Making my money work longer and stronger

I get a lot of emails. Probably 500 a day.

No, I'm not important. Not at all. I'm quite dull, unattractive and apparently I'm about to be absolutely loaded and my penis stopped working.

Judging by all of the emails I get a day from Mustapha Fukameli of Sudan, I am heir to a large sum of money from my African cousin that just died or will die or was killed in a terrible hippo accident. I can't remember how exactly I will get my money. I usually delete the email two sentences in. Perhaps I should pay more attention. I could use some more cheese in my pocket.

And my penis? Well, that is a sensitive subject. Please pray for me. I'm getting bombarded with all of these medicine emails to help me with my problem. Apparently the senders don't realize that awaiting baby number three.

I think my junk works fine, thank you.

My good friend "Harley" sent me this email about this magic cure-all pill. I think we are good friends because he seems so confident about talking about such a sensitive topic. So, thanks Harley. Glad we caught up.

If you receive an email from me, I promise to not talk about either topic with you. I guess you aren't as good of a friend as Mustapha and Harley are to me.

I want to do hood rat things with my friends

Straight gangsta. Take that dude's video games for a whole weekend.

April rewind

I kind of suck at this whole blog thing.

Who has the time for these things anyways? What was I thinking when I signed myself up for this? Who knows really. Peer pressure I suppose. Well, no, that isn't it. I never smoked pot. Peer pressure can't crack me, the uncrackable. Besides, pot stinks. I'm already fat enough. I don't need to snack on Cool Ranch Dorritos after hitting the bong.

Enough of my non-drug existence. Back to the blog.

So I've toured three of America's most interesting cities. Hampton, Virginia is a fine little city on the coast. Okay food, good weather when I was there and amazing basketball. The most exotic food I ate was at this cool little deli. Little did I know that Jason's Deli is a major franchise that has stores in nearly every state in the U.S. of A. I'm an idiot. Throw in my red convertible Ford Mustang as my rental car and I felt like I was some frosted highlights away from being a true life version of my gay alter-ego Stefan. Fantasy almost met reality folks. That's friggin' scary.

Fayetteville, Arkansas was my next stop. [Enter joke here.] Screw you, that's a cool little piece of the South. Other than landing in a cow pasture in the middle of nowhere, Northwest Arkansas is a fun little town. The University of Arkansas was my main destination and I love being on a SEC campus in the spring. Just a great vibe. I almost wanted to go back to college. Nevermind. Screw college, the most overrated part of anyone's life. The Common Ground is my go-to spot every time I am in Hog Country. It's a little coffee house with an artsy vibe. Very Portland-like. You know I like me some Portland-vibe. The chipotle chicken pizza is a fine, fine choice if you ever pop your head into this little slice of heaven.

Finally, capping off my month was a trip to America's playground - Akron, Ohio.

There really isn't a need to comment, is there? It's friggin' Akron. I ate at Subway four times. That's culture folks.

Speaking of culture, I bought a new book, "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. So far, so good.

New additions to the iPod included:

New R.E.M. CD "Accelerate" (Just okay)

Two songs from The Dandy Warhols from "Welcome to the Monkey House" (The Last High and We Used to be Friends) The Last High is the gem

Some new to me but old to the world Johnny Cash

A Spoon song "Anything You Want" (jam)

A Strokes song "On the Other Side" (even bigger jam)

Tristan Prettyman's new CD "Hello" (hey, I live with women.)

I'm off this weekend from the road. My brother Aaron is getting married. Weird. But oh so cool. The entire family will be back in the ATL this week. That will be fun. I'm sure there will be a fist fight. We're redneck like that. Or maybe I am just a gangster.

The road show will be local after the wedding. Work keeps me in town for a while. My next trips are to North Carolina, L.A. and New York City. That's a nice sampling of America if I say so myself.

Any suggestions on a new book to read or any new music is welcomed.

Don't worry, I already have Celiene Dion's greatest hit(s).

My heart won't go on

Death might have been better.

Filing taxing would have certainly been funner.

Listening to the newest Snow CD (you know that super ghetto white rapper from Canada that gave us the gem "Informer" in the 1990s) might have been more rewarding.

I was in Akron, Ohio last weekend and, no, that isn't why death, taxes and licking a boom boom down wouldn't have been more pleasurable although it could come close.

Instead, I had the luxury of having Celine Dion in my life all weekend. She was playing on the intercom in the Canton-Akron airport the minute I stepped off the plane. I was ready to go home right then and there. She was playing on my radio in my rental car the minute I turned the key. She was playing on the Muzak in the lobby of my hotel. That crazy biznitch was everywhere I was. I couldn't shake her near, far or wherever I was.

