Birthday 2009: Two Thumbs Up

i am sitting here and watching "Lean On Me" on BET while Chastity writes up the final for her math students in the other room. truthfully, i think she should be spending less time on the final and more time on a cheesy montage because if "Lean On Me" has taught me one thing, kids go from F students to B-ish students over the course of one 90-second montage. also, sing-a-longs to songs from the 1970s tend to do wonders as well. i want a montage, preferably one of me walking into rooms in slow motion and giving people a killer wink.

while spending my Sunday with Morgan Freeman has been nice, it pales in comparison to the past two days. i've got to say that i had a pretty good birthday weekend.

on Friday, i got a singing wake-up call from my father and numerous gifts from CeCe, including a framed picture of my grandparents. after going to work for a few hours to celebrate my two-year AA-S anniversary, i went to dinner with CeCe and then headed downtown for a "few" drinks. while downtown, i got to hang out with a lot of friends, some of which were old and some of which i just met that night. i even got to see a few people get served on the rooftop of The Blind Pig by some guy who apparently thought he belonged on that "So You Think You Can Dance?" show. it was awesome that so many of my peeps made it out and hopefully i didn't make too much of a drunken ass out of myself.

i didn't have too long to recover from my long Friday night as the next day, i had my first experience on the Central Texas lake scene. i got to swim, drink and eat Cool Ranch doritos for four hours so i'd have to say it was a good afternoon.

so yes, i am going to give my birthday weekend an "A+" rating.

and check back with TYC all week, we're going to try to update it each day this week. holla.

a Free Willy reference on my 24th birthday

as has been pointed out by my two readers, i have been slacking a bit this week with the posting which is a bit odd since this has been an action-packed week.

on Monday i celebrated Memorial Day by working and getting paid. on Tuesday i went to my sister's backyard wedding in McKinney (pictures on the Facebook!). today, i am celebrating my 24th birthday and two-year anniversary of working at the American-Statesman. tomorrow, i will have my first lake experience. busy stuff.

i think today is going to be a pretty good day. my dad sang to me this morning and i keep finding presents that Chastity has hidden around my house and in my laptop bag. Chastity is treating me to dinner tonight and then i am going to go party downtown and, hopefully, i don't get shot. i am also going to go to work for a couple hours since it's me and the Statesman's anniversary and i think we should spend some time together.

i don't want to hark too much on the birthday stuff, i just want to say that i'm a lucky guy. i have a great girl who loves me and a family who drives me crazy but usually comes through when it matters. i have a great job, i live in a wonderful city and i have fantastic friends. things definitely aren't perfect in my world but i'm still blessed. there are worse ways to spend the first 24 years of life.

to celebrate my birthday, we're going to do a Top Ten list because that's all we really do here on the TYC. and i'm going to let my iTunes fill out this list. yes, folks this top ten list is the first 10 songs that come up right now on my iTunes randomizer. and the beautiful thing is you can't make fun of me for these songs because, well, it's my birthday.

10. Kiss The Girl by Samuel E. Wright
9. Used To Love U by John Legend
8. The Lady In Red by Chris de Burgh
7. My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion
6. Big Poppa by Notorious B.I.G.
5. Amazing Grace by Aaron Neville
4. Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado (f/ Timbaland)
3. You're Just Too Good To Be True by Lauryn Hill
2. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' by Michael Jackson
1 Will You Be There by Michael Jackson

sadly, no country songs made this randomized list and neither did any country grammar.

i'd watch The Cosby Show all "night and day"

as promised last week, here is the rundown of my favorite 25 Cosby Show episodes all all-time. read on.

1. Happy Anniversary (Season 2) – i think this has to be the favorite episode of any true Cosby Show fan. although the anniversary sing-a-longs got stale as they went along (Olivia even got one in Season 6, sigh) the one that was performed in this episode gave the show it's defining moment.
   
