(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.

(3) - The Death of Hollis Mason

I went to the Yanks game this past Friday. Cano hit a 3-run, walk-off home run in the 10th inning to win the game. It was my third game this year witnessing an extra inning, walk-off home run. So outstanding. That was their 12th walkoff win this year, most since they had 13 in the 70s (the year is escaping me). I'm getting pumped for October.

Finally got around to watching WATCHMEN: DIRECTOR'S CUT this afternoon after I got back from the city. It upsets me that this wasn't the version released in the theaters. Still nowhere near as good as the graphic novel, but wayyyy better than that shit version released in March. One scene made such a difference in the entire movie; the death of Hollis Mason. What an unbelievable scene. This one scene bridges the gap between the Watchmen from the 1940s to the Watchmen of the 1980s. It is simply poetic the way Snyder shoots this scene, interchanging Mason getting beat up to back in his heyday when he was the one doing the beatdowns. The music choice was good too; just a simple score done by Tyler Bates. The music choice throughout the movie really annoyed me (with the exceptions of "Unforgettable" and "The Times They Are a Changin"). It was way over done. But this scene, just perfection.

I also watched the movie GIGANTIC on Saturday, starring Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel (my girl). A cute romantic dramedy that did not go where I thought it was. I mean ultimately it did, but it took a much different avenue. I really enjoyed it. Zooey, I mean she can do no wrong in my eyes, was great, and the rest of the cast was really good as well.

A little more than halfway done with YOUTH IN REVOLT. I'm just attempting to power through it now. It keeps taking funny turns, I'm enjoying it.

Thus brings my Sunday post to an end.

Just to reiterate, I have no idea what these blog posts will accomplish. No one reads these, but its a nice way of just writing stuff down. I'll post a favorite movies/tv post soon.

Be good.

(2) - Basterds in Revolt

I'm trying here, to post as often as I can. Sometimes it slips my mind. It will have to be a quick post this morning.

I'm currently in the middle of the book "Youth in Revolt" by CD Payne. Probably the darkest comedy I've ever read. Now I haven't read a ton of books, but this one has such a twisted sense of humor. Sometime's I'm cracking up, and others I'm wondering what the fuck was going through this guy's mind as he was writing this? Either way, it's a decently long book, roughly 500 pages. It's separated into three parts; I'm on part two: Youth in Bondage. It was made into a movie which is being released this fall starring Michael Cera.

Saw "Inglorious Basterds" over the weekend. Simply put: outstanding. My top five movies of the year now look like: Up, Inglorious Basterds, The Hurt Locker, District 9, (500) Days of Summer. I'll release my top movies of 2009 in early January, so keep reading to find out. Back to the movie, so great. It's my third favorite of his movies (after Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill). I have it as #25 in my top movies of all-time. I'll have to repost that list at some point as the movies have gotten a bit jumbled.

Downloaded the scores to Inglorious Basteds and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly this weekend. Excellent work. Ennio Morricone really puts you in a specific mood.

That's all for now, off to a meeting.

Peace.

(1) - The Disappearance of Time

I'm going to try and blog more often now. I've said that before. But I've been thinking about it, especially today. This day marks day (1) that I shall attempt to write on my blog as often as I can.

To catch you up on what I've been doing recently: I've been going to a lot of movies (saw this weekend District 9, GI Joe, 500 Days of Summer), I've been watching the show "Torchwood" on DVD/BD, I've been trying to read more (bought three books: Youth in Revolt, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Lovely Bones), I've been listening to a lot of Phoenix.

My birthday is coming up, it's on Thursday (8/20). I'll be 23. Time has seriously disappeared. I'm out of college over a year now, still working in Real Estate Management. Not the best job, but I know a bunch of my friends who still don't have a job, so I'm definitely not complaining. I remember just graduating High School and the anxiousness and nervousness of going to college. My younger sister is currently experiencing that right now. How I envy her. Would I want to do all the work that comes with college? Definitely not, but the rest of college, I think everyone misses.

I saw 500 Days of Summer this afternoon. Great. Simply great. Go and see it right now. Magic like that is rarely shown in movies nowadays. It's not a romantic comedy, which we've seen time and time again. It's just a magical movie, it's a very truthful, honest movie.

As I'm writing this a turkey has walked onto my property.

Such is life.