Lobstah Is Back!

Welcome back yet again. As far as the Blog situation goes for all camps, the past few days have created a nice topic. Is there anyone out there who can actually say they liked the MTV Video Music Awards? I haven’t seen it anyways. So far, either in their Blog or just talking to them while the show was going on, I know that Cork, Derek, ManDingo, Susie, and Aly all hated the show, along with myself. Since I plug everything in this space, check out Susie’s new Blog at http://susie-is-me.blogspot.com/ and throw in some comments. She’s in the mean streets near Bam Margera and basically right on Penn State’s campus for those wanting to know where she hails from. Or as one of my favorite wrestling introductions would go from the ECW days of Joel Gertner, "He hails from the South Side of Dudleyville.. He weighs a slim, trim, buff, cut, ripped, chiseled, and JACKED 219 pounds! The most righteous brother in the building, D-Von Dudley!"



Last night was also Monday Night RAW. Was it a good show? Let’s see what I have to say on this. Triple H comes out and gives a nice promo about how he’s the reason behind Evolution. Orton claims that HHH is doing it all for himself, to which HHH gives a good answer to say that, yes he is doing it for himself since he created Evolution. A little too soon to start this feud, but I’m sure it’ll last months, which should be nice to see transpire right before our very eyes. Since HHH has Eric Bischoff in his back pocket, Bischoff throws Orton out of the arena only to come back later. You don’t want to know about the bum matches, so I’ll save you the time there. If you’re a fan, you already know about those matches anyways. There were only two big matches tonight in my opinion. One was Ric Flair facing Chris Benoit. I was looking forward to this one as both of these guys are legends in their own mind as far as ring skills go. Walking to the ring, Flair extends his hand to a fan, pulls it back, slicks back his hair and then struts off. Classic stuff. Anyways, the match was nice until the end. A run-in! Doh! Batista comes down to bust up Benoit and the bell is rung. I understand this in some cases, but if you have two good mat technicians out there, let them battle till the end. We also have Jericho’s Highlight Reel in which he invites Edge down. Edge is mangled, so he won’t be able to take Y2J up on his challenge for his IC Title since his nads are mangled (groin, but close enough), but said when he comes back, he’ll be the first guy he goes to. During this time, as Edge is getting out of the ring with his crutches, Christian makes his return! This could be a nice breath of fresh air. On a side note, as far as being in person goes, Christian’s old entrance was a sight to see. Could they eventually put these three guys together to form some type of Canadian group? I doubt it with Jericho being a face right now, but that wouldn’t be bad to see, even though I’m not an Edge guy. Our main event has HHH taking on Eugene. Eugene has gotten enough main event matches. I like the dude’s wrestling, but the character is already stale to me. Another run-in here, but it was a No-DQ match, so it was ok. Orton runs down, busts HHH up with a sledgehammer and hits the RKO. As Evolution tried to sneak in, Orton scared them off with the sledge and threw Eugene on top of HHH for the pin. As Good Ol’ JR said to end the show, “Oh God! Oh my God! You gotta be kiddin me! Eugene beat… Eugene beat THE GAME! Can you believe this? Eugene, thanks to Randy Orton has upset The Game! He’s out gamed The Game tonight!”



Yesterday, I didn’t leave the house. Should I be proud of that? Probably not, but what else is there to do around here? Unless you count going to my garage for like 5 minutes, but other than that, I didn’t do a thing. Today I just got in from working out, but I doubt I do much else other than that the rest of the day. It’s 11:30 and I don’t have much planned at all. Fun being a bum though, so I can’t complain that much. Here’s a nice stat for everybody. Since I went to the Dirty South in the ATL, which was the last weekend of July, I’ve used about a half tank of gas. That’s how much I drive around my area. I basically drive a mile to go workout every other day and that’s it. I had a Wal-Mart trip or two in there, but that’s only 20 minutes away, so no biggie. In a month’s time, I’ve used a half tank of gas. Not too shabby at all there. Meanwhile, Cork has put about 8237 miles on his car since then.

Give me a few minutes here, while I go into a trance watching Ashanti in Shyne’s new video.

Ok, I’m back and will all kinds of energy built up from that.

The biggest news to me this week so far might not concern a lot of you, but to some, it’s HUGE news in a major way. Lobstah returns! That’s right, LOBSTAH! Due to some technical difficulties, we were without our #basketball message board for a good week or so. The non-#basketball guys are wondering why it’s such a big deal, but it was a struggle for us to go without our Lobstah for a week. It’s an addiction. We’ve already started to rock it out again, so we’re back with a vengeance.

Lobstah: http://lobsterrodeo.com/balls/



On the food front, for those who know me or have read in Lobstah before probably, I have a good one for everyone. If you’re a Doritos fan, this will be a hit. And it has to be original Doritos. The other flavors don’t exist in my opinion. Pour some Doritos in a bowl, get some hot sauce, shake it all over the Doritos and you have some quality eating. I know it might seem weird, but you’ll have to try this one. Don’t put a ton of Doritos in the bowl at once. You don’t want your stuff getting soggy. Let me know how this turns out for you.

The Yankees start a big homestand this week. We get Cleveland for 3 games, followed by Baltimore for 3 games, and then Tampa Bay for 4 games. That’s 10 straight home games when we need it most. It’s not panic mode, but I’m just disappointed we blew an 11-game lead on Boston. Now we’re up a whopping 4½ games. No way can our pitching hold up in the playoffs, but we’ll see. Lots of time left in the season, that’s for sure. Not to mention we still get to play Boston 6 more times, so that’ll be fun. I like our schedule the rest of the way out because we get games against Baltimore, Kansas City, and Toronto, three teams we’ve had nice luck against this year. Next to NBA season, late in the year for baseball is my second favorite time in sports. It’s time where the men come to play and the boys go and cry. Or is that roiding up? Either way.

OMG! Vote Or The World Will End!

My topic there is some beef about what I'll explain into detail later which happened at the MTV Video Music Awards..

What in the world happened at the MTV Video Music Awards last night? Did I honestly see that show in progress? This is easily the worst MTV awards show ever in my mind. I’ll break down some of that for those who missed it. For those who missed it, don’t waste your time watching the 3 million replays they’ll show. My biggest peeve of the show was about the host. I, along with many others, was conned into thinking that Dave Chappelle would be the host for the night. As I stated in my last Blog, I was jacked up good for that. Even if the show was bad, Chappelle would’ve found a way to make it interesting. After the show was over, Chappelle was on the show for a total of probably 5 minutes, just sad.

Onto the actual meat of the show. I think the show can be summed up by 3 people. 90% of the show it seemed was revolved around Usher, Alicia Keys, and showing Jay-Z’s ugly mug in the crowd. I don’t mind Usher actually, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him on TV every 5 seconds. Alicia Keys surprised me though. Usually I’d never been big on her look. What was up with braiding half of her hair and letting the other half hang down? Was she drunk when she tried that? Last night though I have to admit she was looking real good, as her hair was actually normal and down. That works for me. Another one I was never big with is Christina Aguilera. One we’ve always called Dirty, but her new look is working for me too. Not to say she’s one of my favorite chicks out there, but at least she looks normal now instead of showing off her 248 tats. I won’t get on a tat rant here as I’m in a pretty good mood. The Olsen Twins? What’s going on here? Every guy for the past few years (and some chicks) were all excited that they turned 18 this year. Were they on crack last night? I know the one who has her hair brown now got all anorexic and stuff, but the other one was brutal as well. I must be missing out here, but count me out as a guy who doesn’t want the anorexic chick. Speaking of anorexic, we had to suffer through the stupid Gap commercial with Sarah Jessica Parker and Lenny Kravitz bouncing around. Parker is rough and weighs about 80 pounds herself. I like a little chick and all, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want to see bones. These dirties have nothing on Mariah and Milian in my book anyways, maybe I’m weird. Give me a thicker chick anyday of the week than these chicks who look like they’re strung out on crack.



Then that brings us to Lenny. Ugh. Another one that isn’t a favorite of mine. DerekHood can attest to this one as well. While watching one of the TV staples in BET UnCut (Porno Hour) at 3:00 in the morning, they somehow think they’re funny by putting in a Lenny video regularly. What does he even have in common with the rest of the videos in this hour? Lenny, even though he’s black, acts about as white as you or me. He’s not gangsta and his video they show isn’t porn quality, so what gives? Come on BET, get with it. Me and Derek are 50% of your UnCut viewership. Just as BSG got the reigns to NBATV this week, I want a request put in to where I can run BET UnCut for a while.



When people look back on awards shows, they usually have a memorable quality that sticks out. I honestly can’t think of one unforgettable moment at all. Forgettable, yes, but not unforgettable. Forgettaboutit! My favorite performance if I had to pick was probably the slew of rappers they had together on stage as they would go from Lil Jon to the Ying Yang Twins to Fat Joe to Ludacris to whoever else was running around. Lil Jon needed more mic time when he was on stage for an award. That wouldn’t have hurt things.

Towards the end of the show I really started to get fired up. I realize we have a big election this year, but give me a break. No star is going to convince people to vote in my opinion. Most people don’t vote the way it is. Anyways, they make us watch both the Bush daughters and Kerry daughters fumble through their lines and tell us to vote for their Dads. I always vote and know who I’m voting for this year, but most elections are just picking which liar you think is telling things the best. As Cork said in his latest Blog, “None of them are worth two shits anyways.” I personally like local elections a lot better than this mess. The Bush chicks aren’t bad looking, but the Kerry girls look just like their Dad, and that’s not a compliment. Yet, MTV wasn’t done. Outkast comes out to jam and there is all kinds of political and voting signs waving around. I like Outkast as much as the next dude, but I had to turn the awards off during this joke. MTV, please work on your show for next year. It used to actually be good.

RAW tonight, so of course I’m geared up for that. We’re just a few weeks away from WWE Unforgiven (Sept 12th), so the next few shows should hopefully be huge. What will Triple H do now that Randy Orton spit in his face last week? We’ll also see what goes down now that Kane and Lita are “married”. No matches are announced at the time I’m typing this, so that’ll be a surprise for all of us. I just hope that RAW doesn’t tell me to vote or I’ll have to bust some heads. Or as Eightball and MJG would tell us, and I’ve posted these lyrics before (it has staying power in the Madhouse!), but it’s a catchy tune:



Rappers: Eightball & MJG -- Song: You Don't Want Drama -- Album: Living Legends

[Eightball]
Straight from the underground, fat boy from the mound
Spit it how I live it, keep it gutter, that's how we get down
I wanna see you get it crunk, let a nigga know what hood you from
Eveybody wit me drunk as fuck, break it down, then roll it up
Back it up, a girl like you, a nigga like me can't pass it up
Rollin by, lookin good, put it in reverse then back it up
What's the deal, lemme make it clear what you got rite here
They break mold, one of a kind, fat boy witta gold mouth that shine
Hard to touch, sorry to tell you, boys out here ain't hard as us
Ball and G, part of the streets, cuz the streets are a part of us
Lay it down, please remember, games we don't play them now
Disrespect, please remember, stains we gon spray them round

[Chorus]
Buss a nigga head, smack a ho, shoot the club up
Buss a nigga head, smack a ho, shoot the club up

Bitch...nigga!!!
Bitch...nigga!!!
Bitch...nigga!!!
Bitch..

