I'm Moving!

I now have my own domain (http://colbychiang.com) and from this point onward, I will blog at http://blog.colbychiang.com.

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Boston: A City Way Ahead of Its Time

When the first settlers came to America from the Old World, they settled in Boston. Why? Because Boston has lots of cool stuff, like a sweet baseball team, a different college on every block, and a naked cowboy taxis of every color except yellow.

The English settlers arrived on the Mayflower and were astounded to find a modern metropolis surrounded by untouched wilderness and primative Indian Native American tribes casinos. In Boston the settlers discovered cars, microwaves, elevators, electric guitars, sporks, airplanes, and lava lamps. They were excited by these many new discoveries, so they decided to share their findings with the rest of the world.

But the Old World was not impressed with the settlers' findings. High ranking leaders in Europe decided to withhold the technology from the world. They were embarrassed that they hadn't thought of these inventions on their own, so they decided to fabricate their reinventions one at a time. Alexander Graham Bell, Edison, da Vinci, and Eli Whitney were all frauds, as their inventions had been stolen from Boston.

Luckily Boston was too wrapped up in its academia for the next couple hundred years to even notice. Otherwise it would have eaten the entire planet alive. Either that or its quietly plotting its revenge...

Insane, or Just Bluetooth?

Sometimes I'll be walking down the street, or in a grocery store, and I'll see a person with no one within 10 yards of him talking loudly to himself. I used to think to myself, "Man, that guy has psychological problems." Now I just look for the Bluetooth earpiece.

Here are some ways you can capture the Bluetooth craze:

"This traffic is driving me Bluetooth!"
"Three Eight Sixty-five dollars for a gallon of gas? What are you Bluetooth?"
"Y'all gon make me go Bluetooth. Up in here, up in here."

Best Yearbook Quote Ever

"Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on." --The Beatles

Too bad I thought of it a year and a half too late.

Today in math class...

Dave: My high school sucked, they didn't even offer linear algebra.
Me: LOLOLOL!!!11!111!!!

House M.D.

If you watch House, then you know that Dr. House is in a lot of trouble. A detective with a grudge found of that House had been forging signatures and stealing in order to satisfy his Vicodin addiction, and is now threatening to put House in jail. In the following paragraph, I give my predictions for the upcoming few episodes of House M.D. I'm going to say there is a SPOILER WARNING, since I'm confident, but I have by no means confirmed any of these predictions.

First some background: When Detective Twitter first pulled House over for speeding on his motorcycle, the following conversation transpired (to the best of my recollection).

Detective: When you were treating me as a patient, I saw you take a pill. That is indicative of addiction. I bet you are holding right now
House: I wasn't weaving, I'm articulate, you have no right to search me.
Detective: Your eyes are dilated and you appear to be under the influence of a narcotic.

Then Twitter proceeds to search House and finds Vicodin on him. Twitter then interviews people at House's hospital and finds other evidence of drug abuse.

However, all of the evidence is invalidated because the Twitter illegally searched House in the initial confrontation. His eyes were dilated? It was nighttime! And what the hell does "appear to be under the influence of a narcotic" mean? Because Twitter had no probable cause to search House, that evidence, and all evidence that results from that episode is invalid in court.

If Twitter hadn't found House holding at the traffic stop, he would not have investigated further, and thus all evidence is invalid. House walks. Q.E.D.

The '90s: The Golden Age of Rap

Note: Just assume all lyrics are NSFW. It's rap, so deal with it.

Other than the songs on the radio, I have not listened to much rap since I was in elementary school. And even then, I was no expert. So excuse me if I stray from the facts somewhat. However, I think it is safe to say that the 1990s was the golden age of rap music. In fourth grade, one of my friends gave a me a Puff Daddy CD (that was his name back then) called No Way Out, which I listened to religiously. (Of course, at that time I did not have a CD player, so I recorded the whole thing onto an audio tape, and listened to it that way.) I memorized all the lyrics, but have since lost the tape and haven't listened to it again for the past decade or so.

...Until now.

I was poking around on the internet and came across the song Victory, one of the album's hits. I was amazed by the level of rapping by Puff Daddy and Biggie Smalls. Then I started to listen to other great '90s rap artists again, like Mase and Tupac.

So here's the story about how rap came and died in the '90s: Biggie (also Notorious B.I.G., Frank Wright, and other names) was born in Brooklyn and met Puff Daddy, Jay-Z, and Tupac in New York City. These guys could rap. Well. They were cool for a while until Tupac was shot and injured in 1994. Tupac later accused Puff and Biggie of knowing about the shooting beforehand and not warning him. Tupac had a falling out with Puff and Biggie and the gang. He settled in Los Angeles and made a rap group called the Outlawz, which opposed Biggie's group called the Junior Mafia. This conflict also exacerbated the East vs. West battle in the rap industry, as well as some record label conflict that I don't know too much about.

Tupac wrote a scathing diss rap directed at Biggie called Hit 'Em Up, which later became a classic. In it, Tupac claimed to have had sex with Biggie's wife and dissed Mobb Deep, Lil Kim, Puff, and the Junior Mafia.

Anyways, in September of 1996, Tupac was shot and killed and then in May of 1997, Biggie was shot and killed. Two months after Biggie's death, my CD, No Way Out was released, which featured Biggie on several tracks.

Now, two of the rap greats are dead, Puff Daddy has changed his name like a dozen times, and now he doesn't even rap anymore. He just goes "uh" all the time in his videos. Mase is still around, but doesn't do much, and Busta Rhymes is gone. Every now and then, new artists pop up, such as Nas and 50 Cent, but they aren't nearly as talented as the legends of 10 years ago. Plus, there is a trend toward dance style rap artists, like Chris Brown and Akon and I feel that it is becoming a different genre entirely.

To finish off, here are a bunch of classic videos for your viewing pleasure. The lines just flow so well lyrically compared to today's rap.


Tupac and the Outlawz: Hit 'Em Up


Notorious B.I.G. feat Mas and Puff Daddy: Mo' Money, Mo' Problems


Puff Daddy Feat Biggie and Busta Rhymes: Victory