This will be brief….I think I’m going to finish The Da Vinci Code within the hour….the pace is furious…..

I’d like to give a big fuck you to those who say what they’d never say TO me, ABOUT me….whoever you may be.

Suck something long and hard that emits liquid…..

Man I had a really GOOD weekend. I really, really, really enjoyed myself ya’ll!

Friday night I started out at Berchaun’s house with the usual suspects playing poker. I actually won some money!!! Then Eman, Percy, and I headed to the club. I actually paid too much to get in (I should start checking my messages more often!), but it didn’t matter to me. I got some good harrassment in (ummmm…sorry to my students who I harrassed for a prolonged time period…I was drunk…you know who you are…although hopefully you don’t know about this page)….ummm…the one chick I wrote about way back earlier this summer (you know me “manning up”…) was NOT there….as a matter of fact I haven’t seen her since this summer leading me to believe she’s probably seriously involved, or just doesn’t kick it like that….either way it’s not meant to be….

At any rate by the time I left I was drunk, but in good spirits….I got home and my favorite football team, Liverpool, was playing in the UEFA Super Cup against C.S.K.A. Moscow. They were down 1-nil when I turned the game on, but Djibril Cisse came on as a late substitute and won the game single-handedly just about, in extra time. I passed out after the second goal.

Saturday I slept late and tried to read The Da Vinci Code when I could. It was great, but then I got a call about lunch at Moe’s! They finally got a Moe’s here in Nashville!!!! So me and H hit that up, I also made a few purchases at Best Buy (notably Sin City and some new earbud headphones).

I had plans for the afternoon, but those got moved to evening plans. I ended up going to a surprise party for one of my poker friends Ian. I had a good time there hanging with the third year meds. The food was the bomb too!! Alice (I think that’s how you spell it) hooked it up man!! I even played spades for a bit.

Yesterday was a lazy day. I mostly thought about what I was going to be doing later this week in LA. I can’t wait man!! I watched Rome which was decent enough to make me want to give it about 5 episodes and see if I want to continue. Entourage was OUTSTANDING. Whatever I’m doing in LA Sunday I HAVE to watch the season finale of that bad boy!

I stayed up longer than I intended reading The Da Vinci Code (which is TRULY a page turner like everyone said it would be) and watching Sin City (such a great movie).

Hell the Braves even gained 2 games on the competition in the NL East this weekend. All in all everything is good, leading into LA.

It all started in the summer of 1998 for me. I was working at Rack Room Shoes and as a result I had to wake up fairly early most days. I would happen to turn the TV on and they were showing soccer matches for some odd reason, and a funny thing happened, I started to really get into it. Turns out I was watching the 1998 World Cup Matches from France.

I recalled that besides in the US, soccer is the biggest sport in the world, and I finally got a taste for why that was the case. It was amazing to watch certain games, particularly those involving Roberto Baggio and Italy. I would get to work and talk to the assistant manager (and all around cool guy) Brian about the matches. He was a bit more into it, he caught me up on a few things. I remember being a little bit sad after the final, partly because France won, and I didn’t like their team, and partly because I knew that my brief love affair of soccer (like so many summer loves) would be over, never to be seen again.

Then came the summer of 2002. I was working at Meharry at the time, hell I may have even written an entry or two in the old blog about it. At any rate, I would watch those world cup matches with a renewed vigor. I knew a bit more, but still I was only a very inexperienced layman.

Then I met Julian. Julian got me hooked on soccer, between playing FIFA with him and discovering Fox Soccer Channel I became a full blown football fan!

The thing about it is, people say it’s boring, it’s no more boring than your average baseball game or even defensive American Football contest. They don’t score alot, but man when they do it’s GREAT!

There are four main positions and eleven men on the field for each team (just like American Football).

Goalkeeper is pretty much as the name implies, there is one, and his job is to keep the ball out of the net. He’s the only one allowed to touch the ball with his hands. They are like defensive line players in American Football or a center in basketball.

Defenders are the 4 (usually) guys directly in front of the goalkeeper who generally try to keep the ball out of the penalty box/scoring area. They are like the defensive backs in American Football.

Midfielders are the 4 (usually) guys who are in the middle of the field (see how easy this is!!) They generally distribute the ball around like a point guard in basketball, and they are also comparable to a Michael Vick like QB in American Football. They make everything happen! David Beckham (of Bend It Like Beckham fame) is a midfielder. They score a bit, but not as much generally as….

