I Do It For Hip Hop

Around 2000, Common had recently dropped Like Water For Chocolate. Ludacris was topping the charts with singles from his Back for the First Time album. Kanye was producing songs for the likes of Jay-Z and Talib Kweli but was also showing signs that he wanted to rap as well.

Like Water For Chocolate was one of my favorite albums of the year and is still one of my favorite Common albums. On the other hand, I would almost cringe whenever I heard songs like "Southern Hospitality." I was not a fan of the southern rap sound and grouped Ludacris together with Masta P and the No Limit family. I also dreaded the thought of Kanye rapping. I didn't have anything against his flows. I didn't think they were bad, but they were nothing great. I thought Kanye was a great producer, and I felt that rapping would detract from his producing.

Fast forward to today. All three artists have released new albums in the past few weeks. Kanye released his 808s and Heartbreak. Ludacris put out Theater of the Mind, and Common just dropped Universal Mind Control. I think all three are good albums, but back in 2000, I never would have guessed that Luda's new album would (at least on first listen) be my favorite of the three.

A few quick thoughts about the albums:
Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreaks:
My first reaction to this album was disappointment. I really like the production on most of the songs, but the entire album is Kanye singing (or auto-tuning?). The album has grown on me a lot since. Awhile back, I didn't think Kanye should rap. He's proved me wrong and turned into a good MC. In a few years, will I feel the same about his singing?

Ludacris' Theater of the Mind:
I really like a lot of the songs on this album. He has a lot of good guest spots on the album, but at the same time he showcases his skills too. His style and flow has really evolved since the "Southern Hospitality" days, and I've liked his last few albums. His track "Do the Right Thang" with Common sounds more like a Common track than many (most?) of the songs off Universal Mind Control. My favorite DJ Premier produces a hot track "MVP," and both Jay-Z and Nas spit verses on "I Do It for Hip Hop." Does anyone else thinks it's odd to hear both Nas and Jay-Z on the same song saying that they are the best MC out, given their history?

Common's Universal Mind Control:
I probably don't hold any other MC out right now to higher standards than I do for Common. Maybe that means I think he is the best MC still making music ... maybe not. He's definitely up there on that list. Off the top of my head, Black Thought and MURS would be toward the top of that list too. That being sad, I was hoping for more from this album. Right now, I don't think Universal Mind Control is as good as Finding Forever, and it's definitely not as good as Be, but I still think it's a good album. There are a lot of tracks ("Changes," "Gladiator," and "What a World") on the album that I really like, but on a whole I think there is a little too much of the Neptunes synth sound for me.

Now I got to go give Q-Tip's new The Renaissance a listen. I've been hearing good things about this one.

Jackin' for Beats

For all of you who know your hip hop history, you know that hip hop was born with samples. Hip hop started with DJs flipping back and forth between the "break" section of disco, funk, and soul records. Back then, hip hop was more mixing different music, and no one was calling it their own original work.

Eventually the samples became a little more subtle, and there were rhymes on top of them. DJs and producers would take small snippets of multiple songs and put them together to make their own musical arrangement. Sometimes the samples were recognizable, but often they weren't. I remember DJ Premier talking about using Jimi Hendrix in his production. He said taking a guitar riff would be too obvious, and instead, he would take an obscure drum beat and make it his own.

Of course, there is (and probably will always be) producers like Puffy (or P Diddy or Sean Combs or Diddy or whatever he is called today) who will take other people's music and use it unchanged, calling it his own.

The best producers will get you digging in the crates trying to figure out what they used to get a particular little piece of sound. There have been countless times I have been with Terence or Shawn or Jay and hear something on the radio. Our ears will perk up, and we'll be like, "Who used that?" If I can't figure it out right away, it will eat at me ... and eat at me ... and eat at me ... until I figure it out.

Anyway, I recently came across this article listing out what the author thinks are the 8 most over-used samples in hip hop. Before I read the article, I tried my guess at what I thought would be on the list. I only got James Brown's Funky President right. I thought that Apache would be on the list and am REALLY surprised that it's not.

What do you guys think?

Cake

For all you guys out there with girlfriends (or trying to get one), here's an easy tip to score some major points.

Make them chocolate cake. Check out this recipe I came across at Wired. It's super easy ... I mean, come on, I did it. It turned out well too. For added bonus, make sure to get some ice cream to go on top.

Arch loved it.

Cheat on you

I am not sure what the most ridiculous part of this article is, but there are plenty worthy candidates to chose from.

Make sure you read the Apple Support thread.

Straight comedy (well except for the ruined marriage part).

The Next Movement

Say it ain't so.

UPDATE: The youtube video was taken down. I guess you will actually have to read the article now.

UPDATE 2: I guess someone really does not want this news getting out because the article has now been taken down from okayplayer. You can now read about it here.

If I were president

I have really been impressed with the way Barack Obama has used the internet to his advantage.

By using the internet, he was able to launch a grass roots campaign and raised him a lot of money, giving him the upper hand over McCain.

His campaign setup and maintained a good website connecting him with the people, keeping them informed of his stance on issues, and keeping them up to date with his current campaign events.

Likewise, he utilized twitter as a good complement to that website. I really hope he keeps tweeting during his presidency, though I doubt that will happen.

After the election, he revealed a flickr album making him look more like one of us.

It is rumored he will create the nation's first Secretary of Technology. I do not know why a position like that has not already been created.

