Rain falls on the just and the unjust.

More random thoughts

2006-11-29T11:50:00.000-05:00

The best line in a hop-hop song this year was uttered by Lil' Wayne.

Let's stop and think about that for a second. Yes, in my opinion, Lil' Weezie, from the Cash Money Clique (or however they are spelling it these days), had the best line in hip-hop this year. And I'm going to back it up.

Regular readers know I've voiced my opinion on the state of hip-hop before, once or twice. I'm not a fan per se of CMB or Wayne - I guess he's not calling himself "Lil" anymore since he's now of legal age and doesn't feel the need to honor the promise he made to his moms not to curse so she would let him be a rap artist at age 15 or whenever - but this one line was hot.

I'm not the only person that thinks this about this line, from "Stuntin Like My Daddy". Other people like it too, evidenced by the fact that I keep seeing people quote it. But the ironic part is this: everybody quotes it wrong. I guess that's because he sounds like his mouth is full of a bag of potato chips when he says it:

How you want it
Show me my opponents
(stuffs his mouth with a newspaper)
Thothamaoppomuth

It is my studied and learned opinion that the only way the line makes sense is if he says "Those are my opponents", i.e. he ate them for breakfast. But everyone I have seen quote it simply repeats the second line again - "Show me my opponents", which makes no sense at all. Of course, I might be giving him too much credit - maybe he did in fact repeat the second line, but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Next time you hear the song, listen closely, and then tell me what you think.

Moving on to other topics.... I have a crush on Wanda Sykes. For those of you who know me and know something about my tastes, you might see a pattern with past crushes. It won't last, and I sure as hell am not going to try to explain it. But if you happen to run into her within the next 60 days, put in a good word for me.

And one last rant.... Why did I not discover until yesterday that my DC driver's license expires today? Other places I've lived just mailed me a new license, or at least a reminder if I owed parking tickets (and we won't get into my relationship with parking tickets right now). Thanks DC... just where I wanted to spend my birthday, the DMV!

Lessons from Halloween

2006-11-02T12:46:00.000-05:00

I know Halloween was two days ago, and we Americans don't really like looking back at holidays but instead look forward, but there are some observations I had that I just have to share with you all:

The 5 minute trip to CVS to buy the $5 made-in-China hockey mask on your way to a costume party works if you are the only slacker in the room, and everybody already knows you are a slacker. When there are five guys in the room doing the same thing, it just makes you look wack.

Your bathrobe is not a halloween costume

Although I am sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, painting your entire upper body green and going as "The Hulk" doesn't really work well in practice. For one, if you are at a party in close quarters with other people, the paint rubs off on everything. But if you are dead set on doing this costume, please make sure you have enough paint to cover your entire exposed body. Thin streaks of greenish smudges doesn't really flatter anyone.

If you're going to do a funky/different costume, pick one that's at least somewhat recognizable. Hybrid or obscure costumes don't work.
Yes, I am guilty of this one.

If all the elements of your costume come from regular sections of your own closet, is it really a costume?
Yes, I am guilty of this one too. So sue me.

For some reason, the press got all worked up this year over the fact that "sexy" costumes are in more demand than "scary" costumes, particularly for young adults. This is not news. Halloween is the best excuse of the year for any random woman to dress in a relatively slutty fashion, get drunk, do things she wouldn't do, and have a perfectly plausible excuse. We guys are onto this, although we will continue to pretend we are not so that you gals will continue doing this.

The sin of low expectations

2006-10-19T14:20:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, we had an offsite meeting at work. The entire department (about 30-40 people) was in a cramped up meeting room for a day and a half, enduring Powerpoint presentations so dry they would make your skin peel. As you can imagine, I had a hard time staying focused during this marathon of boredom. So when we had the chance to break off into small teams and do a team exercise, I jumped on it. We were in teams of five, and each team was required to have a presenter, a scribe and a timekeeper - standard meeting management theory. I volunteered to be the presenter, because I figured that getting up and talking, even for 5 minutes, would be more interesting than listening to someone else talk.

Given some written goals, our team's job was to come up with strategies to achieve them and some metrics to measure progress; standard corporate stuff. So it's not like I had a fascinating topic to discuss. But I got up, did my talk-through, and went about my business.

I must have left some kind of impression on my co-workers (and I use the term lightly, since I'm a sub-contractor and could be gone at any time). A steady stream of people came up to me later that day and the next day to tell me how impressed they were with my presentation and my public speaking ability. I have taken a public speaking class, but I am by no means any kind of orator. But I guess the bar is low around here. You would have thought I was the next Winston Churchill or something.

Now I have to figure out how to turn this to my advantage. Of course, my project manager left before any of these people made these comments, but I am hoping it will filter around to him at some point. My review is ongoing as we speak, so hopefully this will play well into a bonus or something, and not just more speaking assignments.

At the crossroads

2006-10-16T14:28:00.000-04:00

First, let me apologize to my readers, if I actually have any left. I haven't written in well over a month, largely because I had nothing to say. The muse had left me. Of the topics and siutations to discuss that did come to mind, too many of them involved friends and acquaintances and necessitated revealing too much personal detail for a forum of this type. I've found something better to talk about, though.

This past weekend, I had the occasion to take a trip to Atlanta, and I spent a day hanging out with one of my old college roommates. I hadn't seen him in a few years, mostly because out of the rest of our "crew" from those days, no one else still talks to him, and so it is hard for me to integrate him into other trips I've made to Atlanta. He's something of a character - charisma in spades, questionable morals (at least until you find out what his philosophy of life is), smart but not genius smart. I've never had too many problems with him, as long as I didn't personally get mixed up in his schemes, but many others have decided they couldn't deal.

Of course, a lot of these judgments are based on incidents that happened as far back as 1992. I like to think I've grown and matured a lot since college, and I try to give others the same consideration. Who here has not done at least a few silly, childish, or slightly immoral things while in college? And if you're raising your hand, I would wager you missed out on a sizable portion of the actual learning experience in college.

Anyway, my friend gave me some things to think about. We caught up on where we each are in our respective lives. He's always been maverick enough not to work for someone else, and he's been involved in putting together a local TV show down there, having a part-ownership share in a nightclub, and other random entrepreneurial activities. He is not yet rich, nor as famous as he wants to be, but out of all my friends with spoken ambitions, he probably puts forward the most effort on a daily basis towards achieving these ends, whatever that requires.

On Sunday, that required tearing down drywall, closet and wall framing and ceiling materials in a commercial property that he's gutting and remodeling to turn into a tv studio. I helped out for a while, pulling and whacking away with a crowbar, an 8 lb. sledgehammer, an axe and (later, when we got a little smarter) a circular saw. He gets a kick out of telling women he workss in "construction", although that's only been for two weeks, and maybe will last two weeks more. For what it's worth, the young women we met outside Gladys & Ron's Chicken & Waffles thought he looked more like a poet. But they also thought I looked like an accountant (while wearing jeans and a sweatshirt), so maybe their judgment wasn't so good.

We also talked about the steady trickle of some of our friends out to the suburbs, to McMansions, to picket fences and dogs and babies and 401Ks and climbing the management chain at Fortune 500s and a comfortable if boring life. His take on it? They have slowly given up on their dreams, one by one, dream by dream, and accepted comfort and mediocrity and boredom.

So I had to think about that. Of course, not every has the same dreams. For example, we talked about another of our friends, who was among the first of us to plunge headlong into marriage, fatherhood, and suburban life. He's always been that kind of guy, and so by the yardstick in his world, he is fulfilling his dreams, and that works for him. I've never really been in that mold, and so while I watch them go down that path, part of me wonders if I am missing out, and part of me recoils in revulsion. While I certainly don't have the same exact desire as my friend to be rich and famous, I certainly don't want to struggle, or depend on anyone else for my livelihood... and that includes the Social Security Administration, Wall Street, an employer.

I have recently been developing a business idea, and trying to think how I can make my current employer my last employer... that is to say, to work for myself thereafter. Of course, any business will have clients and customers, to whom it still must answer, but that is infinitely preferable to just collecting a W-2 salary for the rest of my life. There is great risk involved, and great reward. I can't yet say I am ready to make the leap. But my resolve and certainty in choosing this path is greater than it was.

The way I see it, many folks come to this crossroads once they cross age 30. Most give up the dreams of youth as mere fantasies, and embrace the realities of the corporate life. Some are forced that way, by unplanned pregnancies and hospitalized parents and health problems and generally, the hand they are dealt by life. Not everyone can decide to run off and be an entrepreneur, much less in a "glamorous" field like TV. And yet, there is no reason why I can't... not TV per se, but to follow dreams and pursue things I've always wanted to do. I don't have any kids, no family obligations to tie me down, no particular ties to my city or anything else. I'm smart enough to figure out most things, and conceited enough to think that I can be in the top 15% of any endeavor with enough learning and practice and a little luck.

I always like to think that I would judge my life and the choices therein by the stories I will be able to tell my grandkids (or, at the rate I am going, my grand-nephew's goddaughter's kids). I never really cared much about money for its own sake, only in the things it can do for me, the doors it can open to places to be visited, experiences to be had, and the creation of new stories to tell. I don't care about fame, but if it happens to be a by-product of the other things, and opens more doors, so be it. But the best way I can think of to have those life experiences and tell those stories is to follow the dreams. So I've decided - I will figure out all the things in life I really care about, things I want to do, and from now on, everything I do will be tied to something on that list. It won't be a long list, either, but it will be broad enough to encompass a lot of discovery.

Stay tuned.

Friend or foe

2006-08-28T14:38:00.000-04:00

A while back, I started hanging out at Jin, a lounge near U st, quite a bit. It so happens that a friend of mine (we'll call her X) started tending bar there, and I liked the atmosphere, and the location isn't far from my house. It's a small place, and I quickly got to know most of the other employees. They're a lot of fun to hang out with, and we often pass the time thinking up ways the owner could get more customers in there. The food is pretty tasty, if a bit uppity, and the drinks are good, plus I get "good customer" discounts... which usually translates to free. I've said before that free liquor will be the death of me, and it turns out there may be some truth to that, but that's not quite what today's post is about.

One of the other bartenders (we'll call her Y) has decided that it is her mission in life to get me drunk whenever I see her. While I appreciate her enthusiasm, her skill in constructing deadly concoctions, and her willingness to slip free drinks my way, this often ends up being a double edged sword, because I frequently drive myself and have to limit what I drink. She never seems too concerned about that, and will often go toe to toe on the shots. Nothing like a bartender who's just as drunk as everybody else.

On the other hand, my friend X, whom I've known for years, will barely serve me anything anymore. She hands me the weakest drinks, albeit all free, and cuts me off very early. She lectures and nags me about being able to drive home, and tells me I drink too much. And I know this behavior is reserved for me, because another one of our friends gets plenty strong drinks from her AND from Y.

Some of the purpose of going out to places like that is to enjoy alcoholic beverages and the intoxicating effects that come with them. Somewhere between the two must be a happy medium. It's good that she cares enough to want me not to crash and kill myself or someone else, but is it too much to ask for even one stiff drink? Oh well, this is all probably going to be moot very soon...

The memo I didn't send

2006-07-18T16:12:00.000-04:00

On Sunday night, I was cleaning out my phone. I rarely throw away or completely erase anyone's phone number, because I figure I never know when it might come in handy, but that doesn't mean they need to be in my phone. I like to keep my phone book under 100 entries, so I can scroll through it easier. Everybody who doesn't need to be in the phone directory goes into a scratch file or something on my Palm for long term storage.

Anyway, I deleted a few people whose numbers no longer needed to be in the phone. One was a girl I went to lunch with once, called twice thereafter and hadn't heard from her since. I know a brushoff when I see one, so I deleted her number and kept it moving. I also deleted the number of a friend who I had always flirted around with... rather, we flirted around with each other. But then a while back she told me she was engaged to be married, and I figured it was best to let things go. So I deleted her number too.

Both of these people contacted me out of the blue on Monday. The lunch dater apologized for being all held up at work for days on end, and said she'd call again. The flirt... well, she popped up on IM (forgot to delete that one) and wanted to know how I was doing. I wasn't at my desk at the time, so I didn't get to find out why she'd contacted me. Oh well...

The lazy stroke

2006-07-13T09:26:00.000-04:00

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine about a guy that she dated, and then gave the brush-off, mostly because she was more interested in someone else. And he won't go away. He, in fact, is getting more and more pressed, saying things that indicate he is, for lack of a better word, sprung. So I joked with her and said she must have put it on him. And she laughed, in that self-confident way, and said she did a few extra tricks with him. And now he wants to come back.

There are some situations in which you don't really want to put it on someone that you are sleeping with. Maybe you don't know if you want them to stick around yet. Everybody doesn't deserve your A game. These situations call for the "lazy stroke". The lazy stroke doesn't necessarily mean to just be lazy. You still want to put in a good show. But you don't pull out the extra tricks, the extra effort. Just give them enough to enjoy it, but not enough to stay hooked.

I know some men do this. I have even done it myself, in the past, although at this stage in my life I'd be more likely to avoid her altogether if she was not deserving of the A game. I suspect some women do this, too, so I'd like to find out: ladies, have you ever given someone the lazy stroke?

Blown away

2006-07-05T15:17:00.000-04:00

I survived Hurricane Independence. Actually, it was a ferocious thunderstorm that lasted probably about 25 minutes, but it sure felt like being in a hurricane. I was out at Hain's Point at a friend's family barbecue, enjoying some ribs and potato salad and talking enough smack so that I could whoop whoever was left on the table when it was my turn to play dominoes.

Being that this was a standard black folk production, there was all manner of liquor hidden up in coolers and what not. So when we saw the Park Police roll a truck up on the grass and pull the nose right up on the family barbecuing next to us (and they had tents!), we scurried to hide stuff. I laughed because a table of 20 previously quite loud black people had become eerily quiet, and I told them they all looked guilty.

Turns out the Park Police had come to warn us that there was a storm coming (which I already knew), and that we had roughly an hour (which I didn't know, thought we had more time) before it was going to start hailing on us (which I definitely didn't know). I don't understand the bizarro weather patterns out here on the east coast... back where I am from, frozen watear in any form does not fall from the sky in summer months when the temperature is over 80 degrees. Or even over 40 degrees. At any rate, we debated what we were going to do, and then as we saw the storm rolling in over the river (and lightning striking the river itself), we decided to cover things up and ride it out.

Big mistake.

About ten minutes later, the wind started blowing about 40-50 mph, and the rain came down fiercely. Our poor attempts to cover the food up saved a few things, but a lot of other stuff was lost. I managed to keep my head relatively dry with my severely tested umbrella, but the rest of me was soaked, especially the shoes. After a few minutes, I got brave enough to get out from under the tree and cross the open field (while holding a metal shaft umbrella, and with lightning striking all around) to get into my car.

Soaked again!

For those of you who don't already know, I got completely drenched two weeks ago during the Great Flood of DC... so this is starting to become a habit I need to break. At least it hasn't gotten me sick like it usually does... maybe taking a daily multivitamin is actually good for something.

You know what though? The ribs were worth it... lip smackin' good.

Watching it snow

2006-07-01T11:29:00.000-04:00

My cable went out on Thursday.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be remarkable news. My cable's gone out before, but it usually comes back on in a few hours. This time, though, my cable's been off for 48 hours, and it's still off.

I've been caught.

For the past 3 1/2 years, I've had a remarkable run of "unanticipated" cable tv viewing. For some unexplainable reason, some contractor guy for Comshaft decided to turn on my cable a few months after I moved here, and it's been on ever since, at least until Thursday. I can't imagine how that would have happened.

OK, I guess there's no need to play the charade... I saw the guy come over to hook up my neighbor's cable, and I asked him what I needed to do to get cable. He said I should call Comshaft, but when I told him I didn't want to call Comshaft, he offered to do it for $40. I was already prepared to start negotiating at $50 and go up to $100, so I jumped on it... he undersold himself. The truly sad part is that he still made more off my hookup than he made doing the legitimate hookup - and Comcast wondered why so many people had unbilled cable tv.

So I got about 43 months of extended basic, analog cable for $40... not bad. But now I am faced with some choices. This free cable was viewed on my 20" old school cathode ray tube tv that I bought in 1996 for $225, and nothing else. I'm not a huge TV person... I turn on Sportscenter in the morning for background noise, I turn on Law & Order or NBA basketball in the evening, and I turn on the Sopranos when I remember to watch it... and that's pretty much it. So with free cable, the cost of upgrading to digital, or the purpose of buying a new fancy 16:9 ratio tv with HD and all the bells and whistles didn't make sense, because my costs were low. I've wanted a new tv, but I sure as hell didn't want to pay Comshaft anything at all, ever. I've considered satellite, but going from $0 per month to anything over $40 just wasn't appealing. And without upgrading cable, it didn't make sense to upgrade the tv.

But now, it's upgrade or nothing. And while I could probably live without tv, it's nice to know whether or not a flash flood is headed this way sometimes. So I'm considering upgrading. And I figure, while I'm at it, I might as well get something that's appropriate to the room... squinting at a blurry tv across the room is an artifact of college living that's hung around too long. So I'm looking at 32 inch LCD tvs... but geez, $1400 for a tv is just crazy to me, considering that the $225 tv was the most expensive tv I've ever bought... matter of fact, it was the only tv I've ever bought. I guess there are people who watch tv enough that spending $1400 or more make sense, but I am not sure I am one of them.

But it's so pretty....

Maybe I'll use the proceeds from selling the beloved Prelude to finance a new tv. Circuit City has a nice 32" Polaroid LCD HDTV for $899 after what appears to be a $200 rebate (ugh, I hate rebates, but that's another rant). Polaroid makes tvs now?!? I can remember when Polaroid was synonymous with instant photography... ok I've just dated myself. SO let me end this rambling post.

Let me know what you think... is a $1000 tv utterly ridiculous, or am I just behind the times?

Bad Karma

2006-06-09T09:50:00.000-04:00

OK, a lot of automotive-related things have transpired since the last post. I'll try to catch you up, in chronological order:

The brakes on the Prelude went out. In no small coincidence, it happened on a night I went to 1223. I hate 1223 with a passion that exceeds how much any man should hate a mere bar, but for some reason I never have fun there, and bad things always happen to me afterwards. I know, I know, you're asking, why did I go then? Well, I let my brother's friends talk me into it, after we had hit Kelis' listening party at another place. Part of me always holds out hope that 1223 can be redeemed, the way a gambler who's down way too much at the craps table will keep gambling because he hopes to play his way back to even, or at least a moderately respectable loss instead of mortgaging his house and kids' college funds. And 1223 has about as much chance of breaking even in the "fun index" as that gambler has of breaking even on the craps table. Anyway... the master cylinder went out. I guess it had a slow leak. I debated whether or not I should even spend the money to get it repaired, but I figured I have to be able to drive to work and to the dealer to get a new car, so I did. The repair shop's customer service rep felt bad for me, I think, so she cut me a slight discount, and gave me the tow and the rental car for free. The bill set me back $475.

A couple days later, I get the car back. Now, it already has an existing issue with the idle air flow controller, which is another $500 repair, but so far it hadn't been an issue that kept me from driving the car. The only symptom was that when the car was warming up, the fast idle would oscillate up and down instead of remaining steady. No biggie. But then, in the interest of trying to find a cheap fix, I replaced the air filter, thinking a better air supply might help alleviate the problem. Nope, it made it worse, and by the time I figured that out, the old air filter was at the bottom of a trash can that was miles away. So now the car drives all twitchy and jerky, but it still drives. So now I'm pissed off. And the air filter set me back $18.

So in my annoyed rage, I decided I was going to buy a new car that day. I already knew what I wanted (which was none of the previously discussed cars), and I had been checking online inventories, so I found one that had exactly what I wanted at a CarMax up in White Marsh. I recruited a friend to drive me up there, got my car , and got back to DC in time to pick up my mom from the airport in my new car. Here's a picture:

The downpayment on that (although unnecessary, I decided to do one anyway) set me back $1500.

So now I have my new ride, and I'm happy. But I only have one parking spot assigned to my townhouse/condo. So I park the Prelude on the street and park the new car in my spot. Two days later, I'm awakened by loud banging on my door. I usually don't answer when I am not expecting anyone, but for some reason I got up this time. It was my neighbor, letting me know that my car had been broken into, as was his wife's Camry. They smashed in the passenger side window, and made off with a grand total of about $7, consisting of: my lucky $2 bill, a small ashtray-sized dish with change, and a velour Captain Morgan Private Stock with faux gold ropes and about 27 cents worth of pennies inside it. Damn kids. They didn't even steal my Old School classics CD, that was actually worth something! The new glass set me back $165.

If you're keeping track at home, that's $2158 in cash expenditures and $7 in cash losses, all within about a week. On the good side, my sister's boyfriend wants to buy my banged up Prelude. I offered him a deal at $2000, and telling him it needs $500 of work. I figure that's a good discount off a blue book value for a Prelude with an unbent frame of $8000. He has until this weekend to come up with the money, or else it's going on Craigslist.

I'm flossy

2006-05-18T17:26:00.000-04:00

Or maybe I'm not...

Since over a month has passed, I have decided that the beloved Prelude is beyond all hope, and needs to be retired. It's like when a horse breaks her leg - you don't patch her up with a cast and have all the other horses sign it wishing her well. You take her out back and have her shot, even if she won more races and birthed more champions than anybody else. As a society, we're quite comfortable with euthanasia for animals, it's people we haven't come to terms with. Not to get off-track, I am euthanizing my car.

So then the question becomes, what to replace it with? Although the 'lude was a whole lot of fun to drive, there were a few things about it that nagged at me - the incredibly small trunk paired with an even smaller trunk opening, such that some of the few things that could actually fit in the trunk couldn't get in through the opening; the incredibly facetious backseats that were designed only to lower insurance rates; the compromise that is front wheel drive. So I figure my next car needs to preserve as much of the "fun to drive" factor (I believe that's what "fahrvergnugen" was supposed to indicate, but one only wonders why they thought that word could ever apply to a VW) while giving me legit backseats (maybe even four doors) and a trunk. Front wheel drive is a plus in the snow and ice and rain, but that car sucked so much on poor traction surfaces (even after I got my Pirelli P-Zero Neros, which rocked) that a rear wheel drive car couldn't be much worse.