You don't want drama, no!
You don't want none, no!
You don't want drama, no!
You don't want none, no!

"I Was Born To Be A Souljah!"

Where’d we leave off since last time? Most of the time since I last updated I’ve just been being a bum (imagine that) and watching old school NBA games on NBATV, the greatest channel known to mankind. I won’t expound on too many of those games since I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it anyways. Those who want to hear about it, already read about some of the games I reviewed in A#BL, the American Baseball League, #basketball’s fantasy baseball league. Outside of that, I managed to get in some family reunion time, working out, ping pong, and who knows what else kind of wild and crazy things happened. Not Omar Gooding/Demetrius Harris wild and crazy, but I’ll do my best to live up to his expectations.

Props to TheFreak for finding this classic pic of Gary Coleman:



Two games really stand out from what I’ve taped so far on NBATV. They are the Sleepy Floyd Game and also the Bernard King Game. Each of these featured some big time scoring and unstoppable play. The first, the Sleepy Floyd Game happened in 1987 at the West Semis, Game 4. My words won’t even be able to begin to describe this game, but I’ll try my best. Sleepy enters the 4th Quarter with 22 points. That’s already a big game, but he hasn’t even touched the surface. He used his great quickness on anyone who guarded him, and even Michael Cooper couldn’t handle him on this day. Coop could lock anyone down, even the Basketball Jesus at times. He goes off for 29 points this quarter and ends up with a nice 51 points, 9 assists (shows he was passing some too), and 4 steals to bring a nice comeback to beat down the Lakers. What happened in the Bernard game? Here’s a guy who could’ve been one of the best ever if it weren’t for some serious injuries, that’s a shame. Anyways, the setting was great. Christmas 1984. Knicks (King’s team) battling the Nets at the world famous Madison Square Garden. After a whopping 21 points in the 1st Quarter and 19 in the 2nd, he had an insane 40 points at HALFTIME! Yes, I said halftime. After 3 quarters, he ends up with 51 and seals his stats with 60 in this one. Unfortunately, he didn’t get much help, so the Nets win this one on the road. Possibly the best half of basketball I’ve seen one player play and a great game to see if you ever get the chance. Even Larry Bird himself once said that King was the greatest scorer that he’s ever seen. The guy was that good.

I really don’t have any big reunion stories to mention from Saturday. This was my Mom’s side of the family, so it was bound to be some great eating. If you left there hungry, something is wrong. No big action went down, just a lot of hanging out and eating. We rented a pavilion at a local park and just chilled for the most part. A pretty big turnout with people coming in from out of state to be part of the madness. After I left, they batted in Morra. I wish I could’ve stayed at least to watch that. Everyone is gearing up for the Italian Heritage Festival in my area next weekend. I’ll talk about that more when the time comes.

I worked out earlier with Dad, but nothing epic happened with that. A good workout, but nothing you all will care about to read, so I’ll just move on. When I got home, I did battle with Spank in some ping pong. It was roasting in my garage today, so we just played whoever won 5 games first was the day’s winner. I’ve been on my game lately, so I took him down 5-2, with one of the games ending in a 7-0 skunk. Those are always fun. Then it was mowing grass time, ugh. At least that is over though, so I won’t have to worry about that for another week or so. It’s almost getting into fall and winter season, so that means no mowing grass! That’s one reason why I like the cold weather. I’m ready for snow already, forget this hot junk, you guys can have it.

I don’t know who this dude is, but he’s Asian and playing pong, so I figure he can bust some heads up:



Last night Big Cork came over to hang. We busted out some old school Jeopardy again and had a few good games. The computer always beats us down, but we held our own. I think we played 2 full games, one I came in second and one Cork came in second. In the third game, it was a board that I’ve seen entirely before, so I didn’t want to not tell Cork that I’ve seen those questions, so we just quit and watched some TV for a while. We got a good setup here though. On the TV to the right, it’s the video game TV. On the TV to its left is where the TV action is at. I’d be screwed without that setup. Less than a month until Tiger Woods 2005 comes out though, so I’m getting crunked up for that excitement.

Of course, the rest of the day and into tomorrow, it’s still old school NBA weekend on NBATV. So I’ll be hitting that up. Also, tonight is the MTV Video Awards. My theory behind that is since Dave Chappelle is hosting, it has to be great. I was telling Cork that I’d even watch the Country Awards if Chappelle was hosting and you know how I feel about country music.



Nothing out of the ordinary has been going on here though, but I’m holding it down tight. Tomorrow is RAW night, so that’s always the highlight of the week. I don’t have anything else to mention now, so I’m out. I’ll end things with a Snoop verse with the 504 Boyz when he was with No Limit Records:

Rappers: 504 Boyz featuring Snoop Dogg – Song: Souljas – Album: Goodfellas

[RBX]
Anyone contesting Tha Dogg Pound, guaranteed instant death

[Snoop Dogg]
It's them Dogg House niggas wit' them 504 Boyz
We the real McCoys with the plastic toys
Pop, pop
Grab the glock, cock the motherfucker
No Limit niggas, we can't be stopped
Did you hear me?
Ya heard me
Record breakin'
Hit makin'
Can't bake 'em
Real estatin'
Never hatin'
Shakin' up the game, bringin' the major pain
Yea nigga, we all in the same game
We enlighten, ignitin, never fightin'
And we got them motherfuckers bitin'
You fuck wit' P, you fuckin' wit' me
You fuck wit Silkk, you fuckin' wit' me
You fuck wit' D, you fuckin' wit' me
Nigga what, that's my whole family

Here's Snoop at his anorexic finest, but he's still pimp like that:

NBA: It's Fantastic!

My goodness. Someone pinch me. Is this weekend seriously going to happen? I might have to bash my head against the wall to see if I’m dreaming here. It’s a blessing in disguise, thanks to none other than The Boston Sports Guy. He gets to run the greatest TV channel there is, NBATV. Starting at 6:00 PM tonight and ending on Monday afternoon at 3:00, it’s nonstop NBA action of past games. My VCR might catch on fire this weekend due to this insanity. I’m about to go into a zone here, so sorry to the non-NBA fans. If you’re a non-NBA fan, you depress me already. Out of that time span, I’m taping 22½ hours to add to my collection. I’m sure you could care less what I’m watching, but I’m going to type it all out for you anyways:

Friday 6:00 PM: Lakers vs Clippers, 1979 Regular Season. Magic Johnson’s first NBA game.

Friday 8:00 PM: Sonics vs Warriors, 1992 1st Round, Game 3. 129-128 Thriller n which Shawn Kemp makes his name known to the world with a sick oop from Gary Payton and he swings around on the rim and hangs there.

Saturday 12:00 PM: Suns vs Warriors, 1994 1st Round, Game 3. Barkley in the prime of his career, as he drops 56 points on the Warriors, 27 of which come in the 1st Quarter.

Saturday 4:00 PM: Lakers vs Warriors, 1987 Semis, Game 4, 4th Quarter. The Sleepy Floyd Game. Sleepy drops 34 points in 11 minutes on the NBA Champions of that year. Warriors were down 98-83 towards the end of the 3rd Quarter and 14 to start the 4th Quarter. Sleepy scores 26 of the Warriors’ last 28 points. That doesn’t even happen in video games. Sleepy ends with 47 points. As Sports Guy would say, “He could have gone for 55, maybe even 60. But he just wanted to win the game and go home. That's why they call him Sleepy."

Saturday 4:30 PM: Nets vs Celtics, 2002 East Finals, Game 3, 4th Quarter. Greatest comeback in the history of the NBA, woooo!



Saturday 5:00 PM: Jazz vs Lakers, 1988 Semis, Game 5. Stockton with 24 assists and him and Magic show the world how true point guards play the game. Dwyane Wade, you need to watch this game. That has become a lost art in today’s era.

Saturday 7:00 PM: Lakers vs Sixers, 1983 Regular Season. OT game which features my favorite dunk ever. What’s that one? It’s the Rock-the-Baby dunk by Dr. J on Michael Cooper’s head, who in my opinion is the greatest defender ever.

Saturday 9:00 PM: Nets vs Knicks, 1984 Christmas. Bernard King unloads 60 on the MSG crowd. Bernard King for a stretch in the mid 1980s until he got hurt was one of the best players of all time.

Sunday 3:30 PM: 1988 3-Point Shootout. This is the one you’ve all seen a million times in highlights. Bird is down 1 on the very last ball of the last rack. He misses it, he loses. He hits it, he’s a 3-peat champ. He fires up the red, white, and blue ball (worth 2) and before it lands, he walks off and puts up a finger in the air to signify he’s The Basketball Jesus. One of my favorite keepsakes is a figurine I have in a glass globe of Bird shooting that last shot. And he does this all in his warmup jacket.

Sunday 6:00 PM: Celtics vs Pistons, 1985 Semis, Game 5. Bird goes off for 43 points, 17 of which come in the 4th Quarter.

Sunday 8:00 PM: Knicks vs Celtics, 1984 Semis, Game 7. Bird goes head-to-head against Bernard King. Bird has 29 points in the 1st half and ends the game with 39 points and a triple double. Not to mention the crowd was going insane, chanting “MVP!..” As Sports Guy says about Bird in this game, “This was the game when he went from Superstar to Superduperduperstar.”

Monday 4:00 AM: Celtics vs Bucks, 1987 Semis, Game 4. 138-137 Double OT intensity here. With Bill Walton out with injury, Kevin McHale playing with a broken foot (read that again), and both Danny Ainge and Robert Parish playing with sprained ankles, this one is still a classic. I said he played with a broken foot.



Monday 10:00 AM: Celtics vs Sonics, 1987 Regular Season, 4th Quarter. The X-Man Game. What’s that? There was a timeout late in the game and during the timeout, Bird walks over to Xavier McDaniel. He tells X-Man exactly what he’s going to do to. He points out the spot that he’s going to hit the game winner at and also says that he’ll do it in X-Man’s face for emphasis. And what happened? Exactly that. Can the man walk on water? I believe so.

