Damn You Kobe!

Note: I had planned to post this on Monday but my son was sick and my job actually wanted to earn my salary this week so I didn’t have time to finish. Apparently they’re not paying me to make blog posts. Who knew?

Watching the last seconds tick away of Cavs vs. Lakers yesterday, I thought the same thing I’ve thought for the past 13 or so years: Damn you Kobe! I thought this would be another chance for him to get embarrassed on national TV, I thought Lebron would show him who’s boss and punish him. Didn’t happen. Kobe and the Lakers won and made it look rather easy. A lot of it had to do with Lamar Odom’s 28 and 17 rebounds but Kobe hit some tough shots right in Lebron’s grill when he needed to. Damn him!

I played basketball in high school and a little in junior college, so got to travel and see some of the really good players around my age group. Players like Stephon Marbury, K.G., Allen Iverson and a couple of other NBA players. These types of players let me know really quickly that basketball would end for me after junior college.( I also found out that I was only 5’11 and not 6’1) Anyway, I remember hearing about this kid in the Philadelphia area who was supposed to be like a mini Jordan. I watched him a couple of times on TV and thought that he had serious talent. Then came the infamous news conference when he announced that he was bypassing college and going straight to the NBA. I don’t know if it was his sunglasses on his peanut head, the suit that looked 5 sizes too big or the way he was mumbling his words but something really irked me about this kid. The feeling only grew stronger during his first season in the NBA, he came across as a whining baby who seldom passed the ball. I remember laughing deliriously when he shot 3 air balls in a row in that playoff series against the Utah Jazz. Ha ha ha. But then he grew out that boondocks’ afro and started to dominate. Even went to work against a fading Jordan a couple of times (Jordan did abuse him in one All-Star game though). Once Shaq came and the Lakers started winning titles again, I had to see his face basically everyday. And for a person who supposedly didn’t want to be compared to Jordan, he sure was starting to sound like Jordan. He started copying his pigeon toed walk, the way he chewed gum and even the Jordan’s fist pump when he would make a clutch shot at the end of games. He basically did everything but move to Chicago and start cheating on Juanita…… I met my wife in 2001 and I remember going to her dorm room and hanging out for the first time. I was sitting down and I could feel eyes staring at me from her dorm wall. I look up and it’s a computer print out Kobe Bean Bryant. I started an argument with her and stormed out of her room. That night I had to decide whether I could see myself with a woman who liked Kobe. Thankfully I snapped out of it and thankfully she didn’t look at me like an immature loser. (she did) Only Shaq was happier than me to see Kobe get in to trouble with his “rape” case in 2003. I never actually thought he raped that girl but I was glad to see some of that luster was coming off his squeaking clean image when it was clear that he wasn’t that clean. I was glad he didn’t go to jail for something he didn’t do but that didn’t stop me from laughing at him fake crying at his press conference. It took him a little while but he’s regained much of his reputation back, especially on the court.

With Lebron averaging close to a triple double while leading his team to 23 straight homes wins, I thought this could be the year that Lebron passes him as the best player in the NBA. Watching Sunday I first see Kobe on the bench before the game looking like someone just farted in his face, then we’re told that Kobe is “sick” and he threw up before the game. Great, just when I thought he didn’t have anything else to copy Jordan about now he wants to copy his famous “flu game”. He didn’t have the great stats that Jordan had in his flu game but he did play well and at times he looked well. Why Lebron didn’t post Kobe up when he outweighs him by 40 pounds, I’ll never know. Instead he was launching jumpers most of the night and had a horrible shooting game.

Will I continue to hate Kobe, I don’t know. I hated Jordan for torturing my Knicks all of those years but I was actually rooting for him the year when his father was murdered and they won the championship. So there’s still hope for Kobe. I’m not saying I want someone to murder his father, I just want him to be a little less corny.

Please Thank and Excuse

After 10 plus years of tracking me down, my state’s court system finally got me to fulfill my civic duty and perform jury duty. I’ve had co-workers and friends share their horror stories about being trapped in room all day with no food or water, ready to snap. I’ve also had a friend tell me how easy it is to meet women there because they’re lonely and bored. I didn’t know whether he was talking about jury duty or a funeral. I have another friend who met a woman there and spent enough time with her that we started calling her “jury duty”. Exaggerations from various people aside, I wasn’t too geeked up about the possibility of being bored to death.

