The Manly Man

All the roses are going for 50% off. The Candy is all but finished, and the romance that was so thick a day ago is vanishing like mist. Everyone is going back to normal, but I’d like to pause a moment to reflect about what the best way to your lover’s heart may be. Now the answers will most certainly vary depending on the relationship you have with that person, but I think its amusing to post some of the answers that I got.

Libbey wrote that she was hoping for “Watching a marathon of Dexter … Red wine optional only because it looks like blood…”

Rose writes “open up that seldom used instrument, your heart, and re-introduce it to your brain. I’m sure your “lover” will be delighted.”

Edmond (aka Mr. Lover Lover) comments “After dinner, put on a nice song and ask her to dance. Careful though… if she likes to dance, she will make you dance a few songs. Dim the lights if it is not too much… IMPORTANT: don’t get your groove on here. Just continue being extra nice.”

Joel, always straight to the point, writes “Through her Chest” hmmm… we’ll pretend this is a deep metaphor.

Jeremy (aka Dr.Kill) notes “Get a large, hollowed-out cylinder, preferably of steel
construction, and shove it right through her chest with great force.
With luck, you should get a nice, round disc of torso meat, AND a
heart!” …we will also pretend that this is a metaphor.

All in all, the general gist seems to be: walk the untrodden path. Go the distance, and let your lover know that you were thinking about them. Soooo for those of you who went ahead and did the teddy bear and flowers thing, you chose poorly. But the good news is that she is still with you probably because they like you anyway, and anticipated the poor choice. This is a good thing because now that you’ve read this article and are committed to mending your ways, next year, you will bring it in a way that she will not anticipate, thus upping the stakes a bit.

We all know what Feb.14th is. Some have been waiting on it, while others dreading it. We are here to help you with common mistakes and pointers on how to behave yourself on this occasion. Now since if I wrote this piece I would steer you all wrong, I have enlisted the help of another blogger (female) who knows a thing or two about the holiday. Pay close attention guys!!!

Avoid The Valentine’s Day Traps

While Valentine’s Day may not be on the radar for some people (like me), it’s important to others. No, I’m not a bitter person; I’ve celebrated the “holiday” before, I just think it’s silly. But for those who enjoy this day, I have some tips on how to avoid the mundane trappings of Valentine’s Day.

So, you have a special lady in your life and want to celebrate this day with her, and I get that. But please, for 2010 don’t:

Give her chocolates, roses or even a teddy bear.

While these may be nice (ahem boring), these gifts are overdone for this “holiday.” When you walk into a Duane Reade or any other store, you’re bombarded with the Valentine’s Day section that’s overflowing with candies, chocolates and teddy bears. When you’re walking down the street, almost every other block bombards you with the mound of roses for sale. Sometimes the chocolates are stale or bitter. Sometimes roses shrivel within a day or two. And sometimes the teddy bear goes into the pile of other teddy bears and is soon forgotten.

Instead, give her something that’s from your heart and not from the commercialized products they’ve been breathing down our necks since the New Year. I suggest instead of a card, give her a handwritten letter. Yes it seems lame, but it’s actually pretty sweet and thoughtful. It doesn’t matter how long it is, just write down your feelings for her. This is a gift she will definitely keep.

Give her a gift she wouldn’t suspect. For instance, I’m sure in past conversations she’s mentioned something that she wish could happen─“I wish I had the time to clean my place”─and she probably thought you weren’t listening. But you were. Surprise her by paying for a trip to the salon or to a spa, so that when she returns, her place is clean. She won’t stop showing her love for you for weeks.

Go to a stuffy restaurant for a romantic dinner.

Yes, you’ve made sure on January 2nd that you booked your reservation to that over-hyped, romantic restaurant for your girl, but this is also cliché. Not to mention, it’s also not intimate because the place will be packed with a slew of other couples.

Cooking at home it very intimate, but if you do that enough already, I’m sure there are wine and food tasting events to go to. This is a great alternative because it’ll be a lot of fun to try different things. Why not make a bet over who will be the first to get tipsy from all the wine tasting?

Be so anti-Valentine’s Day if she’s pro-Valentine’s Day.

So you don’t care for the commercialized “holiday,” but if she’s really into it, give in just a little bit. Even though she knows you’re dead set against it, she’s secretly hoping you’ll somehow show you care. So do something goofy like showing up to her door as a singing telegram. Sure you may butcher her favorite love song, but she doesn’t care because you put in some (okay, maybe a lot of) effort. You’re not serious about the day, but you’re serious about her. You two can laugh about it and move on.

