hiphopmusic.com:

What the heck was this all about?

Calvin Klein accosts Sprewell during game

"...Sprewell wouldn't divulge what the designer said to him: "He was, uh, he ... I don't want to get into it, man," he said with a laugh. "I'm keeping it to myself."

What is the meaning of this? What dark secret is shared by Calvin and Latrell??

Hiker amputates arm to free self

Pinned by a boulder for five days and having run out of water, a climber amputated his own arm with a pocket knife, rappelled down a cliff and walked until rescuers found him...

How gangsta is that? This guy is way realer than 50 cent. Somebody needs to get him a record deal immediately.

I'm sorry but I just have to mention this. I'm about 50 pages into "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", and lo and behold, there is a Black wizard in this one! I'm glad to see JK Rowling make a little effort to diversify Harry's world.. he just better not get killed, that's all I have to say.

Over the last year I've become good friends with Liz Barry and Bill Wetzel, AKA the Talk To Me People. Our friendship is based entirely on randomly bumping into them on the streets of NY, because for the last year they have devoted their lives to randomly bumping into people on the streets of New York.

I always loved getting the chance to hang out with them, any time I saw them I would stay for hours and watch all the people come by and talk, it never failed to be fascinating. Sometimes one of them would run off for a while and I'd take their place behind their "Talk To Me" sign as a pinch-talker. I love these guys and find their project so inspiring, I'm really sad they are winding it up now.

But at least they'll be going out in style, on Saturday they're having a big party in Bryant Park where everyone they have met over the last year gets to come and meet each other. Any of y'all who are in NY should definitely come down, it's your last chance to be a part of something that was truly special.

Although I am not a Yankee fan or even a baseball fan really, I am a New yorker, so on general principle I always have to root against Boston. But daaamn.

In the entirety of human existence, is there any pain that can compare to that of the Red Sox fan? 85 Years? Coming sooo close so many times, only to have it pulled out of your grasp yet again by the one team you hate the most? The team from the city you all secretly wish your city could be like? The team that already has 26 titles so how much can yet another possibly mean to them by comparison? The team that is arguably the Microsoft of baseball, dominating the league by wielding their economic might, and thus embodying everything that is wrong with the sport?

It's brutal. It reads like an opera or Shakespearean tragedy. And you know what, Sox fans? You should be thankful for that! Because the length of your ordeal is the only thing that makes you special.

I am a lifelong Knicks fan, and my team has not won a championship since 1973, when I was an infant. When I watch my team fail year after year nobody gives a moment's thought to my anguish. I am just another loser. Another sucker that you step over on your way to work the next day, as I lay crying in the gutter.

But when you watch your boys go down in flames the world looks up to you as a tragic hero. They all weep for your noble suffering, and shower you with more attention than they give the boys who beat you (fair and square).

Think about that, if you won the world series this year you'd be throwing that all away. Chances are you wouldn't win another one for years and years, but now you'd find yourself without all the fringe benefits it brought you before. You'd no longer have any right to the saintly aura your current victimhood affords you. You'd be in the same boat as us Knicks fans, all of the suffering with none of the nobility.

So take pride in what you've got! Lots of people are losers, but only you can say you are the best at it!

One of the bonus "easter egg" features on the Simpsons Season 3 DVDs is a hidden extra commentary track for the episode about a 300 pound white man in an insane asylum who thinks he is Michael Jackson. The voice for that character, of course, was provided by the real Michael Jackson.

The commentary, from writer/producer Mike Reiss, describes Michael as a very cooperative and helpful guest star, who even contributed several key story ideas. But I bet I'm not the only one who did a double-take when Reiss described this contribution: "Michael said 'make sure you have a scene where I stay up all night with Bart', so we did it."

Uhh, yeah. In case you think I'm making that up, here is the audio. Doesn't really mean anything, I'm sure it was totally innocent at the time, but it sure sounds creepy now.

Anyone who has worked in the corporate world will appreciate this, especially the last paragraph.

