I see myself as a music junkie. For years now I’ve taken a lot of pride in that. I even see myself as a music connoisseur of sorts. Hip-Hop & R&B music of course, but generally speaking I’ll say urban music in general because these days they consist of a lot of different sounds. I’m so much of a music junkie that I have a policy when listening to music of genres that I’m not familiar with. My policy is that I’ll give it at least one good, honest, and unbiased listen. If it’s good, I’ll rock with it, if not, to the trash it goes. We as individuals, especially of the urban community, we have to support our people and actually purchase music we deem to be good. So I’ve broken down my thought process on this into a few key points. If you like it cop it… I mean why not? You plan to give it more than a few spins. You like the music, or the artist, or who the artist is affiliated with. There’s obviously something about the music that’s drawing you to it. Spend the money and buy it. You don’t go to a store, see some clothes you like and steal it; you buy it. Now think of the amount of money you spend on clothes you don’t even wear for long periods of time. Clothes that you might wear once and forget about. They cost way more than the amount of money you’ll spend on a good song or album. Support good music… Now I know this is subjective, but the point remains the same. You like the music, so it’s obviously good to you. Why sell yourself short, and go through the pains of looking for a link when you can just hop to the app in your phone and purchase it. If you’re stuck in the old age and your phone doesn't have those features, walk into a store and buy a hard copy. It’s all the same. Computers have these same features by the way.
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Floyd or the field? Who would you take? What side would you be on? In my lifetime (a very short one) I don’t remember anyone in sports being so polarizing, both on and off the field of competition. This man has been nothing short of spectacular his whole career. This is the part where people start throwing shade (trying to diminish his accomplishments) because of his mishaps outside of the boxing ring. I’m here to discuss and offer my opinion on the man inside the ring and with that in mind nothing else is relevant. Now back to the Mayweather, the self proclaimed best ever, TBE to be specific; would you take him or the field when it comes to being the best of all time? My simple answer is yes. My complicated answer is actually a question...how can you look at his career and not say he’s the best ever? I’m not boxing fanatic or expert (I’ll go ahead and disqualify myself now), but the numbers don’t lie. 49 fights and 49 wins. Almost 2 decades of domination. Titles in 5 (not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4) different weight classes. I ask a legitimate question...what more does the man have to do? Yea, I know he won it with mostly defense. He didn’t knock enough people out. He has no punching power. However, riddle me this, every fighter he’s fought in recent history has known this going into the fight. This isn’t new news. This isn’t some out of the blue idea or fighting style that Floyd is showing people, he’s the same way in every fight. He has also won that same way in every fight. If I remember correctly, the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Take me for instance, I’m 6’8” 230 lbs. If I was playing one-on-one in basketball against someone that was 6’0” 175 lbs, why in the world would I take one shot outside of the paint; post work all day. By the same token, Mayweather has won the majority of his fights a certain way, why change it? From the title of this story I think you can already get a sense of how this is going to go, but please, bear with me here.
Background Info/Setting the Scene: For those who don’t already know, I’m currently in Germany playing for the Gießen 46ers. We are currently smack in the middle preseason. For my fellow athletes, I need not say anymore, you know what that means and what I’m currently experiencing. For my non-athletes that aren’t familiar with this particular time of the season, suffice it to say that it’s one of the more challenging/grueling portions of the season, and in some cases more so than the grind of the actual season. During this time, off days are one of your most prized possessions, or favorite past times so to speak. Usually we get one per week, and when they come about they are to be thoroughly enjoyed by doing nothing (speaking for myself of course). My off days are what I like to refer to as my Triple R day (Triple R = RRR = Rest, Recover, Recuperate). That basically means I quite literally lay on my a** all day and not do a damn thing. Even for food, I don’t cook, I order in. Full fledged bum mode is in effect all day. Only thing semi-strenuous that I do is go to the bathroom and maybe stretch but even that on some days, depending on how the previous week went, is pushing it. The Actual Story: About a week ago, after two back to back tough games on the road (we won one, lost one), we were given a day off. Now you can imagine how happy I am about this. I’m ecstatic. I can’t wait to get home and activate my bum mode. Also keep in mind that at this point it has been about a month since I left the crib (Houston, TX/USA), so I’m missing home very much. More specifically, I’m missing some good ol’ Nigerian food. This craving has been building up for quite a while now. So much that I found an African restaurant here in Gießen but they only served Ethiopian food which I don’t mind but definitely nothing like the Nigerian food I want. I get home after these games, eat some leftover food I had in my fridge, hang out for a little while, and finally go to sleep. I wake up the next morning hungry as usual (if you know me you know I don’t play with my food). However, at this point, I think it’s too early to start ordering food so I decide to kill time doing other things. To help keep me from going crazy from hunger I eat a Twix bar, a couple of Twizzlers, and cookie. As time passes, I start to peruse my little food delivery app; seeing what restaurants I might like and what I want to order. Is it going to be Chinese? Indian? Pizza? Or even some German spots that I hadn’t tried before? Then it occurred to me that I’m still craving Nigerian food. The lightbulb went off in my head at that point. I started to think if Gießen, a relatively small city, can have an African restaurant with Ethiopian food, then Frankfurt a very large metropolitan city, and a world hub for that matter, definitely has to have some Nigerian food. After-all, we Nigerians are everywhere (no joke, not bragging either, we really are everywhere). Next step was to fire up google and do some research. I proceed to open google and do a simple search for “Nigerian restaurants in Frankfurt.” Lo and behold, the hits came pouring in. Ok I’m lying it was only about 3 but still, that was more than I had bargained for so I’m gushing at this point. I can already feel my mouth watering... Perusing through the internet the other day (I was on twitter), I saw a link pointing to what I remember as something along the lines off “10 millionaires without college degrees.” Naturally I’m intrigued by this. With a headline like that I can’t help but ask the age old question of whether formal education is necessary or are life experiences the best teacher? Personally, I think there’s no one answer is correct. You just have to figure out what works for you and what you’re trying to do with your life, but that’s for us to talk about another day (feel free to share your opinions though).
Back to the motivation....while the link to the list was loading I was expecting to see the likes of Bill Gates on this list but I was pleasantly surprised by the list and the fresh faces on it. Most of whom I hadn’t seen or heard of before. Here are some common themes in all their stories.
Don't be afraid to do some research of your own as well. You never know what you will be inspired by. Magnificent Su |
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