Lunch with Laird...

I was going to start off by talking about everything happening in the sports world but my brother summed everything up in a comment on my last blog. To reiterate though... Tiger won. Again. 7 PGA events in a row. The reason I am not as stunned about it as everyone one else is because he doesn't consider it a legit streak since he lost a couple non PGA events on the way. It's still unbelieveable though. Federer is ridiculous. Between Tiger and Federrer, there is almost no doubt as to who is going to win on any given sunday. What I think the greatest current streak however, is the Phoenix Suns. 17 games in a row in the NBA is insane. Unimaginable. I don't believe it. Even when the Pistons won 13 in a row last year, it wasn't be margins like this. The suns are just blowing opponents away. Anyways, I'll get into it more on my Pistons blog.

So last week we were at this place we always go to (SoHo Park) for lunch when in walks Laird Hamilton. You may know him better as that surfer guy in the American Express commercials, or from Cribs, or as Gabrielle Reese's husband. So he and his daughter come in and the only open seats are at our table (it was a long picnic like table.) We didn't say anything to him but he seemed like a pretty nice guy and chatted up the people next to us. Anyways, he wasn't wearing a coat and I was very close to telling him that we weren't in Hawaii and he should put on some clothes.

I'm not sure if anyone watches The White Rapper Show on VH1 but it's pretty hilarious. It's a good reality show that combats lyrical abilities of white wannabe rappers. A couple of them are actually really good. There is this guy, John Brown, who I am pretty sure everyone in the world but me hates, but for me he makes the show. He is the self proclaimed King of the Burbs, and constantly rants about something called the Ghetto Revival. When asked by people like Grandmaster Flash and Brand Nubian, what exactly Ghetto Revival meant, all he managed to explain was that it was a revival of the ghetto. Watch the show and you'll understand.

I decided with all the excitement in the sports world that I would have a little tournament of my own. I decided to make a bracket of people representing the 4 cities I have lived in to compete in a head to head competition. I choose 3 people from the city, and then a local legend. There is no seeding and opponents will be randomly selected by dropping a golf tee. The competition will be based on things I make up and weighing people's strengths and weaknesses. ESPN's page 2 often does these things and they always end up being pretty funny. I may leave it up to you people to see who wins so we'll see how that goes. The brackets are as follows:

PoHo: Sameer P., Muki, Kiran V., Thomas Edison
Lansing: Bobby D., Bill E., Shawn M., Magic Johnson
Ann Arbor: Kris B., Dax P.D., Kelsey G., Lucy Liu
NYC: Brian M., Divya M., Phil A., Jerry Seinfeld

That's all for now but look for round 1 of the tournament later this week. As always, get your feet off the ground and reach for the stars. Go big or go home. Pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever. Carpe diem. Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

Hallelujah Hollaback
-M, p & z

oh ps - If you're in lansing go see jordon's new play that opens tomorrow, break a leg. Go download the sing Grace Kelly by MIKA, it's pretty awesome. It reminds me of queen.
Happy birthday kelsey.

pps - katharine macphee got sexified.

TV is Pretty Cool...

First of all, I catch a lot of shit for caring about animals and such. Seriously though, you're making fun of me because I think animals have an equal right to life as everything else in the world. There are so many cool animals that people will never see, mainly because of urban sprawl and logging and Bush and terrible people who don't put the environment as one of their top priorities. Here is a species of lemur that is soon going to be on the endangered list. It is currently my favorite animal.















So I realized that there are a lot of good shows on TV. I know I recently did a top five but, there really are at least 10 shows on TV worth watching. Other than the usual, you need to check out a couple shows you may not watch. On USA, Psych and Monk may be the two funniest police detective shows ever. Definitely a reason to stay in on fridays. My guilty pleasure is Beauty and the Geek. It sounds terrible but is actually a pretty good reality show. Maybe I like it because I can relate to the nerds a lot.

If you haven't seen the Demetri Martin: Person special on comedy central you need to. He is hilarious. He does it all from flow charts, to regular stand-up to songs. An example, "I'm in a weird situation because I like rainbows. But I'm not gay. So I wear a rainbow on my shirt but under it I gotta put, 'not gay.' But I'm not against gay people, so then under that I gotta put, 'but supportive.' I just think it's weird that one group took refractive light. It's pretty greedy gays." You may have seen him on the daily show. He does some short pieces on occasion. He looks like he's 25 but he's actually 33. Check it out, I'm sure it is going to be rerun many times. I would like to cast him in a movie if i get a chance. I am going to see if he wants to be in my thesis but that is doubtful since I won't be paying him.

I was going to do a best dressed list of my own from the grammys. I'm not gay, but I'm also not against them. It's more of a hot chicks list actually. Here are my top three. Not just dress but general hotness and hair are also factors. Anyways, this just took a long time to find good pics so they may not be the best pics but just trust me on this one.
At 3 is Reese Witherspoon.

















At number 2 is Jessica Biel.

















At number 1 is Eva Longoria. I'm not her biggest fan but damn if she didn't look good.


















Anyways, that's all for now. As always, get your feet off the ground and reach for the stars. Bo big or go home. Pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever. Carpe diem. Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

I'm out like t.r. knight
-M, p & z

oh ps - some people don't think reese is hot but to you people i say HA. You're wrong.

"The Moral Leader of our Nation..."











Can't sleep so I thought I'd blog a little. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day and this is one holiday that I don't take as just another day off from school or work. I assume that it's because I went to schools that didn't take the day off and instead had special days. In elementary school (MLK Jr. Elementary no less) we had to sign up for special classes where we would learn about things that we wouldn't normally learn about in class like natural history or something equally cool. At Greenhills we spent the first half of the day listening to speakers and the second half of the day doing community service. When I was younger, I'm sure I hated it but it was a lot of fun in highschool. In college I always treid to go see a guest speaker as there were many all over campus.

Anyways my point is that if you have the day off you should spend it learning or doing something to better yourself or your community. Unlike Flag Day or President's Day or Colombus Day, MLK Day is one that everyone should feel like it's their duty to do something. He was the antithesis of lazy and it is such an injustice when people spend the day sitting at home watching tv. He is iconic, representing everything good in people. Im not saying that you need to go out and save the world, you don't even need to leave your apartment if you don't want to. Take the time to surf the internet and learn about things you normally wouldn't. Learn about politics and who you want to vote for in the primaries, or about other countries, or go to the amnesty international website and send an email in support of something you believe in. DTN (my old employers) would lead you to believe that MLK day is a good opportunity to make all the leasing agents take property tours of every property they don't work at and take notes. So they make you spend the entire day driving around and wasting your day. I could never bring myself to go, I always made an excuse, but it's thinking like that from redneck self absorbed companies like DTN that is the opposite of what you should spend the day doing. It doesn't really matter what you are doing just don't waste your time, learn something and please don't be lazy.

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive."

to see the speech or read it go here
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

-M, p & z

ps - check out these sites
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://www.savedarfur.org/content
http://www.amref.org/
http://www.unicef.org/
http://www.directrelief.org/
http://www.youthnoise.com/
http://www.peta.org/

Just started a Pistons Blog. Check it out if you wanna hear me rant about my boys in blue.
http://www.gointowork.blogspot.com