Powerpoint Makes You Dumb

By Clive Thompson

In August, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board at NASA released Volume 1 of its report on why the space shuttle crashed. As expected, the ship's foam insulation was the main cause of the disaster. But the board also fingered another unusual culprit: PowerPoint, Microsoft's well-known ''slideware'' program.

NASA, the board argued, had become too reliant on presenting complex information via PowerPoint, instead of by means of traditional ink-and-paper technical reports. When NASA engineers assessed possible wing damage during the mission, they presented the findings in a confusing PowerPoint slide -- so crammed with nested bullet points and irregular short forms that it was nearly impossible to untangle. ''It is easy to understand how a senior manager might read this PowerPoint slide and not realize that it addresses a life-threatening situation,'' the board sternly noted.

PowerPoint is the world's most popular tool for presenting information. There are 400 million copies in circulation, and almost no corporate decision takes place without it. But what if PowerPoint is actually making us stupider?

This year, Edward Tufte -- the famous theorist of information presentation -- made precisely that argument in a blistering screed called The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. In his slim 28-page pamphlet, Tufte claimed that Microsoft's ubiquitous software forces people to mutilate data beyond comprehension. For example, the low resolution of a PowerPoint slide means that it usually contains only about 40 words, or barely eight seconds of reading. PowerPoint also encourages users to rely on bulleted lists, a ''faux analytical'' technique, Tufte wrote, that dodges the speaker's responsibility to tie his information together. And perhaps worst of all is how PowerPoint renders charts. Charts in newspapers like The Wall Street Journal contain up to 120 elements on average, allowing readers to compare large groupings of data. But, as Tufte found, PowerPoint users typically produce charts with only 12 elements. Ultimately, Tufte concluded, PowerPoint is infused with ''an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.''

Microsoft officials, of course, beg to differ. Simon Marks, the product manager for PowerPoint, counters that Tufte is a fan of ''information density,'' shoving tons of data at an audience. You could do that with PowerPoint, he says, but it's a matter of choice. ''If people were told they were going to have to sit through an incredibly dense presentation,'' he adds, ''they wouldn't want it.'' And PowerPoint still has fans in the highest corridors of power: Colin Powell used a slideware presentation in February when he made his case to the United Nations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, given that the weapons still haven't been found, maybe Tufte is onto something. Perhaps PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of obfuscation -- where manipulating facts is as important as presenting them clearly. If you have nothing to say, maybe you need just the right tool to help you not say it.

(via metafilter)

Everybody's gonna laugh, but this seems like a perfect marriage to me. If Mike is sincere about this he could benefit greatly from the focus and discipline the Nation has given so many men over the years. And for the NOI, Michael provides living proof of their theory that white people can be created in a laboratory (but they won't turn out quite right).

Michael Jackson Finds Islam

Michael Jackson last night became a member of the Nation of Islam - and sources told The Post his religious changeover comes along with a shake-up of his personal staff.

High-ranking members of the Nation of Islam have been working to bring Jackson into Rev. Louis Farrakhan's flock - and Jackson's conversion is now well-known in the NOI community.

Exactly why Jackson converted wasn't clear to The Post's sources.

But Fox News's Web site reported yesterday that Jackson's brother Jermaine, who converted to Islam in 1989, has been seeking to win favor with his more famous sibling, and has brought Farrakhan's chief of staff, Leonard F. Muhammad, into Jacko's inner circle as a "bodyguard."

That's just one of many changes under way in Jackson's inner circle, sources said...

Keep in mind this is from the NY Post, so there's only a %50 chance it really happened.

Am I the last kid on the block to try out the Postmodern Essay Title Generator? Who among you is brave enough to actually write one of these? Go ahead. I dare you:

Lil Jon Transgendering Artifice: "Get Low" and the Homotextuality of Demo(li)tion

Disenchanting Oppression: Labial Spirit in Jay Smooth's Underground Railroad

How fitting that Van Gundy and Ewing will be on hand for tonight's transition from the Ewing era to the Marbury era. The years in between will just be a blank spot on the resume that sparks an awkward silence when job interviewers ask "so uhh, yeah, what were you doing between here and here?" (to be read in "about those TPS Reports" voice)

I'm not quite ready to get excited about this team, so far it seems like we're mortgaging our future to become a slightly better also ran. But if we can swap Van Horn for E-40's arch-enemy Rasheed Wallace, things might get interesting...