They said to get there by 7:30. Being the anti-CP Time brother that I am I arrived at 7:15, only to find out that I could have arrived at 8:30 and no one would have cared. You owe me an extra hour of sleep State of Maryland! I was given a juror number and told that from now on that number would be my identification. The courthouse workers announced these names and numbers with the enthusiasm of a motor vehicle teller. This didn’t seem like time to ask if I could just go by Allweez. At 9:00 we were rounded up by number and order to march into the courtroom one by one. Once in the courtroom we were seated in order by number and told the nature of the case. Attempted Murder and Sexual Assault was the charge! Uh, I didn’t sign up for this is what I was thinking until I remembered that no one signed up for this, we just simply exercised our right to vote.

Next we were introduced to two opposing attorneys and the defendant himself. One of my favorite words in the dictionary is “crazy” and this n*gga, excuse me this brother looked CRAZY! He made Crazy Inside Out Camouflage man from the Super Bowl post look like Bryant Gumbel. The judge asked if anyone one had a reason why they wouldn’t be able to adhere to the rules of the court and about 10 people stood up to say that they followed the rules of Jehovah. (That damn Jay-Z almost had me write Jay-Hova) I have nothing against Jehovah Witnesses but after the 5th person started saying the laws of Jehovah, I was praying for a simple “ditto”. The judge then asked if anyone had been a victim or had family that had been a victim of a violent crime. Of course 90% of the court room stood up, including me. Since this is a sensitive topic for most people, the judge had people walk up to the bench and tell him, the two attorneys and the crazy looking defendant about their’s or their family member’s violent crime experience. I quickly realized that people were going to use this opportunity to get their 10 seconds of shine on. A couple of the female jurors treated the distance from their seat to the judge as their own personal model runway. The fellas did that slow stroll to the front basically to make sure they don’t trip in front of 75 people. I hit them with the same bop that I perfected in the 7th grade to get girls even though I only weighed 75 lbs and had huge glasses. All of the cool left my body though when I could feel the crazy defendant staring at me with his Samuel Jackson “Lakeview Terrace” eyes. I told the judge that a family member had been the victim of a sexual assault but that wouldn’t influence my ability to be apart of a fair trial. Both the prosecutor and the defense scribbled down notes and I was shown back to my seat. After they got rid of about 30 jurors, it was time to pick the actual 12. Since my juror number was in the 50’s, the 12 jurors were picked before my number was called. But then they started dropping jurors and adding new ones. By this time it was around 1:00 and I was starving and ready to go home and look at the spreads for the NBA games (I have gambling “habit”). Needless to say I was ready to get the hell out of there. When it came time for my number to be called, the prosecutor looked at me and said “please seat” your honor. The defense attorney looked at me and quickly said “please thank and excuse your honor”. WHAT? Who are you telling to thank and excuse!....Then I thought “Oh wait that means I get to go home”. I almost got blinded by the uneasy feeling of rejection. So George Jeffersoned my way out of there! All in all, it wasn’t as bad as advertised. I almost feel bad for earning a full day’s salary for it …….Almost.

Free Beer

I complained last week about going out to watch the Super Bowl, specifically sports bars. So what do I do? Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I go to a sports bar of course. I knew it would be weird night, when my friend Ryan (who’s one of my more militant friends) says he’s rooting for the Cardinals because his boss likes the Steelers. I say “yeah but the Steelers coach is black and he’d be only the 2nd black coach to win the Super Bowl”. He says “So what, I don’t want to hear my boss’s mouth at work”. Mind you, this is the same guy who would have loud arguments with his girlfriend about black history at 2 in the morning when we were roommates. There were plenty of Steelers fans at the bar and many of them had buzz cuts or faux mullets. It’s safe to say they weren’t rooting for the Steelers because of its black coach. I started to feel a little uncomfortable being one of only a few black faces there until about 5 minutes before the game started and that’s when the negroes started to pour in. I've never been more happy that people were on CP time in my life! Some of the brothers strolling in looked a little shady though, especially one dude wearing an inside out camouflage outfit and these brown Timberland’s that looked two sizes too big. And his braids were all over the place. Ryan turns and says “That dude looks crazy as sh*t”. At this point the dry hot wings that I ordered have arrived at the same time as Jennifer Hudson sings the national anthem. The waitress starts telling me how a girl that usually comes to the bar told her she’d be out of town this week because her sister is singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Our conversation went like this:

Waitress: I guess she’s talking about her.