Monday 10:30 AM: Celtics vs Mavericks, 1988 Regular Season, 4th Quarter & OT. Bird with one of his best buzzer beaters in this one.

Monday 12:00 PM: Blazers vs Celtics, 1992 Regular Season. This may be the most impressive stat of the day. Bird ends up with 49 points. That’s big in itself, but he does this with a 15 POUND BACK BRACE on. You want to talk about a team that Bird feasted on? The Blazers are it. His stats against Portland in the mid 1980s is just unbelievable. He put up many 40+ games and triple doubles against Portland.

Hold me now, for I’m shaking in anticipation. I can barely contain myself over this stuff, for real with the NBA action. I had a huge workout earlier today too, so that added to my great mood. I’m rarely in a bad mood. What fun is it to be in a bad mood? I don’t get how some of these people freak out over little things and get so depressed. Relax people, be laid back, and just enjoy it as it happens. We all hit our bumps in the road, but don’t cry about it. Anyways, I set another record today at the gym. A few weeks ago as you all read, I wanted to see what I could get a 10-rep bench for. I got 195 pounds up a few weeks ago for 10 and it was rough. Today I was feeling good and wanted to get to the 200-mark. I was able to get this up for 10 reps and it was a lot easier than 195 for some reason. I almost buried myself on 195 (remember a few months ago when I buried myself on the 235 going for 2? I didn’t want to do that again), but 200 was a better lift. I know you think a 5 pound difference isn’t much, but it honestly is when it comes to this. 45 pounds more than my weight I was able to put up for 10 times. I have to be happy for myself on that one. Most bigger guys in town can’t do that one, but then again, my town is bums for the most part.

I had some Chinese earlier with Spank. For only $10, that fed both of us. You can’t go wrong at that price. When all else fails, if you’re cheap, order water. That’ll shave a few bucks on your bill. And as Cork’s boss would say, if you want lemonade, just order water with lemon and crank it around in there. Then again, he’s a stingy Italian like myself, so we learn to save most of the time, but he’s the man. Cork needs to post some stories about his boss in his Blog, for that’d be quality times.

After hitting up General Tso’s Chicken, I came home to watch the USA Basketball Team play Argentina. Argentina was an impressive squad indeed. They were led by Manu Ginobili of the Spurs. They also had quite a few other NBA players, so that can’t hurt. Why can’t the current NBA game feature fundamentals like this? Do our players not understand the concept of team ball anymore? I just answered my own question there, so not a lot can be said. Hats off to Argentina, who played a very smooth game out there, while our guys cried over the refs and whatever else. Boo hoo. If you’re going to blame the refs, get on that plane as soon as possible and get back home so the rest of America can laugh at you for being the bums that you really are, egotistical players who only want to make the highlight reel.

I just got some pong games in with Dad. I’m now up in the series, 44-36, so I hope I can hold things down tight going for #50. Tonight we’re taking Dad out for his birthday dinner. His birthday is tomorrow in which he turns the big Double Nickel, 55. Also tomorrow, outside of the NBA games of course, we have a family reunion to attend, so that should be some great eating. I’ll weigh in to you guys again soon. If you don’t hear from me for a while, I’m hibernating in my recliner watching NBA.

Pow! Pau!

I don’t think much of anything has went down the past few days. As usual, I’ll figure out something stupid to write for everybody’s enjoyment. That’s what I’m here for, right? I watched the US team battle Spain early this morning at 7:30. Everyone has been saying that Pau Gasol has been the best player in the entire Olympics. That may be true. He did great against us today. We finally won though, but again, it wasn’t pretty. Stephon Marbury set an all time US record in points with 31. He was just gunning stuff up and everything was falling. I also just got done watching Italy put the hammer on Carlos Arroyo to eliminate Puerto Rico. The Italians don’t even look like they’re ballers, but they flow pretty good out there.

I got regular cable put in upstairs today, so that’s quality stuff. And I get to keep my satellite setup, so I have both up here now. Not that I don’t watch enough TV the way it is. I’m sure it’ll be even worse now. What else do I have to do here anyways? I might as well be online 24/7 and watch TV. Some schedule we have here in the mean streets. That schedule now means going to bed before 2:00 on the weekdays and waking up at 6:00. I’ll manage.



What’s new in the world of CDs this week? Cork was here the other night and brought all of his CDs with him. He wanted to get his collection organized. You have no idea how long that takes us when we do this. It’s some tough work, but it’s worth it since we can find the CD we want. Yes, we’re idiots, we do it alphabetically. He left his CDs here and told me to get whatever I wanted. I ended up burning about 20 or so of the CDs of his that I didn’t already have. Most of that was some good old school rap since anything new we get, we just make a copy for the other dude. I had to start today out good as well. I got a 2000 release from the 504 Boyz (Master P’s buddies) called Goodfellas and Jim Jones’ newest (Cam’ron’s boy), On My Way To Church. Both of these have a lot of tracks on them, so I’m interested to see how it goes. They each feature a mad amount of people too. On the 504 joint, you have P himself, Silkk The Shocker (has a new one coming out soon), C-Murder, Mystikal, Mean Green, and whoever Mac, Krazy, Baby Girl, and Samm are. Jim brings along Cam of course, Juelz Santana, T.I. Bun B, Bizzie Bone, and several other thugs.

We’ve recently been battling in old school Nintendo Jeopardy. You can’t go wrong with some Jeopardy action. Or at least I don’t think so. And with trash talking involved, that makes it better. The computer usually beats us down for some reason, but we hold our own against each other. This was a 1987 version, so it’s funny to see the variety of questions. They have this one dude who does the Tiger Woods Fist Pump in your face when he buzzes in, showing you how bad he is. Cause we all know that Jeopardy contestants are gangsta like that.

High school football starts here tomorrow, so that’s big happenings. My Cougs should be pretty good this year for once. The past several years have been brutal, but we have one of the best runningbacks in the state this year, so that can’t hurt things. Then again, if he gets hurt, our team is sad. Hopefully we live up to expectations and get into the playoffs for the first time since 1994 if I’m right on that. We’re just a bunch of whiteys, but that’s what mostly everyone around here is, so you won’t get many big time prospects ever coming from my area. I wish I was in a big time high school football hotbed such as Ohio or Texas. It’s life in those places. Anyways, my boys lock heads with Braxton County tomorrow night. Like you guys care, but in this Blog, you get that added information. Braxton is about an hour south of us, so I’m not sure if I’ll make that trip or not. I do hope to hit up a decent bit of games this year, so we’ll see. It’s not high school basketball, but football will have to work for now to whet my appetite. Whet! Fear the use of words around this place. I pull no stops. Pimp pimp hooray. That’s what quality West Virginia education will get ya, heh.



On the video front, I think I’ve literally seen Fat Joe’s Lean Back 3000 times. I like Fat Joe as much as the next dude, but come on. A new one I’m big on is Shyne featuring Ashanti with the song Jimmy Choo. Shyne is still locked up, but yet still manages to put out videos and a new CD. Can’t beat that setup at all. Ashanti makes this video though, as she always does. She’s in my top 3 famous chicks list easy. Mariah is #1 with no competition, but a battle for 2nd goes to either Ashanti or Christina Milian. On a sidenote, Shyne’s new CD, Godfather Buried Alive, is good stuff. Shyne used to be with Bad Boy, but now he’s with Def Jam. He reminds me of a deeper voiced Biggie Smalls. I know what you’re thinking. Biggie has a deep voice the way it is, but Shyne’s is deeper if you’re into that type of that. I’m sure you’ve seen his new one by now anyways.

I think I’ll cut this short and get on to some major events of the day. Well, I guess there are no major events. Imagine that one here in Shinnston. I’ll figure out something though, so don’t you worry one bit. And since we just talked about Shyne, I’ll let him take us out with this one:

Rapper: Shyne -- Song: The Gang -- Album: Godfather Buried Alive

Ride with me as I race through ya hood
Give me a fifth that'll bang and a jury that'll hang
Pants saggin' in that Bentley wagon
Ayo that's my nigga Yacht if the mink is saggin'
Since a youth I flipped, on some ruthless shit
Had a thing for rings, bling, Coupes and shit
Some' bout watchin' Montana come up outta Havana
And rule this world made me wanna grab my hammer
Fuckin' with the Cheddar Boys
Some hustler flip girls instead of boys
Keep filthy laweys, for when the FEDs annoy us
We keep this shit gangsta nigga from verse to chorus
And the Street Lords and Truly Yours
Drive Modena Spiders and big exhaust
Bleed for the streets love the war
My nose bleeds for weeks I love the raw
Puncture niggaz when I comfort niggaz
Motor City to Brooklyn Veitnam
Nigga it's on till my flesh is gone
And even then I live on in gangsta form

The Wedding From Hell

I guess we have a wedding to talk about, as well as some other big happenings last night from Anaheim. Lost? Don’t be, because I’ll set everything straight for you here in just a few moments. Starting yesterday, I began to wake up early. I need to get on a halfway decent sleep schedule for when I start back up to work this week or next. Yesterday I went to bed around 1:45 (laid there for like an hour since it was impossible to fall asleep that early) and set my alarm for 9:30. I woke up in pretty good shape surprisingly. Last night, I go to bed around 2:20 or so and set my alarm for 8:40. Totally opposite from Monday as I’m in a big coma. These early mornings aren’t good times at all, but I’ll adjust.

Speaking of hours that I’m awake and whatnot, an interesting thing I heard about a few days ago went down. Apparently, some kids set the world record for consecutive hours watching TV. Who would’ve guessed they have records for this stuff? Who knows, who knew? These dudes went 52 hours doing this stuff. Call me crazy, but these kids want no part of me and Cork in this contest. From what I hear, these guys were in IHOP to do this contest. They got 5 minute breaks every now and then to wizz and also 15 minute breaks at times too. That doesn’t sound fair to me, but oh well. From Bono the Great of #basketball fame, he told me the kids drank shots of syrup to stay awake and had a waitress chick throw ice cubes at them. Uh…. ok.

Nothing major went down yesterday during the day. I go workout around 11:00 and after my first set, my cousin Ozzie strolls in. It’s a good time killer to have someone lifting with you, but normally I’m there by myself, which is fine by me too. It especially helps on a day that you don’t really feel like lifting, but since you’re over there, you might as well make it a good one. I didn’t set any records, but covered all the bases and got out of there in good time. After that, I come home to mow grass. It takes me 20-30 minutes to mow, but I still hate it. Then it was time to do battle in some ping pong action. Dad got the best of me this time, as he won 4 of 6 games. In our series to 50, I’m up 33-32, so it’s tight. It’s tight as Snoop Dogg’s braids.