2. Theo's Women (Season 5) – Theo is stuck between Vanessa Williams and Michelle Thomas (yea, i know. tough life) and gets a blues/cooking lesson from Cliff. i wish his "Justine! Justine!" song was on iTunes. i'd download it. twice.
   
3. Off To See the Wretched (Season 6) – 97% of the Cosby Show episodes ended with Cliff rattling off some nice joke and/or life lesson but the end credits of this episode were preceded by a furious Claire yelling at Vanessa. that's it. it was an odd ending to an episode but a nice reminder that, yes, even the Huxtables had their share of problems too.
   
4. The Locker Room (Season 4) – if anyone wants to guess why i wouldn't let my friends date my sister in high school, this episode sums it up.
   
5. Rudy Suits Up (Season 2) – i'm not sure if its cute or embarrassing that a five-year-old can play football better than me... or 89% of the Texas football players that i cover.
   
6. Denise: The Saga Continues (Season 6) – the best thing about Lisa Bonet's on again, off again relationship with the show is that the writers had to come up with some bizarre ways to write her into the show and then write her off the show. this episode might have been one of the best Denise episodes as a season after she randomly dropped out of college and was even more randomly sent to Africa, Denise returns with a husband and a step-child. nice.
   
7. And So We Commence (Season 8) – there was nothing incredibly special about the episode but it was a nice way to end the show. and then there was the whole breaking of the 4th wall thing.
   
8. Dance Mania (season 4) – i like to dance. Theo likes to dance. but the comparisons end there because there is no way that i'd let my friend get on Dance Mania before i did.
   
9. The March (season 3) – i always enjoyed the black history recollections on the show and this episode had some good one. this episode also probably had the worst history report ever but i'd expect nothing less (well, i guess nothing better) from Theo.
   
10. A Touch Of Wonder (season 2) – hey, we're jammin' on the one!
    
11. Warning: A Double-Lit Candle Can Cause a Meltdown (Season 8) – Oct. 7, 1991
12. Denise Gets A D (season 3) – another excellent Denise episode. i do have to wonder, however, how a lawyer and a doctor can have five messed up children. seriously, those Huxtable kids had some issues.
    
13. Day of the Locusts (Season 5) – a sick and deranged Sondra made this episode.
    
14. Theo and the Joint (season 1) – what a sitcom having a drug episode!?! groundbreaking! well, the Huxtables got this episode out of the way pretty early and it was done well.
    
15. The Last Barbecue (Season 7) – this episode made the list solely because of Kenny's last line and Cliff's reaction to it. that and i figure the stripper argument will likely come up whenever i get married too.
    
16. I'm 'In' With the 'In' Crowd (Season 6) – maybe this episode shouldn't actually be on this list because, truthfully, drinking games are not as fun as they seemed in this episode.
    
17. Isn’t It Romantic (Season 6) – sure those Huxtables are romantic but i've got even better game.
    
18. Cliff's Wet Adventure (Season 6) – Bill Cosby said in a recent episode that this was his favorite episode so it makes the list.
    
19. It's Your Move (Season 7) – this episode serves as a warning to all women: never ask us to help your friends move during the big game. ever.
    
20. Together Again and Again (Season 5) – mix some Denise-screwing-up with some Theo-screwing-up and you've got a good season premiere. i swear, i went to college for four years and i never had as much drama as Theo and Denise did in this episode.
    
21. A Room With No View (Season 5) – anyone with a sibling can appreciate this episode. i miss those good ol' Davis quarrels in which household items got broken.
    
22. Move It (Season 5) – when i first moved to Austin, i lived in an apartment that was, at best, mediocre. but compared to the dump Sondra and Elvin were living in, the ol' Edge Creek apartments look like something from the O.C. or one of those snotty MTV shows
    
23. A Shirt Story (Season 1) – i wish i had a mock Gordon Gartrelle shirt.
    
24. The Juicer (Season 2) – this episode had a good of good things about it: Vanessa's terrible babysitting skills, Claire's parenting skills (of Cliff, not Rudy) and Peter's running skills. lots of skills.
    
