But first, you must watch this to get the joke.

When Cosby was introduced, The Roots played an old reggae song that the truest Cosby show fans would remember; the song in the same video above. Then Cosby went a little buck wild.

It reminded me of the classic episode where Denise’s friends came over to breakdance, which was the deal in 1985. Bill as Cliff, puts his own spin on things.

And then you go down. And I say, “Eh mon!”

It was Malia’s first time at Sea Cliff, though it won’t be her last. I don’t think her mom likes this picture that much, but hey, she was looking a little Japanese because she didn’t like the brightness. But it was the best I could do. Plus, she’s wearing her Giants beanie. Ahem, her NL West winning Giants beanie.

I think the best part of the day was watching my mom and Susie dance and crack each other up. Brian was showing off his moves and they were teaching him some of the old dances. He is also now clearly taller than both, which made it funnier.

I was looking through some of my old posts about Uncle Dave and I wanted to re-post the one from six years ago. My kids were just 7 and 5. Billy was early in his high school years. It seems like so long ago. I think those who shared their stories would probably like to revisit this.

The original post is here: http://roheblius.net/2006/09/to-uncle-dave-stories-from-below/.

From September 14th, 2006:

I asked my kids what they remember about him. Brian was four so he remembers being there in those last days at Uncle Dave’s house. He remembers playing bingo and helping his mom win a Japanese doll and that she was proud of him for winning. JJ was only two and just nodded his head while Brian talked. I asked my sister for a simple memory and she remembered a Lake Tahoe road trip that was taking significantly longer than it was supposed to because Uncle Dave’s van was breaking down. But she doesn’t remember the van breaking down as much as she remembers Uncle Dave telling a story about a man sitting on the back of the bus who crapped his pants. She actually remembers the fun out of that crazy road trip. I thought back and remembered the time when I visited him in the hospital. I didn’t even really want to bother him and he could tell I was a bit uncomfortable. The reason I was uncomfortable was because he was such a man of strength that it was hard for me to see him sick. And the way he made me comfortable was by asking me about my baseball game that I had earlier. I was surprised because at that time, I didn’t care about any stupid baseball game. I cared about him. But he cared about me enough to make me comfortable.

These stories are for Uncle Dave. They are stories from below.

Billy

I remember when I was younger, about 7 or 8 years old, me and my family went over to Auntie Debbie’s house one morning. Apparently, Uncle Dave really wanted fried rice but he wanted his mom to make it like only she could. You know, the good stuff. So she makes it for him and he sits at the table near me. All of a sudden he takes this bottle of ketchup and just blasts the plate of fried rice with it. I’m looking at this like, “What in God’s name is he doing?”

He says, “Here Bill try some.” I say “UUHHH no, it’s cool Uncle Dave.”

He says “C’mon.” But I still say no. For some reason I never forgot that. Maybe because I still have never seen anybody else do that.

Nak

I had similiar story regarding Uncle Dave with fried rice and ketchup. The difference was (that) I tried fried rice and ketchup and it is actually pretty good that way. Everytime that I do put ketchup on my fried rice now, while eating my “brakefast”, I think of Uncle Dave.

Kimiko

We were at Auntie Yolanda’s and I think I was a senior at the time. We were visiting. The whole family was there. It was me, my mom, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Dave on the porch. Joe was going on and on telling me I should really think about my future because, “What are you even doing with your life?” On and on. I love my Uncle Joe but I was getting really pissed. I look at my mom. She says nothing. I look at Uncle Dave and I can see him staring at Joe. Then he said, “What makes you so God damn great Joe? Shit man. What the hell are you doing with your life and you’re old!?” It was awesome. I loved my Uncle Dave so much more than I already did that day.

