NEVER PLAN THE OUTINGS! because you know they never go your way haha =)

.:To see B or not to see B, that is the ?uestion:. I get this text from Amy askin' if I wanna see Destiny's Child perform at Staples Center in September. I think to myself, "How much street cred will I lose by attending that concert?" In addition to Destiny's Child, it's also Mario an Amerie! I'm a hip hop head first, but an R&B chick in a close second, so I don't know... 70 bucks to see B shake her thang with her friends, I mean I'm sure next solo album I can try and catch her right? hmmm... Oh yea... this is why I love The Roots (it's also the reason why I'd never wanna me ?uestlove in person) but those are some pretty dope ass rules for a Roots show. When I was a Roots rookie, I used to always want them to play You Got Me (sorry I can't help it it's mine and exb0o's song) and after a while, they never played it again. I was sadden, but seriously, I wouldn't wanna play out a favorite. Peek the rule sheet suckas. Then go watch some dope ass musicians play. "Puffy was 24 when he started Bad Boy." Some words to live by...

.:Cool it now:. Random pop tidbits courtesy of randome iPod albums playing and the news from last night/this morning. --New Edition and 112 You have to hand it to them for trying to stay in the game. I think a lot of people were trying to clown on New Edition for attempting to make yet another post puberty album, but seriously, good for them! Imagine the longevity of their careers. Who can say that they literally grew up with New Edition. New Edition has their long time fans, and new fans who get jiggy to Hot 2nite. Props to the fellas for trying. And 112 is the 90s version of New Edition (and I've talked about this before how people were saying that New Edition was the new 112 because of the badboy thing, but we know how it really goes down right?) I was at Tree's house (haha can I start linking your site?) and we were watching the video for You already know and it was weird, they don't dance as much as they used to (or maybe because it's a slow song) but they look really old, yet youthful at the same time. I think one of the guys has a receding hairline. Despite all that, the slogan in my heart still stays the same. 112 forever! --Tom Cruise on 106 & Park So Tom Cruise was on 106 & Park yesterday, and it was kind of akward for him (imagine my suprise when I found it it was his second appearence on the show) Free and AJ asked him, "So who's your favorite rapper?" and he replied with a "Jay-Z and Will Smith... yea I love Will Smith." WHOA! Sorry Tom, street cred denied. No really, street cred denied!!! I mean as much as I love the OG Mr. Smith... there's no way you can compare Jigga Mann and Will Smith. It's... not even on the same playing field... Sheesh! --Case Where the hell is Case? I love that guy! I love his voice, very Stevie like, but a little more rough (in a good way) I just got Personal Conversation and Open Letter uploaded on to my iPod finally (don't be alarmed! I own both of these albums). If anyone reading this knows where Case is, tell him that he needs to put another album out. Him, Donell Jones, Ginuwine... those three. They need new albums. True R&B crooners, seriously. I think we need to get over all that crunk and B stuff. As much as I like getting crunked in the club, I miss hearing a really good R&B song without a Yeah and a A-Town clap (or stomp or whatever it's called) --My unhealthy obession with Scream Tour artist Bow Wow, dude I love him (except in the Let Me Hold You video... what was he thinking with his hair?) I love two tracks from his album already and I can't wait to hear the rest of the album. Street Cred Denied for me? Haha... never! His music is great because it borders on Nelly type singin' but he's still rappin' more then Nelly. And back during my prepubesent days... Immature and Marques Houston I really like im, I love All Because of You good ol' R&B. Haha... and don't get me started on Omarion. WOW! Yea okay... I better stop. more later (I've wasted many minutes on this post...)

.:Ya'll gotta work it out!:. Today was so boring! Seriously, I need to find myself something to do or else I'm going to go crazy. Today was just one of those days where yes, you could do something to pass the time and actually make it productive, but seriously it's just one of dem days. At work on our email client, we have these cool like resume's where we can tell people about ourselves or whatever we do for the 100+ people that work here at the Triad. I think I got a pretty cool one. For a while I just put up a basic this is what I do blah blah blah one, but I changed it around, and made it my music selections page. Music really puts personality to a person whos usually a name on a list of so many other names. My iPod has grown from 3 gigs to 13 gigs thanks to Tree and Amy it's awesome. I was thinking of naming my iPod (because the photo is iPod now not IPOD) Izzy. Izzy the iPod. Don't ask me why I think of retarded things like this. I went to the beach yesterday. Manhattan Beach to be exact. After careful research to see which beach had the most wind, Manhattan had lesser wind then Venice and Will Rogers (a mile west of the Santa Monica Pier). It's awesome there, not a lot of "people" there to visit the beach. I think it's more of a local spot (especially where we decided to set up camp). I love the beach, I think it could quite possibly be the deciding factor behind me stay or leaving Los Angeles. Haha... yea not that I'm a beach bum or anything, but I don't know. One day I'll just pack up, be rich and buy a how on Strand (strand is this street where all the houses at the edge of the beach are at... I swear I will live there one day). I better go find something to do before I look unproductive =)

