This message courtesy of a friend of mine who writes under the name of Whalebomb:

I’ve just been listening to Mr. Duey’s “Class Dis-missed” CD, which is a brand new rap/hip-hop album straight out of the local Detroit area. It’s excellent and I’m really enjoying it. The beats are fantastic and the melodies and rhymes are extremely catchy. Oh wait. What’s that? This is an educational CD? It’s geared towards 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders?

So yeah, it’s an educational CD made for teachers and students, but it’s definitely not limited to that market. Mr. Duey takes up topics stressed nation and statewide by teachers, parents, and school administrators and turns them into study guide rap songs for children. What topics? Topics that are on standardized tests. Want your students and children to do better on their MEAPs, as well as their school work? This CD is made for that.

The CD includes 17 songs on the following topics: Math (Integers, Point Plotting, Factor Tree, and Fractions); English (Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Writing Essays); Science (Animal Cells, Atoms, States of Matter, and 3 Types of Rocks); Social Studies (Longitude and Latitude, Core Demographics, and Government Branches); and History (Martin Luther King Jr.). The CD also includes a bonus track on Measurement.

Mr. Duey is not only a rapper, writer, and musician, he is also a teacher! He uses innovative ways of teaching his classes and has seen lots of success from this work. There are testimonials on his website as to how successful students can be after listening to this entertaining CD. Also on his website is a streaming mp3 of “Verbs” and a music video for “Fractions.”

I’ve been lucky enough to hear most of the CD before it gets released tomorrow (March 14), and I have to say it’s still entertaining for me even though I’ve been out of middle school for years now. Mr. Duey is having a CD release party tomorrow (March 14) from 6-10 p.m. It’s at Orlando’s Familia Banquet Center, 15001 Sibley Rd., Riverview, Michigan, and includes a live performance at 8:00 p.m.

If the party is too short notice, you can order CDs right from his website starting Friday afternoon, or contact the record label, Kaas Records, LLC, P.O. Box 765, Farmington Hills, Michigan 48332 (phone: 248/275-5708).

The CD is excellent and is a must for teachers. Go to the CD release party or check out the website (www.mrduey.com) for more information. The state demands for the MEAP and other standardized tests are so high, you’d be a fool not to consider purchasing Mr. Duey’s “Class Dis-missed” for your classroom. It’s good for your children, your students, your ears, and your community!

I’m carefully watching the forecast today, and hoping that our snow advisory disappears pretty soon because I’m scheduled to be leavin’ on a jet plane in a few short hours. Sunny Florida, here I come!

I’m a bit bummed, however, that for the second year in a row I’ll be out of town for the Home and Garden Show at Ford Field. Check out the website for some of the exhibitions and promotions (you can get some really neat free stuff at this show!) at www.fordfieldhomeshow.com. (I’m still stumbling through the shiny new MetBlog site, and links are not yet in my repetoire) And since you’re already downtown at the show, stick around and use your ticket to get discounts at some great local restuarants like Small Plates and Vicente’s. The website has a list of all participating eateries.

I attended a viewing of this year’s Oscar-Nominated Live Action and Animated Shorts at the Detroit Film Theatre. I was pretty impressed with all of the nominees, but my particular favs were LE MOZART DES PICKPOCKETS (THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS), I Met the Walrus, and Peter and the Wolf.

Here’s a trailer for I Met the Walrus, which should be of particular value to all of you Beatlemaniacs out there. The description at the beginning pretty much sets up the film, and the animation is remarkable.

I think the winners will be:
MY LOVE (MOYA LYUBOV) in the category of Animated Short and
LE MOZART DES PICKPOCKETS (THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS) in the category of Live Action Short

Czech out last year’s winner in the category of Live Action Short, West Bank Story.

RE: The Dirtbombs CD Release show at the Magic Schtick. I got there at 11:24 and am pretty sure that I was the first person that they turned away when the show sold out. My brother arrived 5 minutes before me and got in. Therefore, I give the show two thumbs way down.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Detroit! We at Metroblogging Detroit hope you have a fabulous, fun- and love-filled day.

My husband and I are going, for the first time, to the Whitney for dinner this evening. I cannot wait and will give a full report on the experience and the food in a few days. What are your special Valentine’s plans?

I really enjoy giving gifts. It is one of my favorite things about Christmas, birthdays and holidays in general. I don’t even really like getting gifts myself — except when they are from my husband. Somehow, he always manages to get me the best gifts and to surprise me the most.

Two years ago, it was a hand-bound silk-covered book chronicling my Girl in the D blog entries. Last year, it was my very first puppy, Bagley. I thought it would be difficult to top these gifts, so I wasn’t planning on receiving anything super-special from him this Christmas.

Boy was I wrong. More after the jump …
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I’ve been enjoying my vacation time so much that I forgot to announce the winner of the Metro Detroit Grinch of the Year on Friday as promised.

So, without further ado, the winner is …
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With such a small turnout of nominations for Detroit Grinch of the Year, it was easy coming up with a handful of finalists to compete for the dishonor.

And, without further ado, the nominees are as follows:

Detroit City Council for its slow and unproductive ways.

Metro Detroit business owners who, faced with a weak local economy, threw in the towel and moved elsewhere;

The party poopers — er, Metro Detroiters — who didn’t take the time to nominate anyone in this year’s Grinchy poll;

Matt Millen for his unproductive ways with the 6-8 Detroit Lions;
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We haven’t had very many Grinch of the Year nominations, so I’m extending the nominating period until this Friday, December 21, at midnight.

Clueless as to what I’m talking about? Click here, read, and then nominate someone.

Thanks to David Markland of Metroblogging Los Angeles for posting a call for LA’s Grinch of the Year, and giving me the idea to do the same thing for the Detroit region.

So, here goes … we at Metroblogging Detroit want your nominations for the Detroit-area’s Grinch of the Year. The ideal candidate is an individual or group who has impacted either a portion of Detroit/metro Detroit or the region in a negative way. This person or group should epitomize Grinch or Scrooge. Some early ideas include several Detroit City Council members for being … well, slow and unproductive to say the least; Agnes Nixon, the woman behind the Detroit School Board grape-throwing incident; and DPS school board president-Jimmy Womack, for, among other things, calling grape-thrower Nixon a “social terrorist” while DPS continues climbing the list of one of the worst-performing large school districts in the country.

To make a nomination, leave a comment below by midnight on Wednesday, December 19 with the name of the individual or group and a brief explanation of why he/she/they deserve this dishonor. Then, Metroblogging Detroit authors will narrow the pool down and allow readers to vote for their favorite Grinch o’ the Year beginning Friday, December 21th. I’ll announce the Grinchy winner on Friday, December 28.

Remember that neighborhood spying that I mentioned in my intro post? Well, this weekend you can do it on the up-and-up!

This coming Sunday, December 16, is the annual Boston Edison Holiday Home Tour. Here’s your chance to take a peek inside some fantastic homes in the neighborhood that once housed all of the freeways in Detroit. Or, at least the people that they were named after. James Couzens, Charles Fisher, and of course Henry Ford once called this neighborhood home. The architecture of these homes is just breathtaking, and, as my gramma would say “they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore”. Tickets are $20 and include transportation around the houses on display and refreshments at the end of the tour. Head to the neighborhood’s website, Boston Edison, for more details.

Palmer Woods, home of the famous Bishop’s Residence isn’t holding it’s annual home tour this year, but is instead hosting a monthly concert series beginning in December.