Stop buying the usual Valentine’s Day gifts and stop doing the usual Valentine’s Day activities. Originality and creativity will melt a girl’s heart every time.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Tiana Bragg

There comes a time in every Man’s life where he has to question whether or not he is mentally deficient.  That day came yesterday when I joined a few co-workers in a challenge to survive on only $25 for the week. Now I’m the type that goes out to lunch most days (yeah, I know its expensive but I’m lazy!) and I just don’t know if it was wise of me to enter this contest! But I have discovered one thing. You don’t know what metal you are made of until its tested! All of a sudden secret skills you’ve long thought sealed away, awaken to help you in time of need! Why did I bust out the West-Indian fried dumpling’s with cornmeal and some nice cabbage for lunch today! Didn’t know I had it in me! Plus I have soup (with the boiled dumplings) just to switch it up. I bought all the groceries with 20 bucks. Lets see how I do.

Update: Turns out the challenge started after I bought groceries so I got a clean slate!!

Day 1: Lots of cabbage and a few dumplings and half a veggi-patty. Satisfying but needed a snack at the end!

Day2: Same thing from Day One. 2 dollars in snacks and 2 dollars in fries from McD’s!

Day3: Soup time! 1.50 on donut and 5 bucks for Burger King…couldn’t help it ya’ll!

Day4: Forgot my soup at home…but luckily I was taken out for pizza!!! Woohoo! $0.00 bucks baby!

Update: D’oh! Had to return the favor…at least it was falaffel and it was cheap.hehe spent $5.00

Day5: Had a Subway Sandwich. Good thing they are cheap! about $4.50

Day6: Ate the rest of my soup. That stuff was good! Can’t spend much more money since I realized I’m right at $20.00

Day7:

Was riding the train the other day and noticed something very interesting. Almost all of us were pre-occupied with our electronic devices. Blackberry’s, iPods, iPhones, etc… None of us wanted to talk to one another. Granted, it’s a little weird striking up random conversations with people you don’t know, but I have to say, that used to be one of the things I loved most about New York. Yeah, New Yorkers have a bad rap for being busy all the time, but so what? We got stuff to do. Besides, any tourist will tell you, we love conversation. Just keep it short and simple. No one will be rude to you.  Those are usually the hipsters that move in from Nebraska, or Kansas somewhere and want to act like a real-life New Yorker just  like they saw on Sex in the City or CSI. I digress.

At any rate, my point is we are starting a disturbing trend, which is to want to be alone while in the company of others. I have done it countless times. At the moment the lull in the conversation appears,  I’m checking my trusty G1 for new messages or twitter updates. I know someone has just updated their status to something stupid like Jets suck, but I just have to see. I wonder what this will do to society at large? We are changing the way we interact with people. I won’t go so far as to say today’s technological advances will have a positive or negative effect. However, I will say it will definitely change the way we date and socialize. Sure, I suppose we can always meet one another at the bar or club, but for those of us who don’t really do the whole drinking and clubbing thing, there aren’t a huge amount of options left. I used to feel comfortable approaching a young lady during a commute or while at a cafe etc. Now, everyone is so into their music or video game that I now feel uncomfortable interacting with someone outside of my network of friends for fear of  annoying them.

I honestly wish I could peer into the future to see what things will be like in ten years. What will happen to the casual conversation? Will it disappear or will it be held online in a chat room while playing some game? Will it become the norm to be on the phone while at the dinner table or restaurant or will restaurants begin outlawing cellphone usage inside? Will cases of ADD shoot up, or will it level off? Have I passed my soul-mate while she was adjusting her volume to tune out the annoying guy trying to ask her for her name?

See also: From Sorry Ms.Jackson to Hello Ms. Right

A good friend just shot me this link from Wired.com and I have to say, I’m quite impressed. Apparently one can own a fighter jet. Yeah, just straight pull out your fat wallet and pay someone, in Russia I presume, and take away a nice shiny new Sukhoi SU-27. Yes, that same one from Ace Combat and H.A.W.X. on the X Box 360…except in real life of course.

Now this jet was designed to go Mano y Mano with the US’s F-15 Eagle. The plane is capable of vertical acceleration because of its high thrust-to-weight ratio, and can reach speeds of about Mach 1.8 (1,300 mph). That’s almost twice the speed of sound. Now here’s the clincher. This bad boy is going for about 5 million bucks. Not bad right, considering that a mid-range Gulfstream private jet goes for well over 20 million. Plus they offer training on the jet as well in case you don’t have fighter pilot experience. Seems like a great deal to me, and if any of you readers who happens to have a few dollars to spare for my birthday – hook me up man!