25. Pilot (Season 1) – aside from the obvious issues (apparently the Huxtables moved into a new house and adopted a 20-year-old daughter between episode 1 and 2) this was a good way to start a series. everything i learned about budgeting, i learned from Cliff's teachings about monopoly money.
    

i did not predict Kris Allen to win American Idol

i think i need to quit making predictions.

about a couple months ago, i laid out my baseball season predictions for the world to see and now it is mid-May and only one of my division winners is currently leading their division and neither of my Wild Card hopefuls are leading that race either. i'm awesome.

but i'm not posting this to rag on another season of terrible baseball picks, i am here to rag on another season of American Idol picks. before Idol kicked off the top 13 week in March, i wrote out my American Idol power rankings, ranking how i thought the top 13 would finish. do you know who i picked to finish second-to-last? Kris Allen, the guy who won the entire thing. last year's winner, David Cook, wasn't in my initial Top 10 power rankings for the 2008 season. i do not understand America's musical desires.

anyways, here is how i originally ranked the American Idols with their finish in parenthesis.

13. Megan Corkrey (9th)
12. Kris Allen (1st)
11. Michael Sarver (10th)
10. Matt Giraud (5th)
9. Alexis Grace (11th)
8. Jorge Nunez (12th)
7. Scott Macintyre (8th)
6. Jasmine Murray (13th)
5. Adam Lambert (2nd)
4. Lil Rounds (7th)
3. Danny Gokey (3rd)
2. Allison Iraheta (4th)
1. Anoop Desai (6th)

yea, not a good season for me. i has one correct prediction (Gokey finishing third). sigh.

as for last night's results, it might be the worst win in Idol history. there really is no debating that Adam Lambert had the best body of work over the course of the season. there aren't many instances where you can say that his performance was bad, which wasn't the case with Allen who should have come close to elimination a few times. but Kris came strong with his Heartless cover during the Top 3 week and that momentum (plus the Danny Gokey vote) carried him to a championship. so congrats i guess.

it will be interesting to see how these Idols fare and i have doubts about whether either Kris or Adam will be successful. Kris had an endearing personality but he didn't have strong vocals which could be a problem because it's one thing to convince people to call a phone line for you but it's a whole new deal when you are wanting someone to pay $15 for your album. Adam, on the other hand, built his appeal on his theatrics and his ability to perform which also doesn't translate well to an industry that is audio-based. i think Adam has a career, but it's probably on Broadway and not on the radio.

of all the Idol contestants this season, and i hate myself for saying this, i think the one with the best shot at making money in music is Gokey. if Gokey is smart, he'll go the Christian music route and they will eat him up... as long as any unfortunate pictures of Gokey and his "friend" Jamar don't start popping up. Allison is young enough to be built up by the Idol machine and be successful down the road but i don't think it's going to happen overnight.

and that brings me to my boy Anoop. i've actually come around in a bad way for Anoop. i used to think that he would have the most success of the Idol hopefuls because he had the best voice. buuuut unfortunately, Anoop is going into a genre where sex appeal has a big factor and Anoop is a funny-looking kid. think about all of the successful R&B singers out there (Usher, Ne-Yo, Brian McKnight) and all of them are decent-looking dudes. because when the ladies are swooning about some dude wanting to bump and grind all over them, they want to imagine the good-looking guys doing it. outside of Barry, is there a single chubby and/or ordinary-looking R&B singer out there? ever? if the sultry Syesha hasn't landed a record deal yet, what hope is there for the rest of us? for humanity in general?

so yea, whatever. another season of American Idol has come and passed and i, for one, can't wait until next January when we get to do this all over again. Anoop (and the Clef Hangers) take a page out of the McKnight playbook and play us out.

not the Cosby Show post you were hoping for

sorry, i got really busy today so the Cosby Show lovefest will have to wait a few hours. in the meanwhile, watch this video. it's awesome.