Edson

It was the first time I’ve ever met Uncle Dave. Actually, the first time I met most of the family. It was Garrett and my sophomore year of high school. We were taking Biology. One of the assignments, basically the biggest assignment of the year was to collect bugs, for a bug collection. It comprised nearly 50% of our final grade. We had 2 weeks to complete our collection. Naturally, I waited until the last weekend to start my collection. We were traveling everywhere with our bug nets and bug gas chambers. We were at Uncle Dave’s house that weekend. I forget what for, probably a BBQ. Uncle Dave looked at us with our homemade bug nets and asked what in the blue hell we were doing. We explained to him our assignment. Barely having met me, he helped me with my collection. He asked what I needed. I said ummm, everything. He said you need a fly, then bam, swatted the air and got me a fly. Though, it was crushed. I think Uncle Dave did half my collection. Every once in a while, since then, Uncle Dave would still ask me about that bug collection. Or as he would say “the sorriest group of bugs” he’s ever seen. Then we would both start cracking up.

Tomiko

One day the whole family was at Cherry Park for a birthday or whatever else we were celebrating. Anyhow, all the cousins started talking about who could run the fastest. All the boys were puffin’ their chests and racing each other up and down the lawn. Well, of course Uncle Dave gets wind of this and wants to get in on it. Little Dave breaks into laughter right on the spot telling his dad that he’s old and can’t beat no one. Uncle Dave challenges him to a race. Little Dave gets his serious face on and they line up. Uncle Dave puts out his cigarete and gets his game face on. (Keep in mind, Uncle Dave is in tight-ish jeans and flip flops, about to race on freshly dewed grass.)

Someone shouts, “Ready, Set, Go!” Us cousins are just laughing our asses off and watching intently as they stay neck-in-neck. Not surprisngly, Uncle Dave beats Little Dave by a few steps. We are all cheering and the cousins are punking Little Dave as he catches his breath while holding onto a nearby tree. Uncle Dave looks unscathed, and barely tired as the smile comes across his face and the famous Uncle Dave laugh erupts.

Billy

I remember one summer I went to Great America with some family. Uncle Dave was kinda upset at first because apparently some of these tickets he had or something were expired. So a little later in the day, we went on this ride where you’re on a raft on the water. It was all bad for Uncle Dave because no matter which way the damn thing turned he always got blasted with water. This just wasn’t his day. He kept screaming things like, “Oh dammit my cigarettes! My cigarettes!” We were laughing so hard.

Nak

This story starts out like all the rest. It was at a family BBQ at Bird park and we were all having some soul food. Garrett and Edson had started to play tennis, and were getting pretty good. They were both talking smack with Uncle Dave, saying that they could beat Dave and I at tennis. Like all the other match ups that Uncle Dave gets me into, I was again ready for the challenge. Uncle Dave and I would team up quite often, against the uncles in many competitions. He knows how to loosen me up and (help me) play my best. He was one of the few people who makes me play better. I don’t recall ever losing a match with Uncle Dave as my partner. As the smack talking was coming from Garrett and Edson, we were walking to the tennis court. I noticed that Uncle Dave was wearing slippers, not tennis shoes. I asked him, “Are you going to be able to run around on the court with just your slippers?” He said, “Don’t worry about it, we got this.”

As we were warming up I also noticed how he held the tennis racket. He was holding it just below the face of the racket, similar to how someone would hold a ping pong paddle. I again questioned him, but this time on how he held the tennis racket. Again, he said don’t worry. We were warmed up and the game was ready to start. I was to serve first, as we got ready to start the first point. Uncle Dave was ready at the net with his his ping pong paddle grip. I crushed a serve at Garrett and to my surprise he was able to hit it back cross court. As I prepared to receive the return, Uncle Dave out of no where came sprinting across the court to smash it back for a winner, slippers and all.

Point after point it was the same result, Uncle Dave flipping and flopping, slippers and all. Garrett and Edson couldn’t get a ball passed him. I don’t even recall getting to hit the ball much. Uncle Dave had taken matters into his hands. Uncle Dave was all over the tennis court and the slippers didn’t slow him down. The slippers made his feet grip the court like a champion. He ran down every shot Garrett or Edson could hit back.

I think we were all surprised how well Uncle Dave could play tennis. The unorthodox style worked. It also had made us laugh. Even Uncle Dave was cracking up. I have never laughed so much playing tennis. Uncle Dave had loosened me up once again, so that we pulled out another big win. I don’t think Garrett and Edson even won one game from us. To this day if Garrett, Edson and I see a tennis court we still reminisce about our tennis match with Uncle Dave.

