Album Download: Black On Both Sides

So as you can already surmise from my previous blog entries (especially this one) my outlook on hip hop is rather bleak. At least, hip hop these days. I want to again make clear that I love all kinds of music, including hip hop. I just only like it when there's some actual artistry involved, when there's some thought that goes into it. It doesn't all need to be art, but for the love of God, I can't stand that kind of shit that you can tell was churned out for the money.

In my continuing effort to push good hip hop on people, here's my album download of the whenever I feel like posting one: I present to you the mighty Mos Def's debut album, Black On Both Sides. Mos is a musical genius. His lyrics are thoughtful and have some actual substance to them. His beats are anything but the generic bullshit that's out these days, and he's got some pretty good one-liners to boot. And on top of that, he can sing too, which not a lot of rappers can do well.

Kids, this is some of the best of the best. It's so much better than the generic Soulja Boy or Timbaland bullshit. This is real hip hop. You owe it to yourself to listen to this album; I would be willing to say it's my favorite hip hop album ever. He's got some other great shit, including the next album after this one called The New Danger but nothing compares to this. You'll love it.

»Download: Mos Def - Black On Both Sides

Shopping on eBay? Steer clear of "mathony."

I just wanted to let anyone who reads this to know that if they're ever out and about buying things on eBay, to never, ever buy anything from a user named mathony. Why? Because mathony is a stupid, thieving, irresponsible son of a bitch.

Let me tell you a little bit about my experience with this "mathony." For all intents and purposes, let's say "mathony" is a he (this is counterintuitive to me, because my experience leads me to believe that mathony has no balls.)

A few months ago, my laptop's power cord began to quit working on me. It was a fairly new one. The wire had become frayed and was poking out, and this culminated with me walking into my room to find the power cord to my laptop sparking. Thankfully I grabbed it and disposed of it before it caught my sheets on fire. I sure don't need that to happen again.

You can't find a power cord for my laptop, mostly because it's a cheap piece of shit, unless you either a) look on eBay or b) shell out $120 for what's called a "universal adapter." This adapter can be adjusted to fit many kinds of laptops, but as I said, damn thing's a hundred and twenty bucks, so fuck that. Left with only option B, I hopped on eBay and within minutes found a replacement for $30, including shipping. Fast forward a week when my plug gets here. Anxious to finally have a working laptop again, I go to plug it in only to discover that the plug is too small for the socket. Barely - a little larger, in fact, and it would have fit just right.

So I e-mail this mathony, and say that he must have sent me the wrong plug. He shoots one back with a half-ass apology for the inconvenience and asking for the item number. I send it to him, and he says if I ship back the plug he sent me he'll send the "right" one. Fast forward about two weeks. I finally get this new plug, and it still isn't the right one. I look on the auction again, to quintuple check that the title still says the name of my laptop (which is embarassingly cheap, so I'll omit that) as one of the compatible computers. It does. I look closer in the auction, and it says it is an 18V plug. My laptop requires a 19V plug. So now we have a problem on our hands - he's sending me the wrong plug because the bastard advertised the wrong plug.

I send him a few e-mails about this and he fails to respond with anything at all, let alone an apology. Long story short, I'm settling this via negative feedback and a PayPal dispute, but this person is a coward. He won't even refund me the $20 it's cost me to ship back now two plugs that are the wrong ones, so I'm really only getting about $10 back from this motherfucker.

Don't buy anything from mathony. (S)he's a dick.

Lost is back. Watch it.

I'm not going to get into another rant on why I'm so smart and you're so stupid, because frankly I don't feel like it, but seriously - Lost, one of the most brilliant shows ever to grace television, is back on, and it's my civic duty to tell you to FUCKING WATCH. If you've never seen it, start taping/Tivoing them every Thursday night at 9 and in the meanwhile, start watching from the beginning. Do not be a dumb fuck and try to come in in the middle of this series because you won't have any idea what's going on. Do not be a dumb fuck and think that watching a recap will help you either, 'cause it won't. It really won't. Plus you'll be robbing yourself of the great experience that is actually watching the show.

If you don't comply with my demands, you're probably retarded. In all seriousness, I don't mean to imply that by watching some TV show, you're smart, I'm just saying this: I only know a few people that watch Lost, and all of them are really smart. I also know a lot of really dumb people. None of them hardly know what Lost even is. It's just that it's a show that takes a lot of brains both to put on and to watch and follow, so have your wits about you.