BEAUTY. YES, BEAUTY IS HER NAME.

[This post is for entertainment purposes only. Any suppositions you may have about who I’m talking about here are inconsequential because I'll never tell. In short, you’d be pissing in the wind.
And no, I’m not going soft on y’all – never that. I recognize my faults & I try to fix them - that's all. You dig?]

"O, what men dare do! What men may do!
What men daily do, not knowing what they do!"
[Shakespeare]

I met this girl.

We met through mutual friends some years back. I thought she would never be interested in me and she thought I was too young. Needless to say we didn't hit it off then.

A year or two later we met again through the same mutual friends. That’s when she learned I was old enough, as she put it, and I learned that she was extremely interesting, to say the least. So interesting, in fact, that I would be content to just sit, listen and stare at her all day. With these newfound revelations came mutual curiosity – and interest. And that’s how it all began.

She used to like it when I drove, particularly because she didn’t like to drive and I did. We used to drive all over the place, from state to state, until something happened one fateful night: it rained.

It didn’t just rain, it poured. It didn’t just pour either – it stormed. That one storm changed everything. No, it actually wasn’t just the storm. While driving on this one mile-long bridge, that one storm changed everything. The rain beat down & the lightning flashed at least once every half-second, thunder booming in quick succession. The massive river below the bridge was clearly visible, choppy waters and all, since the lightning transformed night into day, if only a flash at a time. It was terrible and beautiful and humbling all at the same time. After experiencing such a display of raw beauty and power together we would never be the same. And we weren’t.

First came the phone calls, those long, late-night conversations about everything and nothing. Then we started hanging out. She worked weekdays and weekends, sometimes even on Saturday and Sunday nights, so I only could see her a few hours at a time, a few hours a week - if that. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t see her as much as I’d have wanted to; I was just happy to see her when I could, when she could.

She thought I was only out to hit it. She was right, but I didn’t just want that – I wanted so much more. Then she told me she would never give it up till she had that wedding band all nice and snug on her ring finger. She thought I’d back off then. I didn’t. For the first time in my life I was OK with that; I was content to just be close to her. She couldn’t believe it.

She had a man. She’d known this man for many years. Dude lived out of state. Maybe I had home court advantage, or maybe things weren’t great between the two of them. Or maybe I was just lucky, because she one day told me she liked me. I thought I was the luckiest man on God’s green earth, and I was.

The following months were nothing but bliss. Ever since my first heartbreak I’d never let myself be sprung over any girl so I fought the feeling….. and lost. Despite myself I gradually found myself constantly thinking about her: her smile, her eyes & the way they spoke volumes, her neck, her hands, her lips, her back down to her booty, her feet, her belly-button…. her body. Lawd, her body! More than her body even, her soul and spirit were so bright they blinded me, yet made me see her even clearer. She still wouldn’t give it up and I didn’t pressure her to. I was content to just be close to her, to bask in her luminance.

We made all these bets and played all these games. We once made a bet that I couldn’t catch up with her on the highway though I was miles behind. I caught up, risking life and limb on these perilous U.S. roads. I won the bet but she weaseled out of it somehow, though she made it up to me later. We went swimming once, for days. She’s the only girl I’ve introduced to my family and they liked right away, even though she met them only for a few hours and didn’t say much. She got really wasted on me once and I didn’t take advantage of her; I just watched her sleep, and was content to do just that.

She got mad at me for the longest time because of the nine. She got mad at me when I drove too fast and earned all those tickets. She got mad at me coz I was ‘complicating’ her destined-to-fail relationship with the out-of-state dude. Yet she loved me, for who I was, for who I was destined to become, for my outside-the-box way of thinking – as she put it.

And I loved her – I know that now. Hindsight is definitely 20-20, because I see that now clear as day.

Problem is, she didn’t believe I loved her; she thought I was running game. Maybe I was at the time. I was, actually. I was young, hormone-induced and stupid and couldn’t recognize a good thing if it hit me right in the face; and it did. From that point on it was downhill all the way for us, and now we don’t even talk.

I’ve never liked to see a girl cry, much less one I like, and I made her cry. Not just I but everything else around her seemed to crumble at about the same time and while I should’ve been her fortress, I was contributing to the steady deluge of disappointments in her life, and for that I’m sooo sorry.

That was then, a year or so ago, but she’s still the saddest girl I know. I can barely stand the thought of her being unhappy, she who taught me so much about how happy I could be.

WHY, 4-LETTER WORDS & CHEDDAR.

So, my boy The Dishwasher got me more than a little bent this weekend. It was so bad I slept thru most, if not all, of Sunday trying to recoup.

We live in an extremely self-centered society. Life in the U.S. isn’t all it’s cut out to be. I know lots of people outside the States would want to be here tho, so I never take that for granted. Life is tough here, but life is tough every place else, last time I checked. But what do I know?

Imma tell you this tho: as long as we’re on this side of the solar system, there will always be something going on. Mankind is cursed, literally, as in it’s impossible to live a trouble-free life. Impossible. Like, most of our problems revolve around dinero. I’d like to think that someone like, say Bill Gates, is virtually trouble-free, but I’m sure he has monstrous problems that our cheddar-centered mentality can’t fathom. The late great BIG was on point when he said More Money More Problems. But hey, I'd much rather find that out for myself. They say it can't buy happiness but shoot, I think it can bring me real close!

Money is the root of all evil, they say. I disagree. Money opens doors, greases palms… however you wanna put it. Our knee-jerk reaction to monumental amounts of cheddar is what’s f*cked up. People say stuff like: if I were to become a millionaire I wouldn’t change for sh*t. That’s a load of bull. Money changes people, period.

Take these rappers for instance. Their first videos are always centered around where they come from, as in they invite the whole block over for the shoot, fire up the grills, bust out 40-ounce OEs and shoot the video right there. Think BIG's first single Juicy. Dude was sitting in Brooklyn surrounded by his roll dawgs. A few videos later he was shooting Hypnotize and driving backwards in Benzes, wearing fur coats and sailing in yachts. And you say money doesn't change people? Pul-lease! And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Then, some hindiots wanna try to tell people what to do with their own kake. For instance, I'm an avid listener of The Russ Parr Morning Show. Dude's soo funny - I think. Some think the show's juvenile tho, which it might be, but it makes me smile in the mornings, which is no mean feat.
Anyway, Russ said something about Bill Gates donating mega-millions of dollars in computers and software to some needy schools someplace. I was thinking to myself: good looking out Bill. Maybe I'll actually buy a licenced copy of Windows Vista when it rolls out. [disclaimer: all my software is legit. Well, most of it anyway] Soon after, some lady called the station criticizing Bill for that, saying he should have diverted that money to, and I quote, 'a more worthy cause.'
Now, I'm not saying there isn't any cause more worthy, but damnit lady, THAT'S BILL'S OWN MONEY! Let him do with it whatever he wishes! He didn't even have to give it away so shut the hell up! Russ told her as much too.

