Who drinks another man's drink and then confronts him about it? and Happy Birthday Viv

Last night out for Vivian's birthday we went to a college-esque bar. Believe me NOT my choice. In fact when told that we were heading there I voiced my dissent and included the words "really" and "are you sure?". The night progressed, I found the music loud and grating (alas I am old) and the crowd oppressive young kids more comfortable with bumping into you and spilling drinks than with walking around you.

But regardless of all that I was fine (once there) till late into the night, these people sat at our table...rude, but hey it was a crowded bar so we let it slide. Then I noticed they started sipping our drinks. Yes, you read that right, the guy and the girl now sitting at our table started sipping our drinks (well it really is just a drink since they serve it in a Bucket and you have to prove to the bar tender you have 5 persons in the group minimum - or you can look as old and demanding as I do and have him give it to you on your assurances) from our spare straws (I hope they were the spares, because really the alternative is even more gross). So I stopped them with a "hey man, do me a favour, leave our drinks alone" but I let them continue sitting there.

The girl got up, and started dancing with some of her other friends that had come over by our table, guess we had now created a meeting point! I saw the guy eyeing our bucket again (yup bucket) and gave him the warning eye. I went back to dancing (standing around while rocking shoulders) and then noticed the crowd around our table had grown and there were a few dipped heads. I walked up and there were 3 people drinking from our bucket (which really now was their bucket because no way was I going to drink from that again), so of course I lost it. Snatched the straws and told them scram ("Hey you darn kids get off my lawn") 2 scurried off but one guy squared his shoulders as if ready to fight! At this point my blood is boiling more from the outrage that this kid is going to stand up to me after stealing our drink rather than the actual fact that he was stealing our drink.

Here is the exchange:
"Really kid, you are going to drink it while we are standing right here"
"Well you guys were standing off to the side and it only takes 4 minutes to finish these, you should have finished it"
(at this point I am almost apoplectic that the fault is apparently ours for not chugging a 84oz Tequila containing drink and yes I said 84oz as in 10.5 8oz glasses of alcohol laced beverage) [And I am announced that his friend had decided to pocket our little plastic shark (which probably hints at our location but so be it) which meant he had reached his hands into the drink]
"Listen man, we could have walked away for 2 hours, you do not touch our damn drink and you do not tell me when to finish it"
-Of course by this point, my voice which is never quiet is at a shouting level, and the guy is back off. I drive the point home..."walk away, and walk away NOW"
He does so, which to me is the right thing to do, then I look down to see that his friend, the one who had invited the others is actually still sitting there. I admit I was more shocked than angry at this point, this little speck had sat through the confrontation, which he had triggered and instead of defending his friend, or slinking away had sat and watched.

So I slapped my hand flat on the table to get his attention (I confess by this point I thought he might be high) and told him "Get up, get moving, I don't want to see you again, move away NOW"...and he got up but left me with this gem "Dude [ugh, even though I now use it also I hate hearing it in a drawl] this is a USC bar man, it is a USC bar man..." (poor kid had no idea that those words are actually more likely to cause me to see red than soothe me). I yelled (to Yau's amusement and mine once I calmed down) "I don't give a damn if this is a USC bar [which of course triggered some stares] it could be your momma's bar, walk away, stay away and don't even look at me".

The best part is Emma and I had just been talking about how even keel I am when I warned her that I am "slow to anger quick to wrath" and as if to prove myself not a liar, the incident occurs.

Ok maybe the best part was upon our exit, the kid I had the confrontation with actually came up to me and apologized for which I shook his anger, because I can always appreciate a manly gesture, even when the precursor was a punk move.

I bloody messed up...the domestic

I saw a friend in a bad situation, offered comfort, hung out for a bit and then allowed myself to be convinced that it was ok to leave them there because I figured a locked door is the cure to many ails.

I did not factor in things like stress/emotions/love and dudes with svengali influences.

Plus having your ego bruised by hearing someone did not/does not love you can leave you incompetent to make sound decisions.

The smart decision would have been to bundle my friend up. Buy her new cosmetics if need be BUT GET HER OUT OF THE DAMN HOUSE and let her stay in my spare bedroom.

You are not a ‘chick’ you are a football player!

I get supremely tired of the paternalistic attitude that our society takes towards women in general and women in sports. I completely believe in equality, yet many persons who claim they want equality between the sexes hide behind the veil of ‘women are the weaker sex and should be protected’.

Only in terms of actual muscle size are women the fairer sex, but beyond direct head to head competition between men and women there is no reason to consider women as weaker than men, and certainly NOT when they are engaged in their own sporting activities.

