Rap Charts

As part of my description of this blog, sometimes I like to think about rap. A few weeks ago, I stumbled onto this little nugget. It explains popular rap songs with charts and graphs. If you haven't seen it, go read it and see how many songs you can recognize. Brilliant.

Designs

I've been reading Seth Godin's blog as of late, and that man is nothing short of brilliant. I read Purple Cow several years ago at the behest of a guy I know and while it didn't have a lot of impact then, I'm certainly revisiting some of those ideas now that I work at Spanish Fort UMC. With all we're doing with changing the youth and trying to get involved with "church marketing" there's a lot of ideas that he has that make sense in the context of the Church. But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is me in seventh grade.



I remember a day in seventh grade when I was taking a health class. I don't remember the teacher's name, but I remember it was in a modular building (or a trailer for those of you who like to cut through semantic garbage). At one point during the year, we had to draw a "magazine ad" telling people why they shouldn't smoke. Being a seventh grader that had not yet become the idealistic young man that I am today, I thought this was a great idea. Even though I had no prior advertising experience, I had a killer idea; playing off all of those ads everyone knows that say something to the effect of "such and such number of people can't be wrong!," I drew a simple scene of what looked like a million little grave stones (much like Metallica's Master of Puppets cover art) and on the top I wrote "40 million people CAN be wrong." I thought this was brilliant. I mean, whatever, I just picked a random number, insinuating that 40 million people had died from smoking cigarettes, but the kernel of truth was there. I brought it up to my teacher, beaming with pride, and he told me he didn't get it. He told me to go sit down and do something else, because that didn't "Make sense." And sense he had all the power, I went and sat back down and drew some mundane piece of crap.

The point is, there is no accounting for taste. And I should sue those Truth people, because they stole an idea I had nearly ten years ago. powned

Music History

I just got done taking a music history test, which proved difficult in two ways:

1. It is always difficult to get motivated to do something that in all actuality probably does not matter.

2. It is always difficult to get questions right when the teacher tells you one thing is going to be on the test, but then puts a completely different thing on there

Ballsy move, Mrs. Fox. To tell everyone to study four pieces and know everything about them and then not play two of them and play something else. AND THEN have the audacity to stand up there and say "Oh well, it's not my fault. We've listened to these pieces before. You should know them."

Ballsy move, indeed.

Phrases I wish would go away

There are certain phrases I hear on a day to do basis that I wish would cease to be used. I'm all for the evolution of the lexicon. I also think other people should to. Phrases come and go, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. BlingBling and Jiggy are perfect examples of that. Old white people have been now using these phrases for a couple of years now, thereby proving they are past their sell date. Although, I admit, the phrase Seacrest out is simultaneously out of date and cool to use. Only if you use it in an ironic, hipster way. But I'm sure it will be totally out in about a week and a half. Thus is the problem with hipsters. But there are certain phrases that I feel are now past their prime (if they ever had one).

1. Not so much
Example:
"Hey, did you finish that paper?"
"Uh....yea...not so much."


I guess it's supposed to be ironic or hip. Probably both. I know what you're trying to say. It's almost a "NOT" joke (like from Borat) but more subtle. It's tricky. There are certain times when it's ok to use this phrase. For example, if someone asks, "Hey, isn't your prediction for the '08 election that Ross Perot will run and win?", you may say "well...not so much a prediction as a well-educated guess." Perfectly acceptable.

2. Love me some
Example:
"Hey, was church good yesterday?"
"Yea, it was awesome! I just love me some worship."

This is often said by girls that have long hair. Not always, but that's the image I have in my mind when I hear this phrase. I've heard guys use it as well. It's not inherently a bad phrase, just played out. I thought it was the cool the first three years I heard it used, but now it's time to give it a rest. The worst is when people say "man, I just love me some Jesus." You should really love you some grammar, too.

3. I'm just a little more progressive
Example:
"Yea, I drive a Prius and I only buy Fair Trade Coffee. I'm just a little more progressive."


I know that South Park has already made fun of this phrase, but that is what made me want to go after it. This is usually said by the aforementioned Prius owners, Apple users, and people who think that having an ounce of social conscious is something new and exciting. Granted, not a lot of people do care about the environment, but just because you do does not give you the right to look down your nose at the plebians. The real reason I hate this phrase is that the people who say it inherently say it condescendingly. Get outta here. I have a mac and I pray that I never fall into the trap of being someone that says that.

4. I'm kind of a big deal
Example:
"Did you ever see that movie Anchorman?"
"um...obviously. Didn't you just hear me tell Steve humorously that I'm kind of a big deal?"


Look, Will Ferrel might be a comic genius. You, in all actuality, are probably not. The lowest form of creativity, I believe, is quoting movies. And everyone does it. I do it. I think it might be engrained in our psyche. The conundrum is this: If you quote a movie no one knows, no one will catch your reference. If you quote a movie that everyone knows, then you will appear unoriginal. I think we should all just commit to not quoting anything from now on. My roommate John and I were talking about that the other day, and we came to the conclusion that there are certain situations where a well-timed movie quote drop can enhance the conversation and provide everyone with about a solid ten seconds of laughter. Most people cannot pull this off. Let's just stop.


5. Party Like a Rockstar
Example:
"Yea, we're going out tonight. We're going to hit up Liquid and Seven. We are going to party like F'ing rockstars!!!"


This phrase is often said by 18-25 year old girls. sometimes by guys. it was also made uber-popular by the Shop Boyz with their song, the appropriately named "Party like a Rockstar." The problem with this phrase is that you are not a rock star. Recently, I was watching "Rock of Love 2: Electric Boogaloo" (not the surname of that show, but it should be). Aside from the fact that Bret Michaels is a genius (which I will discuss in a later post), this particular episode was a perfect example of this. The girls were going out at some point or something and Destiney said something along the lines of partying like rockstars. But the reality is that you are going to be partying with a rockstar. You are a groupie. A groupie is not a rockstar, with very few exceptions. So stop saying it, for real.

I think that's enough for now.

Wasted

I had big plans for today. Huge. Betsy is gone, john is gone, I need to practice for jazz night, work out, and do many other productive things that are not sitting on this corner of the couch and spending the last five and a half hours online. Granted, I learned a lot in these past few hours (what Christians like, where to get free vector graphics, how to decompress .rar file on a mac, what rss is, the caloric content of Diet Grapico) but that is not what I set out to do today. I am starting to loathe the fact that I learned (concretely) what a blog is, and the joys of wasting hours of my day reading them. It's like a newspaper for people who don't care about real life events.

Primo Facto

This is my first attempt at a blog. I've spent the last five hours creating a profile picture and the header to this site, and I neglected to think of ACTUALLY writing something. So here it is, the first ever. Enjoy