Posts

"Hollywood"

Explanation of the title will come at the end... Do you know a compulsive liar? I mean, just plain pathological with it… Everything that is done is played up to be something just a bit more. He has one chick tell him that she likes his car, it becomes “I drive that car because it gets me ass regularly.” He becomes a slave nerd to any one trend of the moment, and in conversation he is a lifelong connoisseur (and yes, I spelled that right) and tastemaker on it. PATHOLOGICAL, I swear! The one thing a pathological liar has going for them is that they are at best too oblivious or at worst too stupid to be concerned that the people he is telling the lies to were THERE when what he is lying about took place and know the truth. A lot like Rick Ross (whatup, Joe!) Which brings me to a situation from this past weekend… Some friends went to see Tariq Nasheed speak in Charlotte. To those who don’t know who he is, I suggest you click his name and acquaint yourselves with

Phlip's positive hip-hop reinforcement

I’ve been told I am a “hater,” and that I am incapable of conducting a discussion of hip hop music without falling off into some profanity-laced diatribe filled with nothing particularly constructive. Apart from genuinely not knowing what a “hater” actually is, as employed, I cannot disagree with this assessment of my own presented opinions of the current state of hip hop. What I am going to do today is offer all the positive reinforcement as it relates to the current state of hip hop, and I will not do so with the “aching pussy” approach of “underground ‘hip-hop’ vs. mainstream ‘rap’,” as that is a divisive tactic employed by a generally annoying minority fringe group of hip hop "fans" that I just refuse to employ. In discussions with some good friends this week, it was noted that until about 2003-2004ish – perhaps 05 at the latest, I could be counted on to buy 30-50 newly released CDs in a year, 80-85% of which of the hip hop genre. I was in a bit of a renaissance a

What a difference a month makes

Officially, summer started on June 21st, and as I look back over my summer to this point, I would have to rethink what might have been some VERY safe bets at that time… If you’d told me that there would be a third person in my house with my last name, I would have laughed at you and taken that bet. If you’d suggested to me that by August 15th, that someone would have pissed, vomited, drooled, or inadvertently gotten baby shit on me and I didn’t beat them viciously; then I might beat YOU viciously. If you’d suggested that I would actually ACT on one of the cars I randomly looked at on Craigslist all the time, I would have asked you where the money was coming from. Furthermore, only a small number of those reading this could have ever guessed what it MIGHT have been. What you might have bet on is that, as a known road-rager, I am nigh impossible to take out of a mood with anything other than time. If I would have told YOU that half a grin from that short person named in #1 is usua

Sacrifices, I'm willing... are you?

To pass that rare collection of spare minutes I have at work, I can usually be found patrolling the news on MSN/MSNBC, and one that I happened upon was about some uncontacted tribes in the Western Amazon that are beginning to go missing for various reasons… Peruvian drug lords killing them in the drug trade. Fishing/hunting enterprise raping their resources. Contact with modernized (vaccinated) human beings, who are ALL probably silently carrying disease that they're immune to, but to which these people have no immunity. And in response to that last one, I jokingly hit a friend of mine with a message “Lets go to South America and chill with one of those uncontacted tribes, so they can all die of a disease we probably happen to carry, but have immunity to,” to which he accurately responded “This is why going to the past will not work ever. It will kill off everyone and create a paradox.” Cue my “lightbulb” moment. I could go back in time, a generally healthy cat thr

Would you do it?

Sometimes the strangest of conversations come from the most unexpected of places… Last Saturday or Sunday, I was home with The Katie and The Ava, at the computer and going through my RSS feeds for the Tumblr blogs that I follow. The question was presented to one of the people that I follow “would you smoke crack ONE time for $250,000” The guy offered an answer that I imagined as I read it would have been spoken with a chorus of “uuhhhhh, ummm…” and so-forth, but was basically encapsulated in the very politically-correct “I seen what that shit does to people and families, so no I wouldn’t.” Respectable enough answer, I will grant that, but I couldn’t say all the way that I trusted it. My curiosity, however, was ALL THE WAY piqued as it related to the subject. So “up” were my ears on this one, that I waited 2-3 days and posted it on FaceBook, Twitter and on the forum to see what those who know me and know of me thought on the subject. To say the least, I found the answers interes

In the kitchen with Phlip -- Chicken Salad

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Fatherhood has done some strange things to me. F'rinstance, I was THINKING about making a chicken salad all week, and the other night (perhaps last night... fuck if I remember anything these days) I fell asleep on the couch watching the food channel, and they made a chicken salad that appealed to my sensibilities. Well, at least partially... They added some things I did not like, and the dream I thought I was having turned me another direction. Anyway... Today, I made up my mind that I was making chicken salad on Monday after work. Speaking with an asshole friend of mine, I was pretty much challenged to go ahead and do it, so I grabbed the last pieces I needed to do it and went in. Start with chicken: what you see here is a combination of white and dark meat, since I deal with what is in the house most times... Season the chicken as you choose, dash some Italian dressing in with it, foil the pan and put it in the oven at 350° until done (about an hour). Go to the store while that i

Speaking of football... in the street

You know, the things we did in the course of our childhood would in current times be considered damned stupid at best, and get our parents locked away for neglect/abuse at worst. The topic of today is Street Football. As kids, we would stake out a long stretch of road in the neighborhood, generally one long block or two tied together, totally what we estimated as several (50ish-75 yards long) and picked teams, usually 5-on-5, to play football. The rules, as the 32 year-old me remembers back on 20-25 years ago remembers, changed VERY wildly based upon our imaginations. This was not terribly dissimilar to Calvinball . How goes it? I will start by explaining the basics… 5 players on each side (more if the street was pretty wide or if people just HAD to play)* A player would be considered “downed” if he was touched with 2 hands – but more on this in a few* 4 downs to score or get a first down 2 completed passes equals a first down No “punting,” you scored or first down, or give the ball aw

Green Thumbin'

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Strange how we spend all 12 months of the year working on our yards when – at least in NC – we are allowed only about 5 or 6 actually enjoying the fruits of our labor… I moved into my house August 2009 and the yard was a weedy mess, considering the house had been empty for several months, save for the contractors who did the work on getting the new carpet/paint/appliances/etc. together for them to sell the house. That being said, we were bare minimum as it related to the yard and I would have my work cut out for me, and I didn’t bother taking a SINGLE picture of the yard for the whole of the first year we were in the house. [ Phlip note – the brutal weather we had last fall and winter also led to this, more on that in a bit] From August 2009 through October 2010, I cut the grass about once a week and that was it, knowing that I would be doing some more extensive work in the coming months. Then it started raining once a week – sometimes days at a time – for the whole of October through