Every now and then its a good thing to reflect on things. One’s life, achievements, disappointments, goals, successes. Some folks are pretty happy about the ratio of achievements to time spent, while others begin the new year with resolutions to be more efficient with the time they have. Today is that day for me, and it also happens to be Martin Luther King Day.

I sit in my “Captain’s Chair”, you know-the chair every guy has that marks him as the ruler of the house-and I contemplate the small amount of information I can recall about this great man’s life. I recall seeing somewhere that they might make a movie. Hope its a good one I remark to myself. But honestly, would I know if it were a good one or a bad one? This is the point where I have to be honest with myself. Like the Christian who follows Christ, but doesn’t really know where Jesus was born and has to sing a Christmas Carrol to get the clues, or who isn’t too knowledgeable of the details except for the whole death on the cross thing.  I begin to think about all the stuff I don’t know about the man, Martin Luther King jr. I wonder what it would have been like living in his day. Would I have taken part in any of those demonstrations? Would I have known him? Would I be too busy trying to make ends meet for my family? What am I doing now? How do I measure up to this man? What have I done with my talents and with my time? These are the tough questions. They make you want to do more, to be more. What it must have taken to do those things. To march knowing good and well people straight-up hate you and would like to do you bodily harm. To do so knowing the dangers involved for family and friends you care about deeply. What a sense of conviction.

I wonder if the stuff he was made out of is present in this world we live in today. Everyone has this sense of entitlement, thinking they deserve this and that. But the level of humility this guy had is just baffling to me. To be non-violent about it and to patiently wait while in a prison cell. Wait for things to get better, believing that your position was correct.  What faith in God this man had. I can barely wait in line at McDonald’s without getting a little antsy and short with the cashier!

What would happen if I applied myself? I wonder what my potential is and could be. What if I were efficient with my time? Martin Luther King jr. was the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Price in the time he lived. What an amazing feat.

I sit and contemplate these things wondering if there will be another person like him. I wonder if more of us responded to our own callings, what things would be like. Or rather just me, what if  ’I’ make a move? How would I change my own life or the lives of my family and friends? What dent could I make on this world?

Was sent an article from the NYDailyNews.com about adult apps that feature Asian Women. Not having an iPhone myself, I can’t really say that I’ve played around with some of the applications mentioned in the article, however, the author makes a good point that a lot of men miss.

I’m not going to go into the usual humdrum of how men treat women as sexual objects as their are extensive articles on that subject. I just think its really interesting how we as a society are are taking our sexism to new levels with technology!

We are at the point were we snack on information like Doritos. Stick with me I’m going somewhere.  Our appetite for bite sized packets of information that we can digest in a few minutes or less is beginning to grow, while our attention spans are waning. I am beginning to think this is having an effect on how we perceive information. For example, the title “Asian Boobs” would reek of sexism as well as racism in a society that took a longer time to process information. However, in this society where I can read 5 newspapers on my cell phone in the 45 minute commute to work, I don’t really have time to process the information as good or bad. It just exists. I either like it or I don’t. That is a real title for an iPhone App by the way,  and its got the writer of this article really mad. Can’t say that I blame her. I wished she were a little more broad in her topic, and I felt it was a little too one-sided, (so I shouldn’t date Asians cause that shows I have Asian Fever?)  but a good read none-the-less.

Now to my male readers – it would seem that we should be more enlightened than our great-grandparents and even our parents in matters of racism and sexism, but are we living up to the hype? Because such apps are accepted as normal and because they take up so little of our time, do we gloss over glaring forms of prejudice simply because it doesn’t take up more than 5 minutes of our day? Coming back to the Doritos analogy, can “snack apps” and or “snack pieces of information” be detrimental to our 21st Century enlightenment if we aren’t careful in much the same way as junk food can be to our health without moderation?

Its the Christmas season so I thought I’d write a quick article, before Christmas food of course, to talk about some tough Santas.

Cruisin for Jesus

Bikers for Jesus

So picture this…nearly 100 or so bikers on Harelys with leather jackets and the whole works ridin’ down the highway. All tough as nails, but one thing is different. They have a Cruisin for Jesus Logo on their jackets. They may not be going to some Biker Rally today or some town to pillage and rape…this time around, they are heading to ShelterCare’s Family Housing Program to help feed and distribute toys. These guys are my kinda guys.

Now this next one I really love. I saw the video earlier and I thought that Lupe Fiasco lost his mind by dissin’ Lebron and Kobe. I was like calm down man, but then I noticed the Nike Logos everywhere. Then I heard “Santa’s verse” I was rollin’! Plus it was really hot too!

KRS One Santa

Really didn’t realize Santa had flow like this.  Love these puppets!!! Even though KRS One and I disagree about Jesus, he still got the flow and I am glad to see him gettin’ love from Nike. Watch the hilarious videos below.

