Okay so I love Alicia Keys. Not because she's attractive... that doesn't hurt. But because she's talented and humble at the same time. Most artist today are out to get theirs and could really care less about the people that paved the way for them, but not Alicia. (Well, I'm not gonna say most artist, but their a some out there that just care about self.) So I'm watching the BET Awards last night and Alicia Keys comes on stage to perform and about halfway through the performance she starts singing "Weak" - one of my favorite songs from SWV. No sooner than she starts singing does SWV walk on stage. But she didn't stop there, she starts in with "Hold On' by En Vogue and yes they come on stage and perform with her. Now I'm in a state of euphoria, but she has one more surprise for the audience. TLC, without the L of course (RIP Left-Eye). T-Boz, Chili and Alicia start to sing and "Waterfalls" and I'm sitting on my couch losing my freakin' mind.

So what does that have to do with me loving Alicia Keys? I'm Just Saying, not many artist of her caliber would even dream of sharing their time in the spotlight with other artist. But not only did she share the spotlight, but it was her idea and she coordinated the entire performance. That's why I Love Alicia Keys. She's as genuine a person as her music is. And again, the fact that she's attractive doesn't hurt either. (I'm Just Saying!)

Check out here performance here.

Did you see 45 year old Rocco Mediate make Tiger Woods play 19 extra holds of golf to win the U.S. Open. WOW! I don't know about you but I'm a Rocco fan now. Don't get it confused though, I'm a huge Tiger Woods fan, but I admire the fact that Rocco brought his A game and played Tiger like no-one else has since Tiger turned pro.

To put this in perspective, going into the final round on Sunday, Tiger was 13-0 in majors, 54-3 in his career, when sharing or leading at the start of the final round of a tournament. Just in case you weren't watching Sunday Tiger had a one stroke lead(2 over Rocco) when he tee'd off Sunday. But Rocco, played his game and through some cosmic forces Tiger lost his lead and had to sink a birdie putt on 18 to force a play on Monday. (Of course he made it) Then again at on the 18th hole of the play off Rocco force Tiger to sink another birdie put to go to sudden death.

Now I don't know about you, but there aren't too many golfers that could have stuck with Tiger, bum knee or not, for an 18 hold play-off. But Rocco did, despite Tiger going up by three strokes at one point and making some amazing shots along the way.

But what did Rocco do?

He just continued to play his game and be his happy go lucky self and in the end it took a birdie on 18 to force sudden death. Now if I'm a PGA Tour Golfer I was watching and taking notes yesterday. How do I compete with Tiger? Let's see, play my game not his. Hit fairways and Greens. And make him make shots. Easier said than done, but Rocco sure did it.

I say all that to say this, despite being the runner-up in the U.S. Open, Rocco Mediate is a winner. He has scores of new fans, the respect of the greatest golfer on the planet, a good chance to play on the Ryder Cup team and that hefty second place check doesn't hurt either.

Every now and then I come across some stuff on the web that just seems silly to me and this is one of them. I was reading a magazine and saw this Web site and I thought for sure it was a joke and it couldn't possibly be real. Oh how wrong was I.

The website (increasingshoes.com/) claims to be able to make you taller (invisibly taller) with it's shoes. Now I asked my self why in the hell would someone want to be taller, but then it dawns on me, not every one is as tall as I am and they may have a Napoleon complex about their height. (Sorry for being so insensitive to the vertically challenged.) <<< SARCASM ALERT! The way I figure it, God made you the way he wanted you and unless you have a dire need for increased height, then "don't worry be happy!" (Just in case you didn't get it or are took young to remember that's a Bobby McFerrin reference.)

I'm just saying if everyone was built the same life would be a bit boring. Think about it, if all men looked the same (height, size, weight, etc.) and all women looked the same, what would happened if you didn't like the way the opposite sex looked? WHAT? I just took the long route to saying be happy with you.

Here's what the email said...

UN-FREAKIN-BELIEVABLE!!!!

I'm sorry, I would have to whip his &^%$#@ a**!!! Take
me to jail, dammit!!!

and here's the link...

http://www.komonews.com/home/video/18315669.html?t=a&video=pop

Since it's an election year and a historic one at that. (For obvious reason) And since Vice-President Dick Cheney isn't running for president it got me to thinking whatever happened to some of the more famous/infamous Vice-Presidents. In particularly, where the hell is Dan Quayle?

Now I need to say that Dan Quayle's name popped into my head after listening to Tupac's "Strictly For My N.I.G.G.A.Z."(Never Ignorant In Getting Goals Accomplished for the acronym challenged) CD. So being the semi-history buff that I am (seeing as how I was an inadvertent double major in school and yep, history just happened to be one of them) I started to think about how many Vice-Presidents actually went on to be president. After racking my brain for about a minute I came up with a total of 14. Yeah we've had 43 Presidents, a total of 48 Vice-Presidents, and only 14 of them have gone on to become Presidents

Boy talk about a lot of useless knowledge floating around in your head. By the way, only a true egg-head would know that fact and yes I checked my number after I counted and it was right.

On a side note I can't name all the Vice-Presidents, but I could remember the ones that went on to become President. Don't know why, I just did. But I digress...

Since in the event of an un-timely death or the resignation of a President, the Vice-President assumes the duties of the president,(Quick how many Presidents have died in office? Name them?) I decided to list the last 13 Vice-Presidents (included Cheney) to illustrate the fact that being Vice-President is the most powerless and obscure position in the federal government. And to show how Vice-Presidents seem to disappear into oblivion, with the exception of a few: Truman, Nixon, Johnson, Ford and George H.W. Bush. Three of the five on that list became president because of a death(FDR and JFK) or impeachment/resignation (Nixon) or whatever you want to call it. As for those that didn't go one to become president, what did they do with themselves? I don't know the answer to that question and since I'm not required, I'm not gonna do the research on that. (You can if you'd like to and feel free to post it in the comment section.) I will however give the list of the "almost somebodies." Other than the five I've already listed of course...

