Playlist - Dilated Peoples

Playlist - Artist - Dilated Peoples

Playlist - Jay-Z

Playlist - Artist - Jay-Z

Playlist - Little Brother

Playlist - Artist - Little Brother

Playlist - 2006

Playlist - Y - 2006

Playlist - 2007

Playlist - 2007

Chris Dodd, defender of the Rule of Law

Sen. Chris Dodd, & the few other Senators & activists who supported him, are real American heros for preventing a bill which would give immunity to telecommunication companies for breaking the law by spying on Americans without a FISA court approval.

In these Gee Dubbz years, I often find myself saying "Damn, I thought this was America" (c) Randy from South Park. Today, for once, it's the reverse, more like "Damn, today it actually IS still America".

Some accounts of today's events
The Nation
Crooks & Liars
The Young Turks (commenter Anonomo says they're back up in this beyotch!")

What happened with The Young Turks?

FYI, check this disturbing news at TYT website. Some commenters/TYT stans are saying that TYT didn't have their Thurday or Friday show (instead they had re-runs). They're also saying that their's some evidence that TYT is no longer on Air America.

What's odd is that the TYTers including Cenk have not commented on the issue. It seems if there were a simple reason, Cenk would drop a comment on this post clarifying what happened.

I hope they return soon, under whatever company. Cenk is the Roger Federer of political talk show hosts. Cenk needs to keep opening up cans of ether [||] on these criminal ReThuglicans & do-nothing lame Democrats.

Foreign Exchange, meet Foreign Exchange

FE1
FE2


Foreign Exchange (FE1) is an excellent rap duo, composed of IMHO the best rapper of 2007 Phonte, & a great innovative Dutch producer named Nicolay.

Foreign Exchange released IMHO the best album of 2004, Connected (possibly tied with Kanye West's The College Dropout.

Just now I randomly see on Link TV, that Fareed Zakaria has bitten Phonte & Nicolay's name, to have a 30-minute international news/commentary show, also called Foreign Exchange (FE2) It's similar, yet superior to Nightline.

So I just suggested on Zakaria's FE2 website, to consider using FE1's track "Brave New World" as their show intro. Phonte's lyrics are highly relevant to FE2's subject matter, however it would work for FE2 whether they used the instrumental or regular version of the song.



Hey it seems only right if FE2 is gonna jack FE1's name, they should play a FE1 song, right?

Critical Path

This professor's website shows an example on how to calculate the Critical Path (CP) of a project, with a combination of a spreadsheet, & calculator "engine" to calculate the CP.

A friend of mine needed help in prioritizing which courses to take for their BS degree. I used this website to verify the CP I initially had "eyeballed on pen & paper". I then prioritized their suggested order of which classed to take based on the CP.

Playlist audio player for a blog

I've been waiting for Divshare to offer playlist functionality, whereby 1 could play a specific Divshare folder of mp3s as a playlist on a blog page. Divshare support e-mailed me 6 wks go saying "it's coming soon", not sure what that means. I can't complain, as Divshare is a free service that actually replies to customer support questions, LOL.

In the meanwhile, Belize pointed out that a method exists to host playlists on a blog.

spreadsheet templates

This site has free spreadsheet templates in Excel

Vertex42

FreeTechBooks

I stumbled upon this FreeTechBooks, which has legally free .pdf-style text books on computer science/engineering/math/etc.

Michael Weiner "Savage" = self-hating gay

Watch this clip, Cenk explains the hateful craziness of Michael Weiner "Savage".

Savage has a 1983 book, where the main "character" matches his real-life profile almost exactly. The character is "tormented" about "fantasies with men". Also, the character is "tormented with violent visions of stabbing people, including children".

This douche Weiner is prolly clinically insane. No surprise that he advocates crazy things like a genocide of 100 Million Muslims.

Do You Know Why Michael Savage is So Crazy? Find Out Why?

Cenk article on same topic.

Alicia Keys 2007 As I Am

The onslaught of good Q4 music keeps coming! This is my top 2007 non-rap album so far. Those that would like this Ms. Keys album (my review here) include R&B fans of artists like Jill Scott, adult contemporary fans of artists like John Mayer, or fans of those that do both well like Nikka Costa.

Hell Razah 2007 Razah's Ladder

The best Wu-Tang related artist for 2007 is a WC "affiliate" "weed carrier" cat Hell Razah most Wu-stans have never heard of, as they get their Stanley Kubrick on over the new Ghost or Wu albums.

Hell Razah dropped 2 dope albums this in 2007. Renaissance Child was nice, but this new album is better (my review here).

All Wu-stans should def. give this albums a listen.

Democratic Presidents better than Republicans

This article shows how the Democratic Presidents pwn the Republicans economically over the last several decades.

Cunninlynguists 2007 Dirty Acres

WTF is Cunninlynguists? In this case, it's not referring to a sex act, but a rap trio from Lexington, KY with soulful beats & lyrics reminiscent of an improved Goodie Mob, like Goodie Mob v2.0. Their new album Dirty Acres is excellent, check it out. Here's my RYM review.

This is definitely an album you can use for a "region bigot" who swears that "all Southern rap sucks". This album will ether that "debate" very quickly.

hilarious Obama/H Clinton t-shirt

Intellectually speaking, this isht is sexist & wrong.

I can't front tho, I stumbled upon this, & found it hilarious.

book "Cowboy Republic" shows how Gee Dubbz breaks laws

I got C-Span on in the background while doing some computer stuff. They have a speech on now with lawyer/author Marjorie Cohn giving an overview of her book Cowboy Republic, showing 6 different ways on how Gee Dubbz is breaking laws.

Out of the blue, she mentioned how 1 "detainee" was "rendered" to a middle eastern country & tortured & sodomized.

Sodomized? [||]! I knew Dubbz was torturing folks like water-boarding, but didn't know this.

Damn do Evangelical wingnuts know about this? You can prolly take away most Evangelical wingnuts rights in the name of "terrorism", but they may draw the line with gay torture acts, they might actually stand up for rights & the rule of law. Especially now that seemingly every month another Evangelical leader/preacher gets busted for gay sex like Rev. Ted Haggard, they might be eager to stand up with civil rights groups they normally hate, in fighting Gee Dubbz' gay torture.

Damn, the experts say torture doesn't work. Put that aside. I can't think of something to alienate anyone of any religion more that subjecting 1 to gay rape/torture. To me, that seems a sure way of creating more terrorists.

What. The. Fock. This is disgusting morally, ethically, & literally.

Internets Participation Inequality

This article shows how the same small percentage of folks do most of the "work" on the internets, in terms of blog posts, comments, wikipedia article writing, etc

Boardwalk Tech

This software vendor Boardwalk Tech, has an application that takes an existing business process that is existing user Excel spreadsheets, & makes the process like an enterprise software implementation. The users still use Excel as their GUI, but there is tracking of changes made to the Excel cell level.

This sounds interesting, since Excel is so prevalent by all "knowledge workers" for so many analysis projects.

fwd - Wal-Mart's midlife crisis

Interesting Business Week article on Wal-Mart. The article is surprisingly fair-minded & balanced on discussing the state of Wal-Mart. Also surprising is that my homegirl Ms. Kay Roger is sonning Wal-Mart in the grocery "space".

Jay Smooth ethers MSM

blogger Jay Smooth ethers American MSM



Fox News = blatant Republican party propaganda

CNN = randomly crappy & unethical. No political agenda, just random incompetence.

IMHO Jay Smooth = Jack Cafferty >>> anyone else at Faux News or CNN combined

Flipmode Squad fires Busta Rhymes

The Flipmode Squad has stopped working with Busta Rhymes & renamed itself (story here).

Is this the 1st case ever of "weed carriers" firing the "owner"/"star" in rap history?

IMHO the only Flipmode rappers good enough/interesting enough to have their own album were Rah Digga & Lord Have Mercy.

Busta may have been horrible in promoting the Flipmode into solo careers. At least I give Busta that he shouted "Flipmode is the Squad!" about 4.080 million times over the last 11 years.

Since Lauryn Hill doesn't make new music, there are no lyrical woman MCs, that don't rely on their sexuality as a gimmick, dropping albums on major labels. I can't believe there is 0 market for lyrical woman MCs. Some music industry "TI" should to the obvious & sign a lyrical woman MC like Rah Digga, Jean Grae, Invincible, or Bahamadia.

Thingamy

Thingamy is a software app, where supposedly 1 can quickly define a business process in the GUI, not needing custom software engineering, or even configuration of text files/DB/etc. Instead of a traditional relational DB, it uses an in-memory object-oriented DB.

Potentially this is as replacement for ERP, at least for a specific key unique process a business might have. I assume Thigamy currently is more implementable in a small business.

Not sure if Thigamy is open source or not. I didn't see a download link to the software on the site.