There is also the complicating factor of my own vanity. As I get older, as I move on to my new job at the end of the month (with it's slight raise but tantalizing potential for bonus pay), part of me wants a car that reflects my own perceived newfound status. Now, I'm no fool, I won't be buying anything new. But a few bucks extra on a used car might be worth the trouble. The problem is, the cost of the car is only part of the cost of owning a car - the insurance and maintenance can really eat up that extra monthly money that could otherwise have been spent on top-shelf liquor and attractive, supple women.

So I'm considering a few alternatives, but they can probably be summarized by two of the choices:

» 2003 Nissan Maxima GLE
This is the sober, functional yet still somewhat fun choice. It's cheaper than the other choice by a good margin. The car is still somewhat stylish, yet it won't stand out in anybody's crowd, even if I try to spruce it up with custom wheels and tint or something. But with the likely payments and insurance costs, I won't be breaking my pockets on it.

» 2001 BMW 530i
I know what the "TMV Dealer Retail" number says on the page; it's wrong because I've priced them. They run a couple grand more than the Maxima, but then I must consider what everyone's said to me about BMWs: The maintenance costs will kill you. So then I check out certified used prices, and those cost about six grand more than non-certified. And with the warranty they carry and the amount of miles I drive, that would cover no more than three years' worth of driving. So is it possible to have six grand worth of service on a car in three years? If so, that would make the certified plan worthwhile. But then that doesn't factor in insurance, and it's busting out of my self-imposed budget. But it sure would be nicer than a Maxima.

Complicating the transaction, I think I can get a markedly better interest rate on a loan on the certified car: 3.9% vs a likely 6.2%. So maybe that balances out more than I think, I have to go do the math.

Meanwhile, I have to consider that my current car's trade-in value would be mostly apologetic - as in "I'm sorry sir, but your car is only worth $300. And that's a gift considering we'll have to pay the junkman to haul it away." So I have to gin up a downpayment that I wasn't planning for until a couple years from now. I could use emergency funds for it, but that would be wrong, and I won't tempt fate in that way. Luckily, I have a freelance project waiting in the wings that could more than take care of that, plus the laptop I'm going to need very soon.

So I figure I have about a month or two to decide which way to go.

Another blog template

2006-05-18T16:59:00.000-04:00

check it out yall... I really only made this post so you wouldn't feel obligated to leave offtopic comments about it under other posts. Please don't feel obligated to comment at all, unless you notice something that's broken.

I know I haven't updated the Haloscan comments template yet; I'll do that tonight when I get home.

Vegas outtakes

2006-05-02T12:05:00.000-04:00

» There seems to be more silicon here than in Silicon Valley. Vegas is on a par with Southern California and Texas now, it seems, for who has the most implants. And the richer the hotel, the more plentiful (and bigger) they seem to get. At some point, a woman who's 5'10" and a size 2 ought to know that grapefruit-sized triple Ds just don't look right or remotely natural. And I didn't even set foot in a strip club.

» My sister and brother-in-law were having a field day with that, too. Every time some woman with ridiculous enhancements would walk by, one of them would say "bigger!" (sort of the same way the Parkay dish says "butter!")

» My cousin with the cute baby that I had never met before? She's rather fine. Even my uncle had to comment on her ass. That made me feel like a dirty old man. Then again, her grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. That means we share approximately 3.125% of the same DNA, if I did the math right. So I'm not sure if leering at her is immoral or not. I am sure that, had I met her in a different setting, the full court press would have been on.

» I think I successfully dodged a street scam. In front of the Mirage hotel, there is a beautiful waterfall display. As I was walking down the strip toward the mall, an elderly Asian couple who seemed barely to know English held a camera and looked around for help. The sidewalk was not crowded, but most people were coupled up or in groups. The lady stopped me and asked if I would take their picture. I was already suspicious, but I'm a nice guy, so as I took the camera (and the man tried to explain to me where to push the button), I switched my wallet from my back pocket to my front pocket, just as a young white couple walked far too close to me than was necessary. I think the guy saw me switch the wallet, and I moved to a position that was away from the couple as the man pointed out to me that I needed to move for the light anyway. I think he was trying to distract me. I still have my wallet, and they got a picture they probably will never print. Then again, maybe I'm just paranoid.

» I found $5 on the floor in Macy's. It didn't quite cover the cost of the boxer briefs I had to buy when I "discovered" my additional day of stay. I can't believe I spent $22 on a pair of underwear, but I guess this is what women go through at Vickie's every day. They are some super high tech mesh fabric for summer wear, and I'm wearing them today. I do have to say, they are quite comfortable... they might just become my summer draws of choice. But I won't be buying a drawerful at $22 apiece.

» Las Vegas' Airport has free wireless access. That's fabulous! It's a great way to pass the time while waiting for a flight. Unfortunately, where my gate is, there aren't a lot of electric sockets. I see one guy in the perfect seat, but he already has his laptop out. I walk closer to see if I can angle myself, and a couple of women sit down on the other side of the socket. Damn. He's not even using the socket! So I walk around from gate to gate (it's a circular rotunda with maybe 6 gates in it) and bench after bench has people asleep. At first I thought they were homeless, then I realized homeless people probably can't get past TSA security. Then I realized they are hapless travelers who decided to spend the night in the airport. Sympathetic employees probably placed the blankets on them. So I decided not to curse them under my breath for taking up all the benches near plugs, and I sat on the floor near one.

» And just for kicks, I decided to see if porn sites were blocked on the free public wireless. Nope, every bit gets through. You gotta love Vegas!

Flight #777

2006-05-01T01:02:00.000-04:00

No joke, that was the "lucky" number of the flight I took out here to Vegas on Thursday. After all the tribulations and stress of the previous two weeks, I was actually looking forward to the trip.

The family reunion was great... I saw relatives I haven't seen in many years, some since I was a child, and some that I had heard about but never seen at all. I took a lot of good pictures at the picnic, and we got a few more at the banquet too.

Of course my mom picked up my (2nd? 3rd?) cousin, who was 7 months old, and ran around with her all over the place. In fact, most of the women there did.... she is adorable. Eyes like saucers. But only my mom brought her over to me and said "See, this is what life could be like if you were married with kids!" It apparently wasn't relevant that the baby's mother (2nd cousin?) wasn't married. But not many others stressed me out... my great aunt Mary always had kind and wise words for me when I was little, and now was no different... she told me to take my time, and when I am ready, I'll be ready.

I also learned quite a bit about my family history that I didn't know before... how my grandfather finagled to propose to my grandmother over a bucket of chitlins (there definitely is a story there), a boxer named "Dynamite" Jackson, a 1920's Hollywood cheesecake model with a mysterious death (and the attendant rumors), a Big Easy lawyer and judge from the 1800s, and some other things I knew but got more detail. So maybe the maverick nature of my life isn't just random, it's genetic. And we finally settled the dispute over which Native American tribe we were mixed with (it's Creek, and not Cherokee or Blackfoot).

Of course, I had to screw up my return flight. For some reason, I thought it was Sunday at 1pm (which the original flight last week was). Woke up at 7am to find out I had already missed my plane, which was also at 7am. Got dressed, ate breakfast, checked out & cabbed it to the airport, waited an hour and a half in line at the ticket counter to change my ticket. Then the counter agent pointed out that my flight was for Monday, not Sunday. Then I remembered I had gotten Monday to avoid paying an increased fare when the ticket got changed the first time. So there I was, in Vegas, no room and no nothing. The agent offered to put me standby for a $100 change fee, but I said screw that, I'd just fly out when I said.

McCarran Airport has free wireless internet, so that was a start. I plugged up my laptop, went to hotels. com, and found a room at the MGM Grand for $101 with all taxes and fees included. Not bad, so I booked it and waited around the airport until check-in time. Of course, I'd used up all my underwear, so I went to the mall and bought some underwear.... and some shirts and some more shirts. Then went to the Venetian and bought some fake hazelnut gelato... I swear gelato isn't supposed to have milk in it, but it was good anyway.

So then I came back to my room at the MGM, showered and then decided... what the hell, I hadn't gambled any since I got here, so why not go play a few dollars on the slots and then go to bed early? So I took $40, played for a while on one stingy machine, and then played on a Lucky 7s quarter slot for a while... eventually it hit for ... let me see... one purple 7 and 2 triple plays on one quarter, so that's... 80 x 9 = 720 divided by 4 = $180. I hadn't spent all of the $40, so I got a voucher for $192.75, cashed it in and went promptly back to my room. It won't quite cover all the costs of the day (I think I spent $130 on clothes), but it's close enough to make me feel good.

Hopefully I'll catch my flight on time tomorrow. I have a standing rule about not scheduling early morning flights out of Vegas, but I need to get home and get back to work sometime! So let me go to bed.

Overload

2006-04-20T12:43:00.000-04:00

I think I have finally found my breaking point. Between my car issues, school issues, family issues, job & career issues, personal issues, I'm a hot mess. Let me see if I can sort it all out.

The car: My beloved Prelude is in the shop, after my first at-fault accident... I fought a battle with the curb and lost. It was like Saddam's Republican Guard vs the U.S. 101st Airborne... it was a massacre. I broke the wheel, the axle, most of the steering assembly on that side, and my perfect record of no at-fault accidents. Car's been in the shop for two weeks now.. hopefully I get it back tomorrow. My insurance company pays for a loaner, which turned out to be a Honda Civic 4 door sedan. Suffice it to say, that car has absolutely zero social value... in fact, it turns out to be negative, I think. Whereas before, when I pulled up next to a pretty lady in another car, I might get a couple of glances, a stare, a wink, whatever. In the Civic, I get exactly half a glance, nothing more. I can't wait to be rid of it.

School: As some of you know, I'm working on my MBA at night. I take classes two nights a week. As demands on my time across the board have grown, I have been shirking and slacking on school stuff. Ordinarly, with individual assignments, I could BS and fudge and pull my way out... but these are team assignments, and team members do not show mercy the way professors do. I am sure my peer evaluations for this assignment due this week will suck. Oh well, we will all have to get over it.

Family: I have a family reunion coming up, as I mentioned before. It's my mom's side, and we haven't had one in 25 years, so there will be lots of catching up. I had booked my flight to leave today, and in fact I was going to leave today, but then I called my mom to find out why my brother (with whom I was sharing a hotel room) hadn't called me back in two days, and I discovered that the reunion is NEXT week. Suffice it to say, I'm glad I didn't get on the plane. With a little maneuvering with the customer service rep from AmericaWest.com, I was able to secure flights next week without any increase in fare, although they did charge me $100 to change the ticket. I feel like a complete idiot, but at least so far the only people that know is my mother, my manager & coworkers at work, and my teammates from class... ok that's pretty much everyone. Never mind all the issues I talked about in the last post that are still around.

Job & career: I don't want to say too much here, but I will say this: I was looking. Started looking in January. It is now April, and I am just now getting an offer. After all this effort with this firm, I think I have changed my mind... I no longer want to leave. I feel almost guilty about having gone this far through the process, but then, if they had made me an offer a month ago, I probably would have taken it. and now I'm not.

Also, I've been working on a proposal effort here at work. The way government contracting works, the government puts out a request for bids on a proposed statement of work, and then all the companies interested in competing for the work prepare proposals. These are massive documents, at least ours are... usually over 100 pages. They are also relatively short turnarounds, and they are the main element of work that escapes "core hours". So to sum that up, I've been under tremendous pressure to produce writing on a bunch of stuff I didn't really know and had to figure out, and I am forced to write at night and on the weekends. It sucks, but it's good for career development.

Personal issues: You know what, I don't think I even want to go here. But I'll just let you know I have some.

You know how when your blood pressure goes through the roof, you can feel it in your body? That's how I feel today. But since I've rebooked the ticket, and started trying to smooth things over with my classmates (since I'll actually be around for class tonight), I am starting to feel a little better. Maybe I even have time to grab some lunch before this 2pm meeting.

Peer Angst

2006-04-17T17:44:00.000-04:00

Lately, my Myspace friends list has been taking off. A lot of guys I went to college with have been popping up on Myspace, most of them people I haven't seen since graduation. (I am an alum of the nation's only all-black, all-male college.) Graduation was ten years ago, in fact, and I have a reunion coming up next month. And I'm "angsty", as Gecko would say.

It is nice to see how people have done. Some of my most humble classmates have come up nicely... law degrees, PhDs, nice jobs, married, kids. They are the picture of what upper middle class Black America wants to be. Which is great and all, for them, but it makes me pause.

Funny, most of them probably expected I would have my PhD by now, and I guess I was supposed to. I languished in misery and depression through 3 1/2 years of grad school, after which time I decided I couldn't take it anymore and quit (although not empty handed, I made them give me a MS on the way out as my "consolation prize"). From there, I have drifted around a bit, a few different jobs. The dotcom crash killed my earning potential for a while, to the point that I just this month made it back to where I was in 2001 before it all went down. Some abortive relationships, nothing to write home about. Relocated to DC on a calculated whim, back in school working on yet another degree. Although I am much more focused on what I want now than I was then, I feel like I am doing things I should have been doing 10 years ago, which puts me behind the game a bit.

I know these reunions are somewhat of a pissing contest, in terms of seeing who has amassed the most wealth, most prestigious job, etc., and I have absolutely no interest in that. I guess there are a few folks I wouldn't mind speaking to, but most of them I wouldn't care if I saw them or not, as I have nothing to say. Those people I held close remain as friends, and I don't need a reunion to talk to them. While I am sure my salary puts me in the upper half (maybe upper 25%), I don't really feel all that wealthy and accomplished, probably because I spend it all and then some. That goes back to that grasshopper/ant thing, I guess. Maybe I will bring pictures of my trips to Europe and show them off the way people show off pictures of their kids.

At any rate, that is a concern for next month. This week, I'll be off to Vegas for a family reunion on my mother's side. We haven't had a reunion since I was about 5, so it should be interesting. I am concerned, though, that I need to figure out my stock answers ahead of time, so that when all the older family members start grilling me about why am I not married, why haven't I produced offspring, why am I still in school, that I have something to tell them. Ohhh, I'm not looking forward to that part. Plus my uncle wants to continue the argument we had about whether or not I should buy a house now (I say no, he says yes) that we started at my mother's wedding last year. But it will be good to see family nonetheless.

Of course, none of these things constitutes a real vacation, and that is exactly what I need right about now. Somebody find me a week in a sunny place where I can relax, and a nice way to finance it (since I owe DC $500 for red-light and speeding camera tickets, and it's due next month because my car tags are about to expire, and I'm already paying for these two trips plus travel to a wedding next month, my travel budget is pretty much nonexistent) and I am there.

Mental mashup

2006-04-12T16:34:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't already know, when I listen to the radio, I mostly listen to NPR. When I wake up in the morning, I usually switch my alarm to radio, and let that be my source of news in the morning.

The other day, I set my alarm directly to radio by accident. So when it went off in the morning, there was no buzzer, but the radio started directly. Without the buzzer, I didn't wake up... but apparently I could hear. I was still dreaming.

In my dream, I heard an NPR announcer say something like the following:

The White House announced today that George Bush is straight up on that kryptonite. White House press secretary Scott McClellan declined further comment.

That would explain a lot, though, wouldn't it?

The pill and the question

2006-04-10T07:24:00.000-04:00

Recently, a female friend of mine asked my opinion on a particular topic that was on her mind. She and her boyfriend had sat down and discussed options for contraception, and decided between the two of them that they would use birth control pills and nothing else. That is to say, she would take the pills and they would then go "bareback".

She wanted to know if I thought it was fair for her to ask him to split half of the cost of the pills. It's not as if it is an economic hardship for her, but it was "the principle" of the thing. She thought that, in order for them to be equally yoked, as it were, he should bear half the cost of the protection method they agreed on together, since he was enjoying (at least) half of the sex.

To her irritation and my complete lack of surprise, all of the men she had surveyed said the same thing - trying to split the cost of birth control pills was silly, especially since she didn't need the money, and the process didn't involve him, unless he needed to remind her. She hadn't, however, surveyed any women yet, and I thought their responses might be more interesting, so I suggested she ask some. The question, at least for her, has now become moot, so I'm turning to my blog readers (men and women), to hear what you have to say on the topic.

Watch your language, [buster]

2006-03-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I turned on one of the local "urban" radio stations. For those of you who know me, you know this is a rare event... I usually stay locked to NPR or some other news radio, or my own CD collection. I rarely listen to any "urban" stuff in the car anymore. I do, however, get to hear some of the newer songs when I am out at lounges, bars, clubs (stripclubs... lol) etc. So I got the opportunity yesterday to hear the radio edits of two songs I'd heard several times before.

I have always felt that when an artist does a radio edit (i.e. replace the naughty words with less-naughty words), it often results in a better song, because it forces them to be more creative. So goes one of the longstanding arguments against cursing in general... mental laziness. And for the record, I do curse, but it's rare enough that my friends laugh when they hear me say things.

So with these two radio edits, one song (in my humble and mostly uninformed opinion) was vastly improved and the other was completely destroyed.

The first song was Young Jeezy's "Go Crazy". In the chorus, the unedited version has some lyrics like: "When they play that new jeezy watch you n****s go crazy". Typical rap boasting and puffery. Doesn't sound all that good. But the "clean" edit is more like: "When they play that new jeezy watch the [dope boys] go crazy". Doesn't look like much written down, but sounds much better. Has a ring to it, as they say. And plus, you can play it in front of your mother and not get lectured or slapped (depending on who your mother is... lol).

The second song was T Pain's "I'm In Love With A Stripper". For the longest, that was the only version of the song I ever heard. Then yesterday, on the radio, I heard "I'm In Love With a [Dancer]". Completely and totally took all the fun out of the song. In the last month or two, I've heard many a joke based on the title or lyrics of this song. Hell, some of you even used them on me after the last episode. But the word "dancer" is so generic that, even though most adults know what the song is about anyway, it sucks the life out of it. It's not funny anymore. The original made me laugh, the radio edit made me change the station.

Besides, when did "stripper" become a bad word for radio?

One-eyed jack

2006-03-23T10:42:00.000-05:00

First, I will apologize for leaving you all with nothing but stale old posts for a while. I haven't had a lot to say lately, but I have a couple of things I can share with you.

A couple of Sundays ago, I got poked in the eye. It was a freak accident involving a stripper, that's all you need to know about how it happened. The interesting part is what happened afterwards. It hurt like hell (burned is probably more accurate), and continued into the next day, so I scheduled an emergency appointment with my doctor, who immediately sent me to an opthalmologist.

The eye doc declared that I had a corneal abrasion (that is to say, it was scratched and he could see it with his super scope). He put a bunch of goop in my eye and made me wear a patch over it. It wasn't a cool sexy black eye patch like pirates wear, it was a round white gauze pad with a bunch of clear surgical tape across half my face holding it in place. So I had to drive around with one eye (which was difficult at first but got easier) and do basic errands like going to the grocery store or the drug store.

In different places, people reacted differently. At Safeway, the customers looked like the Elephant Man had just walked in and asked to kiss their child... people shied away from me like I had the plague. In other places, people just looked at me and greeted me normally. I guess that probably gave me 10% of the experience of what it's like, socially speaking, to be disabled.

I wore the patch for 3 days, and then got to take it off. Never in my life have I been so glad to have two eyes, and to have regained my depth perception. But I still had to put this goopy ointment in it 4 times a day for the next week. Despite my best efforts, it resulted in one eye looking shiny most of the time, which as it turns out was a bigger detraction than the patch. I guess with the patch, people know you are injured in some way, but with a shiny eye, people just think something is weird about you. Thankfully I don't have to use that goop anymore, except at night when no one can see anyway.

And as for the stripper... I think she felt bad for me or something, because she gave me her number and told me to call. So I did, and I asked how she was going to make it up to me, and her answer was "ummm... we can go in the VIP all night." Wrong answer. Oh well, I should know better than to have any expectations of someone as young as she was. And no, I'm not suing anyone. It was a freak accident!

In the next episode, I'll have a rant about dating. Stay tuned!

Ant or grasshopper?

2006-02-09T11:52:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting conversation with my brother a while back. He was talking about money, and financial habits, and the philosophy that drives them. He asked me if I was a person who lived for the moment, or if I was a hoarder. He describes himself as a hoarder, and from what I know of his finances, it's accurate. Hoarders save money even when they don't need to... they save above and beyond, out of reflex and instinct. They will defer and deny themselves things in order to save for the future, for that rainy day. They are the proverbial ant.

By contrast, a person who lives for the moment (I need a pithy one-word description here but I can't think of one at the moment) hardly saves enough, never denying him or herself things in the moment because tomorrow is not promised. Such a person believes that life is for the living, and the young have more fun. This probably describes me, to a good extent. When I am old and gray, and I have grandchildren, I want to be able to tell them about all the fascinating things I did and places I went, not about how I scrimped and saved so I could leave an inheritance for their greedy little fingers.

To be fair, from an objective point of view, neither is wrong. They simply reflect different philosophies about life and how it should be lived. I will not pass judgment on how one chooses to live, as long as it is self-consistent. In other words, don't choose one path and then whine about how you wish you had the other path, like I'm going to do right now.

The other day, I used the calculator on my 401k website to project out how much money I would have, if I continued to save at my present rate until age 65. I used conservative estimates of salary and inflation growth, and it crunched and calculated and told me I'd have $1.8 million. Of course that sounds great, until one realizes that those are 2039 dollars, not 2006 dollars. The equivalent now is $650,000. Still sounds good, until you realize that (A) if my life expectancy takes me to, say, age 85, that's 20 years... about $32,500 a year, and (B) You still have to pay taxes on it. So in order to live what I figure to be a comfortable life at that age, I'd need to save.... about 3 times that much. This made me momentarily depressed.

