oh shit, new blog. just thought i'd change the layout and the colors. a little switch action. not really gonna write anything of importance quite yet. just gonna sit back and admire the new colors ...

marbury to the knicks ... you can't be serious.

knicks over the kings in 7 games in the NBA finals ...

and to those of you who have no idea what i'm talking about (i.e. who marbury is or what a "knick" is), don't sweat it. just know that i'm a happy man.

yo killers. i'm done with college. how you like me now?

i think i should quit blogging, cause i never have anything to say. it's weird cause everyone here in jersey has been asking me what i'm gonna do now. i tell them i'm gonna look for a job. but seriously, i'm just gonna sit on my fucking lazy ass on my couch in ann arbor trying to persuade my roommates to take shots of jim beam on monday afternoon. but i can't tell them that now, can i?

oh, the next step towards becoming old and boring ...

When I was younger, I had this ridiculously awesome atlas called Our World by National Geographic. It profiled every country in the world, as to national language, currency, capital, etc. In addition, it had these breathtaking color photographs next to each country of that country's people, or landscape, or skyline or whatever. I was glued to this atlas. Like you don't understand, it's like the ILL ATLAS. Ever since then, I have been a geography whore. I can't help but dream of what some of these cities and nations would look like in person. I watch the travel channel like it's going out of style. My ma made me memorize all the capitals of every country in the world, cause she wanted to enter me into a statewide geography bee or something. So for like 5 hours one night in 6th grade, we sat at the kitchen table and she drilled me on the shit. And I'm not talking like "Paris is the capital of France." No no, it was like "Bujumbura is the capital of Burundi, SIR YES SIR!" I went to school the next day and I thought I was so fucking cool. hahaha. To this day, knowing the capital of Namibia has done nothing for me but sit and rot in the back of my brain, waiting to be used at some academic bowl or on Jeopardy. It's Wyndhoek, by the way ... the capital of Namibia that is ...

Anyway, the point is this: I am utterly fascinated by the thought of the world we don't see. The Euro world, the 3rd world, the land Down Under, the North and South Poles, shit. There's so much culture to indulge in, so many people to meet, so many women to admire, so many mountains to climb, oceans to swim in, food to eat. And I wanna see it all. Every last square inch of this entire planet.

5 places I need to see before it's all said and done (in no particular order):

1) Macchu Picchu in Brazil. Have you seen pictures of this shit? Are you kidding me? The majestic ruins of an empire ...

2) Prague, Czechoslovakia. I've heard nothing but the best about this city. The finest in Europe, some say. A European city that evaded commercialization and retained its authenticity.

3) Greece. Anywhere in Greece. I've studied so much Classical History about Sparta and Athens and the Peloponnesian War and the this and the that. All I can picture in my head are the pillared Parthenon and crazy sculptures of Greek deities and landscapes overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. So much history here ... and the food is unbelievable too I bet.

4) Tibet and the Himalayas. All I picture is the backdrop from "The Golden Child" with Eddie Murphy. What is this place? Abominable Snowmen and the Dalai Lama? Is this all a myth? I feel like Tibet might as well be Mars or Saturn cause no one knows what the shit goes on there. And the people -- are they European? are they Asian? Are they both? Eurasian? Who knows? Someone tell me.

5) Cuba. I wanna go to a Cuban Little League baseball game. I want to meet Cuban people and bask in their nationalist pride. I want to meet Cuban girls. I wanna see the effects of political and social oppression on children. Plus, I feel like it would always be sunny in Cuba.

Honorable Mentions: Siberia, Lebanon/Syria/Jordan, India, the deep South like Mississippi and Alabama (I feel culture in the South is so different from culture up here), the Australian Outback.

Let's go.

What's really good kids? Ant back online finally (fingers crossed) ... we just got internet at my house and it's bullshit cause it keeps fading in and out every half hour. Wireless is so complicated -- I don't want to deal with all these technological advances; just wire me up old school and get me online. Anyways, before my ghetto internet pulls the plug on me, I'll just leave you with some random thoughts from the first two weeks of school:

- The weather has been way too beautiful here since we've arrived ... like 75 and sunny everyday ... I fear a brutal winter. Ann Arbor's gonna freeze over come November.