After he won the election, he created another website to aide his transition into the White House and keep the people aware of what's happening

And now, building on President Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats" in the 1930s, his weekly addresses to the nation will not only be broadcast over the air to radios but also be filmed and put on youtube.

Good job President-elect Obama.

January 20, 2009 cannot come fast enough.

UPDATE: Here is the first of his youtube videos.





UPDATE 2: Apparently he will have to retire his blackberry though.

Culture

One of the best parts about New York, in my opinion, is its culture. There are just so many different things you can do here. Whatever it is that you're into, you can find it here. Lately, I have done/seen some pretty cool stuff and thought I would share.

Avenue Q and Spring Awakening:
My friends Krithi and Vineet decided to make a trip to NYC during some time off. We ended up seeing two different shows on Broadway with them. We saw Avenue Q and Spring Awakening, and Arch describes them as the two shows we would not be able to see with our parents. Avenue Q was very funny. Think Sesame Street for adults, and I am serious about the "for adults" part (there was puppet sex involved). Spring Awakening was every single after school special you could think of, rolled into one. Set in 18th century Germany, it featured bad grades, teenage pregnancy, gays, teenage suicide, and more. I liked the music and choreography but thought they tried to cram way to much into one show.



The Village Pet Store:
I am not exactly sure where or when I had first heard about graffiti artist Banksy, but he had made some news relatively recently with some of his work in New Orleans on the anniversary of Katrina. I'm also not sure how or when, but I heard he had an exhibit opening in the city. I slept on it for awhile, but after my boss mentioned it to me and that it was closing soon, I decided to check it out. The exhibit is called the Village Pet Store, located in small shop in the west village. The place has no mention of Banksy at all, and actually if it weren't for some people gathered around the place, a person could easily walk by thinking it was an actual pet store. Upon closer inspection, it's FAR from a regular pet store. Arch and I walked up and saw a display with a chicken in a hen house and chicks feeding ... except when we got closer, we realized the chicks were not chicks at all but rather chicken nuggets. To go along with those, there was a family of security cam birds, a leopard coat leopard, a monkey watching monkey porn, fish stick fish, and hot dog hamsters (I think). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's because the exhibit is hard to describe. Just check out the pictures. Really bizarre stuff but very interesting too.

The Roots with Gym Class Heroes and Estelle:
I already told you about the Roots concert, but like I said before, it was AMAZING.



First Friday at the Guggenheim:
Every first Friday the Guggenheim opens its doors at nights, hosts a DJ, and serves alcohol. Luckily, we got there early enough to avoid the long lines. It was good times, despite the current exhibit not being that great. The exhibit featured some photography but the main section basically had random sayings in random places throughout the museum. At times, I felt like I was on an Easter egg hunt, searching for the next saying, stuff like "I've been watching you", "It's not you, it's me", and "The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing." A lot of the walls were left completely bare. It was a fun experience, but I don't think I'd do it again.



NYC Chocolate Show:
Saturday night, we caught wind of the NYC Chocolate Show being around this weekend. We went Sunday, and for those of you who've been, it's basically the chocolate version of Beerfest. The show featured chocolatiers from all over the world, and exhibiting, and, more importantly, sampling their products. There were some booths showing how chocolate is made, some cooking shows, and some art exhibits with the art made almost completely of chocolate, but for the most part, we spent our time walking around, trying different types of chocolate. Halfway through the show, both Arch and I were basically sick of chocolate, but we powered through it. One of our favorite booths ended up being the SerendipiTEA booth because the tea was a nice change of pace from the chocolate and helped clear our palettes. Unfortunately, they ran out of chocolate-covered bacon before I could try any. In any case, I'm not eating any more chocolate for awhile.

Click any of the headings for links to albums on flickr.

Who am I?

Who am I?

I like basketball.
My dad grew up in Kenya.
I like listening to the Fugees.
I like playing Scrabble.

If you say me, you'd be correct ... but if you had a different answer, you'd also be right.

Ignite the People like OBAMA!

Congrats, America! Congrats, World!



Oh, and for my readers who live in the Marvel Universe, congrats to you too.

UPDATE: nevermind

The Legendary Roots Crew

Now this is why I moved to NYC. Ok ok, I moved to NYC for another reason but things like this are icing on the cake.

Last night, I saw the Roots with Gym Class Heroes and Estelle. I have been to a few concerts since I moved to New York, and all were good, but this is what I expected from a concert in New York.

When I got there, Estelle was already on. Now I hadn't heard much of her stuff, aside from her "American Boy" song, but I had heard a lot of good things about her, mostly from the folks over at okayplayer. She put on a good performance and served her purpose as an opening act: get the crowd warmed up. I'll definitely have to check out more of her stuff. Gym Class Heroes came on and got the crowd more hyped for the Roots to come on. I was a little more familiar with their stuff, like "Cupid's Chokehold" and "The Queen and I", than I was with Estelle's. They came out with a buncha energy, got the crowd growing, and were active on stage.

