Friday, July 12, 2002


Eyes closed. Stereo Blasting. Quiet Riot.

Jonas sang along. He knew the words.

I don't know why
I don't know why
You say my singin's out of time
I'm in no hurry
I don't know why
I don't know why
anymore oh woah
so C'mon feel the noize
Girls rock your boyz
Let's get wild, wild, wild,
wild, wild, wild

Quiet Riot understood. They understood that their was nothing to understand. Or if there was, it couldn't be understood. They didn't know why, so just blast heavy metal and get crazy and it should work itself out.

If only he was older, he could go get a tattoo, a motorcycle, a hot chick with feathered hair and a roach clip hanging off of her braid and he'd be outta there. Sorry Mom & Dad, love you, but it's time for this bad boy to hit the road.

Jonas opened his eyes and stared at the white painted ceiling. There was a chip in the paint, about the size of a nickel, right by the door to the bathroom. Looking out the window, there was Lindsey, their black labrador, chilling out. That dog was so relaxed, so cool. Why couldn't Jonas have been born a black labrador, then he wouldn't have all these worries, whatever they were.

Maybe a ride on his skateboard would clear his head out. He threw on his shoes, walked into the hallway, glancing quickly at the Justic League poster on his wall. Batman would know what to do. Hawkman would be like, kid, what's your problem. I'm from Thanagar, and they would eat your ass for breakfast out there. Green Arrow would be like...

What would Green Arrow do? He was kind of like the renegade guy in the Justice League, with his trippy looking beard, always hitting on Black Canary. Acting the clown but you knew that he knew what was up.

Get over it, who cares? What was wrong with him?

"Do you want anything to eat, Jonas?"
"No Mom, thanks, I'm gonna go skateboard for a while."
"Okay, honey. Be careful."
"OK"

He started riding his board down the street, took a left after a block, and headed over towards Darryl's place. Maybe he'd want to practice Ollies for a while. Darryl was pretty good at ollies, but Jonas could not fukn ollie. He would practice for hours, HOURS, in front of his house, and barely get a centimeter off the ground. He was dreading that he had peaked at skateboarding and he was only ten.

There was old Mrs. Hawthorne and Wok-Wok, limping up the street. He came to a stop to look. Why did she name her dog Wok-Wok? Why did it have three legs? He'd asked her, and she'd said "Wok-Wok put his little paw in the cookie jar young man, so let that be a lesson to you." What in the name of all that was holy did that mean? He was obsessed with this old lady and her dog.

Jonas walked up to her. She was wearing a faded blue dress and had a yellow flower in her white hair, by her left ear. She had lots of wrinkles and brown marks on her arms. She smelled like medicine. "Mrs. Hawthorne, please tell me how your dog lost his leg, it's driving me crazy."

Mrs. Hawthorne smiled. As her mouth opened, Jonas saw her dentures shift over towards her cheek. Then a voice answered him, but it wasn't Mrs. Hawthorne's. "Look kid, leave it alone." Jonas looked down, and Wok-Wok was talking to him. A dirty white poodle with a pink bow in its tail was speaking, it's mouth in perfect time with the words. The dog's voice was gentle yet firm. "Cookie jar, remember the cookie jar. Now buzz off."

Jonas froze. Mrs. Hawthorne and Wok-Wok went around him and kept hobbling up the street. He could feel sweat sliding down his nose, his chin, his forehead. He got on his skateboard and continued on to Darryl's house, his heart practically beating through his chest.



The Cal basketball schedule was just released. Some tough non-conference games, most notably Kansas. Should be interesting. I think I'll pick up a college basketball preview when they come out. I'm still a little salty that Jamal Sampson left after just one year. Special player, but he's not nearly as good as Shareef Abdul-Rahim was when he left Berkeley after one year. And he's light years behind where J Kidd was at when he left Cal after two. Kidd, I wasn't surprised when he left, even though I was hoping for one more year after that awesome tourney where they beat Duke, but well, ya know. With Reefer, I was shocked and disappointed, but I had no doubts he'd make it in the NBA. Sampson, I don't know, I'm hoping he does all right, but he's giving himself a long road riding a lot of pine. Kind of like Jermaine O'Neal's first few years with Portland, but I don't think he's got the talent of a Jermaine O'Neal. We'll see. I'll be watching this guy, you can bet on that.