Me: She said Jennifer Hudson is her sister?

Waitress: Yeah I guess.

Me: She’s from Chicago and her family was murder a couple of months ago….

Waitress: Noooooooo really? So I guess that girl was lying huh?

Me: Ummm yeah, there’s a pretty good chance she was…....

If the waitress hadn’t forgot napkins for my wings. I wouldn’t have believed that she didn’t know who Jennifer Hudson was. Because really, who forgets to bring napkins when a person is eating hot wings? I thought the first half of the game was semi entertaining and it looked like the Cardinals were going to take the lead until the Steelers returned an interception all the way back for a touchdown to end the half. That was the Kurt Warner I knew and hated when he was the quarterback for the Giants. He always found a way to cost us the game with a fumble or interception with his big stupid gloves that he wears on both hands. At this point I had a nice buzz going from my multiple Coronas so I didn’t mind Bruce Springsteen’s screaming too much. Plus he has a new found cool since performing for Obama at the inauguration. The rest of halftime was filled by me and Ryan discussing the highs and LOWS of married life. Fun times.

After a pretty boring 3rd quarter with only 3 points the whole quarter, the game heated back up in the 4th after the Cardinals stopped the Steelers on the goal line and then drove all the way down the field for a touchdown. Then Ryan decides he wants to act goofy and makes the fatal mistake of jumping up from the table and screaming yeaaahhhhh! Crazy Inside Out Camouflage man see’s him and says “Yeah son, that’s what I’m talking about. Who yall for, Who yall for?” He then proceeds to philosophize in a “I just got out of prison way” about the NFL and how they don’t like signing black players even though the league is 90% black. Meanwhile Ryan is on one side of me laughing and texting on his phone while I’m sitting right next to this guy listening to him talk nonsense for 15 straight minutes without me saying a word. Finally I notice a woman in a skimpy outfit walking around with Heinekens bottles on a tray and say “Yo they’re giving out free beer!” Crazy Inside Out Camouflage guy sprints after her and almost tackles her, which gave me time to switch my chair around so that there was another chair between me and crazy guy. By this time the Steelers were driving down the field for what would be there game winning score and place was going crazy. After downing a fee Heinekens myself and watching the last seconds tick off the game clock, we were ready to bounce. Leaving the bar we walked past C.I.O.C. guy while he was talking to a man who looked borderline homeless saying “Man they got free beer and hotdogs?”. We then made a mad dash for the parking lot.

Super Bowl Ticket for One

Am I the only one who likes watching the Super Bowl by myself? No matter what the scenario I usually find myself irritated for most of the game unless I’m watching it by myself. First, there’s the whole sports bar scene where about 1000 people crowd around 3 or 4 flat screens hanging on the wall. Sometimes the sound is turned up on the TVs but you can barely hear it because it’s being drowned out by people yelling and screaming. Sometimes you’ll get sound until there’s a timeout and then it’s club time and the music is blasting at ear splitting levels. At every sports bar you always see the same characters, like the guy who’s sitting at the bar turning around every two minutes to see what girls (sometimes what guy) is looking at him,then he has to get up several times so every one can see his coogi sweater or new leather jacket that he has on. Not to be out done, you’ll have the woman who’s there either with her boyfriend or with a couple of other girls on the prowl (typically cougars) who will sash shay past your table 100 times so you have no choice but to look at her out of shape butt squeezed into some wack apple bottom jeans. Usually I have a headache by the second quarter from straining to hear my friends over the music or screaming over the music so they can hear me. The sad part is I’m still considering this option for Sunday.