.:I'm the passenger tonight:. Can you believe I'm waiting for a ride? Anyhow, vacationing is a drug. I think I'm going to add it on to my 43 things. I want to go somewhere nice again. I wish it didn't cost so much though. That's the hard part. Here are a couple vacation destinations I'm thinking about. 1.Jamaica 2. Hawaii 3. The Philppines 4. The Clinton Library (shut up! you know you saw the special and wanna go too!) 5. New York for New Years =) Although there are many others, here are the couple I'd like to tackle in the next couple of years (hopefully in the next two years) If I start saving money, I can so do this. I think #5 is lookin real good, but my long shot will probably be The Clinton Library, because seriously... what else would you do in Arkansas? On a side note... it's so hard to take compliments. I for one, do not know how to take them. I feel like I don't need them either. I don't need praise for any of the things I do for my friends or family... I just do me... and if me is being a good supportive friend to someone so be it. It's hard to get the Ate/Mama symptoms out of your system, it's also very hard to recieve it. Supportive friendships get you by the hard things in life... I know that first hand because of how blessed I've been with my friendships. I see my close friends on the regular, but some I usually just hear their voice and not see them unless it's a special occassion. Some I give guilt trips to because they haven't visited me since my birthday, and others I just hope will come visit (or vice versa) because I haven't seen them since family reunions down south. No matter where I go or what I do... there's always someone looking out for me. I think that's why I deal with the no significant other thing well. One boy/man can never compare to the hearts I have in my life and if they tried, they'd have some pretty big shoes to fill. I'm an extremely fortunate person. I guess I just wanted to say thanks for all that. Amy you're such a cornball you know that? (I know you're reading this so =P) Anyhow... that's all for that. I felt like I needed to say that for some reason. OFF to the Abbey =)

.:Sigh of relief for all Laker fans:. ESPN.com - NBA - Lakers rehire Jackson Phil Jackson Returns As Lakers' Coach - Yahoo! News Well SOMETHING had to be done right? Last season was painful! I'll admit it, I haven't been the most loyal fan to The Lakers this year, but you'll have to cut me some slack. With The Big Guy gone it was really painful to see the guys play. Especially because (dare I say it) I've never been a big Kobe fan. I've always sported 34 proudly (White Sunday jersey) during games, but never #8. I gotta give it up to Phil Jackson though, the guy is awesome. Hopefully, we can at least get into the playoffs this year. Dang I can't wait til basketball starts!

.:Hurt more then it helps?:. Friday night David sends me a posting from craigslist.org for a part time internship/gig that has people write one page summaries of hip hop articles for a music website (for the most part). I thought what they hey, on my 43things.com, one of my things is to eventually freelance for my favorite hip hop mags. I thought this would be the perfect chance to get that experience that I needed to make this happen, so I applied. Monday morning while at work, I get this call from someone from the craigslist listing (Hi if you're reading this!!!). He wanted to ask me more questions about why I applied, and some questions about my hip hop knowledge, and what I read and listen to, questions like that. I was surprised that he called back, and he was surprised that so many people applied. I dashed out of the office to talk to him on the phone. Although nothing on my resume mentions any type of work with writing hip hop or anything like that, I made sure to write a cover letter that stated my interest in doing so. It's easy to see by my blog content and my Ipod playlist that hip hop plays a big part in my life, but my resume doesn't state that. I was proud when he mentioned that that was the reason why he called back. It just goes to show that cover letters are important tools in communicating with future employers =) The thing that made me nervous was when he asked me to read writing samples (because I kept telling him I keep a blog) He asked for the blog address and I was panicking (really I was!) because I keep a very informal blog. I mean, if you read it on the regular you know I'm just shooting the breeze with all of you with out any real formal method of doing so. I was worried that this would not be the best example of my writing (because really, it's not) but I had to go with it because it was there. I'm hoping that I haven't made a complete fool of myself, but if I did that's okay too. Sorry! Here's the lesson learned on my end. It's time to start writing. Seriously start writing. I keep talking about living Sydney's life in Brown Sugar, but I'm not taking the steps to even get close to that. I have all this webspace and all I do is write in my blog (which I love) and uploading pictures. Kat (a FilAm ARTS friend) mentioned to me that a way to get in the hang of writing is to start writing restaurant reviews or CD reviews and mail them out to friends. I really need to start doing this, not because my blog ended up being the example of my writing (again, I'm not ashamed, I just felt it wasn't appropriate) but because... I just need the practice. Anyhow... we'll see what happens, not sure if my blog hurt more than it helped, but again the short opportunity was awesome and I'm glad that I stood out from so many people who applied that he actually gave me a call. Yay for me!

