My top-five books

I made this list with a friend of mine and thought that y'all would like to view it too.

My top five best/favorite books that I've read (in no particular order):

1) Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis: It's a biography on Led Zeppelin and I think it’s the best music biography ever written. Davis goes into each member’s background, gives you a rundown of each guys demons and how they survived as long as they did. Even if you're not a fan of the band, it’s a look at the highs and lows of being a famous musician.

2) Moneyball: My favorite sports book ever. The great part of the book is that its' not just for sports fans. The author goes into the whole history of statistical analysis of baseball that even a mathematics major could appreciate. Also, to get the inside information of how a general manager works has inspired me to become a sports executive.

3) To Be The Man: The autobiography of the best wrestler ever, Ric Flair. If you know who Ric Flair is, you would be the most awesome girl ever. In case you don't know, he's a professional wrestler who has fought for more than 30 years. He's considered by many, including myself, the greatest of all time. His candid and honest portrayal of his life was amazing to me. He speaks of his vices openly and has incredible prospective of his triumphs. I read it at least once a year.

4) Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King: The first and only book that I've ever read by Stephen King, which is surprising because I've seen so many of the movies based on the books. I even remember when I purchased this book. It was at our school book fair in eighth grade and the cover had a green dragon on it and I thought the cover was cool. I'm usually not a fan of books about castles and wizards and spells, hence my ignorance on the whole Harry Potter series, but this book was very intriguing to me. I just loved the storyline and the deception of one brother of another. King does a good job of describing the elements of the story for someone with a limited imagination for that type of stuff like I have.

5) Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich: Such a tough choice for this final book. I read this in Sociology class at Vandy and it gave me such a prospective of how the poor people live in our country. Its not in my top five favorite books, but its one of the best books I've ever read under the definitions of the list

Honorable mentions:

-Raisin in the Sun by Hansberry: Second best play that I've ever read and has become a necessity for all black people to read. It’s become the Hamlet of the black community. But the themes and messages of the play are universal. It is also very relevant today.

-The Merchant of Venice: The best play that I've ever read. It was the first Shakespeare work that I read back in fifth grade. We even did a production of it and I played Shylock, so I'm sentimental about this work. The themes of the work are relevant and the wordplay of Shakespeare is legendary and this work shows it.

-A Time to Kill by John Grisham: I remember picking this book up back in seventh grade because it had a cool blue cover. As you can tell by my King book, cool colors equal potential. This book dealt with revenge, racism, family relationships, sex and many other issues all within a legal setting which brought a lot of other elements to the situation. It actually peaked my interest in a legal career for a while.

-Black Boy by Richard Wright: A well-written book about growing up as a young black man in a segregated society.

-All The Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren: I had to get a Commodore on the list.

-Any Rachel Ray book: My favorite cooking show on the Food Network is 30 Minute Meals and her books are solid as well.

-The Miracle of St. Anthony: This is a book about the legendary high school basketball program, St. Anthony's, in Jersey City, N.J. It’s a profile about how Bob Hurley took a run down program in one of the worst areas in the Northeast and gave them discipline on and off the court. Incredible book.

-Foley is Good or Have a Nice Day: Another book about a professional wrestler, this one about Mick Foley. Same attributes as the Ric Flair book.

-The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman: A book detailing the New York Mets of the early 1980's and their ultimate triumph winning the World Series in 1986. It also documents the downfall of the team from injuries, drugs, women and other things. I like the honest nature of the author to not just praise the play on the field but to show the exploits of their vices in a true light.

-Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Stephans and The Dirt, the autobiography of Motley Crue: I put these two books together because they may not be the most scholastic choices but they were truly entertaining with the name dropping and the mayhem they experienced.

That’s the list; I would to love to get your list as well.

I was watching Family Guy, but here's some Metallica. It's Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

Sunday Reflections

My Sunday Reflections

-I woke up today at 10 am to do some laundry and to catch some of the French Open final between Federer and Nadal. Well, turned on the TV and I literally catch championship point for Nadal. Federer hits a shot wide and the match is over. Nadal just dominated Federer in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, and 6-0. Sick. I expected to at least catch the final three sets, but Rafa dominated for his fourth consecutive French to match Borg. Now, I’m not the biggest tennis fan out there, but I can appreciate skill and Rafa is a freak on clay. And Borg even said afterwards that he thinks Nadal is going to win Wimbledon in a few weeks. I can’t argue against that after the way he played today.

-Enjoyed all of the college baseball that took place this weekend. I love the super regionals and the World Series even more. I like it when there’s a balance between west coast, Midwest and southeast teams. So far, it’s leaning towards the southeast with the ACC representing strong. But, FSU, Miami and UNC have been the best teams all year, so that’s not shocking. I’ve always secretly been a fan of Fullerton for some reason, so to see them lose to Stanford was a bummer. Rice did its thing and frickin Georgia is going to Omaha. Not a fan of the Bulldogs because they beat Georgia Tech every year. I’d like to see LSU come through against Irvine, if for anything for good karma after that BS hidden ball trick yesterday.

-Looking forward to heading to Atlanta in a few days to see the family. It’s nice to catch up with them.

-Had a good conversation with Daniel at the Beaman today, just discussing life. We talked about relationships with women and family things. It’s always good to have people in your life that you can talk with about things. I’m fortunate to have that in my life now.

-Watched the NBA Finals tonight and it was good. Leon Powe, that was tremendous. I’m going to look up the profile they did of him at halftime and post it on this blog. It needs to be seen by everybody. People talk about all of the negatives when it comes to professional athletes, but there are some good people out there. Watching Powe’s story was amazing and dare I say inspirational. And the fact that he had a career night made it even better. Good job Leon.

-I had my cheat day today and I feel like crap. All week I’ve been eating right, drinking plenty of water and working my butt off in the gym for six straight days. I felt great about it and my body felt so clean and pure. However, I gave myself the day off and decided to lax my diet for one day, aka a cheat day. I had mashed potatoes with butter and salt, baked cookies and chips. Good times, not so much. Its midnight now and I have an upset stomach. Point being, be careful with your cheat days. I’m looking forward to going to the gym tomorrow and getting back to work.

-I think that lesson applies to life as well. If you lead a clean life, continue to do it. Don’t have a “cheat day” moment and ruin it all. Don’t have that drink. Don’t take that drug. Don’t do that crime. Don’t have sex with that person, especially dirty girls. Please, please watch out for those dirty girls. Many of us lead good lives but we sometimes reach that moment of truth where we can continue to be good or cheat. However, the biggest person you’re cheating is that you end up cheating yourself in the end.

-If you need any more advice, I’m available for a monetary fee.

-I didn’t watch the UFC pay-per-view this weekend because it honestly didn’t inspire me. I guess its good Alves won, even though he needs to stay away from the buffet and make his weight before he gets another big fight. I heard Matt Hughes looked average, but that’s been the case for the past year. I respect Hughes, but I’m not his biggest fan.

-Finally saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall and was disappointed. It had one or two laugh moments, but it just felt flat to me. I love the movie series from the producers and writers of FSM, but this one was just a whiff for me. And my top-five girl Mila was in it. She did look hot, but that only goes so far in a movie.

Post to look forward to this upcoming week:
-Is this Supposed to Offend Me, Part 3
-Brothers don’t like rock music, really?
-Obama vs. McCain, broken down ‘Pancakes’ style
-Analysis of the NBA Finals so far
-Probably something about a girl, hopefully not
-etc.

Have a good week, peeps.

I leave you with Fade to Black, maybe my favorite Metallica song ever. This song will make the wedding music rotation when I get married and will be played at my funeral. No lie.