Limp Bizkit Style! (Favorite. Biggest. Best)

Last week I got to experience one of the best rock bands ever, live and in person Metallica.  It was an amazing show!  They played almost all of their hits...they had Jim Breuer open, and we left with :20 seconds left of Enter Sandman so my wife could get to work, it honestly was everything you could ever ask for in a show!  But it got me thinking, who was my generations (age 32-40) band?  THE BAND!?



Clearly each decade had a band or two that were theirs.  The 60's you liked the Rolling Stones or the Beatles.  The 70's you had Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.  The 80's you had Guns N Roses or Metallica.  The early 90's were Nirvana...but after them, who?  Who is our biggest band after Nirvana? 

Creed?



Nickelback?



No to all of them (although I came across a Nickelback song a while ago, and shockingly it didn't age horribly, I found it not...bad.  Shhhhhhh!  Don't tell.). 

And who would my favorite band even be?  All time it's the Beatles, and I really like the Strokes...but who is a sneaky contender for my favorite band of all time for pure rock?

Oh fuck...no way!?



Limp Bizkit?!  Could it be?  It...it is!



I love Limp Bizkit.  And I hope I don't offend Mr. Durst if you are improbably reading this, but I think the reason I like it so much, I don't have to think too damn hard about the music.  Fred, Mr. Bizkit, has basically 5 ranges of emotion:

1. Angry
2. Really angry
3. Angrily rocking out
4. Wearing hats
5. Songs that make him want to awkwardly dance and use of hands...



But it's all catchy!  It's all great...for the most part!  And if you ignore they came out with an album in 2011 (what the F!?) or legit have had an album in development for years after that, (the name you may ask!?  Stampede of the Disco Elephants...Limp Bizkit were either incredibly innovative with naming things...or never great with names...ever) they really had, at most, a limited time to deliver some arguably great music. 

Significant Other came out in 1999, that was my senior year of high school.  I was oddly shy at that time, so I spent a lot of time playing PS1 and listening to music at that time.  I listened and bought every type of music (thanks BMG!), but there was no album I played more than Significant Other at that time.  The next year I went to the midnight release at my local On Cue to buy Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water when it came out (I told you...not the best with naming things), it was arguably played more than Significant Other. 

They then followed that up with a criminally (see what I did Ras!?) underrated album in Results May Vary.  I liked it, it bombed, it was the beginning of the end, save for one last comeback with a song called "The Truth" which came out in 2005.  Then they were done.  And since then have there been any "new" bands to get as big as them? 



Go ahead, try to name someone as big.  Maybe Linkin Park?  But to me that's the same era, and Limp Bizkit was bigger.  Korn?  Comparable, but same argument.  Bizkit wins.  Green Day had the one brilliant album in the mid-2000's...nothing that great since (and they are a 90's band to me anyway).  Since then the biggest selling band is Imagine Dragons.  The best tours are nostalgia acts (sorry Metallica, that's you).  My favorite to listen to?  Besides a handful of new songs, I go to the 90's for my rock music. 

Rock is so different now.  Rock radio honestly sucks.  It's just the same old songs over and over again and then they throw in The Pretty Reckless every now and then because she's hot. 



She's Cindy Lou Hoo by the way in the Jim Carrey Grinch movie...think about that for a second...



Don't believe me on rock radio?  Go turn to your rock station now.  It'll be AC/DC...then a 90's rock band...then Ozzy, then Shinedown...then The Pretty Reckless, repeat.  Rock tours are nostalgia acts or recent ish bands that are good, but not great (and this is only my opinion, but bands like Five Finger Death Punch, Chevelle, Shinedown are good, and I love at least 2-3 songs by each BUT they aren't Metallica, the mystique isn't there for me.  If I met James Hetfield I would shit myself, if I met anyone in those bands above, I would literally have no idea.  I would have to ask Ras or Dino who they are.). 

We need some new music...and until we get that music I'm going to listen to what I like, and dammit, what I like is the BIZKIT! 