It’s time for this week’s wrestling fix. It’s catching on. Even some of the girls who read my words are watching on a regular basis. Susie, I think you’re back to watching every week again, so I have to respect that. Last night’s show from Anaheim only had two matches. Usually, that means a brutal review from me, as I want all the wrestling action I can get. After all, it is a wrestling show. Our matches included Jericho taking on Edge again for the IC Title and also Ric Flair facing William Regal. They took two commercials during the Jericho match! What?! One is enough to make my bash my head through my TV, but TWO? Weird stuff here, as the ref DQed Edge for throwing Y2J’s nads on the top rope. I never knew this one was illegal. The Flair/Regal match ended when both guys had a pair of brass knuckles. They wind up and it’s about to be a Rocky/Apollo scene where they knock each other out, but Regal gets there first and wins! Flair, win or lose, always puts on a show.



A few sidenotes before getting to the big parts of the show. Meggie’s brother (inside joke) Shawn Michaels will return at Unforgiven on September 12th. I’m one of many looking forward to HBK’s resurgence. Also, HHH called out Orton and told him to lay down for him since the belt belongs to him. Orton was about to do that, but ended up spitting up in HHH’s face and busts him with the belt. That puts HHH into a roid rage and he goes crazy and gets a World Title Match at Unforgiven against Orton. At the beginning of the show, The Rock comes out by surprise and has a real good segment with the Diva Search idiots. He did have Tajiri come out to say that his favorite type of pie is poontang pie, quality stuff. Anyways, the dirty chicks had 20 seconds to do whatever they could with pies Tajiri brought down. They did the usual stuff. Just end this mess please. At least Rock was on his game as he always is. Now what you’ve all been waiting for, The Wedding From Hell, or that’s what JR said 387 times during the show. I’m not usually a Kane fan, but he played his role awesome during this. He came out in a gangsta white tuxedo. That was worth it already. Matt Hardy comes out, Kane mangles him, which will let Hardy get his knee surgery and be off TV for a while. Through the mess, they eventually get married and Lita is hating it. As long as Lita doesn’t have to act or talk in this storyline (she’s the worst), this could be funny times. Kane is doing a good job in my opinion. He’s still a boring wrestler, but oh well. Then again, not many big guys are good workers.



My TV situation is about to change. I haven’t had cable TV in my part of the house in a while. I’ve had DirecTV for a long time now and don’t have a whole lot of use for network TV. After talking to the cable company, it’s only a $10 charge for them to run an extra line to my part of the house, with nothing extra per month. Now I’ll be able to check out the weird reality shows (I’ll probably get hooked), Letterman, and sports that I wouldn’t be able to see on satellite just to name a few. Why do I have satellite? The main reason is so I can watch every Celtics game. Another reason is BET. Town cable here in redneck land isn’t going to ever offer BET, so it’s satellite time for me. But I’ll now be able to have both cable and satellite, not too shabby. I could always go downstairs and watch cable, but that means I’d have to get out of this seat and you all know how hooked I am to the internet.

Time to cut you short here and go battle in some more pong. TV schedule for tonight? Rap City at 4:00, Around The Horn at 5:00, PTI at 5:30, I, Max at 6:00, World Series Of Poker at 9:00, and I’m sure I’ll find something else. Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter are a given, so I won’t include that.

Matter of fact, I don’t wanna speak about The Rucker
Not even Pee Wee Kirkland could imagine this
My niggas didn’t have to play to win the championship.

For the streetball fans, that’s a pretty powerful set of lines there. Those not up on the basketball scene, you’re probably lost when you hear Fat Joe say that. Not sure what I can do for ya though. That’s how it goes. Some people might like my wrestling talk, some might like the sports, some might like the rap, some might like my endless ramble about nothing, so pick your poison. I reach out to all masses. I’m not one dimensional. I’m mysterious like that.. or something. Some might not like anything I write, but you keep coming back for more.

A quick update on the pong series. I just got done winning 5 out of 6 games, so that brings the total to 38-33 in my favor. Hopefully I don’t blow the lead, but stranger things have happened.

Rock Me Amadeus

Thanks to ManDingo for picking today's Blog title..

The annual softball game we’re apart of took place on Saturday afternoon. This was for Cork’s family reunion, so it’s always good times for them to invite me. The night before, the rain was bringing it down, so we didn’t have much hope to play. With everyone coming from all over, we decided to play anyways. They’ve been running the annual softball game since 1982 and I’ve been part of it for the past few years. Any way to get some ball played, I’m always interested. We get to the field in the ghetto of Wallace, WV and it’s pretty much a downright mess. Left/centerfield is like a 30 foot pond literally. We fixed up the infield as best as we could and raked over some wet spots. It didn’t help much though, but ball is ball and we were ready. This is the first year that they didn’t have enough for complete rosters. We ended up running 7-on-7 I believe, with the pond and a shot to the leftfield creek being a ground rule double. Cork and I were on opposite sides, so there was a win to be had and neither of us wanted to lose. Cork had all the mashers on his team. A few of these guys went a good 6’5” or so. I run to my spot in right/center and know I’ll have to run down a lot of balls. I personally would rather field than bat. Nothing is better than running down some hard to get fly balls and getting the other team fired up because they originally thought it was going to be a hit. I ran down a few nice balls, so I was proud of myself for that. I just wish I had some more action out there. At the plate, I went a whopping 4-5. With the balls wet and the field a mess, it was tough to really plant yourself inside the homeplate box and square around. Thus, 3 of my 4 hits were bunt quality, but a hit is a hit. I ran out all of my infield hits and had to use the speed. Fear the speed. Everyone was falling all over the place and by the time we were done, we were all a muddy mess. My crew ended up winning 17-14 in a game with horrible conditions, but we couldn’t have had anymore fun.

After the game, we roll to the food part of the night. You can’t go wrong with some good home cooking, especially from this group. I loaded up on some hot dogs, macaroni salad (mmm, quality stuff), peaches, and a cupcake. Some good cooking to be had here, so I got my feed on. I just like hearing the stories at the reunion each year, especially from Cork’s Uncle Ernie and George. These guys are all over their old school baseball trivia.



I’m not going to waste much time today talking about the US Basketball Team. If you live in a cave, they got beat on yesterday by Lithuania 94-90. I guess that’s not a beating, but it was still rough. Sarunas Jasikevicius was unbelievable. He was busting 3’s in our faces all day long, to the tune of 28 points, and 3 three-pointers in a row in the 4th quarter. The bad part is that we were actually guarding them out there this game, yet still got bombed. Lamar Odom (who has been playing as well as anyone on the team) was guarding Jasikevicius in the 4th. Odom is about a foot taller than this whitey and whitey drains a few in his eye, gives him the gangsta stare, does his pimp walk, and basically laughs at Odom. Ouch. Richard Jefferson led us in points though, imagine that one.

That brings me to another tidbit that I liked, courtesy of none other than The Boston Sports Guy (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index). He was discussing chicks Gymnastics with a buddy and it went something like this:

Besides, what's the thought process behind pushing your child to such a sport?
My daughter's a little on the small side ... maybe we should push her toward gymnastics. This way, she'll look like a hobbit for the rest of her life; she won't menstruate until she's 25 years-old; she won't be able to eat ... EVER; she'll never meet anyone other than tiny, non-menstruating gymnasts who look just like her; she'll have a decent chance of being socially dysfunctional because she spent 15 hours a day in her formative years with a pommel horse and high bars prominently involved; and as an added bonus, a frightening Romanian will become the dominant father figure in her life. Also, she'll suffer from chronic knee problems for the rest of her life. And we'll make this gamble just in case she defies million-to-one odds and wins a medal some day, which she can hawk off some day to pay her bulimia/anorexia bills as an adult. This sounds fantastic! Sign me up!

I just got done drafting for the A#FL Fantasy Football Draft. This is one of the big #basketball fantasy leagues and I’m always excited for it. It’s a keeper league and last year we had 20 guys in it. This year, after dusting off the dead weight and the guys who chose not to be in, we roll with 14, which should be competitive times. We keep 3 guys each year and this year I kept Marc Bulger (QB-Rams; WVU boy), Dre Johnson (WR-Texans), and Stephen Smith (RB-Panthers; due to get injured). mIRC draft for this bad boy tonight and it was a good turnout. Who all is in the league you ask? Rahl, Cork, The Bootyologist, Dack, Duce, Neon, TyLaw, Goathead, Bono, TMac, Blahah, ManDingo, Walz (The Commish; WV boy), and myself. We have two #basketball football leagues this year, with most of us being in both. BOFTH! Now it’s time for me to run down my crew for all of you grasping onto your seats so tight in anticipation. You’re like, “Tell us already! We’re dying to know!” I know, so I won’t let you hang too much longer. Onto my draft for the Cincinnati Celts (my team name; we use defunct football team names for this league):

1. Marc Bulger: STL (QB)
2. Dre Johnson: TEX (WR)
3. Stephen Smith: CAR (RB)
4. Marvin Harrison: IND (WR)
5. Drew Bledsoe: BUF (QB)
6. Chris Brown: TEN (RB)
7. Jeff Wilkins: STL (K)
8. Antonio Gates: SD (TE)
9. Emmitt Smith: ARI (RB)
10. Ty Calico: TEN (WR)
11. Jason Witten: DAL (TE)
12. Artose Pinner: DET (RB)
13. Dave Terrell: CHI (WR)
14. Kevin Johnson: BAL (WR)
15. Chicago Bears (D)



I guess starting tomorrow I may start waking up halfway early. That’ll be a shocker. Today was another Wal-Mart trip. This time I went versatile and went to a different Wal-Mart than the one I most frequent. The insanity!! Oh my! This one is in the rugged streets of Fairmont. I had to load up on blank CDs and school supplies. Yep, I’m always stocked up with enough supplies for myself and the kiddies. I hate rolling into another teacher’s class and they don’t even have pencils or something. Come on, get with it teachers. So I play it safe and carry along my own getup. I freak out if things aren’t organized. Oh well, that’s just me.