I will file this on the proverbial "watch list".

PayScale

I browsed PayScale, which is a good broad salary site, in which 1 can browse job titles by many factors, such as industry, yrs experience, age, etc. PayScale also has other countries, however I only looked at the USA in my skimming of the site. Off of a cursory glance, it seems PayScale > Salary.com

Wikileaks

I stumbled upon Wikileaks, which apparently is independent from Wikipedia.

Wikileaks is a news site for "whistle blowers" for journalists/activists/whistle blowers to inform the public of corruption/injustice.

Bravo! IMHO sites like this are needed to fill in the gaps that the lazy corporate American MSM are ignoring or even actively hiding.

article that says lucrative > altruistic career for society

Here's an interesting opinion by Daniel Akst, that says that a lucrative career is better than an altruistic career, not just for yourself, but society.

He has a thought experiment where 2 friends are compared 25 years later, 1 an investment banking company founder, the other a journalist/novelist. Akst argues that by being a multimillionaire, some millions of which are given to charity, & by giving good jobs to his employees, the investment guy helps society more than the journalist/novelist guy.

It's an interesting take, but I don't agree fully with the premise.

First, Akst is comparing a "best-case scenario" investment guy, with a mediocre altruistic career guy. Akst is comparing the 0.1% investment guy with a mediocre 50% altruistic guy.

The investment guy is given great performance, & great altruism. It's not certain that the investment guy would have the ability to be 1 of the few wildly successful entrepreneurs. Even if he has the ability, office politics or timing might prevent him from that goal. Also, if he does become the successful entrepreneur, treating his employees well, or giving substantially to charity is not a certainty.

In contrast, the journalist/novelist is a mediocre guy. For example, the journalists who exposed the Nixon corruption ending in Nixon's impeachment, did a great altruistic service for American democracy. A social worker who over a long career helps 20 parolees reform into productive members of society, has done a great work for society. The public health scientists who get an effective plan for dealing with avian flu, could potentially save 1000s of American lives.

Second, the premise that one's pay reflects the value to society is bogus. This is another example where I seem to be 1 of the few that recall from Econ 101, that free market capitalism requires many producers & many customers, such that any 1 entity has no meaningful influence on price or quantity of product.

The investment industry is closer to an oligopoly than free market capitalism. A few huge companies control a majority of the market.

American oligopolistic companies tend to source & desire qualified yet cheap labor, whether this means age discrimination of 40+ yo workers, excessively detailed job experience requirements, H1B visas, illegal workers, offshore outsourcing. If a union or union-like worker professional society exists to protect workers & limit supply of workers, the workers will be able to improve or maintain good pay & benefits.

The point is that many industries have artificially reduced the number of employees due to oligopoly, &/or reduce the number of qualified employees available via union/professional society, to make the free market capitalism model inapplicable. As such, Akst assertion is false that pay reflects the value of the work to society.

Like I said, IMHO Akst's argument is flawed, yet interesting. What do you think?

Housing Panic

I stumbled upon this blog Housing Panic, which has an interesting bearish take on housing & the economy in general.

Zillow

I stumbled upon this real estate site Zillow.

You can put any random US address, & if it has the data, it will show you the tax appraiser value, Zillow's own estimate value, & the square footage.

I tried a few random addresses for a few different states, & each home showed up, with at least some data.

This is pretty informative & interesting. OTOH, it's another invasion of privacy.

InterviewUp

This site InterviewUp has lists of industry-specific common interview questions.

GOZ reviews the Kanye West & 50 Cent albums, Round 3

GOZ reviews the 3rd studio albums from Kanye West & 50 Cent

----

Kanye West 2007 Graduation
3.5/5



For those of you that PMed me wondering when I was going to review Graduation, I thank you for your patience. Not to sound gassed up, but here it is folks; my long overdue and probably irrelevant review of Kanye West's Graduation.

First of all, I hope by now all of the Kanye/50 Cent comparisons are dead. Kanye and 50 are completely different artists. They're even more mismatched than the all-too-often-heard 2Pac/Biggie comparisons. It's like comparing ketchup and mustard. Getting to the album, everytime a new Kanye album is announced, it's like an event. Of course, the "Kanye Is God" club is pissing their pants with excitement while the "Fuck Kanye" club is thinking, "Here we go again...". So how is Graduation? Having finally listened to this album, I'm kinda surprised that Kanye took the safe route on this one. He didn't cross any lines in lyrics, beats, or songs as a whole at all. Was he influenced by the "play it safe" direction Common took on Finding Forever? In Common's case, his music has always been sorta chill and unabrasive (except Electric Circus) so playing it safe paid off for him (fuck the haters, it paid off). Kanye, on the other hand, has always been elaborate and ambitious so when he "plays it safe", it may guarantee that someone like me won't hate the album, but I can't say that I'm super happy about it. To start off, his rhymes don't improve. Unfortunately, they dumb down even more. Kanye has gone from a "producer that can rap" to a "rapping producer". His lyrics mostly deal with his fame. Despite lifelong members of the "Fuck Kanye" club trying to put him down, Kanye stays motivated and more determined. A better description is on the incredibly satisfying "Everything I Am". So what's the good news about Kanye's beats? There's good news and bad news. The good news is that his beats are still tight. The bad news is that surprisingly Kanye didn't save the best beats for himself. His production on Common's Finding Forever and the lone beat he contributed to Talib Kweli's Ear Drum are much better than the production on Graduation. I would say Kanye should step his game up, but the beats are still tight. And even the best producers have bad days once in a while. Example: RZA's dumbed down beats on ODB's Return to the 36 Chambers and 9th Wonder's generic beats on Sean Price's Monkey Barz. Should we expect high profile guests on Graduation like his first two albums had? No, again going back to Kanye "playing it safe". The only good guest is DJ Premier (my favorite Chris Martin), and he only had minimal scratches. T-Pain didn't ruin the song he's on (thank God), but he's still T-Pain. Lil' Wayne sucked ass. His rapping was sooooo shitty on "Barry Bonds". Why the hell do people keep running to Weezy for collabos? "Best rapper alive" my nuts. Actually, Dwele and the other Chris Martin (of Coldplay fame) weren't bad, but they were just the disposable sung hooks. And finally, Mos Def. Everybody loves to hate Mos Def. Instead of using "Drunk & Hot Girls" as a reason to get all up in Mos' ass like everyone else is (he didn't make THAT big a fool of himself), I'ma just forget that he did that shit. What Kanye shoulda done is have Mos spit a verse in "Barry Bonds" and shoulda left Weezy alone to spit his wack ass raps all over second-rate Dipset albums. For me, the biggest problem with Graduation is that Kanye's ambition doesn't compare to that of his first two albums. Compared to College Dropout and Late Registration, Graduation is lethargic and a bit of a letdown. That doesn't mean this album sucks. Graduation is enjoyable in its own right and it has a bunch of good (although not classic) songs. Anyone that based all of their opinion of this album on Kanye's past should check themselves. I feel that those that gave this album less than 2.5 stars is either a Kanye hater, didn't want to like this album, or both. We wouldn't see those really low ratings if this was Kanye's first album or if this was from another artist. Although Kanye set the bar really high for himself, I refuse to do some Beats, Rhymes & Life-type underrating when his next joint isn't a superclassic. I recommend Graduation only to people that don't hate Kanye or don't want to hate Kanye. No one else should bother with this album. Kanye's still cool with me, but he's too talented to come out with some standard hip-hop shit. I've always loved his "I'ma light your ass on fire" approach to his music and hope he regains that attitude when he works on his next album.

Song Quality: 7/10 (not groundbreaking, but a'ight)
Lyrics: 7/10 (ain't the same technical rapper in '04)
Beats: 9/10 (good beats, but he was too generous to his buddies productionwise)

Favorites:
Good Morning (Intro)
Champion
I Wonder (kinda weird, but I like it)
Good Life (despite Troutman's-Pain in the ass)
Can't Tell Me Nothing
Barry Bonds (despite the "best" rapper alive)
Flashing Lights
Everything I Am (soulful)
The Glory
Homecoming
Big Brother

Least favorite:
Drunk & Hot Girls (what the fuck is this?)

