The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

Max is wondering what the worst rap lyric of all time is. I guess it just follows to ask what the best rap lyric of all time is. There are lots of great ones, here's a few. Pardon the profanity in some of them:

"Niggas I leave 'em, awestruck. Bitches, all fucked.
Your single 99 cents, mines was 4 bucks."
Jay Z - Imaginary Playas

"Take 7 MCs put 'em up in a line.
Take 7 more brothas who think they can rhyme.
Well it'll take 7 more before I go for mine.
And that's 21 MCs ate up at the same time"
Rakim - My Melody

"Straight up honey really I'm askin
Most of these niggas think they be mackin' but they be actin'
Who they attractin' with that line, "What's your name what's your sign"
Soon as he buy that wine I just creep up from behind
And ask what your interests are, who you be with
Things to make you smile, what numbers to dial
You gon' be here for a while, I'm gon' go call my crew
You go call your crew
We can rendezvous at the bar around two."
Notorious BIG - Big Poppa

Really all of "Stan" by Eminem could go here, but I think the best line is:
"Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Call-Or-Write-My-Fans,
this'll be the last package I ever send your ass.
It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it.
I know you got my last two letters;
I wrote the addresses on 'em perfect"

"Excuse me, would you take my order I have to go
Shashawna's got a real job, dag don't you know!
Oh yeah, Now I recognize
The real real bitty with the fake fake eyes."
De La Soul - Bitties in the BK Lounge

"Got concrete rhymes been rappin' for ten years and
Even when I'm braggin' I'm bein' sincere"
and
"Never retire or put my mike on the shelf.
The baddest rapper in the history of rap itself.
Not bitter or mad just provin' I'm bad.
You want a hit give me a hour plus a pen and a pad."
LL Cool J - I'm Bad

"I want a girl with extensions in her hair,
bamboo earrings, at least two pair,
a Fendi bag, and a bad attitude.
That's all I need to get me in a good mood."
LL Cool J - Around The Way Girl

"It ain't hard to tell, I kick the skill like Shaquille holds a pill.
Vocabulary spills I'm Ill
plus Matic. I freak beats slam it like Iron Shiek
Jam like a tech with correct techniques.
So analyze me, surprise me, but can't magmatize me.
Scannin while you're plannin ways to sabatoge me.
I leave em froze like her-on in your nose.
Nas'll rock well, it ain't hard to tell."
Nas - It ain't hard to tell.

"Drop that, and now you want me to rap and give?
Say somethin' positive? Well positive ain't where I lived.
I lived right around a corner from west hell
Two blocks from south shit, and once in a jail cell"
Naughty by Nature - Everything's Gonna Be Alright

"Fallin' back on that ass with a hellified gangsta lean.
Gettin' funky on the mic like an old batch of collard greens.
It's the capital S oh yes, so fresh N double O P
D O double G Y, D O double G, ya see."
Snoop Dogg - Nuthin' But a G Thang.

"Called up the homies and I'm askin y'all
Which court, are y'all playin basketball?
Get me on the court and I'm trouble
Last week fucked around and got a triple double
Freaking brothers everyway like M.J.
I can't believe, today was a good day"
and
"Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read, "Ice Cube's a pimp."
Drunk as hell but no throwing up
Half way home and my pager still blowing up
Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day."
Ice Cube - It was a Good Day

There are a ton more. Everyone has to leave at least one in the comments. Don't front.

I don't understand why the Kings traded Webber for three guys who will never play for them. Kenny Thomas is a god rebounder, but those other guys are just clowns. I thought they were going to have a good chance in the Western playoffs this year because of their experience relative to the other teams. San Antonio is clearly the favorite, but Seattle and Phoenix both lack playoff experience and the Kings probably could have gutted out a trip to the finals, and then who knows what happens. Now I don't really see that happening. Also Peja has been hurt all season, so Bibby has to carry the entire load. They're like the Knicks right now, but more talented.