Elizabeth Lambert is a football player (soccer in America) who went in a word NUTS during a game. She punched an opponent in the back (granted after she took an elbow), did a few dangerous and aggressive tackles, pulled an opponent down so vigorously by the pony tail (let that soak in for a second) that the girl’s head jerked and she fell to the ground as if she had been shot, and she punched another in the face. Any one of those acts could have earned her a red card and suspensions for a few games, (but the refs did not sanction her – seriously the quality of reffing in all sports this year is atrocious -) taken all together, they obtained her an indefinite suspension.



Now there are some saying that the attention paid to her incidents are because she is female. Look I do not doubt that some attention has been paid to her solely because she is a woman, but at the same time I think much of the attention has been paid because she seriously went CRAZY. When have you ever seen a man engage in activity like that and not get vilified? For instance let me place you on a grander stage but with a simpler act: Zidane in the World Cup delivered a head butt to the Italian defender who insulted him and his family, take note it was one blow a head butt, one act - an instant dismissal, and world-wide shame. Elizabeth Lambert did not receive nearly the scorn that was heaped on Zidane yet I should believe that most of this is because she is a woman? And again, I know in terms of importance the scale is different, the World Cup versus NCAA playoffs but the reactions can be compared. If Zidane had not only head butted the Italian but also punched him, done dirty tackles and grabbed a pony tail (and yup in that game there was enough hair for pony tails) we would still be combing through video tape of the incident.

When American Football players pull players down by the face mask and cause injury, it tends to be the lead on ESPN. Even simple locker room fights get coverage. And yet I have never seen a player do as much in a single game as Lambert did in her game. If Chad Ochocinco ever decides to try and remove the front teeth from his opponent’s mouth in the manner in which Lambert attempted to do dentistry on her foe, I am pretty sure his career would be severely impacted for a year.

But, let us take one of the greatest examples of male players going NUTS in recent history: ‘The Malice at the Palace’ or you might know it as Ron Artest running into the stands with half of the Indiana Pacers riding shotgun with him. Artest started a melee and contributed to one of the greatest non-boxer Athlete punches I have ever seen (I would post video of it, but the NBA takes that down immediately as it goes up so the link would be dead by the time you read this anyway) Jermaine O’neal hitting a tubby guy so hard that I felt it in my fillings. I still maintain that because O’neal slipped while swinging that guy is still walking this earth.

Thanks to that incident we now think of Ron Artest as a mad-man, Stephen Jackson as a man completely willing to rearrange your grill and the Indiana Pacers have become a team that many feel has on purpose decided to become the whitest team in the league (man I really hope that is just coincidental and not really related to the malice in the palace because that would really be sad and a bad reflection of prejudice).

So under the Ron-ron parameters I am now obligated to think of Elizabeth Lambert as a completely insane woman, who should not be let back onto a field until she is completely re-evaluated…only fair right? After all, we are all equal.

Time for a blog, it has been too long, and my eye is hurting so why not

I cannot read any more cases because my right eye is so irritated I can barely look at pages, sorry for any typos but typing this with one eye open, sometimes both eyes closed and going from muscle memory.

It has been ages since I posted a blog.

Mini rants:
NEVER FLAKE ON ME, NEVER, COT DAMN IT EVER...but if you must, have a pretty damn good excuse, and communicate early and often. Being 2 hours late and then providing an excuse after you receive a call is unacceptable

Took a blow to the throat this weekend that makes it difficult to talk...if u know me, u know that must be torture.

Went out for Halloween, probably wore my laziest costume EVER. Ended up in WE HO, where 90% of the gay guys in SO CAL were, and definitely 100% of the aggressive gay guys were located.

No fights on my end, did encounter an overly aggressive guy, trying to step to my female friend that I was with. He came up and immediately hugged her, I thought at first he knew her, then quickly sensed the awkwardness of the situation. Thing is the kid looked like he might weigh less than 120, and I do not mean 120 like a boxer that packs a punch, I mean 120 like a guy that just does not gain weight. I am pretty sure the young lady could have taken him, but what would have been the fun in that? I gave the most gentle of shoves (to make him step back from her) and could feel the kids whole body shift under my arm. Would have been interesting to see her take him on.

Shout out to the outfits of my companions, very sexy, very wasted at the Abbey!! See above re 90%.

Our colleague that missed out would have spent half the night trying to conceal his crotch due to the scarcity of clothing of our friends. I took a pix but had to delete it. Out of respect to friends and fear of my girl...kidding re fear!