Of course Bill will claim some of it back on tax day, but that's beside the point.

I was talking about self-centeredness.

This is such an individualistic society it saddens, but also amuses, yours truly. Like, it's entirely possible to live next to the same people for years on end and not know their names. Then you see people driving slow in the fast lane on i95 and won't budge. And have you been grocery shopping lately? It's a madhouse - people mean muggin' each other all the while blocking entire aisles, people scrambling for parking spaces and express check-out lanes, kids throwing tantrums... *sigh*

More dee dee dee than all that is how people pride themselves over stuff that's either extremely trivial or stuff they had nothing to do with. Showing off is a deeply-ingrained trait that resides in each and every one of us, and that's OK. The fact that we show off really doesn't matter. WHY we show off, dear reader, is the question. Allow me to expound a little more on that.

As far as looks go, humans can be divided into 3 categories: The fly, the average and the nuh-uh. Now, it's possible for each one of us to slide from either one to any other. I mean, consider Michael Jackson & Whitney Houston. They slid from the fly division to the nuh-uh just like that. Diddy & Jay Z, on the other hand, squirmed from the nuh-uh to the fly, thanks to their millions. [Funny how kake makes people look better, huh?] Exercise, or lack thereof, can determine which category we fall in too. So can plastic surgery, a good haircut, good-fitting clothes etcetera etcetera.

Which is why I find it so ridiculous that some people get all big-headed about how fly they look. Boggles the mind. See, most good-looking people just happened to be fly; they had nothing to do with it. And then they have the nerve to rub all that flyness in people's faces?! Spare me.

Not to say I don't appreciate beauty - I do, lots. But there is none more ravishing than a fly person who realizes, and is thankful, that his/her good looks are purely accidental.

Which boils down again to why we do some things. Like, lots of people crack on me about my apparent love for my car. I can't lie - I do love the car. For the longest time I was afraid to love anything or anyone, with the excuse that anything I loved would be taken from me. Well, that's usually how it was but I don't give a rat's behind about that now. I will love if I want to. What?

Besides, I think I figured the love thing out:

It's OK to love, even though love makes us vulnerable. The trick is to love someone/something with the realization that love is given freely, and is fragile. Think of it as an exquisite vase sitting on a mantlepiece. It can sit there indefinitely in all its grandeur if nothing touches it, but something will eventually. There might be too much fire in the fireplace that would scald it. There might be an earthquake that would tip it & make it break into smithereens on the floor. Shoot, the cat might even bring it down running from the dog.
Such is love. Enjoy it while you have it. Embrace it. It might be yours forever, or it might be gone before you know it.

[Dang, I be running my mouth; I'd better stop here.]

*Click me.

"A CASE OF THE MONDAYS"

Arrrggghhh!!! It’s Monday already!

Well, it’s Sunday night, though like 12.45.

Felt like giving a shout-out to my friends real quick. I’m sleepy as hell but I’ll do it. I’ll try to, anyway, & in no particular order of importance.

>Jo: Where do I begin?
>Lil G: 17 already?!
>V^6: My n*gga. Go fast or bust!
>G: If thou wouldst consider it…..
>A1: Blueman – still remember it, thanks. Not to be confused with Blue ball. Well, maybe that too.
>Ura: Intricate intellectual with a heart of gold. My n*gga.
>Dishwasher: My favorite prodigy. D, don’t be alarmed.
>CK: How do I even begin? You’re off the chain!
>D: So young, so angry! Damn that rap music!
>Lil D: My lil n*gga.
>G.R.: Through thick & thin.
>Wams: To quote Guessaurus: “Humor & intelligence, not mutually exclusive.”
>DLL: *speechless*
>Shaw: U know I love you, right? Well, I’ll need Tokyo Drift on Tuesday. Please.
>BET: So near, yet so far.
>R: Why you always think I’m playin’?
>Ciiku: We grew up together. We should maybe stick together?
>Paps: My n*gga for life. I miss you girl.
>Marie: “After ding-dong, go nigh-night!” [CK – ha ha!]
>Mercy: Go ahead, make that cheddar! I ain’t mad atcha!

Alright, gotta go to bed. If I neglected to give you a shout-out, mucho apologies. Blame it on my condition – sleepy. You know I’ve nothing but love and respect for you. [ps: This one statement took me 10 minutes to type out]

KBW, much love.

Durrty Dozen

Why are we men such horny bastards?

Oh, and why are women such horny bastards, though undercover?

Is sex overrated or do people not know to do it right?

Why does the tip, if y’all know what I mean fellas, get all sensitive after the deed?

Why does your baby gurl’s eyes roll back when the…. ummm…. arrow first slides into the quiver?

Why leave scratches on a brother’s back? Not to mention those bite-marks on his chest? Why?!

Wsup with all the screaming? You realize those girls in porn are only acting, right?

Why we won't go downtown? Well, I realize, like the phrase goes, that you don’t go downtown every city you go to. But why are most Black men reluctant to go there?
Shoot, I be swimming with the fishes!

Hmmm, why? Why are white women taking over the fellatio crown? Black girl, try to at least show some enthusiasm when faced with the… ummm… task. Watch your eye though.

No, I won’t lick your toes. Maybe higher.

Why keep marking your territory? No one else will find the lipstick in my car or the earring in my bathroom! At least I hope no one will!

Why you frontin’? Like TI says, why you keep saying no while your panties so wet? We’re grown folk; let’s cut the BS!

[On another note] Shoot, even Nike® makes mistakes. Check it out; the one at the bottom is the close-up of the text.

MIA

So, this past Friday I went to work as usual. It was probably the dreary weather induced by hurricane Ernesto that made me do it, but I went to bossman’s office, slammed the door shut and told him bossman, I can’t work all day every day for your punk a$$!! I’m leaving at 12.45 today and won’t work all of next week, and I don’t give a damn what you say. Alright?!

I’m only kidding. I leave work every Friday at 12.45 and I’m on vacation all this week, that’s what.

It follows that I’ll be MIA for a while, that’s what I’m trying to say. Just an FYI.

D., hold it down while I’m gone, baby gurl.

SLEEPLESS IN VIRGINIA

[Dang, lately I’ve all this time on my hands. That’s a beautiful thing. And I can't sleep. That sucks.]

