Happy Halloween!!!

I'll be honest I'm not a big Halloween person. I haven't dressed up since...Damn I can't even remember but it's been that damn long. Since I've had a son I've of course involved myself in the "holiday" more than normal, but I still don't do too much. Ever since my son's first Halloween where I bought his costume I have somehow become the designated Halloween costume purchaser. And I'll be honest those damn costumes are far from cheap! It was easy when he was 1 and 2. But ever since 3 and up he's been able to express his opinion on what costume he wants. And I swear I pay at least $40 and up for each costume that gets 1 wear and that's it!!

I can actually recall each costume:
2004-Fireman $20
2005- Batman $20 + tax
2006 - Mater from the Movie CARS - $38 + Tax
2007 - James from Thomas the Train $38 + Tax
2008 - Blue Power Ranger $40 + Tax
2009 - Indiana Jones $47.47 with tax and shipping (Yes I had to order this costume from off line)

So in 6 years I've spent over $200 in just costume costs alone. If I keep this up by the time he's 16 I would have spent another $400 in costumes. If he's dressing up after 16yrs old we need to 1.) have a talk and 2.) have a job cuz I'm not buying it. Although $600 over 16yrs is not a whole lot of money spread out over time like that it's still not chump change. So to who ever said kids weren't expensive needs to be choke slammed and put in an arm bar until they tap out! lol. Well that's enough complaining because come next year I already know that I'll be investing another $40+ in a costume for Jr. regardless.

Plus now he's in school so I'm sure his costume requests will only get more elaborate and more expensive as he tries to out do his classmates. As for this year please don't ask why a 5 year old wants to be Indiana Jones. I blame it on the video game "Lego Indiana Jones" but I can't see many other kids recognizing who he is. But I don't think he even cares he was mostly concerned with making sure he had that damn whip as an accessory. Lord I pray no one catches a slave lashing from the boy in school. I'm not ready for those types of calls from the teacher.

Well that ends my mini Halloween rant. I hope everyone that celebrates Halloween enjoys their celebration. Please make sure everyone is safe when doing so. I'll be attending a party hosted by my son. So this should be very interesting. Oh and I've been told I must dress up for the party and I have no costume so this should be even funnier.

P.S. If anyone is looking for any of the aforementioned costumes come next year between sizes 12 mos - 5T they will all be posted on ebay or a craigslist near you. **praying his momma didn't throw out the old costumes** I'm trying to recoup some of those funds!! LoL.

P.P.S. My cousin sent me this damn video on Facebook she made. It features my brother and I, her and my other 2 cousins. I don't know why but the shit had me dying laughing out Loud Literally. So maybe someone else out there can get a quick laugh from it. Watch for my brother at the end of the video! Pure hillarity! Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

--C-Recks--

Letter to Britt

What you're about to read is something I wrote probably 4-5 months ago. Unfortunately, one of my cousins was convicted of a crime and went to jail. Well upon hearing he was actually going in I knew that it was going to be hard on the family. The night before he had to turn himself in (the end of last year) me, my bro, my girl (best friend then), and my cuzz all kicked it out. Well needless to say I ended up way gone off alcohol that night as did he. I remember waking up to a call from him. After saying hello he simply stated "Yous an Asshole you know that." LoL. Apparently I was the cause of him getting fucked up. LoL. Oh what a memory.

Unfortunately my communication with my cuzz has been damn near nothing since that morning. I somehow expected that it would slim though. I know you're probably thinking you can always write him. Well unfortunately, I knew that me being able to sit and write him would be a difficult thing to do. As many blogs, poems, and songs as I write you'd think sitting and penning a few paragraphs to my cuzz would be easy.

Well I will admit that it has been even harder than I expected. I definitely felt bad about it, yet still couldn't get through enough lines to write a letter. However, I knew he was doing okay as he called and checked in with him mom and even my brother fairly often. Well a few weeks ago I got a call from a blocked phone #. Normally I would disregard such a call, but I was expecting an important call so I answered. I was too shocked when I heard it was my cuzz calling me from jail.

