It's been an interesting month

Hi there, for those of you who periodically view my blog. As you can tell, it's been a slow month of posts. And I truly have no excuse. I just got a new laptop, so I can blog whenever my little heart desires. I have all these half posts that are now irrelevant, I think I'll just delete them.

I've been a little too preoccupied with trying to get back in shape, and, maybe, test for my next belt level. The thing that killed me on my last belt test were the push-ups. I had to do 100 push-ups, and not the little girlie kind either. I like. to die. Those push-ups was in addition to:

100 leg throw downs
100 stomach crunches
A shitload of squats
I can't even remember how many kicks, it's all a blur, probably 50 a leg of 5 different types of kicks
Four 1 minute long stick jumping exercises
Free sparring
Free grapple
MMA style sparring
And whatever else they felt the need to torture us with...

Needless to say, after that test, I was spent. I needed to take a break and re-evaluate, what exactly am I doing this for? At the end of my little training sabbatical, I decided that it was still important to me to train, but maybe I should get the testosterone out of my system and stop trying to prove that I can hang with the youngins in the class, and take it a little easy. And to think about what training goals I want for myself, not exactly what my instructor thinks my training goals should be. I truly respect my instructor, but I think that he sometimes forgets that I am closer in age to him than some of the other students. I am sure that he sees the potential for a hardcore, MMA female fighter in me. But my body just takes too long to heal these days. I need to step it up a notch, but in a more gingerly way.

As far as push-ups go, I'm up to about 20 a set, almost up to 3 sets with 30 second break in between. I now need to start back up with the crunches and the regular cardio. I get a bit of the cardio from class and just simply 3 sets of running up and down three flights of steps at work. If the opportunity to test again comes up, I may give it serious consideration. But I want to make sure I do it with a truly conditioned mind and body. And that it is it truly something that I want.

So there you have it! Nothing exciting, as of yet. The Anti-Diva is still alive and kicking, literally.

So has things been this month for everyone else?

Dru Hill reunion???

At least that what we were lead to believe on 92Q's Big Phatt Morning Show the other day. The reunion lasted about 10 minutes. Woody, who left the group previously, decided, on the air, that the group didn't really need him and that he should continue in his fellowship with God. There is a question as to whether or not this was a staged event. Maybe the whole thing was done for publicity? Well, Sisqo did not seem none too pleased with Woody's announcement. Of course, I wouldn't be too happy if my entertainment career was reduced to a terrible country reality TV series. Why else would Sisqo consider "Going Country" is his R&B career was on track?

I don't understand why they would include Woody in these reunion plans anyway. He left for the same reasons the first time. When they added Ruscola, aka 'Scola, to the group, I thought they were on the right track. I remember rocking 'Scola's "Let's Get Personal" track back in the mid to late 90's. He was pretty big here in the Baltimore/DC region for a minute. 'Scola added a freshness to the group that was way overdue. I was looking forward to a Dru Hill rebirth. After "Dru World Order" and Woody actually leaving the group, however, everything just seemed to fall apart. I noticed that with this reunion, 'Scola was not involved. I wonder why.

Here is the video from the radio interview. Could it be all a hoax?

The overdrive button

I've owned my car for 5 years and have never dared press the overdrive button. Until this week. That is dangerous button to press for a lead foot driver with a V6 engine and a road aggression complex. I could accelerate around the slowpokes and keep that gigantic, blocks-out-the-sunlight SUV from jumping in front of me.

I still don't think that I fully understand overdrive, but from what I gather, it is on by default, giving you better gas mileage, but shitty acceleration. When you press the button, you actually turning it off, allowing for more power.

Whatever, it does, all I know it that it brought my V6 engine back to life. If it wasn't for the high price of gas, potentially lowing my car's engine life, not to mention all the speeding tickets that I would probably get, I would probably leave that button pressed in all the effing time.

Really, Johnny Gill, really?