Alben W. Barkley (Truman)
1949-1953

Hubert H. Humphrey (Lyndon B. Johnson)
1965-1969

Spiro T. Agnew (Richard Nixon)
1969-1973 - resigned on October 10, 1973 (On a seperate charge 8 months before Nixon)

Nelson A. Rockefeller (Gerald Ford)
1974-1977

Walter F. Mondale (Jimmy Carter)
1977-1981

J. Danforth Quayle (George H.W. Bush)
1989-1993

Albert A. Gore, Jr. (William Clinton)
1993-2001

Richard B. Cheney (George W. Bush)
2001-2009 He won't be President because he's not running.

So there you have it... a little bit of the useless knowledge I have a floating around in my head. Oh yeah the answer to the question I asked is eight Presidents have died in office. I must admit I only up with six. I'm just saying I can't know everything.

Here's the list: William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Abram Garfield, William McKinley, Jr., Warren Gamaliel Harding, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

OK so gas has hit the $4 mark here in "The Loveliest Village On The Plains," so I felt the need to point out some things that a gallon gas is more than.

First and the most obvious is a pack of cigarettes. While I'm not a smoker, I feel for those who are when it comes to making that tough choice of whether to put the full ten dollars in the tank or opt to get 6 in gas(which will on give you 1 1/2 gallons) and a pack of smokes. I'm just saying, it's more chemicals in cigarettes than in gas, you'd think the cigarettes would be more. (For a moment I was about to get up on my soapbox on the tobacco industry but I'll save that for some other time.)

A six pack... Well not all six packs, but if you're PBR or a Natty Light type of person a gallon of gas cost more than the beer you're driving to the store to buy. FYI... I'm a Michelob Ultra type of a person if someone wants to buy me some beer.

A 12 pack of soda... I can buy a 12 pack of name brand sodas for less that ONE gallon of gas. Heck if you've been to Winn Dixie this week you can get a case of name brand sodas for less than a dollar of gas. WTF?!

A pound of ground beef, 2lbs of split chicken breast, a 2.5 lbs pork roast, a 8 pack of soap, a three pack of "tightie whities" the list goes on and on...

Pretty soon a gallon of gas is going to be more that minimum wage ($5.25/hr). Actually it's already in certain parts of the nation, but that's a subject for an entirely different post. The one on how the oil industry is getting over. But I digress.

So what does all that have to do with me buying a bike? I'm just saying, the price of a gallon of gas is ridiculous. The bad part about it though is it's only going to get higher. That's why I'm going by me a BIKE!

A.D.D. Version

NBA Finals(Boston vs. LA) ---> US Open(Tiger Woods' return) --> Wimbledon ---> British Open ---> Meaningless Baseball games ---> NFL Preseason ---> COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!

Non A.D.D. Version
Ahhh... It's that time of year where us sports fiends dred. It's too early in the baseball season to really care about. Basketball is coming to a close and the start is of the football season is more than two months AWAY!

So what is one to do with himself?

For me it's time to get that last fix of intense action by watching the NBA Finals. The NBA couldn't have asked for a better storyline than the one leading up to this years finals. Two storied franchise making a return to the Finals for a chance to win their 17th or 15th NBA Title. That's right, Boston has a chance to win the franchise's 17th NBA title and LA has a chance to win it's franchise's 15th title. Now why does that matter? The last time Boston was in the finals (21 years ago) they lost to guess who? If you said the Lakers that's a gold star for you. Now aside from the fact that the Celtics are making their first finals appearance in 21 years, they also have three superstars who are making their first appearances in the finals after Hall of Fame like careers. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen have been at the top of their game individually for years and all have made conference finals before but none of the have ever made to the NBA Finals. (Until this year of course) Don't you just love the grandeur and drama of three of the NBA's best getting an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream. (Sorry for the bit of sarcasm, but that is a bit story bookish, don't you think?) Seriously though, I have always been huge fans of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and hope they get a ring. Not so much Paul Pierce, he can be a ball hog at times, but I can live with it.
Now toss the storyline of these three great players and the games best player today(Kobe Bryant - you can hate on him all you want, the man can ball) in the mix and you've definitely got a finals that is likely to carry you into the third week of June. (Which by the way overlaps the US Open and Tiger Woods' hopeful return.)For me that's icing on the cake, then I only have to wait six weeks for the NFL preseason to start and then three weeks after it's the start of the college football season. Ahhh... what a glorious time of year that is.
So for all you fiends (sports that is) out there, it's not all bad. After the NBA Finals there's the British Open(Golf), Wimbledon(Tennis), NASCAR (WOO-whooooo... NOT!) and a bunch of meaningless baseball games in between the start of the football season to get you through the dog days of summer. Now I feel the need to clarify my baseball comment, or at least explain it a little. All the games mean something(yeah right) but let's be truthful, the MLB season isn't truly that interesting until the end of August. I'm just saying, aside from the couple of No-No's that were thrown in the past two weeks and Manny Ramirez hitting his 500th career home-run the other day what can you tell about the baseball season?
So for the two of you that actually took the time to read down this far (aside from my wonderful co-worker Carla, which could care less about what sports fiends do from the end of basketball to the start of football), be a real pal and leave your thoughts. I probably won't care to read them but I'm sure someone will approve them and post them to the site.