This Week in Review-- College Cocktails

Unless you went to Brigham Young, chances are you drank in college.  A lot.

College is binge-drinking central.  It is, perhaps, the most obvious example of classless, reckless drinking short of a night out with Robert Downey Jr.  So much so that the elderly members at my country club request the "college pour" as a euphemism for "It's a Sunday and I want to get shitty."

When drinking with the expressed purpose of getting drunk in the shortest amount of time, naturally one will drink some pretty heinous concoctions to hasten their trip to alcoholic oblivion.  What's all the fuss about?  Your Favorite Blogger's Favorite Blog decided to investigate.

COCKTAIL #1 -- SUPER BEER (Beer + 3-4 shots of Tequila)

Ever been teabagged by a Mexican migrant worker?  If not, Super Beer will leave a similar aftertaste without the messy hang-ups and awkward silence the next morning.  After a couple sips, my taste buds incited a riot that knocked out two of my teeth and cut off half my tongue. I've never been to Mexico, but I can only imagine its people stay away from this "beverage" and instead opt for a more flavorful thirst quencher.

The drinking water maybe?

Rating: Scrotum-ey



COCKTAIL #2 -- JUNGLE JUICE (Hawaiian Punch + Ethanol)

Smoother than James Bond and stronger than King Kong, Jungle Juice is outstanding.  It's a Dear John letter from your brain to your liver with anthrax sprinkled in the envelope.  So potent that one cooler is said to be "a virtual liquor store"; enough to get dozens of people mindblowingly wasted.  Fight the temptation, drink with caution.

Rating: Deliciously lethal



COCKTAIL #3 -- FANCY BEER (Beer + 3-4 shots of Gin)

It skips the lines at night clubs.  This beer stops at the Hotel W just to take a shit.  But don't mistake class and elegance for weakness, it has no problem letting you know your liver won't be the beneficiary of a good night's sleep.  Drink fancy beer after a round at Augusta National or a night at the 40/40 club.  Just remember to hold your cup with your pinkie out and call the bartender, "garçon."

Rating: Donald Trump

Dear XXL Magazine, I'm Appauled

This is so disrespectful.

As you may or may not know, hip hop magazine XXL makes a "XXL Freshmen" list of the top ten up-and-comers for each year.  And, just like XXL's richer, more successful media conglomerate cousin MTV and its "Hottest MCs in the Game" list, the "XXL Freshmen" list is usually complete bullshit and a travesty to anyone who appreciates good hip hop.

Well, this year is extraordinary.  No, not the kind of extraordinary where you get an A on your math test AND find a $100 bill on the ground.  More like the the kind where you go to the hospital because you're worried about a spot on your arm and then you find out you have AIDS.  Extraordinary!

I'm talking, of course, about OJ Da Juiceman's inclusion on this year's Freshmen list.  Don't worry, unless you work in a trap house or reside in the Eastside of Atlanta, you've probably never heard of OJ Da Juiceman.  And for good reason.  He's a musical Ebola virus; "Make Tha Trap Say Aye" literally makes me bleed through my ears.

Just watch his "XXL Freshmen" freestyle video above... Who raps "basketball player" with "basketball player"?  It's a shame he's being mentioned with such talented young stars like Big Sean and J. Cole.  iQuit for today. 

Tiger Woods & His Sex Addiction

*sigh* The Tiger Woods saga continues as the public, like scurvy-addled alcoholics, yearns for their next drama-infused glass of disulfiram & OJ.  And I, like your crazy Mormon neighbor, am frustrated to the point of insanity.

Can we please look at this objectively without all the extraneous variables like his endorsement contracts?  Was Tiger ever going to say, "Sorry, I can't have sex with you tonight-- I'm, uh, I'm the spokesperson for Gatorade"?  Exactly.  And I digress...

Here are the two pertinent facts:

A) Tiger Woods had sex with a copious amount of women.

B) Tiger Woods has a sex addiction

Now I know what you're thinking and I would ordinarily agree, sex addiction is the ultimate cop out; the Nuremberg Excuse for scum bags.  But consider this--  Loredana Jolie, a call girl hooker as well as one of Tiger's many mistresses, described Tiger's sexual appetite as "not normal" and stated that sex rehab will never fix him.