Back in the day, I loved me some Johnny Gill. Not so much for his looks, (mostly because, as a Balt/DC resident, the unflattering images of him as an awkward teenager with a horrible j-curl are still burned forever in my memory) but for his voice. My, my, my!! However, I haven't heard much from him as of late, at least not any solo endeavors.

So I was a bit surprised to hear about the rumors surrounding his alleged gay relationship with Eddie Murphy and how that relationship may have played a role in Eddie and Tracey's wedding disaster. What surprised me more was how he addressed the rumors. Specifically about being gay.

Gill was on the Doug Banks radio show to, in his mind, put an end to the gays rumors. But his statements instead made him wonder about his sexuality more. He states that he "is" heterosexual, “has always been” heterosexual and “always will be” heterosexual. Going further, he states:

"I got a stable (of women), I keep a stable. I've got all kinds of girls from Whites, Blacks to whatever you want to call them. I've got 'em all. Cuz that's the way I choose to live...working with the hand I was dealt. And until something comes along, one of them get their hooks in me...hey, I'm living and having fun."

A couple of problems I have with this statement. A stable of women?!? What are we, horses? Isn't that just a tad demeaning to women? What the hell does it prove about his sexuality, anyway? It just proves that he's a slut. It goes back to that old fashioned way of thinking that a man's manhood or sexuality is proven by the number of women that he keeps around him. I think Rock Hudson dispelled that myth. Another demeaning line: "all kinds of girls from whites, black to whatever you want to call them". Whatever you want to call them?!? Talk about objectifying women. Could you sound more chauvinistic?

He couldn't understand that anyone would ever think that Eddie Murphy was gay. Why? Because Eddie was married and has 8 children?!? Since when did the ability to reproduce have anything, anything to do with a person's sexuality? I know a lesbian who has a child, using the "old-fashion" method. A friend of mind was married and had three children with a man who later left her for another man!!!

I'm sorry, Johnny. But to me, any man that needs to vehemently defend his sexuality, especially in the method you chose, must be hiding something. I don't hear Eddie Murphy on the airwaves trying to plead his case for his manhood. He is obviously comfortable is his sexuality. At 41, maybe it is time for you to get comfortable in yours.

BTW, if you want to hear this interview, click here.

Unique way to keep the time

http://billychasen.com/clock/

Madea gets animated???

Apparently, a new series is in the works for a new animated Madea series. The idea came to Tyler Perry "after receiving thousands of letters from parents telling me how much their kids love Madea and realizing that a lot of the plays were not kid friendly. I wanted to do something more appropriate and this seems to be it. A 'Madea' animation looks like the best way."

Now, I'm thinking what the hell are these kids doing watching any of the "Madea" plays in the first place?

Anyway, more details here.

Words and Phrases in Music

On the way home this evening, SWV's song, "Downtown" played on my iPod. I recalled back to when this song was released and how naive I was to the metaphor. I was like, "she needs to go on a shopping spree to get in the mood to make love?!?". Then I finally really listened to the lyrics and had a big "ohhhh" (pun intended) moment. After that song, the word fairly innocuous word "downtown" now had a sexual connotation.

I started to think of other songs that either changed the meaning of some word or phrases or added new ones to our vernacular. Here's a few I thought of off the top of my head.

Cyndi Lauper's "She Bops"
I was about 10 years old when this came out. Little did I know that she was referring to a little "self-love". I just thought it was a strange little dance. Apparently, that is what Cyndi wanted us little kiddies to think it was about.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax"
Ok, these lyrics were a bit more, um, way more obvious. But, again at ten, what did I know? It wasn't until I heard this song again in my early twenties I wondered how could have my mother allowed me to listen to such music??

Blackstreet's "Booty Call"
Actually, the first time I ever heard the term "booty call" was in Bill Bellamy's comedy stand-up act ("ladies, if a brother calls you at 2am, is that or is that not a booty call?").