Rapper: Fat Joe – Song: Dat Gangsta Shit – Album: Don Cartagena

Recognize my presence, this rap game specialized with legends
I drop shit niggaz try to memorize in seconds
You criticize me, still visualize the lessons
and when I wish to put aside the questions
before they find out, who's the realest
Who done spoke without one joke about the illest
shit that ever happened, in this rappin beyond rappin
Joe the God it ain't so hard to start clappin
but I lay low, create flows, for the pesos
Now we got extra hoes, wantin to chase shows
I take foes, and break em down to minerals
We went from street corner thugs to white collar criminals
Individuals, with no peace on the quest
The iced out, piece on my chest, from the East to the West
Never sleep in a sweat, keep the heat with the vest
Ready for the 'casian blazin gettin deep with the best
The police wanna test my strategy, got half of the world
mad at me, but very few challenge me
Perhaps you will be the first to approach this, lyrical dope shit
Cartagena will bring the chrome like explosives

Crunk Juice

I have a multiplicity of topics to jump in with today. Like the use of the big word there? I typed in variety at first, but since it’s the weekend, I wanted to bust out the thesaurus and go all out for you guys. As Smokey said in the thug classic from 1995, Friday, “I know you don't smoke weed, I know this. But I'm gonna get you high today, 'cause it's Friday, you ain't got no job... and you ain't got shit to do.” And I really have nothing to do, but all is still good in my world. I’ve never been bored enough for the weed thing either, so I guess I’m missing out on that, but I’ll take my chances of finding something else to do. Since it is Friday though, that quote instantly popped into my head.

You know what bugs me? ESPN has been firing me up lately. One, they show the Little League World Series. Ok, that’s fine I guess. Still, it’s mostly mediocre ball being played by little kids. You can’t expect a whole lot else. They put crazy pressure on these kids and make them out to be stars when they’re really not. Every now and then some future Major League player will be on one of these teams (Lloyd McClendon, Sean Burroughs) and that’s all fine and dandy. Heck, these kids can throw harder than I can, so I have to give them credit in that aspect. Anyways, this year they decide to show the Little League Softball World Series. Are you seriously kidding me here? Don’t get me wrong, and girls will get fired up about what I will say, but here goes. High school chicks softball is brutal enough to watch. Now they want us to watch 11 and 12 year old girls who are 90 pounds? If that’s not bad enough, how about in the championship game last night, both teams (BOFTH!) scored in double digits. Nice defense in this one. At least in high school softball, you have one chick who pitches every game until her arm falls off and strikes out everybody for a 1-0 win or something (that’s another story in itself that I won’t get into right now).

I woke up today at 10:00 for a haircut. Me waking up at 10:00? Not too shabby. Or as our boy Max Kellerman would say, “ME!” Yes, I was in a coma. I got about 5½ hours of sleep, which isn’t bad, but got a nap later in the day. My barber usually has great stories as you know, but nothing epic went down today. Nobody was in there for him to cuss or go off on. We did get a nice talk going about the Morra Tournament that is held each year at the local Italian Heritage Festival. That’s always on Labor Day Weekend, so I figure I’ll check that out for some good food and great chicks. I asked who was in it this year, but he wasn’t sure. He said he wasn’t going to bother since they all end up being wasted and throwing bows, which is true. But either way, my town dominates the Morra Tournament every single year. Fear! Most of my uncles on the Italian side and also my Dad have been part of the winning teams over the years. What’s Morra you ask? Peep game:

http://www.italiansrus.com/articles/morra.htm

After getting the hair pimped out, I gear up to roll to the mean streets of Fairmont with Cork Dizzle. Cork had to check on book prices for his classes, so I’d go along for the ride. Like I had anything else to do? Of course not. It’s been 3 years since I’ve graduated college and I felt like an old man walking on campus and a lot has changed over that time since I’ve been there. Parking is an absolute disaster. I’m glad I’m not up there anymore for that, but as far as the college experience, I do miss that since I was a bum 24/7. College is a lot of work, true, but don’t let people fool you. For the most time, you get to goof off, that is unless you’re a complete screwup and fail out or something due to partying. My grades weren’t awesome, but I did what I had to. I wasn’t working then either, so I had it made. Go to a few classes a day, come home and do nothing. Then again, I’m a bum these days too, so I guess nothing has changed, hah.



Once we’re done checking out the college scene, we roll to Pizza Hut for some buffet action. There was nothing out of the ordinary on the buffet, but you can’t really mess up pizza, so it was good for me. Ham on pizza does rule though, but today they didn’t have any stuffed crust out for us, doh! Then it was off to a trip to Vintage Games, our local old school video game shop. Cork got RBI Baseball 3 for $2 and Jeopardy for $5 for the regular Nintendo. I saw a Nintendo 64 for only $20, so I jumped right on that. I had a 64 for a while (it wasn’t mine, but my boy Spank had it over here for like 3 years, so close enough) and still have a good amount of games here, but didn’t have the system. I was due to get another one, so at that price, I can’t say no. And also, I loaded up on CyberTiger. That will get me in the mood for Tiger Woods 2005 on GameCube next month, a game I have to get every year. 64 is also home to the greatest wrestling game ever in WWF No Mercy. I’m always looking around for older systems for a reasonable price. Next up on the list would be a Sega Master System, Turbo Grafx 16, and a Neo Geo (although that’s pricey right now).



Tonight on ESPN was the finale to Stump The Schwab. For those not familiar with this show, it’s a sports trivia show. Does it get any better than sports trivia? I didn’t think so either. Schwab is ESPN’s stat guy and they go to him if they’re in need of stat information quick. What a job this would be. He’ll find something to impress you on each and every time. Two questions I really liked were: 1) Name the 5 members of the first Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Induction in 1936 and 2) Name the 6 quarterbacks in order of selection in taken in Round 1 of the 1983 NFL Draft and the team that drafted them. The baseball question was the easier of the two I thought. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner should be simple to get. Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson round out the crew. The answer to the 83 NFL Draft? John Elway #1 to Baltimore, Todd Blackledge #7 to Kansas City, Jim Kelly #14 to Buffalo, Tony Eason #15 to New England, Ken O’Brien #24 to the New York Jets, and Dan Marino (greatest QB evarrr) #27 to Miami.

Yesterday, The Bootyologist DerekHood ended the Madhouse with his gangsta lyrics. Thanks to the editors at The Practice Of Prattle (http://thekingofcrunk.blogspot.com/) for letting the Madhouse borrow a segment from esteemed author DerekHood. I’m using what in my opinion is a segment of Derek’s best work of all time possibly from his Blogs. Those who keep up with his Blog know exactly what I’m about to post here, but for those not moved enough from my plugs to go over and read his, you’ll feel the wrath. I’ll forgive you this time, so check out this story. The setting has Derek getting in from lunch and he goes back to work. At his desk is his boss and supervisor and they’re working on WebCT on his computer when he returns. His screen background has Lil Jon showing off his blinged out teeth with a can of Crunk Juice. Here we go:

Stretched full-screen, no less. So YEAHHHHHH!! Lil Jon is keeping a watchful eye over the two ladies. Well they got to wondering just who in the hell that guy is, so they called me up there to explain, leading to this conversation between myself and Sondra (the professor, a mid-50's scatterbrained lady with a thick southern drawl)

Sondra: So who is this guy with the rastafarian hair?
Me: That's Lil Jon, the famed rapper
Sondra: Ohhh, I don't really follow that. Where is he from?
Me: The Dirty South
Sondra: The Dirty South? Where is th..
Me: Atlanta
Sondra: Oh okay, so Atlanta is in the Dirty South?
Me: Yes ma'am, it is in the Derrrty.
Sondra: So that hair of his, those dreadlocks, do you know the origin of those?
Me: Uhh... no.
Sondra: You don't?!
Me: Nope, do you?
Sondra: Yes, (she's a history professor), they come from ... (some country), they used to grow their hair out like that as part of their religion. That's where the rastafarians got it from and it has been passed down.
Me: wow, interesting. Did you notice the can he was holding?
Sondra: Yes, I was afraid to ask what that might be. I saw a word on there though .. crunk?
Me (now taking a scholarly tone): Yes, that's Crunk Juice. Do you know the origins of crunk juice?
Sondra: No I sure don't.
Me: Well Crunk Juice is an energy drink created and endorsed by Lil Jon and his cronies from the Dirty South. It is meant to get you crunk.
Sondra: So it's loaded with caffeine?
Me: yes, and probably ephedra.
Sondra: so what is 'crunk'?
Me: well, crunk is a really versatile word. It has a number of applications. You can get crunked up, you can be crunk, you can get crunk (which is different than crunked up), you can attend a crunk party, and so on.
Sondra: so it can be a verb or an adjective?
Me: It can be just about anything you want.
Sondra: well that's neat. I'm so behind on my popular culture.
Me: That's too bad, you need some crunk in your system.

End of conversation.

You don't know how hard it is to keep a straight face when carrying on a conversation like that, all the while Matt is sitting back there turning purple trying not to explode in laughter.

Cry Me A Rivahhhhhh!

What’s been going on in the busy life of Bird33? It’s never actually busy unless it’s fantasy basketball season, but time to fill you in on the past few days. There won’t be any wrestling talk in this one, so if you weren’t into that, you can now take a deep breath. Today I set my alarm for noon, which I’m surprised about. Unfortunately, I’ll need to start setting it a lot earlier in the next few days so I won’t be in a coma for work that could start next Thursday. Then again, I don’t sleep during the school year either, so it won’t do me any good.



Tuesday night I hit up a long awaited late night Wal-Mart and Denny’s trip with none other than Cork. For his beach escapades with Snoop Dogg and hanging out in a speedo, check out his pimped out life at http://corkzilla.blogspot.com/. Whether we’re hungry or not, the late night trip is always good times and we were due. I guess normal people would be asleep at 2:30 in the morning, but we were the only people at Denny’s outside of just one other table. Nothing momentous at Denny’s though outside of the regular experience, but we held shop tight in there. Afterwards, it was a trip to Wal-Mart. Tata, I’m not sure I can beat your Wal-Mart streak, but I’m a close second in that race. You’ve really taken control in the past week or so. But it doesn’t get old late at night riding buggies in the parking lot and in the store. Yes, I’m a 25-year old who still rides buggies at the grocery store. I’ll probably never grow up. They had a big sale on Powerade there for only 75 cents you could get a 32oz jug. I had to load up big on that, as well as a 12-pack of Gatorade, some frozen Chinese deals, and two more cheap DVDs. What’d I get this time? Of course I go to the $5.50 DVD bin and I get more wrestling action. This time it’s another double pack which features Steve Austin: The Early Years and Cactus Jack: The Early Years. How can you go wrong with that for $5.50. You can’t even beat that with a stick. I ripped Wal-Mart off big time with these deals.

