R.I.P. Chris Candido

Hola amigos. What’s happening out there this week? Yeah, I’ve only been updating roughly once a week, a little more than that, but I’ll get back into it when I don’t have anything else to do if you want more updates. The last week of April already, this stuff is going by fast. Last week one day it was 80 degrees and in the same week there was a day in the low 30s with a few inches of snow. Ricockulous!



So the regular season of NBA is over and that means that I’m at a loss. How’s that? For 6 months of the year, everyday basically I’m doing stats out by hand for the EDDFL, our local money fantasy NBA league. Now that I don’t have to do that each night, I kind of just sit here in a daze it seems like. But at least we have the playoffs in gear and my boys are the #3 seed in the East. That’s what playing in a bad division will get you, considering we had 45 wins, nothing too wild. Please get Big Al Jefferson some minutes though. I’m not sure what he has to do. He’s our only true post player and when he gets minutes, he puts up stats. Yet he gets sent to the bench quickly after, go figure. Not to mention Walker is suspended for starting a near rumble and then pushing a ref out of the way. That’s my boys.

I’ll take a break here to hype up a new Blog on the market. This one is from my boy Walz, a West Virginia native and #basketball member. You can check that out at http://walzywalzworld.blogspot.com. Be sure to give him some comments.

It was finally time to re-organize my CD collection. This is a job in itself. I put them in my cases alphabetically, so that means I have to take every one of them out when I go on a cleaning spree. For those wondering, I’m now up to 574 total CDs, not too shabby I guess. I have them spaced out between four cases. Those leather deals that hold like 250 or whatever. I have a few that holds like 250 and a few that holds 210. I space it out between letters so I’m able to add stuff without having to re-organize. I try to think a step ahead of the game.



A lot of wrestling news to talk about in this one. I’ll see what I can do for a quick summary. First, let’s roll to Monday Night RAW. RAW this week was held in Birmingham, England. Batista can’t talk for the life of him. Poor guy stumbles through his lines and has to have Triple H come out and run the interview segment. A great thing they did this week was having Big Viscera take the lovely Trish Stratus on a date. You have a guy 500 pounds or whatever in a storyline with one of the hottest chicks on the planet. I doubt he complained when the writers told him what his role will be for the next few weeks. Big Vis played his character great and I’m glad they let him talk and try to do something with it. I was rolling. After he orders everything on a page of the menu, he says that since he took Trish out to eat, he deserves to get some. She said that first he has to beat down Kane for her on Sunday. To give him a little preview, she then flashes him and he doesn’t know what to think. The main event was Christian going after Batista’s title, wow. Nice to see Christian in this spot and I hope this gives him a boost. He’s a great all around guy, who is awesome on the mic and has ring skills to go with it. He’s paid his dues, let’s see how far he can get up on the rung. His stuff with Flair in the backstage skits were about as good as it gets. Triple H tried to do his best to have Batista lose, but Batista ended up getting the pin on Christian. After that, HHH busts him with the Pedigree to show him how it’s done.

This Sunday, it’s Pay Per View time. It will be WWE Backlash. It just seems like we had a PPV, but of course I’ll be ready to see this thing, along with my crew. I’ll do a quick prediction thing to gear you guys for that. First, it’s our main event of Batista giving HHH a rematch for the World Title. I’m taking HHH in this one just because his character is over more and he has the power. I’m rooting for him in this one too. I know a lot of internet fans aren’t big HHH supporters, but I’m not one of those, I respect him a lot. We also have an epic tag team of Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan facing Muhammad Hussan and his sidekick, Daivari. Daivari is actually a good wrestler from what they’ve shown so far, but he’s tiny. The crowd will be absolutely insane during this match and will worship HBK and Hogan. I’d hate to be the match following this one. Even if it’s not good, the fans will be popping regardless. HBK and Hogan easily, unless they pull something crazy. A match I’m really looking forward to is Shelton Benjamin putting the Intercontinental Title up for grabs against Jericho. Jericho has done some amazing mic work for this feud (at least I think) and they both go balls to the wall in the ring, so this one has big potential. I’m going with Jericho to get gold here. We have a Last Man Standing Match with Edge and Benoit. I just hope this is a good match, but I’m picking Edge here, even if he is in the doghouse with the other wrestlers. Benoit will make him look like a champ though. Fat boy match with Kane locking up against Big Vis. Kane is worthless as far as a character right now, but I still think he’ll win this match. I hope I’m wrong, because I like the direction they’ve started with Vis and Trish. Finally, we have Tag Team Turmoil. This is a match with a whopping 5 different teams! The Heart Throbs (you have to see these young dudes, they’re a trip and have been funny early on), La Resistance, Hurricane/Rosey, Simon Dean/Maven, and Regal/Tajiri.

On a sidenote, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan said the Shawn Michaels/Kurt Angle match at WrestleMania this year is his pick for best match ever. Evarrrrr! Wow. That’s high praise there. I wouldn’t go that high. Good, but best evarrrr? Come on now.



I finished Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore very quickly. It was an awesome read and I love reading through a good wrestling book. I’ve read a ton of wrestler biographies and I’m not sure I’ve read a bad one yet. If you’re slipping on old school wrestling knowledge and some nice behind the scene stories, this one is for you. The day I finished this, I picked up Dusty Rhodes’ new book, Dusty: Reflections Of An American Dream. Funk and Dusty are from the same generation and same part of the country. As I type this up, I’m 46 pages in and it’s another one that is hard to put down. My barber could be a stunt double for Dusty if he had to be. They look exactly alike.

Ok, so I’m not done talking about wrestling yet. I’ll write even more wrestling stuff. Thoughts go out to Chris Candido’s family. He passed away today at the very early age of 33. It’s tough to see a wrestler you’ve watched basically his entire career go down the tubes like that. No definite reason is out yet to why he died, but reports say it may be blood clots from surgery. He used to be big into drugs as well as his chick (Sunny or Tammy Lynn Sytch). Another reason this is tough on me is that he spent a lot of his years with the greatest wrestling promotion ever, ECW. Wrestlers drop like flies. Let’s hope this is the last wrestling death for a while. Here's Candido throwing up the respected Triple Threat salute. I'll throw mine up to honor him.



