It Takes a Village

Malcolm X (right) and grandson Malcolm Shabazz
I was doing a little browsing while I had some freetime in my first class this morning and came arcoss an article about Malcolm Shabazz (Malcolm X's grandson) that'll appear in the May 30th issue of Newsweek. Here's a little segment of that article:

"Malcolm X's grandson didn't get to see the celebrations in Harlem last week honoring his late grandfather's 80th birthday. Not the debut of the exhibit "Malcolm X: A Search for Truth" at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Not the dedication of the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center at the Audubon Ballroom, where his grandfather was gunned down 40 years ago. The 20-year-old has missed many a family event. But in this year of nostalgic reflection, which Malcolm X's family has dubbed "the Rebirth of the Legacy," Malcolm Shabazz is ready to make amends. "I've had a lot of time to sit in my cell and just think," says Shabazz, who is set to be released this summer from Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York. "I know I let a lot of people down. I know people expected more."

Shabazz has spent a third of his life behind bars, first for setting a fire that led to the death of his grandmother, and then for attempted robbery. But the African-American community is ready to forgive and embrace the prodigal son, a young man so haunted by family tragedy and the glare of inherited fame. High-profile friends and admirers of Shabazz's grandparents - including rap mogul Russell Simmons, former New York mayor David Dinkins and actor Denzel Washington - say they plan to support and keep tabs on the heir to one of the most significant figures in African-American history. Washington, who has portrayed the late civil-rights leader on stage and screen, says the reason is simple: Malcolm X's grandson is much too important to be forgotten. "I think we all just want to see him have a good life and get on track," the actor says. "There's a lot of pain that's been suffered by that family, and it's just time to see some healing and better times.""

For the entire article, check out Newsweek's website or the March 30th issue of the magiazine. Feel free to leave any comments.

Playin' with Opera

For those that don't know, there is another alturnative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer for browsing the web. Now, I'm a diehard Mozilla Firefox user, but, my curiosity got to me and I decided to play around with the much talked about Opera browser.

Now, I've only been playing around with the browser for a couple of hours, but, the first thing I noticed about it is how fast it loads up. Typically, it takes about 8 seconds or so for Firefox to load up on my computer and about the same with Internet Explorer. With Opera however, I've constantly counted no more than 3 seconds. That's a big deal when it comes to internet browsing since you're going to want to just get on and find what you want.

Opera also offers alot of the same features that can be found in Firefox, such as tabbed browsing and RSS (news feeds) support. Also, simular to the Mozilla suite that the Netscape browser is based off of, there's an embedded email client and IRC client. However, the email and IRC clienst seem to move more fluently in Opera.

Infact, things seem to more more fluently overall in Opera. From loading pages to switching options, everything seems to flow nicely.

The only problems I've found so far is that Opera doens't read some pages right. I've found problems with ESPN.com's front page aswell as my homegirl STL's page. Other than that, no problems. And my page works fine.

Opera can be found at opera.com and a full list of features can be found at opera.com/features/

Time to focus on me

I'm in another one of those long ass streaches where I either go to class for 6 hours or work for 8. This is the 11th day in a row so far and I'm looking at probley another week at least of this. It's actually to the point where there's times I feel sick I'm so tired. When I'm not feeling sick, it seems every muscle hurts.

It's too the point that my girl and I decided to part ways. It really wouldn't be fair to her if I couldn't give her the quality time the relationship needs, so, this is for the best.

Last night, after discussing all this with my girl, I crashed on the bed, trying to keep awake during the Sonics-Spurs game. Unfortunately, the apartment got really hot to me to the point where I was too uncomfortable to sleep, keeping me up to see my beloved Sonics lose.

So yeah, last night was great.

Well, it wasn't all a loss. Earlier in the evening, I went over to the M&N Sandwich Shop to enjoy some good food and good blues music. M&N specialized in making sandwiches with Italian meats like Italian sausages, pastrami, ect., as well as letting anybody who wants to play music on a given night come by and play. Pretty cool atmosphere.

Anyway, I gotta get some breakfast in me before I grind on off to class.

B.E.Z.

Ready to go home

Once again, I'm blogging in class. Funny how I'm always doing this here and not at home. Right now, I'm procrastinating with making an interactive PDF file. The end result of these things can be cool. It's just the process of doing all of this that I can't stand. All of this is more proof to me that web design is more my niche than anything else.

Anyways, there's more I wanna write today, but, can't do so until I get home. I'll get back in a minute on that...

B.E.Z.

Bananas are evil

I don't know what it is about these little yellow things, but, they do something to the minds of the human race when they go on sale. Case in point: bananas went on sale at my store for 19 cents a pound yesterday and people acted an ass as a result of all of this.

Here's some examples:

• 1. People, especially old people, like to stand 3 inches directly behind you so they can look over your shoulder while you stock the bananas. Why? Because they want to get the "best" bunch right as it comes out. As soon as they see that bunch they like, they cut through you, without saying "excuse me" or "pardon", or anything else of that sort.


• 2. People, especially middle aged women on their way home from work, like to cut in front of me when I'm stocking bananas. Something in their little minds tells them that the freshest bananas are in that particular spot that I'm working, nevermind there's another 10 feet of bananas on each side of me. I had one lady in particular do this TWICE to me. Again, no "excuse me" or nothing. Not only is this rude, but, possibly dangerous. Why dangerous? Because I work fast and there's a possibility of me elbowing someone right in the chops if they're not careful.


• 3. Another thing I've noticed is people that will search for the perfect bunch of bananas. I mean this to the point that they will pick a bunch up, check it for spots, see a spot, and put it down. They will repeat this process until they've found that one spotless bunch. Here's a message to you anal retentive people that do this: God didn't make you perfect, so, why would you ever expect a banana to be?

These are just a few of the things I have to put up with when bananas go on sale. During these times I just hope that one of them is poisoned for simply pulling the cheap crap that they do. I had one man ask me, "Why were the bananas 49 cents yesterday and 19 cents today?". I looked at him with this look of what-the-fuck on my face and answered, "because they're on sale today.". Duh!!!

Then, there's always the people that have to buy 5 bananas every time, so, they'll take a bunch of 6 and rip one off. Again, these things are 19 cents a pound. They literally ripped off 3 cents.

Anyway, this has been my tirade for May 6th.

B.E.Z.