JamesSlusher.com

I received my CDs from Myriad Studios. The first one I have listened to is J-High’s Response-Ability. Since I am always pimping Rev1 and his cohorts to y’all, I feel a certain response-ability to give you a review of this CD.

Overall, I like it. J-High has a good strong voice and good flow. His kung fu is strong. The beats are solid, strong and make you bounce your head.

I’m going to start with what I didn’t like, mainly because there wasn’t much and I want to end this post with positives. The Intro, Inter-lewd, and 2 Random A**holes tracks are a waste of time. The first two of those aren’t songs, just J-High cussing at guys in the studio and playing around. I have heard bits like these on a number of albums in my life, but usually they have some point or at least set the mood of the album. These don’t do either and it makes you wonder why he bothered leaving them on there. The third track is a song (he spells it with the s’s, I just try not to put cuss words on the blog), but not a very good one. It really doesn’t fit with the rest of the album much. I’m not sure if he was just trying to lighten the mood a bit or what. If he was just going for a less politically or emotionally charged track, he could have done much better. I’m not going to bust his chops too much over this though. One goofy song is just that, one goofy song. The other 10 tracks on this album are outstanding.

My favorite tracks so far are Why Believe, We Walk From Here and Needs And Wants. These tracks speak of thoughts and convictions that we all struggle with. Needs And Wants might very well be one of the most profound and mature tracks of Hip-Hop I have ever heard. He reminds me of why I became entranced with Hip-Hop in the first place. He also shows what it can be when you aren’t spending your time rapping about how much money you make rapping about how much money you make.

The kid has talent, no doubt. J-High does what Nas wanted to do before he sold his soul for some rims and a red leather outfit. I recommended this album just from listening to a few tracks on the ‘Net. I’ve heard the whole thing now. I guarantee you want it. Go get it.

My next review will be of the Real-Eyes album, Scholars Of Tomorrow.

It’s been a long time since I posted a gratuitous picture of Emily:

How about another one?

Marilyn and I have been seriously considering submitting pictures of Emily to some modeling agencies in Atlanta. I know every parent thinks their kid is the cutest in the world, but we get complete strangers going out of their way to tell us how beautiful Emily is. I’m not sure I want her turning into some sort of child star, but if she did a few modeling gigs it might help defray some of her college expenses someday.

We went to clean my late Aunt Christine’s house out today. A bunch of stuff is just simply being donated to the Salvation Army, including things I would love to have but simply would not do anything but clutter up my house.

One set of things that I simply couldn’t donate was this collection of David Cassidy/Partridge Family books plus a David Cassidy Jigsaw puzzle. Somebody wants these, I’m sure. So I’m Ebaying them. We will see if they fetch anything. I thought at first that it was for sure, but after doing a quick search on Ebay for “David Cassidy” I see there is a lot of available stuff. So maybe it will sell for a pittance or not at all.

In a “News Of The Weird” vein, the dude that sold us our Honda Accord in 2001 got busted the other day for running a meth lab in his Grovetown home.

We went to look at the Honda Accords that my wife really liked back in 2001. Her beloved Camry was 10 years old and was showing it. So we went just to look and think about what kind of car we might get her.

When we got there, Rick Gonsalves met us in the parking lot and asked us which Honda we were interested in. We pointed out a black EX. He then asked me how much I wanted to pay for the EX. I thought this was a little odd, since they don’t usually open up the negotiations this way, but what the heck.

$18,000. Thats what I wanted to pay.

“Oh, no. You must meant the Civic for that price.”

“Noo. I want the Accord EX for $18,000.”

$18,000 was way under the sticker price, but in my mind, the bar had already been set. If instead of asking me what I wanted to pay he had just said that he could get me an EX for say $20,000, I would have gone for that. But now a price was fixed in my head and I wouldn’t accept anything else.

To make a long story short, 9 hours of negotiations later(!), I had a very tired salesman, a pissed off sales manager and an EX for $18,100.

And now Rick has been caught running a Meth lab. That explains alot though.

So I took a vacation day Monday and worked around the house, now I’m going in on overtime tomorrow even though I’m bushed.

I’m a tard.

Emily says “Hi” to everyone.

Okay, it’s done and I think it turned out really well. I need to paint the fascia again and spray some matte black paint on the vents, but it looks much neater and cleaner. I’m ready for the outside of the house to become as pretty as the inside has become.

So the roofers showed up today. I was already at work so they just did their thing. Marilyn drove past just to make sure that they were here. They got about 2/3 of the way done and things look pretty good so far.

So when is the other shoe going to drop, you might wonder. I’m glad you asked. He called the house tonight (originally talking to Marilyn because I was still at work, and informed us that because there were two roofs (layers of shingles) that it was going to cost extra. He said it was costing him an extra $600 but he was willing to split it and eat $300 of it.

I was pretty pissed at this point. He should have known there were two roofs on the house. I knew there were two roofs on the house. I’m no roofer.

So basically I negotiated with him for a bit, expressed my displeasure with the whole thing and agreed to pay him the extra labor if he would also replace all the fascia on my house that was rotten. That is a deal I like much more. I figure we both got more of what we wanted this way and both gave up more than what we wanted to this way. I guess that makes it a decent compromise. I don’t know. Marilyn is still pretty pissed, though.

Determined to not let a vacation day be squandered, I went out to the shed to solve my clutter problem. I didn’t get finished, but I made significant progress.

I have this odd little annex on the back of my shed in which I have been keeping scraps of wood, some old furniture pieces, a hollow core door, and leftover whatnots. My table saw, which I really need in the shed proper, was also housed in there.

I removed everything and swept up the dirt and leaves. I decided that I wanted to put the entertainment center out there, but it is too nice to leave sitting on a floor where dirt and leaves get in. So I did what anyone else would do given those conditions. I took the scrap lumber and built a frame, then cut the door down to make a very large shelf. I set the entertainment center up on that so that it would be up off the floor. I also set all my car seats on there to help keep the critters from making themselves at home. I took several of my auto-repair related things and put them on the floor underneath the door/shelf.I replaced everything neatly and repaired the holes on the bottom of the door that were allowing the majority of the leaves and dirt in.

So now I still have the cafe table and chairs in my way, but the table saw is in the shed where it belongs. Another afternoon of divesting myself of excess bs might actually put things right.

But that will have to wait as I have to go to work tomorrow. Or should I use another vacation day? Hmmm.

Goodbye, Johnny

And thank you for this quote, I will try and follow the advice contained therein:

Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.

Did I mention the margaritas at last night’s party? Man, they sure are bouncing around in my head this morning. Hard.

In one of my rare instances of foresight, I called my crew leader yesterday before the party and asked to take a vacation day today. It is almost completely wasted as it is now 8 A.M. and, except for nursing a slight hangover, I really have no point to be home. Well, the roofers are supposed to be coming today. I’m getting a bit skeptical about that, though. We will see.

If they do come, I’m sure all the banging about on the roof won’t make my hangover any harder to bear. Heh.

Oh, God.

UPDATE: 9:30 A.M. I get “the phone call”. He ain’t coming. Again. I know he does good work, he sided my Mom’s house, but this is his last chance. I haven’t handed over a dime yet. If he doesn’t do something tomorrow, I won’t hand over a dime. People often remark at how much work I’ve done on my house. The fact of the matter is, I wouldn’t have done a fraction of this work if I could find a dependable contractor. I’m not sure that any exist. I get the feeling that most do it because they want to “make their own hours”. Meaning that they want to sit around in their underoos most of the time.