prelude to a Cosby Show extravaganza

so apparently i missed the boat on this one but its the 25th anniversary of The Cosby Show and Robyn was kind enough to send me this link to today's Today Show where the cast made an appearance. well, most of the cast. apparently Tempest Bledsoe and Sabrina LeBeauf were too cool for school and Lisa Bonet is out being Lisa Bonet. yea, the Huxtables had four daughters (and a cousin Pam!) and yet only a very grown-up Rudy showed up... which meant we were stuck with Olivia. sigh. Phylicia still looks beautiful but, man, Bill and Earl Hyman are getting old. kind of sad.

but... while a trip down memory lane was nice, nothing was better than this recent clip from The Daily Show where President Obama is compared to Cliff Huxtable. what makes this clip so great is it just proves that i am not the only person out there that believes that Olivia was a terrible addition to the cast. i mean, c'mon, she was awful. fortunately, karma has a nice way of punishing those who destroy national treasures.

i was going to talk about the season finales of various current TV shows on tomorrow's blog but instead, we are going to do the Cosby Show right. coming tomorrow: my favorite 25 Cosby Show episodes. get ready.

getting pretty high off of raisins and nail polish

this morning i tried to play the role of hero and it got me all sullied and dirty.

i was sitting in the living room and i heard a shrieking "oh no!" from a maiden in distress who was getting ready for her day in my bathroom. i ran to CeCe's aide and i saw the distress call was for a bottle of nail polish which had exploded in her travel toiletry bag. now the smart idea would have been to just throw away the toiletry bag but that's not how this cowboy rolls. i grabbed the oozing bottle of black nail polish and tossed that sucker out.

now here's the bad thing about grabbing an oozing bottle of nail polish. that crap doesn't come off with just water and soap. and trying to wash my hands actually just transfered some of the polish from my right hand to my left hand. and, even more luckily, i had no nail polish remover at my house. so i was sitting around with pitch black nail polish on my hands and while i'm a pretty fashionable guy, this wasn't a look that was working for me.

eventually i made an errand run to CeCe's house and got some nail polish remover and scrubbed until i got bored. so my hands do still have some nail polish on them but it's enough to pass off as some dirt. so now instead of looking like a 12-year-old girl who can't handle a nail polish brush, i look like a working man. balla.

this whole adventure has made me appreciate women a bit more. if i had to put that smelly crap on my hands and then scrub even more smelly crap on my fingers to get the original smell crap off more than once, i'd probably just shoot myself. i don't know why you ladies do it but i thank you for it.

so in this version of dedications and devastations, i'd like to send out this song to all of the lovely ladies out there. holla atcha boy.

anyways... in addition to my nail polish high, i am on a bit of a raisin high this morning. i went grocery shopping yesterday and i decided that in addition to some storebrand Raisin Bran, i wanted some raisin bread too. since i played the role of hero this morning, i needed a hero's breakfast so i had a bowl of Raisin Bran and a couple slices of raisin toast. yummy.

is there a disabled list for intramural softball?

before we start, i'd like to give a story i wrote last week a shout-out. i've been chasing this story for nearly six months and working on it for the past three weeks and i think it turned out well. one of my best stories this year.

enough about journalism, let's talk about intramural softball. i don't know why i didn't post this last week but i'm guessing it was because i was still nursing my wounds.

last Tuesday, the Ball Bustas had a double-header and it went about as well as we could expect as we split the series. we won the first game by two runs and then in the second game we blew a three-run lead in the last inning and lost by one. heartbreaking.

for those of you who think that intramural softball is soft, lemme tell you something, it is a hardcore sport for sure. in our opening game, we had our third baseman flipped in the air by a sliding opponent and we had one of our opponents break/injure her ankle while sliding into second base (maybe they should outlaw sliding). i pulled a muscle in my chest area in my first at-bat of the night which i know is tough to believe when you look at the above photo and see how hardcore i look. hell, our pitcher has been hit by enough softballs this year that we're going to start calling her Tina and the softball Ike. it's a dangerous sport, i need to start wearing a helmet.

