June 22, 2008 | Tags: none

If anyone was wondering where the hell I’ve been, I got a new job. And it’s pretty much ruling my life right now. What a way to spend the summer, right? Even though most of the time it keeps me very occupied, there are a few times throughout the work week where I can’t do anything except sit around shooting the breeze while something downloads or whatever. Sometimes I can hop on the internet and peep a select few unblocked websites, and sometimes I just can’t touch my computer at all. So I’ve found myself reading not only a lot of random websites that I normally would ignore, but also some print magazines.

Is it just me, or have a lot of music-related magazines fallen off? Not only music magazines, but a lot of magazines in general. Sports magazines, cooking magazines, tabloids, you name it. Sure, sometimes things just get a little wild amidst the staff at various print publications (just look at the changes XXL has gone through in the past year or so), but I don’t even think it’s the things like the seemingly random exit of YN that are the biggest issue throwing magazines a curveball. So what am I getting at?

Timeliness.

Kind of like the way I haven’t written a blog here at DX for something like two weeks, which surprisingly seemed to agitate quite a few of you (thank you for caring!), and therefore I have climbed a bit on the ladder of wackness and end up being late on damn near every subject I speak about – magazines face the same thing. Think about it – you can read about pretty much anything going on in hip hop here at DX (or to be fair, at almost any other hip hop site on the net), so once you pick up a magazine, the news within it is probably pretty dated. Even worse? You have to pay for that dated news that lies within the magazine. Well, assuming you didn’t just steal the joint from 7-Eleven when people’s backs were turned.

The only thing that magazines seem to have going for them are editorial pieces, features, and interviews that aren’t necessarily time sensitive. That last Blender interview with Lil Wayne that I mentioned a few blogs ago was straight comedy, and I was kind of glad I read it. But if you’re paying close attention, you’d realize that I not only mentioned the article in that piece, but I also linked to it. You could read an interview for free that you would have to pay to read in print. So why the hell are people still buying magazines? I know when I buy one, I have a damn good reason for doing so. And it’s a pretty rare occurrence.

For the record, I get Blender for free at the crib. Go figure how. I surely did not pick up an issue of that just for that interview. If I wanted to read that Weezy interview that badly, I’d just stand in the store and read it, then put the magazine back. Yeah, I’m cheap and have too much time on my hands. Or at least I used to…

Anyway, since I’ve now thrown in the random word fart that seems to happen in every post I put up these days, let me get back to my point. The internet is now giving readers just as good quality material as the magazines try to sell you. And all for the ridiculous price of…well, nothing. Unless you count the fees you pay your internet service providers, if you even have to worry about that! Now that free Wi-Fi has become about as popular as organic pomegranate seeds simmered in a green tea reduction sitting on the biodegradable plate of a skinny jean-wearing twenty-something in a free-trade coffee shop that has “go green” bumper stickers on their Honda Fit, it seems that nobody is complaining about their high-speed internet bills anymore. Man, the trends in America are something else right now. I hope free Wi-Fi is one of those business tactics that ends up sticking, though.

Last random sidenote of this post: “organic” food needs to go. It hurts my wallet. And I’m sorry, but a “certified organic” lemon really tastes the same as a lemon that was for some reason not worthy of that title and is therefore half the price. I mean, really? Come on.

Fact of the matter is a lot of you are probably reading this blog for next to nothing. You could walk to a public library, log on the net, and read this for free. You can find news, interviews, opinion pieces, album reviews, and amazing photography in mere seconds with a few clicks of the mouse. No matter how hard magazines try, they just can’t keep up. Until magazines are putting out daily issues, much like a newspaper, the phrase “hot off the press” loses its significance. Hell, even newspapers seem like they’re having trouble keeping up with the immediacy that the citizens of developed countries have come to demand. People want to know what’s going on in that particular instant. By the time something like the Washington Post can print it, chances are that cnn.com has already run the story.

As technology progresses, we just get more and more impatient. And the internet just keeps on winning.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

Let's Connect, Politic...Uh Oh

June 07, 2008 | Tags: barack obama, hillary clinton

It’s been a while since I’ve graced this part of DX with some words, and you can blame the world of office jobs for that one. More on that later – maybe. After sitting in front of a computer all day at work, the last thing I want to do is come home and be on the damn thing even more. I’m sure some of y’all feel me on that one.

