If it's not Raven, it's crap...

(via: Nerve.com Scanner ) Yeah, it pretty much is. It also reminds me of when Biancadonk (Happy Belated 26th to my Mulatto compatriot, btw) and I were trying to think of a slogan for Mulattos of Oklahoma and we were leaning towards Mulattos: Taste the Rainbow. (Note: We eventually settled on Mulattos of Oklahoma: Because coffee always tastes better with a little cream. Unfortunately, my suggestion of "M.O.O! Motherfucker!" was immediately vetoed. Oh, the underrated genius of the Wayans' Brothers!) But I digress...the This Contest is Crap Contest (#1) ends tomorrow at midnight (that is, August 1st...at midnight...GMT +1 -- technically, that means tomorrow at 6pm Eastern Time/5pm Central Time/4pm Mountain Time/3pm Pacific Time -- which covers the time zones of pretty much all of the people who entered in the first place. Are you excited? I know I am!

My nonsense, now available auf Deutsch: Hip-Hop trifft Chuck Norris Busy work week ahead, but if you just can't get enough of me (and honestly, who can?) -- I'll be periodically writing hip-hop news updates on Backspin.de for the next few weeks.

I don't even like Starbucks Coffee. And I sometimes can't even help but get a little bit mad whenever I see one in Hamburg. Call me crazy, but I don't think there used to be that many around. Anyway, if I'm gonna go with a coffee chain, then I'll go with Bagel Brothers . Just not the one in Altona, because everyone that works there is a giant asshole . Great coffee, gigantic assdouches. Save yourself the trouble and go to the one in the Osterstrasse. They are nice. Also there's a cute guy that works there sometimes. Mmmmmm...cute baristas. Most days, on my way to work, I stop by Café Tresinha, the Portuguese café around the corner from the office. There, I can get a very large café latte to-go for 2,20€. It kinda holds me over for the rest of the morning. After which, I gotta make my own using Fancy Hip Hop Magazine's ( FHHM ) French press. We have a new Senseo machine in the kitchen, but I refuse to use it anymore. It makes an ass-tastic cup of coffee. Ser...

You'd think that the traumatic Slip N' Slide accident I experienced as a child would have made me very weary of slippery surfaces, when actually it only made me very weary of slippery surfaces involving water (in liquid or solid form) and the sharp objects possibly lurking beneath them (waiting to slash me open). ( Click Below for More ) One of my favorite things in the world (I'd say at least right up there in my Top 10) are smooth floors and sliding around in them in my socks. I love doing this and I don't know why. While the floors in my old apartment in Barmbek were surprisingly decent for this purpose, the shiny new laminate flooring in my new place is far superior. Another thing I love is dancing (somewhat spastically) when alone in my apartment. The two of these things in combination -- ability to slide around on the floor and the apartment dancing -- are pretty much my secret hobby. Probably not so much a secret now, since...we STILL have no curtains. My signat...

Trip Fisk aka Old Dirty Samurai Schmidt had asked me to pick up his specially-ordered samurai statue and since I'm such an awesome and nice person -- and because the place where he ordered it is pretty close to where I work -- I agreed. If someone asks me to "pick something up" on my way home...I generally assume that it is something that I can physically pick up. The aforementioned statue, however, was about 50lbs of dusty rock encased in a wooden-type crate thingy. Needless to say, I was somewhat surprised by this fact. When the sales guy asked me if I was going to carry it out as is...I sighed and replied, "Well, I don't really have another choice, do I?" Thus, began the journey back to the bus stop while lugging this thing. Mind you, the statue is about thigh high...and fucking heavy. Halfway to the bus stop, I called Schmidt from my cell and told him that I would get in a bus with his samurai and ride to the Altona train station; but, he would have to...

I think the internets know I'm part black: (brought to my attention by: MissFee ) You're Roots ! by Alex Haley While almost everyone agrees that you're brilliant, no one knows quite how to categorize you. Some say that you're a person with an amazing family tree. Some say that you're just a darn good storyteller. Others say that you're both and don't much care where to draw the line. What is known is that your people have been through a great number of trials and that you are where you are because of hard work. You have nothing to lose but your chains. Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid .

Random bits: * False Advertising: People should stop referring to Wednesdays as "Hump Day" unless they're actually going to hump me. This is not only confusing, but also cruely raises my spirits -- only to dash them to pieces shortly thereafter like, "Oh...you meant there's only two more workdays til Friday...and you don't want to...oh, ok...I see...no, no problem." * Ill Doctrine.com : You should check this cat out. I've spent more than my fair share of time lurking about Jay Smooth's hiphopmusic.com blog archives. Then, he started up with all the video joints. Awesome. It's people like him that make me hate the fact that I suck at the whole using words thing. He's my new (only?) favorite video blogger. If I were the swooning type, I'd be all like *swooooooon*. Love 'em & can't get enough. * The most horrifying of all Harry Potter books: You can't defeat Wal-Mart, Harry. No one can. Well, except Ze Germans . Don...

I didn't really get anything done on yesterday, my body was too busy hating me for Friday night's Whiskey/Cola Fun Time. See, there's a reason that I try to just stick to beer. It's because beer has been good to me. If I get a hangover, it's more or less tolerable and can be appeased with a long hot shower, some kind of greasy meat and a liter of an artificially flavored carbonated beverage. Hard liquor hangovers make me want to die. Even if I'm lucky enough to avoid puking at some point in the evening, it's still quite possible that I'll end up hugging my toilet sometime the next day. Red wine hangovers aren't much better and a champagne/sparkling wine hangover is a rare thing for me and always a pretty good reminder of why I avoid the stuff. At any rate, I was mostly just out of commission all day, but managed to pull myself together and go to Salim's birthday party. Salim , as you may or may not recall, is the guy who put me in my first headl...

