ye's most consistent yet

my beautiful dark twisted fantasy is by far kanye's most consistent album. this is the pinnacle of his talents, i almost can't believe. the perfect balance of rhymes, production, and features. i think it's evident to all hip-hop connoisseurs that kanye west is not the most inherently gifted rapper, but he has no reservations when it comes to his work putting together all the technical elements (tropes, i.e. metaphors, similes, punchlines, etc) that make rap appealing. i'm not going to go into specifics, as that would be an entirely different article, and this here is just a blurb to big up mr. west. still kanye has managed to weave his worked over rhymes over spectacular beats. oh, the beats. we all know that kanye is one of the most talented producers of this age, and his capacity to combine sick flows with killer tracks is reminiscent of a very famous doctor from compton... ye never fails to experiment with the music, sometimes inspired to produce some truly awe inspiring tunes. true to form, yeezy continues the trend of instrumental exploration, aiming for the beyond and hitting his mark. and let's not forget the features. wow, he comes with some heavy hitters, some from out of the past like that old dead uncle with whom you wish you could sit down and have one more chat, with the likes of rza and raekwon. and let's not forget the always at the top of their games, jay-z and t.i. kanye also does a few duos with heavy-in-the-game r&b singers, such as the dream and john legend. all in all, the album is a classic. it's art, not too much and not too little. take a listen. you won't be disappointed.

thanks for thanksgiving

as i have a lot in my life to be thankful for, God has blessed me tremendously, i have to say that this past thanksgiving was nearly the most severely unthankworthy holiday i've had. ALMOST. with that being said, i want to take this time to thank the people whose efforts made it a worthwhile thanksgiving: my aunt vera whom i love dearly and my cousin carlos who has never failed in his capacity to be cheerful. it was a thanksgiving that will be remembered not because of it's grandiosity but because of it's being the worst ever, only second to the thanksgiving i spent away from home, in iowa. that is not to say that it was a bad thanksgiving, and neither was my worst thanksgiving. but, it's the expectations of thanksgiving that set me up for such a disappointment, and i was indeed thoroughly disappointed.

i am a medical student, and as such, i have to spend the vast majority (over 99% for those of you who don't know what 'vast' means) of the year away from and out of contact with my family. it's a big deal, but hey, there are some rewards to look forward to. so when a major holiday comes around i expect that i'll get to spend time with all the people i love, gathered conveniently in one place, as it has always been, year after year, and as it should always be. this year, oh how was i so sorely deceived. it was thanksgiving. the time of year when my 4 aunts (and maybe the fifth) along with my mom take the time to show off their culinary talents in, each to her own specialty, synergistically combining a meal so ravishingly delectable as to start wars over. so imagine my heartbreak when i've been looking forward to this meal since the last 3rd thursday in november, only to discover that said meal is not going to take place. it's akin to the trojan war with no achilles or the middle east with no oil. who the hell even wants to hear about such a thing? no one, i assure you.

one week before thanksgiving was supposed to happen, i was informed that there would be a family gathering and there would a coming together of cuisines. yet one day before the grand repast of all repasts, i come to find out that plans had all crumbled. who was to blame could only be surmised through speculation. it's a moot point. besides the sorrow of missing such a reunion, my ultimate grief stems from the fact that my family could even allow such an event to take place. my mom is getting old, and so are my aunts. 20 years is a long time, it's a generation's worth of time, and i now i realize in that span of time that all the kids in the family that were there when i first moved to north carolina are now adults. yet, we as the next generation have not taken the roles in organization of the family that my mom and aunts should have passed on to us. did they drop the baton, or did we just not take the hand-off? interesting question, but what's more important is where we go from here. we, as the next generation, can not let family fail. we can not allow our family to fall apart, to become so many separate entities. we have to take up the banner of unity and fraternity and instill in the next generation the love that we all felt when we were growing up. this past thanksgiving was a slap in the face, waking me up to a world that was not here yesterday. it's a challenge. i just hope we're up to it.

10 random thoughts

1) leaving an container in a room overnight, that was once filled with vietnamese food, will inevitably leave said room reeking of quite the inviting aroma: melange of cat vomit and goat fart...

2) i once had a girl ask me if she was a problem. i laughed and replied, "nope. i got 99 problems, but you ain't one." hit me!

3) i never met a person who had money (real money) who wasn't busy. unless the person was old and retired. conversely, it's interesting that the poor people seem to have an inordinate amount of free time on their hands... coincidence? get your hustle up.

