Treme Blu-Ray

Treme Season 3

Our latest screening!  Treme Season 3.

Katttpacalypse

Katt Williams

I wouldn't call this a family show, unless you in our house... We never been the type to censor what's on the screen when it came to comedy from my earliest recollection of Pryor, Paul Rodriguez, Sinbad, Eddie Murphy, & Andrew Dice Clay... to my brother's era of Chris Rock and Def Comedy Jam comics (Joe Tory, Sommore, Chris Tucker, Adele Givens, Juan Villareal, Martin Lawrence, and my pop's personal favorite Arnez J)...and then on into my youngest brother's era with Katt Williams, Kevin Hart, etc.  At the moment this special here is our favorite just recently having learned about it through Netflix. The game been missing Katt for a while! 

Playstation 4

November 22, 2013

We've been anticipating the new NBA Live 2014 for a minute.  We're serious fans of the game and so with the release of the new PS4, we set a date to purchase everything on the 22nd of November.  The 2K series just doesn't measure up to the game play of Live, regardless of what some consider to be better in terms of graphics, or features...the game play itself just doesn't do it for us.  Especially the 2K13.  Rondo looked like a senior citizen in that game.  Even as old as NBA Live 10 is, its still the basketball video game of choice in battles with our favorite squads...be it the Lakers, Celtics, or Heat.  Since 2009, despite the availability of the new 2K games we've been working with the dated rosters of Live 10 awaiting EA's return.

On the 22nd, no store in El Paso was carrying a PS4.  Everybody was sold out, supposedly.  Between PS4 and the new XBOX, I wonder how much revenue got exchanged out there.  As high demand as these systems are, I'm surprised by previous reports of a platform like Sony ever losing money.  How does that work?

Jurassic Life

Jurassic Park
YouTube Playlist: click here

Big time flick for me in the 90s was the film Jurassic Park... from renting the VHS from grocery stores to eventually collecting all three on cassette.  If I'm not mistaken checked this game out on Sega back then too.  Just learned Jurassic Park or "World" is coming out in 2015.  There are some cool stories about what those actors from those first films have been up to since then.

As much as I liked those old Jurassic Park films though, I couldn't watch them no more than a couple times.  Not much of a fan of super hero, transformer, type, blockbuster flicks when it comes to watching them over again.  Looking forward to the new Jurassic World, nevertheless.

The above video is of a new dinosaur me and my brother learned about today through CNN's report by Greg Botelho.  I've never cared much to look into what exactly a person has to do to become a paleontologist, but its something I've thought my youngest brother would want to do to if he knew the steps. 

Big Man

No. 44

The official Big Man Nike kicks, representin' no. 44 2013.

Reading Rainbow

Reading Rainbow 2013

Interesting background on the show's cancellation from PBS.  Now on its own platform, LeVar Burton speaks on the return of Reading Rainbow and its survival through the "App" generation.  

For more information on Reading Rainbow check out the site rrkids.com.

Teen Book Club Flier

Book Club @ the Mickelsen Library

At the gym with my brother, when we noticed this flier.

-Lee & Zoo

Joshua's Highlight Tape Pt. 1-3

BBJosh's Highlight Tape

Pt. 1 through 3 of BBJosh's highlight tape, Andress High School, 2004 to 2008, with a clip towards the end of a young Josh at Nolan Richardson's basketball camp, Bowie High back in 94', El Paso, Texas...I put this together during my last semester of college prior to graduating from the Master's program at New Mexico State University.  In 2008, while I was wrapping up my last semester of college, Josh was finishing his last year in high school Class of 08', and BBZoo was completing his final spring as an elementary kid.  Our school days were aligned in 2008!  This is my all time favorite production.  Shout out to King Kong for managing to capture at least "some" of the highlights... There were a few buzzer beaters, threes, and dunks that we'll just have to remember in imagination. 