---

50 Cent 2007 Curtis
1.5/5



*Sigh* Some motherfuckers just don't learn....
Before I get to this review, I'm gonna address all the punks that are gonna flood this page with .5 star reviews yapping about the same dumb shit. First of all, those people that always whine "All 50 Cent talks about is violence, boo hoo hoo, he's too violent". First of all, 50 Cent has always had violent lyrics and always will and the lyrics have nothing to do with how he's living or actually thinks. IT'S ENTERTAINMENT!! Just like that violent ass DeNiro movie y'all probably watch every weekend. Anyone that can't see that is either an idiot to the highest degree or an attention-starved pussy (I see you hypocritical Marilyn Manson and Cannibal Corpse fans out there bitching about 50 being too violent). And for those of you that use 50 Cent to push your ignorant bullshit conclusions about a genre of music you don't know a goddamn thing about, y'all are the biggest attention-starved Ann Coulter wannabe pieces of shit on this whole fucking website. Y'all ain't Bill O'Reilly. No one wants to hear your cliche genre defamations or your shit talking. If that's what you gotta do to be a rock fan, I'd rather be a fan of any other music known to man. For the reviews that are mostly likely gonna follow mine saying something stupid like "rap is crap", the reviewer just proved his/her lack of working brain cells, relevance, or consideration for anyone else on RYM. It's not rocket science. If you despise a certain artist or genre, don't waste your time listening to it, you bloodclot motherfuckers.

Now to the review. Everybody knows that the hype built up for this album was Fif claiming that he would retire if Kanye West outsold him. What's the smart thing about that? This will give the G-Unit fanboys more of an incentive to buy the new 50 Cent instead of downloading or bootlegging. The flaw against his bold statement is that he went head-to-head with Kanye West. People still give a damn about Kanye and what he does. Look at Finding Forever (executive produced by West). That debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. If it ain't Gold now, it'll make it there eventually. Compare to the G-Unit numbers. Ever since Thoughts of a Predicate Felon failed to go Plat, every G-Unit artist since then has gone wood (Lloyd Banks, Mobb Deep, Young Buck). Yeah, 50 Cent's album will outsell all of those since it's the General instead of the flunkies, but he still won't be seein' them Get Rich or Die Tryin' or The Massacre numbers. He might as well bet that he was gonna outsell Jay-Z. But who cares about record sales and SoundScan numbers? Does Curtis live up to the hype? Well.....remember at the end of The Massacre review I said that if I even listen to the next 50 Cent album, I probably wouldn't rate it higher than 2 stars? I hit the nail right on the head. Curtis proves to all of us that if you've heard Get Rich or Die Tryin' already, there's nothing more to 50 Cent. Nothing on Curtis is remotely different from Get Rich.. or The Massacre. 50 obviously overestimates his charisma. Just because Redman has gotten away with all the same subject matter since 1990 doesn't mean 50 Cent can get away without offering anything new since 2003. I'm not saying that 50 has to step out of his comfort zone nor do I expect him to stop rapping about guns, drugs, money, and women. But without the charisma, these same ol' subjects get boring and monotonous. And 50 Cent does NOT have the charisma. His laziness and his recycled material are the biggest problems with his performance. On a technical level, 50's about the same as he's always been. Not great, but not bad. And he still has the same habit of saying something so stupid or messed up, it's somehow funny ("doors lift up/I'm like 'Go Go Gadget'"). The production here is hit or miss. Sometimes you get a good beat ("Amusement Park") and other times you get a wack beat (I coulda sworn I heard the beat to "My Gun Go Off" somewhere on Encore). The beats are the best part of this album. They help make the far-and-few so-so songs better and some of the wack songs tolerable. The worst part of this album are the songs themselves. Even with 50 Cent's dying charisma, this album could've been passable. There are a only a couple bangers here. The rest are either filler or corny garbage. Any song that doesn't end up on my "Least Favorites" list, I was being generous. This really ain't a good album at all (especially the end of the album). I only recommend this to G-Unit fans. Although the numbers of them are diminishing, they'll probably like this, maybe even more than The Massacre (Curtis is more street than that one). I doubt anyone else will like this. No matter how unimpressive Graduation is, Kanye would have to be on crack to do worse than this. I'm not gonna say that 50's next album will be worse than this, but I doubt it'll be all that great. Even though he's not going to, 50 Cent should retire and become a businessman fulltime. There are lots of ways the man could make money. Rapping ain't one of them anymore.

Song Quality: 3.5/10 (boring, heard it all before gangsta rap)
Lyrics: 5/10 (heard it all before)
Beats: 6.5/10 (some good, some bad)

Favorites:
Follow My Lead (corny lyrics, but I like the piano-driven beat)
Movin' On Up (wack rhymes, but cool beat)
Fully Loaded Clip (so bad, it's good)

Least favorites:
My Gun Go Off (wack rhymes, wack beat)
Man Down (stupid as hell)
I'll Still Kill (Akon's thug crooning got annoying)
Come & Go (what the hell, Dr. Dre?!)
Ayo Technology (not feeling that futuristic Timbo stuff at all)
Straight to the Bank (annoying "ha ha ha" crap)
Peep Show (50 and Em's version of "You Owe Me")
Curtis 187 (booooooriiiing!)
Touch the Sky

Airline flight shopping guide

A good airline flight internet shopping guide. There are some new sites/functionality available that I haven't heard of.

Max Blumenthal murks David Horowitz "on his own isht"

David Horowitz is a crazy bigot wingnut, an "intellectual" version of mAnn Coulter or Michael Weiner "Savage".

Peep how Max Blumenthal, a guy half the age of Horowitz, murks Horowitz in his own speech.

The ironic thing about the "Islamofascist" spouting-morons like Horowitz, is that they don't understand the definition of fascism. Fascism involves a close alliance between the government & big corporations. From that perspective Gee Dubbz & Cheney are fascists. Islamists murderers like Bin Laden are horrible people that should be imprisoned or murdered, but they are not fascists.

D. Kucinich & R. Paul ether Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson, 1 of the most epic douche-bags in the MSM, gets ethered both ways by a candidate from each party, Dennis Kucinich & Ron Paul. No [||] needed, as Carlson is likely the next closeted self-hating gay ReThuglican ala Larry Craig.

Paul


Kucinich

Fux's Mexican vacation

The homie Fux aka Etheraldinho recounts his Mexican vacation. Hi-larious, as us-ual from El Fuxero.

Pt 1

fwd - worst US economy in a generation

Hale "BondDad" Stewart has a fact & chart-backed argument on how we have the worst US economy in a generation.

Pt 1
Pt 2

experimenting with new MP3 freeware app set

I'm experimenting with using these freeware apps/tools for managing my mp3 collection. Natch, if you have any experience/thoughts on these apps, or the MP3 "process" in general, pls hit up the comments.

mp3 player - Foobar2000 0.9.4.5. Note foobar has extensive functionality & is highly customizable.

Foobar tutorial site - Foobar2000 Manual

columns UI 2.0 add-in functionality - Columns UI

MP3 tag editor - MP3Tag v2.39

Pakistani leader Musharraf "gets his dictator on"

Musharraf gets his dictator on, suspending the Pakistani constitution, & declaring a "state of emergency". BBC's take on this bogus nonsense.

I bet our American wannabe dictators like Gee Dubbz & "Fooliani" Giuliani are watching this with great interest & envy.

Musharraf prolly called Gee Dubbz & said "yo I move the weight like I'm Oprah's son, I show you how to do this, son!".

Musharraf & his PR WCs are repeating his talking point that "if the Musharraf regime falls, some Islamic radicals will take power, & prolly nuke India or Israel". Of course the brain dead US MSM parrots this. I'm no Pakistan expert, but I saw an interview with a Pakistani expert on Democracy Now saying this is not true. That guy said there are many moderates in Pakistan.

"Vamos David" Nalbandian is the truth

David Nalbandian has dominating the Fall Indoor circuit, winning the Masters Series tourneys in Madrid & Paris, being 5-0 against the Top3 players along the way, beating Federer twice, Djokovic once, & SONNING Nadal twice in straight-set beatdowns.

I use to annoy an Argentino guy on my ALTA rec tennis team by screaming "vamos Dav-iiiid" when he was playing. But after this Fall, I doubt anyone would not want to be compared to Nalbandian. Funny story, in the playoff match this weekend, 2 Argentinos played line #2 & Schiavod the opponents 61 60, even though 1 of the opponents was a great 4.5 USTA player. Afterwards I said "I'm not surprised, no way the Argies gonna lose, after witnessing their paisano David. Olvidalo che! No mames buey!"

Nalbo ended up finishing 9th in the ATP Race, so he's 1st alternate for the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai which starts like Nov 11. I'm hoping someone withdraws from TMC, in order for Nalbo to play. Roddick is saying he might sit out to rest up/prepare for the Davis Cup final v RUS, which happens right after the TMC. I'd like to see A-Rod play, so hopefully someone else like Davydenko aka Phil Collins v3.0 will sit out. Nalbo is prolly the only 1 who could defeat Fed at TMC.

1 thing to note about Nalbo, is that he's basically the same age as Fed, & thus has played Fed forever, going back to the Juniors days. So Nalbo doesn't have the fear factor of Fed that the other players might.

2008 looks to be exciting, with Nalbo, Nadal & Djokovic all having a realistic chance to take Fed's #1 spot.