we are 1-3 right now with two one-run losses and a forfeiture against a team that we would have beaten by 20. tough break. but we have two games remaining against two teams with a combined zero wins so hopefully we can salvage things and head into next season on a high note.

want to hear even more sad news? Tuesday's Without a Trace will likely be the series' last new episode. ever. what's next? are they going to take Family Matters off the air too? what? that show has been off the air for over 10 years now? man, this day just keeps getting worse and worse.

Who is former Statesman intern Eric Betts?

Saturday Night Live capped a pretty successful season on Saturday night by bringing out a lot of heavyweights last night. Will Ferrell was the host and former castmates like Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler made appearances as did Norm McDonald, Anne Hathaway and Tom Hanks. i watched bits and pieces of this season but when i watched, my living room was filled more with laughter than awkward silence so i will consider that a good thing.

for no good reason other than to fill space, here are my favorite ten sketches of the year...

10. Single Ladies
9. Governor Patterson's trip to SNL
8. Hall & Oates
7. A Whole New World
6. Anne Hathaway can sing!
5. Cathy the comic
4. Hillary/Palin press conference
3. Doogie Howser
2. Who's In Your Top 5?
1. the Palin rap

none of the skits from last night made my list but there was a memorable one as Celebrity Jeopardy made its return to the NBC small screen.

and speaking of Jeopardy... let's talk about Eric Betts.

our good friend Eric has finished in second place in the 2009 College Jeopardy championships so congrats to him. it was kind of funny to see someone i knew up on the Jeopardy stage chumming it up with Trebek. i'm still a little annoyed that Eric went 0-for-5 in the African-American history category during the first round of competition but i can get over it if he gives me a cut of his winnings.

that being said, the dude from Notre Dame isn't the only person that could beat Eric in Jeopardy. if Eric went head-to-head with my grandma, he would be toast. i've sat through many a Jeopardy episodes with Dee Dee and that lady has run those categories like it was a 2nd grade math lesson. unfortunately, my grandma isn't getting any younger so i have a feeling that buzzer would be her undoing.

anyways, congrats Eric. watch out for my grandmother.

voted mostly likely to blog about his yearbook

i was looking through my yearbooks this morning and i came upon the pages that celebrated the four dances of my senior year: Homecoming, Winter Former, TWIRP and Prom.

on each page there were professional shots of the royalty court and on the Winter Formal page was my mug sitting next to Ms. Hannah Webster. the good news is that i was a member of the Winter Formal royalty court which, since it was the second dance of the year, meant i was in the upper-ring of high school popularity. the bad news is my sister didn't even vote for me for the title of Ice Prince. bitter pill to swallow.

i bring this royalty stuff up because i was flipping through the pages and i came to the Prom page. i have no idea who our Prom Queen was. i'm dead serious. you could give me $500 and i couldn't tell you two things about her. and you saw what i used to be on Facebook, i knew everybody!!! who is this Senior High Class of 2003 Prom Queen? even though Prom is the last dance of the year, isn't the royalty court is still supposed to be filled with semi-popular people? why is Ms. Tiffeny Klein such a mystery? why is it i can remember the song that was playing when i walked into the dance as well as the last song of my high school career but i have no clue who my Prom queen was? odd. Captain John, do you know who the heck this girl was?

anyways, i was looking at my yearbook because i heard this report on the radio. does that sound mean? well, let me tell you something about mean. i vaguely remember that one year, one of the girls in Yearbook class didn't like another girl who had the last name Dauenhauer and she changed her name in the yearbook to Downinanhour. i am surprised we didn't get sued. i couldn't find the picture right away but i am 95% sure this isn't a story i made up in my head so that name change is likely hidden somewhere in my four Senior High yearbooks so i will keep searching.