-BBLee

Hardwork & Dedication

"Hardwork & Dedication"

I didn't get the chance to catch very many Mayweather fights throughout the 90s, let alone after when I started college.  I want to say I remember seeing a Mayweather battle on Tuesday Night Fights a long time ago, but I can't recall... Without access to networks like HBO, I think I missed out on a lot of Mayweather battles of back then and its probably the main reason why I'm barely learning about Money Mayweather today.  That, and I'd have to admit that I'm a shotty boxing fan.  Especially after having been spoiled by the wars of fighters from the 90s like Roy Jones, Hopkins, Pazienza, Duran, Tapia, Oba Carr, etc.  I didn't have the motivation post millennium to follow boxing like I use to.  Even my fighter on Knockout Kings didn't get no play.    

So with Mayweather, for a long time I was a hater.  That or I just didn't pay any attention.  It wasn't til' a friend that go by B.Ronin use to break down Mayweather's brilliance that I started to at least think about it. But still I was hard headed, didn't really care and got distracted by all the media hype.  In other words, since I didn't see many of those fights, everything I'm hearing revolved around stuff that was goin' on outside the ring... it had very little to do with the Mayweather's boxing game that B.Ronin was trying to make us understand.  

So this past month, I decided to get the families together and catch the fight.  First payperview we ever paid for.  Had all R.Bros in the place to be including Lil' Lucy and E-Man, Megs, her mom and pops, Queen Luz, King Kong, everybody.  That whole afternoon I'm frying tons of chicken, watching the countdown to the fight, listenin' to podcasts on the fight, just getting ready.  I mean my interest was also inspired by the Showtime fight we had watched prior with Las Cruces's own Austin Trout against Canelo.  That and the promotion team on this one did a really good job building the fight up.  Cause unless its on somebody elses ticket, we NEVER pay for payperview fights.

Most of all though, I wanted to finally watch Mayweather go to work.  Up to this point, I could never say that I watched his bouts closely and studied what B.Ronin had been telling us before.  

Against Canelo, I thought Mayweather was brilliant.  "Hardwork & dedication!"  ...dug hearing throughout the fight.  And while yeah, I could understand how some people could get side tracked by the character, his personality, and the extra stuff... after watching this fight, I don't see how anybody can deny Money.  It was a fun fight to watch, and I might not be up on my boxing knowledge, but I felt Floyd Mayweather taught a young Canelo and other fighters a lesson that night.   He taught everybody watching a lesson too.

Throughout the month, I've been running into some folks and we'll talk about the fight.  And now that I've finally seen a Mayweather fight I think I can talk about, it's crazy hearing people hate on the dude.  I mean, between Obama and Mayweather, I think the saying that 50% of people in the world are going to love you, and 50% are going to hate you needs to be recalculated.  People got feelings out there.  

Anyhow above is post fight with Mayweather and Canelo.  Also includes Danny Garcia and his pops, a training/fighter, son/father combo to keep your eye out for if you like me and wasn't paying attention before.  Boxing needs these great stories.  Love em' or hate em'. 

-BBLee

Luigi Freestyle / Hip Hop

Ryans

"Eagles Believe in High Pace Offense"
Click on image for video*

Red Hook Summer

"Red Hook Summer"

Finally got the chance to see the flick with family including youngest brother BBZoo before the school year started.  Reminiscent of Spike classics like Crooklyn, from the quality, characters, music, etc..  Seeing Clarke Peters get his acting debut in a Spike Lee Joint is up there with my favorite film moments of the year.  An incredible actor, I first got introduced to Peters work as Detective Freamon on The Wire and Big Chief on Treme, two shows that are sure-fire to a collection of must own blu-rays.  Acting debuters Toni Lysaith and Jules Brown are featured in the videos below (whatsup with that second to the last question?):    

Why I'm a Writer

Walter Dean Myers 'Why I'm A Writer'

"We each are born into a history.  We have a mother and a father; we have certain physical features and are born in a specific place.  As writers, we get to invent different histories for our characters.  To do this skillfully, we must seek to more deeply understand our own individual histories and their effect on us." 