Finally, how happy is David in that picture? Son just pwned the ATP this fall, & gets the trophy surrounded by the Parisian half-naked ladies! What's the deal with the ladies' see-through shirts? Hey, I'm not complaining, just wondering if that's that common practice in Paris? I don't think a tourney could do that in the USA, without ReThuglican theocrats going ballistic.

Bihać

random hilarious news.

There's a city Bihać, Bosnia & Herzegovina, that is pronounced bee-yotch.

Playlist - Y 2007

Here's a playlist with the top song off of each good album I've heard, that was released in 2007. I'm experimenting with this divshare free service. I might update this playlist periodically. If you want to listen to some tunes, just click the "playlist" blog label. Enjoy!

Playlist - Y 2007

01


02


03


04


05


06


07


08


09


10

question: rapid play setting on media player apps

I got a question on rapid play settings on media player type apps. I sent the text out below to the Lifehacker editor.

Pls hit up the comments if you can answer my questions or have insight on this:
-----

I have a basic question on media players. Sorry to trouble you, but I think it's 1 that is very common & relevant to your readership, so I figure you might be interested in the question.

I enjoy using the "Play Speed Settings" in Windows Media Player (WMV). I found for podcast/speech/talkshow audio mp3s, I can save time by playing the mp3 at 1.4x speed.

However I hate WMP. WMP sometimes crashes or has other problems.

QUESTIONS
1 Does foobar, VLC or any other player have this "rapid play speed setting" for mp3s?

2 same question for video files, specifically .wmv & .dvr-ms. For instance, I use Windows Media Center to record the Daily Show, this way I can replay it later & skip commercials. It would be even better if I could play that Daily Show .dvr-ms file at 1.4x.

MediaMonkey

Lifehacker is proppin' this app MediaMonkey as an MP3 management app.

In the comments, a guy propped the open source/free app SnackAmp, & claims the app developer replies to emails with questions/bugs/requests/etc.

Windows Media Player stays crashing on me, so I've been using Foobar for playing mp3s & playlists. I might check out these other apps at some time.

As always the pain/time of investigating something that might be better, vs the limitation of the existing app/process.

free service to host & stream your mp3s

Lifehacker has a good article indicating there's a new category of free internet service, which will legally stream your mp3s.

Anyone have experience with this?

I opened an MP3Tunes account to check this out.

Federer clincles 2007 YE #1

For the 4th consecutive year, Roger Federer clinches the 2007 YE #1 spot.

Fed stays sonning worldwide sports. I predict inevitably now that Fed will clinch

1 GOAT tennis player
2 best athlete, any sport, of the 2000s decade

Check back in late 2008, watch the MSM parrot my words.

The homie Federer is too Unbelievable, word to BIG.

Blogging Heads

This site Blogging Heads have debates/lectures of bloggers on politics & social science topics. Kind of like an alternate internets C-Span, for when you want to "get your nerd on".

Gee Dubbz team failed at an Aug 2007 to murk Bin Laden

The Bush Administration failed at an Aug 2007 chance to probably murder Osama Bin Laden.

Huh?!

Why is this not a huge story in the MSM?

Why don't the weak lame Democrats not make this a talking point & repeat it many times?

I hope Dubbz is just extremely incompetent, & not extremely evil in not murking OBL for some propaganda or political purpose.

your myspace "friend" Tom lies on his profile

BBC had a link to a blog post, saying that myspace's Tom lies on his profile, lying about his age.

This story reminded me of a hilarious point. When I first joined myspace, I didn't know who "Tom" was, so when Tom "friend requested" me, I denied it, since I thought Tom was a random spammer.

Gee Dubbz' douche #4081 - David Hager

This guy David Hager, may be among the most douchiest of Gee Dubbz' officials yet.

Dubbz appointed Hager to a FDA advisory council.

Hager is a gynecologist, & has extreme evangelical "Christian" religious views.

His 1st wife divorced him, citing that she was anally raped by Hager, when she was sleeping.

Hager mentioned that "he unknowingly hit the wrong place". WTF?!

OK I have 2 comments on this:
1 A gynecologist cannot tell the difference between the vagina & the anus? HA! What. The. Fock!

2 I guess Hager implies that vaginal rape while his wife is sleeping would be acceptable?

I see on Wiki, that Hager's 2nd wife also divorced, for "drugging & raping her"

DAMN! This Hager guy is an epic douche! Too fockin hi-larious, 1 could not make this stuff up!

Gee Dubbz ties Nixon for WOAT approval rating

Gee Dubbz ties Nixon for WOAT approval rating, the day NIXON LEFT OFFICE! How low can Dubbz go? 24%!

Cenk ethers Dubbz here

mAnn Coulter slanders Jews

mAnn Coulter may have finally killed her own career.

In this Media Matters clip, from the Donny Deutsch show, mAnn says shew "wants to perfect Jews, by converting them to Christianity". Besides being anti-Semitic, mAnn shows she's unfamiliar with the freedom of religion right in the US Constitution.

I believe in the American mainstream media (MSM), racism is relative. What I mean by this, is that certain racist/bigoted statements made against 1 group will cause 1 to get fired, while against another group, there will be no penalty.

mAnn is a case study. S/he's made countless racist statements against Muslims & Arabs, such as the infamous "we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders, & force everyone to convert to Christianity". Of course, the MSM allows wanton racism against Muslims, it's not a problem in their view. Don't believe me? US Rep Virgial Goode (R-VA) said racist statements against Muslims, when new US Rep Keith Ellison (D-MN) took office. You think the MSM would allow these racist statements against other groups?

OTOH, Jews are on the opposite end of the relative racism spectrum. There are many Jewish executives, eg "TIs" (no reverse KKKramer just in case) in the MSM. Some of these execs will rightfully label mAnn as a racist against Jews, & try to limit her access to MSM interviews.

LOL @ mAnn's backpedalling. mAnn says it's not a disrespectful comment, because the Jews follow the Old Testament, while Christians follow the Old & New Testaments. By that mAnn non-logic, would "Muslims" be "perfected Christians", since they acknowledge the Old & New Testaments & regard Jesus, Moses, etc as prophets, but also follow the Koran? Ridiculous.

In conclusion, basically mAnn is effing with the wrong group here. Hey "TIs", "God bless, go forward", I hope you successfully ban & blacklist this racist moronic biotch from the entire MSM.

Funky DL

Funky DL 2007 The 4th Quarter


This UK rapper, Funky DL, made an excellent jazz rap album. 1 of my favorite albums of the year. Click the album cover to read my RYM review.

Al Gore says he won't run for 2008 President

BBC reports that Al Gore won't run for President in 2008.

Kinda disappointing, I might have voted for him had he run.

Stephen Colbert running for President

On the Colbert Report tonight, Stephen Colbert said he's "running for President in both the Republican & Democratic primary, in my home state of South Carolina".

WTF?

Here's the most recent story on Google News about it right now.

I'm not sure if this is serious or not. I mean, Colbert has to be at least as much of a realistic candidate as Tom Tancredo or Allan Keys right? LOL. Plus his crazy statements are no crazier 80% the Republican candidates' positions anyways.

SMH at a clown TV character Colbert being the same or less crazy than the positions of most of the actual real ReThuglican candidates like Giuliani or Fred Thompson.

Little Brother's Big Pooh, 4080th rapper to outrap Little Wayne

This dude Lil Wayne, keeps claiming to be the "best rapper alive".

Yet, on every song he guest-raps on, he gets sonned by the other rappers. Even by rappers considered wack, mediocre, or "OK at best".

Yet somehow the insufferable Wayne Stayne band of stanleys keep the faith in Wang [||].

1 month ago, Kanye West sonned Lil Wang on Kanye's "Barry Bonds".

Now, Little Brother sons Wang on LB's new album, on song "Breakin My Heart" (prod. by 9th Wonder, listen here)

1st verse LB's Big Pooh, who many fans in the past had said "sucks" & is "holding back Phonte". Not saying I think Big Pooh's wack, I think he's not great but definitely is good. Just saying what the "internets consensus" was on Big Pooh

2nd verse Phonte

3rd verse Lil Wang

Phonte's verse > Big Pooh >> Lil Wang

This clown Lil Wang should make an album called "Duets - Watch 12 Rappers Come Murk Me On My Own Shit".

Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly

This site, Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly, chronicles all the douchery of the loathsome Bill Ho'Lie-ly.

Phonte leaks his own Little Brother album

Phonte leaks his own Little Brother album.

What a great trend. I love it.

Radiohead released their album via free download, with an optional donation that fans can give. The ironic thing is Radiohead will prolly make more money this way, then they did from their record company using the traditional CD-selling method of prior albums.

Little Brother have a small niche, but loyal, fanbase. My guess is Phonte figures by leaking it, he might make more new fans that might eventually pay him in some way, eg go to his show, buy a t-shirt, by an old LB album, etc.