R. Kelly's "Down Low"
I'm sure R. Kelly's thought with this phrase was to keep a secret. Fairly innocuous, no innuendo there. However, this term has taken on a whole new meaning with straight identified black males, who occasionally like to take it in the tail pipe and don't want anyone to know.

I may add some more if I think of them. Any songs come to your mind?

30 day challenge

A Florida pastor has issued a challenge to the members of his congregation: 30 days of sex!!!

He feels that married couples allow the stresses of life are allowed to interfere with a loving relationship. Therefore, they should attempt to make love once a day for thirty days to get back that loving feeling.

For unmarried couples, even if they live together, are challenged to abstain from sex for 30 days. The pastor feels that 30 days without sex will allow unmarried to focus more on each other, since sex has probably been too much of a major focus in their relationship. How many of you unmarried couples think you can handle that? Good luck with that!!


30 day sex challenge
(Last I checked, the bandwidth had been exceeded.)

Movie sequels - Crank 2: High Voltage

Why does Hollywood do this? Why, I ask you? Crank 2, WTF?!? To those of you that have seen the movie, how can a sequel to this movie be possible?

Here's the plot outline from IMDB.com:

"Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working."

Is it just me or does this plot sound pretty much like the first movie?

More plot details here. Has a bit of a spoiler for the first Crank. Then again, there really isn't much of a plot line to spoil.

Waiting for the bus on I-95

At least that is what is looked like the gentleman was doing as I passed him driving down I-95 this morning. There he was, standing on the left shoulder. He was wearing a trench coat and dress pants, carrying a little plastic bag. Of course, initially I thought that he was having a bit of car trouble. However, there was no car in sight. Scratch that, there was no car in sight on the left shoulder. The only car in the vicinity was on right shoulder. Hmmmmm... I wonder how he crossed 4 lanes of 65 MPH (usually 80) traffic without getting hit. I guess a better question would be why. Maybe the same reason the chicken did???

Of course, all types of scenarios ran through my head. Maybe someone kicked him out the car and just left him on the side of the road. Maybe he was contemplating death by car and everyone missed him on his first run across the interstate. Ok, that one was a bit morbid. I truly hope that that was not the case.

In the few micro-seconds that I got a glimpse of him, he really didn't look that distressed. Didn't appear to be trying to hitch a ride. I guess he was just waiting for someone to pick him up. Odd place to wait, though.

In any event, I hope the gentleman gets home safe and sound this evening.

Kanye West's Flashing Lights

This is definitely one of those "What the f**k" moments. Can anyone explain to me the point of this video? I am definitely missing something.

What I did for Valentine's Day

Nothing... Well, what do you expect a woman married for almost 9 years to say? The specialness of that day wears so thin the longer my husband and I are together. It was just another damn day. We didn't do anything dramatically different from any other day. We spent some quality time together on the sofa, watching "Cheaters" and "Cheaters Caught on Tape". Quite interesting viewing for Valentine's Day I suppose. It kills me that G4TV showed a marathon of "Cheaters" on Valentine's Day of all days.

We didn't watch too much of "Cheaters". You've seen one cheating scenario, you've pretty much have seen them all. The other show, "Cheaters Caught on Tape", some of these people went to great lengths to cheat.

In this one situation, the husband has a PI follow his wife while he is away on business. The PI follows the wife to the local mall. The wife goes into the bathroom, changes clothes and puts on a wig. She returns to the parking lot, but leaves in a different car. She is then followed to a hotel to meet up with her lover. My girl pulled some straight deep cover sh*t! Just to cheat on her husband?? Well, if she had to cheat, at least she put a little effort into it. I hate to see or hear about a cheating spouse or lover cheating at home. It's bad enough that he or she chose to cheat, but in the house that you share? Let me tell you something, if my husband ever decides to cheat on me, he had better have enough sense to NOT bring the bitch to our house. If I was to walk in on the indiscretion, I would not be responsible for my actions. It would be like that D'Angelo song, "Sh*t, Damn, Motherf*cker". I have the ability to choke out 200+ lbs men. I could probably put a serious amount of pain on any female trifling enough to not only sleep with my husband, but to do the deed in my house, in my bed. OH, HELL NO!!!

