How boring would work be without email forwards? I love'em because they bring a little humour into my day. This is quite an ingenious forward sent to me......check it! Read the names of the links carefully - double meanings!

Choosing the right domain name

It's not always easy choosing the right domain name but you can't do much worse than these people.

Firstly there is "Who Represents?" - a database for agencies to the rich and famous: http://www.whorepresents.com

Second is the Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views: http://www.expertsexchange.com

Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island: http://www.penisland.net

Need a therapist? Try: http://www.therapistfinder.com (Jerm I think your listed on this page!)

Finally we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New SouthWales: http://www.molestationnursery.com

Sip fine wines.....

Does anyone out there know anything about wines? Besides the fact that they are made out of grapes?

I can honestly tell you that I know jack all about wines. I have decided that I will no longer be socially ignorant to fine wines. Essentially, I'm gong to learn the lingo, the different varieties, what wines go with what kinds of food, the best regions for each type of wine and so on. My motivation for doing so? 1/2 work, 1/2 social I guess. I go to work functions and friday night drinks, and I feel quite inadequate drinking wine at dinner - my pallete isn't quite used to it yet. When the wine list comes around at dinner, I'm like "what is this?".

So I've been reading up on wines, googling phrases like "drinking wine", "how to drink wine", etc. Coming from a conservative, middle class, Asian family, I haven't been exposed to this kind of drinking culture at all. You could say that we are only used to ordering "green tea/bo-lei" /water / Coke at restaurants.

Aside from that, I've purchased the ultimate book: "The Idiots Guide to Wine". It's quite user friendly, in simple terms, and covers all the basics. Much like how Ivan bought some books on mens fashion so he could make sure he looked good and dressed right for work, I'm doing the same with wine.

Very soon, I'll be able to tell you the difference between a Merlot, and a Shiraz (a much spicier and fruitier wine), distinguish between a wine from Coonawarra to one made in the Hunter Valley. Drop' some science on what a Cab Sav is, telling y'all how storing the wine in a oak barrel makes the taste different to a steel barrel, and learning how to drink wine properly.

But ultimately, the best learning experience is actually from drinking the product. Not getting trashed but learning the differnet tastes on your pallete and experimenting on what wines go with what foods, and finding out what my wine "profile" is.

As Kanye said "It's the last call for alcohol/why don't you raise your glass with me". I think socially and if you plan on moving in important business circles, its vital that you understand and appreciate fine wines. I want to be able to have a deep conversation with someone about wines - other than Zhang spewing up Shiraz on his white pants @ Bamboo.

Peace Out,

DJ Ho.

Ball above all?

What would you do if your employer forced you to take a DNA test?

I look at the Eddy Curry situation and I think its a very difficult situation for both parties. For those not in the know, Eddy Curry is a basketball player for the Chicago Bulls. He missed the tail end of last season because of an irregular heartbeat. This was also the final year of his contract.

Before the next season started, both sides wanted to negotiate a new contract. The Bulls had 7 different doctors check him out, but the results were inconclusive. But they still wanted to resign him on one condition. The Bulls (the employer) wanted Eddy (the employee) to take a DNA test.

To show and prove if there was a continuing condition and if it was life threatening. If the test was positive and showed no future ailments, he would recieve a $10million per season contract. If he failed.....

.......the Bulls would give him $500K installments for the next 10 years. That's not the worst part though. Its the fact that he would never play again as no team would have signed him. It would be too big of a risk to sign a player with a life threatening injury. The DNA test would also bring up other possible conditions he might have.

For the Bulls - it was pure "business never personal"decision. The organisation didn't roll the dice without knowing the risks. As a Bulls fan, I think John Paxson made the right decision not to resign him. By offering him the guaranteed payments, they showed they wanted to protect Eddy's future too.

For Eddy - it was a pure "ball above all" decision. He didn't want to know the hand that God had dealt him. As a lawyer, I believe he had every right to refuse the test. As a human being though, I think he made the wrong decision for himself to refuse the test. For him, it was to play basketball or nothing. To give up the only thing that had given him relevance, that had brought him fame and fortune, that had taken him from the 'hood to the NBA.

At the last minute, the New York Knicks came in and offered him a contract for $60m, guaranteed.The Knicks have traded for him and have encouraged him to take the test, and will honour their contract even if the test is negative.

But does all that matter? If you have a life threatening condition, you need to get it checked out. For some people, like Eddy, they don't want to know the truth. They don't want to know what is wrong with them. The cost of knowing might be too great.