Speaking of ECW, I’m going to be literally hating myself for not getting tickets to June’s Hardcore Homecoming straight from the mecca known as the ECW Arena. You can’t put a price on this at all and it’s a hard package to pass up. Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, you have no idea how legendary it is to be at a wrestling show inside the ECW Arena. Maybe the best experience of my life. I’ve been to a lot of WWE shows, even Pay Per View stuff, and it can’t even hold a candle to an ECW event. You get your money’s worth before the show even begins. And if you thought about taking a chick to an ECW show, you’d get hounded all night long. I remember a show in Pittsburgh where about 1000 people were all pointing and chanting at this dude and his chick and telling her show her tits. They’d throw stuff at them and just get on them all night.

I just got done watching 106 & Park’s Freestyle Friday. Every Friday, they have a freestyle battle between the past week’s champ and the new challenger. This week the champ was a reigning 3-week title holder. It all ended this week. I’m not usually big on chick rappers at all since they can’t bring it hard, but they had a chick on there today that straight up messed this cat up. And she really went with true freestyle too, instead of memorizing lines they practiced on before the show. Props to her for that.

I’ll end this thing with some Stern action. That’s right, Howard Stern. Cork talked about this in his Blog too (http://corkzilla.blogspot.com), but I’ll give the story as well. Last night on the show, he had his Stupid Bowl. On this, he brings in 4 porn chicks and has them compete in events. I turned it on and missed the first 10 minutes but when I started watching, they were playing Strap-On Golf. They had 15-inch strap-ons hooked to the top of their head and they had to putt the golf ball into the hole. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Then the last event was Deepthroat Karaoke. This is where Stern brought out big pieces of sausage. The idea of this game is that they were required to get 4 inches in (nothing for these girls) and sing at the same time. They sang Amazing Grace while having a sausage in. One of the girls who was eliminated earlier, still got a chance to do the Deepthroat Karaoke. She was all pumped up to do it and ended up not really singing, but showing the world how much she can get in. Classic stuff. I was just rolling at how Stern was being all serious during all of this. Funny stuff how low some of these chicks will stoop, but it makes for great TV and you know the guys love it. That’s talent, hah.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. I can’t get enough of this Devil Rays and Red Sox beanball war. I find it amusing how the World Champions are distracted by a team like Tampa. But other than that, a beanball war is good for baseball in my opinion.

2. Taken from the great Boston Sports Guy, here’s a quote to check out: "Nothing happens today ain't going to affect July, August, September. Santana (Moss) calls me every day: 'Man, what y'all do today?' I'm like: 'Man, we ain't did nothing. We're doing the same thing you're doing in Miami, running and working out. You ain't missed nothing.”- Clinton Portis on mini-camp

3. I just got done watching Chuck Norris bust up heads old school style in one of the Missing In Action movies. Does it get much better than movies that has martial arts involved and guys get mangulated? I didn’t think so.

Midnight Oil

While sitting here watching some old school Saturday Night Live with Cork, the music guest was Midnight Oil, the one-hit wonder with the song Beds Are Burning. Cork said to find a pic of them and put on here. Not many to pick from, but I'll put the goofy lead singer up for your viewing pleasure.



I know it’s been a week since we last talked, but I had to keep you wanting more. I didn’t fall off the face of the earth, but I guess I have to bring something good since it’s been a while. To start off, my sleep schedule is a mess as always. As I type this, and I type it up in sections, I just woke up from a 3 hour nap and it’s 10:00 on Friday night. Who sleeps from 7:00-10:00 PM on Friday? Only me I guess. I wanted to stay up late tonight, so I was due, plus last night I got about 4 hours sleep for a work night, came home to workout and I was done. Speaking of working out, per Dom’s request, I’ll break down my workout routine later in this Blog. Other than that, I’ll talk a little wrestling, an interesting ball story, and some CD action.

I’ll start out with a new book I got. The wrestling fans will be the only ones interested, but I can’t always have a topic for everyone. The legendary Terry Funk recently came out with a book called Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore. He’s now 60 years old, 61 in June, and has more stories than you can imagine. He’s been all over the world and still gets it done in the wrestling ring. How many 60-year old guys do you know who can still do a Moonsault? I’m only 45 pages in and can’t put the book down.



Thursday night at ball was one of the worst balls nights we’ve had in a while. I don’t ask for much on ball nights at Big Elm. We have 4 hours a week to play (Tuesday and Thursday nights). I’m happy just to be there and get away from my normal schedule, hang with my boys, have some good runs, and just enjoy it while I can still play well. It’s that simple. If I have a great night of playing personally, that adds to it, but it’s not necessary. The only thing I don’t want is drama. Well, Thursday, we got drama. I’ll probably end up going off on a tangent here, but just let me vent. A guy we call Crazy Gunner Dude (given by DerekHood) always brings about some kind of stupid thing along. You know that type of guy. The guy who shoots way too much, yet has no business doing so. If you’re hot, you can gun all you want, but know your role out there, especially when you’re not that good. Anyways, Crazy Gunner Dude brings his chick to play. Uh oh. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a shot at chicks, but they have no business whatsoever playing basketball with guys. They just can’t hang physically, it’s true. And they’re not as quick no matter what you think. Well, that night we had 9 people playing and we run 4-on-4 full court. After one game, the guy sitting picks up. I nicely sit myself the first game so she can get a game in. After that, she takes her seat to the bench. It’s only expected that the chick would get sat down in the next pickup game. Well, she flips out. First off, she’s an awful player, even for chicks ball standards, but she has emotional baggage to go with it. Just great. Then she starts throwing stuff around and turns into drama central. She runs out the door beating on stuff and we’re cracking up. Crazy Gunner Dude then goes out to console her, ugh. After a while, we cuss him to get him back in to play and to deal with that later. Ball is no time to handle chick problems. Then she comes back with her Dad. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, it’s already a messed up story. Not sure what he thought he was going to do. Then she flips again and says she’s going to go talk to another buddy of ours for advice. The buddy comes back and tells us the drama that is going on and can’t believe it either. That’s when Crazy Gunner Dude goes outside and talks to her some more. He was out there a good half hour. Normally, let him stay out there, but when we only had 8 guys playing, we actually needed the dude on the court to make even teams. To make a long story short, after everyone cusses this kid to get him back on the court, we play a few more games. Then everyone goes off on him (deservedly so). As I’ve said in here before, 99% of the time, especially when I’m not playing ball, I’m very calm and don’t cuss too much. It takes a lot to fire me up and I can get along with anyone. I felt like I had a roid rage that night, just being honest and launching f-bombs like it’s my job (my barber teaches me well) and we all went crazy because this kid ruined our night of ball. Things should get interesting on Tuesday and Thursday of next week, because some of my crew definitely won’t take any of this on a regular basis again.