When I heard the voice on the other end he sounded his normal silly, jovial, and positive self. Of course I apologized for not writing. But he definitely understood. He actually stated that his mom had been printing out our blogs here and sending them to him. That made me happy that even though I hadn't written, he was still in touch with some of what had been going on via our blog. Well after that conversation I decided to dig out what you're about to read below. Although I hadn't written him a letter I used my other talent and wrote him a song. My intentions when I wrote it some months back were to do a youtube video and actually perform this song. I never got around to doing that.

But for your reading pleasure you can envision me reciting these words below. I wrote it using the "Letter to B.I.G." beat that Jadakiss used. I know everyone was doing their own version of this song back then, so this was my version. The video is below. I would have preferred to have just the instrumental playing while you read but I was unable to find it.

So without further ado, here it is ya'll my "Letter to Britt."



Its been a few months you're probably wondering why I haven't wrote yet/ the truth is/ its no excuse/ I just can't focus/ to think of you being locked down just messes with my mental/ so I scribble/ a couple lines and just put down my pencil/ to explain how much I miss you/ was just hard to do/ easiest way was to sit and write these bars for you/ you behind bars its true/ but I still reminisce about/ the night before you turned yourself in and how we kicked it out/ I drank away the pain I didn't wanna see you go/ my younger cuzz man I used to watch and see you grow/ now you all grown up doing things like a man do/ got caught up in some shit life don't go the way we planned to/ too...just gotta handle what they hand you/ you know the court system they just tryna make examples/ outta young black youth/ the truth is hard to swallow/ too many dead or in jail no one is promised tomorrow/ my motto/ to keep it movin despite circumstances/ we all make mistakes but deserve second chances/ so when we get out/ just take a different route/ so much going on in the world I hate you missing out/ your baby girl getting bigger with every day that pass/ I know you gotta make that cash/ but I pray that's past/ future's yet to be determined they say life's what you make it/ anxious/ for your release but just gotta stay patient/ mean while just keep your head high/ aimed to the sky/ I wipe away your moms tears but I'm too gangsta to cry/ while you facing your time/ try to focus on God/ think of life as a poker game no folding the cards/ knowing its hard/ and I still can't believe myself/ you get out I got your back if you need my help/ this letter is heart felt/ I hope it reach you well/ I pray your time flies by and you find peace in jail/ when you read this mail/ know that when you get home/ celebration on/ got them bottles of patron/ ain't been long/ but it feels like forever to me/ and if you been through this storm then try to weather with me/ whether it be/ just a few months/ or a life sentence/ we all just tryna see through the dark like night vision/ in an instant/ dark nights change to bright days/ when christ came/ we all noticed how your life changed/ its quite strange/ I'm sure it made you a better man/ cuz what you going through man/ I know that I never can/ as the sands of time pass through the hour glass/ know the future ain't always defined by our past!!!

Love You cuzz, can't wait to see you come November!

Randomness

So I haven't done one of these in a long time and figured I'd go ahead and hit you guys with some random things about me. I have no set number of items I'm just going to ramble on until I stop. So here we go:

1.) I want to learn Spanish. As much as it could have come in handy in my old job dealing with a 90% Hispanic customer base my reason is not for career advancement. Although it may benefit in that way, I have another reason. On the real I want to learn so that I can watch the Soap Operas that come on the Spanish Channel. Maybe it's just me but I turned past the channel all the time and sometimes stop. But I swear whatever goes on in those shows is deep as hell. And dramatic as all get out!

2.) I thought about it and I've had a very wide range of best friends going back to grade school. Let's just say no one can ever say that I discriminate. 1st Grade: My best friend was disabled. Yep he had only 3 fingers (or maybe 2) on each hand. But we hung like it wasn't nothing, and I still got play from the girls back then. LoL. 3rd grade my best friend was Indian. I mean for real Indian he wore a Turban and all. Shame that they hated on him though. Someone pulled his Turban off once. Although I was glad my curiosity was finally satisfied as to what was under there I felt bad to see him cry. His hair was long as hell though. From there I went to black, Hispanic, white and now a female. Like I said I don't discriminate. Good friends are hard to come by. LoL. Not to get too deep but isn't it funny how innocent we are as kids and how race, religion, creed, and gender don't matter. All we see is another kid.