I know most of y’all are closet geeks whose lives revolve around the web, and don’t even deny it. That’s quite alright. Shoot, I know you turn the computer on even before taking your shoes off or turning the lights on. I know you have shortcuts on your computer at work that minimize the browser window every time the boss makes his/her rounds. I definitely know that you check your email before you leave the crib in the morning for school or work. Yes, you! And that’s quite alright.

God must have a great sense of humor. Seeing how we’re created in His image and all, He must be fun-loving. We humans though might push the limits of where the fun ends and the obnoxiousness begins, but there’s some really funny people out there. There’s tons of funny stuff on the web, so allow me to compile a list of sorts of some of the funnier clips I’ve stumbled across while surfing. Granted, there are lots more I can’t recall, but these will have to do for now. I hope you haven’t seen them before but even if you have, I hope you like ‘em still.

Parental/J.O.B. discretion advised on some. Aight, here we go:

> Mencia on Dee dee dee. He’s insane.

> Pam Anderson’s Roast. Word to the wise: those roasts are hilarious.

> Check out ‘The Hoff.’ Why does everyone think they can sing?

> Er, interruptus?

> Whack that bush.

> A moment.

> And you think you can drive, huh?

> Deya.

> The Japanese are crazy. Love 'em.

More clips coming up later. A cat’s gotta sleep, you know.

CROSSOVER v.2.0

Here's another one for all you techies, courtesy of the Speed Resource.
Click Me.

Psst: Why?!

FAKERY

There’s nothing as bad as lying to oneself. That, to me, is the ultimate treason. I’m somewhat accomplished in the art of lying to myself, as I recently realized. Since I’m pretty ordinary I’d like to think a lot of people go through the same stuff I do. But then again, maybe you don’t, and it’s all good.

I’m talking about fakery though, so let me not get sidetracked.

Fakery sucks. Coincidentally, the fakery thing came up while a friend and I were e-conversing. Well, not exactly a friend; more like someone who’s determined to be my friend. [Sorry friend; I couldn’t resist that one!]

The most commonly played fakery, I think, is between people that are either together or want to be together. Allow me to paint a scenario for you:

Dude meets girl. Dude likes girl. Girl likes dude back. They exchange numbers or emails. Dude keeps frontin’ like he doesn’t like girl that much, but the truth is that every time he sees her his belly feels like there’s ping-pong balls bouncing inside of it. He decides not to call girl for a couple of days coz he might seem too eager, though his thoughts are consumed by her. Two-three days later he calls her.

Girl too is seriously sprung, but like dude she’s frontin’. After they swap numbers and emails she waits. She checks her phone and email constantly, wanting to see whether dude will call. By the second day she’s a mixture of mild anger and resignation: Why the hell isn’t dude calling? I’m not even trippin’ about it but if he liked me he would’ve called by now. By the third day she’s like: For real dude’s not gonna call? Whatever then. Shoot, he wasn’t that fly anyway.

By the end of the third day dude calls her. He’s a little nervous. She’s glad he called but won’t show it, and instead allows a hint of nonchalance to creep into her tone. Dude starts wondering whether she’s feeling him; it’s almost as if she’s trying to terminate the conversation. The call ends in a few short minutes and as soon as both their thumbs hit the *end* button they’re both like: What the hell was that? You sounded like a freaking idiot!

Dude calls her up the following day, on a Wednesday. This time they’re both determined not to sound like idiots and the conversation flows easier, maybe because they got that first call out the way. He calls her again Thursday and the conversation’s even better, and they both go to sleep that night in their respective cribs feeling all warm inside.

Friday night, just as he’s about to call her, his boy comes thru and persuades him to go hang out. He really doesn’t want to but he succumbs. I’ll call girl tomorrow, no big deal, he consoles himself.
On the way out dude texts her: Going out 2nite. I’ll call u 2morrow.Gnight.
She responds a minute later: Goin out 2. Thats cool. Talk 2 u 2morrow then.
They both go out & rave, all happy and stuff.

Dude gets soooo wasted that night he decides to crash over at his boy’s house. He does. He wakes up late on Saturday and has a beer with his brunch. The Corona tastes so good, particularly since he’s thirsty as hell and the beer is so nice and cold, so he pops open another one. And another, and another. By 9pm he’s semi-wasted & ready to party again, and out he goes with his boy, and does it all over again.

Girl gets a little tore up Friday night but goes back to her crib and wakes up Saturday feeling aight. She runs errands and stuff and before she knows it its Saturday night already. Her girls want her to hit the club with them and even though she doesn’t want to, she takes one for the team and rolls with them. She keeps glancing at the cellie just to be sure dude didn’t call and miss her. He doesn’t call. On the ride back home she’s livid – and disappointed. And livid.

Dude wakes up Sunday feeling like his brain is loose inside his dome, thanks to the overindulgence the night before. He’s still at his boy’s house so he gets back to his own crib and spends the rest of the evening watching TV. Trying to, anyway, after which he’s like f*ck it, imma go to bed. And he does.

Girl’s still livid.

With the rising sun comes mental clarity and dude’s like shyyyyyyyyt, I was supposed to call her!!! He spends the rest of Monday constantly thinking about that. He knows she’s at school/work/wherever so he waits till evening to call her up.

Girl sees the phone ring, snatches up the phone to see if it’s him. It is, but she doesn’t pick up. If he really wants to talk to me he’ll call again, she rationalizes. And he does. She picks up this time, feigns sleepiness in her voice and says wsup.
I hope I didn’t wake you, he says. He really doesn’t care about that; he’s just glad she picked up.
You woke me up but that’s OK, she says.

He then proceeds to apologize for not calling her even when he’d said he would. That’s OK, she says, but they both know it’s definitely not OK. They speak for a while longer and girl says she’s gotta go back to her nap. They exchange goodbyes. Their thumbs hit their respective *end* buttons again and both their minds are racing, each trying to figure out what the other’s thinking.

That concludes my story, for now.

There’s only one word than can sum it all up: BULLSH*T!!!!

My thing is, stop frontin’. If you wanna call someone, do it! Stop waiting for the other one to call! There isn’t that much time in the world, for real.

And another thing: we dudes might love our chicks to death, but sometimes we don’t think about you at all. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care if we don’t call – not at all. It’s just one of those things hard-wired into the male psyche.

Now, if I had my way, my version of the story would be like:

Dude meets girl. Dude likes girl. Girl likes dude back. They exchange numbers and/or emails. They go out to eat or for a drink. Then they go back home to their respective cribs.
Dude calls when he feels like it, and she’s glad he called. Girl calls when she feels like it, and he’s glad she called. They make plans on when and where to meet next, to eat or drink. Or maybe go someplace else, or do something else. They enjoy each other’s company, and that’s all that really matters. Their friendship could metamorphize into something greater, or it couldn’t, but they don’t care; they just relish the time they spend together.