Philly made a move that will make them contenders in the East this year, but will screw them down the road. Also they're not improved to the extent that they're favorites in the East or anything. They essentially picked up Webber and Rodney Rogers, since the prevailing wisdom is that Mashburn will retire and be erased from the salary cap. Glenn Robinson for Mashburn is essentially a wash since neither of them will probably play for the rest of the season. Philly is definitely not going to win the East, though, so this move is kindof ludicrous. They're definitely better, but in two years Iverson and Webber will be in their mid 30s and will occupy something like 40% of the 76er's salary cap.

Boston will definitely not win the Atlantic division, now called the "Titanic" division by Charles Barkley, pretty funny, since they picked up Antoine Walker, who is a loser through and through. They ran him out of town two years ago and now traded Gary Payton et al. to get him back.

Golden State picked up Baron Davis from New Orleans which is a good move if he stays healthy, but I'm betting against that. He's more fragile than a snowman in Disney World (don't worry, I won't stop). If they can have Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, and Troy Murphy healthy, then they're actually a pretty good team. They would be a contender in the East, but in the West they won't do too much.

Keith Van Horn went to Dallas which is a good fit, I think. He's a wide open, no defense player and Dallas is a wide open, no defense team. Van Horn is actually like a small Dirk Nowitski, so I think he'll play well for them. He was doing well in Milwaukee until he got hurt and he's been consistent his entire career. I think he never just dominated like people thought he might. On Dallas the team philosophy is to spread the ball around and give it to Dirk when he wants it, so he won't have to score 25 a game. If he gets healthy, he'll play well there and they were a contender even before they got him, so they're ok. The key to Dallas' success will be Jason Terry playing well, in my opinion.

I'm really surprised the Timberwolves didn't make any moves. I guess the market for Latrell Sprewell is very small, but they should have traded him for a new pair of Nikes if they could have.

The Knicks did the opposite of what Isiah said he was going to do. They traded shitty gies for other shitty gies, but they added to their salary cap woes. Malik Rose is solid, but so is Nazr Mohammed. Vin Baker and Moochie Norris were both pretty lame, but Maurice Taylor is not much better, and his contract is longer. Who is their back up PG now, Penny Hardaway? They added $32 million to the salary cap, which is ludicrous considering they didn't improve their team at all. The one thing they do get is two first round draft picks, but they belong to San Antonio and Phoenix, so they will be toward the end of the first round.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that Kurt Thomas was the best Knick 3 years ago, and he's the best Knick today. The only good thing that came out of this trading deadline thing is that they didn't trade Kurt Thomas, who's fucking solid. The media seems to think they traded away these guys so they could insert Michael Sweetney into the starting lineup and get him more experience. Also I guess Trevor Ariza will play more since they traded away two of their guards. Is there a plan that will keep Jamal Crawford from shooting every time he touches the ball? Is Allan Houston ever going to play again?

In the past, I have come to the defense of Hootie and the Blowfish because I thought they got a bad rap and were actually a pretty good band. They're not the Beatles, to be certain, but I enjoyed their music.

Well, forget about all that. I just saw a Burger King commercial with Hootie dressed up like a cowboy and singing a country song about the new bacon cheddar ranch sandwich. Any of the waning credibility that Darius Rucker had is now clearly out the window. Even though they weren't in the commercial, the Blowfish are finished too.

A fucking Burger King commercial. Dressed like a cowboy. Good gracious.

That crazy motherfucker, Hunter S. Thompson, killed himself over the last weekend. He wrote some wacked out shit and even though I've tried to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas I couldn't do it. I felt like I had ADHD after watching for about 20 minutes and I had to turn it off.

Anyway, this just brings up another point of interest. Why do all these well known writers commit suicide? Hunter Thompson is just the most recent. Guys like Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Jack London all committed suicide. I'm not sure why this exists, but there's a list on the Wikipedia site of famous people who've committed suicide. If you do a find for "author" or "novelist" you get a ton of names.

I guess the prevailing wisdom is that some writers become writers to deal with issues they have and writing is a catharsis for them. At some point the writing doesn't really solve their problems and they go over the edge. The same I guess with some musicians who either directly (Kurt Cobain) or indirectly (Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, the singers from Blind Melon and Sublime) end up killing themselves.