Many people enjoy going to mini house parties to watch the Super Bowl. This option is cool if you either know a bunch of the people there or if some of the people there are knowledgeable about football and you’re able to have some good debates. If you don’t have one of those two things going for you then you’re in trouble. I went to Super Bowl party one year and had somebody’s drunk uncle spitting in my ear for 5 hours about how good the Steelers were in the 70’s he kept saying words like “Kordaback” instead of Quarterback. I don’t know if that was as bad as time when I went to a S.B. party with this girl I was dating. She knew most of the people there and I didn't know anyone. (Big mistake) Of course there was a hating guy at the party who kept saying phrases like “remember that time" to this girl and then looking at me for my reaction. After the 5th time I gave him a serious mean mug only to remember that he was there with 3 dudes and I was only there with that girl. I think we probably had a combined weight of 250 at the time. Not good odds for us. To make matters worse, the girl kept responding “ooooohhhh I remember that”. I remember that was the last time I went out with her dumb ass.

Most of my friends are doing their own thing this year and most of my wife’s friends are wack so I don’t know if I’ll be doing the house party thing this year. I’ll probably just end up watching the game on my couch at home by myself. Actually this could be a great father/son bonding experience. I can explain to my son why daddy is getting mad at the TV even though my favorite team isn’t playing. Then I can also explain what a “point spread” is and what is the “over/under” and how it’s relevant to paying the mortgage this month and keeping the heat on. Yeah that’s what I’ll do, I’d much rather hear him say “daddy, touchdown” then to have someone’s drunk uncle spitting in my ear saying “You got to sack da Kordaback “ all night.

Intuition- Good but a little less would have been better

When Jamie Foxx’s last CD “Unpredictable” dropped in 2005, I waited several months before I even listened to it. I said I would wait until at least 5 people said it was good or decent and then I would listen. I think this was a direct result of the memories had of first CD “Infatuation”. Yeah that’s right Unpredictable was not his first CD, his first one came out in 1994. He was fresh off of In Living Color and not yet a movie star, so it was hard to take him seriously as an R&B artist. To make matters worse, one of my boys would always want me to play the CD (tape back then) in my car. I was a teenager at the time pumping Biggie and Wu-Tang so this request always seemed a little gay but I listened to it anyway. There were a couple of good songs on there but mostly weak songs with terrible production. He didn’t have the heavyweight producers beating down his door back then. Anyway, I gave Unpredictable a listen and really liked it. I thought Foxx and Kanye made a great team and he held his own on the other tracks. So I was definitely anticipating his new CD “Intuition”.

“Just Like Me” sounds like it could have been a leftover from Unpredictable but in a good way. It’s a song that grows on you and it seems like whatever T.I. jumps on instantly becomes hotter these days. I was also feeling “I Don’t Need It”, even though it sounds like a poor man’s “Sexy Back” it still sounds different than the average R&B heard on the radio. As an added bonus I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out whether they were saying the word Bitch in the chorus. I’m getting really tired of hearing LiL Wayne ……wait I’m lying, I’m not tired of hearing LiL Weezy so I enjoyed “Number One” also. I think it had more to do with Just Blaze’s production and less to do with Weezy and Foxx’s faux rap/singing. The next three songs: “Digital Girl”, “Blame it” and “She’s Got Her Own” are all hits. Kanye rips it on Digital girl and Blame it is already a club banger. I hope Ne-Yo is getting paid for Foxx taking his She Got her Own remix because it’s not on Ne-Yo’s weak CD and it probably could have helped. It appears that the second half of the CD is dedicated to slow jams. I wasn’t feeling “I Don’t Know”, “Freaking Me” and “Slow”. The last two sounded like a songs that Silk would have done in the mid 90’s. One of my favorite tracks has to be “Overdose”, almost everyone can relate to the feeling of jonesing too hard for one person and feeling like you're dependent. A good smack in the face and a “what the f**k is wrong with you”, usually cures that feeling….At least for me. Anyway, although I’m not a big fan of The Dream, I do think he is a good producer and definitely blessed Foxx with some hot tracks. I think Jamie Foxx would have been smarter to cut down on some of the tracks, maybe to about 11 or 12 and the CD would have felt like a banger from beginning to end.

Who Works on MLK Day?