So what's this surprisingly, incredibly long intro leading up to?  We are doing a Favorite.  Biggest.  Best. Limp Bizkit.  I have recruited Ras and James to give their choices, as well as mine.  If you missed the last one, we covered blink-182 (arguably a band that should be in the discussion of best 90's band) with Beach which you can find Here!

Let's get started before this gets any longer!  And....go!

Ras's Selections:

Favorite: The Truth

Biggest: Nookie

Best: Full Nelson

I can't argue with any of Ras's selections, and I love the Full Nelson pick.  He dug deep in to that library.  The Truth is a song a lot of people haven't heard, and that's disappointing because it's really, really, really freaking good. 

James's Selections:

Favorite: N 2 Gether Now

Biggest: Nookie (a trend is developing!)

Best: My Way

My Way is arguably their 4th biggest song (full disclosure, I, Jeff, do not like Rollin'...blame the Undertaker.).  Clearly we all agree on Nookie, and N 2 Gether now is a classic that started them having a rap feature on their next two albums (Xzibit on Getcha Groove On and Snoop on the CRIMINALLY underrated Red Light, Green Light). 

Jeff's Selections:

Favorite: Re-Arranged

Biggest: Nookie (trend developed)

Best: The Truth

Nookie is clearly their biggest song.  Faith would be after that, then Rollin', then My Way...if I keep ranking them I'm just going to do another Limp Bizkit blog, and nobody wants that after this one. 

The Truth is such an underrated song, and at the time, it was really exciting to see if that was the direction they were going in since nu metal was dead in 2005.  Unfortunately red hats stopped being sold, so with red hats went Limp Bizkit. 

That's it for this week!  If you want to do one of these Favorite.  Biggest.  Best.  Be my guest.  Literally!  A few of you posted last time, so maybe 3 Doors Down would be a unique one.  Or Incubus.  I'd LOVE to do Eminem, but that ones too easy. 

Next blog will be the long awaited "The Kind of People Who Suck"...clearly flat earthers and anti vaxxers make this, but we all know there are more kinds of people that suck. 

Until next time,

Jeff

Favorite. Biggest. Best.

Well I decided to start having some fun with this blog, and Dammit (you'll see what I did here)...I'm going to.

I love to debate music.  I like all kinds of music, really everything except country, and I really like to debate the best song of artists I really like.  What they would close their show with?  What is their best song?  Well that's going to be this blog series.

Each one of these I'll do with a friend of mine (Ras maybe with Nirvana?  Schempp with Dr. Dre, Kyle with Eminem, etc...I would say Dino, but he HATES being tagged in stuff so....).  Each will have the following three categories.

Favorite...which clearly is your favorite song by the artist.
Best...which you try to be unbiased and pick the best work.
Biggest...the most popular song, what would end him/she/they/it's set list.  Ex: Lou Bega would end with Tricky Tricky (clearly Mambo No. 5, but you see what I did there as well?  Get it!?).

This week I borrowed some time from Beach to see get his views on his favorite band of all time, blink-182.



There is NOBODY on this planet who likes blink-182 as much as Cory.  They are such a great band, one of my favorites as well, so I wanted to pick Cory's brain on them, simply because he knows so much about them. 

I'll start the blog with me, because not only am I super selfish, but Cory had a LOT of great info to say about blink, really interesting, good stuff that I wanted to include it over my opinion (you're clicking this for Cory, not for me). 

Cory, Zach G, and Jeff at D Days...it's Zach, trust us.  

So here is me and Cory's (Cory and I's) list of Favorite/Biggest/Best for blink-182.

Me first!

Favorite: Always

*this was almost Going Away to College or Reckless Abandon, super close on both.  Always has that new wave feel, pop chorus, I like it.

Biggest: All the Small Things

Best: The Rock Show

Best song has a TON of choices, but I went with The Rock Show, because I did.  But you're not here for me on this blog...on to the main event, you're here for Cory.

Favorite: Lemmings

Biggest: What's My Age Again

*Cory also included Dammit (which is...spoiler alert...next!) among the most popular of the fan base or Carousel

Best: Dammit

Now a quick review from Mr. Beach on blink-182, their albums, current status, etc...etc...etc....