hell, i was even somewhat mean in regards to the yearbook. i may or may not have skewed the vote in order to get one of the "Best..." awards. and i may or may not have taken that award from a special needs student. i arranged for a photo of a non-existent club to get its own spot in the yearbook and then i crashed their photo. i also crashed the chess club photo too. in the senior class group photo, i can be seen throwing up the classy shocker sign even though i still really didn't know what it means (but all the cool kids were doing it!!!!). because of my connections, i got to provide the sophomore year football pull-out quote even though you can count on two hands the amount of plays i played that season. the closest i've ever gotten to getting into a physical fight was in yearbook class but in my defense, it was over an arguement about whether or not a story about Captain John's pool and/or Ninja Club should get space in the yearbook over a story about two girls who weren't involved in the Circle Jerk. yes, Captain John, i was very much opposed to the story about your pool and the 40 other photo collages of the Jerk.

the yearbook drama is intense but hey, those yearbooks last forever!

so if you take anything away from this blog post, it's that i was a bit of a tool in high school and that our Prom Queen might have just been a figment of our imagination.

the MySpace finds a way to screw up my Friday

so i went on gMail this morning and Robyn quickly asked me to go to MySpace and check out one of her new photo albums. i did. and when i checked in i was horrified. and it wasn't because of Ro's photoshop work.

no, MySpace has added a new feature and it seems an awful lot like a feature that Facebook added a few months ago which, at the time, seemed a lot like a key gMail feature. yes, MySpace now has one of those chat bars on the bottom of the page which is nearly identical to the one the Facebook has.

do you know what i miss? i miss the days when my social networking sites weren't trying to one-up each other. i miss when my Facebook homepage didn't look like my Twitter feed. i miss when i could clear Facebook walls. i miss it when it was thefacebook.com and one could be looking for "Random Play." i miss when my online friends didn't see how much time i spent on Facebook and MySpace. i miss when i didn't have to read people's pointless status updates and people didn't have to read mine. i miss when every MySpace profile could feature only one damn song. i miss when surveys were the only thing worth signing into MySpace for.

i miss the old days. seriously.

on a less bitter note, Chastity and i have now been dating for six months and i love her. unfortunately, now i am waiting for MySpace/Facebook to find a way to pimp my relationship status and screw that up too.

a small blog with a small problem

i haven't talked about American Idol in a while and since today we're celebrating the one year anniversary of Syesha's demise (Top 3 week), here is a video of Anoop singing my new favorite song.

also, am i the only one that thinks that this commercial might be offensive? that Burger King tiny farmer one annoys me too. i mean, i am not a little person, but c'mon.

this blog is brought to you by the number 47

we haven't talked politics in a while so let's spend our Sunday doing that.

47% is an interesting number. if you get the number on say, a math test, things aren't looking up for you. but if you are a baseball player and you get a hit in 47% of your at-bats, there is a multi-million dolla contracts waiting for you around the corner.

47% appears to be a bad number in terms of local politics. let me explain. yesterday, the City of Austin held a local election with one of the seats up for grabs being the mayoral spot. running in a five-horse race, Lee Leffingwell got 47% of the votes with his closest competitor 20 percentage points behind. rout.

the only problem is that Leffingwell failed to cross the 50% mark meaning that there will be a June run-off election between him and Brewster McCracken. now Brewster is the candidate i support but come on, really? is it really necessary to have another election? sure, Leffingwell didn't get the majority but there were five people on the ballot, it would be nearly impossible to get a true majority. i think the city spoke loud and clear with the 47% thing, being as McCracken got only about 27% of the votes.

so in a month, the city of Austin gets to waste more taxpayer money and hold another election that less that 15% of the populous will bother dealing with. and we'll go through this procedure just so Lee Leffingwell can be elected Mayor of Austin, a title he should have been crowned with on May 9. go politics. ugh. whatever, just dance.