Finally the Roots came on and rocked a LIVE show. They did a good mix of old and new. Of course, ?uestlove worked his magic on the drums. At some point, they brought out Q-tip to spit a few verses (and hype his album set to drop next week). Kamal on the keys, Tuba Gooding Jr, and the bassist all did some sweet solo stuff. I don't know who the new bassist is, but as good as he was, I miss Hub on the bass. That guy was ridiculous. Then they started up with probably my favorite Roots track, "You Got Me". They started with Captain Kirk singing the hook, but to no surprise, Estelle came back out and took over. As the song was ending, she headed back stage and Captain Kirk proceeded to do his solo thing on the guitar. He started off with some usual guitar riffs, but then he went into a sick rendition of "Sweet Child O’ Mine". From there, he somehow smoothly transitioned into "Bad to the Bone". Eventually it all melted back into "You Got Me" with Captain Kirk singing again once again. They kept playing some more songs and soon got going with the title track off their latest album Rising Down. To the crowds delight, the mighty Mos Def came out and spit his verse on the song. He helped out with a couple other songs, including the "Next Movement", before heading back off stage. This exactly the type of stuff I expected/hoped for from a concert in NY: random people showing up and performing.

Another great Roots show. I wonder when they'll be back in NY.

Head over here for some live footage (not mine) of the show.

UPDATE: Read a review of the concert by the NY Times here.

it's still the economy stupid

most people who know me know that i enjoy gambling in the stock market. i may even be slightly obsessed. of course, it helps that i've been doing well lately ... well at least relatively.

i have two goals while investing: 1) make money and 2) do better than the s&p 500 index. the first goal is obvious. the second is in place because even if i make money while investing in stocks, if i do not do better than the s&p, i would have been better off investing in an index fund (i don't believe in mutual funds). it would have been easier and a lot less time consuming. up until three weeks ago, i was succeeding with both those goals; unfortunately, the market tanked, and now i'm only succeeding at one of those. it makes me feel better though that "according to Morningstar (MORN), the average U.S. stock mutual fund is down 28.5%." that article is now two days old, and i would guess that those losses has increased since.

for the most part, i primarily invest in small cap companies. with that territory comes a lot of risk. you have to have the stomach for large swings up and down, and boy has my resolve been tested in the past few weeks. i've seen the price in some of my stocks be cut in half in the matter of weeks ... sometimes cut more than that. fortunately, i think my selection process is at least doing a bit right. i currently own stock in 3 of the top 10 small businesses, according to forbes.

saying the economy sucks right now is both pointing out the obvious and a huge understatement.

a week or so ago, when the market dropped a record-breaking 777 points, i thought maybe we had seen the worst. i took some cash, which i had set aside for non-investment purposes, and poured into a few stocks that i felt were greatly undervalued. i never intended to invest with that money, but i couldn't pass up the bargains (or at least what i thought were bargains). of course, the market has fallen a lot more since. there are some people that think now may be a good time to cautiously put some more money back into the market.

was it a bad decision? maybe. i definitely could have been more patient. if i had wait a few days, i would have been much better off. do i regret it? no. i'd probably make the same decision today. only time will tell whether it was the right thing to do or not. i'm hoping large gains with that money in the future . when? who knows. maybe a two years? a year? 6 months? sooner? i guess that's part of the reason for this post. sometime in the future, i'll be able to look back at this and decide whether or not i made the right choice.

all i know is that i'm glad i wasn't planning on retiring anytime in the near future.

hey nas

nas has always been one of my favorite mcs. at this point, he may be my favorite mc that i have not yet seen live. i tried seeing him perform a year or so ago, but that did not turn out too well. a couple days ago, a friend of mine told me about a free concert coming up with nas headlining. i signed up on the guestlist and thought i'd finally get my chance to see nas perform.

we got there relatively early and had a decent spot in line (it went around the block behind us). unfortunately the line did not remain a line for much longer. there was only one security guard managing the line, and even then he wasn't doing much. the line in front of us just started getting wider and wider. doors were supposed to open at 9 (website said 8), but you could sense the unrest when 9 rolled around and nothing happened. things got worse when two large luxury buses rolled up, filled with people who did not look like they belonged at a nas concert. the buses just sat there for awhile, but eventually they rolled up to the front, and all the passengers got off and walked straight into to venue. people started chanting, "tip - the - bus." eventually the line turned into a mob surrounding the club, spilling over into the street blocking a lane of traffic. around 10, they started letting people in, but even then, they were selectively picking people from the crowd. at that point we gave up and went to a nearby bar.

0 for 2 for nas concerts. third times a charm?

what's the word

i came across the website wordle recently. wordle let's you create cool illustrations of word usage in just about anything. you can give it some words or point it to an rss feed, like i did. it's pretty easy to use and shoots out some cool looking word clouds.

let's go to sleep in paris

with archana having a rare 4 day break, we decided to make the most of it. after a bunch of deliberating, we passed up the caribbean, vermont, and miami for a short hop over the lake to paris (not sure why it took so much consideration). 4 days was more than enough time to see all of what we wanted to see. sure we could have seen more, but we got to what we wanted. it was pretty awesome seeing such beauty and history all over the place.

the highlights for me were:
- seeing the amazing architecture of notre dame and the view from the top
- all the famous artwork at the lourve and musee d'orsay, especially the winged victory of samothrace and all the great impressionist pieces
- the paris night lit up by the blue lights of the eiffel tower
- hanging out at cafes, eating crepes and drinking wine or beer
- hearing arch converse with locals in french

you can find pictures on my flickr and two smaller highlight sets on facebook, or you can just check out the brief slideshow below, courtesy of animoto.

the twist

billboard just released the top 100 songs of the billboard hot 100 chart era, and the song at the top may not be what you would expect. according to them, the hottest song of the past 50 years is chubby checker's "the twist." while i like the song, i'm not sure i think it should be at the top. i definitely do not agree with the rest of the top 5, which are:

2. Santana's "Smooth," featuring Rob Thomas,
3. Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife"
4. Leann Rimes' "How Do I Live"
5. Los Del Rio's "The Macarena"

the artists/groups who appear most often on the list at least restore some order to things.

