November 28, 2007

Get your learn on with Baba!

Well, got a little something to do with myself in the Spring.  As many of you figured, I’ll be teaching next semester.  The class will be called “The Black Athlete in America.”

The part that may shock you–the course will be offered in the African and African-American Studies department at Duke University.  I promise no one will spontaneously combust.

I figure it’ll be a lot of fun.  It’s the first course I’ve taught that’s more discussion than straight-on instruction, much different from doing principles of econ.  I’m really excited about it, as I am about a couple of other projects I’m working on that I’ll fill you in on when I’m able to.

On and up, baby.

November 26, 2007

Help me out…

Went to the movies last night with my fiancee.  I won’t tell you what movie I saw because I don’t want to spoil this before you get to see it.  This is my only question–would there be anything funny about a scene in a movie where a man exacts revenge on his cheating wife by repeatedly beating her with a belt?  I just wanna know.

November 24, 2007

Redux of the Turkey Bowl Redux

(Scrabble players should read all the way to the end.)

So I did a post on my Thanksgiving that I managed to, somehow, make disappear.  No idea how.  I’m oh so smart.  Moving on…

In what’s become a bit of a tradition–at least for now–I played in my third Turkey Bowl this year.  In case you don’t remember–and I certainly don’t expect you to–the Turkey Bowl’s a touch football game my brother plays in with a buddy of his from work and a bunch of dudes from his hometown of Nyack, NY.  It’s a fun time, but lemme tell ya–it lets me know that I ain’t no spring chicken.  And I say this even though I play with a bunch of dudes that aren’t even autumn chickens anymore.

Anyway, I’ve had a beef in my previous times at the TB–not getting the ball thrown to me.  I don’t get mad at it, per se.  I’m a newcomer to a game that’s been played annually for 27 years.  Gotta pay some dues.  But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it’s odd being a 27 year-old, 6-feet-4 black man and not getting passes in a game primarily populated by middle-aged white men.  Stereotypes suck, but I wondered if I should be insulted.

There were explanations for this, though.  My first Turkey Bowl, my hands betrayed me in warmups, making me look a tad unreliable.  The second year, the ball was thrown to me on a crucial down.  But see, it was freezing cold and wet, so I had to wear gloves and a knit hat.  When I turned around on a hitch route, the ball was headed my way.  All of a sudden, my hat fell over my face on some Dumb Donald shit and my sweats fell down (faulty drawstring).  By the time I pulled my hat up, I had just enough time to get my hands up, deflect the ball, watch it float over my head and into my brother’s hands for an interception that was taken all the way to the house.  That sucked.

This year, your boy came through.  Didn’t win MVP, but did come through with two picks, a sack, a pass deflection and…a catch!  First TB reception, and it felt good.  ‘Twas even for a crucial first down, and I notched my first Turkey Bowl victory.

Yes, I’m excited about all those things.

The next day–and today–I wasn’t so happy.  I felt like I’d gotten my ass kicked.  My brother looked at me today and said, “you know, it’s fair to say the Turkey Bowl is a bit debilitating.”  Oy.

Good times.

Now, odd times…

Played Scrabble after Thanksgiving dinnner (which, it should be noted, was off the chains.  Won the first game because I was fortunate enough to get the Q, Z, X, J and K.  That’s a Royal Flush, more or less.  The second game was a bit different.  Raced out to a big lead after starting the game with a 7-letter word (thanks, Mama, for telling me what a leavener is, which let me play “leavens”).  Then, I kinda lost control.  Things went all the way bad when my opponent played “ami” with some other stuff for 33 points.  It was late in the game, and I figured it was worth the risk to challenge.  I mean, “ami” isn’t English.  But somehow, my man knew that “ami” had been added to the English language (and he knew when, apparently, because he asked what the copyright date on the dictionary was).  I lost the challenge, and was down about 5 with maybe a couple of hands left.