4) people who update their statuses with "motivating" quotes just motivates me to mock them, and their quotes. that is, unless the person who is actually using a motivating quote is none other than myself.

5) i've been proposed to by three different women in my lifetime. and it's not like i'm an old timer, but for the life of me i can't remember whom the first one was from.

6) people are always a little bit incredulous when i tell them tales of my hometown. but that story's to come later...

7) apparently, a lot of people choose seven when given the choice of 1 through 10. that being said, i'm going to stop here. i would go back and change the title of this blog entry, if i were more inclined to do so (which, i suppose, you could count as one more).

domino's new and improved?

soooo... i hope i'm not the only one out there who has been compelled (read "duped") into trying domino's "new and improved" pizza, as domino's has had quite the convincing campaign. they have their advertisements where individuals in a supposed focus group just verbally trash their pizza, element by element. one such focus group member going so far as to say, "domino's should just start over..." then, domino's endeavors to rise from the pit of mediocrity and make improvements in their pizza. they supposedly follow through with this plan, then track down all these focus group members and persuade them to try the "new and improved" domino's pizza. the sauce is "better," the crust is more garlicky. the toppings are tastier. and all the focus group members come to the realization (while being in a commercial, so i should've known better) that domino's pizza is not so bad after all. one guy quotes, "i'm eating my words." I'M eating my [expletive deleted] words?!? i wish i could eat my words right now to attenuate the awful taste of domino's pizza that lingers on half an hour after having finished my last domino's slice ever.

let me tell you a little about my experience with this so-called "new and improved" pizza. it was damn near horrific. it was as if the guys at domino's took canisters of garlic salt and garlic and intermittently just shook out the contents onto the pizza. don't get me wrong. i love garlic, and a nice warm, soft crust brushed with a buttery garlic sauce is delectable, but this domino's crust was something else entirely. apparently, it used to taste like cardboard. it now tastes like cardboard saturated with garlic salt. to add to the whole debacle of a pie, the toppings were also pretty bad. i don't know if it was the cheese or the individual toppings themselves, but i don't know how i could feel like i was biting into salt-lick every time i took a bite of pizza. i'm certain my blood pressure is now in stroke range from all that salt. there's no reason why canned pineapples should taste like they were plucked right out of the atlantic or why canned olives should taste like they were grown straight out of the dead sea. the last item of discussion: the sauce. i recall one of the focus groupers claiming that domino's sauce tasted like ketchup. i would've disputed that with anyone, as i used to be a regular consumer of domino's pizza, but after today, i can make the proclamation myself. the sauce tasted more like ketchup than that last bottle of heinz i bought at harris teeter.

anyone who knows what type of relationship that pizza and i have can imagine how heartbroken i was to have such a horrible pizza experience. and what better way to gather one's shredded remnants of emotional self and stampede through the shroud of heartbreak hell than to imbue one's soul with the liquid bliss that comes in a 75 dL bottle...

you're no photographer, but...

have you ever been browsing through someone's photos, only to notice that half of them consist of that person either standing in front of the mirror or having his/her arm outstretched in front of him/herself, and you can imagine that person spending the few precious moments it takes to get that ever so perfect pose so that they can press the button and get an everlasting image of how beautiful (or not) he/she is? i know that is a long question, but it is in fact grammatically correct and properly punctuated. when i see so many photos of a person holding his camera in front of a mirror or holding is arm outstretched in front of him, getting more and more photos of himself, it leads my thoughts down one path, to one ultimate conclusion: that this person is clearly not fit to actually own a camera. really. think about it. how smart do you have to be to figure out the timer on your camera? it's not that hard. you press two or three extra buttons, set the camera down, gather yourself up into whatever wondrous pose the world has inspired you to imagine and FLASH. photo taken.

i know that when we're holding our cameras in our hands every one of us thinks of ourselves as the latest winner on america's next top model, just having landed a huge contract, and are thus obligated to participate in our own special little photo shoot. problem is half that time there's no real photographer. so what do we do? we come up with the bright idea that we can take our own pictures. i'm not saying this is a bad idea. i know how much fun it can be to take a series of pictures, eagerly awaiting the moment i can post them on facebook. however. those of use who actually use the other half of our brains, have sense enough not to make ourselves look like vapid idiots by dragging out half our wardrobes and running through the various poses which we've learned for taking pictures while growing up.