The Beatles do top Billboard's all-time Hot 100 artists, followed by Madonna, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and the Rolling Stones.

anyway, what do you guys think?

ms. hill

the folks over at okayplayer put it best:

Anyone else miss the old Lauryn Hill? Well this is as good as it gets for now, an unreleased song titled "World is a Hustle"

rolling stones wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the miseducation of lauryn hill, and i've been meaning to read it for awhile now.

ny state of mind

it's been about 6 months (already?) since i moved to new york. i've been meaning to jot down some thoughts for awhile now but had been putting it off. this article, which was tweeted to me by my old roommate michael, finally got me going.

inevitably when i see or talk to family or friends again for the first time since i moved to new york, i get a barrage of questions of what it's like to be living in new york now. one thing that almost always comes up is the pace of the city. new york city comes with a perception that it's bustling fast-moving city, and to survive, you better keep up. but you know, i don't really see it. well ... i do see it, but i don't really feel it. i actually feel quite the opposite. since i live so close to work, i walk to and from work everyday, and there's something about walking, which just slows everything down (and i don't mean that literally). walking around with my pandora on blast usually gets me into my own world, filtering out the hustle and bustle of the streets, and allowing me to enjoy the walk. as far as i can tell, i'm not walking faster and rushing everywhere, but i do notice myself weaving in and out of people sometimes ... but then again, that's how i used to drive.

speaking of driving, i don't have a car here and thought i would miss my car a whole lot more than i actually do. that has nothing to do with high gas prices either. i enjoy walking around and taking the subway everywhere. the only time i really did miss my car and driving was on a long drive for our camping trip on long stretches of highway (though part of that may have been because of the driver of the car i was in). i'm getting familiar with the subway system; however, i occasionally make mistakes here and there, like thinking the D stops at 14th St. my iphone and the city transit app help for those moments. i still think it's cool seeing people of all races, walks of life, and social status crammed together in one train.

my apartment is in a great part of town. i don't think i could be anymore in the middle of manhattan. my apartment is easily accessible to four different subway lines. there are a bunch of good restaurants nearby, including an awesome chicken and rice cart right downstairs (i swear i grab food there at least twice a week). things are open late. best of all, i'm REALLY close to columbus circle and central park. i had an epiphany a few months ago: it would be a sad sad thing if when i eventually leave new york, i realized that i lived so close to central park and didn't make the most of it. now, i sometimes grab lunch and sit under a tree in the park. if i have nothing to do on the weekends, i often grab a book or my laptop with a blanket and sit in the park for a few hours. just being to chill in the park like that also contributes to the fact that i think my life has slowed down since i moved here. columbus circle has also become a hang out of mine. it's like my new sproul. sometimes on my way home from my work on a nice sunny day, i'll just sit in the circle and just watch people go by.

in terms of social life, mine hasn't been the greatest but not that bad either. i also expect it to improve. a couple friends were gone for the summer but are now back. ol' dirty is moving to brooklyn soon, which should make for good times as well. i've seen a couple hip hop shows, and the fact that they were new yorkers (immortal technique and talib kweli) made them even better.

i do have a few gripes. first, it's not even winter yet, and i'm still adjusting to the weather. in my 6 months here, i've probably seen more rain than i did in my 3 plus years in sd (maybe that's why we had fires so often). i'm sure by the time january rolls around, i'll be crying ... but i'll get used to it. second, watching sports since i've been here is tough (and not even because of the way boston took out the lakers in the finals). i usually have to be awake till about 1am watching lakers games. now with the start of football season, i'll probably complain some more. in cali, i was used to waking up around 10am on a sunday morning, rolling out of bed to the couch, and sitting there watching football all day. here, i'll have to wait till 1 before any games start. oh well.

but if the weather, which i expected, and having to adjust my routine for watching sports are my two biggest complaints, i guess you can say i'm enjoying it here. i used to think that the window of opportunity for me to live outside of california sometime in my life had long closed. of course, things changed, and i'm glad they did. i know i will eventually move back to california, but for now, i'm very happy that i'm living in ny.

the rotten apple

whoops. the guys over at bloomberg accidentally published steve jobs' obituary. i think someone forgot to mention to them that he's not quite dead yet. good job guys. reminds me of that scene in monty python and the holy grail.

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

baby got back

i recently came across this article on wired.com about a couple of visual artists, who break down musical genres and the parts of the body they mention most.

Across all of the categories, the eyes are most frequently mentioned body part (Hall & Oates, "Private Eyes"), with the exceptions of hip hop, which places a firm emphasis on the posterior (Sir Mix a Lot, "Baby Got Back") and blues (Louisiana Red, "Keep Your Hands Off My Woman") and gospel music (The Gospel, "Put Your Hands Together"), which are respectively focused on the keeping off of one's hands and the clapping or raising of one's hands.

i thought it was kinda interesting. check it out.

never can say goodbye

i recently picked the new game album LAX. the album has some good names in terms of collabos (common, raekwon, nas, ice cube) and producers (kanye, hi-tek, scott storch). i haven't given the album a whole lot of listen yet and won't comment on it overall, but one particular song did stand out on first listen.

the song is called "never can say goodbye" and begins with la radio personalities yo yo and julio g from kday reportings on the deaths of tupac, biggie, and eazy e. the game then goes on to flow as each of those MCs in the first person, recounting their last moments alive. interesting concept, and i think he pulls it off well. he even gets into each of their styles during the three verses.