Bumping Notorious BIG Ready to Die. Classic. This album is so fukn good. So much raw lyrical talent. So much confidence and this was his first album. I find it unbelievable that to this day no one has been arrested for this man's murder. Shit no one has been arrested for Tupac's murder either. Fishy. Two of the most talented black musicians of their time, two of the best rappers ever, down in a hail of bullets within months of each other. I know it's old news, but sometimes people forget shit unless people keep stirring the waters. So I guess that's what I'm doing. It just makes me want to cry thinking of the music we missed out on because of selfishness, evil, jealousy, and violence.



Thursday, July 11, 2002


Maui Day 2
The Road to Hana

Thursday morning, up early. The other little trick we had learned from our Kona trip is that the hotels charge you like $2.00 a day for the little coffee packs they leave you for the coffee machine. Like little crack samples left out for the junkies, they know a groggy person on vacay can't pass up coffee looking them in the face in the morning. So we had come up with the idea of bringing a few coffee filters and a little bag of coffee with us from home, so we just used that the whole trip. The problem with this scenario was I think it made the maid service people bitter or something, because every day we would come back to the room and they'd conveniently forgetten to wash one of the coffee mugs. This sent me into a blind rage, and before too long I was rolling around in the bushes outside the lobby with head-to-toe camo, stalking the maid service for extra towels, coffee mugs, and complimentary ash trays.

OK it wasn't that extreme but I digress.

So we got on the road headed for Kahului, hopped up on coffee and filled up on nutri-grain bars (another friend of the fiscal traveler, cha-ching). Kahului is the town that the airport is in, and we had to pass through there to catch the road to Hana. After a stopover at K-Mart for a little styrofoam cooler, some ice, some sodas and snacks for the road, we were off like a herd of turtles.

About 10 miles down the road, which was still just a straight highway, we rolled through Paia, a cool little hippie-town. We would spend some time in Paia the next day, but that morning we were on a schedule so we kept on keeping on.

Right outside of Paia, the road sign said about 35 miles to Hana. Oh mellow yellow we thought, that's hardly anything. But pretty soon the road was getting pretty curvey. The foliage was getting thicker and greener, as we were heading more out to the extreme Windward side of the island. After a few miles, and many twists and turns, dope scenery on all sides, I started thinking, I'm gonna stop at the first place I see a bunch of people stopped at. This proved prophetic, as we came upon a pull over spot riddled with cars. I pulled over to check it out, and at first it looked like just a fruit stand and a wood-carvings gift stand, but I knew it, my spider-sense was tingling, there was a special purpose here. I was a shark and there was blood in the water. I was Coolio and there was a celebrity basketball game in the area. I was JaRon Rush and there was an open bottle of Early Times Bourbon on the wind, I was... well you get the idea.

So anyway it turned out you could park here and jump over a little fence and there was a hike to Twin Falls. Twin falls, that sounded pretty cool, so we packed up a couple things in the backpack and headed on our way. We started hiking up this trail. Lots of tourists going back and forth. Medium sized story short, there were two phat waterfalls down the trail, one of them with teenagers taking 20 foot jumps into the pool, and the other bigger one we had to wade through some water to get to it. Beautiful though, superdope waterfalls. Only problem was we hadn't brought our swimsuits on the hike, thinking we wouldn't want to swim, but after hiking for about 15-20 minutes, you're ready to swim no matter if the water is cold. So anyway we headed back to the car.

Back on the road, there was a shitload of cool stuff to check out. If you ever get to Maui, you've gotta do this drive. It's one of those journey not the destination things, because Hana is really a little hobunk town with not much to speak of (well, a few cool things, get to that later), but the drive is incredible, seriously, you're whipping your head around every 5 seconds like, look at that, look at that!