Or is it? An athlete reaches the peak of their profession by the physical gifts that God has blessed them with. It is in their bodies and in their mind, that they feel invincible. As Scoop Jackson says, he feels like he has no choice but to keep playing. Remember that Eddy's only 22 years old.

Let's hope that Eddy learns the most important lesson in his life.

That "Ball is not above all".

AND1 MIXTAPE COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU!!!

Streetball finest's are coming to a town near you. No, not Ashby, Hoi, Tim and the rest of the Flavos team. Rather the And1 mixtape squad. With new members:
1. Spyda: check out pic below - incredible hops.
2. Baby Shack: powerfully built 6'2 guard, plays like a center. Very ferocious.
3. Pat the Rock: awesome passer.
4. The Spinmaster: whirling, like a hurricane.

Joining the veterans are The Professor, AO, Main Event, Escalade, 50, and Black Widow, and Go Get It.

I want to buy tickets this weekend, so if you wanna come, act like Gwen Stefani and 'Holla back girl'!

Check out this pic of Spyda:

Crouching Tiger Hidden Ho

I will show you many styles

(In Anglosized Asian voice)

"Shaolin shadowboxing, and the Wu-Tang sword style/
If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous/
Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?"

The intro to "Bring da Ruckus" by Wu Tang.

The reason I'm feeling this? Coz last night I went to a Jeet Kune Do lesson @ Hurstville Aquatic Centre. I coulda spent my friday night out on the town, drinking beers with colleagues, having dinner with my girl, playing basketball.

But instead I swapped it for learning how to throw a right jab-left cross combination, stick fighting and to how to "protect ya neck" (Inspectah Dek style) from getting sliced by a knife attack.


"No fixed position"

To clarify, there seems to be a bit of confusion between Jeet Kune Do (JKD) and Tae Kwan Do with a similar sounding name. Essentially JKD, is a martial arts system invented by Bruce Lee. Its name means "way of the intercepting fist". Its basis is in Wing Chun Kung Fu buts its a style without style. Its more a concept of fighting. Bruce Lee took a lifetime to perfect this art and wanted to create the ultimate fighting system by mixing and borrowing moves from other fighting styles.

He didn't care about tradition and stripped away hundreds of years of traditional techniques that were too slow in real life street combat. He used punches from boxing after watching Ali, Filiopino Kali knife and stick fighting, jujitsu grappling moves, and anything else he considered effective.

It's a fluid style that doesn't have traditional blocking defense moves. Its always about attack and counterattack. Never keep defending because eventually you'll get hit. Hence the quote "way of the intercepting fist". Its about checking the offender's move and straight away moving into an attacking mode.

JKD stresses four ranges of combat: kicking and punching range from afar, grappling (wrestling) range and finally trapping range from extremely close range. If kicking and punching are long distance weapons i.e. missiles, then trapping are your nuclear weapons.



Bruce Lee focused on moving into your opponent into the trapping range coz this is where you can cause the most damage, as fast as possible, to finish off the fight and walk away. At the trapping range, the smaller man can neutralize the size disadvantage which he doesn't have fighting from further away. Utilising devasting elbows, headbutts, neck grabs, attacks to the vital organs, its simply awesome.

Here comes the Wu-Tang Show Guns

Back to the lesson! It was really fun and an eye opener. We learnt how to defend ourselves from a knife attack by blocking, grabbing the area below the thumb to open up and control the knife hand, taking the knife away and stabbing them back in the arm. The instructor was really good and stressed that you always look to run away, if you can't run, seek to grab anything lying around or if there's nothing available you need to counterattack with your forearms.

The best part?

When he went through the legalities of the knife defense moves: "Self defence. Self defence. Self Defence." (pauses after controlling the weapon) "manslaughter. manslaughter. manslaughter". (when stabbing the person back in the arm). And then I said? "Murda, Murda, Murda".

I'm hoping to start up Martial Arts again cause I love JKD. Hopefully one day I can say: "I will show you many styles, wu tang is forever".

Monty Python Style

Yes Bosco, this post is long but I don't care. On another note in case you missed this pic in Thursday's MX newspaper, check out this mighty clash, python style v alligator bite:

How High?