check it out.

watch out

if you live in san francisco, watch out

mash out posse

for some reason last night, archana started singing that silly barney song. it reminded me of a barney video that i actually like. i quickly grabbed my iphone, pulled up the video on youtube, and showed it to her (the iphone has surprisingly good speakers btw).

here's the video:

and while this barney video is the first i can remember in the hip hop/kids' show mash up vein, my cousin shawn recently put me on to this video, which i think is much better and done incredibly well. i love both these songs.

enjoy!

call of da wild

before there was facebook or myspace or even friendster ... or any other social network, for that matter, there was the OG social network: the goan network. throughout my life, my mom would tell me that some person or family was coming over for dinner or something. if i ever asked who they were, i would usually get some convoluted answer about a friend's brother's daughter's cousin. luckily for terence, my cousins, and me, the network was rarely used to get us hooked up, though some of my aunts have thought about it.

but hey, goans are extremely nice, helpful, and hospitable. when i moved to ny a few months ago, i was put in touch with the young goan group of new jersey. i was actually "connected" to the group through two different people. i was put on their email list, and a month or so ago, i found out about a planned camping trip. since it'd be good to know some more people in the area and camping is usually a lotta fun, i thought i'd sign up and go. yeah, i wouldn't know anyone else going, but they're goan ... it's all good.

despite some delays getting to the campground in PA, i got to the site and had a lot of fun. there were 20 of us total, and we all had a really good time. even though i just met everyone, people were super friendly and fun. we went white water rafting saturday morning. since the rapids were not so rapid, we went the majority of the time angling our raft in the best possible position to toss buckets of water onto people on other rafts while staying wet ourselves. of course, everyone was drenched in the end, but it was a really good time. the rest of the day consisted of a bbq, volleyball, dodgeball, and of course, ghost stories (provided by google on an iphone) and smores around a campfire. unfortunately, mother nature decided to pour on us sunday morning, which confined us inside our tiny cabins playing taboo. all the guys and one girl went paintballing that afternoon, which was a blast, despite continually foggy goggles and rain and hail. all in all, it was a great weekend, and now i know a few more people in the tri-state area, and the fact that they're goan is even better.

UPDATE: apparently not everyone was goan ... those phonies!

too short

i've recently been obsessed with a couple j.dilla tracks off his unreleased pay jay album. yeah, yeah ... i know, i know ... i shouldn't be bootlegging his shit since his family is hurting for money after all his medical bills, but damn it, i wanted some more dilla. i'd gladly pay for it ... if they would finally release it. anyway, not the point.

starting over ...

i've recently been obsessed with a couple j.dilla tracks off of pay jay, particularly "no one knows." i'm not sure what exactly it is about track that i love; if it's the hook, the sample, his flow, the production. unfortunately, once i really start getting into, it's done. 2:19. that's it. no more. it just kinda leaves you hanging, yearning for more, unfulfilled. sucks.

i felt the same way about "unwritten" featuring mercedes martinez off the roots' rising down. this roots track even has the same sound/feel of the "no one knows" ... and when it ends, i'm like, "that's it?! no more?!" common's whole album be gave me this feeling too. and while i appreciate the songs/albums, don't tease me like that!

changes

quick thanks to everyone who responded to this post and voted for my cousin. her video won, and she and her partner now have an all-expense paid vacation to ottawa.

they monopolizing news

over the last few days, i've experienced what i think is an interesting phenomenom in the way information travels. microblogging/tweeting/updating facebook status is changing how quickly information gets out there and also who can access that information. if you don't know, twitter is basically just facebook status updates, but you can update a whole buncha different ways, like web, texts, im, etc. you can also receive other people's updates through those means too.

example 1: a few days ago, i heard that a trailer for the new marvel movie x-men origins: wolverine was debuted at comic con in sd. someone happened to tape the trailer and leaked it to the internet. being a big marvel fan (though not too happy with my marvel stock (MVL) today), i'm anxious to see the movie. i scoured the internet for a copy of the leaked trailer, but it looked like i was too late. after i gave up on my search, i asked the twitter/facebook community, and within half an hour i had a link (though the video there has since been removed too). the movie looks pretty sweet btw.

example 2: as you probably well know, there was a substantial earthquake in southern california a few days ago. i found out about earthquake through facebook and twitter before i read about it on the news. dozens of my friends had updates relating to the earthquake within thirty minutes, and one of my friends even had an update three minutes after the reported time of the earthquake.

example 3: unfortunately, i heard some tragic news from a friend of mine last night. however, before i talked to her, i saw hints of the news on facebook a few hours before and was curious as to what happened.

anyway, i just find it pretty interesting how news/information can flow these days given new channels, such as twitter and facebook. i think twitter will become much more useful/interesting once i have many more other i people know using it as well ... so join and add me!

my phone

since i've had my iphone for a few weeks now, i thought it was about time to give a better rundown of my thoughts on the thing.

overall, i LOVE it. no regrets whatsoever over dropping $300 on a phone. the high calling plans didn't really affect me much since i had an expensive calling plan before for all the minutes i was using while still in sd.

i gave a quick review of some of my favorite apps in this post, but in all honesty, i don't really use many regularly. here goes anyway for the ones i do use.

