So it was 4:19 AM on January 7,2010 and I was up, not doing the unusual. Reading whatever it is i like to read online in the wee hours of the morning–best time to read, it provides true clarity. But, this night was a little unusual, i did my  rounds at one of my favorite spots online, Twitter ( I guess with close to 14,000 tweets, that’s no secret).

Doing the slightly mundane task of going through my tweets ( For the unfamiliar a tweet, for me anyway is materializing your thoughts in 140 characters or less and broadcasting it for the world to see) expecting to see much inanity at this hour, but out of nowhere i saw this tweet from a friend of mine. “Ok guys Renée is having labour contractions! We’re going IN!”

That tweet, albeit in 140 characters or less provokes so much emotion, for me and ESPECIALLY for the person who is actually experiencing  it. It really let’s you appreciate how different the world is now and how much we should appreciate it because 10-20 years ago him letting literally millions of people know instantaneously what was happening would be impossible, it also had me thinking. With the plethora of children born each day, each month and each year the thought of a child making it’s way into the world would become somewhat of a familiar feeling to all of us, but it can never be this way for experiences of this nature i.e having your first child, Sex, Graduating from High School, your first job etc you can never truly appreciate until you EXPERIENCE IT. That to me is a GREAT thing, for no matter how many articles you read how many experiences people relate to you or how many videos you watch you can never really Comprehend or Appreciate as i call it “The Simple joys” of life until you experience it.

The world can be good, and so can the people in it. Congratulations on becoming a Dad Samuel, enjoy everything that comes with it, all the best to you and your wife.

Simple but seemingly complex and unique feeling for us all.

As Sextus Propertius was known for saying , (not sure what it means, but it definitely sounded like an awesome blog title at the time)…or simply “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”, but does it really? The world may never know. Anyhow, moving on to less mundane stuff

Was i missed? If I’m to go by Google’s web analytics then yes, i was indeed missed ( My blog has seen a 5% increase in hits in the last couple of months) , and you know that makes me feel all warm inside ( Maybe it was My post about Miss kitty, Love you Chic,  but i still don’t see you doing anything about your weight, work on that will you). It was only a temporary hiatus though i had no real reason to stay away, i just found it very hard to do a paragraph or more for the last 2 months, blame Twitter ( Follow me, i tweet as much as i talk, and that’s A LOT).

Anyhow it’s Christmas, alas i probably wouldn’t have remembered if  it wasn’t for those annoying lovely children singing the Christmas claro ad every 5 milliseconds on tv and radio…seriously; my fellow Jamaicans seem to share the same sentiments also .  It’s really nice ad though you can’t help but sing along with it, it has this get happy and go feeling to it ( Especially the little girl with the absent incisors, how original, I’m sure many people had a collective “aww” while watching),  makes a guy want to go out and get a claro device, but seriously i think this  CAN  be considered child labor. If you observe  the little girl at 37 seconds into the ad you’ll see how long she held that note for…that’s preeeetty impressive ( and hard, just ask Denny). My favorite claro ad of all time though is this. Congrats to Admark Jamaica for the good work, and no dammit I’m not being paid, and this is not a sponsored claro post or anything of that nature….well maybe, but why would it matter.

Anyhow, i have some cool things planned for 2010, keep an eye on my blog, have a Great Cashmas Christmas and Wonderful New Year ( Full of taxes, and very hungry people).

P.S Tell me my new blog theme is awesome, make me happy.

This started out as a facebook status update, but ended up being a whole blog post.

It has been boggling my mind for quite some time now and iv’e tweeted the question just to see the type of responses i would get. I’ve mentioned it in conversations with  women  and i’ve come to the conclusion (however misguided it may be) that the Samson Delilah Story is a good analogy and an overall good representation of what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man.

