Salute to the Admiral

Good Afternoon again, today is a great day!!!

The sky is blue & all the leaves are green. My heart's as full as a baked potato...and I think I mean exactly what I say, when I say it's a shpadoinkle day!!! It's one of those days where I almost expect spontaneous singing & choreographed dancing with harmonious accompaniment to my every word, like I'm living in the rain...not just singing. I want to do backflips off the wall & spin on lightposts like I work at Trails, a private club for members. Instead of shooting hoops all day in the gorgeous sunlight & surely being on fire, I get to work until past sunset. It could be worse though. Sure, I get to hear my coworker Kelli talk about her impeding engagement & "Hairspray" for the next five hours, but I'm surrounded by other great people...and not even Home Agents could ruin my day. I'm set on it. So there!!!

Not much has happened since my last blog. I watched "300" on my projector TV, slept, & checked out the options on my new Comcast on Demand. I watched a few episodes of "Drawn Together" (still waiting on Season 2 on DVD), Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations: Shanghai (ah memories of Chinese cuisine) & the first half of the first episode of "Scott Baio is 45 & Single." I've enjoyed it so far. He just told his girlfriend Renee at their 1.5 year anniversary dinner that he can't see her for two months & talked to a girl that he went out with over twenty years ago about what went wrong...and apparently it was that he was Scott Baio & smurfing half of Hollywood. I can't wait to see what happens when he meet some of his other girlfriends (all if they decided to extend it for another four seasons). I also enjoyed a Jack Johnson CD that I got from my hot friend Bubbles while stuck in traffic on the way to work.

Celebrity Birthday of the Day - One of my personal heroes, David Maurice Robinson is celebrating his 42nd birthday today. "The Admiral" was born in Key West & grew up in Virginia near Washington D.C. During high school, he wasn't really interested in basketball...but after joining the United States Naval Academy, he sprouted to 7'1" and coach Dave Brown urged him to join the team. Under his guidance & with David's dedication & persistence for excellence, in a matter of two years he went from being a tall space filler like Greg Ostertag to a two-time college player of the year & the #1 overall draft choice in the 1987 NBA Draft by the San Antonio Spurs...even when they knew that he was going to finish his commitment to the Navy for another two years. Oh yeah, he also scored 1320 in his SAT, plays piano & saxophone, and majored in Mathematics.


In 1989, he started playing professional basketball about the same time that I started watching professional basketball...and he was INSTANTLY my favorite player. Not just for his on-court dominance, but also in the post game interviews he was very well-spoken, king, & just seemed like a genuine cat. I liked that. Then he started with the charities & the entertaining "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" commercials. Yup, he's really a cool cat. He's the reason that I've been a San Antonio Spurs fan since I was 8 years old. Then in 1992, he was part of the Dream Team...and I remember hearing that his son David, jr. was born just before the game against Angola. He won an MVP award, scoring titles, Sportsmanship Awards, Defensive Player of the Year, & all sorts of individual achievements during the 90's but wanted to win a championship...and in 1999, two years after teaming up with Tim Duncan, he finally did...and won another one a few years later before retiring. Not a bad career. He even scored 71 points in a game against the Clippers. Only four others people have done that (Kobe, Wilt, David Thompson, & Elgin Baylor...not even Michael Jordan did it).


Nowadays, he's on the staff at the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio & you can see him in the stands everytime the Spurs win another championship but his legacy lives on. The NBA renamed it's Community Assist Award to the David Robinson Plaque with the inscription - "Following the standard set by NBA Legend David Robinson who improved the community piece by piece." We should all strive to do the same. Improve the community piece by piece.


Tomorrow's Celebrity Birthday - Tomorrow marks the 32nd birthday of another great African-American. She's a beautiful actress that was won the Oscar for Best Actress. No, not Halle Berry. I'm talking about the lovely Charlize Theron. "What? She's not African-American, $teve." Oh no, you would be wrong. Ms. Theron is born & raised in South Africa and her parents are of French & German descent. At 15, she witnessed the death of her father, an abusive alcoholic, who attacked her mother & was shot by her. At 16, she moved to Milan on a modeling contract & ended up in New York City, skyscrapers & everything. She trained in the Joffrey Ballet but a knee injury at 18 ended that, so she moved to LA to become an actress. She's starred in several great movies, but it was the movie "Monster" in which she plays a lesbian serial murderer with lover Christina Ricci (not as hot as you would hope for) that got her the Oscar for Best Actress. Since then, she's been able to demand AT LEAST $10 million per movie...and was the perfect actress for "Aeon Flux." Now she speaks on behalf of PETA & GLAAD and has said that she wouldn't consider getting married until same-sex couples are are able to have their marriages recognized. I just wanted to buy you a birthday dinner, we just met. Happy birthday to Ms. Theron!!!


Sports News of the Day - International NBA superstar Yao Ming married his long-time girlfriend Ye Li earlier today. The ceremony was held at the Shangri-La Hotel in beautiful Shanghai. Since both are members of their respective Chinese national teams (she's 6'2" & he's 7'5") they are hosting a dinner in Beijing tomorrow as part of the festivities celebrating the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. Anyway, here's a wedding photo & I just thought that I'd mention it because a few weeks ago the world's tallest man got hitched too...and so now my lanky ass is feeling left out. I mean...even Kelli's getting hitched. I'm just playing. I always think that it's a good idea to get that first marriage out of the way. I wish them the best of luck...in their marriage, not the Olympics. USA all the way!!!

'Don't be a Jackass!' Moment of the Day - I just got back from grabbing lunch at a Greek Drive-thru place...and I'm trying to get out of the exit...but there's a fully-loaded tow truck blocking it because it's high traffic time (5 PM). So I'm a little agitated because work has been hellaciously busy the past few days...and now I'm sitting in the driveway of a greek place sweating...not quite technically sitting in traffic, just smelling the exhaust (A/C needs recharged). As I'm waiting for the light to change half a block away & possibly open up an exit, along comes a fairly large, heavily tattooed, shaven man on a bicycle (he may say that it was light red, but it looked pink) and he makes the comment - "Hey, you know this is a sidewalk?"

Granted, I was parked over the sidewalk, but there was sufficient space on either side to go around and IF I had the option of leaving, I would have to slowly lower myself into a 4-foot ditch of a gutter, into traffic, across three lanes to make the left hand turn out of there...AFTER the fully-loaded tow truck moved. My initial response upstairs was "Oh THANK you Captain Obvious, you've saved the day again. How about you use your mystical powers of deduction to move that tow truck out of my way, move traffic along, & move the funk out of my way???" However, because of the sufficient space...and my few milliseconds of impedement that I provided him, I only had time for four words...so how do I jam all of that into such a brief time? "F**K OFF, FLOYD LANDIS!!!" I think my point was made. Please don't be a jackass, especially riding on a bicycle. You look ridiculous...and it's a good thing that the cop pulled you over because driving under the influence is WRONG!!! That's right, I assume that all tattooed, steroid-poppin' bicyclists have DUIs on their record. Is that wrong?


Anyway, I guess that's about it for today. It's been busy here at work so excuse my grammar. I'll check it later or something if I think about it. Shpadoinkle!!!