I'm beginning to understand why some movie and rock stars deliberately flame themselves out young. Live life, enjoy it, use it up. It occurred to me: I could forgo buying things and going places now, to be able to .... buy things and go places when I'm 65. In my calculus, that just doesn't add up. So that pretty much seals it up for me. My new retirement plan? Win the $250 million Powerball jackpot this week.

Accidental genius

2006-01-31T00:03:00.000-05:00

I invented a drink the other day.

I do believe I came up with a cocktail recipe that, while I'm sure somebody has tried it before, it's rare enough that I haven't been able to find a similar enough recipe for it anywhere that I have looked. I checked Webtender, and some books I have at home, and found nothing, so I'm declaring that I've looked hard enough, and I'm claiming it as my own.

I sort of stumbled on it by accident, sitting in Ozio one slow, lazy weeknight with a friend of mine. They have an in-house martini list, and one of the drinks on there is something called "Old Blue Eyes", named after Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. Of course, blue curaçao is what makes it blue, and I don't normally mess with blue curaçao ... it's long since been perverted from its origins into a dyed-up triple sec, suitable for girly drinks that draw oohs and aahs from lightweights and teetotaler pantywaists. But I was bored, and I decided to mix it up a little. The original drink was a little too sweet for my tastes, and the curaçao doesn't taste quite as good even as triple sec, never mind an upbrand orange liqueur like Cointreau. It needed some work. So I told the bartender to add a little pineapple juice to mellow out the blue (the barest amount), and to add a float of brut champagne to dry it out a little. The results, at least for my palate, were sublime. If you like sweet drinks, leave it alone. If you like a nice stiff martini (a real martini made with gin, or permissibly vodka, but never any fruit juices or anything else remotely sweet, unless the fruit is an olive), and you aren't afraid of bubbles, you might like it. But I'm not making any promises, except to say that if you happened to be present for the travesty that was a Tajhtini at the 2004 birthday bash (a situation that went WAAAY out of my control), rest assured this drink is better, and it will knock you on your ass with velvet hammers the way a good drink should.

Here's the recipe, with all the steps for you non-bartenders.

Blue Topaz

Ingredients
Vodka
Blue curaçao
Pineapple juice
Brut champagne
Lemon peel

Find a nice martini glass. Don't use plastic.
Fill the glass with ice, then fill the spaces between the ice with cold water. Let it sit for a minute while you get the rest of the ingredients.
Slice a thin lemon wedge, then peel the flesh away from the peel. Save the peel, toss the flesh.
Get a shaker, and fill it with ice.
Pour 1 3/4 oz of a good vodka into the shaker. That's 7 counts with a metered pourer.
Pour 1/2 oz of blue curaçao into the shaker.
Pour 1/2 oz of pineapple juice into the shaker.
Put the lid on the shaker and shake. Remember, shaken, not stirred.
Dump the ice and water out of the glass.
Rub the lemon peel around the rim of the glass, and then twist it up and put it in the glass.
Strain the contents of the shaker into the glass.
Pour a float of brut champagne on top of the contents of the glass, just enough to see it fizz.

Enjoy!

Trends to end in 2006

2006-01-13T10:29:00.000-05:00

OK, I know this will sound rant-ish, but there are some things I just have to point out. Some trends are older than others, and all of them are overdue for departure. First up...

Kanye West-inspired preppie look
Brothas, you do not look cool in pink and baby blue sweaters and Izods with candy pink green and white stripes. I'm glad you're cool in your sexuality and all, and I'm glad something replaced the thug motif, but this was definitely not a winning choice. 1985 called, they want their catalog models back. But I specifically have to call out...

Bib-length ties
This is a very recent trend, and I hope it's very short-lived. Nothing looks goofier to me than a big man with a decent blue dress shirt and a freakin' tartan plaid tie that's about 8 inches long. Looks like he raided his son's sock drawer for a clip-on in a pinch. Not attractive at all.

Thugtastic anything
I've been saying for years, I can't wait for the thug mentality to go out of style. Why it was ever considered appealing to be raggedy, prone to violence, etc., and why anything OTHER than that was considered "thuggish" is beyond me. It's 2006, and Nelly has a song out about gold fronts. If you can find me a woman, here in 2006, who still thinks putting transition metals over one's teeth is attractive and appealing, show her to me so we can submit her ass to the Smithsonian. But Nelly is just grasping at the desperate end of hip-hop, which is on life support, which leads me to...

"Trendy" clubs playing old music
I actually upset a friend of mine last night. We were out, at one of these so-called "trendy"/"hot" clubs, and I pointed out that most of the music they were playing was twelve damn years old!!! At least, all the good stuff was. Don't get me wrong, I like the old Tupac and Junior Mafia and Jay-Z stuff as much as anybody... but if they keep this up, those clubs will just be black versions of Polly Esther. It's not their fault though... the stuff that's coming out nowadays sounds wacker than ever. I'm sorry, Jermaine Dupri, I can't get with your nouveau retro sound... back in 1984 it was cool to rap over an 808 and a Casiotone keyboard, because that's all they had, but now it just sounds derivative and unimaginative. Hip-hop is all but dead, waiting for the next thing to kick out the cord on the iron lung it's on. And since black folks have a long, distinguished history of inventing creative new genres of music, I can't wait to see what's next.

The housing bubble
I know a lot of you probably have bet on continued appreciation in home values. Sorry to say, not only is it not going to happen, it's a good thing that it's not going to happen. Probably half of the job growth that's constantly cited as support for rising home values is actually related to the real estate industry itself... agents, brokers, appraisers, construction, remodeling, etc.; that's not exactly a good trend. The fact is, the boom in home values is a direct effect of the ridiculously cheap credit and low standards that have prevailed in the last few years, and not due to any strong fundamentals in the market itself. It's not good for an economy in general to have any key asset class inflate in value far above wages, which as we all know are flat and have been for the past five years. This can only end badly... may God have mercy on all of you with overextended ARMs that reset soon.

Crack smoking politicians in DC
OK, I know it's been pretty much the same politician for the last 15 years. Still, the fact that Marion Barry tested positive yet again for cocaine... but what really makes me shake my head is that these people will still keep electing him. I don't care how down for the cause he is, he can't be an effective, respected leader if he's high off the pipe. Retire, Mr. Former Mayor, and hit rehab... hit rehab hard, like you hit the pipe.

Feel free to post your own trends that should end in the comments section.

A pig in a poke

2006-01-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

Remember back in the height of the dotcom era boom, circa 2000, when BlackPlanet was popular and still somewhat cool and trendy? Everybody I knew was meeting people in real life that they had first met on BP, even if they didn't admit it to their old brick & mortar friends. It was like a black candy bazaar... with aisle upon aisle of people to whom you would not normally be exposed or get the opportunity to meet. Of course, that meant all manner of different classes of people, from highly educated to the most ghetto... I think back then a WebTV system was $199. But they were all there, ripe for the picking, with pictures and profiles. You could search on any criteria you wanted, and risk was reduced because you could profile people before you spoke to them. It was better than any personals website, because people could post profiles without actually admitting to themselves that they were looking, yet be open to the opportunity. I even had a running joke about "spring visit season", because when I lived in California, I used to get a series of visitors just about every other weekend in the spring (some romantic, some not), and probably half of them were BP folks flying themselves out to Cali. Ahhhh... stories for another time.

At any rate, the time for BP came and went. It got overrun by the butch lesbians and swingers and jailbirds, swamped by spam, and permanently altered (and not for the better) by the need for the company that made it to start turning a profit somehow. Then people started denying that they were on BP, that they were ever on BP, and turned back to other venues.

I was reminded of this experience recently, by virtue of a somewhat unusual manner in which I was approached by a woman. When I hosted my birthday party last month, I invited as many people as I could find, and my cohosts also added many names, so that the Evite stretched out to 400+ invitees. I didn't know many of those people, but as the author of the Evite, they could all see my profile and picture. A woman I did not know and who did not attend the party emailed me afterward, essentially saying she liked my picture (which was an unrevealing headshot) and wanted to meet me.

On the one hand, I was flattered. On the other hand, I kept thinking, this chick doesn't know squat about me, not even really what I look like, except for one fuzzy headshot, so she must be desperate. But encouraged by my friends, I decided to talk to her. She sent me a couple of pictures of herself, and she turned out to be cute. I sent her a couple more pictures of myself. We've emailed and chatted on the phone. She lives about 60 miles away, so honestly I had not been pressed to drag myself out there to meet her, but I figure, if circumstance happens to find us in the same neighborhood, why not?

So we're supposed to meet this weekend, and even though I have done this before (the meeting of Internet people, back in the BP days), I am somewhat hesitant. I understand now why she was eager to meet a black man she figured was halfway decent looking based on a grainy thumbnail headshot, even thought she seems cute and reasonably sane... she lives in a county where not many black folks live. Still, I keep wondering, how could this possibly turn out well? Even in the best case scenario, I might actually end up liking this woman (and she liking me), in which case the 60 mile distance will quickly turn into a big pain in the ass. And there are worse scenarios... But I'm going to do it anyway. I'll let you know how it turns out. Hopefully I'll at least get a good story out of it.

P.S.: You'll all be glad to know that I finally got the part I needed to finish repairing my shower, which turned out to be a 39 cent nylon O-ring, and I have restored my master bathroom to full service. Now I have to see about replacing that faucet...

Upping the ante

2005-12-12T11:14:00.000-05:00

I bought a drill yesterday.

Some of you already know what a chore this has been for me. Lowe's had a Black & Decker 24 volt model on sale the day after Thanksgiving ($89.99 marked down to $39.99, a steal), but ONLY the day after Thanksgiving. I, of course, did not know that, and when I went into the store on that Saturday, they laughed and said I was short. Of course, they had plenty in stock and asked me if I still wanted to buy it at the regular price. Hell no!

I tried to borrow a drill. I have a few projects that need drilling, that have been piling up. No, I'm not trying to drill the shower tile mentioned below. I'd asked around... my brother has one, but he swears it is underpowered and has managed to make himself scarce by going out of town every weekend. I asked a couple more friends, to no avail.

Lowe's has seen a lot of me lately, and they must be grateful or something because they sent me a $10 off a $50 purchase coupon in the mail that was due to expire yesterday. I figured, what the hell, I'll go buy the drill with some money I got for my birthday, and I won't feel so bad about being ripped off because it isn't my hard earned paycheck.

So when I get to the store, I check the circulars piled up front for deals. No dice. Then I wander around the tool section for a while, gawking at things I don't need and have no place for. Finally settled on a Black & Decker Firestorm 18 volt high speed number for $79.99. Not too bad. Then I had to find a bit set... $24.99. That was (along with a few other odds & ends I needed) a bit more than I received for my birthday, but I was prepared to do it.

On my way out, I saw a display of piled up drills, sandwiched between two other displays, and far away from the other drills. Black & Decker 24 volt, closeout sale, $46.99. Well, whaddya know. I dropped the Firestorm and picked up my new drill. Not quite as fast, but who cares... it was $33 cheaper. I was happy. The purchase total came within a dollar of the amount of cash I got for my birthday, so clearly the gods meant for this to happen.

Now I'm really prepared to tackle all these "handy" projects around the house... got all the tools and parts I need. It is time to put up or shut up. Now all I need is a week off to do everything.

And that $10 off coupon? It's still in my pocket. I forgot all about it. Did I mention I hate coupons? I hate coupons.

Holiday grinch

2005-12-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. All the charities are actively seeking donations, and if you work at a big company that tries to pretend like they are good corporate citizens, you probably get hit up for a lot of donations and other stuff like I do. Everybody has their own pet cause, and the firm actually encourages them to spam everybody to donate to their cause.

Not that the causes themselves aren't worthy, but sooner or later I get tired of people with their hand out all the time. The company employees are active in a variety of cancer research societies (which makes sense because the National Cancer Institute is one of our clients). They collect Toys for Tots. They collect canned food for the hungry, and clothes for the needy. They sell candy, cookies, pizzas, cookie dough, coupon books, and a whole lot of other crap for Girl Scouts, Boys & Girls Club, various mentorship programs and a bunch of diseases you never heard of. They collect cash for a lot of things, like famine in Africa, and earthquake survivors in Pakistan, and tsunami relief all across south Asia. They even have a silent auction ever year. This year, they had an auction for Red Cross donations for Katrina relief.

Now, I'm not a total scrooge. When I am so moved, I donate appropriately. But (and I think I speak for a lot of us here) Katrina wore us the f*** out. I saw my people on tv, and I felt like I had to do something to help them out. I probably gave more at that time than I have ever given to any one charity. But now, I'm out of donation money. My budget is tight, it's Christmas-time, and I have a big ass family... that means a lot of gifts (when I feel like buying gifts, which I do this year). So I'm not donating any more stuff. And the hands are out all over the place. And they are starting to piss me off.

Some lady called me from Value Village a couple of weeks ago, asking if I had any items to donate for pickup. It so happens I had been cleaning out my closet and had a few things, so I said yes. I also felt bad because last time they called, I said yes and then I forgot to put the stuff out on the day they came, so I was fairly diligent this time. Pickup was Tuesday morning, 8 am. I got my stuff together in a box, labeled it, and then put it by the door. She said they'd pick up in rain/hail/sleet/snow, but as some of you know it was snowing pretty hard Monday night, so I was undecided as to whether to put it out. But I didn't want to forget in the morning (and I am not a morning person at all), so I put it out there. I put the box on a plastic bag so the bottom wouldnt soak through, and I put it as close to the house as I could. In the morning, the lady called at 7:30am to remind me (even though she had called 3 times the day before, and left 3 messages reminding me) that they would be picking up. I did my best not to cuss her out, because I'm not a morning person, and I went to go check on the box. It had a little snow on it, but it was otherwise ok. I went on about my business for the day.

At the end of the day, the box was still there. Those #$&*(#$U*()#$s didn't ever come get it! I really wanted to call that lady back and cuss her out for wasting my time, but I did not bother.

On the way into the office this morning, some lady had a table set up in the lobby of the building asking for people to donate blood. No, I am not going to donate my blood! Can't you see I'm using it right now? The lady acted like I had personally offended her when I said "sorry I can't do that". I think if they press me again, I'll tell them I'm on some exotic medication for leprosy or something, maybe then they'll leave me the f*** alone. Then again, that's probably bad karma.

OK, I'm really not a scrooge like that. But I would appreciate it if these people kept their hands out of my pocket (and my veins)!

FYI

2005-11-29T14:00:00.000-05:00

today is my 31st birthday. still alive and kicking, with many more to come!

My kingdom for a pipe wrench

2005-11-29T07:51:00.000-05:00

Women like handy men. If you can fix a leak, patch a wall, replace a light fixture or a faucet, women will love you. Something about being useful and working with your hands just turns women on. With that said, for some reason I decided recently to try to fix all the things that need work in my master bath. I am moderately handy, I can figure out a few things, but I always seem to get in trouble.

Once, I had a plumber out for something else, and asked him why my sink faucet always leaked water on top of the sink, and he said the faucet had an internal leak and needed to be replaced. Sounded like something I could do easily (and the parts are relatively cheap, replacement faucets of this type start at $40 and go up to about $120). Also, the taps in my tub/shower needed replacing. I have one of those old style tub fixtures with 3 knobs, where the center knob diverts the water from the tub spout to the shower head. That center knob leaked, so I never got a full pressure shower, and wasted lots of hot water out of the tub spout. I figure, just replacing that will save me money on my water bill. Also, the shower head was old and cruddy, and I wanted one with a hose on it.

Easiest things first, right? I went to Home Depot (twice) and Lowe's (about five times, more on that later) and got some of the parts I needed. Shower heads (for both the master and guest bath), sink faucet, replacement towel bar, shower socket set. Replacing the shower head was relatively easy, although the thing came with two rubber washers that I can't figure out where they fit or why I need them. Oh well.

Next easiest job, replacing the stems on my shower. I'd done this before, on a kitchen sink, and it was a pretty easy wrench job. So I figured, same thing, just bigger parts. Little did I know.

Not as simple of a job as I thought. There are these long round sleeves around shower taps, and not one of my shower sockets came close to fitting inside the tube. So I returned the socket set to Lowe's, hunted around some more, and a while later I found a single socket that was smaller. I also bought a couple of spark plug sockets to boot, just in case they fit. Still, nothing worked. I called every plumbing supply company within 10 miles of my house, and I learned a few things: (1) Like everything else built into my house, the taps are an off-brand (Speakman) that nobody uses or supports anymore, and (2) none of the plumbing supply companies had a shower socket to fit Speakman taps. One suggested I call a plumber, since they were the only people likely to still have the old tools around. Naturally, they had one to recommend. So I broke down and called, kickbacks or no.

The plumber came out last Friday, and was almost completely useless. Although the ticket I called in was very specific, he showed up without the parts and without the appropriate tools. He claimed it wasn't his fault, that he would have been able to get the parts if it wasn't the day after Thanksgiving, that he would come back another day. Of course, that pissed me off. I begrudgingly rescheduled, and then decided I would try the plumbing supply places again myself on Monday, since he wouldn't give up his sources.

This time, I decided to go into the stores myself, with an example shower socket that I knew was slightly too big. One by one, they all shook their heads and said no, they don't come in smaller sizes. The fourth shop I went to looked really small, and the door was locked. Not promising. I peeked in the window, didn't see anyone there but a couple of cats and a caged pit bull. As I walked back to my car, the proprietor drove up. He was a short, squat, hobbit-looking man, talking on a cell phone headset while he motioned me to come in, after he took the dog out of the cage and put her up in the back of the shop.

Clearly this man worked by himself. The shop was overrun with at least 3 or 4 cats, two of whom wanted something from me which I couldn't identify and didn't have. One of those cats only had one eye. I've never seen a one-eyed cat before. Of course, that is the cat who wanted to stay in my face the entire time I was there. I figured this guy had to be either a plumbing savant or a crazy old kook with a bunch of pets for company, and I was just desperate enough to find out which.

After he got off the phone, I explained my problem to him, and he explained a lot of things to me. This is where being part-time handy falls down: lack of the sort of knowledge that comes with experience. He asked me some questions about my configuration, then pulled out an old dusty book and flipped through it until he found a cutaway diagram of my pipe installation. He explained that I was going about it all wrong, that the sleeve has screw threads and should be unscrewed off, that I was going after the wrong nut on the stem, and which nut I should be fitting to, and how I would be able to get to it easily, without special tools, once I got the sleeve off. I swear, this guy was like the Oracle of plumbing. He said he could special-order whatever parts I needed out of one of his catalogs.

So I left there and immediately called the plumbing company to cancel the call for this morning. It was 4:30pm, and they claim they didn't close until 5pm, but they already had their calls routed to their night answering service. I left a message canceling the call (and cursing them out under my breath).

So now, all I need is a pipe wrench that's light enough to handle this sleeve, and I'm in business. Maybe I'm a little handy after all.

Addiction

2005-11-03T11:48:00.000-05:00

[it's] a light bulb with eleventy million volts
and I'm just a moth
- Jay-Z

I have another confession to make. I'm addicted to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I swear, there's something in it that makes it impossible to put down. I'm not otherwise addicted to anything related to it; I don't care for cinnamon rolls too much, not even when Cinnabon was the craze. Toast is ok, even toast with cinnamon on it, but I'm not crazy about it. I like some sweet things but I'm not lost without them... really I prefer savory foods, with meat in em. But for some reason, Cinnamon Toast Crunch has a hold on me. I can't just have one bowl, I've got to have more. I checked the label for addictin, heroin, and anything else that could have me strung out - no dice.

I bet that secret ingredient is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Whatever it is, it's got a hold on me. I try not to buy it, but then when I walk past it in the grocery store and it's on sale, I get the shakes. And it's been on sale a lot lately. The head of the CTC brand at General Mills probably drives a BMW with gold trim all over it, just like the pushers in the 80s and early 90s. I feel so cracked out. Maybe I should find a rehab plan that takes cereal addicts.

The sanity defense

2005-11-02T10:43:00.000-05:00

For when you care enough to send the very best, but you don't because it would drive you crazy.

Have you ever known someone who always managed to push your buttons? Someone whose presence is so toxic that you can't stand to be around them, and even momentary contact has the potential to ruin the rest of your day? Common sense tells us to avoid people like that. We tell the boorish coworker with the percignly annoying laugh we're busy and have work to do. We don't invite that girl who has so much drama in her life it makes us feel unclean, and we don't invite that judgmental guy to our parties who always makes us feel small for not being as successful/ambitious/lucky or simply not dropping out of school or having a child out of wedlock. It is straightforward enough; if a person is bad for your psyche, you cut him or her out of your life. But what do you do when that person is family? Or, better yet, nuclear family?

We're suppose to love our family. Unconditionally. There is no greater love than that between a mother and child, and we use the words brother and sister as high forms of praise, because someone is so close that "he is like a brother to me". Anyone who has an actual family with enough people in it knows that life is rarely that simple. Family members argue, fight and feud, sometimes for decades, over the pettiest things. There's always at least one socially dysfunctional person, whether anyone admits it or not. Someone is an alcoholic, someone is an egotistical bigot, someone is a drug addict, someone is just simplpy a jackass. In some cases, its most of the family. What are you supposed to do then?

My own family can be like that sometimes. They are frequently the most petty, spiteful, negative, even hateful people I know. If this is what family love is about - backstabbing, undermining, casting doubt and aspersion every which way - then I don't need it. Even my own father (as some of you may already know) has issues. He's managed to alienate all six of his children, then he whines when no one calls him on his birthday. But he is still my dad, right?

