Unexpect the Expected

Judging from the recent events in London, I just wanna say on behalf, that we really suck ass at Basketball, and I'm not talking about Team USA.

For those who do not know, my ethnicity is Nigerian. I was born here in the United States while the two great people who created me were born over there. I honestly didn't know up until last Thursday that Nigeria had a basketball team in the Olympics. I mean, I know there are some other athletes from my relatives' country competing and all but damn, SINCE WHEN DID WE HAVE A FUCKING BASKETBALL TEAM? AND OUT OF ALL OTHER TEAMS FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, WE HAD TO GO UP AGAINST THE "110% EXTRA CREDIT A PLUS" TEAM USA BASKETBALL TEAM?!?!

After I found that out, I then peeped the game and already this showed up just as soon as I turned into the NBC Sports Network (the gay peacock-suckers version of ESPN)  just to support for the hell of it, I see this shit to no surprise.

Yes, that was Kobe Bryant with so much real estate on the hardwood floor to execute a rare perfect slam dunk. I though he doesn't do dunks anymore like he used to during the "Shaq/Kobe 3 championships" era from the early 2000's and yes, that score was legit, not some photoshopped screen cap straight out of NBA LIVE 2K-something. By halftime, this game goes worse than worse itself. Lebron, Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Deron "Taper-ass" Williams and the rest of Team USA were just chillin' at the bench being entertained from the score and the game itself, and hell, even the commentators were having a field day. Also Craig Sager from the NBA on TNT was one of the sideline reporters for this game, and that fool was wearing a polo shirt, not one of his loud swagger rainbow suits that he wears every Thursday Night during the basketball season. Again, another rare sight. 

After the first half, I turned it off, feeling all embarrassed and disappointed. I even shut off the Computers and mobile devices cause every one I knew were all surprised about the 50+ point margin difference and talking about it and making jokes about it for a while, including making the front page on the newspaper the following day. But fuck it, its just a game. A practice session. A high school JV basketball game gone bad. That's what I've been telling my little brother about it for two hours (true story) after he got very upset from hearing about the outcome of Team USA versus Nigeria. Again, we suck at basketball. 

So what other stuff happened over the past week. Well, the Air Jordan IV Fire Red colorway dropped last Saturday. I though these were gonna create massive hype similar to the Olympic VII from last month, but somehow, this was a smooth release. I went on Niketalk and the Sole Collector forums to expect people bitching about the shoe being sold out in 15 seconds, but most people there managed to get their pairs. Before I left for work, I went on Nike.com to see the sizes they don't have left. To my surprise, THEY STILL HAD THE BIG SIZES LEFT IN STOCK. From 11-13. I never even planned on copping those IVs, and I already have the Air Jordan IVs in the White/Cement-Grey colorway. 

But that shit on Nike's website was nothing. When I got to the Topanga Mall right when it opened, I stopped by the Finish Line there to see if they had any sizes left just for the fuck of it since I didn't intend to buy this like I stated in the previous paragraph. Place was dead with 5 of their Sales associates just chilling at the cash register counter. One of the sales associates asked me what size do I wear. I was expecting him to say that all of the Retro Fire red IVs were sold out just like in every Air Jordan Retro release, and keep in mind this was 30 minutes after the mall opened. I then told him my size and then he went to the back of the stock room. 

I was shocked when he came out with a pair of Size 12 (yes, that's my shoe size since I was 10, no joke) Fire Red IVs and that assume that this Finish Line, as well as a few other stores here at Westfield Topanga  had a full size run of these kicks minutes after the store opened, which was a first for an OG colorway since late 2007 I believe, otherwise, these would've been gone like the White/Cement IV release I witnessed. By the way, this was the first time ever that the Fire Red IVs were dropped in it true original design without the Lasering and the Mars Blackmon logo from its previous releases. I could've just copped these if I didn't have to buy new work shoes from Payless Shoesource (I got tired of wearing my Black Nike Dunks so I had to get some proper footwear) and some $20+ lunch and dinners the day before. 

Wasn't on instagram (every photographer should have one on their phones to promote their business) the whole weekend that much cause my T-Mobile G2 had no power in it battery and I misplaced my charger until I found it this morning. I had to rely on a cell phone Kiosk upstairs to charge it for 10 minutes which is the most that I can have it charged, but then again, the power went out fast in 15 minutes while I was listening to some MP3s on the device. Whatever. 

Not only did the weekend turned out pale, but it lingered on earlier this morning as well. For some strange reason, my Yahoo Email account (required in order to get a Flickr account) forced me to change my password. Then after I picked up some prints from Samy's Camera, we planned to go have lunch at Islands in Century City, but they didn't have a parking lot and my little brother hated parking on the streets in the westside. So we ended up going over to the one in Porter Ranch instead. It was my first time eating there at Isalnd and I had the Quesadillas while the little brother had the big wave hamburger. That place was really good. I bought him Islands since he's gonna turn 20 one week from now as one of his gifts. 

This whole thing wasn't a negative rant. It looked like it, but just a description of how my week went. I'm already used to dealing with this type of shit, yet its part of life. Thanks for your time reading this, and I'll leave you with this epic photo I took of Scarlett Johannson on 35mm film right after she's leaving her Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony back in May, and I LITERALLY had less than two seconds to capture this on film, and I'm so glad this shot turned out great after I got it processed and developed. (had to make the watermarks large so that some conceded, degenerate asshole wouldn't download it and clain its theirs)

Pulling Some Roots Over The Weekend

I had a rags to riches type weekend. It started out stale on Friday. I was supposed to go to my friend Joanna's graduation in Hawthorne that night, but my uncle and my pops wanted me to cover a wakekeeping event... in Hawthorne. Weird coincidence. So I rode with my family to the event and its been a long ass time since I rode in the backseat with my little brother. I remember when this was a frequent thing everyday back when we were kids, with me and all three of my siblings being squished up in the backseat in every car my parents owned, regardless if its a compact of a full size sedan.