On what I hoped would be my second to last play, I played the word “cauter.”  I figured that if cauterize was a word, cauter had to be.  Then, I offered a warning to my opponent–if he challenged, the game would be over because I’d go out on the next play.  He didn’t hassle me, but he did make a decent play to put him up 14.

I looked in my hand, and I knew what was about to happen.  The best play I could make would clear out my tiles be worth 12 points.  If dude had a 1-point tile in his hand, the game would be a tie.

It was a tie, 305-305.  Never had that one happen before.  And it only happened because I made a bad challenge and bluffed my way through a bogus word.  Gamesmanship, baby!

And now, I return to being physically debilitated.  Happy Thanksgiving, even if belated.

November 23, 2007

Please don’t mistake this for hyperbole

If you think that it’s appropriate to kill someone for breaking into a house, someone that’s not a threat to you, then I can’t help but wonder if you think lynching is OK, too.

November 21, 2007

The older I get…

…the more things I realize I dislike.  I really don’t dislike that much.  Hanging with Kirk the last six or seven years has shown me that, in the grand scheme, I’m a pretty chipper guy.  And if you don’t agree, feel free to kiss my ass.

Anyway, this morning, I went to the car so I could drive my fiancee to the airport, and I saw my trunk was open.  That seemed strange, but I knew what was next–broken driver door window.  That’s right…them boys done broke in my car (by my count, that’s the fourth time this has happened since 1998).

And what did they take, you ask?  Nothing.  They broke in to get me for the display on my iPod adapter for my car stereo, which I had nowhere else to put but on my dash.  So they reached in, snatched that, looked in my trunk and dipped.

I don’t even use that thing anymore, so I’m not hurt about losing it.  I am hurt, however, about having to call the NYPD to come look into things.  I’m on the up and up.  I don’t have a record.  But waiting on them to get out of the car and finish filling out that paperwork?  Man, that’s nerve racking.

Anyway, back to my problem…amateur crooks.  All these clowns did was mess up my day, basically.  Straight amateurism.  It isn’t gonna cost that much to fix, but sheesh, man.  I gotta drive to the Bronx with a hole in my window cuz some cats just wanted to break some glass.

Amateur thieves, man.  My memory escapes me, but this is the second time in the not-so-distant-past that amateur thieves have struck.  Not that I want them to get me for something good.  Just sayin’.

November 20, 2007

Looking for Controversy

Greetings from New York.  Skyscrapers and everything.

So I’m here with my fiancee.  Yesterday morning, we watched the news and heard something about a “controversial” shooting in Houston.  Here’s the 911 transcript of the shooting.

I just wanna know one thing–where’s the controversy?

First, it should be noted, for those unaware, that I’m from Houston.  Lived there from when I was 7 until I graduated from high school.  As a result, I’m very aware of the law as it relates to shooting people in the dark.  In Texas, deadly force is allowable if someone is threatening your property in the dark.  The law’s a bit wild-wild-West for some, but I get it.  I mean, it’s highly unlikely someone’s breaking into your house with only his fists as a contingency plan.  That’s not the time to give people the benefit of the doubt on not having a gun.

However, the rub in this case that makes things “controversial,” I suppose, is that the shooter is the neighbor of a man who had his house broken into.  The shooter wasn’t protecting his property but, instead, someone else’s.

To me, that would make things controversial if he were shooting into the house to stop the burglary.  Nope.  He shot these dudes while they were getting away.  Shotgun blasts, no less, all while on the line with a 911 dispatcher that was telling him, repeatedly, not to go outside with a gun.  Instead of taking heed, dude went out and said, “I’m going to kill them.”

Again, I ask you–where’s the controversy?

Texans like guns.  And they don’t just like having them.  They like shooting them and want you to know, at all times, that they’re quite comfortable with turning that gun on you and letting you know who really runs things.  That’s how they’re wired.