3.) My closet as I've been told resembles that of a woman's closet. I admit that I do have a lot of clothes. However, I'm not like a female when it comes to shopping. I actually hate shopping. I blame my grandmother for that. As a shorty we would have to spend hours upon hours waiting in the store for her to finish shopping. And as boys we would play and get into stuff. And as soon as you did she would pinch the HELL out of us!!! But as for my shopping my problem lies with bargain shopping I tend to find great deals. Therefore when I do shop I buy a lot at once but get a great deal for the amount I spend. But yeah there you have it my closet, clothes, shoes, etc. Damn Shame! LoL. Unfortunately I didn't have time to provide a pic of my own closet.

4.) I don't know if it's partly with me being as suspicious as I am or what. However, I've noticed that I can not kiss entirely with my eyes closed. I've even tried to and I can't. Not all crazy staring like some lunatic. LoL. But at some point during the kiss I must take a little peek. Maybe it's me making sure she's enjoying as much as I am. Who knows exactly.

5.) I've done this ever since I was a kid. But I still fall asleep on any car trips over an hour long. If I'm not driving I'm sleeping. Bottom line and people who know me know that. I remember my bro and I being both drunk and sleepy leaving Vegas for L.A. I'm talking big stuff like yeah I'm gone stay up don't worry. Next thing I know I'm waking up and we're in Cali. My brother was like I knew your ass was going to fall asleep. Lol. I'm headed down to Atlanta, GA next week for my cousin's wedding. I'll be riding with my Mom and possibly brother. And I'm sure I'll be sleeping half of the trip at least. lol.

6.) As a black man it's in my DNA to love chicken. However, some would say that I don't eat it properly. You see it is impossible for me to clean a chicken bone. I just can't do it. As good as it tastes I just can't eat it all. My parents would eat after me as a kid. Now my mom just talks about me still. And my son has the same issue so far. Again, I have no clue as to why.

7.) I'm not a big sweater. Unlike the typical man I don't perspire that much. It will take some pretty strenuous activity and extreme heat for my sweat glands to go to work. Even some of the 'hardest' work one could put it may only produce a few drops of sweat from me. LoL. Now you man think I have the top line of anti-perspirant. However, that's not the case. Due to the fact that I don't really sweat I actually tend to purchase the cheapest deodorant there is. It may even say stick on the bottle or just deodorant. Lol. Not that I would ever attempt to go a day without it. But my money would be on if I did forget to use deodorant that no one would ever know I didn't.

8.) In the morning I must have a drink of juice. If there is no juice it must be something equivalent (kool-aid, tea, etc). I think I picked this up somewhere along the way from my father. He would open up anything in the fridge come the morning. He didn't care whose it was, if it was in there come morning it was subject to getting opened and drank. But for me it's almost like the morning just won't start off right without this beverage. Just like some need their morning coffee, I need my juice. Unfortunately, I haven't had any the last few days and it's not a good thing.

9.) Speaking of drinking. I discovered a long while ago that I have the weird ability to be able to drink while laying down. Yep I can lay down on my back and drink a cup of whatever without spilling or choking. People that have seen me do it wonder how I can do so without damn near choking. But I have no clue I have just always been able to do this. Weird I know. LoL.

10.) May 5th of this year I would have officially been married 8 years...if I had not gotten a divorce 4 years ago. LoL. If you are following me on twitter then you would have seen me dub that day my "Non-Iversary." LoL. It was also Cinco De Mayo so my BFF and I celebrated that as well. But I need to remember the date I got divorced and start to celebrate that day. Isn't that public record? I need to do some online searching and confirm that's in the public record before I discover my ass is still married or some garbage. Now wouldn't that be some s**t? LOL.