End of story.

FROM PM TO AM

It's like 4 in the morning and I'm still up - don't ask.

Strange thoughts and revelations come to a man who's up this late, as I learned tonight. Humor me; I'll share some of them with you.

1. Left-handers rule
As much as it galls me to admit it, particularly because I'm right-handed, there's something special about left-handers. I never did meet one that didn't have something special about them. Not to take anything away from us right-handers though. The left-handed brain is an intricate piece of work, as I grudgingly came to realize.

2. Yes? No? Maybe?
I've been lying to myself all these years that I've had bad luck in relationships. The real reason is that I'm reluctant to commit. [I could've told you that, punk, I can hear CK saying right now.] Hopefully with that realization will come reformation.

3. O.J. did it.

4. Losing Battle?
There will always be unrest in the Middle East, unfortunately. Not to say we shouldn't seek a resolution for peace though.
The Israelis & Arabs, to muddle them into 2 groups, are like step-brothers. As a matter of fact, they are step-brothers according to the Good Book; each one wants what they think is rightfully theirs.

5. Uncle Sam.
Let's face it, petroleum prices will never go back down. Uncle Sam is smart though. Think about it:
Something causes the gas prices to spike up by $1.50 within days. Naturally, people raise hell over it, so Uncle Sam 'intensifies' his efforts to bring the prices down, and he does. Only they won't be down by $1.50; more like $1.20. Everyone can breathe again now, but gas is still $0.30 pricier.

6. "Hold the fries, please."
[Before someone accuses me of plagiarism, I have to admit that I'm paraphrasing this from a Readers Digest.]
An American goes to Korea on vacation and, as he's taking in the sights, he stumbles across an impressive-looking state-of-the-art stadium. So taken aback is he by it that he starts asking anyone and everyone more about it but no one would pay him any mind - except one dude.
"How many people can that stadium hold?" he asks dude.
"70,000 Korean," dude said, "But only 50,000 American!"

I've gained like 20 pounds over the years while over here. I always weighed too little but damn! Not any more!

7. I need to go to bed.

“It’s The Roc!”

Those of y’all who really know me know I’m a real music buff. If I had a dime for every time my friends stole my CDs I’d give Bill Gates a run for his money. Not only that but I’m real anal, if that’s the right word, about the quality of my sound, especially while driving. Since I don’t have any expensive vices I spare no expense when it comes to improving on my sound. The rule of thumb to go by is to always remember that when it comes to electronics, you really do get what you pay for. But that’s beside the point.

Interestingly, I used to be an R&B guy through and through. Not that I don’t like R&B – I love it. I’m only saying I used to listen to it [almost] exclusively. I even tried to mimic all those R&B crooners and sounded pretty good – in the shower anyway. Then I discovered rap and the rest was history. I give credit to a few rappers that really reeled me in but I’ll only talk about one of them right now:
Jay / Jay Z / Jigga / Hova / Ho [?] / Shawn Carter.

Like he says, and he couldn’t have said it any better:

“….is he the best ever that's the argu-a-ment
I don't make the list don't be mad at me
I just make the hits like a factory..”

Jigga is straight sick with his lyrics. He may not quite be the storyteller that Nas is but he knows how to play with words. Not only that but he memorizes everything; you’ll never see him in the booth wielding a notepad. Not only that, but dude can do an entire song in one take. I realize that can and have are two different things, but in any case it’s damn near impossible.

The Durrrttty South rap is good, but few Southern artists talk about much else besides the usual money, women, the hustle, cars and clothes. New York rap, in my opinion, is where it’s at. I especially like the so-called liberated rappers who rap about real life issues like The Roots, Talib, Nas, Common and more recently, that refreshing Lupe Fiasco. Still, Jigga’s the man in many ways coz he can switch up and rap about something you didn’t see coming. Like, he can hit you with:

“Everybody's like "He's no item! Please don't like him!
He don't wife 'em, he one nights 'em!"
Now she don't like him, she never met him
Groupies try to take advantage of him, he won't let 'em
He don't need 'em, so he treats 'em like he treats 'em
Better them than me, she don't agree with him
She's mad at that, he's not havi’n that
So those opposites attract like mag-a-nets
She sees more than the Benz wagon, the friends taggin’ along
with a flashy nigga braggin’ on a song
She gets a glimpse of Shawn and she likes that
He 2-ways her, so she writes back
Smiley faces after all of her phrases
Either she the one or I'm caught in "The Matrix"
But fukkit, let the +Fish-burne+
Red or green pill, you live and you learn. C'mon!”

Then come right back with:

“It's true high society don't want me to move
into the penthouse building with spectacular views
They're like uhh, He's a menace he could never be a tenant
I'm like ooh, what's a young nigga to do?
I bring the brothers to the building give a feeling
that I don't give a fuck we just chillin’ watchin’ chandelier ceilings
High as fuck; Old lady, don't blow my high
'specially if you don't know my life
Don't make me bring Sharpton in it cause I'm dark-skinneded or
Dude with the 'fro and the Rainbow Coalition
I'm a victim of a single parent household, born in a mouse hole
Mousetrap, niggaz wanna know how so
How Jay get up out that, here, yeah
I snatched purses I per-se-vered, yeah
I had work, fiends purchased, it was clear
I was out there sellin’ hope for despair, but stop there
I swear, I only make good from my mouth to God's ears
Had to get out the hood
And I can't justify genocide
But I was born in the city where the skinny niggaz die
Born in the city where the skinny niggaz ride
And as a skinny nigga I had beef with high size.”

And after that, blindside you with this:

“On repeat, the CD of BIG's "Me and My B*tch"
Watchin’ Bonnie and Clyde, pretending to be that sh*t
Empty gun in your hand sayin’, "Let me see that clip"
Shoppin sprees, pulled out your Visa quick
Nigga had very bad credit, you helped me lease that whip
You helped me get the keys to that V dot 6
We was so happy poor but when we got rich
That's when our signals got crossed, and we got flipped
Rather mine, I don't know what made me leave that sh*t
Made me speed that quick, let me see - that's it
It was the cheese helped them bitches get amnesia quick
I used to cut up their buddies, now they saying they love me
Used to tell they friends I was ugly and wouldn't touch me
Then I showed up in that dubbed out buggy
And then it got fuzzy and they don't remember that
And I don't remember you…”

What more can I say?