Cot damn, I might have to go to the doc, I really am starting to feel severe pain from this eye. Just great, I am going to walk in, barely be able to talk and just let them scream in horror at how swollen and red my eye is. I just pried it open to take a pix with my cell (too lazy to walk to a mirror) it looks nasty, and it is leaking...not sure what the hell happened. Wonder if I scratched my lens again.

Going to Vegas at the end of this week and yet, I am pretty certain I am just going to spend the weekend sleeping in the hotel room...not feeling it, and kind of worried about the party we are going to!!!

I actually carried a friend of mine out of the bar on Saturday, he blacked out so completely he had no recollection of meeting myself or the girls, or that we even hung out for a few minutes. To his friend Carol (I think that was the name) for the 20th time "OK I HEAR YOU WE ARE COMING OUTSIDE THE CLUB" HAHAH, poor girl seemed so stressed on the phone, and I was trying to hold my friend up with one hand, while trying to use his cell phone to talk to his friend...good times.

I ate way too much candy this weekend. I stepped on a scale last week and realized I have got to go back to working out...I blame the girl (ez I know). I tipped the scale this weekend at the gym at a clean 224lbs. Nope not a misprint, eye or not I made sure to type that one slowly...I WEIGH 224lbs.

So today for lunch I had steak and eggs, protein for the lift that I am going to do tonight. Tonight's dinner will be fried rice, now I know that does not sound healthy but trust me, it is how I lose weight, I dropped 40lbs in 6 months doing things like that and I will do it again.

If I go to Jamaica this heavy my parents will disown me.

Speaking of disown me, putting out an APB for a friend that used to live in America, moved back to Jamaica and has not said a word to me since.

Ok have to stop, I can barely sit up. Going to flush the eye with solution, if that does not work, I will have to scrap gym plans for tonight...and seriously at 224, I need all the gym time I can get!

Selah,

Quadruple Amputee competes in MMA...spoiler, he LOSES!

Look I am all for equal opportunity, and I am pretty sure that limbless this guy would still beat me to a pulp BUT there is one major problem, I am not MMA trained talent. This guy is going in with a severe handicap (not the pun, nor the physical condition, just the fact) that is impossible to overcome.

Often you will see boxers try to compete fights after breaking a hand throwing a punch and you often see it costing them the fight, but there they still had the use of a hand and the ability to dance from punches. This guy has NO arms and NO legs.

Read the link and you will find that he was not even allowed to throw punches because the gloves could not stay on his appendage (is it still a punch if you do not have arms?).

Much love and credit to this guy for overcoming his disability, but this is just not safe and to me too much of a spectacle to be enjoyable...oh and it definitely hurts MMA's credibility.

And in case you cared I am picking Manny over Ricky Hatton this saturday, but I will definitely be singing "There's only one, Ricky Hatton" while watching the fight cause I LOVE that song.

WNBA brawl = relevancy for 15 minutes.

First things first, I had no idea the WNBA season had even started! I know I say this every year, but unless something happens to let me see a game on TV (like accidentally stumbling on a game) I never know when the damn season is on (not that I am ever looking for it).

Anyway, there was a huge brawl in the WNBA tonight...and of course all of a sudden the WNBA is mentioned on Sports radio. Thing is, no one mentions any highlights or about any of the other games that were played, the brawl was the last 5 seconds of the game and that is all anyone cares about.

Let us be honest, if the NBA itself was not so insanely successful, the WNBA would be DEAD! That league cannot sustain itself! I can pretty much name the starting 5 of any team in the NBA, I cannot name 5 girls total in the WNBA, and this is a league that sports TEXAS players and I still cannot name them.

Anyway, peeps are over-reacting that one of the male coaches may or may not have shoved one of the 'ladies' during the brawl. What is clear, is that he was trying to protect one of his players who was in the melee, if he did shove Lisa Leslie, so be it. I do not think he was trying to 'attack' a woman and I do not think he was intentionally at any point trying to hurt a woman. I believe that he was doing the rational thing which is trying to defend himself in a natural manner (Without throwing a punch) because she THREW A PUNCH AT HIM! Look if she is going to attack him as if she is a man, he has every right to defend himself to the best of his ability. I am just so happy he did not punch her (because that would be harder to defend) because even if he were in the right he would 'forever be in the wrong'.

--Pushing someone backwards in a brawl is natural, whether they are male or female

Bloody funny that this fight occurred in Detroit, the sight of the last major Bball brawl, and that Rick Mahorn is again involved as a 'peacemaker'

Crappy video for now, I am sure someone will upload a better one but as a commenter on youtube said "Who the hell DVRs a WNBA game?"