11.) Speaking of divorce. I have taken the opportunity of having gone through an event such as divorce at a young age and chosen to share my experiences with the world. Yep I have began drafting a book. Don't ask me when it will be done or what will take place once it is done. However, I have some stories (boy do I...) and I feel like they're so great that they must be told. In fact, I tend to tell myself just in everyday life that I must be living a movie cuz some of this stuff is purely cinematic. So stay tuned. Perhaps I'll leak some chapters for you guys feedback as I get the the chance to.

12.) My Birthday is coming up on May 30th. Although I don't look it I will be 29 years old. Hard to believe myself that I am only a year away from 30. But hey I look forward to it. Just another chapter in this book I call my life. Also, speaking of B-days. Shouts out to my best friend's 25th b-day is coming up next week on the 20th. Also, a special birthday shout out to KingsMomma who is also celebrating her 25th on Sunday. She threatened me from afar via twitter to finally post a blog. LoL .

13.) I miss my granny. I know I don't see her since she moved down to ATL and have been a bad grandson and not calling like I should have. But I talked to her on Mother's Day and I look forward to seeing her when I go down there for my cousin's wedding. My grandmother has some of the funniest quotes in the world. For instance. No matter who you're with or how long you've been with or married to that person she will refer to them a certain way. So to my cousin (her oldest granddaughter) your new husband will still always be "The Boy" when it comes to granny. Another great saying of my grandmother's are actually words of wisdom. She would always say. "The one thing I can't stand is a Liar and a Thief, because if you'll steal you'll lie, and if you lie you'll steal." Now I don't know about the latter part of that, because I know liars that don't steal. But the first part is dead on!! To this date I've known thieves that will lie they ass off. So shout out to all the thieves and liar out there. And speaking of, if anyone ever gets their hands on a book called "Purpose through Pain." I doubt if it ever will surface but if on the off chance someone sees it please inform me asap. LOL.

That's it for now lucky 13. Hope everyone has a great weekend and holiday weekend if I don't update the blog by then. Also, I seem to be a little addicted to this twitter thing. So feel free to follow me there twitter.com/crecks. It is probably the easiest way to check in with the latest and greatest of one half of Brothers' Blog. Especially since I've been able to update this so rarely.

--C-Recks--

Cereal Killer

So just like any given weekend my son is here with me. I will admit that he's a very picky eater. But he does get it honest. So when breakfast time rolls around and he's given the usual choices for breakfast, you never know what exactly he will choose. Well this morning he chose to have cereal. However, my son chooses to eat his cereal dry no milk. But will take a cup of juice on the side. Don't ask me why, but like I said the boy is a picky eater. Well this morning I decided to join him in a bowl of cereal. But as I was eating I asked myself a question that I have asked before. Am I too old to be eating some damn cereal?

I mean I've never seen any age restrictions on a box of cereal. But this morning as I was eating my cereal, I sat and thought should a grown ass man really be eating Fruity Pebbles? I mean just the name of the cereal alone doesn't sound like anything a grown ass man should be associated with. I guess Fruit Loops fits this same category. LOL. Now that's not necessarily my favorite cereal, but it's what we had in the cupboard at the time. I mean I very rarely will even eat breakfast at all. But the very few times I eat cereal, I will admit that I have a very strange way of eating my cereal. I'll break down how it works.

While most do the typical pour cereal in the bowl and add milk then eat, I choose a different approach. See my main goal in eating cereal is to avoid it getting soggy. I don't know about anyone else but soggy cereal is probably one of the most disgusting things there is. I have never liked it since a kid. I can't even watch someone else eat soggy cereal. And I hated when I got told "You better finish your cereal before you get up from the table" especially after it got soggy. Why someone has not invented a way to keep a cereal from going soggy behooves me to this day. I found this supposed "invention" online called the "New Angle Cereal Bowl" that's supposed to eliminate the cereal from getting soggy. You can watch the video of the commercial for yourself, but it seems very suspect to me. My version of eating cereal does the exact same thing if you ask me.

But anyways I digress. Back to my cereal eating process.

Step 1: Add Milk to bowl.