Random side note before I get into things…Props to the gulliest blogger “evar” Dallas Penn for his latest Internets Celebrities video entitled “Checkmate”. Not only is the video damn good, but Rafi and DP (and Cas behind the scenes) found themselves on the NY Times website, the front page of YouTube, and suddenly being interviewed by random old white guys. It's up to almost 500,000 hits! Most of all I just love the fact that they’re spitting some knowledge disguised as comedy, and they’re getting a lot of love for it. Peep the video if you haven’t yet – it’s probably a million times better than the last thing you watched on YouTube.

But probably the most significant thing to note that has happened in the past week or so was the securing of the democratic presidential nomination by Barack Obama. Not only was he the first black man to do it, but he’s the first man with a Muslim sounding middle name to do it as well. Because we all know that there’s people out there that swear he’s a closet jihadist, or whatever the technical term of bigotry that’s being thrown around by uppity media folk to describe Rachael Ray’s "paisley scarf" is these days.

By the way…I understand it was for business purposes, to cater to the ignorant, and ultimately fatten them up and lead them to their deep-fried obesity-induced demise, but fuck Dunkin Donuts for wimping out and pulling that ad over some biased misconceptions. And fuck ‘em for selling me stale donuts the last time I was there. If I’m going to clog my arteries, I at least want it to taste like it was worth it.

But with the mystery of who would ultimately rep the democratic party out of the way, the focus is now shifting towards who he’ll pick as his partner in campaign crime. And of course, Hillary Clinton is now kissing ass to get that spot. Well, not even so much her as much as her squad of supporters. It’s like they forgot all the shit that she was talking about the guy just a short while ago. That’s some bitchassedness right there. Act like Obama is all evil and shady and then go and endorse him. But such is politics, I suppose, and my opposition to the shady tactics of it is probably why I’ll never find myself being Senator of some state or running for President my damn self, despite my interest with politics and government in general.

So why exactly would all of her supporters want her to team up with the former opposition? I can only think of two plausible reasons, personally. One being that the desire for a democrat to be President is so high after eight years of royal republican fuckups. See, a bunch of Hillary supporters still probably won’t fully support Barack, no matter what Clinton says. I mean the woman did get a lot of votes in the primaries. A hell of a lot of votes. Combine those votes with those that Barack got, and the duo would seem unstoppable. And as much as I’m dying to see the Republicans lose control of the White House, because I’m just rebellious like that, I’m not sure I’m down with the vote hoarding approach. I mean, I’d rather see Obama run with somebody that I’m sure he’ll mesh well with in office. I feel like those two need to work out some tension between themselves first.

Second of all, perhaps all of her supporters really did believe that random ass shit that she was spewing out of her mouth about how Obama is just going to go and get himself assassinated. And sure she apologized or whatever, even though it ended up striking me in a similar manner to the apology of Michael Richards (word to Wale) on Letterman’s show. But maybe in that head of hers, she’s still thinking that he really will get off’d as quickly as grocery prices are rising, and that if she’s the VP, she’ll end up being the President in due time anyway. But that’s just pretty twisted right there.

Plus shit, I bet there’s still a bunch of male chauvinist types on our soil that don’t want to spend the next four years having a woman exert power over them. Fuck what you heard, America really hasn’t come too far in a lot of aspects of social issues. And considering how the world feels about America recently (except maybe Israel), I’d say that even McCain needs to watch his back.

Speaking of Israel, it has threatened to attack Iran if uranium enrichment for weapons isn’t stopped. Now I like to think of things in a logical manner, and the illogicality of bombing somebody for making bombs is damn near short-circuiting my brain right now. And that’s not even including the fact that if that actually went down? Well…I don’t even have to say who would really be footing the bill. And to think, just days ago Obama spoke to AIPAC stating his unconditional love for Israel. Don’t get me wrong – he’s still probably our best option for office at this point, but even if he wins? It’s still going to be a long four years ahead of us.

And anyway, did anyone ever stop to think that maybe if we just left Iran alone, they wouldn’t care about attacking us in the first place? Not every Iranian is studying to be an Al Qaeda operative, you know, and attacking them won’t stop terrorism forever. It’s just going to make more crazy desert cave dwellers even more pissed! Hell, we probably could have pacified Saddam Hussein by giving him a lifetime supply of Doritos. Just like you make your friends, you can also make your own enemies. It’s time for America to get the fuck out of the Middle East and start focusing on our own oil reserves.

Once again, it's going to be a long four years ahead of us, even if this year's democratic nomination was a monumental one. And I'm not so sure that having Clinton run with Obama will make things any easier for us. If our economy is truly a capitalist one, a President isn't going to singlehandedly fix it. The heat is on in Washington, in more ways than one. It's hot as hell outside! And on that note, I'm off to consume some overpriced ice cream. Until next time...

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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