I've gained some perspective on this over time, thanks to a friend. I've decided my mental health is more important than anything else. To the extent that anything threatens that, it gets reduced or eliminated. That includes toxic family members. In fact, she developed a system for classifying how much she blocks out people who threaten her mental health. I wish I could take credit for it. Here it is, in order from shortest to longest:

COMA - Crack Of My Ass. Basically, I'm not going to speak to you for a few days.
COMAT - Crack Of My Ass Treatment. I'm not going to speak to you for a few weeks. I've got other things to worry about besides your hassling me.
COMBAT - Crack Of My Black Ass Treatment. I'm not going to speak to you for at least a few months, if I ever speak to you again.

So the basic idea is that when people start to threaten your sanity, you put them on block for a period of time that's long enough for your sanity to heal. Sometimes, that means forever. Sometimes, that's necessary.

Cause and effect

2005-10-21T13:53:00.000-04:00

I think I caused an auto accident today. OK, I don't think I caused it, but I may have been a contributing factor. That lady who rear-ended the guy in the Explorer, she caused it. But I probably had something to do with it.

The scenario: It's cool outside, and a bit drizzly today. I was driving in heavy traffic on a 6 lane road during the late morning commute. My lane had come to an abrupt stop, and the lane to my right was slowing but not stopped yet, so I quickly cut over in front of this Explorer. Those of you who have ridden with me and who have comments on my driving, keep them to yourselves! My record (no at-fault accidents, one time being rear-ended by an idiot, and 2 moving violations over almost 15 years of assertive, precise driving) speaks for itself. The Explorer managed to stop in plenty of time, as I wouldn't have cut in front of him if he had not been able. The lady behind him, however, clearly wasn't paying attention. A full second after he came to a stop, I heard that *crunch* that I've only heard once before, of a low-speed collision. I looked back in the mirror, and sure enough, the lady got out of her car almost immediately to look.

I took off. Yeah, I was a witness, but I didn't want anybody trying to blame me, either.

Now... was I at fault? Not in any legal sense of the word. Clearly the rear-ending woman will be dinged for the accident. What about the philosophical sense? Was she in a situation in which nothing she could have done differently would have led to a different outcome? Clearly not. Had she not been tailgating, there was no accident. Would there have been an accident had I not cut off the driver of the Explorer? Probably not. Should I feel guilty? Ehhh... I don't. But maybe I should.

The new gray layout

2005-10-19T10:38:00.000-04:00

Most of you have already noticed and commented. Thanks for your compliments and feedback. I darkened up the two background pictures, so the text should be more legible now. Plus it's a little more obvious now that there's an imminent rainstorm in the background. Stupid wack Haloscan won't let me put HTML into my template without paying them (which I don't intend to do), so I can't make the comment boxes look exactly like the main page, but they'll have to do as is. I probably won't be keeping this layout for long, because I have an even more brilliant idea in the works.

The wheels of justice

2005-10-19T10:02:00.000-04:00

Apparently, white women can do the impossible. On Oct. 12, the Washington Post wrote a story about a lawyer from Alexandria who got arrested for DUI in Georgetown, even though she only registered .03 blood alcohol content, and had only one glass of wine that evening. She says she wasn't exhibiting physical symptoms of drunkenness, but the arresting officer disagreed. She hired a lawyer and beat the case, although it took a while.

DC has had this law on its books since 1998 that any driver can be arrested for DUI with as little as .01 BAC, if in the judgment of the officer the driver appears intoxicated. Apparently, no one knew about it, except for the people who actually got arrested under its terms, and the officers doing the arresting. That is, until Debra Bolton came along, and the Post decided her story was worth telling.

On Oct. 18, the DC City Council passed a new law that establishes presumption of DUI at .08 and above, and presumption of sobriety at .05 and below. It took them all of six days to remedy this scourge of arrest plaguing single, affluent, one-glass-of-red-wine-tippling white women... well, at least that one. I don't think the City Council has ever done anything in six days before. They've been arguing about this ballpark for a year, and fighting over funding the very necessary renovation and reconstruction of DC schools for many years. It's amazing how quickly justice can be had for citizens who aren't even your constituents.

I wonder how many poor people would have had to have been arrested before they got a bill passed, or an article written, or even one of them had the cash to hire a lawyer and the balls to fight the case, instead of taking the revenue-boosting probationary plea deals that most DUI suspects in this city decide is the best choice of action.

Appearance isn't everything

2005-10-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

... it's the only thing.

I just ran into a girl I went out with briefly about two years ago, in Ross. Let me set the scenario for you: I had just gotten out of the gym. I was sweaty. I haven't shaved my head & face in two days, and I haven't trimmed my goatee in a week. I was wearing my ratty 5 year old Old Navy fakey fleece warmup - it is very comfortable, but it makes me look vaguely homeless. Plus, she hasn't seen me in at least a year, so she probably also noticed the additional gray hairs on the chin and the few pounds I've gained since last year. Suffice it to say I probably looked like I had been sleeping on a grate on L St. for the last year, scraping and begging for enough change to buy the 3 packs of discounted underwear I had in my hands. She actually did a double take.

And I didn't care.

You see, she dissed me. Stopped returning my calls. Don't know why, don't care. Point is, she dissed me at my best. I had put my best foot forward, because I really liked her. Took her to places that were too expensive for early dates. Didn't pull all the stops out, but probably 80% of them. And with all that, and my magnificent persona to boot, she still dissed me. So if my best wasn't good enough for her, what difference does it make?

She still looked as good as ever, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that. Hopefully she'll be able to land that job with that cheap suit she was looking for.

Inscrutable math

2005-10-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

I got my accounting exam back. And I'm even more confused now than I was when I took the exam. You see, the professor gave me a 50. Out of 50. I had to look again at the inside cover at his chickenscratch to see if that was really a 5 and a 0. Even though he marked up clearly in red pen where I had gone astray inside (and I had gone astray in several places), he gave me a 50 anyway.

So once that sank in, I decided that he must have been fairly lenient when grading. Maybe my expectations of his expectations were overestimated. Maybe I just set high standards for myself.

One of my classmates was having trouble finding his score, since the professor had chosen to write them in an odd place. He opened his book and said "is this it, here?" and pointed to it. 35. 35! And he actually WORKS in finance, and has taken accounting classes before. I almost wish I hadn't seen it. But then, it made it clear the professor wasn't all THAT lenient. So then I figure, maybe he just marked up arithmetic errors but gave credit for setting things up properly, even if the math was wrong.

Then, just like I was back in undergrad, people started asking "so what'd you get? How'd you do?" I didn't like sharing my scores then, and I don't like it now. I said "I did ok" and left it at that.

Family review time, part 2

2005-10-10T12:33:00.000-04:00

You may recall that I went to a family wedding last May and wrote about my brothers bringing random girlfriends to the ceremony for review. Well, I had another family wedding this past weekend, in Philadelphia, this time on my dad's side. Whenever this side of the family gets together, there is always some drama. This time was no different.

My little sister decided to bring her boyfriend. Mind you, she's 21 and still in college. As far as we can tell, they aren't that serious, and she swears up and down they aren't that serious, and that she has no plans to get married, yet she brought him home (to LA) to meet the parents, and then brought him to this wedding. That in itself was enough to start people talking, but apparently to add icing to this cake, my father suggested she bring him. I can't imagine why on earth he thought that was a good idea, as he'd already met him. I know the family likes the boy; they've even gone to the trouble of renaming him. They decided his first name is too "ethnic" (i.e. ghetto-sounding), and therefore a professional liability, so they call him by his middle name. Never mind what his mama named him. Of course my sister got mad when the parents kicked her and the boyfriend out of their hotel room so they could have some privacy, and then mentioned that the family had procured an all-girls room and an all-boys room, so they wouldn't be able to sleep together. He doesn't want to sleep in a room with all strangers, she protested. Tough titty, I say... I saw that one coming. No way the parents pay for a room so the two of them can get it on.

As if all that wasn't enough, my other brother decides to quietly announce that he's gotten a divorce. As in final, kaput, completed. I guess it only takes six months in Virginia if you don't have kids, and he didn't want to tell anyone before it was final, in case they reconciled. My family doesn't do well with dropped bombs. They had already decided that his marriage was the only good thing going for him, when clearly it wasn't going all that well. I knew the older generation would have comments, even though every one of them has been divorced at least once, and some more than once. Silver lining, though... he'll be spending more time up in DC, so maybe we'll hang out more.

Joke of the day

2005-10-06T16:19:00.001-04:00

Received in the mail today:

You've been prescreened
for a mortgage of up to
$80,000*
with no down payment!
Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx

$80,000, huh? Hmm, let's see what I can get for that around here. So I did a search on ziprealty.com to see what I could find, based on my zip code. Ooh, a property on stately Elm Street NE, not far from where I live! OK, so its $89,000, but I am sure I can come up with $9,000 on my own. Then I read a little bit more... 6033 square feet. Wow, that's huge... what am I getting, a warehouse? Then I read a little bit more.... oh, the LOT is 6,033 square feet. That's a little less than 1/7 of an acre... I've lived on less, so still doable.

But then there's a catch. There's always a catch.

There is no house on this property. It's just an empty lot. Dirt, grass, weeds, and if I'm lucky, some deeply buried archaeological artifact that will pay off the mortgage. Or, if I'm not so lucky, a not-so-deeply buried dead body.

Guess the joke is on me.

Oh yeah, the asterisk:

* Actual loan amount may be higher or lower than stated depending on documented income, debt, and property value. The maximum loan amount cannot exceed the lesser of a total debt-to-income ratio of 40% or 359,600; ratio will be calculated to include proposed monthly mortgage payment.

Thanks, Wells Fargo!

Caught

2005-10-03T11:32:00.000-04:00

I got caught yesterday, doing something that was ghetto. I probably should be ashamed, but I really wasn't... and if I was, I probably wouldn't have been ghetto in the first place.

Yesterday, I decided to give my car its bi-annual rubdown. I gave it a good hand wash, then went back with the cleaner/polish/wax to get the deep road grime out and give it a good shine. I'm annoyed that people constantly find new ways to ding my car, and its never near an old ding, it's always in a completely new place, so the dings quickly surrounded the car. Just last week, somebody scraped up the ROOF and the top of the left rear panel by the trunk. Who the hell was putting stuff on TOP of my car, I do not know, but I was pissed. Anyway, I digress. The point is, my hands were good and dried out after I was done and had washed them off.

After I finished that, I needed to go to the grocery store, and I wanted to go before it got late. So I hopped in the car and went to the store. On the way there, I realized I badly needed lotion. My hands were so dry, the skin was actually starting to hurt. So once I was in the store, I weaved through a few aisles, and then when I got to the health and beauty aisle, I looked around to make sure no one was looking, grabbed a bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care for Extra Dry Skin, squirted some on my hand, and then started rubbing it in. Aahhhh.

As I walked back to my cart and turned the corner to go around a display, I ran into a brotha who was restocking another part of the aisle. He saw me rubbing lotion in, with no lotion bottles in my hand or in my cart, and just shook his head.

Now, I have seen many more ghetto things transpire in that particular Giant. It's the one on Rhode Island Ave, right next to some rather large projects, so you know who all is up in there. But I guess this is the first time I have directly contributed to its ghettoness.

I did go back and grab the bottle of lotion and put it in my cart, because I realized I needed to buy it anyway. So maybe that absolves me a little bit.

Going through it

2005-09-30T12:32:00.000-04:00

Yes, I've been absent from posting for a while. I'm going to take the punk route out and blame my schedule. For those of you who don't know, I started a part-time MBA program at the University of Maryland this fall. It meets two nights a week, from 6:30 - 10:00 pm. So far, it hasn't been a HUGE amount of work, but the adjustment to my schedule has been the biggest issue. I have to get used to going back to school again, being in that scholastic mindset. I have to remember that time outside of work isn't mine to goof off as I see fit, but rather now I have HOMEWORK to do. Still, I had a certain swagger. I have been a grad student before, in a much more difficult program, so I figured this would be no sweat.

Then I walked into my accounting exam on Wednesday. For those of you who know some accounting, the exam required us to prepare a balance sheet, an income statement and a cash flow statement by the indirect method. Balance sheet, no problem. Income statement, seems right. 90% confident. Cash flow statement.... kept me in the exam room until I ran out of time. Try as I might, I could not get those numbers to add up right. It didn't help that the prof said during the lecture on the topic that plenty of people who graduated with degrees in accounting can't prepare indirect cash flow statements. It didn't help that we only spent 30 minutes of total lecture on the topic, in a course that is all of seven weeks. It SHO didn't help that lots of people turned in exams and walked out early, while I was still struggling. That had me shook. That used to be me, trying to see who could finish fastest. Broke my confidence. One of my math profs in college used to joke about students who just stayed in the exam room as long as possible, waiting for divine intervention to help them.

So now I realize I might have to buckle down a little bit harder. I might have to ask the prof for some extra credit, or something. I might have to go to office hours, although they are inconvenient as hell.

And yes, you might be seeing less of me on the blog, but I'm not dead. Just relearning how to be a student.

I never thought I would

2005-09-06T23:20:00.000-04:00

...post a link to a hip-hop song on my blog. A lot of people have forgotten that, once upon a time, hip-hop was the voice of a dispossessed people. Just yesterday, I was watching BET (a rare moment for me), and I saw three videos that all looked pretty much exactly the same to me. I had heard of the artists, but not the songs. All three featured scraggly looking unkempt black men waxing obnoxious about ... whatever. Bitches and bling aesthetic, as datfuule calls it. Same vaguely cinnamon looking women gyrating around in a disinterested fashion. It would be disgusting if it weren't boring. And yet, if I was one of the younger generation, and had grown up on nothing but songs and videos like these, I would not even know that I should expect better.

And then I came across this. It's a near 14 minute mix with sound bites from Mayor Nagin and others, over beats, and it crystallizes how a lot of my friends in the black community are feeling right now. It ought to be required listening for a lot of people.

The new diaspora

2005-09-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

Like many of us, I've had a lot of thoughts running through my head this week about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the former residents of New Orleans. I'm transfixed by it all, and I don't see how anyone else could not be. So many things are going on, in the world at large and in my own thoughts, that it's been difficult to sort them out. I'm glad to see the mass media waking up to the racial dimension of this situation, and its contribution to making things worse. I'm sorry to see the piss-poor organization and command & control structures of the federal government. I'm awed by the satellite, aerial and up-close photos of devastation, and in pity of the masses of people who literally have nothing but the clothes on their backs and who have to start life all over again from scratch. I'll let other people talk about most of these issues, but one thing in particular is pressing on me.

In a few days, or maybe a week or two, hopefully the evacuation will be pretty much complete. But then what? All these people, most of them black, will soon exhaust whatever temporary resources they have at their disposal, be it credit cards, relief fund vouchers, cash on hand. They will need to get jobs, somehow, when they have no work history, no employment or education records, and some probably don't even have identification. They will need to be absorbed into the economies of the rest of the country, and it won't just be Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, it will affect all of our communities.

In all the darkness of the past few days, I've been looking for a few rays of sunshine, of hope. Here's one: people all over the country are offering room in their houses, for free or very cheap. With all the focus on looting and other crimes, the generosity of this country has been lost in the shuffle. Hopefully we will see more of it in the weeks to come. My personal opportunity for this is at hand; my brother's roommate is from New Orleans, and pretty much his entire family lived there. They lost everything, and they're all on their way here. Most of them will stay in my brother's house (which is quite a bit bigger than mine), but I'll probably put up two or three of them in my spare bedroom and help them out with food, clothes and bus fare until they can get on their feet. That will make me feel a lot better than the money I gave to the Red Cross.

Another ray: So many of the pictures we see are so depressing, that I wanted to share one that isn't quite so depressing.

Gas price rises and fallout

2005-08-24T15:08:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm going to take the half-ass route and talk about a popular blogging topic. As we all know, gas prices are at record highs. Ridiculous highs. How ridiculous? You can buy a t-shirt or mug with the following image on it:

And on a more serious note, this AP story about a fool who killed a gas station attendant trying to drive off after stealing $52 worth of fuel to fill his gas-thirsty SUV. This is so ridiculous and sad at the same time, I can't laugh, I can't cry, all I can do is shake my head. Pretty soon, SUVs will be flooding the resale market, just like condos are about to.

Confessions

2005-08-18T17:37:00.000-04:00

WARNING:
The following is a confessional of a lot of random thoughts from the dark corners of my brain, a good deal of which involve prurient interest. If you are squeamish, or don't wish to know bad or creepy things about me, don't read any further. Don't say you weren't warned.

My job isn't that bad. I get paid well, I get to come in pretty much whenever I want, and they think I'm brilliant. Lately I get in around 11am. Of course, if they really think I am brilliant, why do they give me such menial labor?

I once wondered whether sleeping with my boss would get me ahead. Yes, my actual boss at the time. No, I didn't do it.

In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. Apparently a lot of that sort of fraternization goes on around here.

I sometimes turn up the volume on a porno just to see if the neighbor's kids are listening on the other side of the wall. So far, they haven't responded.

I have a fondness for alcohol. So far, I'm not an alcoholic, although a glance at my dad encourages me to be careful.

Like many men, I sometimes wonder how women would react differently if my *ahem* member was significantly larger than it currently is. I don't think I could have been a porn star, though, because what else could you do with your life after that?

When driving, and the weather is hot, I glance at any scantily clad female figure walking down the street. More often than not, in my neighborhood, they are underage, and I mentally slap myself for looking.

Occasionally, they are grannies, and then I still feel bad, but not as bad.

Panty lines, on the right woman, are sometimes sexy.

Not granny panties, though.

I once had regular sex with a woman who had a false tooth. She wore this plate in her mouth with the fake tooth on it. For the longest time, I just thought she didn't like kissing.

Yes, (usually) she took it out when we had sex. Don't ask me how I didn't notice.

I walk around my house naked fairly often. Usually, though, I at least have on underwear. If I ever move in with someone, or someone moves in with me, this will be a hard habit to break.

I keep a shoebox full of jetsam and detritus from every woman I've ever interacted with on a romantic level. When I get married, I'll burn it.

Some of the stuff in there probably won't burn too well. I'll need an industrial strength incinerator to get it to ashes.

One of the things that's not in the box is a Mardi Gras doll named Kokeeta (don't ask). I like to think she brings me good luck. Upon reflection of the relationship that was involved, she probably does the opposite.

Some people's blogs make me dizzy. I mean, what the hell are they talking about? I never know.

No, I'm not going to name names. I'm not that mean.

I envy people who get to work downtown on K street, L street, or anywhere that a lot of other black people work. By virtue of my profession, I'm never around very many black people.

Consequently, I've never had an office romance. Although there are a couple of Indians and a Pakistani girl here who are cute. And the Haitian girl quit before we really started talking, so it doesn't count.

I first discovered internet porn while I was a summer intern at NASA. Suddenly, the reason for the internet became obvious.

I discovered that the range of kink goes WAAAY off the chart when one of my college classmates who interned at another NASA site that same summer came back to campus with porn that made me cringe.

I sometimes envy people who are blissfully ignorant. A little knowledge can be a terrifying thing.

I also pity them.

I wish I was rich primarily so I would never have to think about money again. Somehow, a small part of me suspects even that wouldn't help.

In which case I wish I had just enough to get the things I want, which really isn't much, because I don't really care about money for its own sake.

OK, that's enough for now. There, I feel better getting those things off my chest.

The classic career dilemma

2005-08-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

The other day I was out to dinner with a friend, and I ran into an old coworker. He was once a software architect at the medium-to-large firm where I have worked for the past 2 1/2 years, and he left rather quickly. Very exuberant, very smart German guy. A lot of fun to work with, and very much into cutting edge technology. Some of the other developers here and I used to do lunch with him now and then, but I hadn't seen him in a while.

He hit me with a pitch: he's starting his own company. Nothing big, a small consulting firm. Familiar territory to me. He tried to sell me on joining his firm, as a consultant. I told him to email me and we'd go to lunch or something.

Now on to my dilemma. This particular episode highlighted a dissonance I've had my entire career, if it can be called that. On the one hand, it would be a lot of fun to work with him. I'd get to work on interesting stuff, things that would get me out of bed in the morning. On the other hand, there's a lot of risk working in small companies (which I know from experience), and a lot of disadvantages. He can just about match my salary here, but probably not the benefits. Career growth? Where is there to be promoted when you work for the owner and there's 5 other people in the office? And forget about networking, unless you do it through some other organization. Nobody will know the brilliance that is you... er, me. I spent the first four years of my career working at a succession of small firms (the biggest has 110 employees at its peak), working on interesting stuff, but not doing much else. When the last small firm capsized in rough waters, I was cut adrift, looking for yet another job not four months after I'd gotten that one. I decided enough was enough, and I went hunting for a big firm position.

You see, I had been avoiding big firms like the bubonic plague since my co-op at Coca-Cola the summer after I graduated from college. Yes, that was a long nine years ago. My experiences there (and interning as an undergrad for a government agency) convinced me that I'd wither away and die inside a big firm, and I would never be happy there. And so that drove my choices for a long time.

But then, real life intervened. Having remarkably unstable employers and absolutely no career advancement to show for four years of interesting work, I had bigger fish to fry. Stability is important, and trying to explain in interviews why I had four jobs in four years and that I wasn't a flight risk was becoming increasingly difficult. I decided to bite the bullet and go for the big firm.

And so far, it's been good to me in some ways and stiflingly banal in others. Although I still feel behind the curve in my career, I finally got a promotion. I get to do things that are more "business" oriented, which is good for my ultimate career development, especially since I'm about to begin an MBA program in a couple of weeks, trying to shift my career from techie drone to greedy boss/entrepreneur.

And yet, this job is so boring at times. My close friends joke about my incredibly lax attendance habits, because I can (and do actually) work from home, and when I come into the office, no one cares what time I get here. Simply put, it doesn't get me out of the bed in the morning. The offer from the architect in the restaurant, while ultimately not a move I would make, sure sounded tempting. I just have to remember that I have a long range plan that doesn't involve working on anything, interesting or otherwise, for other people until I am 75 (which is probably how old I'll have to be to collect Social Security, if there is anything left by then).