Big Apple

There’s too much going on. I mean, I’m constantly being told to lean with it & rock with it, do it to it, shoulder lean, snap my fingers, pop my collar & twist my body from side to side, heat it up, ride dirty, tell ‘em when to go, go to church, chuck up the deuce, kick & push, hustle, give it up, get some…… the list is endless. Sometimes it feels like déjà vu and sometimes I’m all torn. Lord, give me a sign, I prayed.

He did. His response? Go to The Big Apple, my son.

New York is crazy. That place is in a perpetual state of frantic motion; 24-7, 365. In short, everything the big VA isn’t. The only thing frantic over here is the traffic congestion. It was getting rather monotonous so I decided to take my country ass to a big city for a change. D.C. is right here and I’ve been there a gazillion times. Philly isn't too far away & I’m there like once every month, same as Baltimore, so those two weren’t viable options either. Boston is a bit too far away and so is ATL, so it made perfect sense to go to New York, the Big Apple.

The trip was memorable, to say the least. There were 8 of us and by the end of the day it felt like we’d covered every square inch of Manhattan – we were that tired. Still, it was all well worth it. I can write volumes about the experience, trust me. I’d much rather show you some photos, wouldn’t you agree?

We were mostly in or around Manhattan, so I got to see just how quickly they’re putting up the 4 new WTC towers – astounding. The Statue of Liberty is, of course, a crowd favorite, and so is Times Square, so we peeped those out. Chinatown is a must and Soho and Little Italy are right there so we peeped those out too. We even went by a Miro café and used the subway countless times to get from point to point. I even saw our beloved black, white, red and green. Ever seen McDonalds written in Chinese? Oh, and do you know the name of the first American-born saint? [Who decides who's a saint or not, anyway?]

Enough talk. Check it out. Have a good week y’all.

[Ummm, what? Satisfectellent?]

PICTORIAL, v2.0

I feel like Ice Cube, coz today was a good day. I didn't even have to fantasize about smacking someone upside their head, and that's an urge I suppress at least once every day. Then, I thoroughly smoked a Honda Civic Si and a Mazda RX8, all much more powerful cars but driven by rookies. Amazingly, work wasn't even half bad today, and if you're a regular here you know I'm always ranting about work.

Speaking of which, work used to be a lot more fun a few years back, particularly because we could pull all these pranks on each other all day. Sadly, we can't do it any more, bossman said. It's amazing though how much those simple pranks vastly improved the whole working experience. Hmmm, while I'm at it, let me think of some of the pranks we pulled...... Alright, here we go:

- The fake camera in the women's restroom that was only visible when sitting on the bowl, and of course by then it would be too late

- The walkie-talkie in the medicine cabinet in the men's restroom. You'd be doing your thing when, right next to you, you'd hear someone yelling out something like What's that pimple on the underside of your d*ck?

- [I'll take credit for this one] Remotely opening and closing the CD trays of someone else's computer in quick succession, repeatedly. The look on their faces was priceless.

- Making prank calls to the Korean delis in our business complex. We used to call them all the time, at least once a week actually, placing orders for non-existent items like barbecued cornflakes or rice on a stick. The all-time winner though was Justin's very convincing performance, talking about: My name is Porter. I just ordered the Swiss steak from you guys and it's tearing my ass out! There's Swiss steak everywhere!!!

- The chocolate stains on the men's toilet seat. True story: I went into the restroom, shut the door and turned on the lights only to see brown streaks all over the toilet. I was SHOOK! I realized in a flash that it was an elaborate prank and promptly stepped out the restroom only to see the other guys right outside laughing their asses off, one of them munching away at a Hershey bar!

We're a graphics company and also make lots of signage and stuff, and best believe we use a lot of those for pranks. Like, my boss planted a sticker on one girl's car that read, and I kid you not, Honk if you like bi+ches. On the ride home and back to work the next day she was intrigued by all the guys honking at her until she suspected foul play and sure enough, found the sticker sitting all nice and pretty on the trunk. Wow.

There are lots more worse stickers than that one which I will not discuss at this time, but here are pictures of some we still have lying around:

This one was one of many that were made after 9/11 when most, if not all, Americans were seething. We sold a lot of these, surprisingly.

This one's still on the men's bathroom door.

This one's of my boy, kissing our asses all the time.

Boss-man made this one about the time when sharks were snacking on Florida & Ocean City surfers.

A customer wanted us to make a bunch of these signs and we were like: Ummm, so what exactly can you use in the place of tissue or toilet paper?

This one, that hangs on a door handle, was made by yours truly for my girl A.

Well, that's pretty much it. Most of the really good stuff we got rid of, sadly.

I did mention today was a good day, right? Well, right after work I went for my lil' cuz's basketball game. He did good, scored 6 points in like 10 minutes. Scrutinize the photo for specifics.

They were thrashed this time around. But then again, they were battling the best team in the county. And yes, he's dude in the photo.

The young'n & I about to go back home after the basketball game.

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And that concludes v2.0 of the pictorial. Hope you enjoyed it.

RANDOM UPDATES

There’s a saying that goes something like ‘good things come in twos.’ Well, bad things do too, as I recently learned. Like Buff, I managed to misplace my cell phone. Notice I didn’t say lose. It just vanished. Foul play, perhaps? Whatever man, stuff always gets lost. Or stolen – whatever. All good. Then, the Lancer needs some maintenance, which is never cheap. As much pleasure as it brings me, it's only right that I spend some money on it. [Wait, that sounds like a hook from some rap song, doesn't it?]

For most of my adult life I’ve endured taunts about my indeliberate tendency to use big words in ordinary sentences. Not that it ever bothered me really, no. It’s just that if I can use 1 good word in the place of 5, why use the 5, nah mean? It’s just that, for me, English is such a wonderfully manipulatable language. In what other language can you so effectively say stuff like:

- Imma smack the black off of you.
- How Stella got her groove back.
- Game recognize game. Hoes do too.
- Keep your pimp hand strong.
- I am the eventuality of an anomaly.
- Me, myself and I[rene].
- For shizzle dizzle.

Next to Keguro, the only other person I know who gives me a run for my money when it comes to grammar is >D. [Not to be confused with >d, coz that’s me.] She sometimes uses words in a sentence that I swear do not exist but which turn out to be perfectly genuine.
I wish I had the same proficiency in Swa as I do in English tho, coz I’m hopelessly entranced by anyone who can speak in Swa like it’s 2nd nature, particularly becoz I never could speak fluently in it. All good.

