Tonight I Have a Date With the Hottest Girl In Town...

Can't wait! 

I was at the drive thru window, looked at her breast, and liked what I saw...  

• Me:  How much are those? 
• Her:  I don't think we are selling them.  Let me check... I'll get you one **wink**!
• Her (returning with her hand down, walking fast and guilty):  They are supposed to be for employees only.  Shhh... don't tell anyone! 

My manager saw the button and she said, "I swear, you always have always have this way of getting things with your charm! (I disagreed)  Can you go back and get me one for my daughter (she's 5)?"  I was happy the whole day, wore it around the office and everything.  Definite violiation of the company dress code. 

Engagement Rings As Parting Door Prizes, Tigerstyle Energy Drinks, Me As George Clooney

When I heard that Tiger Woods got in an accident while I was at church that Sunday morning, the first thing I thought was... 2:25 a.m.?  Who leaves the house at 2:25 a.m.?  Grocery store?  No.  Argument?  Most likely.  I figured he probably wanted to drive off his anger at something.  Little did we know he was being stalked by a club yielding wife. 

Maybe Tiger should destress by playing some golf.  Just go out and play nine holes.  HAHA.  The jokes are endless.  "What did you think was gonna happen when you Tiger marry a white woman?"  Well, that isn't a joke, it's actually the sentiment of much of the black community.  The brothers are joking, but not really.  

Tiger's affairs don't really bother or surprise me.  If I had $10 million, or $100 million, or $500 million (like Tiger), I know I'd be tempted to enjoy the fruits.  This is not me saying I'd cheat, it's just reality that the opportunities and the thoughts of them are going to cross my mind.  Successful men can always leverage themselves in many ways.  No matter how you swing it (haha), women are attracted to success, security, drive, and money to varying degrees.  Mix in a little romance or passion and it's a lock. 

Which prominent black athlete hasn't cheated?  Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Evander Play the Holyfield.  To be fair, which white Republican politician hasn't had an affair?  Hey John Ensign, you used to send me emails telling me to contribute to the party and to go vote (he had an affair with his best friend's wife, the best friend worked for him).  Black athletes, white politicians... it all seems pretty equal to me.   

The world claims outrage, but the men are fairly silent on this one.  All you hear is talk about his potential loss of endorsements.  Why haven't many men railed at Tiger?  Because secretly we all wish we could live the life.  Hell, ten hot or fairly hot women?  One in each city?  God knows there must be more that haven't been discovered.  It wasn't a secret.  National Enquirer caught him having sex in his SUV years ago and then made a deal with him to not publish his picture in exchange for him doing a cover story for one of their other magazines.  In cases like these, people know, but they keep their mouths shut until something blows up.  His close friends, the people in charge at the clubs, at restaurants, all those people know, because they have to book celebs their tables.  They get paid to service their clients... and to keep their mouths shut. 

I do feel sad for Elin, that side of it sucks.  But more and more I start to see the engagement ring not as a promise ring, but as a parting door prize.  If all else fails, at least you got this phat or not-so-phat ring.  It sucks that that thought even crosses my mind, but these days, that's how society has made marriage to be.

As for Gatorade, I don't know why they stopped the Tiger Focus drink.  As we can see, the product works.   Maybe they are repackaging to start a new line... Tigerstyle Energy Drinks.  I'd buy that at the club, keep me going all night.   Did I ever tell you I was born in the year of the tiger?

I've learned my lessons from all of this.  In my next life, when I'm a pro athlete or a rock star, I'll stay unwed until I suffer a potentially career ending injury or I turn 35, whichever comes first.  Or maybe I'll luck out and return as George Clooney.  Then I'd never have to get married. 

When's the last time you got a letter? 

I opened up my envelope and out fell eight - count them eight! - letters from Vitamin_D.  She's single handedly trying to bring back old-school writing.  Her goal?  To write 5,000 letters, at least one letter a day. 

Who Wants Christmas Cards? 