It’s disturbing, but that’s how it is.  And, again, I don’t wholeheartedly disagree with allowing deadly force when someone’s breaking into your house.  I went to high school with a dude that got killed breaking into someone’s house.  He jumped into a bedroom window and was greeted with a shotgun.  I felt bad for his family and found it tragic a young, promising life ended so soon.  However, I was fully aware that those are the breaks when you break into someone’s house, and I harbored no malice toward the shooter.

But this dude?  Put him under the jail.  Deadly force can be used in the name of self-defense.  This was not self-defense.  This was murder.

Controversy?  Please.

November 18, 2007

Keep parents off MySpace!

This isn’t a new story, but it’s worth pointing out to those that haven’t seen it.

As clearly stated in the piece, there are no laws that cover this sort of behavior.  However, if there’s ever been a reason to revoke custody of one’s children, this is it.  If parents can’t be trusted to be less petty and silly than their children, then we’re in a really bad place.

As if that ain’t the place we’re in already.

November 14, 2007

Somebody else’s good story

So my brother likes to play golf.  Sometimes, that means going to the course and playing with somebody you meet at the course.

My brother did that today.  He asked the guys what they did for work, and one of them was a best boy grip.  How crazy is it to meet a best boy grip?  That always seemed like a fictional character when I’d see it in the credits.

November 11, 2007

How I found out…

This isn’t earth-shattering to me personally, but it’s an interesting story.

I’m still in California, and I was at a friend’s house hanging with him, his wife, and his oh so entertaining son.  My mother called twice, and both times I had to let the call pass.  So I sent a text asking if it was important, and she said to take my time.

Turns out she had an interesting story.  She asked me if I remembered a friend of her father’s.  I did not, and I asked why she asked.  Well, it turned out that his daughter died, a woman my mother had known her whole life.

You may have heard about it.

(Behave, Bol.)

What a horrible way to find out how small the world is–in the form of a reminder of how short our time can be.

‘Til the other side, Dr. West.

And yes, I know the circumstances surrounding her death, but it isn’t my place to report it right now.  I’d simply recommend taking this time to call your mom and tell her you love her.  Or anyone else, for that matter.

As many of you know, one of the things that drives me is the passing of my best friend in college.  Still hits me to this day.  That said, I’ve managed to cope pretty well.  The only reason that happened was because, for reasons that must have been divine, I told him how much I cared about him two days before he died.  No real provocation, no indicator of how short his time was.  Just felt like something to do at the time.

I’m lucky that feeling hit me when it did.

So call your folks.  Chances are, they don’t know what you’ve got to say.

November 9, 2007

Odds and ends from the road

Greetings from O’Hare International, where the signs all through the concourse gave the false impression that the Wi-Fi in the airport is free.  It is not.  But it is Wi-Fi, so my addiction to broadband and e-mail has been temporarily satiated.

(Hey, you fancy engineers, when are you gonna have some Internet for me on the plane, ha?  I know that’s not too much to ask.  Maybe it’s too much to do, but certainly not too much to ask.)

Anyway, I’m here.  Headed to a good friend’s wedding–guaranteed to be an interesting affair–in Orange County.  It’s interesting because this is my second trip to the O.C. in the last three months.  When I lived in SoCal, I think I went to O.C. all of four times.  Maybe that many, and two of those trips involved taking my father to and picking him up from the airport.  Not sure what that means, but it is what it is.

Moving on…and I mean that in more ways than intended when I typed that.  This week was my last week at ESPN.com.  The show moves on, but with a little time off in between.  Gonna do some freelancing and the likes, then roll from there.  I’m sure you’ll weep when you see someone else’s name on Monday’s Jump.

Or, it’s more likely you’ll take it like BG did when I apprised him that Wednesday’s Jump was the last.  “Please don’t be offended if I don’t frame it and hang it in the cube,” he wrote.  Of course I won’t.  Really, classic work like that adorning the walls of a cube?  How uncivilized.

Food calls.  Take it easy.