The man ,  how “powerful” he may seem while the women is perceived as the inferior and is faced with a plethora of “misfortunes” throughout life; from being agonized with menstruation each month; and when you’d want to think she’s free from menstruation  pain she’s either pregnant ( 9 months of all sorts of extra pain.  It’s as if the Gods are intentionally punishing our beautiful women) or she’s reached the point where she’s faced with menopause ( and that’s another hot mess) etc.

Now let’s explore the Samson and Delilah story for a minute:

I would like to think i’ve expounded on my point enough for their to be total clarity but if not you can always drop me a comment so i can elaborate.

Women are beautiful wonderful creatures and i love them , alas the battle of the sexes rages on!

It makes you really wonder who is the stronger of the two.eh?

“You see, Samson was judge over Israel at the time and had been taking out great vengeance on the Philistines—but that’s another story. Hoping to capture him, the Philistine leaders each offered Delilah a sum of money to collaborate with them in a scheme to uncover the secret of Samson’s great strength.

Using her powers of seduction and deception, Delilah persistently wore down Samson with her repeated requests, until he finally divulged the crucial information. Having taken the Nazirite vow at birth, Samson had been set apart to God. As part of that vow, his hair was never to be cut. When Samson told Delilah that his strength would leave him if a razor were to be used on his head, she cunningly crafted her plan with the Philistine rulers.

While Samson slept on her lap, Delilah called in a co-conspirator to shave off the seven braids of his hair. Subdued and weak, Samson was captured.”

However uncanny  the story and my analogy  may be  it really shows you how easily a woman can dominate/conquer the perceived “stronger one”, with relatively great ease.

I don’t know what’s worse; thinking being fat is cool or calling it “fluffy”. I don’t get it, how can being fat be cool? I’ve never heard of someone who can’t lose weight, I’ve heard of cases of people weighing 600 pounds and more and they have lost the weight, so there is NO EXCUSE. It takes great will power to exercise and be healthy, but it’s worth it.

I think the easy way out is to put up this facade, pushing being obese as something worthwhile, something that can sometimes be inevitable and you should feel proud to be big. Honestly, that’s crap. Sure, if your fat you shouldn’t be embarrassed of yourself, shit happens, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard to lose the weight, being fat has no advantages  it only leads to sickness; commercializing it as something “cool” does the country nothing but harm. Just to prove a point I did a Google search on diseases one gets from being fat

Some Implications:

• * type 2 diabetes
• * coronary heart disease and stroke
• * metabolic syndrome
• * certain types of cancer
• * sleep apnea
• * osteoarthritis
• * gallbladder disease
• * fatty liver disease
• * pregnancy complications

So, still “fluffy” eh?

I didn’t stop there, i did a search on “diseases one gets from being slim” I’ll let the results speak for itself; i’ve never heard of someone getting sick for being HEALTHY, being overweight is not healthy, unless I’m an idiot and it is now healthy to be fat.

Being overweight can cost a country millions in health care dollars, please save Jamaica, lose some weight.

I felt the need to write this article after seeing Stunner’s post and the responces it recieved after my comment.

Ms.Kitty i think your a wonderful, bubbly lady with a colorful personality, but please, cut it out, stop fooling yourself and others, being fat is not cool, plain and simple. it’s  unhealthy, uncool and definitely not sexy. Instead of endorsing obesity, endorse a health campaign and start a program, call it “My road to a slim and trim” body.

You tell me, does this look sexy, HONESTLY ( Even after being airbrushed in photoshop)

With that said, i need to lose some weight myself, i feel like i’ve put on a few extra pounds this summer, sorry the truth can sometimes be an insult, but somebody had to say it.

The interwebs has been going crazy the last couple of days with the apparent leak of the new Blackberry Messenger, more commonly called “BBM”. A lot of people have been successful with loading it onto their berries while many have had no such luck.

