Pimpin’ Myself (Or My Site As It Were)

You’ll notice the big Amazon ads to left in my books section. Please don’t think less of me trying to generate a little revenue from the web. I figured I spend tons of money at various places on the web why not earn a little scratch from my own small place on the web. I stress the word little. I don’t get enough hits make any real money. I just thought it might be cool to receive a check from Amazon for 50 cents every quarter or so. A Google AdSense section will be forthcoming as well providing keyword ads to various other sites based upon what I post about. It’s all a big experiment. I like to keep my page design clean so I’ll probably lose the big white ads and go with text links. We’ll see. If you’ve got any feedback (my few loyal readers) feel free to post them in the comments section or shoot me an email. Peace.

Stars Like Apple

Stars Take a Shine to Apple : It’s nice that these people are “stars” and all but that doesn’t give them the right to be rude to the poor Apple workers. They’re just trying to do their job. I was especially saddened by the story relayed about Lavar Burton. He comes across as a really nice guy so to read about the fit he pitched is confounding. C’mon Jordy. Play nice.

Spending Too Much Money

Apple must love me. I just bought an iPod Shuffle from them on Tuesday. I buy songs from their music store almost constantly. I go to their physical store here in Memphis and drool over all the beautiful computers that I can’t afford and secretly calculate how I can swing buying their new, more affordable Mac Mini. The folks on Ebay love me too. I just dropped a ton of coin on anime there. Plus to feed my burgeoning Manga habit I ordered a bunch of stuff from DollarManga.com and animebooks.com. It’s out of control. My spending this month is out of control. I comfort myself with the fact that I’ve been a good boy the last few months and haven’t really splurged on frivalous stuff (if you don’t count buying myself an iPod for Christmas…. or the 120 gig hard drive I bought to support my iPod habit). I guess this is what they call disposable income. But what the heck I say. I can afford it and besides it’s my birthday this month. I deserve presents even if they are only from myself. The mail man will know me personally by the time he finishes delivering all this stuff I just bought. Ugh! Is it just me or does my Debit Card feel lighter for some reason. I can hear the crickets chirping in my empty bank account from here.

A Great Man Has Passed

Playwright Arthur Miller Dies at 89 : This is very sad. Arthur Miller was a truly great author, playright, and screenwriter. I remember reading The Crucible in Ms. Johnson’s 10 Grade English class like millions of other high school kids have done over the years. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Death of a Salesman but it’s one of my favorite plays. A talented, interesting and poignant voice has been silenced. The literary world is a poorer place because of it.

There’s Hope For Me Yet

10 Worst Dating Cities for Singles : There may be hope for me yet. Memphis isn’t on this list. Of course it’s not on the 10 best list either. What does that mean?

Car Seeking Missles

Missles that follow your car : Whatever you do, don’t slow down! Or (as would have been the case with my old car) I know I’m overheating but give me a break.

Super Bowl Commercials

I wasn’t all that impressed with the Super Bowl Commercials this year. They’ve kind of been going down hill for the last few years anyway. If you haven’t already, you can view them all here at Ifilm. My favorite ones of the bunch are probably the two Cedric the Entertainer Budweiser ads. They’ve also got the ads that were banned from airing. Some of the banned ads left me scratching me head. Why were they banned? Who knows. Some were obvious. Millions and millions of people were thankfully spared seeing Mickey Rooney’s bare butt on national television. Hopefully next years will be better. At least we were spared all the Dot Com ads from recent years past.

Post Super Bowl Blues

Today is a sad day in the sports world. The day after the Super Bowl is the first day of the offseason which translates into complete and utter boredom. Football is over which means all we’ve got to tide us over until August is basketball and baseball. NCAA March Madness will be here before we know it which is always fun and I suppose the NBA playoffs will offer something to look forward to but all in all in the sports landscape is bleak for the next 6 to 7 months. Regular season baseball is a snooze. The NBA doesn’t get cranking until the second or third round of the playoffs. The sports future is barren. Goodbye football for the time being. Thanks for the ride. We’ll see you next season.

Super Bowl

For the record I’m pulling for the Eagles but I think the Patriots are going to win. New England has got the experience. They’ve been before. Two Championships in the last 3 years. They know what it takes. That’s my expert analysis of the game be the game before it’s actually played. To be honest I don’t really care who wins since my favorite teams aren’t in it. I’m just hoping for a close, hard fought game that goes down to the wire. Blow out Super Bowls are so boring. Last year was pretty exciting. It came down to a last minute field goal. That’s what I’m talking about. Close and hard fought. That’s what I like.

Winter Jam

Last weekend Mariah and I went the Winter Jam concert in Little Rock. We had a blast. The concert was really good. Toby Mac, the headliner, was great but my favorite act of the show was Tait. Those guys really rock hard. I was completely surprised. I’ve listened to their CDs before and come away unimpressed but they sound incredible live. Their CDs don’t do them justice. The lead singer for Tait is Michael Tait who as you’ll probably remember is a founding member of dc Talk. So is Toby Mac which provided one of the highlights of the show. Toby Mac and Michael Tait onstage together doing several dc Talk songs. That was way cool. The crowd, myself included, went crazy. We knew all the words and proceeded to sing along at the top of our lungs. Mariah and Alison, who lives in Little Rock and went with us, saw a totally different side of me. I’m usually quiet and reserved but I rock out at concerts. I mean that’s the whole point isn’t it? You go to a rock concert to rock out. I’m sure I looked really silly but I could care less. How often do you see a black guy banging his head, waving his arms, and playing air guitar? I was a sight to see. Another highlight of the show was Newsong. I can’t say I’m a big fan of theirs. I’ve heard their songs on Christian radio before so I’m familiar with them but can’t say that I’ve gone out of my way to listen to them. They lead a really cool Praise and Worship time which was nice. We don’t really do Praise and Worship (we offer up praise and have worship service but don’t really sing “Praise and Worship” music) at my church so it was a good change of pace. They sang songs I’d never heard of but the words were projected up on the screen for all to see so singing along was easy. Those guys really have a heart for God. I’ll definitely have to give their music a closer listen from now on. The whole experience was exciting and fun. I haven’t been to a Christian concert since college. It was a definitely a highlight of the new year.

I was a bit apprehensive about spending two hours going and coming alone in a car with Mariah. On the one hand I looked forward to spending time with her. We haven’t really hung out together (alone at least) since the breakup. Our last major outing together was going to see Rent back in June. On the other hand I was worried about things being awkward. Fortunately things turned out fine. We talked about various things. It was just like old times in some ways. Conversation came easily. I found the old, familiar chemistry rising back to the surface after months of dormancy. There were a few moments of silence here and there but it wasn’t awkward. After one especially long silent spot on the way back though Mariah startled me by asking what I was thinking about. That was an old trick we’d pull on each other back when we were going out. She knows me really well and could tell that I was thinking pretty intensely about something. I lied and said it was nothing when in reality I was thinking about us and how good it felt to be spending time together again. I should have just said that but I was afraid revealing that would make things awkward so I said nothing. I know that she could tell I was lying (like I said she knows me well) but she accepted my answer and left it at face value. That was the only weird moment of the whole trip for me. I’m glad we went. Maybe we’ll do more things like that together in the future.