Boyz in da Hood

During a soon to be drunken conversation in the pub a few days ago, we somehow got on to the topic of gangs and in particular, gang colours or signs and how ridiculous they can be.

About 11 years ago I was in Florida. One night I was walking down the street at Church Street Station, (CSS from now on,it's a street but it is called station for some reason). Back then this area was full of bars and clubs. It's avery long street and it is my understanding that one end of CSS was quite a rough area full of gangz, (I believe that is how 'G's' would spell it).

So I'm walking along with Vinnie Mac on my right, his name is Vince but back then Vinnie Mac would probably been his gangsta name, before I go on I should point out that, as Mr J has slightly dark skin, most people in the States assume that I am hispanic and quite often start speaking to me in Mexican or Chicana or whatever the fuck language it is they're using. I normally let them say everything they have to say before putting on the most cockney voice I can and saying, "WHAT?" lol.... so back to the tale... Me and Vinnie Mac were walking down the street this night heading to a nightclub, I was wearing the standard baggy jeans and an American football shirt and my fitted cap on backwards cos y'know, I'm a gangsta too like...




Parked on the side of the road was a car, the type with the hydraulic suspension, also known as Lo-Riders or Lo-Lo's, and sat upon the bonnet was an Ese with his two, (ugly), bitchez or 'hoochies'


This is what would be known as an Ese or a Vato...


Here's another one.


Vinnie Mac with his Bitchez in Da Hood

As I approached the Ese started staring at me, not in a good way, more of a "What tha fuck?" kinda way... of course this made me feel uneasy but I always think in any city you should act like you know what you're doing, so I kept his gaze fixed... well luckily for me, we walked on with no trouble and walked up to a bar, as I approached the door there was a giant man beast of a bouncer, unlike bouncers here in England, I found that the ones in the US know that they're big and could crush you so they're not unfriendly, ours are generally wankers who just need to feel some kind of power. So the bouncer says to me, "Can you turn your had around please sir?" I said, "Excuse me?" He repeated, "Can you turn your hat around please sir?" so in typical Mr J fashion I said, "Why?" and he said, "Sir if you do not turn your hat around you can not come in here, (and I might kill you)", ... ok that last bit's a lie but he did say I wouldn't be allowed in. Well I turned my hat around and in we went... this happened at other bars and at the night club.

So the next day we're at the pool bar talking to Rory the pool bar guy. Rory used to give us information about everything and so I asked him about wearing my hat backwards to which he responded, "Oh man, you do not wanna wear your hat backwards around there man, it's a gang sign in the area!" I was like, "Huh? What are talking about a gang sign?" He said, "Yeah if the wrong person saw you, you could get shot for that." Nice to find this out now as I had been in a 'Hood' area a few days before with my cap backwards.

I mean seriously, what? I can kind of understand, and I use that loosely because I think all the gang colour shit is stupid but I can kind of understand people like the Bloods wearing red or the Crips wearing blue or The LA Lakers wearing yellow and purple but wearing your HAT backwards? What is this gang called? The Hat Backwards Gang or THBG? "Yo man, I is a crip dawg, what click is you from?" "Yo homie, yo homie yo homie yo, I is from Da Hat Backward Gang! I is gonna pop a cap in yo ass biyatch!" Seriously? What kinda twat came up with that rule?

And you know, people actually get killed cos they wore the wrong colour on some random street, and these Gangsta's who OBVIOUSLY are rather unintelligent, feel like they're being "dissed" by Joe Shmo walking down the street in his favourite GAP t-shirt, just because it's not their favourite colour.

Unfortunately we can't just put this down to Yank from the hood thickness because now kids in the UK are copying them:

Excerpt from an article on www.timesonline.co.uk


"There seemed to be no obvious reason to pick on the teenage boy who was leaving the Tube station in West London. But within seconds he was being encircled by a group of young lads who forced him, at knifepoint, to take off his clothes before they allowed him to go on his way.


By the appalling standards of knife crime in London today this incident may not be classed as particularly shocking. Until you consider this: the hapless teenager was targeted because he was wearing a blue shirt. And in this particular sliver of London, this gang's chosen colour is, apparently, red. Wearing the wrong colour in the wrong territory smacks of disrespect - even if you were not aware of the “rules”. "

Ok kids these days don't really make the future of England look to rosey in general, most of them are filthy little scrotes that think they're bad asses anyway but starting on some random kid because he had a blue t-shirt on is just stupid. I think it's time for the police to hit these gangsta types harder. They like to play with knives and guns and wear their gangs colour so why not let them, round them up and ship them out to the front line in Afganistan. Why should our real soldiers be shot at first, stick these kids on the front line and let them shoot at a target that shoots back whilst wearing their new cammo gang colour. Then we'll see how tough they are as they act as human shields for are real heroic soldiers!