I’ve been teaching my lil 16-year-old cousin how to drive a stick shift. Believe me, it took serious willpower and mad love to let her drive the Lancer, especially now that it’s got a bad clutch. Since the Lancer has no traction control like Ura’s or V^6’s, she was leaving strips of rubber all over the Metro parking lot while trying to get used to the whole clutch/gas pedal thing. I’ve had to teach quite a number of people how to drive, guys mostly, especially since I started driving at 10. My cuz is only the 3rd girl I’ve taught to drive and is by far the most difficult. She’s got a thing for high revs, hence the burnouts every time she takes off. [In the genes, maybe?] Thing is tho, I’ve had to revise my language when instructing her. I can’t very well tell her to make love to the clutch or go easy on the gas like it’s the first time. I definitely can’t tell her to lean back, take a deep breath and relax. I’m her cousin, damnit, and her adopted big brother to boot, so I had to revise my entire strategy – and language. It went OK tho. Girls are such fun to teach stuff to - and to learn from. Quote me on that.

It’s been raining bullets all weekend long. It actually started raining on Thursday and hasn’t let up since. Not torrential, incessant rain, no. This is more like sporadic and profuse, intense enough to cause flash floods and stuff. Not only that but it’s still hot as hell, rain or not. Weird; interesting but weird. Global warming to blame for this extreme weather, perhaps?

Speaking of which, the flash flooding is also to blame for power lines and broadband being down the past couple of days. It’s amazing how much the internet has become a part of our lives, which makes me think about the future of our internet. Since it’s got so much junk already, is it ever gonna get better? Like, I made a conscious decision to revert back to Windows 2000 Pro from XP Pro. Windows XP seems to have lost control of itself, dragging you down with it. The number of Spam, Adware and viruses that seem to be hopelessly drawn to XP are mind-blowing. With 2000 Pro I’ve only installed Norton Antivirus, Spybot 1.3 and ZoneAlarm as barriers against all that junk and the comps have been stable for a month now without any variation in my surfing habits. Of course I use Opera or Mozilla to surf instead of Internet Explorer. In any case, to find out where we’re headed in this information superhighway check this out.

I owe one to the Boston crew for showing me mad love yet again when I was over there for all of a day and a half. I love y’all. CK, you rule.

Why is virtually every married person I know going through some sort of unbelievable drama? As much as I might want to in future, is it even worth it?

Have a good, stress-free week. Try to, anyway.

FLURRY

Summer’s early this year, it looks like. I for one am not mad at all. There’s no substitution for any of it - nosir. I'm liking it already.

Firstly, I gotta give a shout out to my New England crew. Y’all crazy, every last one of you. A1, you’re incorrigible, punking me into overdoing it. You owe me one. CK, you’re hilarious, talking about my groupies, getting me in trouble and all. You owe me one too. To the bros with go-karts: V^6, your chomaring skills are off the chain, not to mention your addiction to speed and the Alpines in your trunk. Ura, despite baiting unwitting wannabes and sporting Alpines in your trunk, your IT skills are legendary, not to mention your love for speed; just like your crazy-ass brother.

To www: These go-kart brothers, as they’re aptly named, have cosmetically identical German-engineered super machines with major bump in their trunks and blue halogens. Crazy. Oh, and did I mention Beelzebub tried to take them both out on the same day in the same hour, though in different states? That’s a story for another day, literary consent pending.

I had a couple of great weekends back to back which is rare. Not that the weekends were all trouble-free or whatever – not at all. They weren’t typical, which made them great. Of course it would’ve been even better if Buff had taken me along on her White Castle excursion. Not that I’m sore about that or anything. [Or am I?] Instead, here’s what happened:

I ended up going to Jay Z’s 40-40 club that first weekend and spent all of my rent money there, not to mention the high-speed flat [or is it puncture, G.?] that one of K’s gorgeous Accord Coupe’s Lo-Pros sustained along the way. [Shout out to Carol for putting that one bash together.] I only remember the journey to and not the journey from; not surprisingly since I’d just ingested all of my rent money in liquid form. Not only that but The Dishwasher [wsup D] with his butterfingers spilled some drink all over me. You owe me one too, punk.

Before that weekend, I’d been part of a wedding some weekends prior. [Many thanks to the very lovely C for making me a part of it.] I usually go to all formal events dressed as comfortable-man, namely jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. I had responsibilities there so I had to momentarily shed my comfortable-man attire for some dress clothes. All good tho.
While at the reception I bumped into one of my favorite bloggers - I kid you not. Who knows, I might write about it later on, consent pending, so keep it right here.

Last weekend was off the richter too. Not only was I with the aforementioned New England crew, but it was Baby Boy’s birthday. [Happy Birthday again, Baby Boy.] I can’t believe he’s now 4 years old already. Not only did he have fun but we too, only ours was a lot more – shall I say – rambunctious. I’ll leave that to your imagination. I’ll only let on and admit that I was in bad shape by the end of it all, as I suspect we all were. That and I think Baby Boy broke a couple of V^6’s ribs while he was napping by the TV; I could’ve sworn I heard a subtle *crunch* as Baby boy’s left knee connected with his left rack-o-ribs. Ouch.

I’m still trying to recover from it all and more importantly, reclaim my blogging mojo which seems to have deserted me for the time being; not so much the content as it is the frequency. I must admit tho that the daily hustle, the b-balling and the summer fun leaves little time for much else but hey, I’m still here, www. Don’t get it twisted.

MULTIPLICITY

Basketball.

Is there any sport greater? [Soccer, maybe? Rugby?] These girls and guys of the WNBA/NBA are truly remarkable athletes. True, they might not have the toughness of Rugby or Ice Hockey players. They might not have the bulk and dominance of American Football players, or the uncompromising hand-eye coordination of Baseball players. They, however, exhibit some of the greatest athleticism, ever. They have incredible reflexes, bar none, except maybe for Table Tennis players.

Now, you might think I’m only saying this because I like basketball – hardly. I’ve played, or at least tried to play, most sports. Like every other Kenyan, I would imagine, I’ve played lots of soccer. I played TT when I was younger, as well as Badminton. [I lost every time in the latter.] In addition to numerous athletics which I was mostly forced to participate in, I pole-vaulted, and was quite good at it, I daresay. More recently, I’ve tried out Tennis, Squash and American Football. [Don’t sleep on Football now – it requires split-second precision and extreme physical exertion as I learned the hard way, while at the bottom of a pile-up spitting out turf.]

I’ve never played any other sport as intense as Basketball, and that’s the truth. To excel in it you really must be on point, mind, body, soul, spirit and most importantly, attitude. You must convince yourself that you own the court and are better than anyone else on this side of the solar system. You must be able to think while you execute, execute while you think. You damn near must have ESP [or is it ESPN?] to visualize the plays before they happen and while in the middle of a maneuver, you might have to change that maneuver, all while hanging in the air for all of a second. And you think hitting nothing but net 20 feet away is easy just because Ray Allen makes it seem so effortless? Hardly. I’ve also seen some of the most horrifying injuries while on the court: compound fractures, knees and elbows bent backwards, noses and jaws busted, etc etc. Personally, I’ve damn near ripped fingernails off [as recently as this past weekend] and sprained ankles and stuff. And they call it a non-contact sport. Yeah, right.