This trend of leaking albums is good for everyone, except music industry "TI" executives, vultures who don't "add any value" anyways. It's good for the artist, & the fans. "God bless, go forward" (c) The Young Turks' Cenk.

GOZ reviews the Kanye West & 50 Cent, Round 2

Given the Kanye/50 news, here's GOZ's reviews of the 2nd major label studio albums from Kanye & 50. Shout out to the kid GOZ!

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Kanye West 2005 Late Registration
GOZ rating: 4/5



In preparation for my listening to Graduation, I decided to stop being comatose on Kanye West and revisited his last two albums. Lemme just get into the Late Registration state of mind, and I'll get into the review. With the success and the acclaim of The College Dropout, Kanye West became the media darling. But shit ain't all peaches and cream. His arrogance and childish behavior about not winning tripe awards like Grammys or American Music Awards did lead to the creation of the "fuck Kanye" club. Other members of that club included hardcore hip-hop elitists that feels that hip-hop is only good if it's done in a certain, paint-by-numbers way. I'll bet that some heads found it strange hearing somebody's middle-aged mother reciting rhymes from "All Falls Down" or the pop-rock fans/loyal MTV viewers at school constantly complaining that Kanye is the only rapper that doesn't talk about guns, bitches, etc. Kanye in 2004/2005 was the not the same as Snoop Dogg in 1993 or Nas in 1994. He was the type of rapper that got uptight middle-aged white folks into hip-hop. This, along with the fact that Kanye never shut up about anything, split music fans in half. The "fuck Kanye" club has just as many members as the "Kanye is God" club. After a lot of media attention and some scrutiny, Mr. West is ready to follow up his large debut. Of course, the "fuck Kanye" club wants Mr. West to flop and run to his mama's basement, eating Ben & Jerry's crying "No..no..no one loves me anymore...*sniff*". Naturally, the "Kanye is God" club wants Mr. West to part the ocean yet again. What would the highly-anticipated sophomore effort Late Registration bring us? This effort wouldn't change anyone's mind about Kanye West. As elgringocolombiano says, let the haters hate and the stanners stan. With all of that explained, here's my review of Late Registration (DISCLAIMER: I'm a Kanye West fan). Let's start with the production. If there is one thing about Kanye that should be admired by everyone, it's his work ethic. LISTEN TO THESE BEATS!!!!!!!! On Late Registration, Kanye evolves his sound by making it more lush and orchestral. With everything going on in a single track, there's a high possibility that the beats could've been overproduced. But Kanye does it just right. From the soulful piano on "Wake Up Mr. West" on to "Late", the production is quite pleasant and a joy to listen to. Despite the ill beats that Kanye gave Common in '05, he still saved the best beats for himself. How are Kanye's rhymes? Is he still that producer that raps better than most rappers? Not quite. With his stepping up with the beats, his raps dumbed down a little bit. He's not terrible, but some of the witty lines we heard on The College Dropout are noticably absent here. On the lyrical side, that "look at me, I'm the greatest thing since thong underwear" attitude that Mr. West is oh so infamous for doesn't creep its way into the lyrics. Although he showed a little more personality on The College Dropout, Kanye still likes to have fun ("Gold Digger"), can be deep ("Diamonds From Sierra Leone"), introspective ("Roses"), and down-to-earth ("Heard 'Em Say"). I'm gonna tell the truth about Kanye. Honestly, I think Kanye's public arrogance and questionable behavior is just for self-promotional purposes. If you actually listen to the stuff he says on his albums, you see how Kanye West really is. And for those that think his deeper subject matter is just gimmicky conscious rap, negro PLEASE. Kanye is smart enough to know there are a bunch of people that hate his "holier than thou" attitude. Yet, he still acts the fool at the Grammys. That's how little he cares about the "fuck Kanye" club. To quote him on "Bring Me Down": "Everybody feel a way about K, but at least y'all feel something". The guests on this album aren't as cool as those on the last album, but they're cool. No doubt that Adam Levine and Paul Wall were thrown in to appeal to Kanye's "white bread" fanbase (no offense to y'all), Common, Jigga, GLC and Consequence are back, without his lame omitted G-Unot verse, the Game doesn't really bring anything, Really Doe does a weird hook, Brandy sings her heart out, Nas works quite well with Kanye, and in a goofy way Cam'ron killed it. That's right; I said Cam'ron killed it! So what's the problem with this album? Besides Kanye's dumbed down rhymes, mostly the same problems with The College Dropout. There's some filler here (the skits are funnier this time around) with include the cute, out of place jingles like "Gold Digger". Again, this album is recommended to music fans with no anti-Kanye bias whatsoever. Late Registration won't convert Kanye haters nor will it disappoint Kanye fans. Even with all his arrogence, Kanye West can still show and prove. So just like Chino XL, Kanye's earned his bragging rights.

Song Quality: 9/10 (great followup)
Beats: 10/10 (he's growing as a producer)
Lyrics: 8.5/10 (not his best, but still good)

Favorites:
Heard 'Em Say
Touch the Sky
Drive Slow (smooth)
My Way Home (Soulful Common song)
Crack Music (Game should've had a verse, though)
Roses (down-to-earth)
Bring Me Down
Diamonds From Sierra Leone [Remix]
We Major
Gone (Cam'ron is retarded)
Diamonds From Sierra Leone

Least Favorites:
Gold Digger (not bad, but.....ehhhhh)
Addiction (filler)

---

50 Cent 2005 The Massacre
GOZ rating: 2.5/5



"50 Cent sucks! He is the worst artist on the face of the earth! 50 Cent is the devil!!! He represents everything wrong with music!!! He should get shot in his ass and die!! FUCK 50 CENT!!!"
- one of the .5 star reviewers

I'm sorry, I just had to laugh. I know the above quote is exaggeration, but some of the anti-50 Cent comments I've read here are so over the top, it's hilarious!! And I thought Snakes On a Plane was ridiculous!! Look, I understand that a lot of people don't like 50 Cent, and the dude is pretty wack but people act like he's the motherfucking anti-Christ and shit lol. In a world with Prussian Blue, 50 Cent definitely ain't the worst artist in the world. He ain't even the worst rapper in the world. Curtis Jackson is automatically better than any rapper that has ever said "A Bay Bay", "This Is Why I'm Hot", "Lean widdit, rock widdit", "Shake yo' laffy taffy", "MIKE JOOOOONES!!!", "CRACK CRACK CRACK!!", or "MUUURRRRRDDDDDAAAA!!!". Shit I won't be surprised if none of these 106 half star reviews actually listened to this album in its entirety (especially thunderheed, but fuck what he thinks). But anyway, let's get to the review. These half-star raters are partly right. 50 Cent's sophomore effort The Massacre isn't an abomination to music, but shit's still pretty wack. This album, along with the Game's shit-talking, would lead to the downfall of G-Unit. Did Get Rich or Die Tryin' convince you that 50 Cent is a real gangsta? After The Massacre, the only people that are still convinced that 50's the "superthug" that he makes himself out to be are upper-middle class suburban white kids that listen to "rebel music" like this, Marilyn Manson or Eminem just to piss their tightwad parents off. You know why 50 Cent isn't gangsta anymore? Besides the fact that he moved to Vermont (yet he talks about being in the hood all the time), he modeled this album after a Ja Rule album. He didn't bite the faux-Tupac Shakur swagger from Ja Fool, but he bit everything else. As for his skills on a technical level, 50 still trades ill verbals for charisma and swagger. This method is stil effective on the better songs of this album. As far as lyrics, c'mon man; it's 50 Cent we're talking about. Who wouldn't expect lyrics about being in the hood, guns and more guns, anticipating his murder, killing said murderers first along with other people for no reason, dissing other rappers (Fat Ho, Jadakiss, and Nas in this case), girl chasing, and refering to women as bitches? That's all I have to say about his lyrics. As far as production goes, I think the beats here are quite good. Definitely better than the beats on Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Okay, okay. From what I've stated, The Massacre is just 50 Cent being 50 Cent over some good beats. What makes this album wack exactly? First of all, the singles for this album ("Disco Inferno", "Candy Shop", "Just a Lil' Bit") suuuuucked. These three along with a couple of other songs like "Build You Up" and "So Amazing" are corny club/girl-targeted songs that are completely devoid of any soul. These are the "Ja Rule" songs on this album. Also, on an album that just shy of 80 minutes, there's bound to be filler right? What's the filler here? DAMN NEAR ALL OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE ALBUM!!! The first half of this album is generally pretty good, but the second half is filled with most of the Ja Rule joints and the other songs pathetically try to make up for it by being hollow and incredibly boring hardcore tracks full of recycled lyrics and rhymes. Not to mention the production gets lazier with most of these songs. There are only a couple of good songs on the second half of this album. I only recommend this album to 50 Cent/G-Unit/latter-day Eminem fans. Everyone else will hate this. The Massacre proves that 50 Cent is another novelty rapper that's finally on his fifteenth minute of fame. Obviously, I ain't lookin' forward to his next album. If I even listen to it, it won't be rated any higher than 2 stars.