I got a few new CDs over the week. One decent, another awful. The first one I got is the Choices II Soundtrack. This is Three 6 Mafia stuff for those who are wondering about that. The first soundtrack is really good, so I had to try for the latest. A good crew on this album other than Three 6 of course, also features Trillville and Lil Flip. If you need something to wake you up, pop in this CD. Three 6 just screams and yells the same stuff over and over, but I’ve never minded their stuff. The second CD I loaded up on is Ludacris’ new boy, Bobby Valentino, his self-titled album. A thug with the name of Bobby Valentino? When I see that name, you’d think he was bred in the Mafia. Anyways, this guy is a pimpin’ R&B type singer and it’s not too good. I have to be in the mood to listen to this stuff, but it grows on me usually, except this CD didn’t. His single, Slow Down, is about the only good thing I’ve heard. 20 songs on this album, and I was able to make it through 10 before giving up on it. Maybe I’ll give it another try one day.



Fantasy basketball season is over. This takes up most of my time and it’s one of my favorite things to do, if not my favorite. It consumes my life and I like it that way. I guess that’s why I’m single. We’ve been doing this for years and I’ve won the big money for the past 3 years. My reign of terror is finally over and I didn’t even get to place in any of the money spots this year. The 2004-05 E-Town Diaper Dandies Fantasy League Champion (EDDFL) is none other than Steve Sidell for the locals. 2nd Place is my boy Spank and 3rd is one the Blog fans all know, my buddy Cork. All of those guys ended up getting cash to blow on who knows what. Video games, porn, strippers, Gatorade, you name it. I don’t have any excuses for my team. Sure, I had some injuries, but who doesn’t? I just didn’t have that deep of a team this year. It happens. I’ll be back.

In comments on my last Blog, Dom wanted me to touch on my current workout schedule. I could get really in-depth with this, but I’ll try to condense it down for those not following along. Right now I’m on a 3-day routine. On this routine, I workout 2 days in a row, take 1 day off, go 2 days back on, 1 day off, etc. Day 1 features Chest and Triceps. Day 2 is Legs and Biceps. Day 3 is Shoulders and Back. On each of those days, I do Abs as well. I switch it up on each day as far as what exercises I do, but here are the exercises I rotate around for each body part:

Chest: Flat bench presses, incline dumbbell presses, decline bench presses, flat dumbbell flies, and decline push ups. Due to hitting each body part roughly twice a week, I’m doing about 10-12 sets of each part during a workout. With that, you can’t slack though as you have to push yourself hard on each exercise. I try not to get caught up in numbers though. As a smaller dude, I know I can’t compete with the roid freaks anyways, but I focus more on getting ripped up. I don’t max a lot, especially on the bench, but I do pretty well when I do for a little guy. My max is 250 and I did that while I weighed 158. My goal is to get 100 pounds more than my weight up. I’ve been very close over the years, but never got that mark yet. Pound-for-pound (yeah, all little guys use that one) I hang good. I range between 155-160 on my weight and have been the same weight now for about 10 years solid, true story.

Triceps: Cable pushdowns, Cable over-the-head kickouts, dips, and tricep over-the-head barbell extensions. Dips with a weighted vest are mean and I like doing those a lot for an extra burn. I see a lot of guys with good biceps, but awful looking triceps and that’s not a good balance. Work out both if you want the full result.



Legs: Squats, dumbbell lunges, and leg presses. By playing ball a few times a week at least, I can’t go hardcore on legs in the gym or I won’t have anything left. I’m not big into going heavy on legs anyways, because it can be brutal on your knees. And knock on wood, I haven’t had many leg problems over the years. If you’re looking into something that will straight pump your legs and hamstrings up, you need to do dumbbell lunges and go way down. That first time you do them, you’ll be a mess the next morning, but it’s worth it. I’ve seen a lot of gains by doing this exercise. On the leg press machine I use, I’m not seated. I’m flat on my back and the machine presses up in the air if that makes sense. If you have bad knees, this is definitely not the exercise you want to be doing. Also as far as legs, but I do this at home, is stretching. I take pride in being really flexible and being able to do splits and things of that nature. Not bad for an old guy huh? I make sure to have a stretch routine everyday to make sure I can keep that up. Not many of my guy buddies can stretch well, but I don’t even know too many chicks who can stretch as well as I can, especially the ones not my age. I’m not just tooting my own horn, just making a statement. I’m sure some teenage chicks can do some crazy stuff, but I have like 10 years on those kids.

Biceps: Preacher curls, stand up barbell curls, dumbbell curls, and 21s. I’ve been making some nice gains on curls lately. You may call 21s something different from where you’re from, but that’s what I’ve always known them by. After you do these at the end of your workout, your arms are shaking so bad and you really feel it. To explain that, use a bar and very little weight. I just put 10s on each side and that’s plenty to get the job done, trust me. You start out by doing 7 reps from your chest up to your chin. Then you take it down and do 7 reps from your waist to your chest. Then you do 7 full reps from your waist to your chin. It doesn’t sound like much, but you’ll be dead after a few sets of this and may not be able to do 21 reps each time, but do what you can.

Shoulders: Behind-the-neck presses, military presses, barbell shrugs, dumbbell shrugs, dumbbell pull-ups, front dumbbell extensions, and shoulder flies. This is one of the things I can actually hang with the big guys on. I’ve always been strong on shoulders for some reason and behind-the-neck presses are probably my favorite thing to do in the gym. Front dumbbell extensions are tough to do, but if you do them strict, they pay off for you.

Back: Front chin-ups, Behind-the-neck chin-ups, front lat pulls, behind-the-back lat pulls, seated rows, and bent-over rows. I absolutely hate doing back, even though it’s important. You need a strong back and abs since it’s the centerpoint of your body. I just don’t push myself as much as I should on back. I can rip of chin-ups like a madman (that is to my advantage being a little guy), but I get complacent with being able to do a certain number that I stop. I’ve stepped it up lately, but I still need to get on track with more back exercises.