Also in the news is a developing situation. We’ve all been waiting for it. Yes, it’s almost Real World season yet again. On September 7th, we’ll have a new season! This one hails from the mean streets of Philly. That should be interesting already. I’ll be hooked as usual. Why can’t they release every Real World season on DVD? Everything else comes out on DVD, why not that. Last season in San Diego was decent, but it still can’t compare to Paris as far as the recent episodes go. Maybe that’s because of our boy CT going wild in his Boston way. Maybe CT can team up with Brad from Real World San Diego and raid the Philly cast. They’d be ready to throw some bows. “Cry me a rivahhhh Tina!”



Speaking of DVDs, the football fans are depressed. The NFL won’t let ESPN run another season of Playmakers. What a shame. If you watched this show, you were hooked on it. NFL said it portrays a bad image to the league, thus the show was cancelled after Season 1. I realize it was over the top, but a lot of that stuff I imagine is true in the league to an extent. You got it all in this show. Players shooting up roids, becoming crackheads, cheating on their chicks, having kids with a girl they met for one day, wife beating, position feuds, a gay football player (why does every show have to have The Token Gay Guy?), and much more action. The best part of the show was its star, DH Demetrius Harris, a.k.a. Omar Gooding. Yep that’s him, the Wild & Crazy Kids host from Nickelodeon back in the day. Instead of hosting games for the kiddies, he was the runningback/crackhead. Good times to be had for all. This is out for DVD as well, but I’m depressed it’s not back for another year of madness.

My favorite dinner was made last night. That’s right, it was Manicotti Night. I could eat that everyday of the week probably and not complain. One reason why I’ll live at home till I’m 40 is because of Mom’s Italian cooking, the best there is. Or as Bret Hart would say, the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. Mom lays it down in a major way with the Italian stuff and anything else she can think of. Dad holds his own too as he’s the breakfast and grill guy. I could probably be a decent cook if I tried, but I don’t try a whole lot. I’m not patient enough to try to cook a full course meal, thus I’m always eating Easy Mac, frozen Chinese food, and whatever I can get my hands on that is quick late at night.

What’s new on the game front? I just had to lay the smack down to Michigan at the BIG House in my NCAA 2005 season. It doesn’t get any better than beating Michigan for me, whether that is in real life or on GameCube. Michigan might possibly be my most hated sports team, but that’s a tough call. I’ll have to think about that and get back to you guys. Right now I’m ranked #12 in the nation and things are looking good in South Bend. I still am the world’s worst passer, but my run game is all roided out. Defense is getting amazing as well. I need to jump it up to All American level, but my pass game is so brutal I’d get destroyed there.

More game talk, but this deals with online Poker. Recently I’ve talked about the Hold Em tourney problems on Pacific Poker. I figured I’d give PokerStars (Moneymaker plays here) a try since it’s been a while. The past few nights I’ve been playing on PokerStars. Pretty much the same setup as Pacific Poker. Any other Poker sites out there that anyone recommends? Bo from #basketball fame was telling me how it’s pointless to play without real money. I disagree. Especially when we get the #basketball crew in a tourney, we all want to beat each other so bad, so it’s competitive. Plus, it doesn’t cost me any money. I’m tight with my money with certain things, so I’m not going to get into the gambling side of things. You can’t beat the system anyways.



A big topic of conversation lately with the #basketball legends has been of Ichiro. This dude is just unbelievable. He’s 5’10”/150 on a good day and he’s the best hitter in baseball. He’s on pace to go for the regular season hits record which is 257 held by George Sisler in 1920. Also, he has the most hits of ANYONE in their first four years in the league. I realize he doesn’t hit homers, but he brings it every game and gets my respect. He’s doing this with no help in his lineup either. He’s also a great fielder and rarely strikes out. Not too bad for a guy who isn’t on roids like half the league. Last night he got beamed in the head and got a concussion out of it, so hopefully that won’t bother his hit record chase. I say he has a good of a shot as anyone of getting MVP. He can’t help it he plays for a scrub team. Another stat, he’s the only player in the Top 11 of hits in a season in the past 74 YEARS! Fear..

The hallowed grounds of Lobstah has a freestyle rap thread. This will be the first time I’ve used some #basketball rap instead of a major label artist. This is a basketball lathered version that The Bootyologist (http://thekingofcrunk.blogspot.com/) came up with in November of last year. We might be onto something here. TMac is also a legend in the rap game representing #basketball. Check out the likes of ManDingo (http://mandingo04.blogspot.com/), Uncle Wilbur, Cork, and myself in that thread at http://www.lobsterrodeo.com/balls/viewtopic.php?t=468

Rapper: DerekHood -- Album: Lobstah Freestyle

I can't believe you done it, gone and started this thread
It's gonna bring up things that's better left unsaid
There's all these crazy thoughts just dancin in my head
When it comes to freestylin I got a Jones like I was Fred

All these pussass muhfuckas talkin' bout the Raps and the C's
I shoot better with my glock 9 than those dudes do on 3's
You think these squads is NBA? Come on, nigga please
Danny Ainge needs to pray and stop suckin cock, that's why he's on his knees.

Could still have Walker, Billups, Kedrick and Joe
How sad is it Chris Mihm's the man down low?
And I don't mean sexual, even though he does blow
Ainge is the pimp, the Celts fans the hoe
Get fucked and give daddy all your heard-earned dough

Just another game, just another loss
You got ball in your teeth mane, it's kinda hard to floss
Ainge ain't no basketball Jesus, but still hang him on the cross
before that dumb fucker goes and signs Keith Closs

Out.

Richard Jefferson Is A Bum

A day after SummerSlam ends in Toronto, we roll to London, Ontario, Canada for RAW. Due to Randy Orton becoming the youngest WWE World Champion evarrr, he opened up RAW with a 10-15 minute interview that was done pretty good. He had the cocky attitude running right. Benoit came out and reminds him of a rematch clause so that was on for the main event! Next week we get Kane and Lita’s marriage. That’ll be a good bathroom break and time to make a sandwich. What I want to know is if Kane will wear a tuxedo next week. That’d be hilarious if so. Just please, don’t let Lita talk. Jericho and Batista may be in a nice feud now. Jericho won by DQ last night after Flair interfered, but Batista is coming along strong. Power to the roid freak. Edge kept his IC Title against Kane after Matt Hardy came out and busted Kane up. I won’t bother with some of the smaller matches because I took up enough of your time in yesterday’s Blog with the HUGE SummerSlam post. The main event I’ll touch on though. Orton and Benoit were given a good amount of time for another good match. Towards the end of the match, Evolution comes down and distracts Benoit. In doing so, Orton hits a great RKO to keep his belt. Afterwards, Evolution celebrates with Orton. Batista puts him on his shoulders and it’s a good time for all. Triple H gives him the thumbs up sign to signify a good job and then immediately turns it upside down. The carnage! He tells Batista to drop Orton and then Evolution makes him a bloody mess. Should be interesting to see how they play this one out.

Today is a big TV day for me. Not only do I get the USA Olympic Basketball, but more action later on. At 9:00, that’s when it picks up for two shows to watch. At 9:00, the main event of the World Series Of Poker begins with the play of the final table. It’s crazy how Hold Em Poker has caught on the past few years since ESPN runs the tourney on TV now. Seems like every guy I know is into watching this or playing. It’s even the online craze now and I’m in on that madness as well. I’m not a card guy in person (at least not yet anyways), but it’s pretty cool to check out online with no money coming out of my pocket. I’ve been playing on Pacific Poker a lot, but one thing has me bugged. Their free tourney tables for Hold Em are down now to, get this, too many people coming onto their servers. So now the only thing I have on there is regular Hold Em tables, but that’s good enough. Hopefully they fix this problem.



Also at 10:00 should be another good show. I’m hooked on all of these VH1 shows I have to admit. Tonight they’re running on of those From A To Z shows. They’re featuring Guns N Roses in this one. You’ve heard me talk about the GnR special they ran a few weeks ago that was an hour long and how good it was. This one seems decent too. On the previews, they have the promo guy talking about how one time Slash told Charlie Sheen to slow down on his drinking. And the promo guy said that Sheen must’ve been a mess if someone like Slash is giving him advice on drinking. Most of the time I’m a rap guy, but some good 80s hair band stuff is quality as well. Last night I watched Sammy & Dave: Life After Van Halen. This is another hour long deal on how the break ups of Van Halen happened over the year and the feud between David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar. Didn’t think I knew anything other rap? w00t!

What’s new in the world of baseball? With about a month and a half left, it’s getting down and dirty time. Not for my Yankees as they already have it won, but some nice division races are happening. I’m really intrigued by the AL Central race. Where in the world did the Indians come from? They’re a team of bums and are ready to win that division. That’s nice to see. Or how about the AL West? Oakland, Texas, and Anaheim all have virtually the same record. Nuts! My Yanks just have to keep their composure going until the playoffs. They’re up 10 games on the Red Sox, which isn’t a race now. I never did get the whole Yanks/Sox rivalry. Sure, the games are hot to watch and they’re intense, but it’s not really a rivalry when one side never wins. Or at least the big games anyways. Yanks do battle in Minnesota starting tonight. On Wednesday night, they’ll be on ESPN, so that’s always good times for sure.

After I got done working out today, I got a weird craving for McDonald’s and that rarely happens. Every now and then though I’ll load up. What did I roll with today you ask? I get a Large #2 with a Hi-C. That’s two cheeseburgers, fries, and a drink. McDonald’s is like hot dogs to me. They’re great for the first half that you eat them. Then once you’re about finished, it sucks so bad and you wish you had never eaten it. I had to get some food going for the Olympic game.





That brings me into the USA Basketball Team game today. This one just ended and we won 77-71. I think we have two teams here. For half the game, we look dominant. We’re running and gunning on the whiteys and doing it like we should. Then, once we get up big, they bomb threes in our faces all day long and we’re standing there like we’re drunk. One bit of advice, get Tim Duncan the ball every single time. Richard Jefferson and Carmelo Anthony need sent home for different reasons, Jefferson because he can’t hit the broad side of a barn, and Anthony for acting like the immature kid he is by crying over playing time. Come on man, you’re 19 years old or whatever. Melo should be glad Karl Malone isn’t on this team to bust him a good one on the side of his face. The Dream Team (92 is the only team worthy of that no matter what you say) wouldn't have put up with that garbage. Set the egos aside. This is the Olympics. You may play big minutes for your NBA team, but not everyone is guaranteed time here, so deal with it and be happy you’re part of the process. Still, we held on for the win and escaped embarrassment. We’re a deep team and that will keep us fresh, but our defense needs to be intense from the get-go, throw it inside more, and stop shooting threes because nobody on the entire team is a 3-shooter.