The initial way of loading the leaked Blackberry Messenger 5 onto your blackberry was through the Desktop Manager (DM) but the Over the Air Method (OTA) followed soon after. I tried both DM and OTA , the latter being the successful way for me. A lot of people have asked me for help so i thought it prudent to just do a blog post, so the lowdown:

• BBM 5 is leaked therefore it’s possible that it may screw up your blackberry, So Ensure you do a backup through Desktop Manager

• If you have very little knowledge about your blackberry, it’s best you wait until the official release and not get caught up in the hype of having the leaked version

• BBM 5 DOES work on blackberries not running  OS 5.0, it also runs on Berries running the 5.0 OS.

• BBM 5 is compatible with MOST blackberries excluding the pearls and earlier versions, it’s compatible with the curve, bold, tour,storm etc.

So less talking and more links ( Courtesy of Blackberry News) – these are links to the OTA method, just visit them from your blackberry browser

BBM5 for OS 4.5 (83xx)

BBM5 for OS 4.6 (9000)

BBM5 for OS 4.6.1 (8900)

BBM5 for OS 4.7 (95xx)

BBM5 for OS 4.7.1 (9630)

BBM5 for OS 5.0

BBM5 for OS 5.1.0

The 4.7.1 OTA will work on 8900/9000 OS 5.0

Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for any damage done to your blackberry, you do this at your own risk.

I’m willing to help anyone who asks through the installation and troubleshooting just drop me a comment on this post. And please remember to backup your Blackberry, there’s a strong possibility that you might just lose your BBM, and may need to do a fresh installation of your OS.

We are “brothers & sisters” in Christ, but when we are in a sticky situations and it’s a matter of saving our own lives we become inhumane, uncivilized fuckups. Personally, i think humans are as wild as hogs in a pen trying to make there way out, we are selfish and inconsiderate and live under this facade of having some sort of empathetic/sympathetic nature. The only thing that sets us apart from that wild hog is that we do a good job at hiding our animal like nature with formalities and unwritten rules. With ties, business suits and schooling et al.

This is not something I’ve deduced over night, but rather something I’ve noticed and mused on for quite some time. We treat each other like shit in tight situations and that is when the animal starts to rare it’s ugly head, it’s unsightly.

Yesterday, coming from work i was in one such situation, which more or less confirmed my thoughts. The bus that i was in apparently had issues, halfway into the journey it started to have this weird burning smell, the Driver somehow lost it and colorfully said “THE BUS A BURN,RASS” at which point he stopped it, ran out, leaving us inside to unleash the survival animal. That VERY moment was where it was every man for himself, as everyone didn’t want to get blown to shreds ( how? ) everyone started to wrestle there way out of the cramped up metal…like pigs trying to fight there way out of a pen. They were all out before i could spell my name backwards, i wasn’t in all that haste and was pushed out of the bus, but only to cater for those who wanted to get out.

Nobody cared about the other, nobody stopped to see if anybody needed assistance, no..no one looked back. It’s one of those sad human moments, and i bet my last dollar that the naive Christians in that Bus call themselves Brothers and Sisters in Christ. They panicked, and panicking causes impulsive decisions. I wonder how they’d feel if that one moment was videoed and could have been played back for them to see.

Obviously you have the odd exceptions where one would lay there own life down to save another, wanting to feel heroic, like that protagonist in that one movie they watched.

Me? I’d lay down my life for someone i love and treasure, but maybe I’m a sadistic bastard who doesn’t value my own life. So, people are quick to throw it out there how they love this friend and that friend, but is that person really a friend? Would YOU lay down your life for that friend? If not, is that person really a friend? Do you really value them?

For most it’s a dog eat dog world; every man for themselves.

It’s sad how most people complain about life, it’s hardships and have no hope for the future; but don’t want to see there own life end. They’ll do what they must to survive. If that bus could in theory blow up yesterday, then i think it would be a valid reason to lose your life…it would not be considered suicide but a “freak accident” and maybe you’d end up in “Heaven” wherever that is and whatever Heaven is to you. Maybe I’m a sad person yesterday for not wanting to live, but rather thinking how an explosion would feel…if it would hurt, because i don’t like pain.

Via, Flickr by janet