taking some children on a Reading Rainbow

i spent this morning reading to the children. yea, Zavala Elementary had its annual Reading Rally Day and so i spent 90 minutes reading to a class of 6th graders, a class of 4th graders and a class of 3rd graders.

not gonna lie, i loved the 3rd graders. i got the feeling that the 6th graders didn't give a crap that i was there and the 4th graders got somewhat bored with me rather quickly. but the 3rd graders were engaging and listened to every word i had to read and they were young enough that they actually interested in the book that i brought ("Here Comes The Strikeout," my favorite book as a child. i had to read a provided book to the other two classes). then they read/summarized one of their classroom books to me and then gave me a presentation about the reading project they were participating in. for their project, they were going with a rainforest theme and they wrote their own mini-books and made masks for the parade they were participating in this afternoon. they got to make masks!!! when i was in third grade, all i got was stupid multiplication tables.

i was also impressed that the entire class was bilingual. granted, they've grown up in a bilingual culture but it's pretty cool that they can speak two languages because i've tried both spanish and japanese classes and both were miserable experiences. holla.

reading to the kids was a fun way to start the day because when i read a book, i can be anything! take a look, it's in a book - Reading Rainbow!

bringing some Montana flava to Texas

for the 438th post in TYC history, i'd like to take you back to where it all began: Montana. well, we're not really going back to Montana but i've been having a lot of Montana-related experiences in Texas lately.

for example, last Saturday some of the Bustas and i were enjoying a nice afternoon and we decided to go to Spec's (imagine a Buttrey grocery story but full of nothing but alcohol. we seriously got carded at the store's deli. and yes, that is a Buttrey reference). while browsing the beer selection, i decided that i wanted an ice cold Big Sky Brew, which is something i haven't had since i left Missoula in 2003. unfortunately, the BSB doesn't ship to Texas so i settled on some Lone Star beer which is a pretty big drop-off. so if anybody in Montana is reading this, stop what you're doing and go support the post office by sending me some BSB. now.

another one of those Montana connections happened while i was driving on the i-35 frontage road a few days ago and i noticed that the mini-van in the next lane had... a University of Montana alumni license plate! i almost wanted to swerve over and cut them off so they could see my Montana license plate. granted, i think the whole alumni license plate idea is kind of tool-ish but it was nice to see that, temporarily, the state of Montana was dominating one section of the Texas road system.

and finally, i am working on a profile on the Express' new manager that will run on Sunday. the guy has been managing for 25 years and his first gig was with... the Billings Mustangs. so yesterday, i spent some time talking with the Mustangs' old bus driver who also used to teach at Senior High, my alma mater, for like 30 years but he retired before i ever got to those hallways.

oh, and my sister is getting married in a few weeks. in Texas. true story.

as for the Scrubs finale last night, it was pretty good. it was a simplistic storyline which is the appropriate way to end a series. most everything else had already been wrapped up in the previous episodes so why complicate everything? the episode kind of ran out of steam towards the end of the hour but i really liked the hallway scene with the former cast cameos. quality stuff.

Nelly should rap about intramural softball

sorry that it's been a little while since i last blogged, i have been somewhat busy and you wouldn't believe the busy work that went into writing this story. i seriously had to call 50 schools and ask them when their proms were which, yea, kind of made me feel like a creepster.

i also had a double-header in intramural softball on Tuesday which turned into one of the more interesting nights of my intramural career.

first off, we had to forfeit the first game which is a bit baffling since we have a roster of 13 and you only need eight to play. but when one person is out of town, another is sick, another is running late, another is stuck in traffic, another misread the schedule and another is MIA, you somehow get left with seven players and a forfeiture, which sucks since we still scrimmaged the team and beat them by at least 15 runs.

as annoyed as i was with the forfeiture, i did have fun at the scrimmage. the other team was pretty cool and we borrowed a few players from the team we were playing in the second half of the double-header. my night included a grand slam, a near inside-the-park homer on a left-handed bunt and a dropped fly ball while trying to hot dog it at third base. in my last at-bat i popped up to the catcher but in my defense i was holding a beer in one hand and swinging with the other. i also only lost a few drops of beer while swinging the bat so go me.