Mrs. P was getting a little car sick from all the twists and turns, so we took a break and one point at a little pull out that had a hike going off of it. This ended up being pretty cool, as it was a mellow 20 minute hike, part of it through a bamboo forest. If you've never been in a bamboo forest, it's pretty trippy. You can hear the wind rustling through the stalks, the bamboo hitting each other, and visibility is very short. I was waiting for Charlie Sheen to come busting out of the foliage screaming that Charlie (uh, the other Charlie) was right behind him. Fortunately, this didn't happen.

So we got back on the road, and for the next probably hour and a half, we were stopping to check something out literally every two minutes. It's pretty easy to find stuff, you just stop anywhere you see other cars parked and see what's up. Almost every stop was a little hike to another most beautiful waterfall you've ever seen in your life. Not to sound jaded, but after like the 9th or 10th incredibly beautiful waterfall I felt like Chevy Chase in that scene from the original Vacation, where he just robbed the guy at the Grand Canyon, he's standing there looking at the view for 3 seconds, and he's like, all right, let's get going.

Seriously though it was out of this world amazing stuff. The most comic yet sad-state-of-America part of the drive was when we pulled over at a restroom break and my wife is about to go in the lady's room, when we hear what sounds like men and women in there. And they're making a big racket about something. So two seconds later, this family of redneck trailer trash comes out of the bathroom, Dad with the video camera, Mom with the boufant giant hairdo, musclebound Joe son with his ditzy girlfriend, and hoochie mama daughter. And they're all laughing and hooting and hollering "your mama's so crazy jethro" "yeehaa" "come here skeeter and look at this." Totally oblivious to us, not embaressed whatsoever that they all just came out of the same bathroom. I started trying to figure out what the FUK they had been doing in there with the video camera and then decided I'd let it go. This is the first time I've revisited it and, gimme a moment, I'm a little shaken up, wait, ok I'm ok.

So the final leg of the trip into Hana was more beautiful scenery, more beautiful nature, etc. We finally got into Hana about 4 PM and we were ready to chill out for a bit. We found the local beach and this was a treat: A black sand beach. Nice! Mrs. P crashed out on the sand for a while as I layed out and read Sports Illustrated. I had never seen a black sand beach with so many people on it before. This was like a beach park, with a snack shop across the street, kids playing around everywhere, the whole works. On dope ass black sand. One thing I noticed was almost everyone on the beach was Hawaiian. Compared to Lahaina, which as I said was Haole central. So we chilled for a while, and decided it was time to hunt down some grub.

We passed a plate lunch little drive inn spot, saw that the ranch restaurant next door was closed, so we drove by the Hotel Hana Maui to ask for a little info. I basically found out that the gas station, lunch stand, and restaurant next to each other was the center of town. About 100 square feet of center of town. A sprawling metropolis Hana is not. Also found out that the road was way more windy and curvy down the way in order to get to more waterfalls (the 7 sacred pools) and eventually the little church with Charles Lindbergh's gravesite. Apparently Hana was Charles Lindbergh's getaway from the world after some sick fuk murdered his first born baby. How fuked is the world sometimes? You make history by being the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a plane, and some deuschbag kidnaps and murders your kid. Tragic.

So anyway, we were pretty beat and decided we'd seen enough waterfalls for one day, so we ate dinner at the little drive-inn (good stuff! Sweet and sour pork, teriyaki beef, rice mac salad, da winnas, ono) and headed back the way we came. We had conquered the road to Hana, and we were better people for it. The road back was a mellow drive, with one highlight that we hadn't caught on the way out: We found a side road around 6 PM, so it was still light, which led down to another phat black sand beach!! We had seen this one from one of the pullover stops before. We had the place all to ourselves, no one else in sight. It was like we were on Gilligans Island, and I was Gilligan and Mrs. P was Ginger (wait, no Mary-Anne - I always liked her more) and it was black sand instead of white, and there were giant cliff sides and jungle overgrowth. The only thing missing was the Skipper. Seriously.

So that was about it. We headed back to Lahaina and mellowed out. Went to wander around Lahaina town for just a bit, and crashed out. Another day another dollar dawg.