I took the day off today to make my Christmas cards.  This year's cards are much easier to make than lasts year's 40 minute per card debacle (but in my own artsy eyes, a work of genuis).  Don't know if today's cards will be more impressive, but I'm guessing they will be more appreciated... I hope they turn out ok.  Did I ever post pictures of last year's cards? (Sorry if I already did)   Federally offensive to some of you?  I found out afterwards that actually is a federal offense to cut up money. 

Anyhow, if you want a card and if you write cards too, send me your address and maybe you'll get something in the mail...

It has been a busy week for little Howie.  A wine and dessert tasting with a TV chef, a Maxwell benefit concert, going to the Lakers vs. Heat game, a Cadillac test drive and cooking demo, Paul Frank warehouse sale (sucked), Lakers practice, and LA Auto Show.  I know, I'm about two months overdue on a good picture post, it's high sales time (which means a lot of ebay listing for me)... it's Christmas, ya know?  Anyhow, more to come soon... in showbiz, we call this a tease... stay tuned.

I went to Staples to pick up my Cyber Monday mouse order. Said "item will be delivered to store Dec. 1st." I go during lunch break and they say shipment hasn't arrived yet. She says, "Normally we call you when the order arrives." I say, "Nowhere on the receipt does it say that I should wait for a call. You probably have one in the store, can you just give me that one?" She says, "No, sorry we can't. Those are separate items from online orders." Lame and a waste of my lunch. They really need to state these things clearly on the email order confirms. That's my wah of the day.

I was all set to do a picture update and then the four day weekend went like that.  I spent a good portion of it working on eBay stuff, probably at least two hours a day. 

For Black Friday I picked up a pair of Lakers tickets.  COURTSIDE.  What was I thinking?  The Clippers released some extra tickets for their game against the Lakers and I decided to take a chance.  Lakers courtside are $2600 a seat.  Clippers courtside are cheaper, but still.   Crap, what if I don't sell these?  If someone offers to only buy one at a good price, I'll be tempted to go with the other ticket.   This is either the smartest or dumbest purchase I've ever made in my life.   If it sells, I'm going on vacation.

Other purchases...

• $4 DVDs:  Kiss Kiss Bang, Elf, Casino Royale (I really liked that Bond movie for some reason), Good Night and Good Luck, Batman Dark Night, Across the Universe.  
• $9 DVDs:  Flight of the Conchords, Season 1 & 2. 
• $13 DVDs:  Gossip Girl, Season 1 & 2. 
• And I sold out and bought Sex and the City the movie for $3 at Target.  I think it's a dare to myself to see if I can let it sit on my shelf and never watch it.  That would be the man thing to do.   

On a side note... I also bought two movies on eBay recently.  Boys & Girls Guide To Getting Down (as sexy as the cover looks, I still haven't watched it) and Cashback.  Cashback I loved.   I notice a trend... I seem to really enjoy movies that have people sleepwalking through life... Lost In Translation, Broken Flowers, Garden State, Office Space, Chungking Express.  Maybe I need to wake up.   Cashback is like that.  Very underrated... have any of you heard of it before?  It also helps that there's this time freeze scene in the grocery store and all these beautiful girls are topless.  

Today, Cyber Monday, I also picked up a couple of things. 

• Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse w/ Blue Track - $25 @ Staples.com (retail $60, mouse works on everything but glass)
• 24" Dell HD monitor 50,000:1 contrast ratio - $184 (plus taxes and disposal fee $216, free shipping, retail is $260) @ Dell.com

What did you buy on Black Friday?  What do you want for Christmas this year? 

I can't think of anything that I really want for Christmas. 

Dear Santa,

If I could get enough money for a three bedroom house, that would work.  I wouldn't normally ask, but the prices are cheaper this year than in years past so it shouldn't be too hard.  After that I'll need a wifey to keep me warm, or three red lanterns, one for the doorway to each room, but you can just work on the house first, I'll save the other requests for next year. 

Been pretty good this year,

Howie    

Nutri System Worked For Me! 

I lost 4 lbs. the past three weeks, not bad huh?  I think it would be closer to 5 lbs. if I didn't eat so much last weekend with friends in town.  This fat booty put on 15 lbs the past year.  I already have a black man's bubble butt, so it ain't helpin'.  My friends make fun of my butt all the time.  It's pretty easy... I cut back some on coffee/boba/soda and haven't felt the urge to max out on eating.  Exercising some portion control has helped a bunch. 