(P.S. Hey TheOwl, you're the jackass. Why the fuck do people like you take a shitty artist from a particular genre and make illogical generalizations?! Does rock 'n' roll suck because My Chemical Romance sucks? Hell no, so stop being a closeminded waste of sperm)

Song Quality: 5/10 (unimpressive)
Lyrics: 6.5/10 (He can do better)
Beats: 8/10 (minus .5 for the second half)

Favorites:
In My Hood
This Is 50
Piggy Bank
Gatman and Robin
Get In My Car (shameless and misogynistic, but funny)
Ski Mask Way
A Baltimore Love Thing (interesting concept)
Ryder Music (smooth beat)
Position of Power
God Gave Me Style
Hate It or Love It [G-Unit Remix]

Least favorites:
Candy Shop (this shit set the stage for "Laffy Taffy")
Disco Inferno
Just a Lil Bit
Gunz Come Out
My Toy Soldier
Build You Up
So Amazing
I Don't Need 'Em

Kanye West pwned 50 Curtis

Despite Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson insufferable trash-talking, Kanye West out-sold 50 in their 1st week sales, of their respective albums dropped on Sep. 11. Kanye sonned 50 957K to 691K.

50 said "he would retire" if he lost the sales race. Like a politician, 50 has backpedalled & flip-flopped from this statement.

After the 1st week, 50 continued the trash-talking, saying that Kanye's record label bought many copies, & was the only reason Kanye won. 50 noted he would eventually sell more.

Oops! 4 weeks in & Kanye is still pwning 50, 1.409M to 956K.

Of course, Kanye also Schiavod 50 in critical acclaim.
1 as of today, Metacritic has Kanye winning 79 to 57.
2 allmusic.com gives Kanye 4/5, to 50's 3.5/5
3 as of today, rateyourmusic.com gives Kanye 3.52/5, & the #152nd best album of 2007. 50 gets a 1.74/5.

Curtis!

Kanye could easily talk trash on dude, but ironically in a somewhat mature trait, Kanye only beefs with George Bush & the media.

Armenian genocide

BBC has an FAQ on the Armenian Genocide by Turkey in WW1.

The US House passed resolution acknowledging the genocide, & bitchmade Turkey recalled their US Ambassador.

Kudos to the Armenians who get some small acknowledgement of it. I listen to a System Of A Down album recently, a rock band of Armenian-Americans from LA, & they had a song about the genocide.

For some reason, in America, no one wants to acknowledge genocides, with the exception of the Jewish genocide by Nazi Germany in WW2. Yes, what happened to the German Jews was very tragic.

However, the next time Hollywood makes a movie about Genocide, consider making the 1st movie about the

Armenian genocide
Native American genocide in 16-19th Centuries
Sudan/Darfur current genocide

instead of making the 4080th movie about the German Jews?

The Real Rudy

Here's a site The Real Rudy, which documents the douchery & evilness of Dictator Giuliani.

Jon Stewart ethers Chris Matthews

Jon Stewart ethers TV "news" "personality" Chris Matthews.

When I saw the interview, I was co-signing Stewart. The fact that so much is a "sale" or "campaign" in American life is tragic, not something to be celebrated like Matthews is saying.

When confronted with this, bitchmade Matthews just cries that Stewart is attacking him & that "this is the worst interview" ever. LOL, Matthews can't defend his bogus "life is a campaign" meme.

RYM Top100 Spanish-language album list

RYM's Jicamarca compiled a GOAT100 Spanish-language list, by collecting GOAT25 list from 30+ RYM users, via this msg board post. I had given my own GOAT25 list here.

Interestingly, I think my picks had very little crossover with the other voters. Also interestingly, nobody was bashing each other on the msg board for "shitting on" or "sleeping on" a particular album. Diversity of opinion was respected imagine that! There was people from various countries, including USA, Mexico, Carribean, South America, & Spain.

Gnod

I stumbled upon this site Gnod. Supposedly, you can put in an music Artist you like, & it will list similar Artists you may like, based on the suggestions of other users, & using AI techniques.

Gnod has a similar feature for books or movies.

It also has a feature called Flork, which seems like a form of social networking.

Fundy Christianist ReThugs might form 3rd Party

Salon reports that several Fundy Christianists ReThugs such as James Dobson are considering forming a 3rd party should pro-abortion rights Dictator Giuliani wins the ReThug nomination.

This is the best news I've heard in a while!

It looks probable that H Clinton will get the Democratic nomination, & Giuliani the ReThug nomination. In this scenario, I'm EXTREMELY WORRIED that these 2 factors could lead to Giuliani continuing the Dictatorship, Constitution-ignoring steelo of Gee Dubbz for another 4+ years:
1 many ReThugs' bizarre visceral hatred of Hillary
2 many Democratic & Indy voters' apathy of Hillary's "triangulation", non-leadership in the Senate, & ReThuglican Lite tendencies
3 many Americans' naive susceptibility to Giuliani's "9/11 Tourette's" campaign gimmick

So if Dobson & the Fundies back a 3rd party candidate, that could swing the election, word to Ralph Nader in 2000.

I wonder what the Fundy Christianist percentage of the ReThuglican voter base is. 20%?

What say yall Truth Hunter & Anonomo?

US Census definition of US regions

The US Census has defines the states into 4 regions: NorthEast, South, MidWest, & West. Check out the map here.

This is a nice reference. Every so often, someone will make a dumb statement such as "Ohio ain't Midwest". I no longer will have to argue/educate them, that's Wiki's job now.

Jay Smooth parody of Bill O'Reilly

Jay Smooth has a hilarious etherific parody of Bill Ho'Lie-ly here. This is another clip that both the political & the rap heads should watch.

DC SFs start today: USA@SWE, GER@RUS

Davis Cup Semis starts today! The USA @ SWE on indoor hard [||]. GER @ RUS on indoor clay. There's also several "playoff" ties, including the last match of the retiring GBR's Tim Henman. SUI's Federer will also be in action.

The draw looks great for the USA. SWE's Soderling is injured, so SWE is running 2 Johanssons, Joachim & Thomas against USA's Roddick & Blake. I can't see Thomas having the power to outhit, nor the footspeed to outrun Rod & Blake. Joachim might could win off the strength of his huge serve, but Joachim is coming off of an injury so I doubt it. In doubles, the Bryan Bros are always favored, but SWE's Bjorkman/Aspelin are both Top20 doubles players, so they're not an automatic win. Still, I don't see the Bros losing. Hopefully the USA will pwn SWE 3-0 & end the "live rubbers" [||] part of this DC tie on Saturday.

If USA can beat SWE, we'll prolly face RUS in the final at home in the USA. Like I said, the draw looks great. USA hasn't won DC since Sampras led USA to a win in 1995. Hopefully we can get-er-done. It would also be a great achievement for Rod & Blake, who may never get to win a GS title, since they routinely get sonned by Fed. It's also great for doubles, since the stars/MVPs of the USA DC team are the Bros. Doubs needs to get some shine, it's criminally slept-on, despite being the form of tennis that most rec players play.

Here's the TV schedule from tennis.com. Fire up your TIVO-type devices. Belize says nowadays, any big sporting event like this can be viewed gratis on the internets on sites like SopCast, but I don't know how that works.

TC = Tennis Channel, DISH #400
Vs = DISH #151

Friday, September 21
RUS @ GER 5:00 am - 12:00 pm TC
SWE @ USA 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm Vs
Replay SWE @ USA 8:00 pm - 1:30 am

Saturday, September 22
RUS @ GER 7:00 am - 10:00 am TC
SWE @ USA 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm Vs
Replay SWE @ USA 8:00 pm - 11:30 pm TC

Sunday, September 23
RUS @ GER 5:00 am - 12:00 pm TC
SWE @ USA 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm Vs
Replay SWE @ USA 8:00 pm - 1:30 am TC

FactCheck

This organization FactCheck, checks the truth (or lack thereof) of American politicians.

fwd - HS tennis tournament Sep 27-30 in ATL, full college scholarships available

FYI, my team mate Shondria from my USTA mixed doubles team in Atlanta, sent this e-mail below

Basically it sounds like the HS seniors & juniors that play HS varsity tennis, may be able to cop full scholarships, by going to this event Sep 27-30 @ Sugar Creek TC in Atlanta

Pls fwd this to any kids that may be interested.

ALTA internet directions to Sugar Creek TC:
2706 BOULDERCREST RD, Atlanta
(404) 243-7149
I-285; EXIT 51, S ON BOULDERCREST RD; APPROX 1/4M, LT ON SUGAR CREEK GOLF DR; FOLLOW TO CTS.