Five things

2005-08-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

OK, yall should know by now I hate these "meme" things. But in the interest of playing nicely, and since proactiff called me out, I'm participating.

Ten Years ago: Hmm, junior year in college. A seminal year for learning how the real world works, to a certain degree. I got my first off-campus spot, which was owned by a couple of family friends. Husband is an architect, wife is an interior decorator. I agreed to move in sight-unseen, at the beginning of the summer, thinking they'd hook it up. I'd seen their work. In short, a total disaster. I moved out a month later, citing the drug use in the building, the lack of telephone lines, the roaches and ants, the lack of a doorbell, and other mishaps. Moved into a place on Camp Creek Parkway in Atlanta that was totally covered with roaches. Roommates refused to spend the first night there. Eff that, this is MY apt, not the roaches. I went and bought 72 bait stations and a huge basket of roach killer. It took two weeks, but by the end of the two weeks, those roaches had experienced a massive extermination of biblical proportions. And to think, the property manager had the nerve to say it wasn't their roaches that caused the problem, the roaches were coming from the property next door. Hmph. The Goodie MOB's first hit song had a verse about my apartment complex... I'll let yall crate diggers find that one. Oh yeah, this is when I bought my first car on my own... a $1200 1981 Buick Regal. Never did quite figure out if it was really a lemon, or if the mechanics pulled some fast ones on me, or if I was really just dumb, but it lasted all of 6 weeks, and then threw a rod. And then it sat in front of my apartment for the rest of the school year, where I had to pass it every day on the way to the bus stop, on the way to the MARTA train, on the way to campus, on my hour-plus commute. I vowed to learn cars inside and out, and never to have to ride the bus again, after that. Also the year of the first time I ever dated a girl solely based on looks. Yeesh, she was a complete bubblehead.

Five Years Ago: This would be right after the lowest point in my life. I had just finished dealing with a relationship-oriented saga about which I shall not go into detail, and dropping out of the Ph.D. program, and coming off a good two years of depression. It sucked. On the plus side, I was coming into a job market that was clamoring for software developers, due to the dot-com boom in San Francisco. A few months too late, as it turns out... my thoroughly clueless employer didn't even get to issue public stock before going bust. It was a fun ride though, I'll be able to tell my grandkids about the days when, as they squirm in their seats and wish they were playing their PS9s instead.

One Year Ago: Hmm, 2004. Not a lot memorable about that year. I turned 30, went to the Dominican Republic on a week-long sabbatical and had a blast, then came back here and threw a rather large (for me, anyway) birthday party, thus marking my entrance into "real" adulthood.

Yesterday: Spent a good three hours scouting for good outdoor shooting locales for my burgeoning photography habit. I found a good one too... Lake Artemicia, which is harder to get into than the freakin' Pentagon.

Today: I was supposed to have a photo shoot today, but it's raining. Guess we'll have to postpone. I'm not too sure about these models, anyway... two sisters, both young. Kinda flaky. I have a feeling if I ever pin them down, the pictures will come out nicely though, so I'm trying to be patient.

Tomorrow: Hmm... nothing noteworthy about tomorrow. But on Thursday, I am going to have a meeting with some people at work because they are insisting on nominating me for this Black Engineer of the Year award. I think I'm going to blog more about this later.

Five Snacks I Enjoy: Snacks are the bane of my existence. But if I had to pick some... these whole fruit pops from Edy's are the bomb, especially lemonade and limeade. I can kill a whole can of cashews if I am not careful. I like natural applesauce, and I am a sucker for hazelnut Piroulines.

Five Bands: My tastes are all over the place, but lately I've been listening to some lounge, some jungle, some house. Bands & artists of the moment: Amon Tobin, Seek, Dzihan & Kamien, Nicola Conte, De Lata. Look em up, or click the link over there on the left where it says "groovy music" and you might catch some.

Five Things I would do with $100,000,000.00: Open a sports bar. Buy a condo in every city I like to visit. Buy every gadget I ever wanted, and every stitch of clothing I couldn't afford before. Set mom up for a comfortable retirement. And (pursuant to the next question) disappear...

Five Locations I would like to run away to: Salvador da Bahia, Puerto Plata, Tokyo, Paris, and an unnamed private island in the South Pacific.

Five Bad Habits: Aggressive driving, obsessive fingernail trimming, condescension, wandering willpower, not finishing things I start.

Five things I like doing: Aggressive driving, shooting pictures, solving problems, eating, listening to music.

Five things I would never wear: Sweatervests, overlong t-shirts that look like H-line dresses, sports goggles, gadget belt holsters, pajamas.

Five TV Shows I like: I assume this does not need to be current, as I don't watch that much TV these days. Sportscenter, Star Trek (TNG & DS9), Girlfriends (don't laugh, I know a lot of women who are JUST LIKE those girls on tv), Law & Order reruns on TNT (I'll often watch these instead of the new episode on Wednesday nights), and I still have a soft spot in my heart for the incredibly poorly produced and animated childhood classic, Transformers.

Five movies I like: See if you can spot a trend here... The Usual Suspects, The Matrix, The Shawshank Redemption, Love Jones, Black Street Hookers #61. OK, I'm joking about that last one. But those are just about all the DVDs I own.

Five Famous People I would Like to meet: Hmmm... I don't really trip off of celebrities. I see them, recognize them, and move on. Just last week I ran into Baron Davis over by Pepperdine U in LA. And I said to myself, he's looking me eye to eye, they lie about his listed height (I know, big surprise). It just reinforces the entirely fallacious notion that if I had just worked a little harder (ok, a lot harder), I could have made the NBA.

Five Biggest Joys At this moment: Shooting pictures with my NEW FAVORITE TOY (see below), working from home whenever I feel like it, arctic-strength air conditioning, those Edy's lemonade bars (see above), and my new (to me) Amon Tobin album (also see above).

Five Favorite Toys: My brand new Nikon D70 digital SLR. I finally bit the bullet, and I had good timing since this model is discontinued (in favor of the D70s, which is barely an improvement with a 2mm bigger screen, an extra remote mode, and some other BS) and is therefore marked down everywhere. Plus I get to sell my old Canon Powershot G5 to my friend, who's willing to give me fair market value for the camera and flash. My other toys: my work-issued laptop, my regular home computer (which doubles as my stereo), my new diamond-cut paper shredder (sometimes we are all little kids at heart) and my 2000 Honda Prelude, which just crossed 90,000 miles and is in need of a whole bunch of stuff now... new tires, new belts, oil change, yadda yadda. It better be glad I love driving it!

There, I've done it. Now don't put me on any more of these things ever again!

For the single among us

2005-08-13T10:25:00.000-04:00

Eight reasons sleeping alone is great:

Hog all the covers to yourself.

You can fart freely.

Snoring doesn't bother anyone, unless you wake yourself up.

No struggle to remember someone's name.

No awkward bed-sharing positions.

Knowing where your underwear is.

No morning walk of shame. Everything is done under cover of darkness.

No one has to sleep in the wet spot!

The shotgun strategy

2005-07-29T11:03:00.000-04:00

OK, this one isn't so much a new theory as it is an application of an existing theory: the law of supply and demand, with a twist. A whole lot of women say things to me like this: "Why do I get approached by so many short men?" Substitute "short" with "broke", "lame", or any other pejorative you like, but the idea is the same. Why are there so many more bustas than desirable men out there? The answer is: there aren't. Well, maybe there are, but not nearly as many as a person in that situation might think.

Those of you who might have taken a little statistics, population biology or public health should be familiar with the classic bell curve, and what it means for a characteristic that can take a range of values. Essentially, it says that for any population large enough, the vast majority will be clumped around the average. In our example, that characteristic is desirability in some shape or form. Specifically, let's look at height. The average American man is five feet, nine and a half inches tall, and the bell curve tells us the vast majority of men will have heights close to that... say, within three inches. As it happens, black men trend slightly (about 3/4 inch) taller. So where are all these short men coming from?

First, let's consider an average guy, and let's call him Joe. Joe is average height. Let's put our average guy Joe in an average social environment, with about the same number of men and women. Let's say Joe is trying to find a woman for a date. On average, Joe would have to proposition, oh, let's say n women before he found one that agreed to go out with him. The exact number isn't important; what's important is that there is one.

Now let's look at a short guy, let's call him, say, Peewee. Peewee is five feet five inches tall, which puts him squarely outside the vast majority of near-average men we discussed earlier. Simply put, there just aren't that many Peewees out there. And let's say Peewee is on the same mission as Joe. Peewee has balls, so he's not afraid to approach any women taller than him, but he also doesn't have a height preference. Peewee also has to talk to a certain number of women before he can find one to go out on a date. But women like tall men. So Peewee has to approach more women than Joe before he can find one to go out with. How many more? A lot more. A whole lot more.

Just like there are a whole lot of men around the average height, there are a whole lot of women who have about the same height cutoff in their list of requirements for men they date. Some like em taller, some shorter, but the vast majority will be in that same area, give or take a couple of inches. Peewee falls short. And because he is outside that area where so many women have their cutoff, he's going to have a hard time finding those few women for whom height isn't so much of an issue. So what does Peewee do? He employs what I call the shotgun strategy: aim broadly, with as many attempts as possible, to increase his odds of hitting a target. And Peewee might have to sacrifice some of his other preferences to find that hard-to-find Peewee-loving woman. So he'll talk to anybody. Put just a couple of Peewees in that average social environment, and they'll probably approach every woman in the room, something that Joe would never do.

So if you're a woman, what does this look like? It looks like an army of Peewees, constantly hitting up you and your friends, because Peewees make many more propositions than average Joes, just to achieve the same result.

This idea can be extrapolated in the other direction. Let's say there is a guy who's significantly taller than average. Let's call him Superjoe. Superjoe is highly desirable because he is so tall, and women love tall men. So when Superjoe goes to the same club that regular Joe and Peewee also went to, he doesn't have to proposition as many women as they did. Superjoe's n is smaller than Joe's n, and a LOT smaller than Peewee's n. So to women, this looks like a shortage of Superjoes, because they don't have to approach as many women to find what they're looking for.

I just spent this whole discussion talking about height, but really it can (and does) apply to many other desirability factors. The key is, every time you add another factor to your personal equation (be it financial stability, general looks, skin color, whatever), the effects are multiplied. That means that the apparent number of Peewees explodes, and Superjoes become exponentially harder to find. In fact, I think that there is a point of desirability beyond which men's personal n becomes zero; that is, they don't have to approach anybody at all. They are so desirable (for whatever reason) that women literally throw themselves at them. These men are essentially invisible, because they never approach anyone, so women often don't believe that they exist. Think of them as black holes - they are out there, you know they are out there because of the effect they have on people around them, but you never actually SEE them.

So ladies, don't sweat the Peewee brigade. There's a regular Joe out there for you, and if you're lucky, maybe a Superjoe.

The superwhore theory

2005-07-21T10:56:00.000-04:00

As you've probably learned by now, I have a theory for everything. I've decided to share some of my dating and relationship theories with you. I was going to save these for a book about relationships that I plan to write and get rich from and retire, but what the hey... maybe this blog will help me to reshape and refine some of my ideas.

Today I'd like to combat an idea that I find to be prevalent among many women, and probably by extension some men: that men are bigger whores than women. They aren't. In fact, I think men and women are equally whorish. For the purposes of this discussion, we'll only consider heterosexual activity.

First, let's consider the "ideal" situation:

Figure 1. Ideal situation

In this fantasy land, each person has the same number of sexual partners, namely three. Therefore, men (in blue) and women (in pink) have the same number of average partners, three.

Of course, reality is nothing like this. Women insist that men have slept around more than they have. In practical terms, this would mean that men had to have a higher number of average partners than women.

This is impossible.

Every time a man has a partner, he's sleeping with a woman. Therefore, the total number of encounters for all men and all women is always the same*, and the average is the same. But women insist that they've had less, and that most women (or at least the women they know) have had less. Is this possible?

It is, under a special circumstance. In order for this to happen, there would have to be a small subset of women who have slept with a whole lot of people. We'll call them superwhores.

Figure 2. Superwhore situation

In the superwhore situation, you'll notice that girl A has had 5 partners, more than anybody else in the diagram. In fact, she's slept with everybody. All the men still have 3 partners, and a couple of the women have only two, making them feel more chaste I would imagine.

This is, of course, a very small example. In the general population, the numbers would have to be much drastically different. Depending on the size of the superwhore subgroup, their "body count" (so to speak) would have to be much much higher than everyone else's, including the most sexually-active men... probably an order of magnitude higher. Still, this could be possible. Finding this population would establish this theory beyond a doubt, and actually somewhat vindicate the women who feel good about feeling chaste, but I think it's unlikely we'll find them... it's sort of like looking for the Higgs boson, establishing a theory of everything.

In reality, I think the world probably looks something like this:

Figure 3. Realistic situation

Here, there is a distribution of numbers of partners. Most people are around average, with a couple of people on either side above or below average. In a large population, it probably resembles a bell curve, and it's the same for men and women.

So, in conclusion, if you find some superwhores, let me know. I've got some, uh, questions to ask them.

* The sexually active population of men and women isn't exactly 50-50, there are a very few more women than men. In these calculations, they'd be in the 2nd decimal place, so it doesn't matter.

All's well that ends well

2005-07-18T09:28:00.000-04:00

Since a few of you asked for follow-up on the dinner trap described in this earlier post, I decided to post the response I got from the woman:

I found a young lady on craigslist to be the "decoy" and she had dinner with him. Needless to say, my suspicions were correct and we are history.... but I kept the 2 carat ring.

'nuff said.

I wish I didn't have home training, sometimes

2005-07-15T12:42:00.000-04:00

I'm not a naturally violent or vindictive person. Really, I'm not. When I get mad with someone, my instinct is normally to put as much distance as possible between myself and the object of my ire.

Having said that, here is a list of people I'd like to slap:

That fool who managed to step on one foot, then immediately step on my other foot with his other foot, and didn't even turn around or say anything.

People who drive out of control on the beltway. It was pouring rain yesterday as I drove home, and I was on this stretch of the inner loop by College Park that's under construction, so the surface has been scraped for it to be repaved. It just ain't safe to push a 3 ton steel object at 70+ mph in heavy traffic on any kind of regular tires. And sure enough, I got stuck RIGHT behind an accident and had to wait a few minutes for the fire & rescue and a state trooper. bammas!

People who are drive completely oblivious to the world around them. If you are comfortable doing 60 on the beltway, in sunny dry and normal speedy conditions, that's fine. But get the hell out of the left lane, because you're going to cause an accident, or at least a slowdown behind you as people stack up and can't pass.

The waiter at my friend's birthday dinner. We had a party of eight, and he tried like hell to be scarce. Even ran away from the table three times before we'd finished giving him instructions. He knew his 18% gratuity was already included. And of course no one cared but me.

The stupid online furniture vendor who sent me a bed without any screws, nuts or bolts, and then sent me only screws when I complained about it.

The other stupid online furniture vendor who thought it was reasonable to charge $225 shipping on a $600 purchase.

Verizon, for deliberately fscking up my phone line because I don't have DSL from them. Bitches, the noise is AUDIBLE! I can HEAR it! But apparently they don't give a shit because I only have regular voice, and it's "good enough". I can't even get dialup faster than 33k sometimes. I hate them so much I'm considering leaving my great ISP and signing up for cable modem with the hated Comcast. *sigh* but at least it is working today, because I needed to work from home today.

That DC meter maid who gave me a $100 ticket for expired tags, when the shit had just arrived in the mail the same day. I am going to mail in my evidence, though, and fight this one.

There's more, but I'm tired of listing them. I think this calls for a therapeutic trip to hoslap.net. I wish you could paste in other people's faces.

Everybody loves somebody sometimes

2005-07-12T14:16:00.000-04:00

Apparently the old adage is true: there's somebody for everybody. I've recently been witness (sort-of) to two examples of this saying.

On my flight back from Boston on Sunday, I saw a quite interesting couple on the plane. The first thing I noticed about the two women was that they were deaf. As passengers found their seats, they were having an animated conversation in sign language. One of the women was white (blond, Scandinavian-looking white at that, albeit with a sort of tan), and the other was a sort-of unidentifiable ethnic that I could only vaguely guess as Brazilian. The second thing I noticed was that the ethnic woman had two different colored eyes... one was blue and one was brown. I have seen this before in people, although I see it more often in cats. I wasn't totally convinced she wasn't wearing a blue contact, though, because the blue was very intense, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

I didn't actually notice they were "together" until after we'd gotten off the plane at BWI, and I saw them holding hands and being intimate and generally violating each other's personal space in a way that I wouldn't tolerate from anyone with XY chromosomes. It was a genuine "things that make you go hmmm" moment... that's a niche of a niche of a niche pairing there, if I ever saw one.

The other thing that I noticed was quite a bit more ... well, dramatic. Spotted in a Craigslist posting:

Chocolate Beauty needed for dinner only 7/15 @ 5PM - m4w - 35

I need the company ONLY of a beautiful black sista for dinner. I am a lady who recently found out that her fiance has been chatting with women online. He recently made a date with one (me incognito). He does not suspect a thing. I will pay the right chocolate beauty to meet and have dinner only with him. I hope you can understand, woman to woman, that I just want to know BEFORE I marry this man. Please contact me with your information.

Now this is kinda sad, but also amusing at the same time. Apparently he's devious and sneaky enough to sneak behind her back and use the Internet to meet women, and she's sneaky and devious enough to try to set him up. If they don't belong together, who does? I think, however, the over-under on that marriage (if they even have one, which is a different bet altogether) is probably 18 months.

I did send her a note asking to find out how things turn out. I can't lie, I want to know the epilogue to that story.

Note: Thanks to uptown brown girl for the inspiration for this post.

Club chronicles

2005-07-01T14:37:00.000-04:00

Last night, a friend of mine who is a clothing designer had a fashion show at a well-known aquatic-related club down on the waterfront. The show was quite interesting, she was one of several participating designers, and the last designer appeared to work exclusively in bodypaint... all of her models came out with no clothes on top, but the bodypaint was elaborate enough that I really could not tell from my back row vantage point that there were no clothes involved, except that their nipples poked out.

I saw some funny things that night. Here are a few:

A somewhat older couple (maybe late 30s) who I thought were together, but upon later observation probably were not. The man was talking to the woman, had his hand on her shoulder, etc. She was fine, the sort of fine that you want to marry so that your woman is fine as long as the two of you shall live. He slipped up, though. Stepped behind her for a moment to look at her ass. Got lost in the majesty of it, and dropped his drink all over her dress and his shoes. It was all I could do not to die laughing, because all she noticed is that he was a klutz, and she has no idea why. But the peanut gallery knew, because we were all laughing.

While the crowd at this fashion show event was relatively benign (i.e. not thugtastic or ghetto fabulous), the brothers in the front row had no shame whatsoever. They all had their cell phones and blackberries out, trying to take pictures of the models. I found out later they were actually leaning over to take pictures up their skirts as they walked up the steps to the runway. Purely trifling!

After the show was over, said friend and I went to another opalescent club near the old convention center site. Nothing special going on there, although we both remarked at the midget couple making out by the front door. I suppose midget is a little harsh, I think both of them may have hit five feet (but barely). And they were going to town! I wanted to tell them to get a room, but it really was just funny to watch. I guess there really is somebody for everybody.

The Thursday night promoters at this opalescent club decided that their draw that night was going to be the viewing of R. Kelly's "In The Closet" video parts 1-5. I've been avoiding "urban" radio and BET and the like for almost a whole year now, so while I had heard of this phenomenon, I had not heard any of the music or seen the video. Arruh has definitely hiti on something... he's recorded the SAME DAMN SONG FIVE TIMES, and he has people begging for more to the point that the video ended with "parts 6-10 coming soon". It was basically a black ghetto soap opera, sort of like a Tyler Perry R&B remix. I guess Arruh really is a genius, because he's going to record THAT SAME DAMN SONG five more times, and people will eat it up. I wish I had such genius.

Living in the hood sucks, sometimes

2005-07-01T14:24:00.000-04:00

This post is purely a rant.

My DSL has been acting up for the last couple of days, ever since I had unplug it to rearrange some furniture. It's been very flaky, going up and down more than a cheap K street hooker. I have been on the phone with my DSL provider's tech support (Speakeasy, not Verizon, thank God) quite a bit recently. They're wonderful, but this one is probably out of their control. They got the line provider (Covad) to run a mechanized loop test on the circuit from my house to the central office, and found out that I'm even farther from the CO than I thought... 20300 feet, or damn near four miles. At that distance, it is a miracle that the DSL works at all. It doesn't even make sense that I live in the city and I'm so far away. That's just proof that the local telco (Verizon, again) doesn't give a shit about my neighborhood or the people (mostly black, and older, retirement age even) in it. I'd already downgraded my account speed to 768/128 a while ago in the interest of stability, and it was working... but now it's being crazy again. The provider said essentially that there's not much they can do for me at that distance, except put me in "safe mode", which means slowing my speed to 480/128. I had already been spoiled by the initial 1500/384 speed, but now this is ridiculous. They said it would be grounds for me to get out of my contract, if I wanted to, and to get another provider.

Now, I know some of you local people are thinking "why don't you just get Verizon DSL?" Plain and simple, they suck. Their policies suck, their customer service sucks, their tech support sucks. And that wouldn't move me any closer to the CO. In fact, I don't think Verizon would even allow me to order ADSL at this distance, so they'd probably make me order some crappy IDSL that costs $99 a month and gives 128/128 speed.