I heard all of the hits. I almost went out and bought a sequined shirt and learned French. That woman moves me. I'm almost brought to tears when I hear her angelic call.

Dion is a talented singer. Doesn't her lifelong Vegas contract prove that? Doesn't the hordes of women from South Florida that look like dried up Gucci bags that worship her prove her dominance in the worldwide sphere of modern music? Of course not. That's why we have to be subjected to her Top 400 hits on the radio wherever we go.

Please. Her reign must end.

Besides, I can't wait for the new Snow Greatest Hits tape to come out. I'm so buying it.

Soundtrack for Boo Williams

As you know, I'm a frequent traveler and I'll be honest, I don't really like to talk to you, guy next to me that wants to talk about your accounting job. I really don't. And I don't want to tell you about my job and why I'm going to where I'm going.

That's why I love the playlist.

I'm off to Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Hampton this weekend for work. This is my 19-song playlist for the trip.

Enjoy.

Burger King got Puffy

My Whopper was delicious, as you'd expect it to be. The grill marks were ever-present. The onions were crispy. The mayonnaise doused the bun. Pure deliciousness. And then there was my Sean John cup.

I swear to you.

The rap mogul apparently has gone into the fast food cup design field. Why not? He's already capitalized on a war with the dead Tupac Shakur (someone tip a 40 for him), a clothing line that is easily reproduced and sold on the black market, over-hyped restaurant, horrible reality television shows and I'm sure his own energy drink line.

Sean Jean is taking over our world. Fo sho.

What's next? The Jay-Z gas pump? The Snoop Dog recyclable grocery bag? The KRS-One encyclopedia line? (That's old school, kids.) The Soulja Boy action figure? (I spelled Soulja right. I looked it up.)

I had to look at my cup for a long time to truly believe what I was seeing. The dollars and cents world of advertising , cross-branding and tying entertainment, if that is what you want to call Sean Jean, aka Diddy, aka Puffy, aka Puff Daddy, aka Sean Combs, has now truly been taken over in the pleasurable experience of consuming 39 grams of fat.

How depressing is that? I can't even clog my arteries without being fed, literally and figuratively, the propaganda of today's advertising age.

I won't buy a Sean Jean shirt, a Puff Daddy tape (that's old school, kids), eat at Justin's (a restaurant owned by Combs) or watch one of his many bad television shows on MTV, you know that channel that claims to be a "music" television station.

In fact, the Sean Jean cup may lead me in another direction. I might pass on eating the 39 grams of fat for another heart weakening wasteland.

Maybe they'll have a Dave Matthews napkin line. That would be sweet.

Dominoes and Roy

The dominoes have tipped.

Marquette head coach Tom Crean to Indiana. Western Kentucky head man Darrin Horn to South Carolina. Sean Sutton is out at Oklahoma State.

The sky is falling. Indiana has a legitimate head coach (finally) that can really recruit (minus the phone calls). I wonder if he'll bring his tanning bed to Bloomington with him. Crean is the tannest person in Milwaukee. I can promise you that.

Who gets the Marquette job now? I'm sure Anthony Grant, Virginia Commonwealth's head man, to be mentioned. Isn't he in the running for Cal, Sacramento State, NJIT, Western Kentucky, the New York Knicks, the Shamrock Rovers and the Marietta Baptist Wednesday night over 40 league, too?

Horn and his Hilltoppers danced their way to the Sweet 16 this year in the rather boring NCAA tournament. He will now take his march through March to Columbia. Finally, some personality in the SEC East.

The Sutton era is over at Oklahoma State. Billy Gillispie to Stillwater? That's one rumor. Expect that job to create a lot of buzz in the political convention, er lobby of the host hotel in San Antonio during the Final Four.

Over the next couple of weeks we'll be hearing about this coach looking at this job or that job. Every time I hear of coaches looking at jobs I think of good 'ole Roy Williams when he was at Kansas. CBS reporter Bonnie Bernstein asked Williams about North Carolina after his Kansas team lost in the NCAA tournament. His response was classic live television.

Roy's North Carolina Tar Heels, you know the ones he could give a shit about, are playing in the Final Four this weekend in San Antonio.

You're gonna be famous, Amos

Amos Lee, one of my favorite put-on-the-iPod-on-a-Sunday-afternoon musicians, will release his third studio album on June 24. It is titled Last Days at the Lodge. The release date is also a day before Sarah and I's anniversary. Fitting.