Oooh look at me, I like fancy food!  - some idiot!

Best album is tough!  I love their first two albums, they are gritty, the guitar is quick, there aren't any bands like that out anymore.

I feel like the Take Off Your Pants and Jacket album has a perfect blend of them growing as a band and still being funny.  Plus it would be considered their sophomore album...even though it isn't...after the huge success of Enema of the State.



It proved they can still write another huge album and still fuck off and remain themselves..even though Dude Ranch will always be my favorite...but new Blink...



It's just that!  It's new.  The album(s) that came out are great sounding, I don't feel much from their lyrics as much as I did from the other albums...obviously old blink albums.  They are at a point in all of their careers (Mark, Travis, Matt) that they know how to write a good sounding song, but I feel disconnected with a band when the lyrics are just lyrics to help create a song, this is why I hate Weezer.



But new blink isn't blink...Matt has no guitar riffs like Tom and that's part of what gave blink their sound.  Everyone knows it's What's My Age Again after those first few chords, same with Stay Together For the Kids.  I think Matt was hired because he's in the same genre and has that falsetto voice.

I think they should have called it quits for a second time, either going back to +44 and invite Matt to that, or start a new band name with the trio of Mark, Travis and Matt.

Neighborhoods was a terrible album, there was no producer, no studio time where they were all together like in the other albums.  They literally passed back and forth guitar and bass riffs and then put lyrics to it.

Travis as quoted answering a question why even having a producer on the California album and he said, "So it doesn't come out sounding like Neighborhoods!".

I saw blink a couple times whey they got back with Tom, it was terrible, Tom was half-assing lyrics, not even in key, he clearly didn't want to be there.  It's prevalent on a lot of live videos he doesn't want to be there.

- Cory



So that does it for this first edition!  I added this .gif because it's quite possibly the best one of all time, and Tom is super weird now.  Also, when we review Weezer I feel Cory will not be a part of that one (he does love the Africa cover though!).

If you would like to do one of these with me, I'm down.  It's probably one of the most fun blogs I've written in a long time.  Next week, I'm going to try and get Brad for Outkast...or Schempp for Dr. Dre.

Jeff

23 Games

It's a Friday, my kid is taking a nap, I want to write a blog about my favorite games, and I couldn't come up with a better title than 23 Games...I mean, yeah.

I could have went with a Michael Jordan theme?



But he was never in any game growing up besides the really crappy Super Nintendo game my mom got me for Christmas...sorry mom!



You didn't know!  Also this was the first game to make me motion sick, go figure (I get motion sick for first person shooters and oddly this game, I'm not sure why?).

So I'm not going in any particular order on the games.  My favorite game of all time is Super Mario RPG...after that it's a bit fuzzy because of so many classics.

I'm gonna get weird with the first one:

Gitaroo Man



I had a roommate (hey Dallas!) in college who was the video game KING.  And would find out about insane games and get them.  This one seems really stupid in theory...it's not.  It's incredible.

You basically save the world with your guitar and rhythm skills, the only two things anyone needs really.  That's why Eric Rasmussen will save the world.

This game is one of many awesome music games (sorry you didn't make the list PaRappa the Rapper (watch them fries!) to make the list.  Also if anybody can find this game for me, that'd be great.

Next, less weird!

Mario Kart: Double Dash



Nobody better be taking Baby Mario...not NOBODY.  I love this game, it's my favorite out of all the Mario Kart's...sorry Wii and N64 version!

I could literally play this all day, and do you know why?  Because I have.  The Wii version went a solid 24 hours straight in our house, and I don't regret a single minute of it, except for those jerks online who would work in tandem to beat us.  Go straight to hell!  Or rot in hell! - Dino

Final Fantasy VII



I beat this entire game.  And when I say entire, I didn't just go through and beat it as fast as possible (high school joke is hidden in that last sentence somewhere...).  No I defeated every single thing in the game, then played Final Fantasy VIII and did the same.

