. You know I'm going to be the one to clean it up. It will be much easier on me if you just use the toilet. Consider it an anniversary present."

Grudgingly, I go and sit on the bathroom floor. To help curb the boredom, JK joins me and we work on the NYT crossword puzzle. After half an hour and no vomiting, I decide to go back to bed.

Ten minutes later, I race to the bathroom (carrying the garbage can in case I don't make it) and find myself wishing I'd skipped dessert.

At 11:50, my stomach is empty. JK gets me a glass of water, I brush my teeth, and we head back to bed, assuring ourselves that ten years is, in fact, the porcelain anniversary.

Who says romance is dead?

P.S. For the people who took the overs (all two of you), I've made transfers to your FTP accounts.

P.P.S. Happy anniversary, JK. I love you more than ever.

What you might not know about the Tiltboys...

So as the first new Tiltboy in almost a decade, I came into the group with a perspective which (by definition) was different than any of the earlier members. After our recent Cabo trip, I decided to reflect upon the things that I have learned about the Tiltboys that weren’t immediately obvious to me when I read through this site after meeting Phil and Rafe a bit over two years ago. As I write this, I realize that each of these could probably warrant a whole blog. However, for now, you are only going to get a paragraph or so of my thoughts. What should you know about the Tiltboys in 2008 that you might not otherwise?

• Still going strong! The first and most obvious thing that some people won’t realize if they have only read the book or looked at the site is the fact that the Tiltboys are still going strong. There are still regular home games (although they have moved from Wed to Thursday night) and we’ve added in semi-regular Tiltboy trips. Eight of us (plus two other friends) just spent an amazing weekend in Cabo San Lucas. What do the Tiltboys do when they go to Cabo? Did we go into town and party at Cabo Wabo? Go whale watching? Nah. We spent 72 hours in the rental house playing various forms of poker, roshambo and anything else we could think of to try to take each other’s money and throw people into a perpetual state of Tilt. Hint: if you have never played the party game “Assassin” with the Tiltboys (and for $$$), then you don’t know how the game is meant to be played. One of the TiltWives was recently asked if she worried about her husband on these guys’ weekends. Her answer? “Nah, I know that they will never take a long enough break from the action to get into trouble.” Isn’t it great when you find somebody who understands you that well?
• There must be something wrong with me (AKA everyone’s welcome). When I was first invited to a party with some of the Tiltboys, the amazing thing to me was how open and welcoming everybody was. You’d think that a group with as long (and infamous) a history would have become somewhat closed off to outsiders. That was simply not the case. But surely the famous home game is very hard to get into? Nope. I was almost immediately invited and have been part of 80%+ of the games since. O.K., if that is the case, why haven’t the games gotten so large that they are unmanageable? Well, this get’s into my realization that there must be something wrong with me (although I am very happy about it!). You see, when I first played in the home game, I immediately felt comfortable. I embraced the insanity and loved it. Since that point, I’ve probably seen 10 or more non-Tiltboys play in the home game and they all have had the same “deer in the headlights” look in their face as they sat there. Very few have ever been part of more than one game and none have become regulars. Honestly, I am not really sure why the game is intimidating to folks. The stakes aren’t all that high and everyone is very friendly. I think the biggest issue people have is that they haven’t heard of any of the games being played and they don’t really understand the rules. Even if they get a chance to understand one game, it immediately changes to some other bizarre variant. Which brings us to…
• The games they be a changing. So I knew from reading this website that the Tiltboys had a bunch of weird games that they played (e.g. spit-n-shit, ding-a-ling, etc) and I sort of figured that once I learned those games, it would just be a matter of understanding those variants and that would be what we played every week. How wrong I was! I don’t believe that I have ever played in a game where at least one new game or game variant wasn’t introduced. We’ve had whole games where somebody proposed a new game and that is all we played for the whole night. Keep in mind that with very rare exceptions, we don’t play wildcard games or games like Guts. These are almost all split pot (often with a declare) variations of flop, stud or draw games. Something the Tiltboys instinctively understand (that most home games I’ve been part of don’t) is that if the games are static then people have the chance to master them. If all we played was No Limit Hold’em, we would get very bored and somebody might prove themselves to be the best (although who that would be would be a matter of HUGE argument). By constantly changing the games, the question becomes who can most quickly understand the subtleties of the new game as opposed to who has spent the most hours studying a “known” game such as Hold’em.
• Everything you read is true. Most people who read the Tiltboys book would assume that some creative license was taken with the characterizations. Surely Dice isn’t really that lucky? Bruce can’t be that big a space cadet. Phil can’t be THAT easy to tilt! I would have assumed that same if I hadn’t witnessed countless examples of all of the above over the last two years. If Dice has one out which will take the pot away from Lennie then you can pretty much guarantee what will happen. The funniest thing being that Dice has refined this so much that he now let’s Lennie pick his own river card from the deck. Watching Lennie’s hair go from flat to full Tilt after he picks the only card in the deck which costs him the pot seemly like a weekly occurrence. On my last trip to Vegas, I got back from a poker tournament at 3am only to find Bruce and a guy from the hotel trying to figure out what room Bruce was supposed to be in (since he had written the wrong room # down). The stories go on and on. As far as I can tell, getting married and having kids hasn’t really changed the stories, it has just left a lot less time for people to actually *document* the stories. :)
• We can have fun anywhere. On the way back from Cabo, we were waiting in a very long line while Mexico’s version of the TSA was hand inspecting all the suitcases going on our plane. Stern, Paul and I were standing and playing rotating Chinese Poker (Hi-only, Low in the middle, Puerto Vallarta). Dice and Bruce were throwing two handed Roshambo (with doubling and losers’ winning just to make it more interesting). 45 minutes passed in the blink of a moment and all of a sudden it was our turn. Nice. Meanwhile, I observed many other groups of people bitching and moaning about the wait and generally having a miserable time. That was when it really hit me that as long as I was travelling with another Tiltboy, it was guaranteed to be fun.
• Tilt is a hell of a basis for friendship. ‘Nuff said. I have found friends for life and I couldn’t be happier…

How the Tiltboys Saved the World Wide Web

Back in the heyday of the Tiltboys in mid nineties, when we were all single, without kids and not such giant pussies, there was a little operation next door to us in Palo Alto called "Netscape". A few of us entertained trying to get jobs there, hell, we knew this web thing was going to be big. But, that would probably require working really long hours and would cut into the poker game. So none of us did, and the rest is history!

Oh, you don't see the connection of how that means we saved the web? Let me explain. Had even one of us gone to work at Netscape, it would have been inevitable that we'd run into founder, Jon Mittelhauser. We'd have invited him to the home game, and due to his corruptible nature, he would have slacked off severely at work. One thing would have lead to another, and most likely the web explosion would not have happened and we'd all be relegated to using Gopher, Compuserve or Minitel (quelle horreur!)

So, you see, the Tiltboys, through our uncanny intuition and good judgment, allowed Jon to keep nose to grindstone, and Netscape flourished long enough to show the world what could be. Al Gore's invention of the Internet begat Jon's invention of the World Wide Web, which the Tiltboys saved from certain doom.

Years later, after it was safe, we invited Jon to the game and he's been at every one since. Please welcome the newest Tiltboy: Jon Mittelhauser.