I know I wrote a bunch there, but the masses requested that, so there ya go Dom and everyone else. Hope that gives you a little idea of what I do, without putting up numbers there. Numbers are overrated anyways, or at least I think so. Sure, it’s a bonus if you can push weight like crazy, but it’s not necessary. Or as Ice Cube would say, pushing rhymes like weight. I’d rather be ripped up and be happy with how I look rather than just going after what I can bench and not focusing on the all around goal. Maybe that works for the big guys, but not me.

3 Quick Thangs:

1. NBA Playoffs start tonight and I didn’t hype that up in this space? Don’t worry, I will. Pacers at Celtics! Game 1! 8:00!

2. Crazy that it’s almost May and there is snow predicted for the big Dub-V this weekend.

3. Right now I’m drinking some Donald Duck brand orange juice, mmm..

Go Big Or Go Home

Today’s topic is brought to you by none other than The_Freak. He pulls this quote from the legendary Steve Sanders of 90210 fame. Ian Ziering for those keeping track at home.

It’s finally weekend time and I’m due for a break. All kinds of action over the past day or so for me and now I’m sitting here in a coma in need of sleep. Will I get it? Of course not. I’m sure I’ll roll to bed around daylight like an idiot and pull the same schedule I’m always on. But it’s fun, so I might as well just keep my schedule going for as long as I can.

I just got in from playing tennis for the first time this year. Even if you’re not any good, you get some crazy exercise from this game. I was happy with my first outing taking on Cork. My serve is getting better and better I think and probably my best thing is my speed. My backhand is absolutely awful though, but that’s ok. It’s so bad that I even switch to my left hand on backhand hits every now and then. I’m able to hit my shots where I want for the most part, so that’s also helpful. Around here, nobody truly dominates, at least out of our crew, so I’ll be able to get by since we’re all even. On the hotness scale, a tennis chick that looks good ranks way up there. That does it for me totally. You have no idea. So even if you can’t play tennis and you’re a halfway decent looking chick, get all up in tennis gear and hit the courts just for eye candy if nothing else. I’d be hooked.



Saturday night it’s UFC 52 and as far as I know, I’ll be getting this one. The main event features the rematch of The Natural Randy Couture facing The Iceman Chuck Liddell. Couture is the Light Heavyweight Champion and the belt will be on the line. This is an 8-match card, so that should be well worth the money. I just want some hard fought action and a few guys getting tapped out. Couture brings his wrestling background against Liddell’s kickboxing style. These are also the two trainers from The Ultimate Fighter, something I can’t wait till it comes out on DVD. It’s been a while since our crew has ordered a UFC Pay Per View, so we should be all kinds of pumped up to watch the blood and guts flow.

I went to hear the wise words from my barber on Friday. Nothing too exciting from this trip, but it’s always worth the price of admission. There was nobody in there for my barber to cuss, so that cuts back on the drama ensued. And the amount of f-bombs thrown were at a minimum. He must’ve been sick or something is all I can figure. Today’s chats focused around baseball and fishing, two of America’s pastimes. Always a good trip.

Not that anyone cares, but since this is my little space to talk about whatever, I switched up my lifting routine a few weeks ago and it’s going pretty good. I’m on a 3-day plan now if that makes sense. If not, I have my workouts broken down into 3 days, but the way I’m doing it is that I workout 2 days in a row, take a day off, then go for 2 more, and that pattern continues. Day 1 I do Chest, Triceps, and Abs. Day 2 I have Legs, Biceps, and Abs. Day 3 I finish up with Shoulders, Back, and Abs. I could break my exercises down into detail, but nobody is bored enough to hear that right now, so I’ll just stop. I am getting more intense workouts in though, so hopefully it transforms me into Triple H in no time.



I loaded up on some new CDs over the past couple of days. 5 new ones to the bunch and here is what goodies I ended up getting:

Big L: Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous (1995). This is my second Big L CD and I had to get some older New York stuff out of respect to the late Big L. If it’s anything like his other CD I have, it should be pretty good, but no ratings on this one yet.

Mike Jones: Who Is Mike Jones? (2005). I’ve waited way too long on this one and it’s finally arrived. This is a Double CD, but I deleted the second disc since it’s the crappy chopped and screwed garbage. I like this one though. You can’t get enough Mike Jones I don’t think, even if he says Mike Jones and his phone number about 7549 times through this album. He has a song called Scandalous Hoes that brings back memories of the 2Pac and Nate Dogg collabo.

Nas: The Lost Tapes (2002). This one has received a lot of great reviews that I’ve checked out, so I wanted to get this. Arguably the best lyricist out there, Nas gets it done on these previously unreleased tracks that he had built up for a while. Nas gets it done in concert too, one of my favorites I’ve seen. My area is due for another rap concert, but unfortunately they’re few and far between.

Raekwon: Immobilarity (1999). I’ve listened to about half of this one so far and it’s rock solid. Anything Wu-Tang I’m interested in and my goal is to one day have all of their albums. There’s a crazy amount, but I’m doing a pretty good job so far with the collection. This includes their solo albums, not just the group stuff that most people already have.

Sheek Louch: Walk Witt Me (2003). Mighty Mighty D-Block. This one has been a hard one to get for some reason. I’ve tried to get Sheek’s stuff before, but just didn’t have much luck. With the tandem of Jadakiss and Styles P on several of these tracks, that’s straight fire. Nas and Jada downloads this week? If Nas is the #1 man as far as lyrics go, Jada would be next in line. Not that I’m comparing Jada to Nas, because nobody can hold Nas’ jock when it comes to his usage of words. And nobody wants a piece of Nas when it comes to rap battles either. He showed Jay-Z who is boss in the legendary one we all know, Ether.

I’ve been bored a lot (imagine that) and have been playing a lot of Yahoo Games. One I’m big on is Pop And Drop. The rules of this one is that you have a gun shooting colored balls out. You have to line up 3 balls of the same color to knock it out of the box. The box is slowly closing in on you too, so you have to be on your toes. I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a good one. I also recommend Super Bounce Out and Super Collapse.



3 Quick Thangs

1. Who? Mike Jones.

2. I always crack up at people who have a stereo system in their car worth more than their actual car. Another thing I don’t understand, I never was a huge bass guy. If I’m blasting something, I want to hear the actual song, not feel like my car is rattling apart.