Just Write, Here's How by Walter Dean Myers (p. 7)

Reading Journey

'Reading Journey'

Since my youngest brother was in the 4th grade we kept a reading routine going. It was based on the incentive that with every ten or so books he finished reading, we'd shop around for a new video game or other gift of his choosing.  The activity was inspired from the Pizza Hut Book It program I experienced in elementary school.  With every few books I finished reading, my teacher would give me a certificate plus a coupon for a free personal pan pizza.  Our family didn't eat Pizza Hut too often so I remember really looking forward to that small pizza hoping I could have it all to myself.  

A lot of my reading activity as a child I gotta credit to my mother and father.  Over the summer, we'd frequent the Mickelson Library at Fort Bliss.  My parents would sign me up for the summer reading program which included a gift bag for reading a certain number of books before we went back to school.  Usually the gift bag consisted of some children's books, kites, some other small toys, candy, etc.   I can still recall discovering Walter Dean Myers's books at the Mickelson like Fallen Angels, and one of my favorite books at the time, The Contender by Robert Lipsyte.  Fort Bliss is a great place for children growing up.  When my father would get deployed to the middle east, I remember spending a lot of time with my mother going around Fort Bliss to swim at the Replica, play basketball and shoot pool at the Youthplex, shop for groceries at the Commissary, and shift through basketball trading cards at the Post Exchange.  It was also the site of one of my most favorite basketball camps growing up that was hosted by Don Haskins and facilitated by Rus Bradburd for children of military families, some of us who's father's had been deployed overseas.

My mother and father were real genuine about making my time in the library not only a priority, but something that we looked forward and that was fun.   Today, both of my brothers are a lot older, and though I still keep a reading routine going for work and study, the responsibilities of life, work, family, etc. has kinda slowed us all down when it comes to reading & writing for fun.  A part of this blog is going to try to re-encourage this activity.  It'll be a place where we document readings we're exchanging, searching for, or discovering as brothers, and will sort of act as a reference point, a reminder, and a place to learn and build that interest again.  Maybe some of what we post will be of interest to others or maybe we'll discover other blogs that will be of interest to us.  But its all intended for the fun of learning and to bring some meaningful purpose to how our time online connects with the enjoyment of reading off the page and from the placement of our bookmarks.

This blog will also link to topics on sports, health, food, films, life, video games, and other websites, videos, and audios for folks to check out since we're interested in everything... this is also a reference point for our younger siblings who are coming up and who I'm hoping will have the chance we had as youth to connect with reading, visit and spend time in libraries, and establish a routine to exercise their minds to sustain healthy thinking, communication, and putting their imaginations to work.

In regards to age, me & my baby brothers are all separated by 8 years, I'm the oldest, and we share a common number, 44... it is the jersey number one of our brothers wore throughout his high school  basketball years.  Whenever we get the chance to get out on a court, its the number we all wear to represent for RBros44.  Plus our brother that wore 44 is our favorite ball player on earth. 

Below, I've included an image of the last book my youngest brother read.  As I mentioned above, his reading routine involved him keeping a journal in which he tracked well over a hundred books over the course of six years.  We'll be revisiting some of those readings & writings on this blog.  The book below, Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, was a book my youngest brother found at his school in a book fair.  He had this book for a long while and decided to read it since we got kinda busy and didn't get the chance to get back on a reading schedule.  Since a part of my work time is spent online, I decided to transition the journal he kept on paper to this blog and give him a chance to understand other purposes of social media as opposed to a lot of the waste sites that take up time or drown out things that are meaningful to us as family.

As we didn't get the chance to do a full review of Julie of the Wolves, I simply asked my brother what he enjoyed most of about the text.  He said he liked the journey and that it was a story about communication and understanding.  

Welcome to the RBros blogspot.

Til' the next book.

-Big Bro' Lee (BBLee)