This Playoff season is especially exciting coz the underdogs are making some serious plays. I damn near lost my mind tonight when the Mavs won in game 7. They totally deserve it. I’m right now watching the Suns play the Clippers. As much as I like the Suns, I wouldn’t mind if the Clippers won coz they’ve been in the Lakers’ shadow too damn long. The Suns got that on lock tho, sorta like the Pistons did on Sunday. I’ve no doubt the Suns will win – put money on that.

Despite my enjoying the playoffs, I must admit I’ve been extremely scarce lately, to my friends especially. It also doesn’t help much that since switching departments at the gold mine [or is it the coal mine?] I’ve been extremely swamped, not to mention that I need to sweet-talk I.T. into giving me internet access. [I.T. acts like they run the company, don’t they? Can’t hate tho, coz they really do.]

So to all my peoples out there, I always have mad love for you, every last one of y’all. Special shout-outs , in alphabetical order, [imma try, anyway] to BET, A1, Mr. A., Carol, Char, Ciiku, CK, D, Danc, Kacu, G.R., J, J-Dub, Jo, Joan, Marie, Mark, Molly, Monica, V^6, Paula, Ura, Nate, crazy-ass Nick, QB, Sam, Shaw, W. [a.k.a. Dub], & Wams. [Congrats again girl.]

D, good looking out, constantly checking up on me and stuff. I appreciate it.

Shout outs too to all my bloggers in regular [or not] correspondence – you know I’ve got nothing but love for y’all.

Watch out now; the old >d® will be back in vull vorce before too long. Keep it right here.

CROSS-OVER

*This is a cross-over post from the Speed Resource.

The farther up you go the further down you have to reach.

I’d never fully grasped that much-used phrase’s meaning till a week or so ago. It’s been crazy lately, ladies and gentlemen, crazy.

Driving is therapeutic. For me anyway. Like, I could put the Alpines to work and risk shattering all the glass in the Lancer [all the while enjoying an inadvertent backrub from the vibration] Or, I could listen to RnB, get myself all caught up in the flipside of the love equation and empathize with Mary J or Anthony Hamilton or Toni Braxton. Or maybe I could get myself in the mood with some throw-back Joe or Gerald Lavert. Or I could shut everything off and just listen to the modern marvel that is the internal combustion engine. Either way I’ll enjoy the driving experience, regardless.

The male ego is such that we’re powerless to resist tho. Allow me to explain using a couple of examples.

I might be coasting on i95, windows down, music up. An overdressed Honda pulls up alongside me, loud-ass muffler permeating the usual road noise. The driver, NFL cap backwards, gives the Lancer a once-over and gives me the nod. Now, I’ve got 2 choices: ignore Honda dude and keep driving, or accept the challenge, downshift to third and wait for dude to so much as twitch.

I’m guilty of the latter, every time.

I might be leaving the crib for work, still half-asleep and all, when I pull up to the stop sign & see young’ns huddled together across the street waiting for the school bus. Now, I have the choice of driving away in a nice, normal inconspicuous manner, or I could decide to put on a show for the young’ns: rev the Lancer up, pop the clutch and leave behind skid marks that would make your underwear jealous.

I’m guilty of the latter, every time.

A few nights ago I was driving to the crib. The weather sucked – it was raining bullets and the roads were slick. Did I mention visibility was essentially zero? I’d just come from b-balling and all I wanted was a shower & some shuteye. I almost missed my exit on i95, but managed to squeeze in between a Mazda 6 and an all-white, unmarked Ford van. [One of my many nicknames is fender-grazer. Self explanatory, I believe.] No sooner had I done so than the headlamps of the nondescript van started getting bigger and bigger in my rearview.
Now, I could’ve just let dude pass me, possibly flick me off and proceed with a false sense of satisfaction. Never that. Let’s just say he never even got to see the state the Lancer is registered in, and not because of the inclement weather.

I’ve been known to do stuff like that, more times than I remember. Don’t get me wrong – I realize it’s nothing to brag about. Or is it?

At times tho, the ego takes a back seat to other things. Like, the one-handed steering wheel grip is by far the most popular. Few people hold the wheel with both hands these days, especially black folk. I must admit it ‘looks’ a lot better than the two-handed grip. Since I’m somewhat the advanced driver, I’m oft [you like that word G., don’t you?] faced with a dilemma: conform to the public’s definition of cool by driving one-handed, or grip that wheel with both hands and be like the semi-pro driver that I’d like think I am, and in the process look nerdy?

Who the hell cares what people think? Performance First, I say.

ABYSS

Hot damn, I’m losing it. I’m starting to read more and more. Not only that, but after the reading the thinking doesn’t stop when I sleep, or try to anyway. Sir Isaac Newton’s & Albert Einstein's intellectual fever, a much, much milder strain than theirs though, seems to have hit me. [Difference is, I might think about it but will not come up with anything!] It's gotten to be so bad I even haven’t gotten a haircut or shaved for the longest time – there isn’t any time for any of that! I need more time to read, and think! I seem to be especially partial to stuff about space & time. The idea that space is both unimaginably vast yet so infinitesimal is fascinating to me, as is the hypothesis that time isn't necessarilly consistent.

Say, for instance you were floating around in space taking in the sights, right by the Earth. Haley’s Comet whooshes past you at a distance – assuming it was that time of the century - and there’s all sorts of other debris flying around, thanks to NASA.

They leave parts of spacecraft floating around thinking they'd be harmless, but sooner or later the debris starts orbiting something and pretty soon starts moving at crazy-fast speeds. In one experiment, a fleck of paint went through a six inch thick slab of steel – that’s how fast it was moving – thousands of miles per second.

Anyhow, Haley whooshes by, faster than a missile but utterly silent. You pray that flecks of paint won’t rip through you. That bluish-looking planet over there is Earth. The moon is lazily working through its elliptical orbit around Mother Earth. The sun is over there, fiery as ever and huge, beaming the entire spectrum, infrared and UV rays everywhere. Assuming your vision has crazy zoom in real-time, you see the 9 planets in the solar system. But wait, there’s one more planet that’s even further away than Pluto, and it’s circling our sun too! Not only does it exist, but it has a ‘moon’ circling it! You remind yourself to throw away all those textbooks that erroneously stated that there were 9 planets in our solar system, and keep going.