3. One thing that sucks about the weather being warm is that I have to mow grass every week. I don’t even have a big yard, but that’s how much I hate it.

"If You Wiiiiiilllllllll!"

You just can’t go wrong with dating shows. These shows are so cheesy and you don’t want to watch, but if you sit down and actually watch them, you’re hooked. Take for example a new one from MTV. It’s called Next and I wasn’t interested in it at first. Then before I know it, I’m watching like 2 hours straight of this mess. The theme of this show has 5 people that get a chance to go out with a girl or guy. At any time during the date, the person picking between the 5 can say “next” and move to the next person. How many ever minutes that person lasts, is how many dollars they get once they get booted. If the person that gets to pick wants to go on a second date, they ask the person. Then the person gets to pick whether they want to go on a second date or take their money and run. My favorite one is of this whitey rapper named Iziadi. I know I spelled that name wrong, but deal with it. He had the pimp cane and all and when he was asked questions, he would rap the answers. Hilarious. They have to make up some of these guys on these shows. I’m telling you, it’s great.

I’m not going in any certain order in this post, but that’s the fun of things. You know what bugs me? High school softball. I just don’t get it. If you have an awesome pitcher, you win. They can throw their best chick whenever they want till her arm falls off. Nobody ever makes a big deal of this. Why can’t they have an actual pitching rotation like guys do? You also see no-hitter games all over the place in softball too. If one of these pitchers gets 1 run in support, it’s over. You can close the door on it.

Cork’s girl, and what is turning into everyone else’s girl as of late is in the news. Yep, none other than the gorgeous Vida Guerra, with one of the best bodies I’ve ever seen. I think they lock these type of girls up in closets and only use them in rap videos, because I’ve never seen them out and about on the streets. Then again, Shinnston girls for the most part are trashy, but who knows. I’m sure it’s like that in most towns, but at least in other towns you have the element of surprise by not knowing the background of a chick, so she doesn’t seem as dirty. You follow me so far? Anyways, the l33t hack0rz got into her phone and posted pics of what she had on there, showing it all if you still can’t follow me. Needless to say, they’re way better than expected. Thanks to Blahah The Great for finding this gem of information, he posted this for our viewing pleasure in Lobstah. To visit the actual topic, click here:

http://www.lobsterrodeo.com/balls/viewtopic.php?t=1808

Speaking of chicks, maybe you can help me on this one. While watching MTV Next (yep, that again) these guys were talking about waxing. This one dude had to get his legs waxed on a date and he was asking the chick about it. She says she only has to do it every 6 weeks. What?? I need to get in on that action. Forget this shaving every other day or so. Nair eats me up, so I can’t use that. I don’t mind shaving, but if I can try waxing, even if it hurts bad to do, it’d be quality times. Then I could use a classic Beavis line, “Damn I’m smooth!” A guy interested in waxing himself? So what. I admitted it. Now I just need details.



On the wrestling scene, I’ll first touch on NWA Total Nonstop Action, or NWA-TNA if you will. Or as Dusty Rhodes, currently of TNA would say, “If you wiiiiiiiilllllll!” This company is getting better and better. They can’t compete with Vince as far as money guys, nobody can at this point. Vince has the wrestling market monopolized, but this is as close as you can get to a competitor. If you get Fox Sports Network, you can check out their shows on Friday afternoon in the 3:00-5:00 PM timeslots, depending on where you roll. Saturday night features the replay, and for me, that would be at midnight. What I like about NWA is that their guys can try more dangerous moves that Vince doesn’t want as part of his organization. These guys give it their all and could care less about getting hurt. There’s a lot of known names here too: Jeff Jarrett, X-Pac, Jeff Hardy, Dusty Rhodes, Dustin Rhodes, Bad Ass Billy Gunn, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, Elix Skipper, Kevin Nash, Shane Douglas, Diamond Dallas Page, Kid Kash, and many others. For those who haven’t seen Christopher Daniels or AJ Styles wrestle before, you can consider yourself deprived. Watching the weekly TNA show is worth it alone just to get glimpses of Daniels and Styles tearing the roof off the building. The Styles Clash is one of the most innovative finishing moves I’ve seen in quite some time. If you’re into the cruiserweight (the X-Division) type wrestlers who go full speed with great wrestling, this is for you. It’s raw, but they’re not afraid to try stuff. WWE is releasing people left and right, so look for more talent to jump to the NWA.

How about RAW you ask? Before I talk about this week, next week is from Madison Square Garden, so that should be a hot hot show. An interesting part of RAW is that they showed part of Orton’s shoulder surgery and actually show the needle going in and the footage inside the mess as they’re working. Graphic, but I liked it. They don’t do stuff like that often. Hurricane got some good TV time by bashing Triple H and then getting a match with him, along with Rosey. Give Hurricane a new character or just ship him off to TNA so he can show what he has. Chris Masters is a freak and he’s only 22 years old. HBK was set to face off with Muhammad Hussan, but Hassan sent Daivari at him instead. I’ve read before that Daivari is a wrestler, but he’s ripped up pretty good himself and didn’t make a fool out of himself. Of course, Hassan helps Daivari get the cheap win. Afterwards, HBK challenges Hassan and Daivari to a Tag Match at No Mercy. Who will his tag partner be? None other than Hulk Hogan. Benoit taking on Christian was very well done and they actually gave that one some time to develop. The end had Batista showing off his bad mic skills. HHH says next week at MSG, he’ll face off with Good Ol’ JR. Ok….

Another show that I’m big on is Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno II. This is on during RAW, so I never get to catch the first airing of the show. I always wait for a big marathon on a weekend night. This was last weekend and I stayed up all night watching with DerekHood of #basketball fame. The drama of this is off the charts. The only rule I don’t like is that these people can’t physically rumble or it would be much better. Gay Karamo would’ve had his head laying in a pool of blood by CT anyways if that was allowed. You can’t go wrong with having CT, Big Bad Brad, and Mike The Miz all on the same show. Julie might be the ugliest Real World chick ever, it’s close. She mangled her hair big time. Veronica on the other hand, knows how to do it.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. The movie King’s Ransom looks cheesy, but I have a theory on it. You can’t go wrong with a movie featuring Anthony Anderson (even if he is in every comedy out there) and Jay Mohr. Even better, we have Charlie Murphayyyyyy in this beast. As one chick says on the previews, “Like white girls on NBA playas.”