I think guys just end up thinking too deeply about stuff. In some ways this is sort of a restatement of what Max was saying about gimmicks. If you dissect life piece by piece, then you're left with fragments.

It's like if you're interested to know how your television works and you take it apart to see each individual piece. Most likely you will not figure out how it works, and then at the same time your TV is all fucked up. Now it's just pieces on the floor. You just gotta appreciate stuff for what it is and if we don't question everything, then we end up enjoying ourselves that much more.

It's interesting how there seems to be an inverse relationship in many ways between happiness and intelligence. I don't know if intelligence is the right word here. Maybe insightfulness. Anyway, an extreme example being say Gary the Retard from Howard Stern who's always happy about everything and say a John Nash or any of the myriad brilliant mathematicians who later went crazy.

Anyway, I've rambled a bit. I guess I'll stop now.

Play this ball game. It's nearly impossible to stop yourself from playing once you've started. The trick is to try and make the ball hover like a helicopter and then move it where you want it to go. I got up to the coconut levels before I made myself stop.

UPDATE: The reverse gravity level is the hardest. I think the reason you can't stop playing the game is because there is no pause button or anything. If you mess up, it starts again right away so the game is literally non-stop.

UPDATE 2:I beat the game, beeitches. Give it up for a week off.

I'm not a Christian, so take my statements from an unsaved perspective. Two thoughts I have about Jesus:

1) The guy who undoubtedly had the biggest impact ever on the world died at 33 years old. I certainly will not have accomplished anywhere near that much when I hit 33, nor will any of us.

2) This is a potentially offensive thought, but be aware that I mean no offense. The impact that Jesus had on the world is suddenly infinitely more impressive if he, in actuality, was not the Son of God.

Thanks to Joe for correcting the spelling.

Check out this Hasidic Jewish reggae dude, Matisyahu, on a clip from the Jimmy Kimmel show. The video will start as soon as the page loads.

The other guests on the show are Kevin Nealon and Scott Baio. This would have been a cool show in 1990. I think Matisyahu is the coolest guest on the show that night.

From the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, no less.

Category: My cup of "Tea"

Answer: It has 40,000 people and is next to Hackensack.

Question: What is Teaneck?

Someone actually got it right.

Alan Keyes is the black Republican who ran for president 4 years ago and most recently got his ass handed to him by Barack Obama in the Illinois senate race. In the past he has been quite candid in his dislike for homosexuality.

For example, he chided "Big Time" Cheney's daughter, Mary, for being a lesbian and said that she was engaging in "selfish hedonism." Well, Mr. Keyes apparently has a lesbian daughter of his own now who he can bash at will. Maya Keyes, currently 19 years old, spoke yesterday about being a lesbian at a gay rights rally in Maryland.

Alan Keyes responded to his daughter being a lesbian by firing her from working on his political organization, refusing to pay her college tuition, and throwing her out of the house.

Here's a direct quote from a radio interview, the same one where he bashed Mary Cheney:

"if my daughter were a lesbian, I'd look at her and say, 'That is a relationship that is based on selfish hedonism.' I would also tell my daughter that it's a sin and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help her deal with that sin."

I would bet any amount of money that he had already had this conversation with his daughter at this point. Then Mr. Keyes had a prepared statement for the reporters that called him yesterday seeking comment:

"My daughter is an adult, and she is responsible for her own actions. What she chooses to do has nothing to do with my work or political activities."

What a dick. Way to be a dick, Alan.

Conversation today between my class and me.

"Yo mista, that kid is breathing all hard."
"Huh?"
"He's breathing funny, like he's sleeping or something."
"Oh, like Darth Vader."
"Who?"
"Darth Vader."
"Who's that?"
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah, who is that?"
"[student X], do you know who Darth Vader is?"
"No."
"[student Y], do you know who Darth Vader is?"
"No."
"[student Z], do you know who Darth Vader is?"
"I think so. He's from that movie right, with the swords [light saber noise]."
"Oh yeah, mista, he's from Star Wars."
"Oh, I know who you mean now. He's all black and stuff."
"Yeah, he goes 'Luke, I'm your father,' right mista."

