Shoot for the Clouds...Not the Moon or Stars

I came across these a while back and thought they were funny as hell. These are actual toys and I hope that no one ever buys my daughter these:

First on the list of "Set Your Sights Low:"

Baby's First Workstation

[caption id="attachment_486" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Baby's First Cubicle"][/caption]

Enjoy that lemonade stand now son, because it's as close to entrepreneurship that you're gonna get. Yeah, you'll spend four years in college and another two in grad school just to become a number. No falling asleep now...you'll have plenty of time for that when you're an adult.

If $2500 isn't in your price range then perhaps your kid will do better with one of these...

Baby's First Cleaning Cart

[caption id="attachment_487" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Hotel Sold Separately"][/caption]

Just when you thought the sky was the limit...in comes the glass ceiling. The offensiveness of this toy was spared thanks to the nice non-minority baby modeling the toy. If this had been a Hispanic baby, then people would be outraged. Who are we kidding though, you have to know somebody to get a job cleaning offices. So this brings us to the final toy on our Lowered Expectations Christmas List...

Baby's First McJob

[caption id="attachment_488" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="You want pride with that?"][/caption]

Let's face it, this is the best some of our kids will ever do. Why drive yourself crazy with twelve years worth of report card pep talks when you can just accept your kid's fate today? It is a tad bit ironic that the McDonald's toy is cheaper than the cleaning cart which is cheaper than the cubicle...it's as if they're appealing to certain classes with their price structure.

Get Well Steve!

Here's wishing Steve Jobs (and Apple's stock, aapl) a speedy recovery. I watched this video years ago and it inspired me to set out on my own ventures...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Swing for the Fences

When I was young I was afraid of everything. Bugs, dogs, people. It didn't matter what it was, I was scared of it. Around the third or fourth grade I tried to toughen myself up in an effort to not grow up to be a punk. (See previous entries for more examples) One such attempt occurred at an amusement park...

The year was 1991. I was nine years old and Amusements of America came to the Stadium Armory Parking lot as they did every year. This year I promised myself that I would get on all of the rides that I was afraid of the year prior. First, let me give myself some credit: I got on the roller coaster, the high slide and the swings. Now that doesn't sound like defying death to the average person, but you have to consider that the carnival came to the 'hood. Ghetto carnivals and official state fairs are two totally different creatures. The latter is a well-funded, annual tradition that has a substantial budget and a certain expectation of safety. Hood carnivals are the exact opposite.

While a state fair usually sets up at the state fair grounds, a hood carnival sets up shop in a mall parking lot, abandoned field or anywhere else they can fit the trucks. I doubt that they really send an inspectors to the hood carnival and half the time they hire neighborhood people to help assemble and dismantle the rides...people with zero experience. With all this said, give me a little credit. The merry go round is the equivalent of russian roulette. Don't believe me? See this article where someone was electrocuted on the bumper cars back in 93.

So back to the story...
I had four tickets left and saved the best ride for last...something that went upside down. I chose the Pirate Ship. You've seen something like this at Kings Dominion or the fair: It's a long boat looking thing and maybe twenty or thirty people can get on. It swings back and forth and some of them go upside down. I met the "You must be this tall" sign exactly. The guy was like..."Go ahead and get on." I sat down, strapped in and he pulled the harness down over my shoulders. Then the ride started.

We swung backwards and then forwards while random people screamed for no reason. We hadn't even lifted up more than three feet off the ground. Some people just like to scream whenever the ride starts. I'm sure the ride operator was used to it...which is why he ignored my screams of "STOP THE RIDE. STOP THE RIDE!" Immediately after he started the ride I heard a pop. My restraints loosened. If you've ever been on a ride, you know that's not supposed to happen...at all...not even slightly.

I'm no expert, but let's assume that the boat ride swings back and forth fifteen times before actually going upside down. In the case of our example, back and forward equals one complete time. The first time it swung, my harness lifted about an inch. The third time it swung my harness moved another inch. By the fifth time it swung, my ass was screaming at the top of my lungs because the restraints were completely up in the air over my head and I was pulling them down with both hands.

Now I was a little ghetto kid. I wasn't whimpering "Please stop." I was yelling every curse word imaginable." By swing number 10 I'd started plotting which part of the ride to try to land on that would hurt the least. Around swing 6, the woman next to me noticed what was going on and began screaming. Luckily, by swing 12 the whole row I was on was screaming at the guy. Remember: 15 swings and the joint flips over. By swing 14 I had the people on both sides of me using their hands to try to hold me the best that they could because we knew what was coming. At the height of that swing, the ride jerked to a stop mid-air and slowly lowered to the ground.

I jumped off that damn thing and the only thing that the man said to me was "You probably were too short for this ride."

WTF!?

Happy MLK Day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg_BankB-j8

Mama's Gun.

These last few posts have been about my mother. She's a bad mother...shut yo mouth. My mother is the only woman that I think could've won the heisman trophy if she went to college. At 4'11", my mother can probably beat the shit out of any man alive. I've cursed out a lot of people in my life and I've run my mouth so much despite my small frame, but none of that compares to the stuff my mother has done.

We were in the movies watching Another 48 Hours once and I remember someone talking in the movie. My mother turned around and said something like, "shut the hell up" or whatever it was. All I know is that someone pulled out a gun and fired off a shot and I only think she ran because I was with her.