Watching TV has become a rare event for me, since I turned my cable off about 10 months ago. Some notes from hanging at mom's house last night:

1. The Simpsons needs to get cancelled. It has become a pale shadow of its former self, and every week it continues to air is a disgrace to what was once the greatest achievement in the history of television. I will come back to this later.. I'm not even kidding, it makes me angry.

2. One of the few people perched higher in my cultural pantheon than The Simpsons is Richard Pryor, so when we turned to Comedy Central's tribute "I Ain't Dead Yet", I was afraid it'd be another disservice to one of my heroes. It started off on the wrong foot with Richard's wife, Jennifer Lee Pryor, injecting far too much of herself into the mix, and I'd rather see more natural conversation instead of the VH1-style barrage of jump cuts between 35 different talking heads.

But even in that format an abundance of love was shining through from everyone they interviewed (fun to see Mos Def and Dave Chappelle hangin out), and between that and clips of the man himself, this turned out to be a halfway decent tribute.

One glaring omission: why did they talk to every comic except the one who knows Richard best, his right-hand man Paul Mooney? They even took a clip of Robert Townsend imitating Mooney, quoting his "I say nigger 100 times a day to keeps my teeth white" routine, but mixed it into a montage of Richard Pryor quotes and made it look like he was quoting Richard instead of Paul. Does Richard's wife (who was executive producer of the show) have some kind of beef with paul?

3. As I was watching Still Rather Petite Bow Wow's segment on Punk'd, my mom walked in and asked "Is that Todd Bridges?!?" I'd say he looks more like Ronnie Devoe.

Damn, first my conversation with ?uestlove disappears before I get a chance to save it (check your temp. internet files, maybe one of y'all can salvage it for me?), then our humble abode here crashes and is down for most of the evening.

The Railroad should now be resuming normal service, but if anybody sent me mail between 10PM and 2AM it's probably lost in the ether.

Enjoy your snow day, kids!

Ahem...

Korn on the ’Kok

Considered the pioneers of the “nu metal” sound from America, the five members of Korn are expected to blow the minds of Thai heavy rock disciples, who have waited for a long time to see their heroes play live in Thailand. And they are counting: in just six days – this Saturday – the much publicised concert “Korn Live in Bangkok” will come to Impact Arena, Muang Thong Thani.

“Korn’s our favourite band. We never dared believe they would play in Bangkok,” says an excited and sweat-soaked axeman, Thanachai “Yod” Tantrakul of new Thai band Teething. “I once played 30 Korn numbers,” he adds.

Thanachai is not the only one who is trembling with emotion. So are the other members of Teething, an independent rock group, and hardcore fans of the hardcore Americans. To be fair, it isn’t just pent-up excitement that is causing the wet shirts and soggy locks: Teething has just completed an amazing, fast-paced set at the “Korn Live in Bangkok” press conference, to the cheers of the media and other contributing artists, including Big Ass, Zeal and Labanoon...

Rumors were circulating all week of a surprise cameo appearance at the Superbowl halftime show, supposedly Janet Jackson was going to sneak Michael onstage, to the horror of NFL execs.

But evidently the cameo Janet was planning was for her right breast? It appears Justin Timberlake "accidentally" rendered Miss Jackson pseudo-topless while serenading her with "Rock Your Body" ("have you nekkid by the end of this song").

I'm listening to the game on the radio (no cable), so after reading all these frantic postings online I was a little disappointed to find an amount of nipple coverage that indicates this was staged. Still made a nice splash with it so far though, if they were trying to one-up Britney/Madonna/Christina they may have pulled it off.

EDIT: I'm going with the theory that this was Justin and Janet's protest against CBS' refusal to run the moveon.org ad.. "Oh we've got your controversial public policy issue... right HERE!"