Forwards/Strikers are the 2 (usually) guys at the front of the attack. They are the “glory” guys, the shooting guards/wide recievers. They get the ball in position to score, and take their best shot. The best ones can create their own shot, like Thierry Henry of Arsenal/France.

It consists of 2 45 minute halves that generally don’t stop for much of anything. When the ball goes out of bounds, it’s thrown back in, set up for a corner kick (if it goes past the far end off of the opponent), or set up for a goal kick (kinda like a punt, if it goes off an attackers from the far end). Any stoppages of play are added on to the end of each half as “stoppage time” and the clock is ALWAYS running.

There are fouls of varying degrees. It’s usually left up to a referee’s discretion like in basketball, but unlike in basketball there is a different system for “harder” fouls than run of the mill fouls. If it’s a hard foul you get “booked”, meaning you are literally written into the referee’s booklet he carries in his shirt pocket and get a yellow card. In cases of an extremely wreckless foul/second yellow card you get a red card and get “sent off”, leaving your team a man down. After ALL fouls in the general field of play, the offended team is awarded a free kick, EXCEPT in the penalty area where a penalty shot is awarded (one of the most exciting times in a match when it happens!).

Because of the nature of the game, alot of matches end in ties, however in the case of a tournament final or some other match where there is no return match and one team has to win, you get to extra time, and then penalty kicks. Those are the most exciting endings in sport!

At any rate, here in America we have a national team that plays in events like the World Cup (if we qualify and we should for 2006!), and we also have “club level” teams. Our top club level is the MLS, which generally operates like most American sports leagues. However in Europe things are a little different. Each country has a primary division of about 14-20 teams and a secondary division with around the same number of teams. At the end of the season (using the English Premier League), the bottom three teams from the top league get “relegated” (sent down) and then the top two teams from the next division below plus the winner of a special tournament are promoted. Imagine this in American sports!!! The Hawks would be an NBDL team!! This makes stakes a bit higher in my opinion!

There are also leagues like the “Champion’s League” or the “UEFA Cup” which pit the top clubs in different leagues against one another for the title of European/South American/Asian Champions! This goes on during the regular seasons of club play. My favorite team, Liverpool, won Champion’s League last year. Other teams featured in Champion’s League were La Liga’s Real Madrid (David Beckham and for now Michael Owen play there….for you all who aren’t up on your geography, Madrid is in Spain), AC Milan and Juventus of Italy’s Serie A, and Bayern Munich (of Germany’s Bundesliga).

Anyway, I hope I sparked an interest in Football in at least ONE person! It’s great!!!!

I’ve been neglecting this joint….

I’ve been writing ALOT on my livejournal….of course I’ve been giving various thoughts on message boards….hell I even made an entry on last.fm and on my frigging myspace!! Basically anywhere except here. I wonder what that’s about?

I’m the most incredibly accessable inaccessable person on the face of the planet, I know that much!

Gancing - supposedly heterosexual men dancing together with various poses and such.
G.E.C. - Gaylord Entertainment Center (very appropriately named last night!)

See, what had happened was….

I was chilling at the crib playing a few hands of poker (I was up over 10,000 in play money), when I got an AIM message from Julian. He asked me my thoughts on the Scream IV tour. I told him that I thought it was deplorable and gay of course. So then he tells me, be that as it may, he had a spare ticket and his wife wouldn’t be able to go. I laughed it off at first, then he played his trump card. He told me that they were in the luxury box.

Now for my readers who have never had the chance to view an event in a luxury box….well, put it this way, a luxury box would make a Barney and Friends concert bearable.

So after a little thought, I figured, why the hell not?!?

Now at this point I shouldn’t have told Eman….because he IMMEDIATELY called Geoff….I got taunting phone calls from them later!

I breathed a sigh of relief as we hit the door, as Marquis Houston wouldn’t be able to perform. That knocked off a great deal of the “gay” factor. At any rate, turns out Julian got his tickets from this guy whose name I will SURELY misspell, but I’ll give it a shot….Shashone…..yeah that’s phonetically correct at least….anyway, yeah that guy and his wife were there along with a box full of kids who looked to range in age from like 8 - 16. The luxury box had jumbo shrimp, mac and cheese, sliced roasted turkey, and a fridge full of beer. Apparently, they knew that the unfortunate adults needed as much fringe benefit as possible. A few other adults showed up after awhile, but man….I had forgotten about these little teenybopper concerts!!

