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Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.

So what is my take on the article? Well, while I plan on marrying a career woman, and could never see myself with a pretty housewife, I think he presents a strong argument.

I know the majority of my male friends think about some of the items mentioned (does she make more? will someone be home to watch the kids? is she satisfied with me? etc?) when considering their mate, and for good reason. If both parties have full-time careers, who is left to take care of the home? Questions like these are genuine concerns for both men and women. I personally do not think they’re deal-breakers, but, they are concerns none-the-less.

As for the ladies response one word sums up my feeling: disappointed. I really wish should would have thought out her response a bit more and made her argument more concise and focused. I was expecting to read about the positive aspects of choosing a career woman (increased household income, nicer living conditions, more balanced children, access to better education, longer lives, etc.), but instead I got nothing more than the same old “women have had to deal with …” argument that proves nothing and simply wastes space.

In short, the response was nothing more than sad, as she had a great opportunity to illustrate the strengths that successful and educated women bring to the table. Instead, she did nothing more than highlight the troubles women have struggled through in the past. Oh well, maybe next time.

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The Necessary Basics:
I was not asking for too much (I do not think). Here is the list of what I wanted on my iPod:

1. Minimal (hopefully none) duplicate songs.
2. Zero songs that I do not like.
3. More songs that I like, than songs that I sort of like.
4. Songs that I have not heard recently.
5. New songs on my iPod every day (without manually adding them).

Of the above, I think number five was my key need. I like hearing all of my music, and with that many songs, I just do not want to have to manually add and delete songs from a playlist everyday (or ever).

The Structure:
In the end, while not what I imagined, the following structure provided me with exactly what I was looking for. It contains six smart playlists which each feed into another smart playlist. All of the playlists are selected to sync automatically with my iPod upon connect. Here is the breakdown of each playlist (name – rule – description). All playlists are sorted by number, and contain songs not heard within the past 14 days.

1. 0 Star: 250 Songs that have not been rated. This playlist ensure that I constantly have music that I have never heard before on my iPod. It also helps me identify which songs I have not yet rated. The goal is to eventually have this playlist have zero songs.
2. 2 Star: 25 Songs that I have rated 2 stars. These are songs that I sort of do not like, but will listen to every once in a great while.
3. 3 Star: 50 Songs that I have rated 3 stars. This is a playlist of songs that I can listen to, but really do not like or dislike.
4. 4 Star: 75 Songs that I have rated 4 stars. These are songs which I like.
5. 5 Star: 100 Songs that I have rated 5 stars. These are my favorite songs. The ones I can listen to continuously without getting tired of them.
6. The Good Mix: 500 Songs selected randomly from the above five playlists. This playlist provides two things. 1) An easy to select playlist in my iPod that will play the songs beginning with the song that was added to the playlist first and 2) a list which I direct my Party Shuffle to select from.

Example (5 Stars):

As you can see, I have more songs on my iPod that I like, than I have songs that I do not like. In addition, I have zero songs which I rate as one star. Therefore, songs rated with one star in my iTunes are deemed songs which I never want to listen to again; ever.

Or, if the above does not cut it for you, you can always head over to smartplaylists.com and get a gander at what some other folks are doing. Enjoy.

I have yet to try it (and I probably will refrain from trying it), but there are a few things that stand out right away that make me cringe just a bit. The first is that I know this little myspace addition will include a toolbar, a search bar, and the same “take over the desktop” mentality that all of the major instant messaging clients have. To me, that translates into a few friends saying “…fix my computer?” The second is that it “requires” the use of Internet Explorer. This means that folks will happily install this, use Internet Explorer, and get hit with the latest and greatest piece of spyware/virus/you name it. To me, that translates into a few more friends saying “…fix my computer?” Double grrr.

Maybe I should start charging by the hour?

In addition, why am I addicted to this video from Lupe Fiasco called “Kick Push”? The video and song are just nice. He may just be a future Verse of the Moment winner.

Lol. I know it is not the greatest piece of news ever, but I sure do love it when newspapers post stories like this. It is a nice break from the overwhelming amount of bad news I read/hear/see on a daily basis.

Personally I like the whole idea. However, I think that I simply do not have the necessary patience to see such a task “bear fruit.” But then, it would be worth a try though, and would only require some time. I wonder what I have laying around my house that I would not mind parting with.

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And what did they post? Well …

On the site, officers discussed their jobs, commented on arrests they had made — including the arrest that resulted in a driving-under-the-influence charge against country music singer John Michael Montgomery — and used derogatory language about gays and the mentally disabled.

