Hours Until Vegas: Roughly 8
Days Until Birthday: 360

Yes, I'm am a few good minutes away from unplugging my computer and getting ready to go to Las Vegas for my extended weekend. For those of you that don't know, I am doing a little work there and my "reason" for going is right here. Wright is a Tampa-area fighter.

Although I will have the occasional money update while I'm gone, I'm leaving other reading material for you.

In case you want to know why no one in the ACC can hold Chris Paul's jockstrap, why Von Wafer will lead my Seminoles to the Big Dance and why Joey Graham is the best player in the nation that no one has heard of than you must read Yoni Cohen's College Basketball blog. It's the place where the hoops experts get their stuff.

My boy Brent is kicking some serious knowledge here, he's definitely no punk and he's not about to let the current state of America ruin his state of mind.

Got no clue what Joe's doing at the Corner Bar because it's under construction or redevelopment or something, but maybe you'll get lucky and leave comments on blogger and Haloscan.

Finally enjoy the spin zone from The Spin MD because he's just very random.

Hey if I read it, it's got to be good. Remember that.

RIP O.D.B, Dirt McGirt, Big Baby Jesus, Rusty.

I can't lie, when my co-worker told me that ol' dirty bastard died and the first thing that came to my mind was..."Ah Dick Cheney finally croaked."

Well unfortunately no, however he's behind it because he was in the hospital today. I can imagine the doctor saying "We need a heart for this old dirty bastard" and of course someone took the heart of THE Ol' Dirty Bastard.

So if Cheney busts out with "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" at the next Senate hearing, you'll know exactly where he got it from.

In all seriousness, I'm in the process of discussing character issues with Mudge and while I can admit the Ol Dirty Bastard was of questionable character (hell his name was Ol Dirty Bastard...hello?!?) and rivaled Shawn Kemp in terms of fathered children, I leave you with the words of his mother, Cherry Jones, and I'm reminded that we're all three people -- Who we think we are, who everyone else thinks we are and who we really are...

"To the public he was known as Old Dirty Bastard, but to me he was known as Rusty. The kindest most generous soul on earth. Russell was more than a rapper, he was a loving father, brother, uncle, and most of all, son."