I reached out to a friend of mine yesterday, who I really haven't spoken to in over 3 and a half years. We've traded brief emails, and even yesterday when I say i reached out, I just sent yet another email, but it was nice to even do that. We were good friends all through college and we got even closer upon graduation. It was never anything sexual, and there wasn't even any flirtation between us, it was just good clean friendship. We met in college, when I found out the names of her two brothers were Rashad and Jamaal(my brother's name is Jamal), we were instant friends. I think I had a crush on her for the first few months of our friendship, and then that subsided. She never really got along with my girlfriends, but that had more to do with her anti-social personality(which is why we got along great) as opposed to her being jealous or envious. I had 2 girlfriends in particular tell me that she liked me, but I would quickly diffuse that. Well during thesummer of '99, we decided to hook up and try to get together, and that summer it worked out beautifully..and then I messed it up by doing some typical Rashad stuff... We stopped speaking for about a month, and then we were right back on the best friends track..no ill effects at all. Then in '04 we had one of those, what did we do wrong before, we can do it right this time discussions, and we ALMOST reconciled. But before we did she made me promise that none of my past women would interfere with us..and that's the very thing that happened, and she stopped speaking to me. And to this day, I still haven't heard her voice. But like I said when i started this long paragraph, yesterday's email conversation gave me hope that we can start a friendship once again, because we had our most fun when there was no relationship at stake..just good clean fun. So what's the lesson here kids? Don't have sex with your GOOD friends of the opposite sex..of course there are exceptions, but who wants to get into all of that right now.

Today at lunchtime my job is having a chili cook off, and everyone is required to attend. And just in case anyone had their mind set on blowing off the event(that would be me)they tried to say that we will have a department staff meeting first, and then the chili session and I don't believe that for one minute. It's all a a ploy to lure anti social individuals like me into a social trap. I have to watch people juggle hot chili in their mouths while trying to start b.s. conversations. White men come up to me and ask me if I saw the game last night, black men come up to me and ask me if I see the thong of the girl bending over, white women come up to me ask me my name for the 25th time, and black women get in my face gossiping about the black man staring at the thong. Its a vicious cycle, and what I really feel like doing is dipping my hand in the chili, and gently smearing across their face. But since I value my job, I will do the vintage Rashad move, which is to get there early, make a small plate, dilly dally around a bit, and then come back to my desk while the crowd is still thick. This way everybody wins. I understand that it is good for morale when people party as hard as they work together, but during work hours it is not a good move. Productivity drops after these events, and it gives everyone a false sense of friendship, and who needs that. Happy hours are way more effective in my opinion..there's no obligation to attend, there are other people to look at besides co-workers, and for people like me, there are TVs to distract me from the eventual drop off in conversation, so I end up looking more social than I am. My department heads should look into this for the next "event"

When is a rule a rule, and when is it open for interpretation? The NBA has a rule that says during a fight, no player on the bench can set foot on the court. During Monday night's Phoenix/San Antonio game, a fracas broke out and two bench players went on the court for about 5 seconds, then they were dragged off by their assistant coaches, but they did NOT get involved in the fight. The NBA, stating a rule is a rule, suspended the Phoenix players, one of whom happens to be their second best player, Amare Stoudemire. Robert Horry, the San Antonio player who started the fight was also suspended, but he's like the 5th best player on that team, so his suspension is basically irrelevant. This is going to affect the series in a big way, and its all because of a rule that was "broken". The rule was designed to keep folks on the bench from jumping into on-the-court fights and making a bad situation worse. These two Phoenix players didn't make a bad situation worse, and they were dragged off the court by their asst. coaches before that could happen. Its like running a red light, catching yourself mid intersection, then backing up..you will still get your picture taken by the security camera, but you righted your wrong, so you should get a pass. I think the NBA needs to lighten up.

Who Got Da Props - Black Moon