When we got there, my uncle said that I was going to work with these two other Nigerian photographers cause he has to be at another wakekeeping in Torrance (yeah, too many people died recently). I worked with them twice before, but this time, one of the guys wants me to videotape it and he had the other guy take some still shots of it. It should've been the other way around. Throughout the whole time, my back was starting to ache cause I was holding the camera, which is the same exact Canon XL-1 that my uncle has, for almost 4 hours. I had to take quick breaks by sitting down on a chair. At the end of the night, I was compensated $10 for all that work. I'm not complaining. Money is money. I could've let that Ten Dollar bill grow or something, but I needed it for fuel unfortunately. I wouldn't say the event was great, since it was for one of my parents friends who passed away, but the people there, including my pops, were dancing non-stop for almost three and a half hours like an unorganized high school homecoming dance.

Saturday was just nothing. I missed out on my friend D'Ana Spencer's birthday party in Studio City cause some other last minute shit came up. That got me very upset. These things went from driving all the way up to Westfield Valencia Town Center to test drive some cars that Toyota had in their lineup, which was a 2011 Sienna, the new Highlander Hybrid and this Toyota Prius Prototype in which they claim that its a Plug-In electric that has added two Lithium-Ion batteries to give the car more range after one power charge. Its still a regular Prius to me. I've been to many, MANY test drives throughout the year, but this one wasn't like any of them. The test drive for each car lasted for less than 45 seconds, with the total experience turning out to be 1 minute and 35 seconds for all three Toyotas. I could've done that time in ONE car. And what's more worse was that they gave me a free movie theater voucher for the theater right next to the mall. I wish those fuckers knew that I don't like to go to movie theaters so they could give me a gift card to the mall at least. That shit was a waste.

I also gave this one girl a ride to her place in Sylmar when I was there pumping gasoline in my car. It was her and her husband that needed a lift, but all of a sudden, her husband started going postal and say all kinds of mad shit to her. Hell, he even broke up with her RIGHT ON THE SPOT. The girl told me that she's moving to Washington D.C, the nation's capital. I thought she was attractive, well, not too attractive. Just trying to be nice. I wish I was at D'Ana's party instead of doing all that other stuff on that day.

On Sunday, I drove all the way up to the Antelope Valley to help my uncle cover an event at a Nigerian church in Palmdale. One of the members there was getting ordained as one of the Pastors of the church. It was decent, minus all the little kids making a lot of noise. I spent the night at my uncle's place to help him edit some videos and photos.

When I woke up the next morning, my car was all iced up, since I was at the High Desert, which gets really cold during the winter. As I got back to Valley, I decided to go take my car to get it serviced at the Pep Boys in San Fernando since it was the closet on in Sylmar. While I was waiting for it to be worked on, I decided to stroll around the San Fernando Mall. The stores were open, but the strip itself was dead. There were no cars parked and there wasn't that many people walking around. Plus, literally every store was the same thing, selling prom/Quinceanera dresses and tuxedo rentals. That's REALLY competitive. Also, the economy isn't that well, so I can understand why there aren't a lot of people there. I guess it gets jumping during the spring, since most weddings and school dances are around that time. After that I rode to Northridge to go do some Christmas shopping for myself. Just got some shirts and a new electric trimmer.

Later on that night, I rode with my pops to go visit his brother who just came back from Nigeria over the weekend. During the ride, we spent the whole time just looking back and reminiscing when everything was perfect before he split with my mom. I used to ride to church with him back when I was in ninth grade, and we would always have these discussions every week, but that night was the first time we had that in, shit forever. It acted like nothing ever happened, even though I had my differences and constant disputes with my parents for the past few years, but that shit typically happens in families. Its hard to control but you learn from it. Probably the only true meaning of the holidays, not the whole "buying gifts and having that person returning it the day after Christmas" bullshit.

Yeah, I know, a late weekend review. I'm not lazy, but I have to find the right time to type the recap. Speaking of blogs, there's a sure chance that I might be re-starting my website again, only using a different service. That means I'll be typing my posts there and showcasing my photos on the site just like I did when I had my website with iWeb and MobileMe two years ago. I might even have to retire this site also. It'll still be up, but I won't be writing on here. This is still in the works and we'll see how it turns up. My projection date to launch it is in New Years Day 2011, so I'll have plenty of time to map this out.

Oh yeah, before I forget, FUCK YOU TIME MAGAZINE FOR MAKING MARK ZUCKERBURG PERSON OF THE YEAR! And fuck that rich billionaire bastard Mark Zuckerburg. I'd rather see one of the Kardashians or some annoying Youtube breakout sensation win that instead of him. Shit, I might quit Facebook to focus on the site I'm working on more than that social networking piece of shit. That's something Taylor Swift could've pulled off last year. Man, I totally ran out and can't think of more cuss words for this.

My country 'tis of those

I haven't been there since 2003, and it looks like I wont be going there for a while. Plus my Passport expried

Heidi Samuel?

No. Hell fuckin' no. Abosuluetly no.

with another kid on the way, along with Adriana Lima's cherry all ready popped, the Victoria's Secret fashion shows in the future will never be the same

And don't get me started on Seal's roots (full name is Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adelo Samuel). We're both from the same country. The guy ended my job as a paparazzi last year.