The Yanks should do the same thing.

Dreams: The Dead Emporium.

To sleep, for chance to dream.

I snoozed repeatedly today. Meandering around the 10 minute alarm break I enjoyed a game of chicken with my walk to work deadline. I am not a dreamer, normally… I am not saying I do not dream, some of my fondest moments of life are spent when my mind un-hinges from my body and I can escape a customer, a benign conversation or sum such. But this dream was too real, not so much an escape from reality but an immersion in something ultra-real. Something that actually drew to a close my game of cat-and-mouse with my arrival at work…



I dreamt I was underwater, with a group of pirate-type cads swimming. It reminded me of Pirates of The Caribbean. I don’t mean the light-hearted and fun swashbuckler of a tale, but more like the slide-show-shit -shovelling 3rd instalment. Anyway, we were swimming underwater towards the underneath of a ship. The hull of the ship was laden with dead bodies, at which point my mind stated, ’hmmm, must improve the structural integrity of the hull’. Odd I know, but I have watched a lot of Star Trek and certain aspects of Mr LaForge’s dialogue seems to have stuck.

It was at this point I realised I could not breathe. I was spluttering under the last ounce of my breath. At this point I looked up to see the surface. It was too far out of reach but I swam as hard as my dream-pirate (presumably without peg leg) body could. After what seemed like an eternity of empty sack of lung-age I reached the surface, gasping. It was at this point I awoke, gasping. I was totally out of breath, breathing as deep from my lungs as possible. Possibly reopening old arenas of my respiratory system that have long closed off to due to tar damage.

Anyway, where has this come from?

I’ve decided to explore various aspects of this out-of -body experience and see if it sheds any light upon the vagueness of my existence…

OK, so, I am gonna explore these: Ships, Pirates, Drowning, Dead bodies. I shall be using www.dreammoods.com to try and explain.

SHIPS:

‘To see a ship in your dream, denotes that you are exploring aspects of your emotions and unconscious mind. The state and condition of the ship is indicative of your emotional state. If it is a cruise ship, then it suggests pleasant moods. If it is a warship, then you are experiencing feelings of aggression.’

Hmmm, so if the state and condition of the ship indicates my ‘emotional state’ then the dead bodies reveal a possible slight cause for concern. I mean, dead bodies I am sure is not a nice sight, but to be indifferent to it and to quote a character from Star Trek to explain its usefulness could prove more worrying.


DEAD BODIES:

OK, so this website seems to not have an answer for this one. Even ‘corpses’ pulled up no results. After trying a few synonyms to get some clarity I was half expecting a link to pop up and put me straight through to either some sort of online confessional or to some sort of internet based custody. But, nothing.


DROWNING:

‘To dream that you are drowning, indicates that you are feeling overwhelmed by emotions or repressed issues that are coming back to haunt you. You may be proceeding too quickly in trying to discover your unconscious thoughts. You should proceed more cautiously and slowly. If you drown to death, then is refers to an emotional rebirth. If your survive the drowning, then a waking relationship or situation will ultimately survive the turmoil’

Balls, bollocks and bloke-bits. Over-whelmed at times, yes.
There is a nice bit at the end which unfortunately due to the word choice of this author makes me sceptical. The writer adds the letter ‘r’ to ‘you’ to make this sentence nonsense, thus making their statement redundant.

PIRATES

‘To dream that you are a pirate, suggests that you are taking advantage of others. The dream may be a metaphor that you are "pirating" something and taking something that does not rightfully belong to you’

Well, if this is the case, then I am sorry and please prompt me if I have ‘pirated’ something from you.

So, a brief surmise of events and meanings there. OK, so I don’t feel the ship is relevant, I am not a pirate and I am not drowning. The only other thing I may need to consider is the vast ark I am building of corpses in the back garden.

Maybe that is it.

My exciting life! :oD

Aaaand so another weekend has passed at double time. I think that from 5:30pm on a Friday time changes, every 1 minute is the equivelent of a normal 2 minutes until Monday comes around again of course. I didn't really do much but time just flew by.

I've been given some pills by my doctor for my acid reflux, so he suggested I stop drinking while I take them so I figured that my gut should drop off a bit without the beer so I thought I'd go on a high protein diet too, surely that would help me to lose some weight? (well it would at LEAST give me really bad farts!). Well it's been 2 weeks now, I'm constantly starving! Saturday morning I was out of food so I went to the supermarket, I stopped off at work to have a protein shake and collect Nattie's car, (for those of you that don't know, Natalie is my Girlfriend and I've been looking after her car while she was on holiday).