NON-STOP HIGH PITCHED WAILING FROM LITTLE GIRLS!! NON-FUCKING-STOP!!!! Oh look, Bobby Valentino just grabbed his crotch *SCREAM!!* Oh look, Bow Wow just burped *SCREAM!!!!!!!!* It’s not called the Scream tour for nothing folks!

We arrived late enough to miss Pretty Ricky, surely a good thing. As a matter of fact, Bobby Valentino was wrapping up his set, so mainly we arrived at the “main event”…Bow Wow and Omarion.

They came out at once and performed Jigga and R.Kelly’s “hit”….Best of Both Worlds. Of course by this time the girls were at a fever pitch. I’m sure more than a few passed out like a European MJ fan.

I’ve got to say, Bow Wow wasn’t that bad. I had forgotten about the songs of his I had downloaded on my computer. J.D. laced him with the beats man, what can I say?

Omarion….well he did have 2 female dancers (who had some gratuitous ass shaking shots on the big screen for about 10 seconds as a token “thank you” to the straight males in the audience….thanks for the effort!) for a couple of sets, although his main M.O. seemed to be prancing and gancing with his cadre of male backup dancers. You CANNOT tell me that lil dude isn’t gay or at least trying to channel the spirit of MJ’s effeminence, especially when he kept teasing the audience with “Ohhhhhh’s” and cooing “I luh yoo…” over and over again.

I have to be honest, I did enjoy certain aspects of the concert itself, like when the dualing DJ’s played some ATL music (You Don’t Know Me, Dem Boyz, Then What) and the crowd got hyper than it did for ANY of the performers.

The concert went well past the bed times of the target audience, but then again, I don’t think they have bedtimes anymore. Julian summed it up best as we were leaving through the throngs of 12 and 13 year old scantly clad girls….”Well dude…there goes the next generation of hookers”….yep….there they were indeed.

Now before you click the comment box to make fun of me, realize that I did this for YOU all. I went to that concert for YA’LL!!! I did it so you could live vicariously through me! Be gentle!

Friday

Woke up and cleaned up a bit. Went to get a haircut and ate some popeyes then I got a call from Baby J who was wanting to know if mom had made it in yet (she hadn’t). She told me there was something going on outside, so I went to check it out. I brought a keg with me because there is usually a keg associated with outdoor events. Such wasn’t the case this time. So I was out there like an ass with an empty cup *shrug*.

I saw a few people I hadn’t seen in a while, namely Candace, Hoka, and Shenika. I found out that people actually still read this page, despite it’s lack of frequent updates. For some reason this pleased me.

I had a request to write about the sentiment (particularly from a few Vandy residents) that people at Meharry go here because that’s the only place we can go. As if we are yearning deep in our heart to attend Vandy or it’s ilk. It couldn’t be further from the truth (at least for me and a large number of people I know…although I WILL say that there are some at Meharry who do feel that way) and tomorrow I’ll go into more depth as to how I feel. At any rate I have another agenda…..

So yeah, after a little delay mom and Radiance arrive. Radiance changes for the game and I set up a movie for mom to watch. We basically stayed in.

Saturday

I don’t sleep particularly well on couches. I guess I’m spoiled by matresses and “egg crates”. I woke up at the crack of dawn to the sound of my mother’s phone which has an alarm set for 6 AM! I got just a bit more sleep before hearing from Heather about breakfast. We headed to Le Peep out on Elliston Place. It was cool.

Then we headed to Opry Mills. I sat in one of the vibrating chairs for the first time. We’ve passed those things dozens of times and never gave them a second thought, but those things are great! Anyway, while at the mall I bought a shirt for later that night and some much needed sunglasses.

We left the mall and headed out to Bellevue where I got my first glimpse of G&H’s flatscreen HDTV. That shit is LOVELY. I gotta have one when I get a job!

Anyway after that we headed out to some birthday shenanigans for Julian the house slanger. On the way out there we stopped at Eman’s to see the twins so Nina would stop bugging Mom about it. They were funny. They are kinda mean, which I guess is good…you know the whole not trusting strangers thing, but my feelings were a little hurt that they didn’t let me pick them up without kicking me in the chest and stomach. Kids usually like me!

Anyway after that short visit we made it out to the shenanigans. I had a nice time. Met some interesting people. Mom got to meet the family. I even had a few margaritas.