Never forget that El Gringo Colombiano is for the children (c) ODB. No Mark Foley.

---
Shondria's msg:

FYI......If you know someone who can benefit from this please pass along.

Historically Black Colleges host a Tennis Tournament at Sugar Creek Tennis Center off of Bouldercrest Rd each year. This year the event is being held the last of this month.

18 colleges are expected and the coaches are looking to give out full tennis scholarships. Last year they gave away scholarships to some young men but there were not enough girls to so they left without giving away an additional remaining 8 full scholarships.

The do not have to play like the Williams sisters or James Blake, just play tennis competitively. Please share with any high school juniors or seniors that you may know who play and may be interested.

-------

HBCU Nationals Tennis Tournament

Calendar of Events

September 27th-30th

THURSDAY - September 27th, 2007

8:30A.M. – 9:00A.M.: Player Reception/Match Play Starts

12:00P.M. – 1:00P.M.: Lunch provided for Players and Coaches

9:00A.M. – 6:00P.M.: Tournament Play

FRIDAY - September 28th, 2007

8:30A.M. – 6:00P.M.: Daily Match Play

12:00P.M. – 1:00P.M.: Lunch provided for Players and Coaches

6:30P.M. – 9:00P.M.: College Pro-Am Fundraiser

* Round Robin Play
* Hit for Prizes and Giveaways
* FREE Food, Beverage, and Live Entertainment

SATURDAY - September 29th, 2007

9:00A.M. – 5:00P.M.: Final Rounds of Tournament Play

8:00A.M. – 12:30P.M.: Kids Day

* Kids Hit for Prizes
* Round Robin Competition for Jrs seeking exposure
* Free Light Refreshments

Blue Scholars' video for "Back Home"

I'm a fan of the Seattle rap group Blue Scholars, I had given their excellent album Bayani a review here.

They have a good emotional song "Back Home" about the American soldiers in Iraq. It turns out they made an excellent, powerful video. Not only my political heads, or rap heads should watch this. Basically everyone should take 5 minutes & watch this video. Really MTV & CNN should be playing this, but I don't expect it in our lame corporate American MSM. So if you like it, forward it to your friends.

fwd - opinion article on Obama

I found this article linked on okayplayer. This opinion article claims Obama is a DLC-type "centrist" Democrat, who practices "triangulation" ala Bill Clinton.

fwd - crazy story on a married couple who cheated on themselves

You should view this TYT crazy story on a married couple who cheated on themselves. WTF say you? Just watch the clip.

fwd - Rap Nostalgists You Gots To Chill

fwd - a good blog article by Brandon Soderberg on the "generational" music debates on rap & music in general.

Iowa Democratic party, NOT democratic, exclude Kucinich

This is really bogus. Tom Harkin & other Iowa Democratic party hacks don't invite Kucinich to Iowa Democratic events, even though Kucinich with 3% of the Iowa vote in polls, is sonning the invited Biden & Dodd who each had 1% in the polls. Here's the story. Here's Kuncinich's statement on this nonsense.

It's bad enough that small Iowa, with 2.9 M people, has such a large role in determining the Presidential nominees in a country of 300M people.

It's bad enough that a rural state, has such a large role in a country that's mostly urban & suburban.

It's bad enough that a non-diverse state that is 96% white, has such a large role in a diverse country.

But now, the Iowan elites are trying to restrict WHICH nominees get to be selected by this SMALL group of Iowan voters. SMH. Is Kuncinich status of NOT being a corporate whore, making the elites restrict him out of the game? Pathetic.

At least Richardson was invited there.

Hey my political heads, you gotta comment on this one. Especially Truth Hunter, as an Iowan. Anonomo/Lucho, you too.

GOZ reviews the Kanye West & 50 Cent debut albums

There's a lot of media attention on the 1st-week sales race bt. Kanye West & 50 Cent, who each dropped their 3rd solo studio albums on Sept. 11. It looks promising that the underdog & vastly superior artist Kanye will pwn 50.

Given the news, I think it's a good time to reminisce over Kanye & 50's debut studio albums, word to Pete Rock & CL Smooth.

My RYM colleague GOZ has asked me to guest post some reviews from the GOZ RYM review archive on EGC here. GOZ is a real thorough hip-hop head. GOZ's reviews are very insightful in that he puts each album into context of rap history, as well as describing the music itself. GOZ has an excellent combination of insight & comedy. His reviews are interesting reading, even if you don't plan to listen to that album.

Disclaimer: GOZ's opinions are his 100% his own, without any editing from myself. I believe in free speech.

Without further ado, here are the GOZ reviews
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50 Cent 2003 Get Rich Or Die Tryin
3.5/5 stars



"One of my friends told me to listen to something else besides Panic! At the Disco and tried to get me into (c)rap music. He lent me Get Rich or Die Tryin' by gay ass 50 Cent. I skimmed right through the album, listening to each song no more than five seconds. Turn out I was right. This album is gay, therefore 50 Cent is gay, therefore all rap is gay, therefore all rap fans are gay too. Rock is the God of all music and all other genres are just the nuts in rock's turds. Rock IS the epitome of all music. Everything else is gay, especially (c)rap."
- some bitch ass rock groupie

Before I do this review, I have a question. If you're a fan of rock music, is there some unwritten law that every rock fan is to put whatever bands they are into on a pedestal and kick dirt at everything else?? Is there some unwritten law that every rock fan is suppose to spend half of their time to ignorantly talk shit about rap music? If all of these people are right, apparently the worst rock music is still of higher quality than the best hip-hop, country, jazz, techno, soul, reggae, R&B, funk, opera, reggaeton, and classical music right? Don't you know how goddamn stupid that sounds? I've even seen shirts in the mall that say country + rap = crap. What the fuck is that?? Is that supposed to be funny in the rock community?? Music ain't about no motherfucking competition or supremacist power trip. Yes, I realize that everybody has their favorite genres, but that doesn't mean a fan has to conclude that whatever he/she ain't listening to is garbage. I won't generalize though. I know there are rock fans that don't disrespect (big up to all y'all). I also know that there are rock fans that grow past their misguided bias. But, there are rock fans that go out of their motherfucking way to talk shit. They even stoop to major hypocrisy just to belittle the music. For example, the dude that says "all they talk about is bitches and hoes". Ya look at the motherfucker's homepage and he's got a goddamn picture of Tommy Lee. And there's that other dude that says "who wants to listen to assholes talk about making millions of dollars?". Yeah, materialistic subject matter is unoriginal, arrogent, and uninspired, but this dude doesn't care about subject matter. It's just a fact that it's a rapper saying that stuff. He acts like he hates that materialism, but then he cums his pants everytime he sees a rock star's mansion on MTV Cribs. Let's not forget the death metal fan that criticizes hip-hop for "being too violent". There's also the huge Elvis Presley fan that accused rap for ripping off other music. "Duh, Elvis expands genres, rappers rip off other genres". There's also the broke ass, tone-deaf McDonalds whipping boy that says rap is "too easy and doesn't require talent". He can tell me that shit when he's making Jay-Z money virtually doing nothing or when he notices someone bumping his music. Shit, David Duke will toss Angela Davis' salad before that happens, and that little punk knows it. My favorite is the rock fan that just hates black people, which is the biggest hypocrisy of all. What am I getting at here? Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is one of the favorite whipping boys of closeminded metalheads. He's on TV all the time, ignorant as hell, makes more money than us, and raps so he must be wack right? Well, he is pretty wack, but the fact that there are more half-star rating here than everything else is overexaggerated propaganda. Before I address this, to the half-star raters that gave this album a fair chance and genuinely didn't like it at all, I apologize to all three of you. To the non-fans that used this album to "give rap a chance" and "hated it", what are y'all, stupid or just that closeminded? If you wanted to get into hip-hop, you don't start with 50 Cent! If you wanted to get into Eddie Murphy, you wouldn't start by watching Vampire In Brooklyn would you? To the hip-hop fans that love to hate, it's just like Powelldinho said. Get Rich or Die Tryin' won't part the Red Sea or anything. It's not meant to change the world. It's not even aimed at the streets. It's mindless pop-rap that I wouldn't take over Kweli (who is NOT faux-conscious!!). This makes Doggystyle look like Stress: The Extinction Agenda. I usually ain't into that pop stuff either, but for whatever reason if I have a pop-rap album, I'll try and be fair. And despite the massive amount of cliches, the R&B joints, and the questionable "street cred" of this album, there is some enjoyment to be had here. First and foremost, Get Rich or Die Tryin' has NOT aged well at all. And it's not even five years old! Damn near everything Fif says can be anticipated on the first listen and the whole thing is more shallow than a Laguna Beach girl in a kiddie pool. 50's rapping on a technical level is far from perfect. He doesn't suck or anything, but his rapping is very basic and straightforward, and not necessarily in a cool Ice Cube or Tupac sort of way. He's no lyrical genius either. I shouldn't have to say this, but expect nothing but overexaggerations about inner-city violence. I'm kinda glad that Fif doesn't stoop down to materialism on this album like other mainstream gangsta rappers. Even if his "street cred" is suspect, he's a more believable thug than your Yung Ice Creams and Lil' Bizzle Dizzles that be dancing and shit. A common misconception about 50 Cent is that he's always rapping about bitches and hoes. He does say the two words a lot, but the only "bitch" song here is "P.I.M.P.", which was just thrown in to bank off the popular pimp-thug persona. Actually, there's "21 Questions" but that's the soft "thugs need love too" joint. The thing that carries 50's performance is his charisma. Unlike other rappers, when 50 talks, you can't help but listen even if he's saying the biggest bullshit ever. The production is a'ight. Eminem really ain't that great of a producer and even though Dr. Dre's a legend, I think the quality of his production has decreased over the span of his career (not that I'm dissing his modern beats or anything). Other than that, he gives his best work to Snoop. I'll admit that Dre did a pretty cool track for "Heat". The other producers on Get Rich or Die Tryin' are Eminem/Dr. Dre protegees that fall somewhere in between Eminem's best and Dre's best (in this album's case). So with it's so-so rhymes/lyrics, and so-so beats, Get Rich or Die Tryin' is a so-so album. It probably is one of the better mainstream albums, but if it's a mainstream classic, it sure doesn't live up to other mainstream classics like The Blueprint or Life After Death. If anyone calls this a hip-hop classic, it's more propaganda. Think about it. Some raggedy ass Queens MC gets dissed by Big Pun, Raekwon, and Jay-Z, gets shot up a whole buttload of times and miraculously survives, his label drops him, gets scooped up by Eminem and Dr. Dre, his upcoming album gets enough hype to make Doggystyle and Illmatic look independent, and said album sells 11 million worldwide. It's the ultimate rags-to-riches story right? Who wouldn't call the album a classic? Anyone that doesn't hate 50 Cent or G-Unit, here's a little bit of ear masturbation for y'all. Your ears won't "climax" as much as they would if this were The Chronic or Doggystyle, but if you need a quick (oxymoron, this album is 69 minutes), record label gangster fix, 50 Cent's your pusher. As for everyone else, do I really need to explain it again? 50 Cent's rebirth into hip-hop may have been more hype than truth, but the dude has at least one album that not's wack, no matter what that hypocritical Dogg Pound fan or that punk bitch rock groupie tells you.

