Soundtrack of the year

The ipod just hit 1 year worth of music. That's right, if I hit play on the ipod right now, on January 31, 2010 the final note, scratch, beep, or riff would be sounding off just as I collapsed from a year-long roller coaster of melodic, grooving, thumping, ass-kicking rock, rap, no rock-rap, blues, jazz, electronic down-tempo samba (yes). Then, start it all over. I'll throw ya'll a bone right now. Check out Wale's new album, The Mixtape About Nothing. It's a Seinfeld based rap album incorporating Seinfeld music (including that funky bass mouth opening credit jam), soundbytes, and plugs from the Seinfeld crew. Dude rhymes all kind of stuff including Seinfeld references, a song where each lyric begins, "What's the deal with...?" (something Jerry never actually said), a reflection on Michael Richard's angry n-bomb, and an Oksana Baiul (Russian figure skater from about 15? years ago) name-drop. All this over some good beats that the more "consciousfulistic rappers" seem to forget about. There you go, only 364 days 11 hours more to go.

World's 8th Largest Economy

is about to start handing out IOU's. If California really wants to get their budget on track they should try handing out IOU's to the politicians. See how quick that budget would get fixed.

Redefining good taste

Here's a sampling of some editorial cartoons published in the Korea Times recently.