Before I explained it in detail, only about 10 of the 30 kids knew who Darth Vader was. After I explained it, they all knew who I was talking about, but couldn't place the name right away.

When I was 15 and I thought something was uncool I would often call it gay. Didn't like my test score, the test was gay. Didn't like a rule, the rule was gay. My friend did something that I didn't like, my friend was gay. I had many discussions with people who didn't appreciate my calling things gay about the rightness or wrongness of it.

My argument was that I wasn't referring to the actual homosexuality of the event, but rather the uncoolness of it and gay didn't have anything to do with homosexuality in the context I was using it. I see now that this was clearly a stupid argument and I was very shortsighted in calling so many things and people gay. In using the word in this context, clearly gayness is associated with badness and that's an undesirable connection. I was probably about 18 or so when I realized my stupidity (aren't we all?).

My students today do the same thing and I try to explain to them why it's wrong, but they don't get it, the same way I didn't get it. It's hardly bragging to say that I was a more enlightened 15 year old than my current students, so if I didn't get it, then I suppose I shouldn't expect them too.

It just seems so juvenile to me now that everything that my students refer to is gay. When they get the wrong answer because they entered the problem into the calculator incorrectly then the calculator is gay. I stopped class the other day and asked them: "How can the calculator be gay? Is it literally a homosexual? Does the calculator like other calculators? How would that even work?"

An alternative to saying that something is gay in the parlance of today's youth is to say that something is "mad homo." "Why can't I wear my hat in school? That rule is mad homo."

Today in one of my classes I told them to stop calling each other gay. I said something to the effect of: "Ok, you already told him he's gay. He knows. You don't have to continue to tell him every 5 minutes." When they didn't stop after the joke that really wasn't a joke (they don't get the subtleties in life too often), I finally just told them to stop and told them I didn't want to hear it any more.

My real concern is that when they get older they won't realize how stupid they are now and will continue to propagate this subtle (maybe not so subtle) homophobia. I doubt that any of them are truly homophobic at their deepest level of being, but stupidity and ignorance often don't let those levels come out. At some point they may start to believe themselves.

Best Valentine's story at school today. One of my kids shows up to class with the requisite heart balloon, box of Spongebob chocolate, cheap teddy bear, and Valentine card. On the envelope was written:

To: My one and only love
From: Your one and only love

I commented on how her stuff was nice (ok, I lied. She's 15, she thought it was nice.), and asked about her boyfriend. One of the other kids says, "and how long have you known him?"

"Five days."
I asked, "You've been dating for 5 days or you have known him for 5 days?"
"I've known him for 5 days."

Ok, so here's an interesting story and I'd like to know how this is possible if anyone can figure it out. The best explanation I've come up with so far is that there's a ghost in my house.

Kathy and I are sleeping the other day, as we generally do at 3am and both of us wake up because of a loud crash. I was half awake and wasn't sure what I heard and noticed that we had fallen asleep with the TV on and so I thought it might be the TV.

Kathy was less convinced that it was the TV, but we didn't hear anything else going on. I went back to sleep. Kathy got up and walked around and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. She was probably half asleep as well.

Anyhow, we had received all of this crystal when we got married. A crystal bowl and a vase, some champagne glasses, lots of candle holders. We received so much crystal, in fact, that we had to buy a whole display case to put it all in. The display case has glass windows and glass shelves and only a thin wooden frame around it.

Kathy gets up the next morning and notices all the crystal in pieces at the bottom of the display case. This in itself is pretty lame, as the crystal was pretty nice, but at least we had discovered the cause for the crash in the middle of the night.

What we can't figure out is how all the crystal fell. The cabinet was standing upright, the few things we had on top of the cabinet did not seem to be disturbed at all, and, strangest of all, not one of the glass shelves was broken. It seems like all of the shelves somehow swivelled off of the pegs that were holding them simultaneously and dropped the crystal, but did not break themselves. It's really eerie.