Next: Day 3 - the Road less traveled, Hookipa Beach, and Paia Town



I wrote the following earlier this morning when our internet service was down. I have transcribed it here, unedited:

Well I can't get online today, so I am actually writing this (horror of horrors) on a sheet of physical paper, with an actual pen. It feels like I'm Fred Flinstone riding a brontasaurus and using it to lift rubble out of the quarry and playing records with a pterodactyl beak. Did they really do this in the old days? My hand is starting to hurt. How did Thomas Jefferson get through writing the Constitution without coming down with arthritis?

I am starting to discover I am hopelessly addicted to the internet and especially writing this blog. I wake up with the shakes, I need a hit of ultrablognetication. Fuk the crack gimme a keyboard mofo!! I need that good shit.

I was hoping Busta Rhyme's Anarchy would make me feel better, but it's just tensing me up.

Must... blog....must check my site-meter.... must read Tony Pierce..... must read Bill Simmon's ESPN page 2 column......

OK my hand's hurting but this ain't so bad. There's something kind of romantic about it. Like Ernest Hemingway coming home after a day of running with the bulls, tanking a bottle of bourbon, and cranking out The Sun Also Rises.

Writing is an interesting thing. Last summer I read an excellent book, Stephen King's On Writing, and in it his main piece of advice for writers was to read every day and write every day. Now that I have gotten into this habit, I find that one day without it & I'm reaching for the pen & paper. It's a beautiful thing, really. Reading and writing. It's pretty simple but amazingly effective. I can feel my creative juices percolating a little more every day.

I feel like Dr. Frankenstein, and you, my dear reader, are Igor, and the monster we are creating together is very much alive. Feed it. Nurture it. Pet it. Talk to it. Throw it a piece of candy every once in a while. I promise it won't bite, and it may give you something you never expected.

(OK I edited that last part a little bit)



Wednesday, July 10, 2002


I mentioned a couple posts ago about listening to Oasis for two songs and throwing Snoop on. I want to clarify something, I really like Oasis. Masterplan is a masterplan, driven straight through like a van.

First I heard Oasis was in college. The B-Town Berkeley, Cali. I was straight up doing it Dwight style maccin and proactin.

Their first major label record, Necessary Maybe, was amazing. I personally like it better than their next one, even though they got bigger off that one, more hit singles, heavy rotation.

Next was Be Here Now, which some magazines say it sucked ass, but there's a lot of killer songs in there, and a couple that kind of uh suck ass.

So that's it for now, time to bust some Kurupt and read some Marvel Comics online like a true blue Bear.

battlecat in the back with a sack on d's
ridin with the young og's
dippin down the shaw fuck all a yall
bounce rock skate on 3's

peace



Jonas sat in the grass field, a bag of sunflower seeds at his side, a Dodgers hat perched on his head, and listened to the wind blow.

Cracking the seeds in his left cheeck, spitting out the shells, soaking up the sun, watching the clouds slowly drift across the sky. He'd had his eye on one that looked like a giraffe for a while, but it was starting to transition into a rabbit.

Nobody understood him. As much as he tried, there was no way to express what he was feeling. He didn't even really know what he was feeling.

A yearning. A desire. For what? Sex, drugs, rock and roll? He was too young for all but the third. And Van Halen's 1984, which he had played over and over until the tape had broken, had satisfied his desire for that. He had since moved on to Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil, but it wasn't the same. The memories of Eddie's guitar licks would hold him until he could afford to buy another copy.

10 years old going on 50. Sometimes he wished he had a screwed up family life to blame it on, but his parents were actually pretty cool.

They just didn't understand.

School was no problem, the teachers liked him, even though he was a cut-up sometimes. He had friends, laughed, hung out, had fun. But there was something missing.

Why did he feel this way? Why did it bother him for hours on end when he saw Mrs. Hawthorne walking her three legged poodle Wok-Wok? Why was he obsessed with the cracked glasses and greasy comb-over of the clerk at 7-11? The guy's face haunted him, taunted him.

Why did he dig up earthworms, let them crawl up and down his arms for hours on end, and then worry about disease as he drifted off to sleep at night?

