You don't have to say what you did... I already know... I found out from hiiiiiiiim.

”The only way I can possibly make up for this is
to do something good with my money. I vow to!” – JT

- God Bless JT: Man, I can’t hate on Justin Timberlake, at all. “Cry Me a River” is still one of my favorite songs ever (no sarcasm), and I’m especially impressed that dude is willing to do good things with his money. Some jack-asses are already protesting against this shit as if JT is “gonna pull all extant Stax releases from shelves and replace them with ‘improved’ versions that feature his own vocals” (which blatantly isn’t the case), but I echo this response: “I would understand people's ire if Justin was ruthlessly outbidding Carla Thomas or Steve Cropper for these places/catalogs, but so far no one has indicated that there is anything of the sort transpiring.” People are just a bunch of fucking haters.

- NBA and Power Rankings: Training Camp has started. GYEAH! Already got some Power Rankings posted. Which reminds me of one of the funnier McSweeney’s pieces that I probably posted like 6 months ago: My Family’s Power Rankings.

- Beanie Sigel Interview: Peep a candid Beanie Sigel interview. Good stuff.

- Family Guy Nerds: For you Family Guy dorks, you can go here and tell Stewie to do stuff. Shit’s pretty funny. Tell him to “have sex with a pig.” Hilarious.

- MIA vs Honda: I’m sure most of y’all who care have heard by now that MIA’s song “Galang” is now appearing in a Honda commercial. Everyone’s favorite resident blogging genius Mr. Wayne&Wax chimes in with some of his patented provocative inquisitions (no religio-genocide), and I myself don’t really know what to say about it. I found myself sticking up for Common when he chose to do those stupid Pepsi commercials but I was only sticking up for him because I felt like the criticism against him was so severe. I didn’t really care either way whether or not he was pimping Pepsi (or whether Pepsi was pimping him) nor did I care about any sense of “authenticity” involved with Common’s endorsement. And, let’s be frank, that’s what this is all about these days: fans expect artists to turn down corporate endorsements because it’s a quick way to decide whether or not the artist in question is doing it “for the love” or “for the money.” Nobody really considers whether or not the artist supports the company being advertised. After all, I don’t think anyone is sitting around thinking, “Ya know what? Maybe MIA really likes Hondas and that’s why she did it.” No. At this point, we all know how the game works: a hip ad person has been reading blogs and knows that the kids like MIA and so “Galang” is a perfect way to grab their attention so they throw a huge sum of money at the artist that only an idiot would say “no” to (unless the ad was for something that was blatantly “bad”). This issue is simply about the money. Fans simply don’t want artists getting money from corporate venues. Why not? Who the fuck knows? After all, this doesn’t affect the integrity of the music unless the fans allow it to. It’s as simple as this: MIA wanted some money. She was offered money and took it. So the fuck what? Let her live. Her album isn’t doing the huge numbers the blogosphere predicted it would, so let the girl get some fuckin’ duckets. Who gives a shit?

-e