I drove to Sainsburys and parked up. Then I took a stroll down to Game. I've been wanting Crackdown on XBox360 for quite a long time, when it first came out I bought it and hated it so I took it back but I've really been wanting it for the past couple of months. So I bought it for £7 second hand... amazingly it looks like a brand new copy :oD So I headed back to Sainsburys and I realised... Watford NEEDS a couple of foot bridges. You see, because it works on a stupid one way system there's a ring road going all around the town, so there's no direct, 'as the crow flys' route to the supermarket, you have to go all the way up the high street, a couple of foot bridges over that damn ring road would make life easier. So now I was forced to walk up the high street with all the fucktards.

What is it with people en-mass in shopping areas? I mean it's obvious why they made Dawn of the Dead about people in a shopping mall, people DO act like zombies. I mean, walking around, unable to go in a straight line, oblivious to their surroundings.


Actual shoppers at the Harlequin in Watford, I took the photo myself, promise.

Have you ever noticed the ones who walk in a group, normally taking up the whole pavement, normally with their stupid kiddie buggies of doom! They use those things like a bloody weapon, or a road safety tester. Well I was stuck behind a group of three guys, one was playing Mother for the day and these three inbreds, it appears, couldn't walk and talk at the sametime, nope, for these freaks of nature, they had to stop dead if they wanted to attempt to communicate with each other... very annoying when they're walking in front of you!



Like these but with a baby buggy of doom.


By the time I'd reached the supermarket, I was pissed off! Thick people everywhere! Now I had to deal with them in store too. So, I wizzed around and grabbed what I needed and then back home.

I made some breakfast, (at 1pm), a lovely 3 egg omlette :o) then I did some washing and had a tidy up. As you can tell, Mr J lives a VERY exciting life. Then I sat down and played Crackdown. I LOVED it, why did I ever take it back?





So I spent the entire weekend on this game, stopping only to make a cup of tea or to eat. I played until Nat came back from her holiday, saw her for like 2 minutes before she went home, apparently she couldn't wait to see me hahahaaa, then back on the game. At about 1am I was on a boss part of the level in a massive gun fight, I ran over to some metal structure to climb up and kill the boss but my character went through the graphic and was then stuck on the inside!!! There was no way out at all, I'd been in this battle for about 20 minutes and now bad programming was going to rob me of my victory! I had to kill myself and lose... at which point I switched off my XBox in disgust, trying desperately to hold back the tears!

At this point I went to bed and watched tv until finally I dropped off, only to wake up with a growl and a "FUCK!" when my alarm went off and I realised I was destined for another week of slavery at work.

And there ladys and gentlemen, was my oh so exciting weekend. It seems I had nothing more interesting to talk about today.

Why couldn't Skeletor defeat He-Man?

Cha cha cha!

While hard at work in my office/Ex-Fortress of Solitude, I began thinking... with all his power and henchmen, why couldn't Skeletor beat He-Man? Was he really a weakling and idiot with a bunch of buffoons as henchmen?


"Oooh I say, you're so naughty He-Man"

I mean think about it, Skeletor was a, (supposedly), powerful sorceror, he had a bunch of henchmen who initially were:

Evil Lyn - An evil and powerful, (sexy), sorceress.



Trap Jaw - A dude with a bear trap for a mouth and an arm that can change into a laser gun, chain saw, flame thrower, hook, fly swat and feather duster, (ok that last one's not true but the fly swat totally is!)


Trap Jaw seen here with one of his mates

Tri-Klops - Uuumm a dude with some kind of hat that has 3 eye holes on it that spin round to the front, each eye does different stuff depending on what you're reading or watching. Some say he can see in three directions others say he can only see from the eye in the front of his face... what a mysterious character. Originally he was supposed to be almost as strong as He-Man.


"GRRRRR! I'm ALMOST as strong as you He-Man!!!"

Beast Man - Basically a big orange ape. Perhaps some kind of Orangutan.


"Ooooh Oooooooh Aaaaaah Ahhhh Oooo!"

Merman - Part man, part..err.. some kind of green fish thing, Merman can swim.


"Glugg blubb blubb bbb"



Compared to He-Man's buddies...

Cringer - Adam/He-Mans cowardly giant talking green and yellow cat friend. When Adam turns into He-Man, he changes Cringer into Battlecat, turning him muscley and brave,luckily.


Uuumm there's loving your pet and...


Man At Arms - Or Duncan as he is otherwise known, Duncan is head of the Kings soldiers and an inventor, he is also Teela's foster father and one of the few people that know Adams... ...secret.