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Blitzen’s verse

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The Last Christmas

Here is a tough Santa right here. Nuclear war has turned almost everyone into zombies and its up to Santa and his homies to fix things up. One of the most comedic comics that I’ve ever read. Santa dual wielding semi-automatic weapons, and blasting at zombies. Its a great mix of yule-tide cheer, and guts.

Rick Remender is the illustrator on this one and the brilliant story-line was written by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn.

Give us a shout below for tough Santas that we missed!

I initially viewed even the premise of an open letter to Tiger Woods in the midst of the public spectacle that has become Tiger Wood’s Life, however, after reading it I was quite impressed.

It doesn’t take much for someone to stand on a soapbox and preach about Tiger and his many romps, or cast blame and wag the finger at someone else, but it takes a lot more to encourage someone who happens to be in a terrible predicament. Thats why this letter caught me off guard. Everyone who used to be in regular contact with Tiger is now distancing themselves from him. All the sponsors that were showering him with money are all tip-toeing out the door. The name that was selling millions has become bad for business in a matter of days…literally. Yet Artest writes this stunningly poignant letter of encouragement to Tiger as a simple fan of the athlete. Its not preachy and it seems to be really authentic which is why I feel like men in general can learn from it.

He starts off by taking the humble route and letting everyone know he isn’t a know-it-all, nor is he blameless. He doesn’t condone Tiger’s actions in any way, but he tries to show that there is life after “the slip-up”.

“My wife is a much better wife than I am a husband. We still argue and disagree after being together 16 years. and I still cope with the fact that there are so many women out there and I choose to stay loyal to my wife”

A slip-up is inevitable as long as one is human, and it’s how you handle yourself afterwards that makes and breaks a man. A great point he makes is that the media and some people in general seem to be enjoying another person’s suffering. Its takes a huge amount of courage to “man up” and admit mistakes, and make moves to correct them and encouragement is the best help in such situations. It seems as though the media is feeding into people’s desire to see someone in a worse situation than themselves. We love to see our heroes fall. Sometimes I think thats why we put them on pedestals in the first place…kinda like setting up dominoes.

In this open letter, I found a new respect from the guy who snuck, and drank boos during the half-time of games! Really, this came out of left field, but it goes to show that you can’t believe everything that the media shows you because many times they are pandering to what they think you want to hear and see. I’ve really only heard negative things about Artest – espeially after that brawl he is now famous for. But I have yet to hear one of Tiger’s friends step up and vouch like this for him or to encourage him like this.

It takes a real man to face himself, and to look at his flaws and admit them. Thats something a large amount of people (many of them wagging the finger at Woods) can’t do so they would rather see someone else doing the same thing fall and feel better. But everything in the closet comes to light eventually.

“On the way to 2010 we had many ups and downs on the way, mostly my fault. But I really choose to work hard and play ball to support her and my kids. The same reason you are building your legacy.”

You can find the open letter here

So on my way home, I manage to snag a seat on the normally crowded train home. I noticed the lady next to me swaying a bit, but figure she’s just sleepy and wants to get as much shut eye as possible before her stop. Let me spare you the details by saying this story ends up with vomit…alot…and some on my coat. I suspect she, and a few others have the dreaded flu, or as I like to call it…the plague.

Here are a few things that you should do to stop this plague before it hits.

#1 WASH YOUR DANG HANDS!!!!!!

I dont know how many times I’ve seen nasty grown men come out of the bathroom without as much as looking at the sink. Nasty Bums. We spoke about this in our awkward work scenarios article. So no need to repeat.

#2 Shun others you suspect as culprits

No really…the cdc recommends you avoid others you suspect as sick. So its a perfect excuse not to feel bad about talking to that person with terrible halitosis, or the person you just don’t like for no particular reason that you care to think of.

#3 Stay healthy and keep immune system strong

This means taking vitamins, ingesting lots of garlic and fruits. Whatever it takes to make sure your natural defenses are manned and ready. Don’t let the influenza make a laughing stock of your punkish T-Cells!

Now in case you get the flu, and you are like me and just dont like doctors cause they look at you funny…we have some natural ways to combat sickness.

#1Lemon and or Garlic…

I’ve been using this since I was a kid…hasn’t failed me yet. Garlic for stronger immune system…slows down growth of viruses, and lemon to cut mucous.  Squeeze lemon juice on minced garlic and ingest the resulting “juice” for best effect.

#2 Vitamin C

…lots of fruits kiddies

#3 Stay hydrated.

helps regulate body temp and keeps everything in working order

Thats it…Good Luck!!