Rapper: Inspectah Deck – Song: It’s Like That – Album: The Movement

Downtown blowin' my sound, blew out your Alpines
Feel me, I did it for dough, this ain't about rhymes
Cash on delivery, not leavin' without mines
Face tried to powder my shine, it's about time
To politic, poppin' the clip, bust off the hot shit
Holler this, monstrous hit, and stop ya gossip
I rep, what you expect, I took a set back
Crept back, nursin' my wounds, lookin' for get back
Forced to bring the pain, make 'em say my name
Rings have changed, shinin' like I'm Ving Rhames
Or King James, hustlin', I sling game
Sting lames, this money makin' things change
I bless heads, push past the full macs
Left for dead, raised by the wolf packs
Black hoods, leathers with the wool hats
Draw blood, don't even pull gats, it's like that

The Innovator Of Violence

Gear up for what should be a HUGE (Chris Jericho-like HUGE) Blog to start the week. To give you an idea of what we’re running with today, we’ll definitely talk about last night’s SummerSlam Pay Per View, Olympic basketball, getting buff, staying up late, and I’m sure I’ll figure out some more things to get this thing crackulatin as Em would say. Other than that, it’s a Monday. To some, that’s a horrible day. Usually is here too on work days (which are coming up), but at least I’ll always have my favorite show of the week to watch at 9:00, WWE RAW. The first two paragraphs here, if you’re not a wrestling fan, you can skip them. I’d rather you not, but that’s your choice here in the Madhouse. May the wrath come upon you if you skip some wrestling news though, hah. Onto some big happenings:



Solid. That’s one word that can describe SummerSlam in my mind. There were really only two things that upset me, but that’s not a bad ratio. I’ll talk about that later. The T Dot (Toronto) crowd was HOT. They somehow though cheered the heels (bad guys) all night long, which I loved personally. Anywhere in Canada, along with Philly, NYC, Charlotte, and Chicago definitely have to rank among the best North American wrestling crowds. Dudleys won the first match. Paul London is going to be nice though. If they give this kid time, he’ll have the crowd oohing and aahing. He did a nice flip off of Kidman’s back to the outside of the ring. Kidman’s Shooting Star Press (Gainer off the top rope for the diving board fans) still remains one of the best wrestling moves out there. Our second match was the mess involving Lita. Aside from that, the match wasn’t bad. The ending was pretty sweet, as Kane hit a Top Rope Chokeslam (both guys standing atop the highest rope) with some AUTHORITY! Lita runs away because she has to marry Kane, ugh. A nice sign in the crowd that I liked read as “Lita Is A Dumas!” Lita’s real name is Amy Dumas, so that makes it creative. They hit that sign right on the spot too, because she can’t act any better than my pinky finger. The third match of the night was Match 1 of a Best of 5 Series with John Cena and Booker T. Cena gets the early lead here and this was a good match, but nothing spectacular. I think this series could get sweet by the time they get to the 4th or 5th match. It won’t rival the Best of 7 that Booker T had with Benoit in WCW, but that’s tough to do. Next up was the 3-Way in which Edge retains his IC Title. Ironically, Edge is from the T Dot, yet he got booed like crazy. That’s just hilarious. Apparently, Edge is fired up backstage about the reaction he got. The crowd popped big for Jericho and this was a pretty smooth match. Batista didn’t have much of a role in this match other than having roids ooze out of his body, but Edge and Jericho together worked well.

Here is where we begin the feature matches. The match I was most looking forward to which was Kurt Angle facing off against Eddie Guerrero (still my opinion of best current “wrestler” in the world today) definitely delivered. Angle has missed quite the time from the ring this year, but you couldn’t tell that from this match. The crowd loved the near falls in this one and they hit a mix of mat wrestling as well as traditional wrestling. I could watch these two go at it all day long. Triple H does battle with Eugene after Angle made Eddie tap (surprised me there). This one can be summed up in one word: entertaining. I didn’t think this would be a match that would tear the house down, but these two did a fine job. HHH can work an opponent’s body as good as anyone, added some good comedy, and the wrestling between these two was quality. HHH was impressive to me out there. I’m not big on Eugene’s character, but it’s not going away anytime soon. If he can keep wrestling like this, I can deal with it. At one point, Eugene flips HHH off, kicks him in the gut, and drops a nice Stone Cold Stunner. Crowd went bonkers. That’s why we need Austin back as soon as possible. But still, fans better respect HHH like the old days because he still gets it done impressively. How about the WWE Title Match with Undertaker and Bradshaw. Total crapfest. This was one of the two things I hated about the night, along with Diva Dodgeball (which I’m not wasting one word about). Slooooow pace here and the crowd let them know about it. The crowd was chanting for the use of the Spanish Table, bringing Hogan back, and how boring this match was. Way too long. Bradshaw wins by DQ, but gets thrown through a limo roof afterwards. Our main event: World Champion Benoit against Randy Orton. Fear the intensity! The CARNAGE! This one had many great counter moves and was an awesome match in my book. The crowd was really into this one as well as they should have been. Orton ends up winning (clean mind you) to become the youngest World Champion evarrr in the WWE. At the end, Benoit walks back in the ring, extends his hand to Orton, and tells him, “Be a man!” After the drama and the fans are on their toes as well as me at home, Orton shakes his hand out of respect. To non-wrestling fans, you might not understand this, but when respect is shown like that after a match, it’s like the ending to a 5-star movie. If that doesn’t choke you up, nothing will. You get cold chills going and a tear in your eye. Yeah, I admit it.



Sorry, I said I’d write two paragraphs about wrestling today. It’s going to be three since I’m on a roll. This brings me to one of my favorite moments at a live wrestling show. The setting was the ECW Arena (world’s greatest wrestling fans ever, hands down) and this was when Taz (Tazz in WWE) was part of WWE’s roster yet he still had the ECW Title. Tommy “The Innovator Of Violence” was the heart and soul of ECW. He was one of very few who didn’t sell out and go to WWE or WCW when they offered big bucks and was there from ECW’s start. When he spoke, fans listened. No matter what he did, the crowd respected him since he was their boy. Anyways, Dreamer never wanted to be ECW Champion. Weird huh? He just loved being part of the business and was so humble that he didn’t think he deserved to hold that prestigious belt. Well, that night I’ll never forget. Taz comes out in the ECW Arena (that was a surprise in itself) at CyberSlam 2000 and Dreamer ended up being him for the title. Afterwards, Dreamer was in the ring and crying and most of the fans had tears in their eyes. Him winning that belt was like the ECW fans winning that belt. And like I said, Dreamer didn’t want that belt, so immediately Justin Credible comes out to face him for that belt. Two matches back-to-back? Yep. Anyways, Dreamer drops the belt to Credible in a good match, but the crowd got their money’s worth. Words can’t even describe what the ECW Arena in South Philly is like. Best experience I’ve ever had.

What about the USA Basketball Team? Are these guys a joke or what? I don’t care if they somehow edge out of this mess and win a gold, they’re still bums in my mind. Puerto Rico?! We got waxed yesterday by Puerto Rico. Not just beat in a close game, this was a rout. We couldn’t stop Carlos Arroyo (starting PG for the Jazz). Shawn Marion throwing up airball 3’s? Dwyane (yes, correct spelling) Wade is dribbling like he’s an 8-year old kid, Iverson putting together a house of bricks, and nobody really played well except for Lamar Odom, go figure. Yet Puerto Rico (who knew they had anyone bigger than me on their team) was playing TEAM ball. That’s a concept we don’t know at all. They were running the breaks well, burning us, making cuts, pick and rolls, doing all the little things needed to win. It was a sight to see. Next, we have Greece at 10:00 EST on Tuesday morning. They can’t beat us can they? Well, if Italy and Puerto Rico demolished us, anything is possible.



I set a good goal for myself yesterday when I was working out. I don’t often see how many times I can get a certain weight for 10 reps, but yesterday I got bored enough to try. It’s been a while, so I was due. I was able to get up 195 pounds for 10 reps. I’m proud of myself for that one. That’s 40 pounds more than my weight for 10 reps. Not too shabby for a guy my size if I must say so. I don’t know too many guys around here who can do that one. I’m no huge bench guy since I can’t obviously hang with the big roid freaks, but pound for pound, I like my chances.

How about these last four days? Three days in a row I went to bed at 7:00 AM. Stupid, I know, but a neat little streak to talk about. And last night I rolled in a bit after 6:00. So that’s four nights (mornings?) in a row that I’ve been up past 6:00. Fear. Yet in a week or so, I’ll have to be waking up at 6:00. I’m going to be in such a coma at work for the first few weeks I’m sure. Oh well. Should be interesting to see. My kids will think I’m drunk or something probably because it’ll take me time to adjust.

If you read through that mess, congrats. I’ll have a RAW review up tomorrow or the next day, along with whatever goes down here in my mean streets. If you want something special in here, don’t be afraid to let me know in the comment area. Doh!

Latino Heattttt!

What’s on tap for SummerSlam this weekend? This is one of the four big Pay Per Views of the year for the WWE. They have a card with big potential here. Whether it comes across good on TV, we’ll see, but I know for one, I’m getting excited about the extravaganza. We have a whopping nine matches announced for this one and there’s only a couple that don’t look good from the start. The main match on the card will be World Champion Chris Benoit taking on 24-year old Randy Orton for the belt. If Orton wins, he’ll be the youngest World Champion evarrr in WWE. I predict Orton to win this one and eventually face Triple H at WrestleMania next year, which seems to be the in rumor right now. Also, we have Eddie Guerrero taking on the returning Kurt Angle. This is the match I’m most looking forward to as these guys are two of the best in the world. I pick Eddie here in what hopefully will be EPIC wrestling. You get Bradshaw defending his WWE Title against none other than The Undertaker. This match will be really slow, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I have Taker taking this one. Does that make sense even? How about a 3-Way Intercontinental Title Match with Edge putting up his belt against both Jericho and Batista. The PPV is at Toronto, Edge’s hometown, so what will go down here? I’m pulling for Jericho in this one. How can I forget The Game? Triple H will lock heads with resident retard Eugene. Any chance HHH puts over Eugene? Possible, but I’m still going with Trips in this encounter. How about Booker T and his US Title facing John Cena? I might get burnt on this one, but common knowledge makes me pick Cena to thug it out here. In a stupid storyline, Matt Hardy goes against Kane in a Till Death Do Us Part Match. What’s this mess? The winner gets to marry Lita. Yet, Lita revealed last week that Kane is the father of her baby, not Hardy. Only in wrestling. In what will be a slobberknocker, we have a great 6-Man Tag Match with Rey Jr, Kidman, and Paul London on one side with Buh Buh Ray, D-Von, and Spike Dudley on the other. Lastly, we have Diva Dodgeball. I’m not even giving that match any of my time in this post today. Jeff Garcia’s porn chick will be part of this though for whatever that is worth.