As you move out of the solar system, you see plenty of other ‘suns’ all over the place. Considering that it took you a couple of hundred years to get out the solar system - if you were to live that long - at spacecraft speeds, you might need to bring along lots of food and drink, your wife/husband or girl/boyfriend, as well as plenty of toilet paper; the squeeze for recreation - oh, and for procreation in case you kick the bucket in mid-flight - and... you know what the toilet paper’s for.

On second thought, take a few other couples with you. You wouldn't want any incestuous relationships developing - unless you're from West Virginia. [ouch!]

After eenie-meenie-minie-moe-ing the potential destination, you'd just sit around, mess around and wait until, several generations later after you’re long gone, your children’s children's children get to the aforementioned destination. They then take pictures and video clips which they transmit back to Houston, the photos hitting Houston’s satellites some 400 earth years and a gazillion AUs later [Astronomical Units].

The clincher is though, that the journey, to you and yours, only took, say 250 years, but to the people on earth it might've been 400 years!

Which begs the questions: What is time anyway? Is time dependent on where in space you might be, on what celestial body you might be on or near? For instance, on the threshhold of an event horizon, does time stay suspended forever?

What I’m trying to convey here is the utter vastness of space and the apparent complexity of time, and just how small we are compared to everything else. Not only is it humbling when I think of it like that, but it makes me curious as hell about everything coz I realize I really don’t know anything.

Hence my latest obsession of reading about general relativity and nebulas and quantum physics and quantum foam and quantum tunneling and black holes – not those black holes – and event horizons and…. and all that scientific mumbo jumbo.

Hot damn, *sudden revelation* I AM a geek!

That does it; I need to stop thinking about this sh*t. I need a beer. And a shave.

ANTE UP!

Aaahh, it’s about that time of year. I love summertime. But then again, we all do. For now anyway, till the temperature soars into the hundreds. I don’t mind it though; give me the heat all day, any day, hundred degree temperatures and all.

Not only is it much warmer now, but since the days are longer I’ve now got the perfect excuse to sleep less and less. Besides, my borderline claustrophobia, as I call it, has stepped it up a notch, thanks in part to so much to do out there and so little time to do it, not to mention the abrupt abundance of sunlight-deprived female legs all over the place lately.

Pretty soon the beaches and seasonal clubs and amusement parks will re-open, the local SCCA events will intensify, people will bust out and floss the whips and motorbikes they’ve been working on over the winter, more people will flock back to the gyms to work off the winter fat, the collegiate will be back home to party all summer long, gas prices will be at an all-time high & people will keep driving more than ever, love will be in the air and phoromones & endorphins will be everywhere, like pollen is right now.

Too bad I’ll probably miss out on it all, since I’ll be in school this summer. Still, I gotta do what I gotta; first things first.

Have a great summer y’all. For those at home, thank The Man every day that it’s pretty much always warm. Winter sucks!

STUPID OR HUMOROUS, THAT IS THE QUESTION

I’m no movie buff, but I appreciate a good movie. Like most males, I suspect, I like watching high-speed chases, things blowing up and the occasional, but usually fleeting, ‘skin.’

Sometimes I watch movies for all the wrong reasons. Like, I watched The Dukes of Hazzard just to see Jessica Simpson in all her long-legged, blond-haired glory. I’ll also admit to watching The Rundown just to peep out Rosario Dawson. Bad Company found its way into my DVD player thanks to Kerry Washington, [wsup D] and Deliver Us From Eva was watched over & over by yours truly, thanks to the very lovely Gabrielle Union. *Drool..*

Don’t get me wrong – beautiful women aren’t the sole incentive for watching movies. Hardly. I appreciate movies with a good plot, good acting, good sound & visual effects…. in short, a movie that’s convincing enough. Most importantly, it has to be unpredictable. I’d much rather watch a movie that leaves me hanging or ends up with the bad guy winning, just to keep me thinking about it a while longer. I thrive on the unpredictable, what can I say.

I still remember the day I learned that WWF wrestling was all an act – I was crushed. I loved that show back in the day when it came on KBC & I felt like a dummy for having been so emotionally entangled in it. Then, movie tapes started coming out with the Director’s Cut/The Making of those movies that further enhanced the realization that it was all fake, all of it. That pretty much did it for me; since then I’ve always watched movies with undisguised skepticism, looking for the faults in them.

There was one genre of movies that I never lost faith in though – comedy. I love funny movies. And not just the funny ones, but the stupid-funny ones too. Now, I know lots of people don’t like stupid movies and I don’t blame them coz really, all you get from them movies is mindless mirth, but I’ll settle for just that. These days I seldom get those moments when I laugh so hard that tears start streaming. Back in the day, especially in high school, that was like an everyday occurrence. People around me seem to be getting stiffer by the day. I know life sometimes sucks; there are a lot of really serious issues going on that warrant our attention and support, I know. But at the same time, life is too damn short and too damn interesting to be too serious all the time.

So when I’m solo or want to be solo I rent my funny/stupid funny movies and laugh, and suddenly the world seems a whole lot brighter. Hmmm, let me think of and list for y’all some of my top funny movies, in no particular order. The quotes that stood out for me in those movies are in parentheses.

- Napoleon Dynamite [“Freaking Idiot!”]
- Super Troopers [“Miaow!”]
- Big Daddy [“In my restaurant never order BLT.”]
- Me, Myself & Irene [“Ever notice your kids have a year-round tan?”]
- Scary Movie, all 3 [“The hood always got your back!”]
- Not Another Teen Movie [“Do you think I sleep with every guy who writes me a letter? No! I give them hand jobs.”]
- Malibu’s Most Wanted [“Don’t be hatin’!”]
- Austin Powers, all [“Do you know of my father’s where. About. S?”]
- Bedazzled [“Just think of me as a computer virus.”]
- Bad Santa ["F*ck me Santa! F*ck me Santa!”]
- The Waterboy [“Let's kick some names and take some ass!”]
- There’s Something About Mary [“Who needs him? I've got a vibrator!”]
- Coming To America [“We got an insect problem, but you boys from Africa are used to that.”]
- Bad Boys II [“My ass still hurts from what you did to it.”]
- The Mask ["Most of the men in this town think monogamy is some kind of wood."]
- Meet The Parents, both of them [“Trust me, Greg, when you start having little Fockers running around, you'll feel the need for this type of security!”]
- Next Friday [“You got knocked the f*ck out!”]

The list is endless, needless to say. Feel free to contribute, or recommend, some of your funny ones. Yours truly needs all the laughter he can get. And so do you.

**Scary Movie 4 comes out this coming weekend. Can hardly wait!**