pandora: EASILY my favorite app. i love this thing. having an seemingly infinite amount of music at my fingertips is great. since 3g coverage is pretty good in nyc, i can walk around listening to pandora with few skips and lags. i really wish they would allow the app to persist in the background because while it runs, unfortunately, i cannot do anything else on the phone. oh well. i've already discovered a few new interesting artists through pandora, including the sound providers. dj profile, dj'ed at bar dynamite and part of the upstarts, used to be a part of the group. they got a sound similar to crown city rockers. good stuff. i find myself switching out my music less often than i did with my old ipod touch, and i think if i had known about pandora before i bought my 16Gb iphone, i would have thought long and hard about saving $100 and going with the 8Gb one.

facebook: the facebook app is pretty good. the first update now allows you to upload mobile photos directly, and i find myself snapping pictures of random things more often and immediately uploading them..

city transit: as i still get my bearings for this city, this app has come in handy. i can easily access the subway lines and figure out which station is closest to me.

twinkle: my twitter client of choice on the iphone for the simple reason is that it use the location tags. you can see who else is sending tweets with a set radius (5/10/25/50/100 miles).

remote: this application works exactly as i would like. i had been wanting this on my ipod touch for awhile now. it's easy to use and very intuitive. when combined with my airport express, the wireless audio setup i have going in my apartment is pretty cool (despite my crappy speakers). this would have been great for college parties. however, after seeing the remote app, i wish they would change to design of the native ipod interface to be more like how the remote app looks. maybe that's in the works.

those are basically the only apps i use regularly. everyonce in awhile i'll play a game on the subway, like bomberman, holdem, or jirbo break, but for the most part, i played them a few times to begin with while they were still novel.

the gps is a bit disappointing. it'll usually find my position within a block or two, but it has a tendency of moving around, even when i'm sitting still. to make thingss worse, the tall buildings of nyc often block the signal, and i can't even get a lock at all sometimes. the iphone definitely will not replace a good gps device ... yet at least. there are rumors that firmare update 2.1 will enhance the gps functionality, maybe even including turn by turn directions.

the best part of the iphone though is constantly having the internet and google maps at my fingertips. it helped me point some couple in the right direction on their quest for white castle (i'm not making that up either). while espn and facebook have good iphone sites, google wins in this department. google reader on the iphone is really good. for awhile, i was searching/hoping for a good app to use to track my investments. i wanted something a little more robust than just price or percentage changes, which the native stock app has. i finally figured out that google docs has a well designed iphone site. when you throw that in along with the googlefinance functions, i had what i needed.

i have no complaints about service or call quality yet (other than not being able to call canada). the battery is not that great, but since i keep it plugged in at work, i haven't had a problem yet. we'll see what happens when i'm running around for a day or two.

electric relaxation

a few months back, i saw a lamborghini gallardo (not this one) on the street. it was driven by a huge prick and equally rude girlfriend, but that's another story. of course, i asked archana if she'd be buy me one, and in our fanciful world, her objection is that it's not very eco-friendly. point taken ... "how about a tesla?"

if you don't know, the tesla is an electric car being manufactured by a startup in the bay area. tesla motors is one of the first new american car manufacturers in decades. the car is based on the design of the lotus elise and is estimated to go from 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds. they car will set you back $109,000 though.

anyway, they recently opened the first showroom in los angeles and another in the bay area. the first few cars have rolled off the production lines and to customers. they say around 8 to 10 of the vehicles have been delivered already.

and already someone has crashed theirs! good job buddy. way to crash one of ten of THE hottest cars out there right now. you can read the article from wired.com here, but people are speculating that the crash was probably caused by aggressive driving and the fact that it's low profile and almost silent engine makes it hard to notice.

once/if they fix the car, they should not let that guy have it back (and give it to me, of course).

when you speak of the dopest MC ...

i thought about writing this post the other day when i was listening to pandora on my iphone and wu-tang's triumph came on. inspectah deck's first verse of that song is one of the best ever. i thought about writing this post again when later main source's live at the bbq came on. nas kicks off that songs (and his career) with a TIGHT verse. it could quite possibly be my favorite single verse of all time.

and then today, i'm listening to bumpy knuckles' new album, crazy like a foxxx (pretty good so far ... but i haven't listened to much yet), and i finally gave in and wrote the post (obviously). listening to bumpy knuckles (aka freddie foxxx) reminds me of his verse on gang starr's militia. his verse on that track is just ... hard ... fierce ... ferocious. it's one of those tracks that just kinda hits you.

all three of those songs (triumph, live at the bbq, and militia) are made by those single verses. without those verses, each of those songs would be nowhere as good as they are.

anyway, what other single verses should be added to this list?

overnight celebrity

came across this the other day when i browsing through wired.com. apparently i'm not that famous.




i scored a 30, compared to ?uestlove's 79 and obama's 9078.

what about you guys?

murs is better than your favorite rapper

some more free music for you guys by murs and 9th wonder. in my opinion, murs is one of the best mc's out there these days, and 9th wonder is one of the best producers. head over to okayplayer to get the free album ... or just click here.




also, as i'm writing, i'm watching nas on the colbert report. COMEDY! check it out if you can. nas is talking about his beef with fox news and o'reilly.

what's ya phone number

after spending waaay too much time in line, i finally got my new iphone. so far i LOVE the thing. it's awesome. i think more than any of the hardware changes, like the added gps and 3g connection, the new app store makes this thing great. i haven't had much chance to play with many of the apps much. here are my thoughts on some of them:

remote: remotely control itunes with your iphone. i've been wanting this for my ipod touch. works great.