A fucking prostitute (no pun) said that Tiger Woods has a sex problem.  If that's not convincing enough, just look at some of the women Tiger allegedly slept with.  My point here is that for sex addicts, like Tiger, sex is a compulsion.  Just like heroin addicts will share dirty syringes, sex addicts will bump uglies with just about anything.  With that said, allow me to introduce exhibit A:

Behold Mindy Lawton, the 34-year old diner waitress and winner of the (un)prestigious "Tiger's Ugliest Mistress" award.  One can only imagine the amount of alcohol that preceded those passionate, and visually disturbing/vomit inducing, nights that Tiger shared with Miss Mindy.  

All joking aside, Ms. Lawton's lack of physical appeal, especially compared to Tiger's wife, reaffirms my point that Tiger does not have sex for pleasure; rather he has sex to momentarily satisfy an uncontrollable obsession that is as insurmountable as it is powerful.  People like Tiger need sex to get through the day whether it's with a beautiful Maxim model or the afternoon special at Perkins (see above).

So what have we learned today?  Tiger Woods does, indeed, have a problem.  Stop- that's just my opinion.  The lesson is to think for yourself.  Otherwise, people like Jim Rome will be able to shape public opinion.  Please don't let that happen.

Play Ping Pong with The Terminator!

Meet TOPIO 3.0, the death-machine-looking ping-pong-playing robot. Made by Vietnam’s first-ever robotics firm, TOSY, the bipedal humanoid uses two 200-fps cameras to detect the ball as it leaves the opponent’s paddle.

TOPIO’s "brain" analyzes the ball’s path to choose the best return. Last fall, TOPIO 3.0 debuted at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo.

At six feet tall, 264 pounds and with 39 independent points capable of movement (such as rotation) throughout its body, the chiseled robot looks pretty badass, but it hasn’t beaten a human quite yet.  Ho Vinh Hoang, TOSY’s president, hopes that a newer version of TOPIO, which will have a more flexible arm and be able to learn on the fly, will win a match in the near future.  Possibly at Automatica, an automation trade show, to be held this June in Munich.

Hoang’s ultimate goal: a TOPIO in every home, not just to play ping-pong but to help with household chores and other tasks.

Other tasks?  So, like, killing your neighbors with its bare hands?  Ripping your face off if you beat it at ping pong?  #nothankyou.  I would rather not have my heart ripped out of chest and then shown to me while it's still beating.

Wiz Khalifa x Disco Biscuits? Yes Please.

Here's a video of Wiz and the Disco Biscuits in the studio recording a song called "Sweat Box."  It's just a teaser, but it sounds pretty sick to me.  I really like watching videos of musicians in the booth during the creative process.

Anyway, when the full .mp3 drops-- best believe I'll post it.  Until then, Happy Valentines Day.

Ski Beatz & Dame Dash’s 24 Hour Karate School (Trailer)

F@#$.  Yes.

So this project (featuring the likes of Jay Electronica, Curren$y, Mos Def, Jim Jones, The Cool Kids, Dame Dash, Nikki Wray, Jean Grae and more) finally has a release date: February 15th.

This is going to be so dope.  Props to Creative Control.

Which Organs Can I Live Without, and How Much Cash Can I Get for Them?

*DISCLAIMER* 

Selling your organs in the United States is illegal, not to mention extremely dangerous. Handing off an organ is risky enough when done in a top hospital, even more so if you’re doing it for cash in a back alley.

If you need cash, it's honestly safer and smarter to sell crack cocaine, which is by far the worst job in America.  

With Repo Men coming out in March and Turistas getting on regular play on Cinemax, I've become more and more intrigued by the mysterious world of organ trafficking.  Fortunately, Bjorn Carey of Popular Science has already done some research and has uncovered some startling results.  

In theory, there are some organs that one can live without, or for which there's a backup.  You can spare a kidney, a portion of their liver, a lung, some intestines, and an eyeball, and still live a long life. That said, donating a lung, a piece of liver, or a section of intestines is a very complicated surgery so it’s not done frequently on the black market.

Obviously there are no tax filings for the black market organ trade, but here are some prices based on rumored deals and reports from the World Heath Organization.  In India, a kidney fetches around $20,000.  In China, buyers will pay $40,000 or more.  But a good, healthy kidney from Israel goes for $160,000.

Unfortunately, you don't get to pocket all that dough, though.  “The person giving up the organ only gets a fraction of the fee,” says Sally Satel, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank who studies the prices paid by legal and illegal organ-donor operations.