I mean c’mon!? These folks are just begging to be fired. So what is the moral of this story? DO NOT POST THINGS ABOUT YOUR EMPLOYER ONLINE. EVER! Adios folks.

As I said, the article is a good read, and for those of you who who have no clue of what E-40 is saying 52% of the time he is talking, the article comes complete with a mini dictionary of popular E-40 slang and its common folk translation. So go ahead and definitely check out the article. It had me laughing so hard. Example:

It’s all gravity: All is well, old chap; variation of “it’s all good,” “it’s all gravy” or “it’s all gravy train.” (Usage: “Aw, man. My bad. I didn’t mean to spill that scalding coffee in your lap.” Response: “It’s all gravity, pimpin’. Ouch!”)

Oh man. Who thought of these examples? They are golden.

Oh, and I my personal favorite would be this one. Which one is yours?

And in related news, why is watching “you that baby’s daddy” television shows so entertaining???

I personally think this is a pretty slick idea. It would be nice to not only read what folks have to say about the articles I post, but also to hear their opinions. Hmmm, I wonder how hard it would be to incorporate this system into the current text-based commenting system I currently have on this blog. What do you folks think about that?

Oh, and does anyone else feel like smacking Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, or whatever he is being called this week, for being in that god-awful “Brown and Bubbly” commercial?

I do have a question though. Does the fact that this guy does this on purpose make it more or less embarrasing? You decide.

On February 4th, 2006, the Black Student Union of Western Washington University is going to host their 14th Annual Black History Month Dinner. The event will include some good soul food (catfish, chicken, etc.), some entertainment (live music, performances, etc.), a keynote speaker (Byron Hurt), and some other surprises. It will be worth your time.

The dinner starts at 5pm and should be entertaining until about 9pm (that still gives you plenty of time to go home and get ready for the club). It is located in the Viking Union Multipurpose Room located on Western Washington University’s campus and will cost you $10 (if you are a student) or $12 (if you are not a student).

I look forward to seeing everyone who reads this, and can make it, there. If you see me in the crowd or on the stage, holla at me.

I must admit, this is one of, if not the coolest, implementation/idea for Flickr I have seen. I wonder what type of disclaimer they have on that photobooth though?

Update: If you are having trouble watching the embedded video but want to watch the commericial, you can click here to download the video. Enjoy.

There was one aspect of the movie I did like however. Well, two actually. The first was the visuals. The detail on King Kong was good. The second aspect of the movie I liked was the building of the relationship between the beauty (the girl) and the beast (King Kong). It really gave you a sense for the bond and made you feel bad for both the girl and Kong. Sad story really. — PS, my girlfriend wanted me to add that the ending was good and that it made her cry. OK, now that I am done with that…

Moving on, watching King Kong made me realize something; the movie industry is dead. And I have figured out why it is dead. Writers! Hollywood obviously has no good writers anymore. For the longest time I could not pinpoint why The Longest Yard and Spiderman and King Kong and The Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven and The Honeymooners and etc. and etc. were being redone. At first I thought it was just the movie industry trying to bring new life to old ideas, but that was all wrong. Hollywood is not bringing new life to old movies because the old movies are great ideas. Hollywood is bringing new life to old movies because they simply do not have any good ideas to bring life too.

Now other than The Wedding Crashers (which is not a big budget movie by any stretch of the imagination), I cannot think of any movies which I have really enjoyed lately. In fact, I cannot think of many movies recently which were not remakes. However, I can think of a ton of television series which are mildly enjoyable: 24, CSI, Prison Break, Rome, etc. And this my friends, is the source behind the death of Hollywood. The good writers are moving over to television (at least that is what I think).

And honestly, why shouldn’t they move over to television? They probably get paid more, they get to venture into non-typical ideas (24 is a great example), they get to develop their characters more, and they simply get more screen time. A movie gets, or should get, at max 3hrs of attention. A television series on the other hand gets a full days worth of attention per series. Add to that the unlimited number of series (CSI is a great example) and you get the opportunity to develop characters, plots, love stories, and all of the other necessary elements of entertainment in ways that a movie would never allow. It is a recipe for tremendous success, and one which I think the television industry is finally starting to realize.

Personally I am at a crossroads, because I really love watching movies. All types of movies. However, at the same time, I like that fact that I can turn on my TV and not be bothered with ridiculous Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire and Fear Factor spin-offs on every other channel. I like being drawn into and anticipating the next episode of CSI or Prison Break. However, I just do not see the two co-mingling very well. Either there will be great movies or great television series. The battle is on, and I do not know which one I should be rooting for.