Song Quality: 7/10 (Good Songs)
Lyrics: 7/10 (mainstream, outdated, but solid lyrics)
Beats: 8/10 (Dre and Em hooked him up)

Favorites:
What Up Gangsta
Patiently Waiting
Many Men (Wish Death)
High All the Time
Heat
If I Can't
Back Down
Don't Push Me
Wanksta
Life's on the Line

Least favorites:
In da Club (overplayed)
Like My Style
Poor Lil Rich

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Kanye West 2004 The College Dropout
4.5/5 stars



Upon his signing to Jay-Z and Dame Dash's label, producer turned rapper Kanye West proclaimed himself "the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer of the Roc". Kanye hit it right on the head. Let's go back to late 2003. Following the release of The Black Album, Jay-Z announced his retirement from the rap game (we knew he'd be back, but that's another story). Jigga and Dame assured us that they would have someone fill the void that the former left. Could the disgruntled Cuban cigar carrier Memphis Bleek finally get his shine? Or perhaps Roc-A-Fella strongarm Beanie Sigel? Or maybe new kids on the block Young Gunz? Nope, it ain't none of them. It's the guy that produced "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)". First of all, since when did THAT guy rap?? Second of all, why is a rapper-producer replacing Jay-Z?!? We've all heard less than impressive raps from the likes of Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, Puffy, Pete Rock, and J Dilla!!! Third of all, what the fuck is with this guy?!?!!? He ain't from Marcy or South Philly! He's a suburban upper-middle class kid from Chicago!! And where's his throwback jersey and saggy jeans??! Why's he dressing so fruity with the pink polo shirt, backpack, and Louis Vuitton bag!! That's right, Jay-Z fans. Hov's passing the torch to motherfucking Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!! Who makes these decisions?!? Marketing geniuses, that's who. Jigga and Dame knew how much cash they could reap from Kanye's sudden presence and mystique. The public's skepticism turned into optimistic curiosity when they heard "Through the Wire". Mr. "H to the Izzo" can rap after all and instead of getting shot, he got a metal plate in his jaw after a near-fatal car crash. Let's also remember with the arrival of Kanye West, the media took more interest because they acted like they've never heard a rapper not talk about guns and drugs before (apparently A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, OutKast, etc. never existed). Which all of this hype built up, this new dude Kanye West better show and prove. Don't worry, he certainly does, in sales and in quality. Sales don't matter in a review, so I'll talk about the quality of Kanye West's debut The College Dropout. I'll start with the production. For all two of you that haven't heard this album yet, the beats suck. I'm kidding! Kanye may have given good beats to Jay-Z, the Roc-A-Fella weed carriers, and Talib Kweli, but he saved the best beats for himself. That's all I need to say about that. Now his raps. Jay-Z and Dame Dash have been priding Kanye as a producer that raps better than most rappers. How good is Kanye exactly? Most people emphasize that Mr. West ain't the best rapper. I think that's underrating him a little bit. He's no Lord Finesse, but I personally think Kanye is tight. He has a great flow, commanding voice, and witty lines. I would say that The College Dropout's case, Kanye falls somewhere in between the RZA and Diamond D when it comes to rapping producers. Lyrically, Kanye talks about different things. Even though the term "backpacker" was probably coined because of Kanye, he's not the most cliche non-gangsta rapper in the world (even though he dressed nerdier than said rapper). Kanye does brag about his skills (every MC does), but he doesn't have any songs that blast wack MCs and sellouts or anything. And even though he doesn't dis women, he's not afraid to use the word "ho" and instead of looking for that nubian princess with the afro that writes poetry, reads a lot, and doesn't eat meat or dairy, he's a horny girl chaser (most rapper-producers are). And Kanye won't act like he's not materialistic either. This cat does like him some nice name-brand clothes, ca$h, and fancy cars. If you didn't know it by his nickname "Louis Vuitton Don", his line in "Breathe In, Breathe Out" confirms it ("now I'm rappin' about money, hoes, and rims again"). But Kanye doesn't stay occupied on cliche, megalomaniacal, No Limit/Cash Money subject matter. This brotha can be deep too. Check the songs "All Falls Down", "Spaceship", "Jesus Walks", "Never Let Me Down", and "Family Business". The songs "Through the Wire" and "Last Call" offer some interesting introspection as well. And unlike a lot of "conscious" rappers, Kanye doesn't fall into the boxhole in which he can't have shameless fun without pissing fans off. 'Ye has his gags on "We Don't Care", "Get 'Em High", "The New Workout Plan", "Breathe In, Breath Out" and "School Spirit". All of this show how very down-to-earth and charming Kanye West is. That's right; I said Kanye West is down-to-earth and charming! The guest here are pretty cool too. Jay-Z holds it down, Ludacris does a hook, the singers that did hooks give this album more soul, Talib Kweli, Common, GLC and Consequence hold it down as well, and how cool is it that Kanye put Mos Def and Freeway on the same song and made that shit classic?! I can already picture another ill posse cut featuring Common and Beanie Sigel lol. Going back to all the hype surrounding this album and my review up to this point, The College Dropout sounds like a classic right? It's not quite a classic, but it's close enough. This is a long album (76 minutes) and there's some undeniable filler here. For example, "The New Workout Plan" is cute, but it's nothing more than novelty and out of place. Not to mention the skits. I recommend to any fan of music that has no kind of anti-Kanye bias whatsoever. A lot of people tend to judge Kanye on his award show misadventures instead of his music, so a lot of people hate this guy. Congratulations to Roc-A-Fella Records. Jay-Z is left free to take a hiatus with a new artist to keep the money and fame rolling in. *Memphis Bleek grits his teeth while dusting Kanye's platinum plaque*

Song Quality: 9.5/10 (he came, he saw, he conquered)
Beats: 10/10 (it's Kanye!)
Lyrics: 9/10 (quite good for a producer)

Favorites:
We Don't Care
All Falls Down
Spaceship
Jesus Walks
Never Let Me Down
Get Em High
Breathe In, Breathe Out
Two Words (Mos is off the HOOK!)
Through the Wire
Family Business
Last Call

Least Favorites:
New Workout Plan (not bad, but....ehhhh)
School Spirit (because it's edited)