Thursday, February 23, 2006

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

Now I realize the chance of my pops seeing this is slim to none. He doesn't own a computer, a cell phone, a pager, a cordless home phone or anything that would be considered high tech or low tech for that matter. If he has even surfed the internet in his life I'd be surprised. But that's my pops and I still love him even if he's still stuck in the 80's... lol. So, if anybody in the Charlotte, NC area spots this brotha at the Charlotte Coliseum working the Bobcats game, holla at him. Say "Hey Gene". Tell him that he needs to jump on a computer and go to my site (if he even knows what the web address is) cuz his son is tryna send him a lil' somethin' special. Today I went through the photo albums and pulled some of my favorite pics of us together and here they are.


click thumbnail for larger view






Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Valentine's with my 3 Lil' Ladies






What else can I say? I love spending time with my nieces and had already planned to see them on Valentine’s Day. I got each of them a stuffed animal and a small heart filled with chocolates. Needless to say, they were happy to see me and extremely happy that I came bearing gifts. I could barely get each heart out of the bag before the were ripping at the plastic in an effort to satisfy their sugar fix. At that point, they didn’t care about those lil’ cute stuffed creatures that were for them. They wanted those chocolates!!! It’s amazing that I was able to round them up for even half a second to take pictures with me. Valentine’s day was all the more special cuz I got to spend time with my 3 Lil’ Ladies… *smiles*

the rest of the pics are here...

Monday, February 13, 2006

Crooked Pinky Fingers - Part II

Click the pic for a LARGER view of my hands



I must say that I’m really amazed at the response to my initial blog back in August about my crooked pinky fingers. Crooked – August 30, 2005. When I wrote it, I never anticipated that I’d get so many emails from people who’ve experienced the same thing. I realize that folks come across my blog from time to time, but I never imagined how so many people with this condition would happen to just find it one day. I’ve received emails from all over the U.S. and a number of different countries from fellow Crookediers. Yeah… I made up the word… and whaaat!!!!!??? These traits that we all share kind of have so many different stories behind them. I’ve heard from lots of others who were teased or joked on while growing up. I’ve heard many accounts of numerous people who’ve shared these traits with a parent, grandparent or sibling. Our crooked fingers are something like a birthmark, yet it’s more than that. Clinodactyly is a birth defect, yet most of the people I hear from had no idea even what the name of it was. Most never looked at it as some kind of malformation, only the fact that fingers were smaller and/or curved more than the others. I’ve truly enjoyed each person’s account of their personal experiences or the experience of someone they know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re all different in some way. That’s how God made us. Be proud of having those crooked fingers. Chances are that someone in your family has a story to share with you, yet they may not even view their knowledge as important to you.

It’s kind of weird for me to be 33 years old and really just now understanding this. It was something that was different about me since I can remember, yet I never ever gave it any thought. I could always play basketball, but never could palm the ball like my friends. Hmmm… did that really impact how I shot the basketball. Did it take away from my ability to throw a football or grip a baseball bat. I dunno and it’s not important. I was the Dodgeball and Kickball king back then anyway… and I still excelled in the other sports. I also used to play tricks on folk and bend my pinky fingers backwards so that the tip would touch the back of my hand. Yes, I can do that with no problem and it doesn’t hurt. It’s a cool thing to do in front of someone who’s had a few extra drinks at the bar. It’s guaranteed to make em look at you with that What the hell?” look. Ha ha. Anyway, after receiving a few more emails today, I was just inspired to reflect upon my initial blog post. I wanna thank everyone who’s emailed me with their stories and I hope those fellow Crookediers who’ve yet to understand exactly what Clinodactyly really is and the history behind it, that they’ll come across this blog posting and share their stories also.

Peace-N-Love

Friday, February 10, 2006

I've won a 'few' radio prizes in my day

Back in the days I was the king at winning stuff off the radio. I was unstoppable!!!! I mean, if the radio station was giving it away, chances were that I was gonna find some way to get that prize. Now back then we had two phones in the house, one cordless and one attached to the wall in the kitchen. Every morning before I went to school, I knew that one of the local stations in DC was gonna be giving something away. Sometimes, I would put off eating breakfast until the opportunity came to grab those phones. Hell, I even used to skip school to win stuff off the radio.

When I was younger, I used to win so much that I had a list of all my friends names and SS #'s so I could win more than once a month. Then whoever's name I used would just split the prize with me. Folks used to accuse me of cheating or ‘having a system’ to be able to get through and win, but it was nothing but sheer determination. It got to the point where the receptionists at each station would recognize me and they’d look in their files to make sure I hadn’t won within 30 day. C’mon now… I was much smarter than that, that’s why I had the list of all my friends, that way I could win whenever I wanted to.

I've won more than $30,000 of cash and prizes from DC/MD radio stations including:

-$6000 Mink Coat - 1989 - (WHUR-Washington DC)

-$700 cash - 1990 - (WPGC-Washington DC)

-All expenses paid trip for 2 to American Music Awards in LA - 1992 - (V103-Baltimore)

-$963 cash - 1993 - (WHUR-Washington DC)

-3 CD players - different stations

-2 TV's - different stations

-lots of gift certificates: from $25 to $500 for Kay Jewelers, Toys R Us, Fredericks of Hollywood, Blockbuster Video, Nobody Beats The Wiz, a handful of restaurants.

-tix for a variety of events: Prince, Washington Bullets, Luther Vandross & Anita Baker, Kings of Comedy, Patti Labelle, Bill Cosby, Tyson-Spinks fight, Budweiser Superfest (front row), WWF Wrestling, Public Enemy, Das Efx… that's all I can remember right now...