Step 2: Bring bowl with milk and spoon and box of cereal to table.

Step 3: Pour a small amount of cereal into the milk.

Step 4: Quickly begin to eat the cereal.

Step 5: After cereal in bowl is gone repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 until the milk is all gone.

Again, I admit that it's a weird process to eat a bowl of cereal but it eliminates the chance of it getting soggy. Small amounts of cereal poured in at a time limit this from happening. I will also admit that for this reason, when I eat cereal I don't really get to enjoy it. I feel like it's a race against time. I have to devour what's in the bowl before it gets soggy. This is one of the reasons I choose to eat cereal alone. Well there is another reason, but that is probably equally as strange. For some reason I can not sit and eat cereal with another person. Don't judge me. I will attempt to explain and plead my sanity case a little further. LoL.

I can remember being younger and at breakfast time my brother would sit across from me. But for some reason listening to him eat cereal just got on my damn nerves. I mean I'm so far from being the morning person. Therefore, already waking up being irritated and hearing him slurp down a bowl of cereal made me want to toss my bowl across the table at him. Sorry Bro, but it's true. LoL. If you asked he will probably admit that he felt the exact same about me when it came to cereal eating. I guess cereal is just not a quiet enough food to eat.

Lastly, I'm curious has anyone else ever done this nasty mess here. I remember my bro and I being at my cousins house. Now it was about 4 of them at the time so imagine a house full of 6 kids ranging from ages 5-10. Well when breakfast time came just like all little kids we wanted cereal. Well just like that scene in the movie Friday, we all poured up big bowls of cereal. And of course we go to the fridge for milk and there is none. Well we were all pretty broke in those days and we were told there would be no milk for this breakfast. I can't recall the culprit, but I have a clue. But someone yelled out I'm eating mines with water and proceeded to pour up. WTF? Water? I was going to eat mines dry like my son, but that ruined my entire appetite there. LoL. In an effort to keep the not snitching streak going I won't mention any names.

Well I don't know if me occasionally enjoying a bowl or 5 of cereal constitutes juvenile behavior but if so then it is what it is. If I could enjoy breakfast in bed (which I recently had. ;-) LoL) on the daily with pancakes, eggs, and bacon then I would stray away from cereal. But until then I will surely be enjoying a bowl of cereal every now and then. Not to mention I'm not a milk drinker so eating cereal allows my minimal amount of calcium intake. LoL. In closing gotta give a shout out to a few of my favorites.

Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, Captain Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix, Fruit Loops, Honey Comb, and Golden Grahams. Oh and I found this one quite interesting. Obama O's. LoL. It's a damn shame, but someone's probably buying this mess. LoL.

--C-Recks--

Myspace Madness

When we first started this blog our cousin made a comment. She said "if you're not making a personal diary on this blog then won't you eventually run out of things to blog about?" Well Cuzzo we're 9 months in and still going strong. As much as we try to not make this a personal blog, there are often times when certain things just get thrown in your lap. Well at that point you have no choice but to blog about them. I have a song I wrote called "Walk in my Shoes" and part of the chorus states "If you take a walk in my shoes and lace em' up/ you'll see that I'm for real man I can't make this up." So here is one of those situations.

Here's the background info: I'm not going to go personally into all of the nitty gritty, but let's just say due to certain circumstances my brother and I aren't the closest with our father. Now in recent months he's made attempts to rebuild the relationship. But to be honest, let's just say as Jay-Z said "It's a slow process and I ain't got nothing but time."

So a few days ago I get a weird text message. After reading it I realize it's a text message sent via yahoo messenger. The message happened to be from my father. So I'm in my head like "who in the hell put him up on yahoo messenger?" Not that he's too old or anything because my mom uses yahoo messenger at times. But for some reason it was just weird coming from him. So the message is general so I go ahead and reply. Then he begins to ask me about my music and when my cd is coming out. So I tell him and give him my myspace link www.myspace.com/crecksinkrowd. I think nothing of this innocent gesture as I felt if he was really interested he would appreciate seeing the site. He said he would check it out and that was the end of the convo. At least so I thought.