After the organ broker takes his cut, he needs to pay for travel, the surgeon, medical supplies and a few “look-the-other-way” payoffs. Most people get $1,000 to $10,000 for their kidney (probably much less than you were hoping for).

*NEW* Lupe Fiasco

Wasalu hit us over the head with some old, unreleased records (pre-Food & Liquor) from the F&F archives as well as one more leak off his upcoming album, Lasers.

Interestingly enough, Lupe is dropping another mixtape titled Vintage Fiasco, which will feature 12 unreleased songs (supposedly never heard before) from his Arista Records days.  It will be hosted by DJ Absolut who, as the story goes, was the first to give Lupe some NYC shine (mostly through radio play on Hot 97).  Anyway, here's a preview of one Vintage Fiasco song, "Hey Lupe":



Another old Lupe record that is not on Lasers is "Proceed":  





Finally, this one, "What U Want", is on Lasers:




DOWNLOAD: Lupe Fiasco - Hey Lupe 

DOWNLOAD: Lupe Fiasco - Proceed

DOWNLOAD: Lupe Fiasco - What U Want

The Known Universe (Video)

What would it look like to travel across the known universe? To help humanity visualize this, the American Museum of Modern History has produced a modern movie featuring many visual highlights of such a trip.  The video starts in Earth's Himalayan Mountains and then dramatically zooms out, showing the orbits of Earth's satellites, the Sun, the Solar System, the extent of humanities first radio signals, the Milky Way Galaxy, galaxies nearby, distant galaxies, and quasars.

Frequently using the Digital Universe Atlas, every object in the video has been rendered to scale. The film has similarities to the famous Powers of Ten video that has been a favorite of many space enthusiasts for a generation.

Happy Birthday to (the Late, Great) J. Dilla

Influential producer James Dewitt Yancey, a.k.a. J Dilla, was born today, February 7, 1974.

The Detroit producer, who began collecting records at the age of two, is remembered for producing classics for the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, Common, De La Soul, Slum Village, and The Pharcyde.

In most circles, he is heralded as one of the top five producers of all time as his beats are still being used in today's music  (most recently, Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2).  His untimely death (cardiac arrest) occurred on February 10th, 2006 due to complications associated with TTP, a rare and incurable blood disorder.

Here are my two favorite Dilla beats (R.I.P):



"Runnin" by Pharcyde... Dilla rearranged the horns, guitar and piano on Stan Getz’ “Saudade Vem Correndo” to make this classic.



"Vivrant Thing" by Q-Tip... This one samples "I Wanna Stay" by the Love Unlimited Orchestra.  TIMELESS.

*New* ArtOfficial – Doing Things Wrong

Miami based hip hop/jazz group ArtOfficial provide the first off HiPNOTT Records 2010 Takeover v.2, which drops February 15th.  This one swacked from Kevin.  Thank/blame him...

Washington Post's graphs of federal budget deficit

This is pretty startling... above (and in the link below) are The Washington Post's graphs on federal spending in the past century. 

"Since 1930, the federal government has run deficits in all but eight years. As a percent of the overall economy, the annual gap between spending and revenue is at its highest since WWII."

Explore the various facets of the government's budget and see how revenues and spending have changed over time

[Link: BoingBoing]

Charles Manson can't play Dungeons & Dragons.

If avoiding sodomy and being caged like animals isn't soul-crushing enough, convicts can no longer play Dungeons & Dragons in prison.  What's D&D?  It's a fantasy game in which players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures, often working together as a group with the help of complicated rules.

To put it in perspective- if there was a litmus scale for nerdy leisure activities, D&D would be at the very end.  For you scientists, it's the Hydrochloric Acid of nerd games.

Anyway, prison officials declared the ban over their concern that playing the game promoted gang-related activity and was a threat to security.  Kevin T. Singer, a man serving life for first-degree intentional homicide and an avid D&D player, challenged the ban but the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld it as a reasonable policy.

*shrugs* At least you can still ferment alcohol and lift weights!

Speaking of which, click HERE to read the recipe for Pruno -- "a prison wine created from fruit, sugar and ketchup, that is such a vile and despicable beast in the California state penal system that prisoners can't eat fresh fruit at lunch."

...apparently sober, scurvy-addled felons are much easier to control than drunken, violent convicts.