- My new favorite drunken snacks are the chicken wings at NYPD. My boy and I ate 40 between us in 20 minutes. It was disgusting. But they were excellent. Suj said that he lost his appetite watching us eat them. Like lions eating hyena. Yeah. I think I lose table etiquette after beer #7.

- Mitch's $1 pitchers on Wednesday nights is ridiculous. I've never before in my life heard of 60-ounces of beer for 1 dollar. I'm such a sucker for deals like that. Needless to say, I'm not too good about going to my Thursday classes. But at least I'm being a wise shopper.

- Having a car is SO KEY. I drive everywhere. Like to Bell's Pizza? That's like 90 feet away from my house. I have driven to class twice already, which is a lot considering I've been to class only like 9 times. I almost nailed a girl on a bike last night. Bitch didn't look before careening across the street. Then again, I wasn't really looking either ... haha.

- I need a woman out here. Someone hook it up.

Something tells me this year's gonna be the hottest one yet. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

I know I shouldn't, but I feel bad ...

for breaking my friend's jaw. On some stupid, drunken, masculinity-on-exhibition bullshit, I broke my friend's jaw. And even though I know I shouldn't feel bad, I can't be expected to just laugh it off ... even though my other boys think it's the funniest shit in the world. Anyway, the details:

My friends all concurred that they had NEVER, in their 10 or so years of knowing me, seen me so loose as I was at my friend's 21st birthday party. I pretty much drank to the point where I lost my footing and rolled down a hill about 150 feet. I was starting shit with my friend's dad too, like what? I think I was like, "Yo ease up Mr V., you don't know me ... you don't know me player ..." Yeah Mr. V is like 45 years old and he wanted no part of my antics. My other boy was doing a kegstand and he fell in the keg bucket and got straight stuck. You know the space between the keg and the bucket that it's in? Yeah he fell in there and was stuck in the bucket upside down, with his ass hanging out. I think we left him in there for a good 3, 4 minutes before he was finally able to pry his own torso from the bucket. The bucket fell tipped over and the keg itself came crashing down on his head. I think I vomited from laughing so much. Oh wait, I always vomit.

To cut to the chase: My friend didn't think I could knock him out with a punch. "Hit me right here," he said, pointing to the side of his face. "I wanna see how hard you hit." Who says that, by the way? It took me like 5-10 minutes to muster it up to hit my close friend. I was asking peoples opinions (there were like 20 people there sitting and watching), and receiving mostly "Don't do that shit, why would you wanna hit him?" or "You wouldn't do it, Ant, I know you." And I wouldn't normally do the shit! Like I don't fight, I'm not gonna front like I fight. But I was so fucking bent, I couldn't even see straight, so I took a small running start and just decked him in the face, right below his cheekbone. He went flying, hit the ground, tumbled backward and got right back up. "That was exactly how I wanted you to hit me," he said. I think I called him a sick fuck and examined his face to see if he was straight. I think those that were watching were pretty floored that I did the shit. In hindsight, I myself cannot fathom that I would ever cock back like that and swing, on one of my dogs for that matter ... Anyway ...

I saw him two days later, and his shit was swollen ... he held no hard feelings whatsoever against me (I mean, did he have a right to?), but I felt like a fucking moron. He said he couldn't chew his food ever since I hit him, and that he was going to the oral surgeon to get it checked out. I haven't seen him since then, but a couple of my friends have ... his jaw is WIRED SHUT. He was found to have a fractured mandible. On doctor's orders, he cannot eat solid food for an entire month. His speech is greatly impaired. To boot, he is getting a huge tattoo removed via laser surgery on his arm, and I think the wiring of his jaw and the initial phase of the tattoo removal happened on the same day. People that saw him said he was laying in bed with a heavily bandaged arm and a jaw wired shut. I couldn't even laugh. Everyone was laughing so hard at him, and he's honestly not pissed at me at all, but I wanted to buy him flowers or some shit, haha ... I didn't know what to do. I still don't. My knuckles on my right hand are all fat and shit, I can't crack them. Honestly, nothing good came out of that drunken episode. I feel crazy guilty and I wish I didn't do it.

