Champ sings

• Last Tuesday night I was walking home and I received a text from the manager who fired me from my lame restaurant job. The text was about some trivial part of work, to which I responded with, "Do you even remember firing me?"

He did not answer my question so I shot him another text asking why I could not get a response from him. The next morning I had an e-mail in my inbox from him.

The e-mail was addressed to me and my general manager (a shitty manager as well, but a good person), the subject of the e-mail read, "I obviously need to address a serious problem, so sorry." The body of the e-mail was left blank.

I immediately gold-starred the e-mail and then thought for a minute as to what the appropriate return e-mail should be. Is his serious problem his drinking, which caused him to start firing employees in the middle of the restaurant and ultimately lost him his job? Or was the serious problem his inability to compose an e-mail with text in the body of the e-mail.

• Dealing with the worst realtors in New York City has been rather interesting. I think it has something to do with the fact that my friends and I have been looking for housing that falls just above the public housing price range.

The first time my friends and I saw our new apartment, the exchange with the realtor went as follows:

Schedule to meet Steve the Realtor at 2:00 on a Thursday.

Steve shows up at 2:20, walks us to the door of the apartment. He then knocks 20 times to see if anyone is home before declaring, "Don't worry these guys are cool, I buy weed off them all the time."

Steve finally finds the keys to the place and begins showing off the dirtiest stoner pad I have ever seen. There was at least a 5-1 ratio of bongs to tenants and because of this 3 of the 5 bedrooms were still occupied by passed out tenants. Again this was 2:30 in the afternoon on a Thursday.

We would eventually come back to the place at a later time when the present tenants mustered the energy to wake up to move from their beds to smoke on the couch. When we returned we realized the place and price were right and after a good 48 hours of cleaning it would be inhabitable by humans who don't consider watching the audio commentary of the "40 Year Old Virgin" a full day.

• I tagged along with my friend Eric as he began his apartment hunting excursion. We walked up to the first place his realtor planned on showing us. He unlocked the door and was greeted with a "Hey! What the hell man?!" Apparently the apartment has been already been rented out a week ago. Strike 1. Then we rolled to the next option as the realtor's friend (who was with us for no reason) bragged about the various sexual acts he claimed to have achieved the night before. We arrived at the next apartment and the realtor fumbled around with his set of keys for 3 minutes before realizing he did not have the keys for the apartment. Strike 2.

The third place was available and viewable, in the family room sat a massive black leather and cheetah print L-shaped couch with a spinning, mirror covered nook in the middle meant to hold a bottle of Courvoisier or a mound of blow. The couch's glory days were at least 30 years past and I would guess it contained STDs that most doctors would not be able to diagnose. I refused to sit on or get within 3 feet of a piece of furniture Leon Phelps would call disgusting. However, the realtor plopped down on the couch and exclaimed, "Man, you gotta make me one promise. If you get this place and you don't want this couch, you have to call me so I can have this." Strike 3.

Then he displayed a shithole apartment with a backyard. "The place is kinda small, but you guys could easily grow weed back here," the realtor said even though we never brought up marijuana once. Strike 4.

• My friend Andy gave me this gem and it's really the greatest video ever (if you're into obscure former Oregon basketball players). Champ Oguchi singing Happy Birthday. There is really too much hilarity in that video to describe. After watching it 15 times I realized I could click 'next video' and watch Champ get beat in Around the World by a girl.

• Last weekend the Domino's on my block had an MC narrating every move on the block as he promoted Domino's pizza. They also had the loudest Spanish music I have ever heard, which literally could be heard three blocks away. But you can't be mad at 5-buck large pizzas.

• A picture from my roof with some pleasant graffiti.

• This JR Smith article raises two questions, "Is JR a better golfer than basketball player?" and "Is JR Smith God?"

So many different things make JR trill...

1. Winning the McDonalds All-American game co-MVP while rocking shorts three sizes too big.

2. Deciding to skip UNC based solely on a breakout H.S. All-American circuit.

3. Beating a vehicular manslaughter charge.

4. Jacking up 3s out of sync of any offense.

5. Every time the Nuggets get a fresh 24-second clock and JR Smith jacks up another 3 with 23 seconds on the clock.

6. When he finally hits a 3 and proceeds to mock the mentally challenged. Phil Jackson's reaction says it all.