Wohngemeinschaft or WG is a silly German word. It's usually translated into something like "shared apartment/flat", although neither of the base words that it's made of ( wohnen = "living" and Gemeinschaft = "community") means either "apartment" or "sharing". They basically decided to invent a word to replace the sentence "Yeah, I've got (a) roommate(s)". Anyway, the airplane gods have decided to once again steal my roommate from me (is it just me, or I'm I really laying it on thick about Schmidt , these days?). This kinda puts a wrench in our plans for throwing the best apartment-warming party the world has ever seen, since he's leaving on the 23rd. Instead, we've moved it up to next Saturday, which basically gives us about a week to whip this place into shape. And by that...I mostly just mean getting some damn curtains before then. I submitted my guest list to Schmidt (mostly my colleagues since th...

Last Night: * I read the following endorsement of Schmidt on Cupcake's blog: I met Schmidt once when I was in Hamburg, so I can vouch for his quality. He seems to be a nice guy despite being confused about having two first names. When we went to his apartment it was dark, he had just woken up from a nap. He owns some very nice electronics. He has a nice job that requires him to travel to France a lot, I think he designs air planes. Yet I believe his preferred mode of in-city travel is still the skateboard. Also, he speaks English very well in that soft-spoken, sexy way that makes you question whether these people know your mother tongue better than you do. ...and she didn't even enter the contest! * We (the aforementioned roommate and I) tried to go to the bar down the street called the Bierhütte (beer cottage, beer hut, beer shack...take your pick). Alas, it was not open for some reason. Highly disappointed, we headed back home -- but not before stopping by the gas station ...

A couple of quick things this morning: Schmidt's fancy new bed arrived yesterday. It's pretty sweet. Not to mention enormous. Later in the evening, after it was assembled and we had eaten dinner, the two of us stood in his room marveling at the sight of this piece of furniture. Seriously, for about half an hour we just stood around looking at his bed. After awhile, I said, "Hey, Schmidt , I think your bed is basically the same size as my room." He did a few quick calculations and we discovered that his bed is actually a mere 2m 2 smaller than my enitre room. That's right. The area of his bed -- tatami mats included -- is 7m 2 . My room is a whopping 9m 2 . Klein aber fein (small but nice), as the Germans say. Anyway, this just means that we'll have to institute a weekly slumber party in his room. It'll be great. We'll braid each other's hair and give ourselves manicures, trade gossip and eat chocolate ice cream. You think I'm kidding, I...

Sometime in the fall after I graduated from college, I heard about a fellow Smith grad and acquaintance of mine , who kinda did a pretty bonehead thing and got herself deported and banned from a country for like...life. Now, at the time it was kind of amusing. I mean, not funny ha-ha amusing, but like funny "What the fuck?!" The story circulated among a bunch of people and died down not too long after. As far as I know, she's fine now...she found me on Facebook. ( Click Below for More ) 26-year-old Raven no longer finds the tale as amusing as she once did. And why's that? Well, for one thing, I was this close to being deported from a country myself. I don't mean like, "Maybe-deportation-is-a-kind-of-thing-that-could-happen" close...I mean like, "I-came-home -one-day-to-a-letter-with-an-actual-proposed-date-for-deportation" close. I have this letter still and can show it to you upon request, if need be. The worst part was that I got all caught ...

EDIT: Since some people seem to be a bit confused about this contest, I shall further elaborate: ALL PARTICIPANTS are eligible to win the cool stuff (whether male or female or other). Only those who indicate on the form that they are interested in going to dinner with my roommate will be considered for the date and/or cool stuff. The reason for me asking if you're male or female at the beginning is because my roommate prefers boobies and vaginas for dating purposes. However, for winning a box of stuff purposes, it really doesn't matter to me if you're male or female or whatever. ( Click Below for Details ) THE BACKGROUND: In my ever-vigilant quest to help my roommate, Schmidt , find a very special lady who will take care of him in ways that I can't and won't, I came up with the brilliant idea of making an application/quiz/survey as a kind of a "screening/audition"-type process. My reasoning being that this tactic would save us both time and grief in the l...

Remember that time I told you all that only crazy people follow their dreams ? Well, I found two examples (via: Neatorama.com ) that are even dumber than me wanting to live with Germans forever and ever. Case #1: Dead Body Guy . It's his dream to play dead bodies in movies. Seriously, it even says "Help me live my dream..." on his website. Case #2: Transformer Guy , who legally changed his middle name to Megatron three days ago. Like I said, following your dreams will take you down a dark and twisted path. So, proceed with caution, lest you end up like this dude : ( Note: Don't click the link and watch the video if you're at your lame job and aren't allowed to watch stuff with lots of swearing ) Personally, I can't stop watching it a.) because it's hilarious to me and b.) because it really kinda makes me miss Chick-fil-A and their delicious waffle fries...

I don't know if you've seen these ads or not. I always see them when I'm logging out of Myspace. No where else really. I think I'm undecided as to whether or not Myspace is the absolute worst or best place to advertise a fatherhood initiative. The banner pictured above is probably my all-time favorite (so far?); however, I don't really think it's helping their cause very much. I mean, look how happy that dude is with his computer. He's completely enamored with that thing. I'm convinced he would never be capable of looking at a child so lovingly -- even one that hath sprungeth from his own loins. And damn...could you blame him? I've been accused of being "anti-children". That's mostly a half-truth. I just prefer to not keep their company...by most means necessary...with a vengeance...part 2. And given the choice, I'd probably choose hanging out with a computer. And if you're curious, here's why: 1.) Computers are smarter than...

Cautionary Tales of Swords A new real post to come later tonight...or tomorrow...depending on how much I feel like writing.