Teela - Teela is head of the Royal Palace Guards, biological daughter of The Sorceress and foster daughter of Man At Arms, she is an excellent fighter and life long friend of Prince Adam although she, like everyone else never notices that Adam looks identical to He-Man.


She's also into bondage.

The Sorceress - Keeper of the secrets of Castle Grayskull and creator of He-Man, (she gave Adam his powers), she lives locked in the castle and appears to He-Man in telepathic visions, I think she also turns into a hawk or something and flys to visit him sometimes.



Orko - Fool, the court jester who does magic badly and also knows Adams secret.



Ram-Man - Ooer... A dude with spring legs and an armour helmet... hehe, he likes to ram things ;o)


And looks somewhat retarded.

Stratos - Part man, part bird, he can fly and wears Blue Stratos aftershave.


"I might look stupid but I smell gooooood"

Ok so He-Man outnumbered Skeletor in the friends department but still, He-Mans friends were like a couple of soldiers and a couple of freaks, Skeletors minions should have been able to plough through them and there were plenty of times when He-Man was alone and this is when Skeletor should have attacked.

Firstly, Skeletor always fought with his staff, (too easy, even for me!), and never used his sword,(oh God, you're killing me here), secondly that staff was a magic staff but the only things that Skeletor ever did with it was fire laser bolts at He-Man! Why didn't he just turn him into a puny child and kill him? Also, Skeletor had Evil Lyn by his side. Skeletor was a powerful wizard, Evil Lyn a powerful witch... so get all your other goons to attack He-Man and while he's dealing with them, (remember, Tri-Klops is supposed to be almost as strong as He-Man), Evil Lyn and Skeletor both cast a nasty spell on him and bust him up! But no... Skeletor was just a weak stratagist with no good ideas for beating a near naked barbarian. He had so many opportunities and yet he never worked out how to beat his foe, who underneath it all was just some pansy Prince who dressed in pink with purple tights and fur pants on the outside of his trousers...



...shame on you Skeletor... shame on you.




Oh and as a special treat, this happened once....

CLICK HERE

Croydon Council Hire Speeding Spies!

What the hell is THIS all about??? Croydon Council want members of the public to SPY on others and shop them to the police if they go over the speed limit!!! Obviously this has outraged a lot of people:

www.croydonguardian.co.uk/

This is an absolutely ridiculous scheme! Firstly, the police should be the ones clocking people for speeding if they really must waste our tax money on this, (personally I think speed limits suck!), if members of the public were to undertake this job it could end up as a total shambles with people getting fined when they weren't speeding... "Oh look, there's that dude I hate... hehehe suck this bitch!"

Also what kind of scum bag would volunteer for this kind of job?


"Err can you slow down please! I'm telling!!"

I mean if you really want to be a traffic Nazi, why don't you just get a job as a traffic warden? That's what most arseholes do!


Traffic Nazi raleigh, within seconds of the driver leaving his car, these guys crept out of the shadows.

One of the worst things about this evil scheme is that, according to the above article, Croydon Council seem to have spent lots of money on it. Well whos money have they spent? That's right, OUR money, your tax money! I don't want to pay for this kind of thing. Just like I don't agree with paying for stupid things like speed bumps, which damage the suspension on your vehicle which in turn costs you more when you have to go and get it fixed, or speed cameras, those evil EVIL watchful eyes of the road, they cause more accidents by drivers slamming their brakes when they see them. I mean, ok, speed limits are fine in built up areas and during the day, but come on, at night on the motorway when it's totally empty, go as fast as you feel safe. Most accidents don't happen because of speeding, they happen because of careless driving:

www.safespeed.org.uk

www.abd.org.uk

Which leads us to....

The Government want to reduce the speed limit!




Check this out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Are you serious? 20mph? If they want you to go that slow, you may as well just walk. Or why not restrict the speed limit on cars? Personally I'd just stop driving if that happened. 30mph is already slow enough but we are becoming such a cotton wool  coated society it's ridiculous. In every part of life we're being wrapped up and cushioned, people of the future are just going to be a bunch of pussies! Already, pretty much gone are the real men, mens men.

"The 20mph zones are proven to save lives and that is especially important when thinking about children and the elderly."

Yes 20mph zones save lives, of course they do because when you get hit it's like running into a woman jogging with two massive air bags on her chest! ;o)

Fair enough if they want to drop it to 20mph around schools, but from 60mph to 50mph in the Country side? Why? For what reason? I'd also like to point out that it's much harder to drive around at 20mph, in second gear... what is happening to this Country? Comments please...

