(7) - Chitty Bang? Nah, Chiddy

Been listening to this song practically all day. Never heard of the rapper before, but apparently he's from the Philadelphia area, and goes by the name "Chiddy Bang." He samples the beat from Kids by MGMT, which happens to be one of my favorite songs, and does a pretty good job of rapping over it.
Onto a more important issue: I don't understand these rapper names nowadays (Lil Wayne, Kid Cudi, Young Jeezy, etc). Why can't you just have a regular name? Does that not make you 'street'/cool/hardcore enough? When I become a rapper my name is going to be Thomas. I will revolutionize the way rappers present themselves and name themselves. Just use your regular name. I hate this street cred shit.
"The Life and Times of Dizzle" (my debut rap album) will hit the shelves soon, keep a look out.
Let me know what you think of Chitty Bang.
One last thing, I decided to change my rap name from "Thomas," to "GROAT."

ps. GROAT stands for Greatest Rapper of ALL TIME, bitchhhhhh

(6) - Are You Badass?

Hello all. Welcome to a special blog post. I'll get right down to the dirty.

My cousin recently asked me who I thought the most badass movie character of all-time was. After some thought, I told him I couldn't really narrow it down to one, but a few came to mind. Jason Bourne, Achilles, Jules Winnfield, etc etc. You get the point. He then challenged me to a duel, sort of.

We would each come up with a list of 65 Badass movie characters, and then narrow the 130 names down to 65. Obviously there was a lot of overlap, but in the end we've managed to shorten the list to 65. The next part was the toughest, and that was to create the draw, a la NCAA March Madness. I was the one who created the draw and I kept two things in mind: 1) Matchups I would love to see, and 2) Like qualities in characters.

For example, in one bracket I have Albus Dumbledore, Lord Voldemort and Merlin, because they're all wizards and I would love to see the duels between them. In another bracket I have Jason Bourne, Bryan Mills, River Tam, Pai Mei, Neo and Morpheus, because they're all badass fighters and a fight between any of them would be very exciting to watch. Some great first round matchups: Dirty Harry vs. Travis Bickle, The Terminator vs. Conan the Barbarian, William Cutting vs. Emperor Palpatine.

We've been going at this in our spare time for about two weeks now, and we're up to the point where we've each filled out the bracket, and now will compare and come up with a FINAL bracket. When we get our answers I will be sure to post them.

We tried very hard to omit superheroes or supervillains because that just brings on a whole new debate. We kept The Joker in (Ledger's version), and he comes in highly ranked, but that was our only slide. And we've also omitted very recent movies (Inglorious Basterds, District 9, etc).

I'll blog the brackets when all is said and done and we have a champion.

BADASS.

(5) - Books Asylum

Recently I've gotten back into two hobbies. The first, reading. I bought a few books before my trip up to Rhode Island, thinking I'd be spending a bunch of time on the beach, I'd be able to read some books. Well I was wrong. I brought up 4 and only got through three-fifths of one. However, I finished that book the day I got back. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was an excellent read. I had heard good things so I picked it up along with YOUTH IN REVOLT (which I've already blogged briefly about - super dark comedy, but overall a good read), BLOOD MERIDIAN (after reading THE ROAD and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN I had to pick up this book, which my friend says is a super tough read but the best book he's read), and DORIAN GRAY (my favorite book from college). It started out a bit slow, and in the last 50 or so pages was a tad drawn out, but the book grabs you. It hooked me at about page 50, and I finished it 4 days (600 page book).

I started two days ago THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, the sequel to TGWTDT. So far so good. Pretty same as last book except we already know the two leads, now we're just getting introduced to the new players.

I also started two days ago my second hobby, and probably my favorite hobby of all-time: video games. I cannot tell you how many hours I've wasted playing video games. But since college ended I haven't really had the time. I played NBA 2k9 with some friends this past year, but that was few and far between. I picked up the game ARKHAM ASYLUM which is absolutely amazing. I got it for PS3, the visuals are stunning and it's a great story. You're Batman in the game and you have to defeat all of his enemies who get loose on Arkham Asylum. I'm about 20% through it and cannot wait to play more. I highly recommend it.

OH. Last thing: this time of the year is my second favorite time for sports (only behind MARCH MADNESS). The NFL season is underway (Jets are looking pretty good so far, I'm excited by Sanchez and the defense - welcome Bart Scott), playoff baseball is in the atmosphere (with the Yanks looking towards a deep run - hopefully), and the NBA is right around the corner, followed closely by NCAA men's basketball. Excited?

Actually, last last thing: Two new albums came out recently. Jay-Z's The Blueprint III and Kid Cudi's new album (the name is escaping me at the moment). Both are extremely good. I've listened to The Blueprint a few times already, and ran through Kid Cudi's this morning (came out today). I would recommend those as well.

So all together now, EVERYONE should buy: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Arkham Asylum, The Blueprint III, and Kid Cudi's album.

Do it.

(4) - Flying High

Michael Jordan gets enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame this evening. My all time favorite player (this probably doesn't differ from most of America). I had most of his shoes growing up (starting in 1991ish when I turned 5). I had all of his jerseys. I was compared to him growing up (only when I was super young, clearly I was never near his ability). I cannot count the amount of games I watched with my dad. We had a satellite at our house and we were able to pick up WGN and watch all the Bulls games. The memories. It's a very special day. I'm very lucky to have watched him play. Congratulations to him.

I'm actually continuing this post right now, I saved it a few days and never got to post it. More updated stuff to follow.