ANOTHER EDIT: Upon closer inspection, I retract my assessment of the nipple coverage. It was still staged though.

The NFL and CBS have hurriedly posted apologies for the discovery of Janet Jackson's WMD (weapon of mammary distraction), which we are apparently supposed to believe was an accident??

MTV tells us:

"The tearing of Janet Jackson's costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance. MTV regrets this incident occurred and we apologize to anyone who was offended by it."

And Justin assures us:

"I am sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance at the Super Bowl. It was not intentional and is regrettable."

Hooray for lying! Meanwhile, reactions at okayplayer were equally comical:

"FELLAS! This was our cue to objectify these chickens!!! how much you wanna bet we can make this a POPULAR TREND in the clubs with these chicks by this weekend? they're more impressionable than you thought! let's get on it!"

and from another OKP:

"Now the white man is pullin out our womens titties... *shaking head* There are millions of willing niggaz who would jump at that chance. Why couldnt Nelly or Puffy pull the titty out."

On a less absurd note, my homey Alicia had these thoughts:

i definitely found it bizarre and creepy.

Justin ripped that piece off the costume, and Janet kind of whipped her head around at the same time -- as if she were struggling/or like her head was snapping back from the force of the bodice rip. Then her boob flopped out...and Justin stood over her with her ripped shirt in his hand while she quickly grabbed her boob to cover it as if she didn't want it exposed like that. Janet's body language was ashamed. Justin's was aggressive. It was all a put-on, of course, but why would these two want to play-act sexuality to make borderline violent like that? The fact that CBS cut away with the camera almost *instantly* definitely added to the a-bad-thing-just-happened feeling. All those things together made the whole scene puzzling with an air of creepy.

...check out this pic from fox sports to see what I'm talking about with Janet's body language...bowed head, hunched shoulders, clutching boob and abdomen protectively... This is not the posture and stance of someone who's thrilled and turned on to have their boob hanging out.

A Different Light reports on Marvel and DC's efforts to bully the rest of world out of using the term "superhero", which they evidently trademarked decades ago. The thread provides a very informative discussion, including a post by comic book legend Neil Gaiman.

It also introduced me to this page, which lets you look up the trademark info for any word or phrase. Hours of fun for a geek like me. Searching for "hip-hop" brings up 65 results, including all sorts of oddities:

HIP-HOP BURGER
HIP-HOP SANTA
HIP-HOP ARCHITECTURE INC.
THE OFFICIAL CONDOM OF THE HIP-HOP KULTURE
MISS HIP-HOP AMERICA
HIP-HOP NATION
THE TEMPLE OF HIP-HOP (does not belong to KRS One)

Most of those are lapsed at the moment, so if you've been longing to start a hip-hop fast food chain, now's your chance!

To the lady who just asked me whether the 2 train goes to Atlantic Ave, then got back off the train totally ignoring my advice: I hope you never got home, dumbass!

I can understand wanting to stand by your man, but this website was probably a bad idea.

Most unfortunate is this Let's Make A Deal! page, where she has the nerve to wonder why nobody else present at the shooting is being prosecuted:

Our unforseeable [sic], surprising and traumatic accident caused many to react in a panicked manner. Yet, for this lapse in judgment, to the Prosecutor, jail is not deemed the appropriate remedy for eight of Kent Culuko's guests. Why is it different for my husband?

Maybe it's because your husband is the one who shot somebody? Just a thought.

Hate to think of these kids being deprived of a father, but he did this to himself and needs to accept the consequences.. Hard for me to have much sympathy, especially if the dog murdering story is true.

Recently one of our elite operatives, Irina Slutsky, went undercover to infiltrate the launch party for Google's new friend-network thingy Orkut. Irina has now resurfaced with this report:

Accidentally on purpose, my friend Scott Hirsch and I ended up at the San Francisco launch party for Google's invite-only social networking service, Orkut.

Let me set the scene.....Tenderloin district, 8pm, sharp.....

A giant bouncer in requisite leather and shaved head is clutching a handful of printed Orkut profiles in his left fist, telling people trying to get into the club that they'll have to "get someone from inside to vouch that they are on Orkut" before they can go in.