Big props goes out to Cork. He was at the beach all week and he stopped over last night and dropped off a cool shirt that we’ve been wanting. For fans of Da Ali G Show on HBO, you’ll know what I’m talking about. On the shirt is Ali G looking all gangsta and above him says “RESPEK”. If you don’t know who Ali G is, you should look into some video clips or sounds on the web. This guy is hilarious. I never remember what sites I plug in here, and maybe I’ve put this up before, but you get it again if I did. Check out one of the better Ali G sites out there and the sound section of this is really good:

Boyakasha!: http://www.boyakasha.co.uk/index1.html

There’s not a lot of time for me to stay up crazy late anymore. Bummer huh? Work starts back up for me on August 26th. I have a bit less than two weeks before the grind begins again, but it’s fine by me, as I’ll have paychecks coming in since I didn’t have that luxury over the summer while being a bum. The past two nights I went to bed at 7:00 AM like an idiot, but it’s good times. The way I look at it is this way: I’d be doing the same exact thing at say 11:00 in the morning that I would be doing at 6:00 in the morning on here, so what’s the difference? Might as well stay up all night. I always feel like I’m going to miss something anyways. And usually in the early morning, not many are online, so I’ll take my chances. Still though, I’ll be up late on the weekends during the teaching season. As I start work again this fall, that means only one thing and that we are getting closer and closer to NBA season, my life.

Major announcement, so sit back and take this in. Or lean back if you will. Dusty Rhodes would tell you, “If you wiiiiilll!”Read it a few times if you must because it needs to affect each and every one of your lives. AS OF SATURDAY, AUGUST 14TH, THERE ARE 80 DAYS LEFT UNTIL OPENING NIGHT! Or how about this one: 51 DAYS TILL TRAINING CAMP BEGINS!

A tweak in the Celtics/Lakers trade the other day. Gary Payton, the star of this trade, is crying because he didn’t want to report to Boston to take a physical. He’s all mad because he just got his family setup in Los Angeles and has his kids in the schools he wants. Due to the complications, instead of us sending Marcus Banks and a 2nd Round pick to LA, we put Jumaine Jones in, and keep Chris Mihm and Chucky Time Atkins as part of the deal. Yet we keep Banks and the pick, hah. Plus get a pick from LA. Suckers. Paul Pierce has been working out with GP all summer, so hopefully with them being boys (holla at em), The Truth is able to convince GP to get to Beantown and in a hurry. If worse comes to worse, we still have Marcus “Lloyd” Banks and Delonte West waiting in the wing as our point guards. I’m still excited though and want GP as part of the crew.

The past few days I haven’t downloaded a CD. Imagine that one. The last one I got was a few days ago and it’s Ma$e’s new one, Welcome Back. It doesn’t come out in stores till the end of the month, but it’s worth checking out. It’s not mean and in your face rap, but still the flows are good. And I’m not sure about everyone else, but I could watch Ma$e dance around like an idiot all day. That doesn’t get old. He sucks as a dancer, but somehow he makes it looks like he’s halfway decent and hooks you in. I know that’s complicated, but oh well. And putting Ma$e and Puff together dancing? That even ups the scale of unintentional comedy. Don’t lie, you know you’ve all ran around your room late at night doing the Ma$e Dance. Bring back the puffy neon green and yellow suits and you’ll be back in business. I’ll put up some old Ma$e stuff here, with a portion of a song that featured Puff, Jadakiss, Sheek Louch, Black Rob, and DMX.

Rapper: Ma$e -- Song: 24 Hours To Live -- Album: Harlem World

[Puff Daddy]
I want you to ask yourself one question
If you had twenty four hours to live, what would you do?
That's some deep shit right there, a lot of pressure
How would you handle it?
Ma$e, what would you do?

[Ma$e]
Yo, I'd turn out all the hoes that's heterosexual
Smack conceited niggas right off the pedestal
I'd even look for my Dad that I never knew
And show him how I look in my Beretta, too
I'd do good shit like take kids from the ghetto
Show them what they could have if they never settle
Take every white kid from high class level
Show 'em what Christmas like growin' up in the ghetto
Teach niggas how to spend, stack the rest
Give blunts to the niggas under massive stress
Give every bum on the street cash to invest
And hope Harlem will blow up be my last request

[Jadakiss]
Yo, yo if I had twenty four hours to kick the bucket, fuck it
I'd probably eat some fried chicken and drink a Nantucket
Then go get a jar from Branson
And make sure I leave my Mother the money to take care of Grandson
Load the three power, hop in the Eddie Bauer
And go give all six to that papi that sold me flour
Get a fresh baldy, make a few calls
Shop at the mall, shoot a lil’ ball
Have all of my bitches on one telly at the same time
Spread it out on different floors
And I'm gon' play lotto, for what?
Even though I ain't gon' be here tomorrow, so what

Now Lean Back..

Happy 22nd Birthday to #basketball's own, a legend, TyLaw! And it's Friday The 13th. Oooh scary.

It’s time for a bout of randomness today. No one topic dominates this Blog as I’ll probably try a hit and miss approach. Basically what I’m trying to say is that nothing EPIC has happened as of late. That doesn’t mean there aren’t fun times to be had here in E-Town though, so don’t let me fool you one bit. Too much excitement for you all to handle.



Last night my Chicago Bears opened up preseason. They took on the Rams led by the Mike Martz Face. Preseason doesn’t mean a thing usually, but I’ll take wins wherever I can get them, especially against a team that is good. A lot of “experts” rate us as the worst team in the league and we may be, but it’s too early for me to feel that way yet. We have Lovie Smith in town running shop and he’ll definitely bring defensive intensity. I think he’ll also add part of the Rams’ offensive attack and youngster Rex Grossman should do decent at QB for us. We have a few nice players, but have a LOT of work to get done. The game last night was 13-10. My boy Thomas Jones played great though, getting 53 yards off only 7 carries. Grossman went 4-5. Nothing else worth mentioning. I’ll keep you posted on the Bears season as it progresses (like you care anyways).

Tonight is the opening ceremony for the Olympics. I know I shouldn’t be this way, but I don’t have much interest at all for the Olympics. I saw some stats on ESPN last night. In the 1970s, one year they had 48% of the country tuned into Olympic coverage on TV. In 2000, we had a whopping 24%. Maybe it was because in the 1970s we still had the Cold War going on and wanted to destroy Russia. I personally don’t like a lot of the events, but I’ll still see what’s going on. I’m glad I have satellite, because I’ll be able to catch some ping pong action that they wouldn’t show on national TV. NBC, MSNBC, and Bravo are running events and maybe a few other channels. I also hope I’m wrong in saying that I don’t think our basketball team will win Gold, but we’ll see.



The Bootyologist Derek Hood brought up a good discussion piece yesterday in The Practice of Prattle (http://thekingofcrunk.blogspot.com/). This deals with baseballer Ken Griffey, Jr. Yes, he’s mangulated once again. Surprising huh? Over recent years, Griff has went down with some weird injuries and is the Grant Hill of the MLB. This one may be legit though as he tore his hamstring. That doesn’t sound like fun times at all. I’ve pulled my hamstring before and that bothered me enough, but I couldn’t imagine actually tearing that muscle. Forget that mess. Anyways, the debate that The Bootyologist, ManDingo (http://mandingo04.blogspot.com/), and myself have going in Derek’s comment area (cheap plug!) is to whether Griff is a first ballot Hall of Famer. It’s a no brainer to me. Sure, I bash him for his injuries as much as the next day, but I give credit where credit is due. This guy is already over 500 homers, is a 12-time All Star, and a 10-time Gold Glove holder. That’s hardcore there and for a few years at least he was the best player in our era. He can do it (or did) on both sides of the field, both with the bat and with the glove. Will he ever become an elite player again? No, but I think he’s still serviceable. He’ll come in and bash some homers if nothing else to get his number up there with the greats, while getting hurt a few more times.

Football isn’t even here (or at least not the regular season), yet I’m so focused on basketball as usual. We’re getting our local fantasy money league together a few months ahead of time so we can be organized. It’s going strong and this is my 15th year or running a fantasy NBA league. This year we will have the most members we’ve had to date, with a possible 13. Rolling with us this year as of now in no particular order is (most locals will know these guys and some of my online crew may as well): ManDingo, Posey, Cork (http://corkzilla.blogspot.com/), TJ, Sidelli, Balky, Flee, Riley, Mudcat, Dean, Fortdogg, Spank, and myself. I guess I did do that in order. That’s the order of finish last year with the only exception was that I was 1st Place and that Spank wasn’t with us last year since he was busting heads in Iraq. I try to make this league the most organized and we have as much fun as possible with it. Our league is called the E-Town Diaper Dandies Fantasy League or the EDDFL. Props to Dean for creating that name. We’ll draft in late October (shooting for Halloween afternoon) and as the saying in #basketball goes, we’re OTR, on the rise. You guys will be sick of reading about this league once we get closer to the season, but that’s my absolute favorite thing to do is to run this fantasy league and wait for Celtics games to begin. Here’s a look at the draft board system we hope to use this year:

FJ Fantasy Draft Board: http://www.fjfantasy.com/



If you’re into the streetball scene and haven’t seen the posts in Lobstah yet, check out my reviews from last night of the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic at world famous Rucker Park and also the movie/documentary of Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius Mitchell. I could watch this stuff all day long. Basketball in August? It can’t get here soon enough for me. Baseball and football will hold the fort down until then, but realistically, I’m in basketball mode all season. No point of me just typing the exact same stuff that I put in Lobstah, so it’s probably just easier to check it out there.

Entertainer’s Basketball Classic: http://www.lobsterrodeo.com/balls/viewtopic.php?t=1212

Hook Mitchell: http://www.lobsterrodeo.com/balls/viewtopic.php?t=1213

Sorry for the non-sports fans out there, but I covered basketball, baseball, football, and the Olympics. Plans for the weekend post? I’ll definitely hype up SummerSlam for the wrestling fans tuning in to the Madhouse. Friday night and nothing at all planned here though. Imagine that in the Dub-V. I shall return.. One.