Me that’s who! Instead of enjoying the NFL games that were on yesterday, I spent most the game thinking about coming in to work today. I watched the game at a local sports bar and at least 5 people said “what, you have to go to work tomorrow?” Even my friend that I was there with kept giving me a hard time saying “we can leave, I know you have to get up and go to work in the morning”. None of that was bad as when I first told my mother I had to work on Martin Luther King Day. She works in Human Resources so benefits and paid holidays are very important to her. Her initial reaction was “WHAT????????” Pretty much the same reaction as when I said my company only gives us 6 paid holidays, except this time she added a “Oh Hell No” for good measure. All of this feedback got me to thinking if I should be going in to work at all. Any way you look at it, my company is sending a message to its employees, specifically its minority employees that they’re not going to recognize a federal holiday honoring a man who has been credited with leading the civil rights movement in America and the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And its not like I work at McDonald’s or even with the metro transit system where I would need to be there to help other people get to work. No I work for a large corporation that contracts out to the federal government, meaning we’re working for people who are off today. So how can I show my dissatisfaction with this situation? I can just take the day off but with a 2 year old that goes to daycare I need all the vacation hours I can save. I can tell my company that they should pay me for the day because it is a federal holiday but I’m sure that conversation would end badly and with a 2 year old that goes to daycare I need all of the money I can earn. So I decided on going to work but not actually working, regardless if it’s something that I do everyday anyway. I know being here today is my fault for not taking the necessary steps in my career to ensure that I would be fully in charge of whether or not I had to work today, so I’ll take the “L” this year and celebrate in style next year…….sleeping.

Game?......What game?

It has taken four days but I’m finally ready to talk about the Giants losing this past weekend. It was a sad, sad day in the Allweez household. Ok maybe not the household but definitely for the daddy part of the house. My wife and son were oblivious to the fact that my favorite team was getting their taints handed to them by the Eagles. I knew I wasn’t over the game on Monday when I picked up my son from his daycare and saw that one of his classmate’s parents had on an Eagles jersey and I immediately wanted to punch him in his neck. And I would have done it if he wasn’t about 5 inches taller and 80 lbs heavier than me. All I could muster was “Aww man take that jersey off, ha ha ha”. Ha ha ha my ass. My pops had been warning me since week 14 of the NFL regular season that he didn’t want to see the Eagles in the playoffs and I told him to basically shut it, the Giants will handle it. I’m almost positive my Pops jinxed the game five weeks in advance. Thanks Pops.

I knew we (the Giants) were in trouble when Eli Manning turned into Eli from 2006 and threw his first pass of the game 5 yards short of wide receiver Steve Smith. We ended up kicking a field goal and losing the momentum we had from the long opening kick off return. It was all downhill from there. I have to pin most of the blame on this loss on Eli anyway. And don’t hand me any bull about it being a windy day and that affected his throwing. Donovan McNabb played with the same conditions and he played like it was 80 degrees out. It was funny hearing the commentators and various people talking about how Eli misses Plaxico Burress. NO SH*T! He’s 6’5 and can jump, you take him away and Eli can no longer just throw it up and have Plax go get it. Neither Smith, Domenik Hixon nor Sinorice Moss are game changers and Amani Toomer runs like he’s 50 years old at this point. Even before the playoff loss I though Plax should be brought back next year and this only reinforces that point but he would definitely be on a short leash. One man is not bigger than the team. With Osi “Five Hour Energy” Umenyiora coming back from knee surgery the defense will be strong again next year. I swear if I see that damn 5 hour energy commercial one more time I’m going to.........buy it. Many people will argue this but I believe Brandon Jacobs has to go. I like the way the offense flows with Derrick Ward starting and Ahmad Bradshaw coming in off the bench. Ward is a much better pass catcher and to me he runs just as hard as Jacobs and he’s 40 lbs. lighter. We’ll be alright. And I guess I’ll be alright also. I think I, like other Giants fans were spoiled after last years magical run and all the excitement that came with it. There’s nothing like having people congratulate you on your team’s victory because they know that was your team from the beginning and you didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. I hate people like that! I guess I’ll just have to sit back and see if Donovan McNabb can take “us” to the Super Bowl. Go Eagles!