.:Holla Back!:. Back to the randomness... --Growing up I used to watch In Living Color... well for the first season, I heard people watch In Living Color it debuted when I was in the 3rd grade and it was past my bedtime. But by the time the second season came around, I was able to keep up (can you believe Angela was able to watch it). Anyhow... wowed by the fact that minorities were on television, my favorite (of course) was Carrie Ann because duh... she was Asian! I was like awesome! Someone like me on television. Fast forward to the days where Filipino kids make fun of their parents doing ballroom dancing, so it's fitting that they have an Asian person as one of the judges for that show... Dancing with the Stars. Carrie Ann is a judge (she's much older now though) on her bio they don't mention the In Living Color flygirl stint, but dude, it's her claim to fame yo (haha aside from the whole Austin Powers thing)! Represent Carrie Ann! (on a celebrity note, Joey from NKOTB is my favorite! I think because he's aged very well also aside from his slick back hair he's got going on on the second episode) --I've gone smoothie crazy. I bought this dinky little smoothie maker for like 15 bucks at Target, it's okay. It doesn't handle ice so well... but it's saving me lots of Jamba Juice money. I know what's going in my drinks too (not that Jamba was lying) but it's cool to control the flavors. Plus it's summer... summer means smoothies =) --I don't know how to network and to stay in my profession, it's kind of needed. I feel like I don't know what to do, but I should learn soon because if not... then I won't be able to network affectively to be successful. Yea, I said that...

.:...:. We spent the day together, and I knew it was a mistake. Nothing has changed in the last two years we've known each other, and even if I was expecting something, it was wrong to do so because if nothing happened back then, for sure nothing was going to happen now. My relationship with this person is like a rollercoaster ride gone bad, but before the rollercoaster could hit the top, it never made it. Gears stopped and passengers were escorted off the track. It had the makings of the best love story ever told, but nothing was said. I didn't regret anything that happened because nothing did happen... it was sad though because again... the warm fuzzies and the feeling s of courting made me feel like something could happen. Way before I met him and things changed forever. Back then I wanted him to man up, but on this night where he and I were alone for the most part, I wanted to put the past aside and just appreciate him as a friend. We acted very couple like. Feeding me ice cream, walking together closely, going to watch a movie. We showed up at a function, that day we spent together and eyes turned. His eyes turned especially, and I wasn't with this person because I wanted to make him jealous, I was with him because that was what happened... everything was being done on a feeling, and my feelings were going towards someone other then him. Amazing isn't it? Our history (if you can even call it that) is one of those stories you talk about to your kids when your husband/wife is not looking. The one who got away? He didn't really get away, because he never really left. He's not really memorable because there's nothing really much to remember. (for the most part) I've gone from always thinking about this person... analyzing every one of his actions to my friends like a school girl crazy in crush, to swearing him off publicly. And now talking about him again (semi-publicly) I put myself at risk for one of those conversations if he mans up to one that is. There's this one quote that was mentioned to me a year ago about us and to this day it stays in the back of my head. Time to shake it out! Seriously. I want some answers, but seriously, the ship has sailed. Not forced sailing, but just sailed. That night we were together, I looked at him. Stressed and tired all at the same time. I looked at him as he looked at the ceiling of his room. I wanted to tell him everything, from beginning to now. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to fill the emotion that should have been filled a long time ago. But the stress and fatigue that plagued his being that night, just turned me off from the idea of wanting to save this thing that never really was. And now I've given up... not because I'm really concerned about us but I'm tried of all the ambiguity of it all. I should have fessed up that night, but the look on his face (and even his persona now because of actions of late) is not worth the added drama for him. I'm looking out for this person, and myself because the last thing I need on my plate is boy drama. That's for sure =)

.:RIP IPOD 11/05-05/05:. I'm not a tech geek or anything. But my IPOD meant a lot to me. It was more then just the bring-er of music and of happiness during quiet times and long drives, but it was a piece of technology that represented a pivotal point in my post-collegiate life. My IPOD was the first thing I bought with my first full time 40 hours a week paycheck. It was also my post graduation gift to myself, (a few months late, but better then never right?) for all my hard work in school for the last four years. It wasn't just a high priced walkman, it was a friend and it was a congratulations on a job well done. I know I should have been more careful. I should not have been so careless with all my things, but it was a decent mistake. I was never one of those people who was super careful about their ish because I hate when people go uber overboard on things like that, so it's my own fault. But saying goodbye to it made me kind of sad (it's damanged, there's nothing else I can do with it) it made me wish I was a bit more careful and wish I could save my post graduation/internship/job well done present to myself. Although it can be replaced, it will never be forgotten. Yes, I am trippin' over a piece of technology, but I feel it's just as important as my graduation tassle. Oh little IPOD we hardly knew ye... hehe =)