Well I got another of these texts from him last night. I was actually online at the time, so I just went ahead and IM'd him directly through yahoo messenger. He was going on saying how much he liked my myspace page and how professional it looked. Also, he stated that he was looking forward to hearing my CD. Now my father was into music way back in the days. But just like all musicians I guess you just never give up on the dream. So, he was going on about how he wanted to collabo with me (LMAO), how he can help me, about this artist he's producing, and how he knows so and so he can give my cd to. Blah blah, Yada Yada. So in parting he makes this statement. "Who are the ladies on your myspace page?" I'm like I don't know it's a music page everyone gets approved so it could be anyone. Some of them I know some are just myspace friends. So, he closes saying "Well I don't know which were which but Wow!! had me thinking... Never mind talk to you later son." I shook my head as he signed out of messenger and again thought that was that.

So not too long after that I go on to my myspace page to check my messages and play that damn Mafia Game I'm addicted to. LoL. So I notice I have a new friend request and a new message. I get all kinds of friend requests, so I never really pay attention to nor ever visit the pages of some of the clowns that send me requests. As I said everyone gets approved! So when I looked at this latest request. The name first stuck out. But I'm like Oh Hell No this just couldn't be. So I go to my messages and see I have a message from this person as well. I read the message and immediately start to "crack" the hell up like Bobby and Whitney. I go to the person's page and see the main picture and just begin to shake my goddamn head. I begin to read the profile and let out a WTF aloud. Can this nigga be serious?

I'm sure you guessed it by now. But yes my damn father had created a myspace page. Now my father brings about all kinds of hilarity just for no damn reason some times. I've referred to him as dad and father here, but trust he gets called a lot of names by us and neither of those are often spoken. Trust if I got down and personal I would have endless blogs that would have you dying a slow death from laughter. However, this officially took the cake. I immediately got on the phone and called my brother. When I tell him the story we're both damn near in tears. But wait here's the kicker. You ready? The nigga listed his age as 40!! 40? Are you serious? My brother is 30 and I'll be 29 this year. So you were 10 and 11 when you had us? Get the hell outta here. This so reminded me of the episode of Boondocks where granddad was on myspace meeting women. See the clip below.



See this is why certain technologies are dangerous when they fall into the hands of either young children or older people. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with older people being on myspace. So if any of your parents have myspace pages then more power to them. However, I do have a problem with MY parents being on there. In addition, I would have a problem with my parents frequenting the same club I hit up. I don't want to see pops trying to holler at young girls or mom's (not that she ever would) dropping it like it's hot. There just has to be certain boundaries that are set and respected.

So in an attempt to see if I was alone in this boat, I did some research and just did a quick browse on myspace for people ages 50 (my dad's real age) - 68 (the maximum age field myspace allows). Well apparently within a 250 mile radius of my zip code there were about 3000 people men and women that fit that search criteria. I clicked through a few pages and noticed the majority of them were white people. But I guess I felt a little better knowing that I'm not the only child being embarrassed by their parent.

I just find it funny that I just wrote a blog about being the cool dad to my son as he gets older. I mean I want to be up to date with slang and technology; however, at age 50 my son will be 26. By that time as cool as I would want to still be in his eye, I think I would have just embraced my old age.

I'm honestly still debating on whether to approve this friend request or not. The good thing with having over 1000 friends is that he would be buried in the pile. But there's absolutely no way in hell that he's going in my top friends. I'll keep a running update on how the new myspace adventures are going. I'm sure my brother will have to also state his take on the situation. So this definitely won't be the last you hear of this subject. All I know is if I get a friend request from my mom I'm closing that damn page down quicker than a buffet when a bus load of obese people pull up. LoL. Oh and to my cousin as long as I have gold like this I'll never run out of stuff to blog about. And by the way cuzzo you're in my top friends on myspace, so check your inbox. I'm sure that your uncle sent you a friend request too. So far he only has Tom and some unforsaken victim. LMAO!!

--C-Recks--