What was wrong with him?



Tuesday, July 09, 2002


How cool are Social Distortion? If you've never seen these guys live, jump at your next chance, they're out of control. For a bunch of old-timers these guys have some serious energy. Nice to see that the phat Philips mini-system can pump some rock-n-roll, too. I think this is the first non hip-hop CD I've played on it, except for an Oasis CD which lasted about two songs and then I threw on some Snoop Dogg. I'd say about 80% of the time, I'm in the mood for rap, but hey, even Popeye eats something besides Spinach every once in a while, right?

This record fukn rocks!! Maybe I'll go on a rock kick for a while, dig up my Def Leppard, my Pink Floyd, my Metallica, all that good stuff.

I have broad taste really. I might throw on a polka album, don't make me do it, I'm fukn crazy goddammit!!!!

Anyway, I promised some Maui-Wowee and I am a man of my word, y'all.

DAY 1 - The Arrival

I could do a little diddy about the airport and the hassles and that kind of crap, but I already did the whole losing my wallet at the airport story, so let's just start as the plane descended upon beautiful Maui....

The first thing that hits you as you check out the scenery flying into Maui is the sugarcane fields. Lots of 'em. Maui is actually the last of the Hawaiian Islands to still grow sugarcane for commercial purposes, and it has the last of the Hawaiian sugar mills. (Someone will probably dispute this fact, but well, I think I'm right about this one.)

Landed in Maui and went to pick up our bags. Short wait, no problem. Picked up our car from Dollar Rent-A-Car, and we were on our way. The cool thing we had learned from our last inter-island trip (to Kona) was that the econo-car never has a CD player, so I remembered to bring my handy-dandy Kenwood Portable Car CD player with the little tape adaptor thingie, so we were BUMPIN!!!

It was still about 5:30 or 6 PM, so there was still light, and we were able to catch some scenery on the drive to Lahaina, where we were staying. Mellow 20 minute drive with beautiful beaches and nice mountain vistas. Good times. We didn't let some grimey hippie flashing his schlonger to the passing traffic ruin it for us either. I mean, supposedly that was a sign of respect to passing royalty back in the old Hawaiian days.

So anyway, we got into Lahaina, and found our hotel alright, the Ohana Maui Islander. Pretty much right in the middle of Lahaina, a pretty cool spot. Lahaina is a cute little beach town, kinda reminds me of Carmel, on the coast of California. Lots of art galleries, lots of restaurants, and lots of haoles (white people). Now I don't have any problem with white people, I'm one of them, but anyone who's lived on Oahu will tell you, we are a minority here. The population of Oahu is mostly Asian, followed by probably an almost even number of Whites and Polynesians. Maui is predominantly white, it seems, especially Lahaina. Walking around Front Street that night, I was amazed, I had never seen so many Haoles in one place in all my years in Hawaii.

Anyway, so we're looking for a place to eat, and we pick this place called the Whale's Tail. It was Lobster night, lobster tail for $12.95. Which was all good, but I didn't really feel like lobster, neither did Mrs. P. So we order some tacos and quesadillas. As we're waiting for our food, I notice that everyone is ordering the lobster, and I'm starting to think it looks pretty good. By now it was to late to change my order. Our food was alright (kind of), but the whole meal I was thinking I should have ordered the lobster, so it kinda blew it for me. Oh well, this was the worst meal of the trip, and it wasn't that bad, so whatevers.

After dinner we kinda just cruised around Lahaina town and checked out the Art Galleries. There were two art galleries which were really cool. One was a celebrity art gallery. I was blown away by all the famous people that have come to this place and signed pictures, movie posters, art work, all kinds of stuff. I mean John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, basically every famous movie star and rock star you can think of had signed stuff in here. They even had some original Picassos and serious art like that. Really interesting place to check stuff out.

The other art gallery which really impressed me was the Kush gallery. Vladimir Kush. This guy is phenomonal. There was one small painting which really caught my attention. It was almost all green, and it showed a guy on a row boat, trying to row his way through water which was actually a tree stump. Surreal stuff like that, like stuff blending together, water turning into sky. If I find the link to his website, I'll post it.