Did I party in high school?  Yeah, with Final Fantasy apparently.

Triple Play 98



Brian Jordan references!  I got my PlayStation in 1997, and it was amazing.  I got this and another game that'll appear later on in this list.  And just like Brian Jordan...it was a home run!

I took the Cubs (I even liked them then thank you very much!) to an unprecedented 162-0, with World Series victory that summer.

Also there is a cheat code to hit a home run at every at bat...I might have used it a time or two in Home Run Derby's, sorry Brad.

(A close second on best baseball game is Tecmo Super Baseball on the SNES, it's how I've memorized every order from 1994 MLB and close behind is MVP Baseball 2005, because I love Rob Huckins).

Tetris



Tetris in any form is amazing.  From the NES, to the crappy computer version you see here, to the sort of fun later versions where they went too weird with it.

We can thank Russia for two things, Tetris and Vodka, and be angry with them for one...Trump's presidency.  Moving along.

WWF Royal Rumble



This is the most fun wrestling game in my opinion, just based on the hours I've played it.  IT was also my first Super Nintendo game, so it has a special place in my heart.  The line up is stacked, and it only has a few wrestlers who have died, so nothing too morbid (RIP Yokozuna).

I was always Randy Savage or Bret Hart (my all time #1 and #3)...but you can play as Razor Ramon, HBK or Flair.  Even frickin Tatanka is on it...and the best is they play their entrance music as well.

I remember Tag Team tournaments with my buddy Brady.  Royal Rumbles with my cousin Brad, where we'd eliminate everyone as soon as they got in.  I might play this tonight, I'm a wild card.

Close behind are WWF Attitude (underrated) and of course Smackdown versus Danny Gilbertson (BATISTA!!!).

If you have an SNES, and 5 bucks...buy this.  Or don't, what do I care?

Amplitude



The only game I know for a fact nobody can beat me in.  If there were tournaments, I would enter.

This is the precursor to Rock Band/ Guitar Hero.  You would use your controller to match the beat.

I'll add in the following game as well to explain more:

Frequency



So you can play versus a friend or do career mode.  It gets harder as you goes (there's a college joke in there somewhere).

The game also introduced me to a ton of great DJ's and musicians.  I'm gonna listen to Freezepop, while I play Royal Rumble tonight!  I'm 36!!!

Aladdin



This game is just some good old fashioned fun.  A great side scroller based on my favorite Disney movie.  I actually defeated this game as well as a child, I tried it as an adult..no clue how I defeated it.  Disney has a lot of great games...such as!

Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers



I'm a Chip on the outside, a Dale on the inside.  Dress nice, but boy do I like to party!

Anyway, so this is one of the best games ever.  It's really fun, I have also defeated it, so I can put that on my resume.

There is a part 2 to this game, and I collect NES games...I actually only have 13 left to go for what I want, the problem is, the sequel to this game is $250...so that's a hard no from my wife.  As an aside, for Christmas I really want Chip and Dale 2.  Thanks!

Super Mario Bros 3



This was the first game I had ever heard of a strategy guide for.  I legit sat down and read that mofo front to back.  It was so interesting to me that there could be hidden parts of a level (thanks Uncle Kal for letting me borrow it!).

It's the greatest NES game of all time (sorry Yo! Noid) and quite possibly the best of all time, Mario is the king, might as well get rid of the next two.

Super Mario World



Ahhhh, the game where it's perfectly normal to repeatedly kill your newfound reptile friend.  The Mario series is so damn good (except those Luigi solo projects, it's like Ringo when he left the Beatles).

Arguably the greatest game ever made.

Super Mario RPG



It's Super Mario.  And an RPG (Role Playing Game) all in one.  It's my favorite game ever.  I've explained it in my blog maybe 12,000 times.

Oh and my wife is the best and got this for me for Valentine's Day a few years ago.  I took work off one day to defeat it.  You can tell my work, I don't even think it exists anymore.

NBA Live '96



I love this game so much.  Also one of the few games I know I can beat anyone in at almost anytime.  NBA Jam...not so much.