Even it some person were in the house, which seems unlikely as the door was locked, the windows closed, nothing was missing, and we didn't hear anything aside from the crashing, but even if there was someone there, how could someone manage to swing all the shelves like that at the same time? That cabinet has been holding that crystal since we got married 2 and a half years ago.

I just don't get it. Anyone got any bright ideas how this cabinet may have dropped all our nice stuff like that?

In the past couple of days I have heard a rash of stories about guys losing their testicles and I'm, quite frankly, a little disturbed.

This guy lost a testicle through no fault of his own when his doctor rushed to remove it even though the tumor on it was benign, and it didn't need to be removed. (This story originally sent to me by Goldman)

Another dude lost a testicle when his girlfriend got mad at him after he wouldn't sleep with her. According to the story, she literally ripped it off his body. And then to keep it from him she hid it in her mouth. Any volunteers to be her next boyfriend? (This story originally reported to me by Luke)

Clearly the most fucked up story is the guy who cut off his own testicles with a kitchen knife because England lost a rugby match to Wales. He was bragging in the bar that England would win and said he would cut his balls off if they didn't. No one made him do it, everyone was willing to let it go, no one even thought he was serious it seems, but he went down the street to his house and cut them off. One question, how many pints of Guinness did this guy have during the match? (This story originally posted by Daffy)

I haven't had too many stories about teaching so far this year. I relayed all of the funny ones I could remember but, unfortunately for the funniness of this blog, I'm becoming a pretty good classroom manager.

Last year I had the opposite problem. Ridiculous, crazy, ludicrous things would happen basically every day in my classroom to the point that they became commonplace and they all ran together and I couldn't pick out one event to relay.

This year I'm happy to say that I have not been the cause of craziness in the classroom. I have one class who I would bet is learning the material better than any other class on the same level in that school. My other classes I don't know that I would make that claim, but they are going fairly smoothly as well.

A funny thing about teaching is that most of the time you love it in retrospect. At the end of the day you realize you're doing a good thing and that is what is motivating. Teaching in New York City is an invitation to slack off and blame the system and if you don't do that, then you should be proud.

This year I'm having an even better experience because I'm motivated to make a difference and all that gay stuff, but I literally look forward to seeing my kids. The one class I mentioned in particular, which happens to be at the beginning of the day, is a joy to teach and I look forward to going.

One of my other classes is made up entirely of students who've failed the same class at least twice before. This class is essentially the exact opposite of my first class. All but 4 or 5 students in that class don't even have a concept of what it means to be a student, period, let alone to be a good student. It is ridiculously frustrating to know that I put in more work for them to pass than they do. I know that I work harder for that class than 95% of them do combined. The few students who take the class seriously all have 90 averages because the material is ridiculously simple, and the rest are simply resigned to fail and don't even envision passing.

I had a conversation with one of the students from this class that basically went like this: Do you find this class hard? No. If you paid attention even a little bit, do you think you'd pass? Yes. But instead, you're failing. Yes. Please explain that to me. I don't know.

This is not a mindset I can even begin to understand. If I'm capable of passing a class with minimal effort, then I do it. In fact, that is how I passed most of my classes when I was in high school. I happen to be more educationally oriented than most of my students (hence the teacher thing), but isn't my passing honors English with a modicum of effort on par to them passing the lowest possible math class with a modicum of effort? Especially since they recognize that they are capable of passing.

I like all the kids in that class and in fact I relate to them, because they are all slightly older than my freshman classes, on a much different level than my other kids. They all respect me and they behave themselves for the most part, but they just don't do anything remotely resembling classwork or homework or anything of the sort.

Some of them are finally starting to turn around, but some of them are getting even worse. Some of them realize that just because I like them as people doesn't mean I'm going to pass them, and since they relate to me on some level, then they do the work. Others just seem content to literally throw their lives away. I can't even begin to think about what must be happening in some of their homes, but at what point do you take responsibility for yourself and say, "If no one else is going to help me, then I'll do it myself"?

Anyway, that class is frustrating a lot of the time, but still fun since the kids are crazy, and the few who listen are really learning, which they haven't done before, so that's something.