So anyway, that was about it for our first late afternoon/evening in Maui. By the time 10 PM rolled around, almost all the storefronts were closing up shop. Lahaina shuts down early, especially compared to Waikiki, which is just getting started around that time. Oh well Dorothy, that's the whole reason you travel, so you won't be in Kansas anymore, right?

Tomorrow: The Road to Hana



Just a quick note as I'm pretty swamped.

Imaging my surprise to find that I am the Jeopardy question of the day. I have one of those Jeopardy desk calendars where you rip off a page every day and it's like a little running game, there's an answer for each day. My job is to come up with the question. Anyhoo, today's question. "He's the faithful butler of Bruce Wayne (a.k.a. Batman)" The question, of course, is my dear self, who is Alfred Pennyworth? Only thing is these dumbasses didn't realize I don't work for that guy no more. Brucie was getting just a little weird on me, so it was time to head for greener pastures. Also, few knew that Robin was a bed wetter, and guess who had to clean up the mess each morning, and those occasional streaks on the batpoles, eegads. So I said later Bats, and came out to Hawaii. Married a sweet little senorita since then, and well, we don't exactly live in Wayne Manor, but I don't have to clean the frikken batcave anymore, so there.

Second little tidbit, I ended up watching the Pelican Brief on the FX channel last night. Seemed kind of a weird coincidence after my little diatribe on John Grisham yesterday. I'll keep this brief, only to say that once again, I enjoyed the movie better the second time around, with more time lapse after reading the book a good number of years ago. Not as good as A Time to Kill, but decent. The reason I mention it is, again, the kooky actors that crop up in this thing. John Grisham movies are a magnet for big stars and wacky character actors. Our friend Dr. Chilton (was that his name) from Silence of the Lambs is back again, this time as a creepy corrupt Law Firm executive (what range this guy has), and we've got John Lithgow as Denzel's editor, and the red-headed girl from Sex in the City plays Julia Robert's best friend (she's blonde in this), and there's a few others which escape me right now. I caught myself playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon with these two movies, and the one I got the biggest kick out of was remembering John Lithgow as the anti-dancing minister in Footloose, the quintessential Kevin Bacon movie.

Okay, gotta go. If there's no links on this entry, check back later, I'll probably be adding a few.

next entry: MAUI



Monday, July 08, 2002


Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

I actually got my frikken wallet back! I'm still in shock. The wife and I were ON OUR WAY to get our new licenses during my lunch break when my boss calls me from the office saying Aloha airlines called and they've got my wallet. So we headed straight to the airport, and sure enough, there it was, with the money still in it, no less. An airline employee had found it and turned it in.

I don't think I've got any Irish in me, but I'm one lucky sumbitch.

Caught A Time To Kill on CBS last night. I'd seen it before, but it really impressed me more this time. Maybe it was because the first time I watched it, it was shortly after I'd read the book. Nothing ruins a movie better than if you've read the book within the previous 6 months. You just catch yourself comparing it through the whole movie, and waiting for certain scenes, and I always get disappointed that actors they cast don't match how I pictured them in the book.

There was a time maybe like ten years ago where I was reading John Grisham nonstop. I remember when I read The Firm, I was stuck to it for like 3 days until it was done. I was telling my buddies I couldn't go out for beers, thats how much I was into it. Couldn't put it down. The Tom Cruise movie was alright, but they tweaked the ending quite a bit from the book. After that I read Pelican Brief, which was pretty cool too, but the problem was Grisham was basically using the same formula: a super-top secret discovered by naive young lawyer or law student, huge chase ensues, wherein all tracks have to be covered because powerful people with ears everywhere are on the main character's trail. Once again, big budget movie with Julia Roberts & Denzel Washington, which was, I guess, OK.