"10 9 8 7 6 5 4/
3 2 Murder 1 lyric at your door/
Tical bring it to that ass-raw/
Breakin all the rules like glass-jaws/
Nigga, you got to get mine to get-yours"

How High - Methodman and Redman

What do you get when you put some of hip hop's biggest names together? I don't mean big as in Nelly/Ja Rule/50cent. I'm talking real artists. Not that "good music/soul music" that Bosco talks about either. I mean straight hip hop gangsta rap. I'm talking about The Ticallion Stallion. Brick City's Funk Doctor. The Godfather of Noize. Premo. JS-1. For those not down with real hip hop I mean Methodman,Redman, Rahzel, DJ Premier and DJ JS-1.

Last Saturday nite at the Hordern Pavillion was crazy. I was hoping that the $90 I paid for the Buggn tour would go longer than the estimated 80 mins advertised. If you've got such a stellar lineup surely we could squeeze some more tracks out them. I was not disappointed, as the artists played a combined 3 hour set. Meth/Red were still on the stage when I walked out.

Premo came on first and straight killed it. Dropping classics like KRS 1's "You Must Learn", Group Home, Onyx's "Slam", NWA, his own Gangstarr tracks as well as educating the crowd with that he called "the real sh*t" - tracks from the 80's. Gotta show some love for the East Coast beats that he dropped. I think Premo could have played anything and I would have still loved it. He's not really a performance DJ - as in he doesn't do tricks, he just drops mad beats and scratches them up occassionally.

Next up was Philly native, Rahzel (aka The Godfather of Noize). He was cool and did some impressive beatboxing. My fav that he did was "All I know". I love the way he does his own rapping, scratch effects, with his own voice. He actually battled DJ JS-1. JS would drop a beat from a famous track, and Rahzel would replicate it as best he could. It was awesome when he did the Kanye "Jesus Walks" melody. And you know he couldn't walk off without doing "If your mother only knew". The crowd went nuts when he did the bassline, the melody and the chorus, with his voice at the same time. Simutaneously fool. I have to admit though, some of his sound effects started to sound very repetitive, particulary the sratching sounds. Though nothing beats the female "please enter your password".

The main act of the night was the infamous duo, M.E.T.H and Red. They came at us all night with so much energy and flowed so well together. Started off by dropping tracks they did together from the Blackout LP and their other joint venture album. However my highlights are when they did their own songs - like Redman's "Time for some Akson" or when Methodman did the main bars for "M.E.T.H.O.D Man.". And of course they did "How High". Twice in fact - the normal version and the Toni Braxton remix. You know the crowd went beserk like when Bannister transforms into Hulk.

Again, I hate to admit this since it was such a mad concert, but towards the end of their set, I didn't recognise a lot of their songs and did get boring and repetitive. The best part of the night was when it seemed like the show was about to finish and they were giving shoutouts. I thought, aiight cool I've got my money's worth, I'm gonna jet.

But as they were playing music in the background and packing up their gear and randomly saying words, Methodman starts doing some freestyling. In fact, they decided since it was the last show they would do it for a bit longer. Meth pulled Rahzel who was on the stage in the background, into the front and told him to do his thing. So Rahzel drops the beat of "Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to f with" with Meth pulling some the illest freestyles I've heard. I've always been skeptical of impromptu freestyles, since they don't really sound, well, impromptu. I'm not sure if that one was, but it was all gravy baby.

One thing I want to mention, is that I felt a bit uncomfortable with all the references to weed. If you don't know these artists that well, 50% of their content is about weed. Personally, I don't think I'll ever touch the stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with it, its just a personal choice not to get high. (Although I did smoke this massive apple tabacco pipe the other day - but I digress cos that's different).

I mean they kept telling the crowd "to roll that sh*t, light that sh*t, smoke that sh*t" and there were peeps everywhere smoking it. A lot of hip hop concerts I go to its like that but this one seemed even more than usual. The artists themselves were getting blunted on the stage with massive joints.

Funny moment of the night: They did a song with the line "If you see a bag of dope, what do you do? Pick it up/Pick it up/Pick it up". And you know what happened? Someone actually chucked a baggy with some sticky icky onto the stage and Street Life (a support rapper) actually picked it up. Hilarous.

Overall? I give the concert a 9.3 out of 10. Very entertaining, definently got my money's worth. All the artists lived up to their reps. For anyone that read's Humanity Critic's latest blog comments, there will be no post adjustment like Biggie's Ready to Die LP.

Peace Out,

DJ HO

1.

p.s. Did y'all know that AND1 mixtape tour is coming to Sydney on December 3rd? If you wanna go, holla back playa.

p.p.s. Best ad ever? Gotta be the brand Jordan ad with the Common sonudtrack. It combines my fav song "BE" with Jordan. Ain't nothing sweeter. Click here .