Another woman blew my mind with her infidelity. She basically caught herself. Let me explain. Her lover was engaged to be married and she did not want the wedding to happen. So, she hired a PI to follow her and her lover and videotape their indiscretions in very public places. Well, the tape got to the lover's fiancee and stopped the wedding, as planned. However, the video also got back to her husband. Well, that pretty much ended her marriage. On the bright side, at least her and her lover no longer need to sneak around to be together.

In another scenario, the wife is getting a bit suspicious of her husband's long, late night dog walks to the park and sends the PI on him. He takes a nice leisurely walk to the park's public restroom. He is met by another man, money exchanges and then they disappear into the bathroom for about 30 minutes. Well, I guess that we can just imagine what went on there. He later claims his repressed need for a little manly love led to his double life.

I would say that I wonder why people cheat in the first place. But as a former serial cheater in previous relationships, I guess everyone has their reasons. But the one that always seems to come up the most is lack of communication. I have had heard, both men and women, complain about he or she doesn't do this or doesn't do that. But then you ask the question, "well, have you told him/her how you feel?" The answer is almost always no. I don't know about the men, but we women often forget that our men are not mind readers. If we don't express ourselves in the relationship, how can we expect to get what we want and need from the relationship? And if we express ourselves and still don't get what we want and need, then we done what we can and it's time to go. Why bother sneaking around and cheating?

I hope you all enjoyed your Valentine's Day.

To those of you that let me comments...

...I just wanted to say thank you. I really needed the boost. I also found that cheesecake, specifically chocolate mousse cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, can do miracles.

Hope everyone is well. Have a great weekend!!

Road Rage Revisited

Ok, normally I wouldn't pick a topic that I just read on someone else's blog, but I needed to vent a little more. WARNING: There are a few choice words in this entry. There are necessary to express myself fully on this matter as far as I am concerned!

My commute is 45 minutes each way, therefore, I experience and dish out my fair share of road rage. But the drivers that I hate the most in Baltimore are the Sunday drivers that purchase their Sunday papers from the street corner newspaper person. Do you know how many MFs that I almost rear-ended because they wanted to save a lousy $0.50? They can't buy the paper when the light is red, oh no. That would make too much sense. Instead, they wait until the light is green to hail the newspaper person. They hold up the traffic just long enough for the light to change back to red. Of course, they are the last car to make it through the yellow light. Bitches. They better make the light. They going to piss off the wrong person with that BS and get they their ass jacked. If I was a different type of person...

A few Sundays ago, as I was joyfully driving to my mother's house, a car jumps in front of me. I'm still pleasant at this point, no worries. We are all going to get to where we are going safe and sound. No need to ruin my fairly good mood. Then, they do it, they fucking do it. Green light ahead, they stop and hail the newspaper person, as if all the traffic behind them has came to a stand still. As if all the traffic just suddenly disappeared and they were the only driver on the road. We were in the left lane. And get this, they had to fiddle around to find the money to pay for the paper! Two people in the car and couldn't have a dollar ready to pay for this damn paper. Un-fucking-believable!!! All the while, I'm stuck behind them because traffic is flying to the right of me. Something that should take less than a minute to do took almost 3. I'm leaning on the horn at this point. They need to know how pissed I am as far as I am concerned. I'm finally able to get around them. Ooooooooooooo, I wanted to give them the finger so bad, cause they soooooooooo deserved it. But the little one was in the backseat and didn't really need to learn any new hand gestures to show the friends at school.