Tomiko

Me, Kimi and Bill spent a lot of time with Brittanny, David and Nicole as kids, which meant us all being over at Grandma’s often. Grandma would always make us fried rice or okazu and set us all up together at the table. With six grandkids to feed, food was portioned out carefully and there was always just a little left over. We always scarfed down our servings, hoping to get the best, slightly burned part at the bottom of the pot. Low and behold here comes Uncle Dave with his empty bowl not even five minutes after we got our food. We all look at each other with panic in our eyes. Uncle Dave hurriedly fills his bowl and scrapes out all the good stuff. We all scream, “Hey! save some for us!” just as he ruins the fried rice with a mountain of ketchup, knowing we won’t want it now.

We all just laugh as he shoves the bowl in our faces, filling our noises with ketchup and easy over egg. Uncle Dave always made things fun.

If I can summarize what everyone is saying here, I believe it is that our worlds aren’t quite the same without our Uncle Dave in it.

MTV VMA Live Blogs

2011 MTV VMAs: Lady Gaga As The Karate Kid
2010 MTV VMAs: Nicki Badonkadonk
2009 MTV VMAs: Wu-Tang Is For The Children!
2007 MTV VMAs: Timbo And Dre Go Swoll
2006 MTV VMAs: Kanye Was Robbed!
2005 MTV VMAs: We Want Pre-nup!
2004 MTV VMAs: It’s Alicia Keys’ World
1991 MTV VMAs: Funky Like Doo-Doo

Being that I wasn’t able to watch it live this year, I pretty much decided that I wouldn’t do my normal live blog style for the VMAs. I’ll write something entirely different for Mikey’s site on Popblerd!. Out of curiosity, I took a look at how many times I’ve blogged this show throughout the years. I counted eight times. Eight times! From what I can tell, the only time since 2004 that I didn’t blog about this show was in 2008. What was going on in 2008? I wonder if I was on strike from the show for some odd reason. If you look over to the right, you’ll see links to all of my reports of the show. You’ll notice that there’s one from 1991. Yes! I invented blogging. Okay, that’s not true. I actually re-watched a VHS copy of the 1991 show and pretended that I was blogging it live a few years ago. It was funky like doo-doo.

Since I have some kind of streak going, I had to do it. It’s like good blog karma or something. So here we go …

(Before we get there, by showing all my old blogs at once, I’m really showing how often I repeat jokes. I’ll just apologize to Missy Elliott here and now. I really, really apologize.)

5:02: It’s quite possible that Rihanna is the biggest star MTV has for this show. And they usually lead-off with the biggest star (Brit in 2007, Eminem in 2009). No surprise here that she’s hitting lead-off. When Rihanna says that we found love in a hopeless place, is she using the royal we?

5:06: The miniature Kevin Hart is hosting. Give that man a crooked eye and he kind of looks like Bushwick Bill.

5:12: Hart’s monologue ended with how everyone makes mistakes (Kristen Stewart, me and Edward the Vampire are looking at you girl), including MTV for allowing Russell Brand to host (twice!). And then he immediately threw it to Katy Perry. This show is rigged.

5:14: I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but I knew all of but one song which was up for Best Pop Video. And yes, that one song was the one that won. One Direction looks like they should really be called 4 Jonas Brothers And A Mexican Dude.

5:26: Miley Cyrus just showed up on stage to introduce Pink. Annie Lennox wants her hair-do back Miles.

5:32: Chris Brown won an award and came out with platinum blond hair. I’m not sure if he was going with the Sisqo look or Chris Tucker from The 5th Element.

5:39: This might make me a bad music fan, but I liked Frank Ocean better singing hooks on Watch The Throne than I did on his solo debut. My man is too obtuse for me.

5:52: First Nicki Minaj badonk shot. Damn. I hope it’s not the last.

6:02: One Direction just performed and The Wanted are now out introducing an award. Remember when boy bands were household names? I think I’d take 98 Degrees over both of them and 98 Degrees sucked. Word to the homey Nick Lachey.

6:05: Nicki just won Best Booty, beating out Kim Kardashian and Jessica Biel. Okay, she really won Best Female. Probably should’ve won Most Female.