A few months ago I posted some comments about "I Ain't Dead Yet," Comedy Central's tribute to Richard Pryor, produced by his wife Jennifer Lee Pryor. Although I enjoyed the show, I mentioned that Mrs. Pryor injected too much of herself into the program, for my tastes.

Well evidently Mrs. Pryor googled herself this weekend and was none too happy with what she found here, pounding out this reply:

Injecting far too much of myself? SInce I have known RIchard intimately since 1977 and have such wonderful stories-the obvious was to interview myself-and all the comments thus far were that people wanted more! I have no beef with Mooney except Comedy Central didn't want him because he is so common a talking head when it comes to RIchard. When I produce a longer doc, perhaps I will use him.Your comments smack of racism-and at the very least, lack of intelligence!

This was immediately followed by another post from Jennifer, and then one purporting to be from Richard himself, inviting me to check out his website. Soon after came two posts from what are obviously friends of Mrs. Pryor, whom she asked to come in and back her up.

The first of these two friends was a Veronica James, and I emailed the address posted to confirm that she actually existed, and ask how she was connected to Mrs. Pryor. We exchanged several e-mails in which she vehemently insisted she doesn't know Jennifer, and that it was only a coincidence she appeared so soon after Mrs. Pryor to sing her praises and add a charge of sexism to Jennifer's racism angle.

But what Veronica didn't know is that I had already checked my server's logs, and found that her post not only came minutes after the ones from Jennifer and (supposedly) Richard, it actually came from the exact same IP address, a Roadrunner account in Southern California. Veronica's first e-mail also came from the same place, presumably Jennifer's home or office, sent over Roadrunner via AOL's webmail service. Therefore I already knew what Veronica was doing, and I just wanted to see if she would be up front about it. She wasn't.

----------------------

So to Jennifer: if you're reading this, I appreciate your explanation of Paul Mooney's unfortunate absence from the program. As a whole I thought your program was actually fairly good, and I missed the first 5 or 10 minutes, so perhaps seeing the show in its entirety would have put your segments in their proper context.

But based on what I did see, I thought it would have been better with a bit less of you in it, and I see no reason to apologize for expressing that opinion. Your suggestion that my comments were motivated by racism doesn't make much sense to me, since numerous whites other than yourself were prominently featured on the program, and I had no complaint about any of them (or the other females featured).

I have no beef with you, and I wish you nothing but the best. But if you're going to put yourself out there for public consumption you need to be ready for some negative feedback, that's the cost of doing business. Lashing out at anyone who criticizes you with groundless counter-accusations and insults only makes you look petty. Look at it this way: you're on TV getting paid, and I'm at home watching you! There's no reason to get this worked up over my opinion.

And to Jennifer's posse: Did you guys really think you were fooling anybody, popping up right after Jennifer in a page that had been silent for months, to shower her with adulation? I can totally understand wanting to stick up for your friend, but next time you should just be honest about it.

This is a joke, right? And the NY Times fell for it?

Anil is right BTW, all these jokes are wack. I think I'll just take a day off from surfing, and finish typing up this article I need to do.

(ok some of the low culture posts are actually kinda funny. but still.)

Looks like Shaquille O'Neal is already planning for life after the NBA. Check out this site where a "Cyber-Shaq" hovers on the side of every page, auditioning to replace Microsoft's talking paper clip. (via Soulkhansenses)

Today I tried to queue up all my Beatles MP3s into winamp, but instead my office computer decided to open about 25 separate instances of winamp and play all the songs at once. This turned out to be quite a fascinating aural experiment, my boss who also happens to be a classical composer took my headphones for a few minutes and was riveted, finally remarking "that's actually really cool, it's like a kaleidoscope!"

As I started closing all the winamps in the task manager, removing the layers one by one, it shifted the kaleidoscope a little bit each time.. it was pretty awesome, to us music geeks. I'm gonna try and reproduce it sometime, when I have the means to record it, but I suspect it's one of those moments Eric Dolphy told us about, that appears and then is gone in the air, never to be captured again.