How Does One Become a Blob? 

It'll happen to you too.  My metabolism has slowed as I get older.  How crazy was I before?  In high school I could put away two double-doubles, two fries, and a milkshake from In 'n Out.  Now I eat one cheeseburger, fries, and sometimes a shake. 

Injuries, injuries, injuries. 

• 4 years ago:  Bad ankle injury
• 3 years ago:  Ankle recovered, then guy pushes me in the air and I sprain it bad again.  Plantar Fasciitis comes and goes (feels like stepping on a bruised golf ball on my heel).  Plantar isn't structurally bad, but is one of the most nagging injuries you can have. 
• This year:  I went to the Oakley Factory Sale in May and stood in line for about three or four hours.  It messed something up, because I still have top side ankle pain.  From standing in line!  Maybe my ankles were already slightly loose from previous injuries, but how does that translate into 6 months of pain?   I feel it every step I take.  Is it bone spurs?  Ligament damage?  I don't know.  For two months I couldn't do any sort of running.  Even now, I'm limited.  Think I can convince the doctor to splurge on an MRI for me? 
• This summer:  We played in a Fast Action basketball league in the summer and I jammed my finger going for a ball.  I thought it was just a bad jam, but then that's taken three months to heal.  Must've been slight dislocation or minor break.  I didn't go to the doctor because I know there's nothing he could do but say put a splint on it because it has full motion. 
• This fall:  In September I suffered a calf strain from... overstretching!  That took six weeks to heal, so I couldn't jog at all then.  One leg bad calf, one leg bad ankle.  

I'm better at diagnosing sports injuries than some doctor friends.  Where did I learn?  Sports news!  I follow baseball, basketball, and football and learn so much from their player injury reports.  ACL = 1 year, high ankle sprain 4-8 weeks.  broken finger 4-6 weeks for proper healing, broken arm or leg, 6-8 weeks, muscle strains = 6 weeks, torn labrum = 9-12 months, arthroscope surgery recovery time 4-6 weeks...  you get the point. 

Not being able to exercise... that's how I gained 15 lbs (now down to +11).  Don't take your health for granted. 

When's the last time you got hurt?  Do you have any nagging or reoccuring injuries? 

Barracuda Sucks!

My work got a Barracuda Filter three weeks ago and life sucks now.  All that stuff that passes the time got banned.  TMZ, fantasy sports, Gchat.   Okay, I can deal.  Then yesterday they shut off email.  We can't check Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail.  That is the lamest sh*t ever!   The world is modernizing and going faster and it feels like my office is going backwards.   It's penalizing the people that come into work.  People that work remote at home half the week, I'm sure they don't get their cable internet banned.   They can even watch TV while doing case work.  I don't get it. 

The work was boring enough as it is and I always get my work done, so I don't see how this helps.  It's just more control, you restrict people to becoming dumber instead of smarter (lack of news), and it's actually counter productive.  Since the new filter has been installed, I've seen all the twenty and thirty somethings on their cell phones, checking stuff.  It seems like a good plan at first, but I think companies don't realize the repercussions.  The net is like the phone was 20 years ago.  You wouldn't want your employees talking to friends for an hour, but you still need to let them answer calls from family and friends. 

So... good thing I got my Droid.  Yeah, Verizon 3G still gets bogged down sometimes, but for the most part it's blazing fast.  I just haven't figure out how to cut and past text yet.   I used to be able to write a Xanga entry, then paste it onto Xanga.  Now I can't even paste it to my personal email and save it as a draft.  Are they afraid of people cutting the text out of a work email and pasting it to their personal email?  And guess which site hasn't been shutdown yet?  Facebook.  Like that makes any sense. 

Well, I still have my iPod.  Most people think I'm listening to music all day, but really, I'm getting educated.  I listen to podcasts all day... on sports, art, world news, ABC Nightline, a million NPR shows, you name it.  Xangawise, what this means you won't be getting many wannabe thought provoking articles by me, not that I wrote that many this year. 

When A Girl Offers To Pay Her Half...