My other class is just about average. That is the low level freshman class which also means it's the bilingual math class since there's nowhere else to put them. I have 6 kids who speak only Chinese and who's math is perfect despite the fact that they don't understand me. I have another who speaks mainly Spanish, yet also has one of the highest averages in the class. Then there are the few who speak English fairly well, but also love to group together and speak (and sing) in Bangladeshi or some such language and act like fools. They are not passing. About half the kids in that class are motivated and the other half are not. This class just about resembles an average of all my different experiences teaching so far.

If you read all this, then you like me more than I thought. Thank you for being a friend (and if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew...).

The reporters said before he speech that this was an important speech from Bush's standpoint and I think that's absolutely untrue. He's been re-elected, he controls the Congress, and he's sitting pretty. He can say whatever he wants. He didn't need to make a great speech. I thought the speech was objectively good.

Second, the Personal Social Security Account sounds like a pretty good idea. I know Democrats are against it, but I don't know why. From a personal standpoint, you get money that goes into an account that you know will be there when you retire. Now, if it's poorly invested, then you're screwed, but we trust ourselves to manage the rest of our money, why not this money? My job provides me a retirement account that does essentially the same thing that the Republicans are proposing. If this is how it always was, it seems like it would be a good system. My question is how one might transition to that system? Where does the money come from for people who will not be contributing to a personal account, but who still need to draw social security? And what happens if one chooses not to contribute to the personal account? Do they just get regular social security benefits?

Third, all that cheering pisses me off and the partisanship is just ludicrous. That's not a jab against any particular political party, but rather a jab on the whole fucking lame system.

The worst part was when Bush introduced the parents of some guy who died in Iraq. They cheered for those people like they had just split the atom or something. About two minutes into the cheering, I was just thinking to myself, "They're cheering like mad for these people because their son got killed. They didn't do anything, I feel badly, but why are we cheering them?" This applause is clearly some other sort of emotion that is wildly misplaced. These are the only people in the world who can actually do something about troops in Iraq either being safer or coming home and instead of doing something, they're cheering the poor people who's kids are getting killed because they want to argue about tax codes.

The Democratic response was lame. Those things are always anticlimactic. I usually don't watch them, actually.

I don't know about you, but I didn't realize how bad I sucked at geography. I challenge anyone to take the European geography quiz and finish with a positive number of points the first time through.

It's probably easier if you're from Europe, but I had no idea where most of those countries were. I got only the obvious ones on the first time through. I was so perturbed to find out how terrible I was at knowing the countries in Europe, that I did it again and again until I could recognize all of them on the first try.

UPDATE: This Rickshaw Traffic game is one I'll bet Daffy would be great at.

I was on Amazon.com today and read about their new Amazon Prime membership. The short version is that you pay a one time fee per year of $79 and you never pay for shipping from Amazon.

This works on so many levels. You feel like you're getting something for free when you buy something and don't have to pay for shipping when you buy online. When you pay that one time fee, you don't even feel like you're paying for shipping at all. The prices at Amazon are often much less than you could get elsewhere and this is cancelled out by the shipping cost a lot of the time.

Second, you are given a huge incentive to make all of your online purchases at Amazon once you have paid for this membership since you would feel like an asshole if you paid for shipping elsewhere.

This also gives consumers a reason to buy tons and tons of shit from Amazon to make up for the original cost of the membership and, after having done that, to rake in the free shipping. They automatically give you two day shipping which is pretty good too.

Here's the thing, they are going to have to do something to make this a better deal than the already existing super-saver free shipping option. I'm afraid that they are going to eliminate this as an option completely or else make it so that you don't get that stuff for a few weeks after you order it. If they don't do that, then there's no reason at all to sign up for this program.

If you're not interested in what people are thinking, but rather what one person is actually doing, then I suggest you check out the blog for Jenna's Road Trip.

Jenna is a friend of mine who decided to just pick up and drive across the country and she's keeping an online journal of sorts that recounts her trip. It's pretty cool. Once this post goes away, you can link to it from the side menu there.