After that we dropped mom off and headed to the Alpha BBQ out at Centenial Park. It wasn’t as jumping as years past, BUT there was a keg and that’s all I really need. I got nice and drunk!

I somehow got home and managed to change clothes for the linen joint. I had fun up in there as well. I drank and watched the Falcons game on the big screen. I didn’t have to dance/make a fool of myself and that’s always good.

I got home and managed to not throw up despite being VERY drunk and I passed out.

Sunday

Mom and Rai left pretty early. They left and I went back to sleep during a soccer game. When I woke up I had missed a chance to go to lunch. I ended up going out to G&H’s eventually to help kill the keg (which was dead by the time I got there). I ate REAL good. I had about 2 plates of macaroni and cheese along with other BBQ related foods. We watched an episode of Nick Cannon’s Show on MTV, Anchorman, Six Feet Under (which was sick as hell….see my livejournal), and Entourage. I ended up just staying out there for the night.

Monday

I made some spaghetti and thought I was gonna just call it a night early, but I got a call from Berchaun about a poker game going on so I attended my very first LIVE poker game (as opposed to online). I fucked up my first deal….BAD. I ended up burning three cards on the flop. I also lost about $18 bucks, but oddly enough I had fun. I was making bad bets and losing money, but still managed to enjoy it. Yeah I know, I’m strange.

Anyway…that’s your update on my so called life….til next time….

I’m very excited at this moment. I got a call yesterday from my mom, saying that she might be coming up this weekend with my cousin Radiance (she’s coming for the Titans game).

I may have mentioned it before, but my mom’s only seen my apartment ONCE. And that was for all of like 30 minutes. It was the same weekend that Rai graduated from TSU, and also the same weekend she gave me a debilitating case of the flu.

Anyway, I have no idea what we are going to do this weekend. I need to clean up my apartment (which is now back to status quo messyness).

I’m sorry for both the lack of quantity AND quality in my writing lately. I’m just not feeling it. I’d rather play pokemon (yes, laugh all you want…that shit is FUN!). I got the new Madden. I’ve yet to win a game. Laugh at that too!

Maybe Mom’s visit will give me something to write about!

No, this entry is not about Ronny Mexico a.k.a. Mike Vick. No, this harkens back to a time when the Falcons were QB’d by the likes of David Archer, Billy Joe Tolliver, and Hugh Millen!

Of course I have always been a Falcons fan, but I also liked to see football played the right way. So in that vein I started to follow Dan Marino.

Because the Falcons sucked so badly and didn’t sell out alot of games, we’d get out of market games on NBC pretty often so I got to see more than my fair share of Fins games growing up and Dan Marino was just AMAZING. His release was so quick and he would just find that right little slot to needle his pass through.

Even at the end of his career when Jimmy Johnson tried to railroad him he was STILL a winner. When he came back from his achilles tendon tear to lead the league in passing in 1994 he pretty much solidified his standing as best ever….well except for the fact that he never won a Super Bowl. But as I stated on a message board earlier, I almost think it’s better that way, otherwise, there’d be on question!

So yeah, today he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. His speech was great! But he made it one of “those” moments at the end! He had his son toss him a ball, then he pointed out Mark Clayton in the middle of the crowd and told him to “go long”. Then he hit him with a trademark Marino Pass, dead on the mark!

That’s why Dan is the Man and my favorite player of all time!

Yeah I got bored and a few people on my livejournal friend list had done one so I figured why the hell not!

Take my Quiz….

I don’t expect ANYONE to get 100….so don’t feel bad if you don’t….or don’t even come close….

I know alot of assholes….and you know what? I have no problem hanging with them and calling them my friends. Some of them are obnoxious. Some of them push the limits. But you know what, when it comes down to it, they are really good/kind hearted people. More often than not they just tend to say what’s on their mind a little more than most folks.

This is in contrast to a type of individual who sometimes gets lumped into the “asshole” category, but is really something more. These are your mean spirited people. All “mean spirits” are assholes, but not all assholes are “mean spirits”. These people have malicious intent, and don’t really give a fuck about most folks sans a select few. These are people who talk about other people ad naseum for no reason other than they are bored. These are people who step on, decieve, and hurt other people for personal gain.

Assholes are okay with me, but mean spirited folks are not. Sometimes it’s hard to see the difference….until it’s too late. Then you have to treat mean spirited folks like cancer…and remove them and do what you can to prevent their return.