eventually two of the missing six Ball Bustas showed up so we had enough people to play in our second game... but it was canceled because ASSC overbooked the fields. since i missed our first game and last week was rained out, we will be entering into the fourth week of the season and i still haven't played a real game yet. lame.

i am also convinced that this guy was at our game yesterday.

earlier in this blog entry, i name-dropped prom. at proms across the nation, there will surely be some bumpin' and grindin' but there will also be some sweet ol' slow dances. and do you know what i think makes for a good slow dance song? not this but this. yes folks, i do love a good rap ballad. rap ballads allow me to show my sensitive side while also not letting me forget about the streets i came from (500 block of Clark, represent).

so what makes a good rap ballad? well, first off the lead has to belong to a rapper which means a song like this is not a rap ballad while a like this is. it also has to be a song about love so a song like this is not a rap ballad even though it is a damn good song.

over the years, a lot of rap ballads have been made but there is only one spot available on the rap ballad throne. who should that throne go to? well, in my opinion it's a three-horse race between Nelly, Ja Rule and Fabolous. why those three? because they've all done a rap ballad with Ashanti who is apparently a rap ballad slut so i guess Miss Ashanti is the measuring stick here. in honor of the big boxing match that wasn't last weekend, let's make this a three round fight.

Round 1: Nelly's "Dilemma" v. Ja Rule's "Always on Time" v. Fabolous' "Make Me Better". i am almost imclined to go with Fab here since his song features Ne-Yo but Nelly hits a grand slam here with Dilemma since he actually included a talented member of Destiny's Child. point, Nelly.

Round 2: Nelly's "Body On Me" v. Ja Rule's "Put It On Me" v. Fabolous' "Into You". now if we were judging on Fab's version of Into You" that features Ashanti, this point would be awarded to Ja Rule. but we're going with the version with Mrs. Grant Hill so Fabolous takes this round easily. point, Fabolous

Round 3: Nelly's "Over and Over Again" v. Ja Rule's "Down Ass B****" v. Fabolous' "Can't Let You Go". now if Ja Rule was able to use "I'm Real", we'd have ourselves an interesting fight but unfortunately that is a J. Lo-dominated song and Ja is stuck on the featured card and out of this fight. and even though Fabolous name-drops Jerry Springer in his song, we've got to give this round to Nelly since he, well, is doing this song with a country music artist. point, Nelly.

so congratulations Nelly, you are officially as hard as toilet paper.

come back tomorrow for a recap of the supposed series finale of Scrubs and Eric Betts' performance on Jeopardy.

i would totally buy that CD if i was singing on it

so i am thinking about starting a barbershop quartet just because i think it would be cool to be in a barbershop quartet. i've already got my wish list together and surprisingly none of these gentlemen use my barbershop. but i'm thinking that my quartet should feature Ne-Yo, Anoop from American Idol and the Chocolate Rain guy. yea, that would sell some tickets.

but this band is going to be doing those razzle dazzle oldies that are sung at every high school choral concert across the country. no son, we're going to be doing TV theme songs from my childhood. why, because they rock. besides, i often finding myself singing these classic 30-second songs to myself, why not get paid for it. i actually think it sucks that you can't purchase these TV theme songs on iTunes because i am sure that would be a top-seller.

anyways, when i do form my barbershop quartet i shall name it The Grover Cleveland Fan Club which will spark debates about whether we are fans of the 22nd/24th president or fans of both the muppet and the city that hosts my favorite football team. but while you ponder that, here is a preview of a TGCFC concert will look like.

1. All That
   
2. Family Matters
   
3. The Wonder Years
   
4. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
   
5. Kids Incorporated
   
6. Growing Pains
   
7. TMNT
   
8. Ducktales
   
9. Happy Days
   
10. South Park