The Day The World Ended, GCI Stories...

Hey Blogland! wetin deh? Hope 2008 is being wonderful so far. This is my second blog post in 2008. See! i told you i was gonna be more deligent about it lol..

Some miraculous sturves happened this year. I mean it snowed here in Atlanta!

can u imagine?

Apparently the snow was a very heavy sumthin by ATL standards. There was so much snow, the city had to be placed under serious weather alert.

it was all over the local news stations too, people running in and out of stores buying pure water, flashlight, batteries and other crazy sturves as though a tsunami was about to hit.

Now take a wild guess at how much snow fell? 6inches? 10inches? 1ft? perhaps 2ft?

well nice try but it's none of the above.

The amount of snow was less than 1 inch.

1 inch snow got everybody scrambling like ants in a crumbling castle.. Now aint dat a trip?

I remember my coworkers making noise - advising i better start running home before the world ends from the 1 inch snow lol.. i told them - coming from New York, this was nothing. Back in New York, our cars got snowed in and we'd still have to dig it out and drive to work, school or wherever we had to be cos aint nothing getting shut down.

Some people were even anticipating the day off from work the next day.

Are you kidding me?

lmao!! lazy mofos!

That being said, i noticed some folks still managed to make tiny pathetic snow balls, so i guess it was a disaster afterall.



I was browsing facebook jejely the other day and came across one of my old school buddies "Teju" from way back in my Government College Ikorodu days. Mehn! you'd be surprised how many of your long lost buddies you'll find on FB.

Anyways, Teju used to be part of my clique back then, of which also included Femi (he was my bestest friend on visiting day cos his parents used to bring jollof rice and chicken each time they visited..after we finsh the rice, i demoted him back to regular friend lol), Tunde (Tunde was just a big ol punk mehn lol..he was the biggest amongst us, but he had no liver. i hope he toughend up a bit now), Meno (lol..funny igbo dude that used to stammer when he got mad. He used to bite when he fought too. watch out now! lmao), ishola (half naija, half polish..his sister was hot!) and muyiwa aka "cry baby".

These were my boys! Band of Brothers if you would. We did everything together - played monkey post, table soccer, scaled fence to go play street fighter at ketu bustop or stop by Mama Carol's restuarant to eat yellow eba and ogbono soup cos the school food was usually crappy, sneak into Iya sheri's farm together to go pluck corn illegally even though everybody said iya sheri was a witch but we still dint give a shit, go on "suicide missions" like sneaking into teacher's offices to steal exam questions, susbstitute answer sheets, or even change exam scores - it was fun changing a "3" to an "8" lol..omo i was bad sha. i hope my kids grow up to be angels.

Anyways, since we rolled together, we often got into trouble collectively and that often resulted in us getting sentenced to the school's public latrine aka "Shalanga" to go pound rotten shit in our house wears while our peers were in class.

Yeh! i have suffered.

Till today, i remain undecided on which sentence is worse - to pound rotten shit or cut grass and get fat blisters on your palms. Which would you opt for if you had the choice?

Mehn! i miss those days sha. No place like Naija. I hope the rest of the boys are still alive and doing great.

I haven't seen my brother and sister in nine years. My heart aches real bad. Mumsy too. I can't believe she's getting old. I remember when she use to chase us around the backyard with cain, now we joke about how she can't do those sturves no more.

Agba ti de!

I must enter naija this year! notin else matters this year more than that trip across the atlantic. In the words of OlaDELe - "Oya Spray me Money.." lol..

Experts say the US economy is headed into a recession. They argue the collapse of the mortgage industry is largely to blame. Big Banks suffering billions in losses mostly in part due to lending money to homebuyers who initially were able to afford mortgage payments, but later unable to continue paying after their low introductory interest rates sky rocketed. To get an idea - imagine obtaining a loan from a bank to buy a home.

The bank says well, we're gonna offer you an interest of say 3% for the first 5 yrs after which the rates could go up to say around 8% or so depending on the market - otherwise called Adjustable Rate Mortgage.

So basically, say you were initially paying $1100/month for the first 3 yrs, and then your monthly payment increased to $1600 and you begin finding it rather tough to keep up with payments. Now suppose you give up that home and go into forclosure - that home will no longer be worth it's estimated book value, it depreciates and so the bank takes a write down.

A write down is a reduction in the book value of an asset because it is overvalued compared to the market value. The bank takes a loss.

Just in january, 7000 home owners lost their homes in Metro Altanta alone.

Amongst other factors, Unemployment is at 5% - up from 4.7%. Consumer spending is down and when people don't spend money, the economy does not do well.

The Feds decided to slash federal interest rates in order to free up more cash so people can spend money and stimulate the economy. When the feds cut interest rates, it makes it easier for people to be able to afford things like car loans, home loans.. etc since the interest will be lower than what it used to be. That way as people begin to find things more affordable, they spend more and that in turn stimulates the economy.

Sorry, this does not mean Ijebu garri will be cheaper at african market. You will have to negotiate and price that garri yourself.

The white house also reached a tentative deal on a stimulus plan package that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per family and provide tax incentives for businesses. Workers who paid income taxes could receive more than $300, and families with children would receive an additional $300 per child. The stipend, which some lawmakers were calling a “tax rebate,” would be subject to income limits so that the wealthiest taxpayers would not receive it.

Again, it's all in the hope people will spend this money back into the economy. However some fear this emergency action might already be too late and could result in the economy being worse off - imagine if people still ended up not spending that money back..hmmm.

Anyways all we can do is hope for the best. God help us all. All i know is if things get real ugly, i will run back to the village. There's no such thing as foreclosure for village.

Hey! I finally met my phone buddy. Yes! That same person responsible for me always running over my one thousand daytime minutes every billing cycle..

so what about her?

Hmmm busy bodies, i will leave that jist for another time.

Let's just call her worthy for now, but only time will tell.