Some of the smarter people are probably thinking "well, why don't you get cable internet?" They finally started offering it in my neighborhood last year. Again, the neighborhood. The cable plant here is 25 years old, and it was probably a chore to upgrade it to support a service they thought (rightly or wrongly) that my neighbors wouldn't be interested in. So I could get cable internet... but then there are the technical issues (shared backbone, static IP), and the cost issue. Presently, I *ahem don't pay for cable tv. I don't watch enough tv to justify the cost, I figure. But if they come install internet, I'd probably have to start paying for cable tv too. So that's at least $100 a month there, all for the sake of internet access. Not a fabulous deal. At those prices, it's almost worth it to get Verizon Wireless Broadband, which should work anywhere in the city. Of course, the equipment for that is made for laptops, and I have two desktops at home. Oh well.

Suffice it to say that none of this would be a problem if I did not live in the hood. Proof positive of the institutional neglect of black neighorboods. Hell, in some of the tonier NW neighborhoods, I could probably leech an unprotected WiFi signal from an unsuspecting neighbor. Oh well.

Pour some sugar on me

2005-06-28T14:15:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered a quite fascinating online dating/personals website. It's called www.sugardaddyforme.com. The aim of this site is to pair up willing sugar daddies with pliant sugar babies. Somewhat coincidentally, the youngun recently asked me for "help" moving out of her mama's house and into an apartment with her best friend. The "help" she was asking for took the form of $650, which amounts to her share of the first month's rent and deposit. Obviously, the sugar daddy view kicked in for her. I guess steak and eggs wasn't enough. How she plans to live on her own when she can't even cover her own rent... well, I really hope her plan wasn't to ask me for money every month. On the other hand, from a strictly mercenary viewpoint, $325 a month as a portion of one's budget devoted to dating, really isn't ridiculous.

This got me to thinking.

Not about the specific situation with her, you can rest assured I won't be paying rent for her or anyone else but myself (for one, I can't give away $300 every month!). But more about the character of such relationships, and whether or not they are really as reprehensible as they are made out to be. It's not a traditional, "equally yoked" kind of relationship, to be sure. It's more of a symbiosis. You give me something you want, I give you something I want. Some might characterize it as a business transaction, but I think it is deeper than that, because the two might have genuine affection of some sort for each other. If that is the case, if the man enjoys the company and taking care of a (very) young lady, and she enjoys being around him and taking advantage of what he has to offer, then why should we condemn that? Aren't they essentially consenting adults? Are there any victims here? Yes, its sort of paternal, but in a transactional psychology sense, there is no game here because the roles are explicit.

I contrast this situation with the classic "golddigger" scenario. In that situation, a woman will pretend she is interested in a man solely for who he is (or whatever the typical PC list of approved traits is) when she is really interested in what material things he can do for her. The mark (or sucka) is then taken for an emotional loop because he thinks they are in love, but he is the only one who feels that way. When he discovers this, usually he becomes embittered and determined to dog out whoever the next woman (or all the next women), because of course he can't get back in any meaningful way at the one who truly deserves his retribution. This breeds a community of deceitful users on both sides. Bad all around.

I realize that the argument I've constructed has also been used to justify why prostitution should be decriminalized. In some sense, that is the extreme extension of what I am saying. But I think the sugar daddy relationship is a bit more. Prostitution really is a business transaction. A sugar daddy and his sugar baby may truly be happy and comfortable in each other's presence, with genuine affection.

I'm still not paying her rent, though. But she can have steak & eggs anytime she wants!

Why (some) women are single

2005-06-24T12:03:00.000-04:00

HER: chu doin this weekend?
ME: a little of this, a little of that
ME: going to the african american heritage festival today
HER: oh me too
HER: maybe I'll cya there
HER: u got a date?
ME: you could call it that
ME: you goin with a date?
HER: lol
HER: nope I'm rollin solo
HER: nobody loves me
ME: awww stop
ME: did you even ask anyone to go
HER: nope
HER: they should be asking me!
HER: I'm tired of asking ppl
ME: ummmm
ME: ok
ME: did you at least mention it to anyone
ME: so that they would know you want to go
HER: no I shouldn't have to do that either
ME: so how the hell is anybody going to have a clue what to invite you to
HER: is that what it takes these days?
HER: shyt just invite me anywhere
ME: you went to the club didnt you
HER: meaning?
ME: didnt you get invited there?
HER: yes
HER: kinda
HER: not really
ME: ok i dont know what that means
HER: lol
ME: maybe these guys (whoever they are) dont even know you are open to being invited
ME: to go anywhere
ME: maybe you need to offer some hints
ME: men are not mind-readers you know
ME: these guys may not even know you are interested
HER: I hear u
HER: bottom line I'm rolling solo

Say my name, say my name

2005-06-23T15:09:00.000-04:00

Warning: This post may be perceived as arrogant. Proceed at your own risk.

As I have mentioned many times in the past, I have a lot of female friends. A good number of them have boyfriends or are dating what I will call "significant others" - men with whom they are practically but not nominally exclusive. Same difference, for the purposes of this discussion. I have noticed that, strangely, a good number of them don't refer to their S.O.s by name when speaking to me about them. I don't mean that they use nicknames; I mean they consistently refer to him as "him" or "mister mayun" or sometimes just "my dude". And I mean that they don't necessarily use this language to address him directly or toward other people.

As usual, I have a theory about this.

Now, let me preface this next paragraph with this statement: I do not believe every woman wants to sleep with me. Far from it. I think I do alright, though. At least a 7 out of 10.

OK, here goes the theory: I think the women who don't refer to their S.O.s by name do so subsconsiously because they are open, on some level, to a romantic relationship with me. In many cases, that is a remote or farfetched possibility, for various reasons, not all of which have to do with my famed pickiness. But so far (re-checking the mental checklist), the theory holds true.

I think men probably do this too, although I don't have any anecdotal evidence to back this up. Do you think you speak about your S.O. differently to someone for whom you hold a torch than for someone who really truly is just a friend? And will these so-called friends disappear if I get married (which, I admit, is a dicey gamble) and the torches get extinguished? These are the things I wonder.

Chastity, but no prudence

2005-06-21T15:31:00.000-04:00

Want to get your wife, girlfriend or daughter a stylish and shackling gift at the same time? Get her some forget-me-not panties. They will allow you to keep careful tabs on her health and location from wherever you are.

Heart-rate or body temperature rising? She might be having a heatstroke. Arrive at her rescue thanks to the Sensatech technology.

Worried about her spending too much at the mall? See when she goes and how long she spends there.

And remember, when the pantyMap technology shows that she's running through the alley and the woods behind your house, chances are she hasn't gone feral, but that she's placed them around the dog's neck as a joke!

Hours of endless fun! Order today!

Flipped and scripted

2005-06-20T14:46:00.000-04:00

I went and saw a black indie film on Friday called "Flip the Script". I have to admit, I didn't have the highest expectations for production quality or entertainment value. My faith in black cinema has been shaken by a string of horrible movies. While I appreciate that the van Peebles family tries to write direct and produce their own work, I will never see How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass unless you tie me down, give me a No-Doz IV drip and pry my eyelids open a la The Clockwork Orange. You can have Diary of a Mad Black Woman. You can have Booty Call. Although I think it's amusing how Jamie went from Bunz to Best Actor, I'd rather see him in Collateral.

But this movie was good! I even got over the fact that I paid $20 each, plus a $9.40 "processing fee", to get tickets to a freakin' MOVIE, by reminding myself that it was for the benefit of a decently good organization which I will soon join. Even Robin Givens wasn't unwatchable in it, and when's the last time you saw her in something truly entertaining? It was laugh out loud funny at least every 5 minutes or so.

The movie did have some weak points. Teck (who apparently isn't famous enough to actually have pictures on any of the bios I found online in a casual search) is a horrible, HORRIBLE actor. The plot has some saccharine moments, and some turns and plot holes so obvious you could drive a Hummer through them. The good bits, though, were the dialogue here and there, stuff that's so genuine and natural you know it couldn't have all been written in the script. Ad-libs by talented actors are a wonderful thing.

Oh and let me add: for that $20 (plus outrageous ticket "processing fee") they gave us some "soul food" (read: dried up chicken, calcified mac & cheese, brown rice and leathery collard greens) and "open bar" (read: they had malibu, bacardi, some sort of vodka, fruit juices and Coke. That's it). But the best part? It was a "bourgie" black event where I barely recognized ANYBODY, except one cat I went to school with, and one of my young cousin's friends from Hampton who recognized me. It's difficult to break out of the small, tight-knit circles in DC and to break into new ones, but this was a new group, and I liked it.

On second thought, all you DC people who I already know, forget you read anything in this post.

Atlanta people, go see it! It's coming on June 24th.

Unfathomable crimes

2005-06-16T18:19:00.000-04:00

Check out this article about a man who may have molested literally thousands of kids. I guess child molestation issues are inadvertently a recent theme in my blog, but I just could not pass this one up.

They say this man molested 36,000 kids. That alone is incomprehensible.

But then he kept detailed records of each and every time he did it?

I am no psychology expert, and I couldn't even pretend to understand the pathology at work here. Some people will say he recorded things because he subconsciously wanted to be caught (as they said about R. Kelly). I think, though, when they crack the encryption on that server, they'll see that no one uses that kind of encryption if they want to be caught. This is just a sick, sick man. And that is my professional diagnosis.

Makes me wonder, though, if a whole lot of the girls and boys that are being molested and abused (1 in 4 for girls, 1 in 6 for boys) are all being targeted by a small minority of molesters.

Guilty after proven innocent

2005-06-14T10:29:00.000-04:00

Of course, everybody knows by now that Michael Jackson has been found not guilty on all ten counts. I'm not going to even bother linking to an article, you can find them on your own. There are some deeper consequences here that bother me, though.

The jury of 12 of his peers (if it is indeed possible for MJ to have peers in any sense) sat through 14 weeks of intense, detailed trial presentations and testimony. The public at large sat through 14 weeks of sound bites, news blurbs and fluffed up dramatism in various forms of media, designed to sell advertising and magazines and whatever else needed selling. The jury of 12 found him innocent on all counts. The public, by and large, still believes he is guilty and just "got away with it". Obviously, one group is in a better position to pass judgment. In fact, one group in particular is required to pass judgment. The other group? Getting lots of exercise leaping to conclusions.

What disturbs me the most about this are some particular comments I've heard from friends. In a nutshell, there is nothing that anyone could ever say or do to convince them that MJ did not molest children, and that he should be under some jail right now, if not burning in a lake of fire in hell. I sure am glad they're not sitting in the jury in a trial for me. It disturbs me most because these are black people saying this to me, black people who know full well the massive miscarriages of injustice that have been perpetrated upon us through the vehicle of the American judicial system. Too many of us have been sentenced to death (and other onerously long sentences) by way of wrongful, spiteful and racist convictions. If there is any one thing we should wish from the courts, it is for a fair trial. As far as I can tell, MJ got one, and the jury decided he was innocent. That is good enough for me.

For the record, I don't hold an opinion on MJ's guilt or innocence, because I know I don't know nearly enough about any of the people involved, and I wasn't standing in the room when whatever happened happened. I said the same thing when OJ was on trial, and people tried to tell me I was weaseling out. There is absolutely no rational basis for any person not involved in the trial (and indeed, probably not anyone but OJ, Nicole and Ron) to know what happened that day, and to say otherwise is just puffery.

Besides, if you think MJ should be under the jail, then you just ought to think R. Kelly should be his bunkmate. At least we have a tape of that!

I'm not gay

2005-06-06T16:05:00.000-04:00

... but apparently I like some of the same stuff that gay men like. To wit:

I like house music. Specifically, San Francisco house music. I don't ever go to clubs that play it, though, because they're full of gay men, and I don't enjoy being hit on by men. But the music is good.

I have a better sense of color than the average man, by virtue of being a sometimey graphic designer. I actually care about the aesthetics of some things, although I probably overcompensate by letting my home go almost completely uncoordinated and undecorated.

I have a tendency to wear brighter colors than most men. I think this is because I live in DC now, and it was less of an issue in any of the 3 cities on the west coast in which I have lived. It's been mostly suppressed since moving to DC, which quite possibly is the most repressive city on the planet that I'd still actually want to live in. Apparently it's only acceptable for men to wear blue, black, gray and white here. Any other color draws comments and stares. Lately I've been saying fuck it and wearing what I want to wear, but still.

I like fancy restaurants. It's enjoyable and fun to me to go to a nice restaurant which is trying to do something more than just shovel grub in front of you. Novel cuisine is an experience I think everyone should have on a regular basis. I don't think it's a coincidence that the major share of such restaurants here in DC are in gay neighborhoods. I like cooking too, sometimes. My chili is swiftly becoming my best recipe.

I've been accused of being metrosexual. I don't think I groom myself meticulously enough to qualify, but everyone has her own perceptual threshold. I have accumulated a variety of products in my bathroom for various specific purposes. I've gotten in trouble for having shampoo in my shower before. All I've got to say is that shampoo is better than bath soap at cleaning hair.

of course all of this evidence is circumstantial, but that's beside the point. With the hysteria over down-low men, and the special focus of that hysteria on DC, I get asked about this way more than I care to answer. Most people who ask get immediately removed from the mental rolodex as someone I'd care to hang out with, as it often says more about them that they asked than how I answer does about me. Whatever their concept is of how men should behave, I ain't it. There are a few genuinely curious yet still non-judgmental questioners, but they are few and far between.

I just wish I could figure out how to write a book about this and make my millions.

Battle of the sexes: Taboo edition

2005-06-01T12:08:00.000-04:00

I played Taboo at a barbecue on Monday. (Not familiar with the game? An explanation is available here.) As usual, the teams were divided into men vs women. This time, though, I had to play with the women's team because I was late, and they already had five men to four women. I agreed to defect, for the sake of helping out the women, who were already badly losing when I arrived.

Women always seem to lose at Taboo. I quickly discovered that these women were no exception. I had to read clue cards immediately. Here are some examples of clues I gave:

"One of the top fast-food chains has this as their #1 sandwich."

"The original funk band, they featured George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. Also, the people who run the country in Britain sit here."

Maybe not the best clues ever, but all the men on the other team instantly knew what I was talking about. At least with the sandwiches, the women were guessing, albeit very, very badly. "Big Mac!" A good guess, but no. "Quarter Pounder!" I said "The other big chain!" They were clueless. Time expired. Even worse, the funk band clue elicited silence and blank stares from my team, as the men chuckled and laughed.

It gave me a chance to see if I was a superior clue-giver or if women just don't think and communicate in a way that's good for Taboo. I'm inclined to think the latter. Women make an art out of not saying what they are really thinking. Here's an example, courtesy of datfuule:

Woman: I'm thirsty.

Man (to himself): So noted.

(MAN CONTINUES WATCHING TV)

(WOMAN BECOMES ANNOYED THAT HER THIRST IS UNSLAKED, AND DECIDES TO VERBALLY ABUSE MAN)

(MAN BECOMES CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT HE DID WRONG)

This is what she really wanted to happen:

Woman: I'm thirsty.

Man: What would you like me to get you from the fridge, honey?

This is how the man would expect things to happen:

Woman: I'm thirsty. Can you get me a beer?

Man: OK.

Note that the man wants the woman to say directly what she wants, to avoid confusion, whereas the woman wants the man to be so in tune with her and her needs that she doesn't even need to say it, he just telepathically gets it. In woman fantasy land, the interaction looks like this:

Man: You look thirsty. Would you like me to get you a beer?

Woman (to herself): He's such a wonderful man!

Obviously, men aren't telepathic and don't care to be, so that ain't happening. Hopefully one day women figure this out, so they can become better Taboo players, and worthy adversaries.

Oh, and the answers to the clues? "Whopper" and "Parliament".

Redesign!

2005-05-31T19:37:00.000-04:00

I've redesigned the look of my blog. I finally shook off the shackles of the old modified blogger template and made one from scratch.

Lots and lots of blood sweat and tears went into getting broken ass Internet Exploder to render the semi-transparent PNGs correctly. IE still doesn't render dotted lines correctly. I hate Microsoft right now.

Fortunately, this design will accomodate me switching out the background image from time to time, without disturbing the other elements. Hopefully this will help me keep the page somewhat fresh.

Your comments are appreciated!

The neutral zone

2005-05-29T15:31:00.000-04:00

This is the part I hate about dating. I've been out with this particular woman four times now, and each time I'm left with the same impression. On the one hand, she approached me in the beginning. She's articulate, down to earth, a lot of fun to talk to. She definitely has a shy side, although she seems to be opening up to me. She is also almost completely lacking in affection. It is almost as if, for her, even a hug is an afterthought. Her body language is totally non-responsive whenever I make physical contact with her. She doesn't push me away, she doesn't pull me closer, she just sort of does.... nothing.

It is possible that I am in the dreaded "friend zone" and I don't know it yet, although it would be somewhat disingenuous of her to keep accepting my invitations to do things (which she has) on my dime (which it has been) if she only intends to be friends with me. It is also possible that she really does like me, and that, for whatever reason, she's not very emotionally expressive or available. I suppose I have a few options:

1) Ask her directly what the hell is up.
This is the sort of conversation women usually bring up, to men's dismay. "Where is this going?" Although I think directness is a virtue, I don't think it's a good move here. For one, a lot about whether dating is enjoyable depends on the "vibe", and jarring directness has a way of disturbing that. The very act of asking might turn her off.

2) Ask her in indirect and semi-probing ways what the hell is up.
Instead of bringing it up directly, I can beat around the bush, hopefully in a way that she either won't notice or, if she does notice, won't provoke hostile reject from her the way option 1 might. "Do you consider yourself to be an affectionate person?" Sure, her answers are likely to be dodgy and evasive no matter which position she's coming from, but it might still give me enough information to figure out where I stand.

3) Don't ask anything, but keep going out with her and observing her.
I am not known for my patience in dating (reference the three date rule, which I will explain in more detail later). If I continue to take her out, and I find out seven dates later that I am in the "friend zone", I will feel cheated out of my time, energy and hard-earned dollars. Suffice it to say this isn't my usual M.O., but the older I get, the more patient I am willing to be with women whom I really like.

4) Kick her to the curb.
This would certainly eliminate the frustration in my life, although it would be abrupt, and I don't meet women of her caliber very often. Or, as a somewhat less harsh alternative, put her in my friend zone. That means I'd stop expecting anything more than friendship from her, and I'd stop treating her (in both senses of the word) as a potential. Everybody pays her own fare on the buddy bus.

One way or another, though, I'm not going to go on any more dates like the one I just had, where the ending leaves me wholly unsettled and unsatisfied.

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings

2005-05-24T15:29:00.000-04:00

I've been called out. Here's my halfhearted attempt at my favorite things, in no particular order:

The color blue. Anything blue. I must have 1000 blue shirts.
Mediterranean food, especially Lebanese food. And Mexican food.
Actually, I like eating, period.
Live music, especially jazz.
Traveling to new places and strange lands.
Driving quickly (and that's not the same as driving fast).
Live sporting events.
Solving problems.
Laying in the bosom of a voluptuous woman.
A really good nonfiction book.

I will spare my remaining friends the burden of passing along this viral message.

Family review time

2005-05-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

I'm in Seattle this week for a family wedding. Since my family is so spread out, and they (mostly) live so far away from me, I don't get to see a lot of them too often. Occasions like weddings provide opportunities for diasporate families like mine to get back together. They also provide opportunities for the older generation to check on the younger ones and see how they are doing.

As it happens, both of my brothers (on this side) are bringing their respective girlfriends to this wedding. This came as a surprise to me and everyone else, mostly because they didn't announce this until the last minute, and because both of them have these on-off relationships and aren't anywhere near getting married. Aside from the fact that both girlfriends are non-black (a not uncommon trend in my family), the elders will be delighted to see them. Of course, that will shine a glaring spotlight on me, because I didn't bring anyone.

Not for a shortage of people wanting to go, mind you, although I think almost all of those women just want to see Seattle and have little interest in my family. But the last time I let my mother meet a girlfriend at a wedding, it was a bit of a disaster. It was also completely beyond my control. Suffice it to say that we broke up a week later (although not because of anything that happened at the wedding) and my mother told me not to introduce her to anybody else unless she was staying around for the long haul. And since my mother hadn't met any other girlfriends since high school, I guess she means it. So, no, I didn't bring anybody home, and I'm not going to for some time to come.

Why Americans are fat

2005-05-16T16:29:00.000-04:00

Click the images to expand (as if it needs to be any bigger!)

Field of broken dreams

2005-05-12T11:22:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, I had a company softball game. This was our first game of the season. I played on last year's team, to some effect. Not horrible, not great. Our team was an expansion team that year, and although we struggled, it was enjoyable and fun.

This year, I suck.

For some reason, turning 30 had ill effect on what little athletic ability I had. I am now, without much doubt, the worst player on my team who isn't a girl, and there is even a girl better than me. Consequently, although the league is supposed to be about fun, the competitive instincts of our team and our manager, have led them to give me as little playing time as possible while still being "fair" (whatever "fair" means). I was stuck in right field for 3 innings, where I never saw a ball, and I only went to the plate once and struck out on two pitches. I even dragged myself to the gym afterwards, because that didn't even come close to being a workout.

Without practice (which we don't have) and playing time (which I won't get), I won't improve. I tried steroids (corticosteroids, but what's the difference?) to no avail. So I've considered dropping off the team. I don't like being a quitter, but I'm not sure there is anything else to do.

Then again, I can always hope that other players quit or get hurt and they have to play me. But who has that kind of patience?

David vs Goliath

2005-05-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

I drove down to the Georgetown Harbor last night for a dinner date at Tony and Joe's. It's a fairly decent seafood restaurant right on the Potomac river, and the Harbor area is popular on Sunday evenings. When I got there, I decided to park in the surface parking lot by the river.

There was a huge line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot... maybe 20 or 30 in total, probably all from a movie across the street that had recently let out. No line headed in, though, so I pulled into the driveway for the parking lot.

This particular lot is not well-organized. There are 3 rows of parking, but not many passages between them, and the first row was packed and a stream of cars turning across my lane into the exit lane blocked my passage. I waited as my headlights shone directly into the obviously embarassed and slightly guilty face of the woman driving the car blocking my way. As the exit lane shuffled forward, she inched out of the way.