loopt: location aware social network. i haven't been able to use it much since i don't know anyone else on it yet, other than terence.

pandora: i'm really excited about this one. listening to the pandora music network will be great on my walk to work. so far though, it's a bit slow to load, and sometimes while on the 3g network, it skips while buffering. i'm looking forward to be able to discover new music. unfortunately, since apple does not allow apps to run in the background, you cannot do anything else on the iphone while pandora is running.

yelp: it's great to be able to search reviews while on the go of restaurants, bar, etc around you.

google maps: the gps functionality is sweet. having maps on the go is even better.

urban spoon: randomly choose restaurants around you. fun gimmick but i wish it would let you filter by ratings too.

city transit nyc: map of the new york city subway system. it will even tell you which station is closest to you and if there are any service advisories.

midomi/shazam: similar apps. they record a snippet of sound and then will tell you what song that snippet is from. i've had better luck with shazam than with midomi but midomi is supposed to be better when there is more background noise. i showed arch, but she was skeptical at first when it picked up a stevie wonder song i had been playing since i just controlling the itunes with the iphone anyway. she put the thing to the test. it successful figured out some of the most obscure songs she could think of ... then she tried it with hindi and tamil songs, which shazam was also successful with! pretty cool. it even gives you youtube links to the songs if there are any.

bomberman: i love the bomberman series. this one is fun too; though, i'm still getting used to the controls.

phone saber: fun but pointless app that makes lightsaber sounds while you swing around your iphone.

cube runner: fun game, in which you navigate through a field of cubes, trying not to catch.

those are the ones i've been using the most so far. obviously push email is cool, as is having the internet constantly at your fingertips. i haven't used the phone part much yet but nothing to complain about at all in that department. some of the apps will crash every once in awhile. most crashes are minor and just take you back to the home screen; though, some force the iphone to restart. so far, the only apps which i've paid for are city transit nyc ($3) and bomberman ($8); there rest were free.

they did have trouble with porting my old 619 number, which means i have a new york 917 number for the next few days ... and have to carry around my old phone too ... sucks.

the show

Archana's mom was around for about a week around the 4th of July. While she was here we decided to go see a show on Broadway. We ended up seeing Spamalot, which is a Broadway adaptation of Month Python and the Holy Grail ... they call it "lovingly ripped off". If you're a fan of the movie, I'd definitely recommend. The show followed the movie pretty closely, at least for the first three quarters. The playbill even had fake info on a fake cast reminiscent of the fake intro credits on the movie (except with no llamas). Arch and her mom were confused with that,but I loved it. Some of the songs were too long and detracted from the overall comedy but oh well. The end of the show was a lot different from the movie. Overall, it was really good, and if you're a fan of the movie, you should go check it out. My biggest gripe: since the end was different, they left out the scene from the end of the movie where the knights have to answer three questions in order to pass. It's the scene were King Arthur asks, "African or European?" Without that scene, the entire first scene in which they're discussing swallows is pretty much pointless.

we gotta make a change

i'm pretty sure this post is unnecessary since all my subscribers probably already saw this post, but who cares ...

my cousin in canada has entered a video contest. all submissions are aimed at social change. she's already won $1000 and moved passed the regional rounds. she's now onto the national level.

she made the video with a friend of hers. the video is based on a poem she wrote herself. i think it's pretty good and far better than anything i could do.

part of the competition is based on an online vote. she is currently in second place, losing only by a few points. i may be a bit biased, but her video is much better than the silly song about landfills, which is currently winning.

anyway, go here and vote for her video "Change," eh.

organize an army that will make the devils nervous

i haven't really played video games, especially PC-based video games, much lately. i played halo 2 often and even played some halo 3, but for the most part, i don't really play that much anymore. i even sold my xbox 360 a few weeks ago since it was just sitting there as a glorified DVD player.

... but ... when i did play PC video games, the ones by blizzard (warcraft, starcraft, diablo) were always my favorites. i loved the diablo series and beat the first two versions. blizzard was also one of the first to do online gameplay well.

that being said, the new diablo game looks pretty damn cool. i probably won't buy it or probably even play, but it's still a bit tempting.

here's the cinematic trailer ...



... and a link to a video showing the gameplay.

along those same lines, i'm excited about the new wii game Star War: The Force Unleashed. i just think it'd be cool to swing a lightsaber around for a video game, though i'd probably break something in my apartment or hurt someone (or myself). i probably would have picked up a wii once i sold my xbox 360 if it could play DVDs. oh well, maybe in the future.

bomb wall street and make the stock market dip down

the stock is market is getting (been?) pretty ugly lately. the dow (DJI) looks like it might dip below 11000. this is starting to get painful. i'm hoping it'll turn around soon. luckily for me, not all my stocks follow the general direction of the market. some (PQ) kinda just keep going up; while, some (SDTH) just bounce all over the place.

tell your friends to get with my friends and we can be friends

**before i get started with this post, i've updated my rss feed. i know that if you're reading this, you've subscribed to my feed through some kinda of rss reader (i personally prefer google reader) because there is no way you'd be just checking back here for updates. with the way that i've been blogging lately, that'd just be silly. so click on that handy button over to the right and subscribe to the new feed. that being said, i'm going to try being a little better with my blogging these days (and it looks like i'm not the only one).**

the internet has kinda exploded lately. web 2.0 is changing the whole dynamic of how people surf the web and use it to connect to people. a month or so ago, i went on a bit of a web 2.0 binge and signed up for a bunch of social networks. if you're on any of these, add me.