2. As I type this, I have 28 of 100 people on my AOL Instant Messenger list online. I also have 18 of 179 on Yahoo Messenger, 7 of 52 on MSN Messenger, and 3 of 56 on ICQ. Fear.

3. I ate Lucky Charms for breakfast.

I Got PUNK'D!

I’ve been busy the past week or so. Don’t hold that one against me. But never fear, I’m back to update you on some big (or not so big) happenings in the mean streets of E-Town. I’ll start right off with an interesting story. Last week, I set up two of my teaching buddies together to have a date, Kari and Mike for anyone who wants me to get specific. I didn’t think anything of it. I told Mike that I’d put in a good word for him and see what I could do to set something up. Anyways, on Wednesday night, they went out and I got a message around 9:00 on AOL Instant Messenger from Kari. Needless to say, she was all kinds of fired up. She said that Mike was a punk all night, left his wallet at home, made her pay the bill, tried to kiss her on the first date, and was just downright rude. Ouch. That’s a blow to me, considering I sort of helped bring this madness together. After talking for a while, and of course I’ll chat and listen to just about anything on here, especially from buddies, things started getting weird. I was feeling like a bum. Then Kari sends me a message that she says she got from Mike online to send to me. I’m subbing for Mike on Friday and he said to hope I wasn’t offended and wondered if I would still sub for him on that day. A few minutes later, Mike confesses that it was actually him talking from Kari’s house on her computer. Yep, you guessed it. I got PUNK’D. Doh! I have to give them credit for that one though, it was well thought of. None of that stuff they said about Mike being rude, etc was true though if you were keeping track at home. Kari and Mike, that’s dirty, I have to get ya back somehow. :-) Could that mean you can all call me the Love Doctor? See Ashlee, I was right after all, hah. You laugh at that nickname, now I have to prove it to ya I guess. Hitch has nothing on me. Not sure about love in the air, but at least it was a successful date. Chalk one up for the good guys.

We also had some big time wrestling action go down on Sunday, live from Los Angeles. It was WrestleMania XXI and of course I wasn’t going to miss a Pay Per View. To set the scene, watching the festivities from the scenic Bird33 Palace of Sports, it was Cork, Spank, Little Charles, and myself. Having Charles there was worth the price of admission alone, he’s one funny dude. That’s Spank’s cousin Charles for the locals who were wondering that in their head. Overall, it wasn’t a spectacular Mania. It featured too many skits instead of more matches. My favorite match on the card was Triple H being defeated by Batista. I don’t agree with Batista winning, but the match itself was a lot better than I expected. I also liked the Rey and Eddie match with Rey winning, HBK and Angle tearing the house down with HBK actually tapping out (what?? HBK tapped at a Mania?), and the Money In The Bank Ladder Match won by Edge. However, Cena beating Bradshaw was brutal, and so was the Undertaker and Orton match that Taker won. Does it get much better than Hogan getting busted, then turning around and doing the YOUUUUUUU point to his opponent? The crowd eats it up and I know you do too.

A quick summary of RAW, or just touching on a few points. Batista is the new champ, right? Well, we didn’t see him until about 10 minutes left until the show. Triple H started out the show since Batista has about as good of skills on the mic as Corndog’s donkey (for the #basketball fans there). A great Three Way Dance between Benjamin who kept his IC Title facing Jericho and Christian. Trish showed Christy that she doesn’t belong being a wrestler and mangulated her. Trish was hot as ever. Benoit taking on Edge was solid too, as Benoit can sell moves as well as anyone not named Flair. At the end, Batista beat Orton, who is scheduled to get shoulder surgery soon, while HHH stared on from the ramp.

Also on Monday night, my Heels did something they haven’t been able to since the days of 1993 when my most hated basketball player, Chris Webber, gave us the title by calling the inevitable timeout he didn’t have. I hate having the NCAA Championship on Monday nights. You know what that means. It takes a backseat (yes, even if it’s my boys playing) to RAW. I did get to watch a good bit though and after RAW was able to catch the last part of the game, so all is good times. One thing I don’t get, what is up with the Mike Gansey jersey poppin’ crazy that is going around lately? Everyone is doing it, but it’s funny. Or Rashad McCants ripping off his UNC jersey like he was some roid freak.



More Ron Mexico! ManDingo pulled a funny and told me that he wants to get an Atlanta Falcons jersey, #7, and put Ron Mexico on the back. I had to laugh out loud for real on that one, nice job Dingo. That alone deserves a plug in today’s Blog. First, go visit ManDingo’s Blah Blah Blog.

http://mandingo04.blogspot.com/

And for the Ron Mexico (Michael Vick in disguise) story, please visit this page and read. I urge you, it’s that funny:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405051vick1.html

Just one new CD since the last update. I need to get back on track. The latest is C-Murder’s The TRUest Shit I Ever Said. This is a pretty nice listen and C-Murder is the brother of Master P for those not in the rap game and he’s locked up. He’s been in prison since 2003 and is booked for life (supposedly) for you guessed it, murder.

The NBA season is getting close to an end. Well, the regular season anyways. That almost brings a tear to my eye, literally. My boys should be looking fairly decent for the playoffs though. In my two fantasy leagues, I’m done in each of them. I’m battling for the 11th Place slot in #basketball’s elite A#BA, while in my local money league I got rocked this year, meaning someone will break my attempt to go after my 4th straight title. I want that on my ESPN SportsCentury show whenever it gets made.

On Wednesday, I actually had a class of just 2 kids. How tough is that? Seniors at that, so it made for a real easy day. Same thing happened today. One class I had 2 kids again, with one being a teacher assistant. Gotta love those gigs. Another class I had a whopping 4 kids. How can I handle this insane pressure? I got my hands full, let me tell ya. Tomorrow I play shop teacher, something I know as much about as Corndog’s donkey. That’ll be funny times I’m sure. I never have a problem with those kids though. They’re about as laid back as it gets.

Back to the CDs. I update this through Word every so often and when I’m ready for a big post, I have all of my thoughts together. Weird, I know, but I like to be organized. Anyways, above you saw that I got C-Murder’s latest and said I was slacking. Last night I loaded up though and here’s what we opened up as our latest presents:

E.B. Daddy Of Da Hood: Hood Rebel. No idea on this guy, but I saw his name and figured it’d be worth a download. Plus, the name is funny and it’s rap, so it can’t be too bad.