I heard Ann Arbor ain't ready for me ...

"Quit school ..."

Yesterday on my plane ride home from San Francisco, the girl sitting next to me decided that she was going to be my friend. It started with "I like your hat" (yo my FCUK hat is the shit and the ultimate lady catcher ... haha) and soon enough she was telling me to quit school and join her record label. Like, what? Yeah we'll get to it ...

I hate talking to people on planes. I just want to sleep while intermittently receiving bags of pretzels and glasses of water from the stewardess. I mean, if by chance you do meet someone who interests you, you only have a couple of hours to know them anyway. You delve deep into each other's minds and souls and then mosey on over to the baggage claim, where upon receiving your luggage you part ways forever. Nice talking to you about my entire life, see you never ...

But yesterday, I met one of the most riveting, eclectic people. Her name is Charlyn, a Lower East Side resident/musician/engaging conversationalist who has no reluctance in asking questions. Our exchange was all over the place, ranging from acupuncture to goals in life to music, which was ultimately the string that held our conversation together. She was 31 years old and damn cute, so I pretty much answered anything and everything she asked me. Knowing she was a musician, I started telling her my own musical aspirations. "I wanna play music for a living and be famous, it's really that simple," I said, and the next thing you know she grabbed a pen and gave me her record label's address, phone #, and even gave me her lawyer's # (which confused me, but I didn't ask any questions). "What the hell are you going to school for then? If you love music so much, why are you working in insurance?" I fucking hate that question. Mostly because I don't have an answer. I tried telling her that it wasn't that simple. She said, "Of course it is. Do what you love, and if it isn't school, then fuck school. If you live and die for music, then live and die for it and stop doing what other people want you to do."

She had her CD player with her and she was just feeding albums into it, wanting me to hear music that inspired her. I listened to the entire White Stripes album and some Bob Dylan songs before she ripped the headphones off. She put her band's CD in and let me listen. Unbelievable. And I wasn't feeding her compliments just because she was hot. Like the shit was crazy. I could get musically-technical and specific and sound like a sucker, but I'll spare you. At one point, I noticed a familiar male voice singing in the background of one of her tracks. "That's Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam." I thought she was full of shit, until she showed me pictures of her, Eddie and Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters at a show in Los Angeles. Dave Grohl was even drumming on two tracks on her album. I was floored. This girl was for real and she was cute and smart and talking to me (yes, it is always KEY when the girl actually talks to you, haha) and before you knew it I was eating up her every word. Like a 6th grade crush and shit. She started talking about American Indians and shit, and I just nodded my head and agreed like I was the leader of the Sioux. I was just astonished with how much information she knew, and how many famous people she had worked with, and how many dope stories she had, and this and that and the other. She even gave me her phone # -- play on player. Right.

So back to reality ... we land at LaGuardia and we're talking on the way to the baggage claim. All of a sudden she's like "Oh, there's my driver! It was nice talking to you, good luck with your music, stop by the studio ... and quit school, it's not doing anything for you." Done. Bye. And she was out the automatic door. (By the way, I know I'm making this overdramatic or whatever, but keep it real, I was into her so I'm just gonna let my guard down and write like a kid with a crush on his teacher -- after all, she WAS 10 years older than me.) And that's why making "flying friends" makes no sense to me. She tells me to quit school and do music, but if I do, it's not like she'll know anyway. You'd think she was supporting a cause, like the Follow Your Dreams Foundation or some shit, but she wasn't. She was just making temporary conversation with someone she knew she'd never see again. Promoting her ideas and ideals inconsequentially. She was getting me to say some crazy shit I would never say to someone I just met, but to her and to every other plane passenger that may spark conversation, it's all just small talk. I'm never gonna call her, I mean, would that not be the most awkward thing? I just want to know that the whole thing wasn't just bullshit. But more likely than not, it was.