FRIENDSTER
i think friendster is the original of the social networks. it was a big thing back when i was in berkeley. it was a little odd at first while people tried to figure out what this thing was, but it kinda took off. i even knew at least one person with a girlfriendster ... that didn't translate well into real life. maybe he should start dating people in the same state as he is (actually, nevermind).
http://profiles.friendster.com/bmasc





MYSPACE
myspace took what friendster started and took off with it. it added the music spin to it, which i think is/was great. i never really like the ability to customize the profiles because some people took it too far and just made things look messy, but a lot of people liked that. friendster may have started it, but myspace is the one that really opened the door for everyone else.
http://www.myspace.com/bmasc





LINKEDIN
LinkedIn took the social networking thing to a professional level. i used LinkedIn when trying to look for my new job, and i know many others who have too. i know some people who have gotten in the door and an interview through LinkedIn; though, i do not think i know anyone that actually got a job out of it.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bmascarenhas






ILIKE
the music social network. iLike is a good way to share musical taste and stay on top of your favortie artists. i particularly like the concerts section; it's how i heard about the immortal technique concert that i went to last tuesday (great show ... maybe i'll blog about that later).
http://www.ilike.com/user/Brian_M115





MYBLOGLOG
i only signed up for this one because anjali was working on the deal when they were acquired by yahoo. it's supposedly supposed to match blog interests, but i have yet to see much from it yet.
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/bmasc/





GOODREADS
as iLike is to music, goodreads is to books. i only recently signed up for this one and have not played with it all that much. i would like to see it recommend good books to you based on what you like and what your friends like (similar to what whatshouldireadnext.com does).
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1253100





DOPPLR
Dopplr keeps your friends informed of where you are in the world and what trips you have planned for the future. it'd be great if you traveled a lot and know a bunch of people who do too.
http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/bmasc









LOOPT
i'm not using Loopt yet, but once i get my 3g iPhone, i will be. it's a location based social network, which sounds pretty cool in theory. i don't know how well it'll work in practice, but i'm definitely going to play with it.






TWITTER
Twitter has you answer the question "What are you doing right now?" from what i hear from some people, twitter can get pretty addicting. i don't know enough people using it yet for it to matter all that much. one of the best parts of twitter is that you can update your status in a bunch of ways, like twitter.com, twitterfox, digsby, your cell phone, etc etc. my biggest gripe (shared by all other twitter users) is that twitter often goes down. they better fix that before they lose all their users.
http://twitter.com/bmasc





FLICKR
Flickr is a photo-sharing network. i've always been a fan of their geo-tagging functionality (which google is just now getting to).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmasc/






FRIENDFEED
FriendFeed tries to aggregate all the different social networks into one convenient place. it's a good way to see what people are doing on their various networks without having to check all of then individually.
http://friendfeed.com/bmasc






DEL.ICIO.US
del.icio.us is a bookmarking network. i started using it recently and love it. i am constantly bookmarking websites for later. you can also tag links for your friends, which is a great way to share links. i wish they'd allow you to comment on your and your networks bookmarks though. i have a del.icio.us badge in my sidebar, and once i fix some glitches, it'll have my tags too.
http://del.icio.us/bmasc







MOTLEY FOOL CAPS
Motley Fool CAPS is a way for investors to share their stock picks with other investors. the people over at motley fool use those picks and come up with ratings, weighting people who do better more. i'm doing pretty well in the market right now *knock on wood* and attribute most of my success to reading The Motley Fool Investment Guide (let me know if you'd like to borrow it). i'm currently all-star status, which is kinda cool.
http://caps.fool.com/MyPlayer.aspx?source=ifltnvsnv0000001
(not sure if that link will work but search for bmasc23)








AIM
AIM is not really a social network, but it definitely keep people connected.
bmasc123








DIGSBY
similar to AIM, digsby is not a social network really, but it allows to combine your various IM clients (AIM, yahoo, google talk, facebook chat, etc) into on convenient application. i found digsby because i was getting really tired of how much screen space the ads in the AIM client were talking up on my screen. allowing me to chat with my facebook friends was a bonus (never really did before). it has some other cool features, like notifications from your networks, some really cool pop ups (you can chat directly in the pop ups), and other stuff. i even added this cool widget to the right over there where anyone on the internet on my blog can chat with me (potential to be annoying though).
bmasc








GOOGLE READER
Google Reader, as i mentioned above, is the rss reader of my choice. i don't use the share feature much, but the ability to star things is nice. they've also implemented a good site for use on the iPhone, which is nice ... though i'm not sure how much i'll use it.






FACEBOOK
Facebook i left for last because i think it's the best of them all. my main reason for this is because all the others can be encompassed in Facebook. there are applications for iLike, Twitter, Dopplr, del.icio.us, goodreads, Flickr, and LinkedIn on Facebook. there's supposed to be some layout changes on the way, let's see how those go.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1245105


of course, with all of these, they're only useful when you a large number of contacts. and yeah, i know there are a bunch more social networks out there, but these are the only ones that i use ... for now.

smooth operator

google reader just informed that there was a new post on the roots blog. i head over and check out this pretty sweet video for their song "in the music." as i'm watching, i notice an ad off to the side. i think it is hilarious. since i wasn't sure if the ad would change, i did a print screen for posterity's sake. check it out below.



(i know there's an extra 'r' but still)

after looking into, apparently terence reese is some famous british bridge player and writer.