Some other items that are also totally ri-geek-ulous very cool. Everybody probably posted these a month ago, but I am unable to be in the loop right now:

• Ebola Virus Beanie Baby
• Windows System Sound Megamix
• Teen Vin Diesel Electric Boogaloo
• New Morris Day Album - Seems to be concert stuff with The Time, plus new tracks including Morris rhyming with E40(!!)

click below for the songs that made up my Beatles Kaleidoscope:

Times up, sorry I kept you.

Okay party people, internet service has now been restored in my bedroom at our headquarters, and the hiatus is over.

Now, how does this blogging thing work again?

I'm on my way to Montreal again this weekend, with two destinations in mind:

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog live in concert on Thursday, returning to Quebec for the first time since his mockery of the Quebecois sparked national outrage (or at least set off some uptight politicians) last February.

And later this weekend a screening of the newly restored Shaw Brothers classic "Golden Swallow." Cheng Pei-Pei, Jimmy Wang Yu and Lo Lieh directed by Chang Cheh, action choreography by Liu Chia-Liang?? It gets no rougher.

What else is going on up there this weekend, Montrealers?

(the radio show will continue as usual, with the rest of our crew holding it down.. I heard Mr. Complex might stop by.)

According to page 13 of Blogville for Dummies, blogging works best if you do it everyday. I'm not sure if that's always true, but I know traffic is much higher when I maintain my daily regimen here, and plummets almost instantly when I fall off the pace.

So whenever I miss a day or two, I feel like I better break the silence with something extra special, to draw people back in.. that makes me get picky and say "just linking to this little article is not good enough, I'll come back later when I have a cooler idea." Then the blog stays silent for another day, I feel even more pressure to make up for the drought and get even pickier, and next thing you know I haven't posted in a week and I'm embarrassed to show my face around here.

Do any of you face similar issues? How do you break the cycle of shame? Is there some kind of pill I can take for this, Blogitol or something? Maybe I shouldn't have deleted all that comment spam.

There is no emoticon for the pain I am feeling right now.

P.S. - I'll post about the Nas show tomorrow.

She just can't stay away! And she's got a brand new batch of grade school insults for me. (scroll to bottom)

Firing people for blogging? You gotta be kidding me.

More here and here.

So that they don't take my NYC passport away, here is my mandatory photo of Central Park's gates. Tomorrow I will follow this up with a photo exhibit entitled "Bird on the Gates," which will consist of of me holding up my middle finger at the gates, from a variety of angles.

(EDIT: Just for the record I actually do like the gates, and agree with what he says here. See my comments below)

Yesterday I went by Central Park to see how long the M.I.A. line was (answer: way too long), and on the way back I was appalled to discover the monstrosity pictured above.

Why is the "Imagine" centerpiece of Strawberry Fields cowering behind a fortress of gates and orange cones? How long has this been going on??

I've always admired what an apt remembrance it is, blending in unobtrusively so we all share the space with it and interact however comes naturally.. so effective, even decades later whenever I walked by I'd find folks engaging it one way or another, adorning it with flowers or photos or serenading it with a guitar.

How do y'all not get that you are completely killing the spirit of it, by reducing it to a spectacle that we gawk at from behind a barricade?

I need answers. Why is this happening? Who can explain this to me? Anyone? Anyone? Gothamist?

Looking through this biography of Mary Shelley, found a take I hadn't seen before on where she found inspiration:

A further and intriguing possibility emerged as I was considering the summer of 1815, when Mary was temporarily on her own, staying in lodgings at Clifton. Living within strolling distance of Bristol, a town which had grown prosperous on the slave trade, Mary had read books on the subject with increasing horor and indignation. Slavery, although formally abolished in England, remained a thriving industry; in England, slaves were still being rescued from service in the mid-nineteenth century. At Bristol, the evidence was all around her. Here, surely, was the explanation for the Creature's carefully described and decidedly un-British appearance, his hair of a 'lustrous blackness', his yellow skin and teeth of a 'pearly whiteness', features which, combined with his strength and muscular build, suggest the author was deliberately evoking the African and West Indian, while his yellow skin hints at the Eastern 'lascars' whom she would have seen on her journeys form the London docks. Here, too, was a clue to why Mary, whose sympathies as an author are with the Creature, lays so much emphasis on the fact that Victor Frankenstein judges him - misjudges him - by his appearance. She was, it seems, covertly attacking a society which still believed that the physical appearance of the Africans indicated their moral inferiority to Europeans.