6:13: 2Chainz! He’s now performing. If you think his name is dumb, you should’ve seen him when he rapped as Tity Boi. Also, if Lil’ Wayne sat on Kevin Hart’s shoulders, would they equal a normal sized person?

6:34: It’s Jacob The Werewolf and Edward The Vampire, but where’s Bella The Sap? Hmmm. Oh, and there’s Mr. Kelly Taylor. Too soon?

6:37: What species is Wiz Khalifa? And One Direction beat out Carly Rae Jepsen. I demand a recount. I’d let Carly call me, maybe.

6:44: McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, and the three other less famous girls from the US Gymnastics team introduced Alicia Keys. I’m sad. McKayle didn’t do the “McKayla is not impressed” face.

6:47: Alicia Keys, Miss Katniss Everdeen would like royalties for your new song, Girl On Fire. It was kind of slick to see Gabby Douglass involved in her performance since Nicki Minaj raps a line about Gabby on the song. Kanye’s probably pissed that he didn’t name drop Gabby Douglas first.

6:55: I can live with Rihanna winning Video Of The Year. She’s the biggest star on the stage, save probably for Taylor Swift.

6:58: Speaking of Taylor Swift, she closes the show with We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. Andre 3000 just asked, “Forever, ever, ever ever?”

7:00: Um, that’s all? That was it? This show was shorter than Kevin Hart.

Team Leader?

We’ve taken that hardcore fan perspective to the next level. I present to you, the verbal SF Giants Heat Check! Last night, I called all of the Heat Check members and we brought our prose to your ears.

I first called THE Mary Walton (@themarywalton) to set the tone. We discussed the big Dodgers’ trade and how that affects the NL West race. We also talked about the Giants’ moves (Pence, Scutaro, Mijares).

Then we called Butch Husky (@butchhusky) to talk about the Melky Cabrera suspension and who took the reigns as the public Giants team leader. I also let him speak glowingly about his favorite Brandon Crawford.

Stephen Mar (@realstephenmar) joined the podcast next to talk about the struggles of Tim Lincecum. I then asked a hypothetical question about who everyone would choose to be the 4th starter if the Giants made the playoffs — Lincecum or Barry Zito. Craziness ensued.

Darrin Reyes (@drey2531) came in to hit clean-up and we discussed Brandon Belt, which was another hot topic (specifically the way he was handled earlier in the season). We finished off the show talking about how we became Giants fans and who were our favorite players growing up.

Listen below or right click to download here.

So far, there are two interesting house guests. One is Willie, who is kinfolk to Russell, the infamous Survivor veteran. And it took Willie all of two shows to blurt out that he was Russell’s brother, which will surely hurt him down the line. The other interesting house guest is Frank.

Frank Eudy was the top pick of Mike Boogie’s crew and for good reason. Frank’s a confident dude, has a curly mop on his head, and should be able to withstand the shenanigans and back-stabbings of the house. Why do I know that? Well, his dad was one of the most famous wrestlers of the 1990s who worked in both WCW and WWE (WWF at the time.)

His father is none other than the master and ruler of the world, Sid Vicious (or Sid Justice or Sycho Sid).

After I got over the shock later in the day, I talked to another parent who was chaperoning the trip too and we started to talk about Seau. This parent knew Junior from his days in Southern California. He described him as someone who had it all and then allowed it to go all downhill. I didn’t really know Junior’s story, but immediately thought about concussions and depression and how that may have played a part into Junior committing suicide.

(We are still unsure what happened, but it’s rarely because of one thing. It’s probably a mix of different things that caused him to come to his conclusion.)

A couple of weeks ago, San Francisco Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff left the team for personal reasons, which turned out to be an anxiety problem. He was going through a separation from his wife, one in which he admitted to be mostly to blame for. Both of these situations reminded me about the time I suffered through depression, and for what ever reason, I felt the need to write about it.

Now, this blog has been a place for me to share and probably overshare certain things about myself. I haven’t felt the need to write about and share personal things recently, until now. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it’s because both of those situations brought back some memories that don’t stir all that often anymore.

Depression ain’t no joke.

