Well, day one without my girlfriend certainly wore me the hell out. The day started with a relaxing 4 hour bus ride, and I must say this was not a bad way to travel at all. I had free internets, the bus didn't stink at all, and the trip only took about 4 hours in a driving rain/snow/sleet storm. And as if God was making a point to me of some sort, there was a 20-21 year old guy sitting next to me, and guess what kind of phone he had? A T-Mobile Sidekick Instantly I felt justified in my decision to shun that phone. Oh and by the way, my new phone came in the mail just 1 hour before I was scheduled to leave for NY. Me being the lazy fellow that I am, I have yet to sit down and read the instructions about how to truly work this phone. I do know how to text and I DEFINITELY know how to take picture. For now, I can be happy with that.

Once I arrived in New York, I met up with friends, and went to a restaurant called MoBay, and I am happy to report that both the food and the atmosphere were excellent. A couple times during the evening, I was wishing my lady was there with me, because the atmosphere was just that romantic. And I was able to get full, while eating healthy and that's not always an easy balance for me to achieve. The ONLY thing that I found to be unusual, is that gratuity is added into the check, even for a party of 4. I don't like that at all..let me decided how much I give you, don't play God with my money.

After MoBay, me and the crew headed to the Apollo theater to see the legendary Roots crew. I must admit that as I walked into the venue, I thought of all the stories my father used to tell me about his visits to the Apollo in the late 60s and early 70s. He saw Richard Pryor, Earth Wind and Fire, Natalie Cole, and OJays, etc. And as with most places you see on television, it was smaller than I thought. But The Roots put on an excellent show man. When I used to see them a few years ago, they realy couldn't decide whether to be a rap group who just happened to have live instrumentation, or they wanted to be a band who had rap as part of their repertoire. Last night, they struck a balance, and it was definitely impressive. They did their usual string of hits, the covered some hip hop classics, and they performed some Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix songs which impressed me as well. I have seen them at least 10 times, and it never gets old. I feel like I'm writing for the Village Voice here. Anyway, the other thing I noticed while at the show, was the presence of something I like to call, the cheeba cheeba. It was everywhere man.

Our tour guide for the night ended our evening, by taking the crew to yet another spot in Harlem called the Den, and it was a nice spot as well. There was no traditional dancefloor there, but people managed to find places to dance regardless. I'm not a dancer per se, but got up a few times and did my own Bill Cosby impression.

So needless to say, I did not get in the bed until after 4am, and now I am too tired to do any damn thing today. And I must say, as good of a time as I had last night, it still would have been nice to have my better half around, although we did trade text and phone calls throughout the course of the evening. As I am typing this paragraph, I can hear my brother telling me how soft I am for typing that about my lady. BUT then I can ALSO hear myself retorting by saying that HE is married and that is the epitome of being whipped. Although I'm not too far behind him.

i'm rambling and to be honest i'm too tired to thoroughly proofread. but i was an English major, so I get a pass

Flashing Lights - Kanye West featuring Dwele
This is my new favorite song, and already I have played it 5 times this morning. The beat damn near puts you in a trance