Iceburg Slimm: The World On Ice. Another one I didn’t know anything about honestly, so I downloaded him too. This, as well as E.B. both sound good just by sampling a few things, but I haven’t listened to the entire thing. If you have some info on these two guys, which is probably 0.0000002% of the population, then hit me up.

Ice Cube: The C.I.A. EP: This one is straight out of 1986. Back in those days, he would’ve been 16 or turning 17 in that year. This one has 6 tracks and only 3 of those are vocal. It’s raw though from what I can tell, but I like getting rare things, so this goes with the bunch. The other 3 tracks are instrumentals of the 3 opening vocal selections. I’m still cracking up that XXX The Movie has gone gangsta. Cube is one of my favorite rappers of all time.



Obie Trice: The Most Underrated. This is one that wasn’t released and came out before his debut of Cheers. Oh, Obie, where have you been lately? Cheers is a great album, yet they didn’t do anything with it. I’m disappointed. Good that I found another Obie CD to get though to add to the collection.

It’s tennis season, or close enough. We’re trying to get a steady crew this year to play, so let us know if you want in on some action. Just from the balls guys I’ve talked to there is Cork, Spank, Stevie Buck, and Donovan that are ready to battle at any time. Me and Cork got in a bunch of night tennis last year, which is awesome by the way. Can’t beat playing tennis under the lights at 1:00 in the morning before rolling into Denny’s with sweaty nads. We fit right in with the drunks and dirty strippers who are there late at night. Then again, we’re nocturnal.

3 Quick Thangs

1. Is there a song in NBA arenas that gets played more than Big Pimpin’? Every single game features this multiple times.

2. Is there a better name in baseball than Chone Figgins?

3. High up in my chick rankings is the short shorts and long socks combo. Just thought I’d point that out.

Anything & Everything: The Big Post

Last Sunday was the annual #basketball fantasy baseball league, more commonly dubbed as A#BL. I won’t go into huge detail on how our draft went, but I will at least give you my Opening Day roster before we move onto a slew of other topics. As you see these 20 players, the first 5 players are keepers, meaning that we keep 5 players at the end of each season. The other 15 on our team we welcome as new members to the team. This is an 18-man league by the way. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here is YOUR 2005 St. Paul Apostles:



1. Johan Santana: SP (MIN)
2. Frankie Rodriguez: RP (ANA)
3. Hideki Matsui: OF (NYY)
4. Jorge Posada: C (NYY)
5. Marcus Giles: 2B (ATL)
6. David Wright: 3B (NYM)
7. Khalil Greene: SS (SD)
8. Lew Ford: OF (MIN)
9. Rodrigo Lopez: SP (BAL)
10. Bobby Madritsch: SP (SEA)
11. Carlos Pena: 1B (DET)
12. Jeremy Reed: OF (SEA)
13. Ty Wigginton: 3B (PIT)
14. Clint Barmes: SS (COL)
15. Chris Capuano: SP (MIL)
16. D’Angelo Jiminez: 2B (CIN)
17. David Bush: SP (TOR)
18. David DeJesus: OF (KC)
19. Ryan Madson: RP (PHI)
20. Hee Seop Choi: 1B (LA)

Sunday night is our first game of the season and that pits heated rivals Yankees against the Red Sox. To me, this isn’t the real Opening Day. I know my boys are playing and the world will be watching. I understand that. But baseball just doesn’t have the same feel to me if it “opens” up at 8:00 at night. Monday is the real Opening “Day” as games then begin during the actual day. Wow, that’s something creative. I like watching baseball under the lights as much as the next guy and know that the majority of games are played at night, but give me some old school daytime baseball anyday of the week over night games. I am absolutely stoked to get the baseball season underway though. Although it can’t compare to the NBA, the MLB ranks a fairly close second in my list of sports. Sorry football fans, basketball and baseball own you as far as my personal likings. You just got p0wned! I’ll talk a lot more throughout the season on both the St. Paul Apostles and the Yankees, so stay tuned.

In what used to be a regular tradition, the #basketball crew got together last weekend to battle it out. Battle it out in what you ask? None other than Yahoo Graffiti. This is basically Win, Lose, Or Draw or Pictionary if you will. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but this stuff is addicting. Funny how a game like this can keep a group of guys pushing 30 years old to make it out to be competitive with some trash talk. Most of us are horrible drawers, which makes it even better just to see what some of us draw. This past weekend’s champion was the familiar DerekHood, so big props there to him.

Also in something that catches on with the #basketball crowd, we battle in Texas Hold Em Poker quite a bit too, or used to anyways. We did that the same night and that’s usually a good time as well. I stumbled across a new Poker host (not that I don’t already have enough the way it is) while watching BET late at night like I normally would do called World Poker Exchange. You can hit that up at http://www.worldpx.com. All of these hosts are pretty much the same thing, but I have that, Pacific Poker, PokerStars, and Party Poker.



The new Ashanti video, whew.. just when I think she can’t look any better.

Layzie Bone & Bizzy Bone: Bone Brothers. This might possibly be my favorite album of the year so far. That’s giving it a lot of hype, and with as many CDs as I listen to in due time, that’s some respect. I didn’t expect a whole lot from this one, but it straight up delivers the goodies. I was VERY impressed.

Lil Flip & Z-Ro: Kings Of The South. Another very good one here and I’m not just saying this to start a trend. Both of these guys bash T.I. hard throughout their tracks. They also give a lot of respect to DJ Screw in this as well.

Omarion: O. Let’s go 3-3 and keep hitting. After the hard rap, it was time to get into the pimpin’ mood to lay the flow down. I didn’t think Omarion’s first solo project would be worth anything, but once again, I had to eat my words. Omarion has matured a lot in this one and even touches on the situation with B2K, being honest with that on one of his songs.

2Pac: Ready 2 Die. Seriously now, when is enough? I’m a big 2Pac guy and all, but he can’t possibly have this much “old” stuff just laying around to make album after album. What’s going on here? I haven’t checked this one out though to give a review, but there’s a video already out for this one. Weird.