I don’t remember my emotions getting the best of me when I was younger, except for maybe some sports anxiety when I was 13 or 14. I’ve generally controlled my emotions through keeping a level head and not making a mountain out of a molehill. But when Carol and I separated, I started to feel a real lack of control. I remember trying to hit the gym a lot because I could take this newly found nervousness and at least do something with the energy. But there were also times where I’d find that my heart rate was abnormally high and I really couldn’t stop my heart from beating so fast. Those were scary times for sure.

That kind of nervousness or anxiety or whatever you’d call it lasted until I moved out of the house and it was replaced by a more depressed feeling which was related to not seeing the kids every second they were awake. I’d never really gone all that much time without being around them until then, except for the quick business trip that I’d book to be less than 48 hours. With kids, I was never alone. It was never silent. But away from them, it was always silent. And the silence was really deafening.

Being that it was a fairly new feeling, I really didn’t know what to do about it. I think I’d stopped going to therapy by then even though it was slightly helpful. I just didn’t like to hear myself talk about me so much. It was very awkward. Though I shared some of what I was feeling in my writing at the time, I didn’t really want people to know that I was having trouble dealing with the situation. I couldn’t allow the kids to feel what I was feeling and tried to suck it up whenever they were there. And really, it wasn’t hard. When they were around, I truly was happy. It was just when they weren’t that I could feel myself falling apart.

I am happy to say that I don’t remember the depression lasting all that long. I’m sure it may just feel like a distant memory and it may have lasted longer than I remember, but I figured out how to manage it and haven’t been in that place for a long time.

Whenever someone has talked about being depressed and I’ve been able to give them a bit of advice, I always start with the first rule. Whenever you feel depressed, you have to sit in your bedroom and listen to REM’s Losing My Religion just like Brenda Walsh did when she and Dylan broke up.

Okay, that’s probably the worst thing to do and I apologize for not being able to find the english version.

Actually, here are the things that worked for me (and I totally get that different things work for different people):

• Stay as busy as possible (including working out) – I found out that when I had nothing to do, the depression would set in quickly. The only thing that I would do was sleep and then wake up and be bummed out because I wasted the day. I figured that if I stayed busy with hobbies, I didn’t really have time to fret. I continued writing on this blog, wrote reviews for Epinions, and even opened up a new blog in 2008 (Fight Game Blog) and asked some friends and a few people I didn’t even know well to help me write it. We just passed post number 2,000 earlier today. I also started to get heavier into my interests. If I was interested, I was interested to the 10th power. It wasn’t just about knowledge, but as close to mastery as possible.
• Take on new challenges – I also took a job with Fanbase (and now Nextdoor) in San Francisco where I commuted (and still do) 170 miles round trip three times a week. If I was going to be away from the kids for the most part anyway, being away and forcing myself to have a very long day was much more productive and better for me than to be sitting home alone eating dinner by myself after work. It also helps working on a service that I believe in.
• Don’t turn away friends and family, embrace them – I had a positive support system and they all helped me out even if they didn’t know they were helping me. When you have an Eddy Zucko and a Young Randall, you really don’t need much else. Fine, there were others too. I went out with my sister, her now husband and cousins a lot, coached my kids with my dad’s help, and was with Jessica who helped me feel necessary. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to talk to every day during that time. Positive feedback is so beneficial and when you yearn and search for positive feedback, you’re probably doing positive things.
• All of those things you put off before, guess what, you have time now – Even though my kids weren’t with me all the time, they were around in photos and videos. I really started to have fun editing home videos and shot as much video of them as possible. And now, we do goofy stuff like this:

• Lastly, better yourself through education – Originally, I took Landmark classes because Carol was taking them and she was getting good things out of them. I went in there to communicate with her better so that we could raise our kids together and came out of it feeling more confident about myself. I also met some fine people there, a few who I continue to talk to today. We all went there for different reasons and bonded over getting through it together. It gave us all a little bit of ammo that we didn’t have before.

Sorry for the long post, but it’s rare that I get the feeling to write so personally like that and it probably won’t happen again any time soon. My next post will probably be of a new video of my kids. And hopefully, someone gets something positive out of this. I used to quote the Hardy Boyz’ “Exist 2 Inspire” and sometimes I can still do that. Hopefully it worked for some here.