Insects are dickheads

What is the deal with British insects? Why are they all such utter douchebags? (Yes douchebag is an Americanism but it's one I find rather funny. Also I'm not exactly sure how it came about, I mean Douche is French for shower, which to me would literally make it mean 'Shower bag', "Oh my God, that dude is SUCH a shower bag!" Well that doesn't make much sense, according to the Urban Dictionary the definition is, "a word to describe an individual who has shown themself to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing them to the cleansing product for vaginas." Hmmm, if anyone can enlighten me as to how this came about I'd be most grateful. Also did you notice that ALL of this was writen in brackets?).


I've just returned from Thailand where, it is my understanding that there are a lot more creatures that can maim and or kill us than there are in England. However, other than the standard pest that is the common garden fly, not ONE insect attempted to bother me while I was out there. Yes some kind of Hornet, the size of a car, flew past me once and I saw a cockroach on the other side of a room for a moment but none felt the need to be near me! (Ok we're not including mosquito's here because we all know they're arseholes the World over.)

Dangerous Thai insectoids like:


Centipedes that KILL you... or...


Wasps the size of cars, I think this one was attacking some kind of train

Well about 2 weeks before I departed to the sunny shores of the Thai islands I was ATTACKED in the street! I was minding my own business having a conversation with a friend when, for no reason what so ever, a real nasty piece of work wasp decided to land on my t-shirt. As I moved my arm during speaking, the little bastard flew up and stang me TWICE! Not just once but TWICE! Once for "fuck" and once for "you". Then he flew off, no doubt to go and laugh with his chums about the human who was now rolling around in a pool of his own blood!


"I got two words for ya buddy"

Then a day before I left I was walking home from work when I felt something biting my right arm... a rabid spider, (I know spiders aren't insects but wtf, read the story), had jumped out of a tree and sunk his fangs of DOOM into my arm, draining me of my blood. I slapped him off and think I may have made some kind of squealy noise. I thought, 'What the hell is going on?? I'm going to a country with creatures that can kill me and I've been attacked twice in the past two weeks!'

Well then I went off to Thailand and was not harrassed at all.

Then last week after I had been back home for a full week, I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom/Fortress of Solitude when my door BURST open and a giant house spider the size of a small child came charging into my room and ran straight for me and under my leg!!!

Like this...


But like this!



I believe I screamed like a girl and threw my laptop to the ground as I lept to my feet, it seems this big spider wasn't as tough as he thought as he turned tail made for the exit, I had to think fast... I don't like to kill creatures but I was trapped, it was me or him and I needed to send a message. How could I let this pass? If I let it go, other spiders would think they could take advantage of me and I needed to let the Spider Nation know that I'm not gonna take it lying down, I reached for my shoe and beat him until he was no more. Admittedly I felt bad and now I had a dead body to dispose of, I wasn't sure how but eventually I used my shoe to flick him into the hallway so that someone else could remove him. Now I sleep with one eye open and constantly walk around looking over my shoulder... I just have a feeling that at some point an Arachnohitman is gonna be waiting for me in some dark alley.

Beginning with a sad ending...

Aaaaand so begins my blog. I had hoped to start off on an upbeat and somewhat happy note but unfortunately due to the timing of the birth of my oh so wonderful creation, I am instead going to begin with a sad ending.


Sadly two people who were legendary in their respective fields have passed away.

Patrick Swayze and Keith Floyd.

Swayze was best known for his roles in great movies such as Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Point Break and Roadhouse. Patrick bravely fought cancer for two years, working right til the very end. Supposedly on his tv show Beast, where he played an undercover FBI agent, he even refused to take medication as his pain would make his acting more edgy. Lol. Awesome.

Keith Floyd was the first real TV Chef and treated us to an insight of cooking foods from all around the World with his sense of humour and character which made his adventures all the more interesting.

So please take a minute to remember these two men who will live on in our memories and through the media.





R.I.P.

The Return...

Return? Where have I been, you might ask. Well a few years back I did have a small online magazine called The Other Planet. It was just a small thing myself and a few friends created to talk general shit. Well as time went on it died out.

In the past couple of months I've thought about creating a blog... what would it be about? Do I have anything to say? I need to come up with some interesting topics or else no one will read it... ... or do I? Is THAT what my blog needs to be? Or is it the workings or unworkings of a persons mind that makes the read interesting?

Well we're about to find out. Sometimes I'll have a rant, other times I'll ask a question or two and other times I'll find a topic to discuss, I hope that you will comment and participate, it's you that will ultimately make this an interesting read, (I'll just write a bunch of crap here!)

So with that said, I'd like to welcome you to The Other Planet and hopefully my triumphant return to it... you can call me.....

Mr J