WrestleMania XXI on Sunday! This is the Super Bowl of wrestling and a must get for all wrestling fans. If you don’t buy a Pay Per View all year, you should save up and wait for this one if nothing else and chuck in the $50. I’ll give a quick rundown, even if I’ve already posted my predictions in the mecca known as Lobstah. And since I’m lazy and already wasting a lot of your time, I’ll just paste my predictions. 8 matches are announced for the big show, and here is what is scheduled:



Triple H (C) vs. Batista. World Heavyweight Title Match. (Batista) I almost want to take Triple H here, but I guess with all of the hype, I go for HHH to lose the title to his boy.

Bradshaw (C) vs. John Cena. WWE Title Match. (Bradshaw) I'm going for this out of the fact that Vince is in love with Bradshaw. He's bound to lose that title sooner or later though, but is Cena ready for that?

Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels. (Shawn Michaels) I can't wait for this match! This match here will be worth the $50 price alone. Hopefully it tears the roof off the place. Angle went out to even say that he'll steal the show that night, so we better watch.

Undertaker vs. Randy Orton. (Undertaker) I look for him to continue his undefeated WrestleMania streak.

Christian vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Edge vs. Jericho vs. Benoit vs. Kane. Money In The Bank Ladder Match. (Jericho) I don’t really have a reasoning for picking Y2J here. I’d like to see Christian get a big push, but doubt that happens, even though he can work the mic with the best of them and has nice ring skills to match. Please, anyone but Kane.

Trish Stratus (C) vs. Christy Hemme. Women's Title Match. (Christy Hemme) I can't believe I'm picking her since she's not a wrestler, ugh. At least it'll be awesome to see Trish bouncing around and Hemme doing the same can't be a bad thing.

Big Show vs. Akebono. Sumo Match. (Big Show) This will be the bathroom break.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. (Eddie) Another one I can't wait for. This one has potential to rival the HBK/Angle match.

The best ice cream flavor possibly of all time? Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. This is vanilla ice cream with cherries and chunks of chocolate in it. It’s similar to the new Dairy Queen Blizzard, except that one has strawberries instead of cherries. I went off eating this stuff during the week, but it’s expensive. I paid like $3.50 or more for a pint and that’s not good, but since it’s quality stuff, I had to shell out to get some quality. If you haven’t checked this out yet, you need to get caught up with the game.

I’m not much of a TV flipper outside of my regular channels. I was checking out A&E the other day, something I rarely do, but found a few shows that I might have to start watching more often. The first is Dog: The Bounty Hunter. Like everyone else, I got tired of seeing the same cop shows over and over and didn’t think they could do anything new with them. Anyways, apparently the first season is over and the next season starts next Tuesday. This guy is marketed as a tough dude, and he is I guess, who you guessed it, goes out and busts crime. He has a team setup of his chick, his son, his brother, and their nephew. This is a rough looking dude and the whole crew is actually. I’ve only seen a few episodes, but it’s quality stuff. One episode had the crew break up into two teams and they each had a fugitive to go after. They had a game to see who could find their thug first. The funny part of it is that “Dog” doesn’t really have an outfit. He’s a Harley type dude with tats all over him and wears his badge around his neck and is strapped. He did time in prison in the 1970s, but now he’s turned things around. I can’t believe I just typed a full paragraph on this show, but I think it’s worth checking out if you haven’t yet. Or I could be easily amused, who knows.



Another A&E show that I liked upon seeing is Growing Up Gotti. When the previews for this came out when they first started showing this series, I didn’t think much of it. But basically you have a reality show (imagine that concept these days on TV) of John Gotti’s daughter and her three sons. Just think of it as The Osbournes go Mafia. Victoria Gotti is a hottie MILF. The kids make the show though, as these guys are just straight up punks, but they’re hilarious. Everytime I hear a Gotti story, I always crack up at how “Donnie Brasco” for the Italian locals said he used to live by John Gotti himself. Who knows on that one. It’s a madhouse though, but it’s definitely entertaining.

The fishing trip was a good time, but the water conditions weren’t to our favor. A ton of rain went down before we got there, so that got the streams crazy high and all muddy. Take my word for it, you won’t catch in those conditions. We did some lake fishing on the first day and did ok and then the next few days we finally got to hit up the streams, which I like better anyways. We did ok in the catching department, but didn’t slay them this time. That happens. How about all of the animals I saw in the “mountains” as we call them around here. I was about 2 hours away from home all week and we rented a nice house that was loaded up good. It’s just something my parents and I have done for 20 years straight or so and nice to get away from the mean streets of Shinnston just to relax. I did take the GameCube along though and played a ton of MVP Baseball 2005. I’ve started up yet another dynasty and this one is with my Yanks. Hopefully I can stay with this one as all is going well so far. Check out all of the animals I saw all week up there though: Deer, sheep, beavers, geese, cows, horses, dogs, cats, fish of course, vultures, cardinals, and I’m sure I’m missing a few others. Wild kingdom up there, good to see.

I better start to wrap things up. I had to reserve gold earlier this week and went to pick it up. How’d I get my hands on gold you ask? It’s the 2004-05 Official NBA Guide. The definitive source you need if you’re a true hardcore NBA fan, which there’s only a handful of anyways. I could look at this book all day and never get tired of it. It has every single player and every single roster of all time in there and stats on anything you can imagine, short of how many chicks they slept with. You want to know who made All-NBA 2nd Team in 1958? It’s in there. How about how many All Star Games that Jerry Sloan played in? Most fouls in a 3-game series? Lowest percentage of games disqualified? Any kind of weird stat you can think of, it’s there. 750 pages worth! You need this bad boy, so please donate $18.95 to The Sporting News to support the greatest organization ever, the NBA.

3 Quick Thangs:



1. Running commercials on BET is Jamster ads that you can get Mike Jones ringtones. I need a cell phone just for that. Who? Mike Jones! One is Still Tippin’ and the other has him screaming his catchphrase over and over. And I’m now officially jealous that DerekHood is seeing him in concert this June.

2. Ok.. We didn’t need minute-by-minute updates of when Schiavo and The Pope were dying. I understand it’s big news and all, but it’s not a baseball game to where we need stats. Good Ol’ Jim Ross should’ve provided commentary. They weren’t far off from doing that.

3. June 10th at the ECW Arena in Philly! I better stop now before I go into a seizure. More on this later. http://www.hardcorehomecoming.com/#