all i'm saying is that, it's ok, it's absolutely acceptable to grab a brother, sister, cousin, friend, or neighbor for a quick session of point and click. that way you're not impeded by the physical limitations one encounters when having to take one's own picture. that way no one has to see your head and face blown out of proportion because you're holding the camera at arms length, without being able to tell at which angle to hold the camera... no one has to see your posing image reflected off of your bathroom mirror in your photo. people can actually see YOU! either that, or simply work out how to operate the timer function on your camera...

why you should make fun of fat people

with the advent of cultural competency, america has ushered in a new generation with sociological values that are accepting, permissive, and supportive. there is the far-reaching credo of accepting everyone for who everyone is, whether that be whites accepting blacks, heterosexuals accepting homosexuals, the strong accepting the weak, the slim accepting the... not so slim, and so on. in a God fearing community, that's a wondrous step towards societal evolution. "do more for others than you do for yourself". great. however, we have become too accepting in my opinion. it's gotten to the point where you can't even make fun of people for their differences without everyone becoming offended. gays don't want anyone using "gay" pejoratively: it's offensive. blacks don't want anyone using "black" to describe people: it's offensive. people who are seemingly slightly more intelligent than the clinically retarded don't want anyone using the word "retarded." i could go on and on, as i take offense to so many people taking offense, but i want to make a specific point here. it's time we used the offensivity of certain conditions to the benefit of all. this is why you should make fun of fat people.

i've given it much thought and have concluded that there is no defensible position one can take on why we should't make the obese the butts of our jokes, the targets of our teasing, so to speak. the main reason why people look down upon the playfully (or even maliciously) critiquing of fatties is the fear that we'll hurt their feelings. it's not an unjustified fear. inevitably, we will hurt their feelings, and they may become sad (worse case scenario: depressed) or may develop an eating disorder. my response to that is, "so what?" i base this on the premise that it is easier to cure a psychological complex or an eating disorder than it is to cure our nation of obesity. to support my point, let's look at some numbers here. Out of the top ten leading causes of death, 4 of those are obesity related. 3 out of those four are the top three leading causes of death. There is only one psychologically related cause of death in the top 15. this is free information made available by the cdc, fyi. just suffice it to say that we can help, even cure, the depressed and anorexic/bulemic persons. they get better. how many people have you known to be cured of obesity?

then we have economic issues on the table. have you ever wondered why as a nation we're spending more and more on healthcare? it's due in part to our unhealthy population. just listen (or simply read) this: 33% of west virginians are obese, and there are 4 other states with obesity rates greater than 30%. let me take a moment and clarify a couple of concepts for those of you who don't know the difference between overweight and obese. overweight is your friend and/or relative who you think is a little chubby. obese is your other friend/acquaintance/relative who is just flat out fat as hell. statistically speaking, over half the states in america have a population that is over 25% obese. that's 1 out of every 4 people. absurd. there has been a trend over the last 20 years of increasing numbers of fat people. coincidentally there have also been an increasing healthcare costs. thats not to mention the new numbers coming in about people who are normoweight obese (people who are normal weight but have a high enough body fat percentage to be considered fatties). but let's not get too bogged down in mathematics.

getting away from numbers altogether (or maybe not so much), how many times have you waken up next to a girl who you remembered looking like halle berry but now who more closely resembles kelly price (before the lipo)? how many times have you gone out to a club, before you've had enough to drink, and wondered, "where did all these fat girls come from?" how many times have you, by an odd occurrence, just happened to catch glimpse of a girl from the neck up, thinking, "wow, this girl is cute," to then only later see the rest of her and be surprised at how a girl who looked like she was hiding a couple of farm animals in her clothes could have such an attractive head? same question goes for ladies, applied with fat guys of course. so you see, obesity is not only killing everyone, it's even taking a toll on your sex life. it's horrendous. there's only one way to solve it, one way for you ladies to get your fat boyfriends to put down that wendy's triple cheeseburger and force him to satisfy other appetites which he claims to be too tired to fulfill, one way for you guys to ensure that when you're done busting one and rolling over that you don't end up still on top of ol' hog mauls, and that is to ensure fat people know that they're fat. poke fun of them. hell, actually poke them if you have to. make them feel small on the inside so that they'll be inspired to be small on the outside. make fun of fat people. you can, and you should.

america the great

dear friends and acquaintances,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7NUQZiWl6w

this is a link from the young turks that i discovered on a friend of mine's facebook profile. it's recent news. i'm not going to make a short story long, but it depicts the idiocy of one mr. glen back who until recently i didn't even think was an actual person, but just a caricature of some of the uber right-wing personalities that garner such media attention. it's racists such as this personality that make america such a great place.

deeply ashamed,
rod