Games 1 & 2

Games 3 & 4

Games 5 & 6

Game 7 against the Clippers

I’m of the opinion that there is no true end-all, be-all gadget, tablet, device, or whatever you’d like to call it. All have specific strengths and specific weaknesses. All are built toward a specific price with some adding features that may not be all that helpful, but are necessary to reach the luxury price. And also the likewise, such as the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is a great gadget that is missing some features, but also comes at a great price.

My son has a first generation iPad so I have something to compare my Kindle Fire to. My son’s iPad is slick, gorgeous, and comes with all of the fantastic Mac-specific features that all their products come with. And we’re a Mac family, so it fits right in with all of our other products. Thus, when I decided to get a Kindle Fire, there was a bit of apprehension because I’m used to Mac products.

But it was absolutely a strong buy. I was in the market for an iPad or Kindle Fire and really, price point was my main concern. Had there been an iPad product with a similar price point as the Kindle Fire, I would’ve probably gone with that instead, but since there isn’t, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

I imagine reasons for choosing the Kindle Fire over the iPad are either weighted by price like mine, or some people simply just don’t want to support Apple. Rather than list out every spec, I’m going to list out what I believe are the strengths and weaknesses of the Kindle Fire.

Strengths

Price: As I said before, the price was the major selling point for me. At just $200, it’s a steal if you’re looking this type of gadget. When you’re more than half the cost of your largest competitor, it becomes a nice little market that you can own, well, that is until the iPad decides to create something similar. But hey, they may not.

Size: In this case, smaller is better. The reason why I didn’t mind the Kindle Fire’s smaller screen is because of the way I use it. The screen is only 7 inches compared the iPad’s 9.5 inch screen. However, I use my Kindle Fire when at the gym and doing cardio. In this case, the smaller screen works to my benefit because it’s much easier to place on a machine. Also, I use my Kindle Fire to watch video before bed and the smaller size makes it easier to handle. At times, I’ve felt the iPad is on the heavier side and maybe even too large to read from.

Durability: The iPad (and iPhone) seem so fragile. They are beautiful pieces of small machinery for sure, and I’m always worried about ruining it. I don’t feel that way with the Kindle Fire. It’s simply built to be more durable and less pretty. And I’m totally fine with that. I carry it around a lot and I’d worry more so if I had to be so careful with it. And not to say that I can simply be clumsy with it, but I just don’t feel like I have to worry about being so careful with it at all times.

Weaknesses

Browsing: The browsing experience in an iPad is awesome. It’s almost like Internet browsing was meant to be experienced on the iPad. It’s not like that at all on the Kindle Fire. Amazon tauts it’s Silk browsing experience which uses the cloud to make the experience faster. Yet, I’m not all that bothered by the speed. That’s fine. But it is just not as simple to browse with the Kindle Fire. If you use the iPad and them move over to the Fire, it’s very noticeable that the experience is lesser.

Apps: Thankfully, I’m not a heavy user of applications, because if I was, I’d probably not be as happy with the Kindle Fire as I am. It’s simply not as intuitive to download apps and use them on the Fire as it is on the iPad. Most of the popular ones are there, but they don’t work as well (such as Twitter and Facebook) and they don’t seem as well manicured for the experience. The apps are most definitely less slick and much harder to use.

Battery life: If you think the iPad doesn’t get much battery life, the Kindle Fire is even worse, though not by a ton. I feel like I’m charging my Fire more so than my kid charges his iPad, but it’s probably only by about 20%. Kindle users will be dismayed to know that this version of the Kindle won’t go on for days and days like other Kindles. But that’s expected with the new features.

I think iPad lovers will dismiss the Kindle Fire because it’s a very buttoned down version of the iPad, but those who have specific needs for their tablet device may really enjoy the Kindle Fire. For me, it’s nearly perfect, but it won’t be perfect for everyone.

My specific use other than reading books on it is to watch Netflix streaming. And while it may be a little slower to start-up than on the iPad, it works just as well.

If you’re into aesthetics and beauty in your gadgets, this isn’t going to be for you. But if you just want something that works and isn’t going to cost you an arm and the leg, give the Amazing Kindle Fire a looksy. I’m enjoying mine.