There should be a law. The corner newspaper people should not sell the papers to people in vehicles while the light is green. If for no other reason, for their own safety. I'm just waiting for one of them to get hit. I'm surprised that it hasn't happened yet or maybe that's just not news worthy enough, I guess seeing that it is one of the hazards of the job. It would at least be nice if the drivers buying these papers would have a bit more consideration. At least not attempt to cause a 5 car chain reaction pile up because you had to have that Sunday morning paper.

Bored and Depressed

Having a case of BB, Blogger's Block. I don't have anything cohesive to say at this moment. I'm just working on getting over a bit of depression. Life can truly be a bitch. I feel that I am just sitting around, waiting to die, wishing it would come faster so the pain can end.

I need to break out of this cycle. I made myself get out of the house over the weekend to ease the depression a bit. Otherwise, I would have just sat home getting more depressed. It helped. I'm not as negative. I'm now on the questions of "what do I want?" and "what do I need to do to get what I want?" and "am I willing to do what I need to do to get what I want?"

I know I'm not the first person or the only person to have to answer these questions but that doesn't make it easier to deal with.

Sorry to be so down in the dumps. Just trying to go through a bit of catharsis. Blogging always helps, right? Besides, I'm sure some of you will cheer me up with some comments, right?

I hope you all are well.

Looking for love in all the wrong places

It never ceases to amaze me how some women seem to always confuse love and sex.

A friend of mine, I'll call him James, a self admitted D-O-G, met this random woman on one of the social networking websites. Within a few days of meeting face to face, she has already laid down for this man. She must have been turned out because the next thing you know, she is posting all kinds of comments, laying claim to him, informing other women that she is the one and only. Started to sound sort of stalker - ish. It could have gotten a whole lot worst for James considering he broke the number one rule in the player's handbook. He brought this woman to his house!! He had no clue what this woman was capable of. She could have wore his ass out, and not in a good way. Something straight out of Gaelle's song "Parkway". He would have deserved it, as far as I am concerned. He should have been straight with the woman. He just wanted a one night stand and then to move on. But I guess honestly wouldn't have gotten him laid so quickly.

Anyway, some time passes. About a month. She has came to realization that James was just looking for the fast ass, which should have been obvious from jump. She wrote a little blog entry, dedicated to the once, so brief, love of her life, James. She lays out his whole game, the one she fell for, whipping out the Platinum card to offer to buy her nice things, bragging about the "package" he's working with and how he can do it "all night long", which turned out to be a short night, a very short night. What was so perplexing to me, reading her blog entry, was how surprised she was. She couldn't understand why he lied to her. And she took no responsibility for her own actions. She seemed so focused by the potential of a man with money to spend on her and back breaking, mind numbing orgasms that she was blinded to realization that maybe, just maybe this was a little too good to be true. That maybe, just maybe, giving up the puddy after less than three days is most likely not the beginnings of happily after ever.

Life After People

The History Channel showed a special last night called "Life After People". It is a hypothetical look at life on Earth if suddenly the Earth's human population was decimated to zero. My husband wouldn't watch the show with me. He said it was too depressing. But there will probably come a time humans no longer walk the Earth. I've been slightly paranoid of this thought since age 10, when I picked up the Childcraft Encyclopedia, volume 4, entitled "Space". It described how the Sun is really just a star and will actually burnout, leaving the Earth frigid and inhabitable for life as we know. There is a movie based around this theory. I read way too much as a kid.

The show does not go into predictions as to why humans suddenly become extinct. However, two scenarios popped into my head. Armageddon will either be a man-made catastrophe or Mother Nature reclaiming the planet. Or, even, a combination of both. We are living in a generation, probably the first generation, in which we have the technology to blow ourselves off the planet!

They start from day one and go all the way to ten thousand years of life without people. By then, there is very little evidence that the human race ever existed. None of our skyscrapers, bridges or highways. Nature takes back everything. Got me to thinking. So many people worry about leaving behind a legacy. Is it really that big of a deal? I mean, some people scrimp and save to leave a legacy to ungrateful children. The children turn around and squander the whole wad. I understand why my grandmother always says there is no reason to wait around for her to die. She plans to enjoy every single penny of her money before she dies. She plans to just leave enough for final expenses. As far as she is concerned, nobody will be getting rich off of her death.