Now the way was clear, so I prepared to go past the blockade to the back of the lot, where I could navigate. Behind that woman, though, was an H2 Hummer. He started to block the lane, and I thought, what an asshole! But he stopped, presumably, I thought, because he just discovered my presence. Being in a black car, low to the ground, after dark probably didn't help. But I did have my headlights on, so that's really no excuse. So when he hesitated, I pulled forward. He also pulled forward, and ran his tire up on my front bumper.

At this point I'm thinking.... WTF?!? I know this fool (who we've already determined to be an asshole) didn't just try to punk me and hit my car in the process! I sat there for a moment, before getting out to establish damage. He also got out of his monstrous battle tank to look.

Thankfully, the tire did no apparent damage, I guess because the weight of the vehicle hadn't been pressed upon my bumper. He apologized and let me pass. I'm still undecided as to whether he is an asshole or he really did not see my car, about 5 feet away from his own.

Married people need not apply

2005-04-27T14:05:00.000-04:00

For some reason, I find the warning on this page to be uproariously hilarious. I guess there probably are a whole lot of married men trolling for sneak tips, jumpoffs and side pieces online. But the referenced Title 18, Part I, Chapter 63, Section 1343 of the U.S. Code suggests that such deception only constitutes fraud if money or property is involved. I guess that means that True.com considers women (or at least the relevant portions of said women) to be property. Of course, I am not a lawyer, so none of this can be construed as legal advice, just my own random musings.

I think, therefore...

2005-04-27T11:28:00.000-04:00

I'm having a minor identity crisis. For some reason, I think I'm fading away like Marty McFly's brother and sister in the family photo from Back to the Future, and being replaced with somebody else.

When I went to drop off my vacuum cleaner for repair yesterday, the sister front desk clerk took my information. She asked me my name and I proceeded to spell it for her, slowly and in pieces as I have learned to do.* I started with "T... A..." and then paused to watch her write those letters before I gave the rest. She hesitated, but managed to get them on paper. I continued with "J... H...", speaking as clearly and slowly as I can, sounding like I am teaching a kindergarten class. She hesitated again, and wrote "JAH" on the paper. Where that extra "A" came from, I have no clue. I was flabbergasted. I also didn't bother correcting her, because I knew that exercise would be of no consequence, as I am frequently positively identified regardless of rampant misspellings of my name, and she called me "Mr. Taylor" anyway since she was apparently afraid to incorrectly pronounce my first name. Woe be unto Stevie Wonder for popularizing the "Give your babies Swahili names" fad.

When I went to pick it up today, a different sister was working the desk. She took my claim ticket and then proceeded to say, "Do you know that you resemble a celebrity?" I've only heard this approximately 52571752774198 times in my life. It never fails, especially with older black folk, that they not only see this resemblance (which I really don't see), but they FORGET THE NAME OF THE CELEBRITY! "You know, you look like what's-his-name, from the TV and the movies- do you know who I am talking about?" Yes, I know. No, you're not the first person to tell me that. No, I don't think I look like him.

No, I'm not going to tell my readers who it is. Figure it out yourselves!

* In a strange yet annoying coincidence, the verbal spelling of my name is homophonic with "THAH", especially if you say it too fast. That's why I pause between the "A" and the "J". I occasionally get mail addressed to Thah, which is a sure sign it's junk mail of some sort.

Hot pot shots

2005-04-18T11:58:00.000-04:00

Just a few things that were on my mind this weekend and today:

Although we had two great weekend days, they were just a little bit cold. Why is it 77 degrees and sunny today, when its Monday and I have to work?

When the temperature heats up in DC, people start to do crazy things. It's like clockwork... you know it's spring when you start to see insanity. I saw some fool driving down the street in DC this morning with his hazard lights on and with his hood up. What the hell!!!! We can already see you're a hazard because you're driving down the street and can't see what's in front of you. He was apparently trying to peek through that little space under the steering wheel and under the crack of the hood. Fool!

Apparently, because I don't like hot, crowded, Amistad-type sweatboxes like Dream, H2O and now Ozio, I'm bourgie. If it makes me bourgie to enjoy seating, elbow room, table-side service at non-insane prices and not sweating out my shirt, then bourgie I shall be.

I was at a barbecue yesterday, and this particular young lady came dashing in the house and sat down next to me. I asked why she was in a hurry, and she told me she had just been hit on by a man she described as "developmentally challenged". I said "so you got hit on by handyman?" and I could not stop laughing. I may go to hell, but the ride was worth it!

Also at that same barbecue, I noticed a group of three young African ladies when they came in. One in particular caught my eye, until later on when I noticed her in full mouth-to-mouth osculation with this tall Curt Kobain lookalike. She instantly became less attractive to me. I am still not sure what this says about me.

It may indeed be ghetto for me to cut my entire backyard (all 20 feet by 13 feet of it) with a weed whacker, but it's just not enough yard to buy a $200 lawnmower. And I can't seem to fit any mowers into my trunk (nor do I want to), so 2nd hand mowers seem out of the question. Oh well, at least I have a fence, so hardly anyone can see me. One of these days I am going to convert my remaining weeds to grass. I got rid of most of the truly nasty stuff when I got there (poison ivy, some mysterious red strawberry-lookin things, and sprouting trees), but I have a few more to go (the occasional dandelion, some random plants with little purple flowers on them that actually smell kinda nice, and the dead patches where nothing grows because I had junk on it for 3 months this winter).

The shady side of springtime

2005-04-12T12:14:00.000-04:00

Spring is a time for rebirth. Trees and bushes and flowers bloom again (see below). Baby bugs hatch and crawl forth, buzzing around. Nature, which lies dormant for winter, bursts forth again with renewed vigor.

Apparently, this renewal extends to people long since gone from my life. In the past week, I've received online correspondence from two women who I thought were long gone. Both were part of my life when I lived in California (which means at least 2 1/2 years ago). One was rather benign; a local girl in whom I took an interest, until the day I decided to give her a foot massage, and when she took her shoes off, her feet were, um.... fragrant, to say the least... plus her legs were hairy. People who know me know that one of my few fetishes about women's appearance is depilation... (People who know me also call me the Seinfeld of dating, but that's a different post.) I don't care much if you wear makeup, or what kind of clothes you wear, as long as it all compliments you, but please PLEASE don't have more hair on your legs or under your armpits than I do! So I was quite turned off at that time, and things died out. She resurfaced last week, just to say hi... and she's moved up in the world a little, working now as a radio DJ on one of the hip-hop stations in Sacramento. Nice to hear from her, or at least harmless.

The other woman to contact me was a poisonous snake. I had a crush on her (from long distance), and she befriended me, abused my adoration in her, and then kicked me to the curb like a neckbone sucked dry. I would not care if she were to disappear from the earth forever. She came back, so she says, to hook me up with her administrative assistant at her job, because the girl needs a friend like me, and I was such a wonderful friend to her. Yeah, whatever.

So is it just a coincidence, or is there something about spring that makes people return? I wonder.

The sunny side of springtime

2005-04-11T12:26:00.000-04:00

Spring is in full bloom here in the nation's capital. We had our first bonafide beautiful weekend. I almost forgot I missed California. On Saturday, I went to the National Arboretum and took some pictures.

You can see the rest of the pictures here. They aren't super wonderful, but you may just get a taste of what it is looking like here. I didn't get down to the tidal basin to shoot the cherry blossoms like I wanted, but that's all well and good, because there were probably tens of thousands of people down there. I have some higher rez versions suitable for use as desktop backgrounds, maybe I will upload those later.

Slave wages

2005-04-04T14:59:00.000-04:00

Today I got a wholly annoying "reminder" email from a friend. The contents:

Just wanted to remind everyone that the "Moving Day" party is on Saturday, April 9th starting at 10am! Food will be provided.

Did I mention that I'm annoyed?

First of all, attempting to disguise this conscription of able bodies with the word "party" is insulting. It ain't no party, especially not at 10:00 am on a coveted Saturday morning. On top of this, I never responded to the first email to confirm my attendance, mostly because I have absolutely no intention of attending this "party". I am thirty years old, dammit, and I am old enough (and fiscally responsible enough) to hire movers to move my stuff when I want stuff moved. I haven't asked people to help me carry my earthly possessions from one house to another in almost a decade. One piece of furniture, sure. But your whole damn house? Stop being cheap.

No, a slice or two of pizza isn't ample compensation. Besides, as I already mentioned, I'm thirty now. My pieces and parts don't work the same way that they used to, particularly my suspect lower back. I am not risking traction and disability because you can't fork out a couple hundred dollars. Hell, I don't even like carry my own stuff. I sure wouldn't ask "friends" to do something I don't even want to do myself.

Which leads me to my biggest beef... if said person had actually been anything resembling a friend in the last 12 months or so, I might be inclined to set aside my philosophical differences and help anyway. That is what friends do for each other, right? But we haven't been. Said person has been pretty much unreachable, and unresponsive to voicemails. So to come calling now, I think, is the height of presumption.

Besides, I have a prior engagement at that same time. I've had a standing date with my pillow on my calendar for years.

Another reader poll

2005-03-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Hypothetical scenario:

Let's say I am slowly redecorating and remodeling my house, at the rate of a room a year. Let's say I choose and buy some paint, tile & accessories for my bathroom this year, but I don't really start the work except for a little painting. Let's say I then find a shower curtain that I just have to have, except that it doesn't match anything else I already spent money on. Let's say I then decide to re-redecorate the entire bathroom around the shower curtain.

Am I crazy?

Footnote (added 3/22/2004 9:50am)
I'm not talking about myself here... this is a hypothetical about someone else.

Really, I'm not

2005-03-18T16:56:00.000-05:00

A friend called me yesterday to tell me she was pregnant. Although she swears she had no expectations about my response and she was just sharing news, I feel like I was supposed to say I'm happy for her. I'm not though.

See, although she didn't say who the father is, I know who it is. She has had a very on-again/off-again relationship with this guy, and he's something of an asshole. By any measure, not the sort of guy you want to father your children. On top of this, she swore to me several months back that she was done with him. I guess he's still around, and now he's going to be around for at least 18 years, and probably for the rest of their natural lives, really, in some form or another. This definitely isn't a good development for her, and I doubt it will be good for the child to have his/her mother and father with such an acrimonious relationship. It's probably not even good for the child to have such an asshole for a father, and a mother with such bad judgment, but I am proof that this situation can be survived.

So I was honest with her. I didn't bluntly vent everything, but I let her know I felt ambivalent about it. She knows I don't sugarcoat things with my friends. She seemed to take it in stride, but I still feel like this might be a rift in our relationship. Oh well... some grow, some die, others grow in their place.

Outsmarted by my car

2005-03-07T09:42:00.000-05:00

Over a year ago, my car started showing signs of its age. I bought it new in 2000, and it has served me well. But as the miles pack on, it's clear that the car, she ain't what she used to be. The brake light began staying on after I released the emergency brake, for a while. I thought I would check it out. I asked the dealer customer service rep when I took it in for the 60,000 mile checkup if the brakes were alright. He replied that since the tech didn't write anything, there must be at least 30% of the front pads left, and more on the back (since it's a front heavy front wheel drive car). He said it was probably a fault in the emergency brake sensor. I also consulted my most car-savvy friend (PhD engineering candidate at MIT) and he also said it was probably the sensor. I felt more relaxed, and continued to drive my car, being slightly more sparing on the brakes.

A couple of weeks ago, my wheels started squealing. Now there's 82,000 miles on the car, so I figured the brakes were due. It sounded like a wounded animal when I put it in reverse, and even just driving along it made scraping sounds. I knew I was due for some bad news. Saturday, Midas told me I'd scraped up my rotors somewhat, but they could be resurfaced and salvaged. The bad news? The bill was $600 (instead of the $300 I was praying for, admittedly with no basis in reality).

Now my brakes are good as new, and as an additional bonus, the brake light doesn't stay on anymore. Turns out my car was trying to tell me I needed to get my brakes done...

Water water everywhere

2005-02-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

I started writing this post 8 months ago. Actually, to be more precise, I started writing a post on this topic 8 months ago, but never finished or published it. It was not only the post, but my own thoughts that were incomplete. They still are, but I figure writing and publishing it will help me to form my thoughts further.

I have begun to notice what my friends have been saying for years: that I surround myself with women. After a rather overbooked February social calendar (I thought people went into hibernation in the winter around here), I sat down to take a tally of my last three weekends. By my own count, I've hung out with at least 23 different women, some on multiple occasions. I might have forgotten a couple, too. Mind you, that doesn't mean 23 dates. Only a couple of them would qualify as actual dates. The rest were occasions where it was either me and a bunch of women (like the pre-Valentine's day lonely hearts dinner), or a few other guys in the mix, but still mostly women.

Others (most notably a dear friend in New York) have remarked that I like and I am attracted to women who are in some way unavailable, because they are safe. There might be some truth to that. Because I'm not really dating any of them. Yeah, I had a couple of dates, but one of them is a certain dead-ender, and the other I didn't even realize was a date until it was 2/3 done... I wasn't even thinking of it that way until she said something.

And yet, I have reasons for not wanting to date most of these women. Sure, I am interested in a few of them, but then other things stop me. For example:

A friend of a friend whom I just met... attractive, smart, and 1 month out of a 5 year relationship. Rebound city.
A woman who I've eyed on more than one occasion, but she always seemed to flake out on group invitations. Now I know why: she lives 40 miles outside the city. I wouldn't come hang out either. That's farther than I want to travel for a S.O., but I am going to contradict myself in a minute...
A woman who I thought about dating at one point... but in our phone conversations her negativity was so intense I thought my ear was going to melt off. She's smart, witty, clever, and cute, but she has a LOT of issues to sort out.
A woman who lives 9 hours away. I like her, she likes me, but I have a rule about starting relationships long-distance for a reason. I haven't ruled her out yet, but I am not bullish either.
Etc. etc. etc.

I could go on and on like this, but eventually it starts to sound like what it is... a litany of excuses. Some part of me has decided that dating is not worth the stress, headaches, time and money spent, and I decided to collect a few women I could call to hang out with. There is somebody on my list for every occasion... a movie, a party, an art show, a job function, whatever. In some way, this works for me. I like the company of women, and I have it. But in other ways, it leaves me wanting. Could I live the rest of my life this way? My oldest brother is doing it, in a way... he is 45, never married, no kids, and there are probably 10 times as many women that find him attractive and want to be in his company. Yet I think he, too, sees this lifestyle as lacking.

One of these days, I will figure this out.

St. Valentine's game

2005-02-17T14:43:00.000-05:00

My Valentine's day was pretty uneventful, by design. Nobody in the picture is worth getting worked up over, so I just kept a low profile. The day before, I went to a "Celebration of Singlehood" (read: Lonelyhearts Club) dinner put together by a friend of mine, which ended up being me and seven women. Feeling generous (and noting the unusually cheap prices), I decided to pick up the tab for everyone. For the low, low price of $167, I bought some good karma, and my stock went up in a broad group. Surely one of these women has a friend to whom she can spread the good word.

In an unrelated story... a while ago, I was sorta dating this girl I met back in October. We went out maybe 5 or 6 times, but spread out over 3 months. I could always tell something was on her mind, but I thought it had to do with her living situation. Turned out, she had a boyfriend the whole time, and had this grand plan that she was going to dump him and become MY girlfriend, without anyone being the wiser... except that she never dumped him, and I never said anything to her about being my girlfriend. So when I coaxed the truth from her cousin and confronted her, she had a bunch of lame excuses. I dropped her like a bag of rocks.

Yesterday, this girl popped up on my IM and asked me if I had received anything from any secret admirers on V-day. I didn't receive anything at all, so I was puzzled and asked if she knew something I didn't. She went into this whole spiel about how she sent flowers to me, and was surprised I didn't receive them. As far as I know, she has never had any of my addresses, so there is no way she could have sent me anything. And as it turns out, she was apparently trying to be funny. Say what?!?

Epilogue
I bought a new coat on sale at Hecht's winter clearance. Better fabric (wool/cashmere blend), better fit, better price than the first ($167????). I bought a new phone... and how about, I'm in love with the fact that it already knows how to pronounce most of my friend's names? A few of the more... shall we say "black" names it has trouble with, but most are cool. so I can say "call gecko" and it will dial... fabulous. And as for the MRI? Bursitis is the official diagnosis (isn't that a disease old people get???), and my knee feels a lot better, even though it's not 100%. So things worked out ok, I guess.

Bad karma week

2005-01-31T13:00:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm not sure whose cornflakes I peed in recently, but check the following:

Tripped on the concrete steps in the parking garage here at work and banged my kneecap on the point of the steps. Hurt like hell, and for a while I thought I had broken my kneecap. Hurts a lot less now, and I had a MRI this morning. We'll find out more later. Thank God for good (PPO, not HMO) health insurance, because that MRI cost them $880. In fact, the type of insurance I have was the 2nd question my doctor asked. The first: "Was there a girl around?"

Had my best wool 3/4 length coat, wool hat & scarf stolen from Ozio. Yes, I laid it down on a chair, and not in the coat check (which I didn't know existed). The people who were at the table when I laid it down (with whom I am acquainted but not close) were long gone when I went to get my coat, and it was ghost. Of course, I followed up with the manager on the off-chance someone picked it up by mistake and returned it, no dice. Pissed... $250 gone and counting...

Dropped my cell phone again, now the hinge is completely broken. I never liked that phone, and its mistreatment shows (dropped 3 times in January, plus I spilled lemonade on it so I can barely hear people when I am not using the earpiece). Replacement costs for a suitable phone will run me another $250. (yes, I know I can get them cheaper if I sign my soul away AGAIN, and no, I didn't and don't plan to buy the damn insurance. I can get phones for the same price as the Sprint store's soul-bartered discount price by shopping online. Ebay is great for this kind of thing.)

I mean, it is as if I ran over someone's dog, and the universe is trying to pay me back. I swear, whoever you are, I didn't see your beloved Fluffy. If you've still got the remains, try going to Genetic Savings and Clone pet cloning agency, maybe they can help you.

The survey we really want to see

2005-01-17T15:43:00.000-05:00

I know lots of you have seen these 20 questions-style surveys that have been circulating via email for what seems like forever. They always have the same sort of aimless questions (what's your favorite pudding flavor?) that none of us really care about. So here's my attempt to start another email that gains a life of its own and circulates forever.

What time did you get to work?
What time do you plan to leave work?
How many times have you been fired (and "layoffs" count)?
What is the one food you love that disgusts others?
Did O.J do it?
Who initiated your most recent break-up?
Do you wash your hands every time you use the bathroom?
What is the one thing you wish you could do but never had the balls?
What do you do when you are alone in your car (or on the train/bus/etc)?
Do you think of Oprah as (A) genius, (B) fat, or (C) inescapable?
How many people have you dated in secret (i.e. would under no circumstances allow your close friends to see you two together)?
How many people have you dated that you met online? (for comparison's sake)
Do you consider musical ring-tones to be (A) a great way to personalize your phone, or (B) justifiable homicide?
How many times a week do you receive email from friends at work that would get you fired, or at least a serious reprimand, if actually read by a superior?
Should people you don't like (now) or did not enjoy qualify for the list or number of "people you have slept with"?
Have you ever dated/slept with a coworker?
Do you look in other people's medicine cabinets?
What one thing that random people do would you criminalize?
Do you (A) love your job! it's great! (B) like some aspects of your job, but others are stressful, (C) dream of quitting and moving to Tahiti, (D) dream of running up in there with an AK-47 and blowing everybody to shreds?
How much of The Man's time did you just spend on this?

Now, with this, your friends can truly learn something about you that they might not have known before.

Logic gone horribly wrong

2005-01-13T14:40:00.000-05:00

Recently, I found out that a girl I've been dating for the past three months has a boyfriend. What's worse, she isn't the one who told me, her cousin told me. We had a conversation about it, and I let her know that her lame, stupid excuses were lame and stupid. Suffice it to say we won't be going out anymore.

This is where it gets interesting. More than one of my friends has suggested that the thing this woman has in common with all the other women I've dated that have done shitty things to me is that she's attractive. Somehow, I guess women I'm attracted to have a statistical correlation with being shitty. So my friends' suggestion is that I should start dating women to whom I am not attracted. Say what?

I say, that makes about as much sense as setting up a cart in front of a Metro station and offering free meals and scintillating conversation to whatever stray woman wanders out. I guess it does not occur to my friends that unattractive women can be jerky too. In fact, this last episode has convinced me I need to raise my standards. If I'm going to be shit upon, it can at least be by supermodels and rich sugar mommas. Who wants to be shit on by a nobody?

Reader participation day

2005-01-06T13:21:00.000-05:00

Please provide a caption for this picture.

New Year's resolutions

2005-01-03T14:26:00.000-05:00

I know they are cliché, but they are still useful, if properly constructed so that you can actually fulfill them (and I say that because last year's was a doozie). To wit:

Travel to at least one international destination a year, where at least every other year is a trip to a place I have never been. Do so for the rest of my life, or until I am no longer able to travel.
Finish things that I start. I have 1000 personal projects, most of them far from completed. Brimming with ideas, and guilt over not seeing them through. This especially burns when I see someone else develop fully the idea that I had, and gain some accolades/success from it.

Surely some of the less cynical among you also have resolutions... share with us!

My true love gave to me...

2004-12-26T01:16:00.000-05:00

On this, the most materialist day of the year, I've decided to write a little bit about "stuff." For most Americans, this day is the culmination of a season of acquisitive orgy that ends with a flurry of ripped paper, tossed bows, oohs and aahs and silent groans at the results. Some uncreative television producer starved for career growth could probably make a fast buck on a reality show that featured judge's scoring cards a la figure skating on a family's Christmas day gift opening. The family could even use some of the money they earned by being on TV to pay off the piles of debt they undoubtedly incurred to get the gifts (and decorations, and food, and other seasonal accoutrements) in the first place.