I used to tape record myself each time I won on the radio and I was able to compress each file and burn it to a CD... the joint is 45 minutes long!!!!

Here’s a few of em though that I encoded as MP3’s…

Y’all betta not laugh!!!!!

(click file to listen)

-Won $963 cash for being 963rd caller on WHUR in 1993

-Won tix to American Music Awards in LA playing Mystery Mix game on V103 in 1992

- Won $700 cash playing Mystery Mix on WPGC in 1990

-Won $100 cash for playing Tongue Twister on WPGC in 1989

-Won Wrestling Tix for playing Quiz Game on WPGC in 1988

-Won Stroh’s gift pack for playing Sports Trivia on v103 in 1986

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Worst Date Ever!!!

I’m sitting here bored as can be and started flipping through some of my old journals. I came upon an entry that really made me laugh out loud. It was from a date that I had gone on back in 2000. Now everyone has had a bad date, but this was the date from hell!!!! I mean… Every possible thing that you can imagine going wrong, went wrong. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.

Aiight here’s the deal, don’t laugh… I met this chic on BP (BlackPlanet for net newbies) right and we had been ‘messin’ around’ for a few weeks. We had never gone out anywhere… only stayed inside ya know? One night she asked me if I wanted to go out to the movies and I reluctantly said yes. So the next evening, I picked her up from choir rehearsal and was surprised to see that she had dyed her hair a very bright burgundy. I was determined to NOT take her anywhere lookin’ like that, yet I still wanted to chill later that night. I insisted that we get somethin’ to eat. I was trying to go to a restaurant that wasn’t around my way in case someone I knew happened to be there.

Well we ended up going to Applebee’s (which I hated then and still dislike).From the moment we hit the door ole’ girl started with the drama. First off she fussed at the hostess because it took too long for us to be seated. She complained aloud about being hungry and starving every 2 minutes. When we finally got seated she got rude with the waiter for some reason unknown to me. Whenever she wanted something, she would tap on her glass with a spoon until the waiter came. Of course I’m gettin’ to the point where I’m ready to get up and roll out at this point, but we stayed. The food came and within 7 minutes she had wolfed down the entire meal. No joke, I was still eating my bread and halfway through my vegetables when ole’ girl slammed her utensils down and exclaimed “That was good as sh*t!” So I’m sittin’ there still taking my time eating my dinner, while she has this look of exhaustion on her face. Within about 10 minutes she begins to complain that her stomach is hurting. She talks loudly about the fact that she felt sick from the food and felt the need to throw-up. When the waiter comes over to check on us, she loudly says “Ugh.. the food was nasty… I feel like I gotta throw-up”. I’m sitting there feeling small enough to jump in a glass of water at this point.

People are lookin’ from all over the restaurant to see where the commotion is coming from. Ole’ girl asks me if she can have the keys to my car so she can lay down and I was like “Hell No… I aint givin’ you my keys!!!” Then she got angry and started cussin’ out loud about how I wasn’t being a gentleman to a woman who was feeling ill. I did my best to ignore her for the next 5-7 minutes until the waiter came with the check. I paid the bill and acted as if I was getting up to leave. She assumed I was walking out the door and decided to walk to the car and wait for me. I then put my head down on the table in shame and got up after about 2 minutes. People looked as if they wanted to say “Damn bruh… sorry about your problem” or “You’re an idiot”.

Well… I finally went to the car and we left the parking lot on the way to her house. I didn’t say a word the whole entire way. I just drove in silence. I wanted to go off on her, but I blamed myself for dealing with such an ignorant chic. I pulled up in her driveway and she asked me if I was gonna come inside. Being that I was still pissed, I declined the invitation and let her off by the front entrance to her apartment building and from that point I drove my Black azz home.

I can look back at that night and laugh about it now, but it sure as hell wasn't funny back then... lol.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Best Super Bowl Ad Ever



As a Cowboys fan I hate three teams, the Redskins, the 49ers and the Steelers. I would go into my reasons but if you think back to some moments that broke the hearts of Cowboy fans like myself, I'm sure you can figure it out. Anyway, the Steelers are in the Super Bowl this weekend and I cannot root for them. However, one of the most memorable commercials I've ever seen and my favorite Super Bowl commercial featured a Pittsburgh Steeler, 'Mean' Joe Greene. It was first played in 1979 and was part of the Have A Coke And A Smile campaign.

In the ad, Mean Joe is limping down the tunnel to the locker room. This kid spots the Steelers' defensive tackle and says "Mr. Greene, Mr. Greene...” Joe turns around and acknowledges the kid by sayin’ “Yeah”. The kids goes on to say “I just want you to know that... I... I think you're the best ever” Mean Joe nicely replies to the kid with a “Yeah sure” The kid then raises him bottle of soda and says to Joe “Want my Coke?” Joe looks at him like he’s crazy and waves him off. The kid then asserts again “Really, you can have it" Joe finally says “Okay… thanks” and gulps down that Coke like a man deprived of liquids for months in the desert. As Joe is chugging down the Coke, the kid breathes a deep sigh of frustration says “See you around” and begins to walk the opposite way up the tunnel. In a surprising move, Mean Joe hollers “Hey kid” and tosses the kid his sweat and dirt filled game jersey. The kid gets this huge smile, grabs the jersey from the air and yells “Thanks Mean Joe!!!” The Have A Coke And A Smile words come up in the screen and you see a huge smile from Mean Joe Greene. I was 7 years old when this commercial first aired and I’ll never forget it. I wanted to be that kid, but I wanted the player to be Tony Dorsett and not Mean Joe… lol.

Anyway, I found it and uploaded it to my site... here it is is……

Mean Joe Greene & The Kid - Have A Coke And A Smile