Interesting, not sure if I buy it, but interesting.

My PC is brutally spyware/virused out all of a sudden. Posting will thus be stalled for the moment. Hopefully these guys will help.

Last night I was searching for rare Fiona Apple tracks, and I hit the jackpot with one guy who had a huge folder named "fiona apple miscellaneous," about 200 files in it..

So I'm looking through the files like "Wow she has a song named 'Exploited Black Teens'? that sounds deep.. 'Brandy on the Rooftop'? hmm wonder what that's about... damn Fiona, you did a song called 'Black Cheerleader Gangbang Sample'!? Oh uhhhh, wait a minute.."

Then of course I realized this guy is using the "Fiona Apple" folder to hide his vast Black porno collection. Is this a ploy to throw his girlfriend off the scent? Poor girl, thinking her guy has found his sensitive side..

Fill in your own joke:

Snoop Dogg Gets in the Hot Dog Business

Rapper and actor Snoop Dogg is involved in several business ventures including clothing, automobiles, and sneakers. Now the rapper is getting into the food business by launching his own line of foot-long hot dogs. The Boston Herald reports that the rapper has partnered with Platinum One Media’s Franco Petrucci and Jeff Earp for Snoop Doggs. The hot dogs will be produced in Massachusetts and are scheduled to hit grocery stores in January.
Snoop’s brother and manager Bing Worthington said, "There aren’t any celebrity hot dogs out there. Who’s the competition ? Ball Park ?....Imagine a long, skinny hot dog just like Snoop."

Worthington added, "Snoop takes advantage of everything. This rap money isn’t long. Just ask MC Hammer."

What the hell are you scientists thinking about? Don't you go to the movies? This does not end well. And the black guy dies first.

I have sought to restore my faith in America by looking for people who understand what I'm talking about:

Here we go, the NY Times gets it:

"the absurd seriousness with which Mr. Blaine approaches his public stunts leaves you with a certain glee at his failure... In dreamy montages last night, Mr. Blaine explained that these exercises are all part of his "journey," that they "make people think." Magic, he said, "brings people together who might not come together." Well, so does the airport. The beauty of old-school thrill seekers like Evel Knievel, whose interview with Mr. Blaine ran during the show, is that they did not seek to intellectualize their gamesmanship..."

Time Magazine gets it:

The site you once knew as hiphopmusic.com has been assimilated. We appreciate the intelligent, rational, and educated insights and opinions that have been posted here over the years. However, over the next few days a few changes will be implemented. Any posts concerning anyone's opinion on the socio-political climate of hip hop and/or its effects notwithstanding on today's society on a whole will be immediately, permanently, and expeditiously destroyed and disposed of. Subject matter pertinent to the strategic repositioning and re-deployment of the site will consists of as follows:

- 24/7 Updates on the new live-action Transformers movie
- Constant speculation on all details of the new Star Wars TV series and guessing which
stars from the movie will make cameo appearances
- Projections of the 1st week sales of the Kids Incorported DVD box set.
- Reports on any and all advances in mobile communications such as Blackberry, Pocket
PCs and other gadgets.
- The occasional rap song that you haven't heard in 20 years and don't care that I have just
secured the recordings from the demo sessions to said song.
- More suprises to come!!

We hope that you appreciate our efforts to give a more universal and worldwide appeal, not to mention commercial viability, to our recently acquired acquisition.

Thank you for your time, patience, and consideration.
Please exit left.

Sincerely,
The Megatron Don.

"Persistence always overcomes resistance" - Mr. Magic
"..those who resist further will be assimilated" - The Borg or something from Star Trek.