I remember going up to the basketball court once when I was like eight and a group of guys chased me off the court. This was like 1990 and everyone was in their New Jack City attitude. We lived in the heart of the ghetto and people got shot all the time for stupid stuff. Knowing this, my mother still made me go back up to the court. I told her that the guys looked dangerous and I think they might have a gun. My mother went in the kitchen and came back with a damn 2 X 4 and told me to take that and use it if any of them tried anything.

Let me remind you that these dudes were like 15-18 years old, there were like ten of them and one of me and I was only EIGHT! With this kind of influence, it's no wonder that I was cursing out my teachers in the third grade. Lady, I almost died yesterday over a basketball, hell no I aint do my damn homework.

Don't Run pt 2

So yesterday I told you about Nate punching me and how I ran. Today we're gonna talk about how I got up the courage to not be a punk.

A week or so after I got punched, Nate and I were friends as if nothing happened. See, this new kid named Dupree moved in and Nate needed all the friends he could get. I was seven and Nate was nine, but Dupree was thirteen. Dupree had just moved back to DC after being in juvenile hall for a year. That made him the Deebo of the block. Nate and I were best friends at that point.

I've always been able to get along with people, so me and Dupree were cool. That made me and Nate cool. Anyway, me and Dupree were buddy buddy for about a month, then one night we stayed out til about ten or eleven (this was the hood and it wasn't uncommon for seven year olds to be out that late) playing football, ninja turtles and trying to skateboard. Anyway, his mother told him to come in the house so I was like, "Aight man I'll see you later." He was like, "Yeah man, you got me with that skateboard today."

Trying to be cool and use what was "new" slang in '89-'90 I said..."That's right, word to your mother." He said, "What did you say?" I repeated it and laughed thinking I was cool and then went in the house. The next day my mother sends me to take the trash to the dumpster waaaaay up the hill in the center of the complex. I run into Nate and say what's up. He takes off running to the back of another building and yells, "Yo Dupree, he right here!"

Dupree comes running up and behind him is like fifteen of the neighborhood kids. He says, "What's that shit you said about my mother last night?" I'm confused like hell. He pushes me down to the ground is towering over me like, "What did you say about my mother bitch!?" So I get up and two things are going through my head
#1 What the hell is he talking about?
#2 Don't be no punk.

I tried to explain to him what "Word to your mother" meant but he thought I'd made the shit up. Apparently his family didn't have tv or radio so the phrase was lost on him. So I gave up trying to explain and moved on to #2, Don't be a punk.

"Man I aint say nothing about your mother, leave me alone."
I put the trash in the dumpster and tried to walk away without anyone seeing how fast my heart was beating through my shirt. Now, remind you...Dupree was 13, I was 7. That's when Benedict Arnold--Nate chimes in with "Fuck him up. He trying to say your mother's a bitch."
"WHAT!?"

That's when the big 13 year old fist comes flying. I dodged that one and was trying to look tough. "Stop playing Dupree." I didn't run. I'm thinking to myself..."Good job. You're not a punk." That's when fist number two, three and four made contact with my face. Dupree had been in Juvie Hall and apparently this nigga was the golden gloves of thirteen year olds. I was dazed and then I saw three or four other boys coming in to take shots and that's when "nigga run!" popped in my head.

"Fuck this!"
I hauled ass. I turn the corner around one of the buildings and this nigga had a fucking enclave where some more dudes were blocking my path. It's almost like he KNEW I was gonna run that way. So these other dudes grab me and start punching me and try to back me into a wall. I hit some Jet Li/ Jackie Chan escape shit and climbed over this brick wall and up onto this platform thing and then jumped down over them and ran full speed back to my house which by now was like a block or two away. No lie, it looked like the beginning of the Bombs Over Baghdad video where Andre 3000 is running from all those kids.

I ran for my damn life back to my building, locked the door and ran up the steps to my apartment. My mother was luckily in her bedroom watching TV and didn't know what happened. The next day, however, she saw my swollen face and...you guessed it...sent me right back outside to defend my honor.

As terrified as I was, I held my ground when Dupree came running across the street. In his exact words (or as best as I can remember)

"Don't worry man, I'm not gonna hit you. I'm sorry about that shit from yesterday. Nate is a bitch. That nigga told me you were talking about my mother and I believed him. After you went in the house, I was thinking that you never said anything bad about me before. Me and you is friends. We cool, but imma fuck Nate up the next time I see him. I didn't hurt you did I?"

From behind a swollen jaw, eye, chest and gut I said, "Naw, it aint hurt at all, but it was so many of yall that I was like, let me run in the house."

He believed that shit...then again, if a 13 year old is playing with a seven year old...he may not be "all there" in the first place.

Excellent Work Officers

Let's play a game called What's the Point.

According to CNN A 71 year old man was arrested after being on the run for 30 years. The guy was wanted on a Canadian warrant for smuggling 500 pounds of marijuana. He faked a heart attack before extradition and escaped from a hospital.

What's the point of arresting this guy? At 71 years old, what life can you possibly take away from him? Further, he's managed to stay out of trouble for the past thirty years. Isn't the point of prison to rehabilitate people? Looks like he found a workaround. I think they should just punch him one good time in the gut for making the cops who let him escape look bad and then send him back on his merry way. Instead, they'll bother with a trial, put him in jail and make him a burden on the state.

What's the point?