A Time to Kill was actually Grisham's first book, but I think it was put out by a major publisher after the Firm hit really big. In this one, he went a different direction, no chase just a damn engaging story, unafraid to hit a lot of racial and societal hot buttons, and some good courtroom drama. If you haven't read it or seen the movie, it's about this black guy (Samuel L. Jackson) who shoots these two white rednecks that beat and raped his 10 year old daughter. He blows them away right there in a courtroom lobby, so there's this huge trial with crazy KKK guys and incensed black people all rioting outside the court.

The thing that really hit me about this movie was, damn, did you know how many big time stars are in this thing? Matthew Mconaughey, Sandra Bullock, Keifer & Donald Sutherland, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, and Ashley Judd. And the wacky other people in this thing: The dad from That 70's show playing the KKK Grand Wizard, the guy from that old Fox show "Roc" (about the garbage man) as a cop, and the creepy corrupt psychiatrist from Silence of the Lambs as, yes, a creepy, corrupt psychiatrist. Just so many huge actors playing little parts, it was tripping me out. How cool is Donald Sutherland? That guy can say like two lines in a movie, but you'll remember him after you walk out more than half the other characters.

Anyway, I don't really know what I'm trying to say, but this movie impressed me the second time around. Mrs. Pennyworth went through a box of tissues, so it's got some heart-wrenching emotions for the ladies, as well as freaky red neck guys and gunshots and riots and Samuel L. Jackson screaming "I'm glad they're dead and I hope they burn in Hell!!" for the fellas. Overall, highly recommended.

Bumped the Bubba Sparxxx album earlier today. Solid work, but the jury's still out, this was like my 3rd listen. Phat Timbaland beats, good lyrics, but I don't know, I'm still not totally sold on this guy yet. Right now, bumping Cypress Hill's Skull & Bones, specifically the Skull disc. These guys, I'm quite sold on, the Hill mofo. Good Times. Good Times.

I still can't believe I actually got my wallet back. Going back to the airport the day after you had to travel is kind of a weird experience. When you're travelling, there's this anxiety, this craziness that kind of overtakes you, panicking about getting your luggage, your tickets, your spouse, your kid, whatever, all to wherever it is your going without getting blown up or anally probed or whatever. Standing there in the baggage claim area today waiting for my wallet, I felt so calm and half the people around me looked like they were going to have a nervous breakdown.

It was strangely comforting.



Yo. First off, Maui was awesome. I'm basically a glass is half full kind of guy, so I'm gonna put that out there before I tell my sad little story.

I lost my wallet yesterday. First time in 12 years, so I guess I was about due. Somehow that doesn't make me feel better. The thing that drives me crazy is the idiotic fashion in which I did it. If you think you're stupid, you're about to feel better. I left my wallet in the seatback in front of me on the airplane ride back from Maui. Didn't realize I didn't have it until I got to baggage claim. Wham bam thank you ma'am, no more wallet.

So I freak out and tell the baggage guy where I left it. They look for it, no sign of it, sorry sir. I'm flipping out, I KNOW I left it there, it HAS to be there. Sorry sir, nothing, but you can fill out this lost whatever form. Aargghh.

So long story short, many phone calls later, my wallet has disappeared. Aloha Airlines informed me that they basically tore apart that area of the plane looking for it. Nada. Which tells me that some A-Hole snagged it. People are such sick bastards that I guess they actually feel in the seatbacks on their way out of the plane for stuff to steal.

Oh well. So today Mrs. P and I have to go to get new drivers licenses. That's right, I had her ID in my wallet too. Had to cancel the credit cards last night. Luckily I only had like $35 in there but damn I'm a little bummed. The cool thing is, my Mom got me a new wallet for Xmas and I'm breaking it in starting today. It's really light, which is nice, being as there's only an ATM card in it.

OK I'm gonna stop complaining right now. I just got a call from a business associate of mine in Guam, and this guy had to go through an insane typhoon for the last four days. The eye of the storm went right over his house. His whole house has water in it. Winds blew so hard that it he found someone's washing machine on his front lawn the next day.

I am blessed. Maui was awesome, like I said. I'll fill you in on the details later but let me say, Maui is not overrated, it's a pretty amazing place. For now, I'm gonna bump Nas's Stillmatic, and get some work done.

peace.