... that's class.  When you're out on a first date, whether she likes you or not, that's a class move.  That means she was raised right.  I don't know what the exact effect is, but the short term bump is 10% in my book.  It might mean she doesn't like you and she just wants to make that clear that she doesn't want you to feel she owes you anything, but I rarely assume that.  Even if I know after that hour or two I'm not that into her (trust me, there have been days where I wanted to ask the girl to pay for her dinner and for my gas money), I'll still always pay.  Because for a guy, that's class.  

It's important for the guy to pay because you don't want to be dating someone cheap.  It's important for the girl to offer because it shows she's not selfish with her money.  Sounds shallow, but really it isn't. 

A guy paying may have you thinking that he's not cheap, but watch the tip.  If he tips 10%, he's cheap.  If he tips 15%... he's probably practical.  And if he tips 15%-20% or more, then he's probably generous.  Now... if the girl tells you you're tipping too much (I've had this happen), then watchout, because she's a tight one with the purse strigns.  Why should a girl care if you want to tip a little more?  

That would be funny if I wrote off a girls on the first date because they didn't offer to pay.  I know, I'm a bastard. 

Motorola Droid

I bought my new Motorola Droid phone on Friday and haven't stopped playing with it since!  I would recommend this phone to just about everyone!  As anticipated as this launch was, I was one of the failures.   Got my phone at 9 a.m. and at 1 o'clock I was back there on my lunch break because the phone I had kept on restarting... probably about 10-15 times in the 4 hours that I owned it.  They swapped me a new one real quick and there's been no problems at all. 

iPhone killer?  Not exactly because they serve different needs.  I'll sum it up for you really quick.  This phone is fast.  Super fast.  3G webpage downloads come out crystal clear on the huge hi res screen.   If you surf and type a lot, this has a qwerty keyboard and directional pad, this is the phone you have to get.  If you value loading music and playing games more, you're gonna want the iPhone instead.  I carry my ipod classic for my songs and vids and always carry my Sony compact camera so I don't really care about a phone's camera quality.  That said, 5 mp with white balance adjustments for the Droid ain't bad.  The picture quality could come out a little crisper tho.   My friends were all way impressed at the web capabilities. 

The Droid is fully integrated with your Gmail, so your contacts automatically load from there.  Then you can also choose to merge that with your Facebook contacts to create one unifed contact list for the phone.  The contact list is sweet...   It's also integreated with Gchat and you can also download MSN Messenger and AIM applications.   There's also a Meebo application that I haven't tried yet.   

There are so many things you can do from the phone, but there are a few widgets and programs that you should add or adjust.  It's not exactly the easiest to figure out at first, but once you do, it's piece of cake.  The most important widget to add is the "power supply task bar."  Outside of checking gmail, facebook, and GPS, the power supply bar lets you easily turn on or off the satellite, wifi, bluetooth, and auto sync features.  This is important because you want to turn off your auto syncs when you are sleeping so that you don't drain your battery for no reason, unless of course you were expecting a specific important email to come through and wake you up.   It's the easiest way for me to turn on and turn off the bluetooth option when I get in my car, as there's no other dedicated shortcut to that. 

The GPS is as good as it gets.   You get all the standard GPS features, as well as the Google Maps satellite view.  If you zoom in, you can get the real street view with turn by turn navigation.   I voiced commanded it to search for "South Coast Plaza" and easily came up with the mall address for the navi.   If you use this, you'll want to buy the $30 car dock and also make sure to have a micro USB car charger.   When you put the phone in the dock, it automatically shifts to GPS mode.   Super user friendly.  It make take you a minute or two to set your destination, but after that, it's all vanilla ice cream. 

Battery life is decent, but if you surf a lot and talk on the phone a little, you'll want to charge every night.   The phone is heavy, but the whole body including slide out keyboard feels very secure.  Really, what you are holding is a mini computer.  The only thing I wish they would've changed was to make the keys on the keyboard a little more pebbled.  Other than that, this phone is the bomb.  My friends with their Palm Pre's, Blackberry Storms, and HTC Touch Pros were all jealous.  This phone is worth the hype.  Now to see what applications they'll develop for it over the next year...