It's not like we can control what happens to our legacy once we are gone. Eventually, we will all be forgotten and any evidence of our existence will be lost or destroyed. It just seems that we need to focus more on the now, while we are here on this planet. Make the most of time on this planet.

The American Idol audition rounds

I'll admit it! I love watching the American Idol audition rounds. It is my guilty pleasure to watch some of the no talent wannabes try to convince the judges that they are best undiscovered new talent. It never ceases to amaze me. Confidence is one thing, but many of these people are just plain out of touch with reality. No singing ability whatsoever.

One contestant came on the show at the urging of his co-workers. Here is his audition, if you dare:



He needs to go back to work and smack the shit out of those lying ass co-workers of his. They obviously wanted him to go and make a fool out of himself.

And this guy. OMG, he was just plain scary. If I was Paula Abdul, I would have had a restraining order placed on this guy and get a 24 hour bodyguard. Creepy!!!

Techie moment - MacBook Air... wow!

I love Apple, but I am extremely displeased with their latest MacBook offering. The MacBook Air. Advertised as the world's thinnest notebook. That it is. It should also be advertised as the most expensive and useless notebook. That it is. $3000 and all I get is a lousy 64GB hard drive??? Ok, ok, but the hard drive is a solid state hard drive, hence, no moving parts, hence more durability. But $3000? And only 64GB? I'm obvious not ready to pay so much for so little hard drive space. I am too spoiled with getting 80GB to 160GB of hard drive space in a notebook for a 1/3 of the price. 64GB is barely enough to hold my applications!! It doesn't even come with a superdrive. The laptop is too thin to accommodate Apple's slot loading drive. But wait, not to worry. You can purchase a external one for an additional $99. There's no ethernet port so add on another $29 dollars for that. It is way too dependent on everything being wireless. I'm not quite there yet. And no firewire port???

Some cool points. I like the remote disc option. I can set up the optical drive on another computer to be shared with the MacBook Air. I also like the new trackpad features. They added new gestures, very similar to iPhone gestures, like pinch (zooming in and out), swipe (paging items left and right) and rotate, useful in many applications. And hey, it's thin enough to fit into a manila interoffice envelope!

Maybe I am being to hard on the MacBook Air. I guess it is not completely useless for some. But for a power user like myself, it still has a long way to go.

Baltimore men

I was with a group of women over the weekend and, of course, the discussion veered towards the lack of good men in the Baltimore area. As usual, I was quick to defend my Baltimore brothers. I just hate to think that my hometown cannot breed a descent stock of good men. But I guess it is time to come out of my denial. Seeing that I haven't been in love's battlefield in almost 10 years, I started looking at some of my dating friends and relatives.

One of my sisters has been dating a guy she met while she was in the military. They have been together for about 2 or 3 years. He was raised in New York. Prior to that, she tried a couple of online dating services, with quite a few "interesting" dates in the area. One in particular that I remember her describing was with a guy who was 24 going on 10. His table manners were hideous (remember the "see food" joke when you were a kid). He had absolutely no intelligent conversion. It sounded more like babysitting than a date.

One of my friends is currently dating a guy from Virginia. They have a descent relationship. I always know that it must be serious when she tells the guy's name. She describes as a good man, better than what she kept running into here in Baltimore.

And the more that I think about, there has been only one other man in my life that I would have considered marrying. Yes guessed it, he was not born and raised in the greater Baltimore metro area. I had to go 8 hours west to find his ass!

But I kept thinking, what about my husband's friends that are single? With the exception of about 2 of them, they appear to be good dating material. Once again, my thesis does not hold consistently. Most of those men have relocate here from other states. They're complaining that there are not enough good, single, approachable women here.

To be continued...