What's that? Reality TV contestants (actors? let's go with participants) don't get paid for their services? Well then, why would they agree to be exposed and debased on national television? I imagine (and I vaguely recall reading a newspaper article stating) that reality show participants are there for the experience. Whether they are attention whores or just there for their 15 minutes of fame, the end result is that they don't have any material change in their lives, but they are somehow different persons for it. How many times have you (or I) remarked to someone that the $50,000 grand prize on Fear Factor isn't enough money for eating hippopotamus testicles, even if you are the winner? There isn't even a prize for second place. And yet, I have more in common, philosophically speaking, with them than I had realized at first glance.

In a nutshell, I think most people are rational, in that given a goal, they will take whatever are the most logical steps to realize it. In real life, that goal turns out to be a complex combinations of smaller, separate goals. How we choose those individual goals turns out to be a function of whether we prefer things or experiences. This distinction, while subtle, I think is important. Let's look at the two, in turn.

Stuff, or things, we understand well. The pursuit of material possessions is such an ingrained part of our culture that it comes almost as naturally as breathing to most of us. We know the visceral joy of opening a newly purchased thing, and the sense of satisfaction at stuffing our homes with shiny tchotchkes like magpies lining their nests. Stuff and things you can hold in your hand, count, manipulate, preserve, and destroy at your will. Our relationship with stuff is necessarily (and generically) active in nature. After all, if you aren't going to doing anything with an object, what good is it to you?

But what does it mean to pursue an experience? The sumptuous consumption of a steak, the tickle of the bubbles of champagne on the tongue, the enveloping warmth of laying on a tropical beach, these are also experiences we understand. In fact, the most basic experiences play directly into our five senses. Fireworks, concerts, meals, a massage, these all appeal to our sensory inputs. There are also experiences which appeal to deeper senses - feelings, for lack of a better word. The rush of skydiving, the anxiety preceding a public speech, the satisfaction of assisting someone, these all are notable to us because of how they impact our emotional being. And when they are done, there is nothing left but the memory of the experience. Our relationship to experiences, in a way contrary to that with things, is necessarily passive in nature, because an experience is something that you allow or plan (or actively engineer) to happen to you.

We talk directly about the relative values of stuff and experiences when we talk about ways to measure the accomplishments of one's life. No meaningful eulogy talks about one's lifetime earnings, or the sweet SL500 in the driveway. Intellectually, we accept that objects merit a lesser status in the meaning and purpose of life, yet we behave as if alignment to that ranking of merit is only appropriate as one's life comes to a close. In other words, get stuff now, and worry about meaning later.

I think I've been a pursuer of experiences for most of my life, and only now have I come to identify it and realize what that means for me. A glance around my house makes that clear, although I don't think many people can make sense out of that when they know what I do for a living (and speculate on what kind of salary I draw). As for my true love, I haven't met her yet. I hope that when I do, she'll know not to get me five golden rings, but instead take me to five places I've never been.

Faux bling: Hardball

2004-12-09T19:43:00.000-05:00

The subject:
I discovered a site today... www.icedoutgear.com. They sell cut-rate iced-out bling, stuff like this:

The case for faux bling:
...for the low, low price of $14.95! Order now and get 3 for 10% off! Every pendant comes with a 30" chain FREE! Never mind that the damn thing is plated with rhodium (what the hell is that???) and will probably rub off in 3 sweaty trips to the club (and I'm still unsure if it will make my finger turn green or cause me to be unable to father children). Its CHEAP! You can keep up with the Little Johns and the G-Units and still save for those rims for your car, or maybe just maybe a better crib! You can buy the real Nike Air Force Ones instead of the cheaper yet deceptively similar Ace '83s. What player wouldn't want to make his cash stretch a little farther? And isn't it worth it to catch the ladies' eyes? Doesn't matter if it's fake... once she's looking your way, that's when game kicks in.

The case against faux bling:
God, the whole bling thing is so stupid. I wish it was over already!

The conclusion:
I may have to "invest" about $100 in this stuff to conduct some scientific experiments on the actual effect that "bling" has in various clubs on looks, approaches, getting numbers. Not that I would seriously entertain magpies, but you understand, it's a sacrifice in the name of science!

Cradle robbery

2004-12-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

OK, I have been forced to admit it: I am dating a 19 year old. This realization has come to me through a long and circuitous route. I met her almost a year ago, at a rather grungy club which shall remain nameless. She told me she was 22 or 23 (I don't remember), which at the time was still quite young but not undate-ably young. She was (and is) ridiculously cute, and affectionate, and a little bit ghetto, and things were ok. Then I found out she lied about her age, and how old she really was, and I freaked out. Stopped calling her, about six months ago.

She resurfaced a few days ago, and due to a circumstance I'm not going to explain here, she ended up spending the night with me. After we spent the next morning together and I was taking her home, I came to realize that she has given me none of the grief that I get from the other women I've dated here... no games, no agenda, no baggage, no stress. I thought at first she was looking for a sugar daddy, but she doesn't seem to want much from me besides being in my presence and the occasional T-bone & eggs from IHOP. I know this relationship cannot really go anywhere, but I am hard pressed to think of any reason NOT to date her besides her age. My friends (surprisingly) have been almost uniformly in favor of continuing to date her... in the words of my most feminist friend "she's grown". I can't help but to feel a little bit R-Kellyish though, especially now that I have joined the 30+ club. I think she's also quite a bit more mature than I was at 19.

So I'm in a bit of a quandary. It doesn't help that she's cute, she's fine, the sex ummmmmmmmm yeah.... and she's nice to boot. Maybe I'll just join the R-Kelly club too.

Pictures from the Dominican Republic

2004-12-07T10:16:00.000-05:00

as requested....

Republica Dominicana fotographicos

Strap up, young man

2004-11-23T17:28:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't already know, my 30th birthday will be here in less than a week. I have mostly come to terms with the "damn, I'm supposed to be grown now and haven't accomplished all my life's goals yet" part of things, and I am eagerly anticipating my own present to myself: a weeklong trip to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

I started out with a grand vision of what this vacation was going to be about: 3 weeks on the beach in Bahia, wandering from beachtown to beachtown, staying in family run hotels, taking lots of photographs and sipping enough caipirinhas served by beautiful local girls to stay happy but not so many that my camera got stolen and I ended up with a knife in my chest in a back alley. Then I started tallying up what that would cost, and looking at my limited vacation days. So I scaled back... thanks to a bad hurricane season, packages to the Caribbean have been quite cheap this fall. I booked the DR for about 1/3 of what Brazil was looking to cost, and got a beachfront resort to boot.

I'm going alone. When I was planning Brazil, I was telling any and everybody who wanted to come along that they were welcome. But then my plans changed, and everybody brought along their agendas, wants & desires (as everyone is so wont to do), and it was beginning to be more of a headache than the pure relaxation I envisioned. I cut everybody.... sorry folks, I'll vacation with you next year. This one is all about ME.

So then of course people have all kinds of advice, but one thing in particular keeps popping up: "Bring lots of condoms". I must admit, I am well aware that there are lots of beautiful brown women in the DR (that's one of the criteria I was using when selecting a destination), but my vision of going on sex tours to third world countries is a bit scary. I'm wise enough to know that people who come down here aren't having whirlwind romances with local ladies, they are hiring prostitutes. Third world prostitutes with third world diseases frighten the snot out of me, even at third world prices. Not at all my cup of tea. So I tell everyone, what the hell do I need all these condoms for? I'm not hiring any prostitutes in the DR, no matter how cheap they are. They say, just bring the condoms anyway.

One friends (mslipsnhips over on the right side there, although she's pretty much blog-comatose right now) said that it's not about the prostitutes, it's about the local women who are so fed up with their men chasing any old Euro-hag who comes to the resorts that they will want to seduce me to get back at their men. Granted, her credibility in this matter is supreme, given that she just got back from Puerto Plata about a week ago, but this scenario sounds about as likely as me winning the Ron Artest Lawsuit Settlement Lottery at tonight's Pacers-Wizards game. I just don't see the local ladies involving me in some ol' get-back sex, and I certainly don't want any local men coming after me for it.

There was one other thing people kept remarking upon... the possibility of me finding a wife (given last year's birthday resolution which, for the sake of my own already tarnished reputation, I will not here elaborate upon) and bringing her back. Granted, I do not have the most idealistic opinion about marriage, but I have great respect for the institution (maybe even too great for me). I have no desire to go find some desperately poor woman who sees me and a minimally short 2 year marriage as her ticket to a green card and the golden life in America. I suppose if she takes over all the domestic duties in the house, it's like having one really expensive maid with "benefits"... but still, not my cup of tea. As of right now, all I'll be bringing back from the DR with me is pictures.

Emotional condoms

2004-11-15T17:32:00.000-05:00

Uptown Brown Girl and I were having a discussion the other day about how she always thought it was crazy that I could sleep with someone on the first night if I didn't really care about her, like her all that much, or see a future with her, whereas I take things extra-slowly with women I really like or whom I think have lots of upside. (Note to all you assholes who like to save my words to use against me: I said "could sleep with", not "have slept with".) Although it didn't make any sense to her when I first said it, now that she is somewhat newly single and experiencing the world in which I date, she is starting to come around.

What's the issue here? I broke it down like this: When it comes to having sex with someone, there are a variety of risks. The physical risks are well-known and well-documented: pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. The mitigations to those risks are also well-known and well-documented: prophylactics, contraceptives, testing and education. None of these is completely foolproof, but a fool could consider himself reasonably well-protected by employing these techniques.

The much less discussed side of sex is the emotional risk. What, a man talking about emotional risk? Don't worry, I won't get all Oprah on you. But there is a risk involved in opening yourself up to someone you are really attracted to or interested in. In fact, I believe men are more vulnerable in this situation than women because women have more experience with it. How many of you know a man who only sleeps with women but doesn't ever commit to them? Dimes to doughnuts a trained (and well-paid) psychologist would reveal some past wounding by some woman he cared about, and that thenceforth he had declared to himself he'd never "get caught up again"; i.e. open up to a woman. These emotional risks and vulnerabilities only come into play when you care about the person; hence, one-night stands don't really have the potential to hurt him. If she gets up mid-stroke, curses his poor skills and departs never to see him again (or worse, spread news of his poor skills to every girl she thinks he knows), hey, fuck her, she's just a one-night stand. But let his new future wife say something... he'll be all discombobulated trying to solve the problem.

So how does one mitigate these risks? I swear, if I could invent such a thing as the title suggests, that would be my billion dollar idea and I could retire forever. There isn't such a thing, though, so we must make do with the emotional version of the "rhythm method". It's imprecise, unreliable, but it's all we have. You stretch the time scale of things out to get to know her as much as possible, allow the two of you to be comfortable in each other's presence without that pressure of trying to impress the other person, or worrying about how much little things are magnified in the early days of relationships. That way, when the time comes, presumably the two of you are already secure enough in your status that you don't have to worry so much about the risk.

Comments are encouraged on this topic!

Link potpourri

2004-10-30T16:54:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a Saturday. This sucks. Another friend of mine also has this misfortune, and he asked me for some "interesting websites" with which to pass the time. I searched my nine-day browser history, and came up with these gems:

Why the Redskins game tomorrow might predict the outcome of the presidential election

Somebody who has WAAAAY too much time on her hands

My Amazon wish list. Wonder what kind of music I've been listening to? Check it out. You can find out a lot about a person by looking at their choices in consumptive media.

Story about how GTA San Andreas was leaked to the Internet ahead of its scheduled release date

My friend Lenora Jaye's music site... you can hear her latest studio work

Doom comics. Probably not of interest if you never played the game.

A fun Bush-bashing Flash game.

An article about social frictions intruding on a multi-player online gaming environment.

Eminem's "Mosh" video.

A Slate/NPR radio clip explaining a bizarre scenario under which John McCain could be our next president.

Coping: Election Day Special Edition

2004-10-29T14:33:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine is having an election day party. We're all going to pile up in her living room, glued to the TV, with wireless internet for surfing those all-important results websites. As the majority of her guests and friends are all unrepentant drunks (because alcoholics go to meetings), she and I came up with a drinking game:

First, get a bottle of something that you can do shots with. A friend suggested tequila, but I have to go to work the next day, so I think a flavored vodka will do. Then make a map of the battleground states. As of today, the Washington Post has 14 battlegroud states on their electoral vote map. If you are a Kerry supporter, then you take a shot when he wins a battleground state. If you are a Bush supporter, you drink when he wins one. If you are a Nader (or other fringe candidate) supporter, you drink when he fucks up the result in a state that Kerry would otherwise have won. If a state has such confusion that no winner can be declared, then everybody drinks.

This should be fun... probably best in an environment where you have various types of supporters. As it is, our election party will probably be all Democrats since the host works for Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis). Happy .... er, electioneering!

It has been said...

2004-10-28T11:07:00.000-04:00

Quote:

you put out a vibe that you believe everyone has an ulterior motive, nobody can be interested in just you without wanting something. That's a very uncomfortable feeling for those that try to be your friends, i'm sure.

Friends, how do you respond?

Return of the party shirt

2004-10-18T10:04:00.000-04:00

OK, I apologize, this post is about 12 months late.

I saw this trend coming. The first couple of times I saw guys wearing striped shirts around the middle of last fall, I knew they would be hot. By the time I could actually find some in the stores, it was the Christmas rush, and they were on sale almost everywhere. By spring, stripes of every type were everywhere. It was as if you could not buy a men's shirt unless it was striped... the old standby blue and white oxfords were shoved to the back of the shelf. The trend was in full force.

In fact, it was so easily identifiable as a trend that I had to stop wearing the few I had very much, and I surely wasn't going to buy any more. I still think that next year sometime, anybody caught wearing one will look quite passe. And so many of the designs are so loud and raucous that you can't really wear them as dress shirts to work, so they are only suited to the club. Hence..... party shirts.

I'm going to run a pool on the life expectancy of striped shirts.... right now, the over/under line is about March 2005. Any takers?

Lucky

2004-10-12T17:21:00.000-04:00

This weekend, two small things happened to me (well, three things, really) that were remarkable only in being rare.

On Thursday night, I met a woman who said she was half-Ethiopian. She ended up giving me her phone number. On Saturday night, I met a woman who was 100% Ethiopian. She ended up giving me her phone number. You might find this unremarkable, but I was greatly surprised. You see, I've been batting somewhere around 0 for 637 with Ethi chicks ever since I started approaching women, many many years ago. Not once did I ever get anywhere with any of them. Is this a fluke occurrence, or the signal of some trend of increasing desirability on my part? Not sure... one would have been a fluke, two was cause for reflection.

On Sunday, going to a barbecue at a friend's house, I found a gold collar stay in a crack in the sidewalk. It exactly matched a gold collar stay I lost and for which I have been hunting in vain for weeks. Same length, same brand name. I decided it was the same one I lost, in which case it avoided all the magpies and bums around the Adams Morgan neighborhood for a good six weeks (a feat in itself), or else it just happened to be exactly like the one I lost. I was really happy about this, because I only had one pair in that size and it is the size I used the most.

So there is some luck trend going on here. Maybe I should play the lottery this week.

Coping in the Workplace: Scarcity

2004-09-13T10:11:00.000-04:00

In this second installment of the Coping in the Workplace series, we'll talk about how to build on the skills from the previous lesson. There, you learned how to throttle your productivity to maintain your sanity and to keep yourself some breathing room in the office. Today, we'll talk about how to take advantage of your throttled down-time.

If you employ throttling in your job, by now you should have at least 50% of your work-time free. So what do you do with all this free time? This is where you learn to make yourself "valuably scarce" so that you can be out of the office while your coworkers still think of you as a hard-working, valuable resource. The key here is to make sure you are on more than one project, ideally staffed by different employees in different parts of the building, or even different buildings. In some cases, it means you have to volunteer for extra work. Don't worry, this will play to your advantage. Now, you have two projects to work on, and hopefully they are both separate enough that no one on one project knows what's going on with the other project.

This is where the fun begins. Now, at any given moment, if people see you are not in your office, the assumption will be that you are doing something with the other project, and that you are clearly working very hard. The very same scene for a person with only one project might lead them to believe that you were just skipping out on work. But not only are you clearly working hard, you volunteered for extra work!

So go ahead and take that 2 hour lunch... each project will think you are working on the other project, and you can rest assured knowing you will still get your work done because you employ throttling.

Early riser

2004-09-07T11:33:00.000-04:00

Most of you who know me know I'm not really a morning person. It's all I can do to drag myself to work at a halfway decent hour most days (although that may have a lot more to do with the morale at the job rather than my own predilections). I'm getting older though, and I've realized that I have to take better care of myself. Strangely enough, former president Bill Clinton's quadruple bypass surgery got me to thinking... he has access to the finest medical care in the world, spare no expense, and yet he still ended up needing major heart surgery. What does that mean for me, an average joe with rapidly spiraling health care premiums despite my apparent health, single childless status and relatively young age? So I decided I need to take better care of myself. I've been thinking about these kinds of things a lot as I approach the first major milestone birthday that's actually frightening... it's all downhill from 30, right? At least for men, it seems like you'd no longer have the excuse of youth for screwing up your life. Time to get it together.

So with my new perspective and resolve, I've decided to start going to the gym in the mornings before work. That means getting up (not just waking up, but actually getting out of the bed and getting moving) at 6:00 am or earlier. I recognize that lots of people do this on a regular basis, but this is a big deal for me. Being the analytic mind that I am, I had to do a pro/con analysis. First, the downside:

Have to get up earlier EVERY DAY... I will get used to this after a while. though.
This is bound to ruin my social life... not only can I not stay up late on any weekday, I probably won't be able to stay up late on weekends either, as my body clock will be shifted earlier.
Extra commute distance. I absolutely refuse to shower in the gym, and trying to keep my clothes unwrinkled and getting dressed in the locker room isn't my style, so I'll have to drive back home after going to the gym. Probably an extra 7-10 miles roundtrip. Plus I have to deal with morning traffic coming back towards my house. Plus in a few months I'll be driving half-sleep in the dark during the coldest (and presumably iciest) part of the day

There is a good deal of upside to this:

It should help smooth out my workout schedule, so that other events coming up won't affect it the way they did when I tried to work out after work. Now, I can work out in the morning, go to work, then go to those spontaneous happy hours after work without feeling guilty.
Working out more regularly will of course show health benefits...
... and I'll feel better about the $45 a month my gym costs, since I'll actually be using it more often.
The gym is less crowded in the mornings... I didn't have to wait for anything. After work, its absolutely packed until 8 or 9 pm. That's ridiculous.
Ruining my social life will have the beneficial side effect of spending less money on BS.
Maybe this will result in me having more energetic, more productive days. We'll see about that.

So for now, the upside has it. I've promised myself to go every morning this week, as an experiment. If it's sustainable, I'll continue this schedule. I figured, might as well start on a short week, to give myself a decent chance at success.

One other thing I noticed... people are more friendly in the gym at that hour. A random sampling of my friends would reveal that most are ogres in the morning, so I naturally assumed that represented the general population too. In hindsight, I probably collected friends who, like me, weren't morning people. Two people (whom I didn't know previously) actually spoke to me today in the gym this morning. That never happens in the evenings. I have this impression that morning workout people are more serious about their workouts, and consequently, about accomplishing goals in life. Maybe on my new schedule I'll make new friends who fit that profile.

Fever dream

2004-08-31T10:28:00.000-04:00

I've been told I am a pessimist. Maybe that's accurate. I tend to think most people are pessimists. It's certainly borne out by situational surveys across the completely nonrandom unscientifically selected group of people I call my friends. I suppose that, as a pessimist, I view the majority of my life as a struggle to achieve that which always seems to eludes me.

Those of you who I talk to on a frequent basis know that for the past 3 weeks or so, I've been in a feverish dream state. For that short period of time, my life was upended, transformed, however you would like to describe it. It felt different, that's for sure. It was almost unfamiliar. I was happy, for a brief moment or two. I don't know who I was, but I wasn't me.

That's all over now, I'm back to being the surly yet lovable curmodgeon you've all come to know. Did you miss me?

p.s. Nutri-Grain vanilla yogurt bars taste like whole grain Twinkies. try one...

Mama, hold my mule!

2004-08-27T14:22:00.000-04:00

I went to see the most ghettoest play in DC last night... "A House Is Not A Home". For those few of you who may not be familiar, it is one of those cheaply written and produced black Gospel plays with familiar themes... cheatin, betrayal, and preaching. I don't know how I got suckered into this one, but I did.

It was supposed to be starring Allen Payne, Miki Howard and Chico DeBarge. We spent the whole play trying to figure out (from the balcony) who was Miki Howard... had she lost a bunch of weight? maybe we forgot what she looked like. Turned out she wasn't even in the damn thing... they had some other random woman playing her part. I should have asked for a refund, they didn't have any signs announcing the understudy or anything. Typical black folk.

The play itself centered around a typical, somewhat fractured black family, with a man and wife and a babymama and a 15 year old daughter who gets pregnant. They included the usual stereotype characters: the ultra loud, ultra ghetto friend of the wife who gets saved at the end, the even louder more ghetto and country friend of the husband who acts the buffoon but is really wise, and the cross dressing dude who plays the uncouth granny. The whole show was so predictable that my companion was literally calling out lines and events before they would happen on the stage. The performers couldn't even keep a straight face through some of the scenes, because they were laughing at the stupidity just as much as the audience.

The part that pissed me off the most, though, was toward the end when another one of the husband's friends went off on a 15 minute tangent that had nothing to do with the story and everything to do with preaching to the audience. I don't know about you, but I don't usually pay.... well, I'm ashamed to admit how much I paid for the ticket, but I said I'll be damned if they start passin around collection plates too! Seemed like he was about to do an invitation to join the church, only it wasn't a church, it was the Lincoln Theater. I don't mind having religious themes, but if I want church, I'll go to church. Until then, let me be the heathen that I am.