The thing that made this so awesome back then, it has unlockable characters if you type in their name correctly in the create a player mode.  So yes, you can have Michael Jordan.  I also updated all the rosters with trades, I was that anal of a 13 year old kid.  But 90's NBA is my Nirvana.  Literally.

NBA Live '95 almost won for sentimental reasons.

Zanac



In high school I got my first job at a senior citizen's center.  And I saved, and I saved, and then I quit my first of many jobs.  What did I get with that money?  A Nintendo on eBay with 35 games for 40 bucks.  No way I find that deal again.  Ever.

It had a lot of good games for starting a collection, and some real clunkers, and one of those I put in to see if it was fun was this game, Zanac.  Almost beat this...once, never close ever again.  The better you do, the harder it gets, but I'm super anal and want to completely destroy everything so I die pretty quickly in this game.

It's one of my favorite games ever, it reminded me a lot of the following game...

Strike Gunner STG



So growing up, I borrowed a game from my friend Brady as much as I rented the movie Ladybugs from our rental store...A LOT.

Same as Zanac, just a different system.  Outer space pilot shooting interestingly timed enemies until you come up to a boss.  I have defeated this, once.  It was magical.  After I won, I'm sure I opened up a delicious Crystal Clear Pepsi and ate Gushers like a madman. 

Little Nemo: Dream Master



One of the most underrated games of all time.  I'll remember how we defeated this forever.  College, 2 AM, me, Schempp, Ras.  Drinking Icehouse, playing Little Nemo.

We did make the mistake of watching the movie shortly after this, there was still Icehouse around, luckily...because it was so horrible. 

Anticipation



Speaking of Schempp...there is nobody better at me than Anticipation...except for him.

You would have two teams, and it's like Pictionary, where it draws (poorly) whatever it is you have to guess. Then Beach would get mad and say we were cheating and then we'd drink Icehouse and do awesome things.

A really good party game.  Not even kidding.  Maybe when we update TASKS, we'll include this in it. 

Super Monkey Ball



Speaking of party games.  Look no further than Super Monkey Ball.  Monkey Bowling is a great drinking game.  Same with Monkey Target.

I actually received the PS2 version of this as a birthday gift (thanks Steff!  I still have it).  Every now and then I'll try to get a perfect game in bowling, and fail...damn you Pew.

Animal Crossing


This was one of the first "real time" games I ever remember playing.  It was really convenient because our entire household was addicted to this game.  So we would play at different times throughout the day.

Hidden in the game are a bunch of fun things, NES games being one of them.  One of my fondest memories was waking up at 6 am on a Saturday morning to chop down every single tree in my roommates town because he pissed me off the night before.  Then when he logged in, we told him his town got destroyed and we weren't sure why.  Not even sorry JW.

This game also reminds me that we had to stop playing on Saturday nights at 8 PM because Trading Spaces was on.  Thanks Jina for letting me know who Genevieve was during her prime.  YOWZA!

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit



Earlier I said my first two games I bought on the PS1 made the list, but I made a last second change while (whilst) riding this.  Need for Speed 2 is great, and I played it for literally days....but....Hot Pursuit has a great soundtrack.  Better graphics and courses.  And Bush is on it.  Not the president, but the amazing band.

Other racing games that just missed out...Burnout...Gran Turismo...

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past



You can literally get lost in this game if you let it happen to you.  My wife got this for my for Christmas a few years ago (pre-baby) and I started with the intentions of beating it.  I got the furthest I've ever gotten, and haven't played since my daughter was born.

This is arguably the best in the Zelda series, or any series for that matter.  Great game.

Madden 2004



Why this Madden over any of the other ones?  Vick.  The soundtrack.  The gameplay.  The fact that you can return punts and kickoffs for touchdowns and it wasn't insanely difficult to do it.  The 49'ers sucked so I didn't have to pick them every time because Tim Rattay was hot garbage.  The dynasty mode with Pew, Rob and Dino.  The tournament with Ras and Karl.  Playing this while hearing Karl walk in on something he shouldn't have.

Close Madden's were 92, 96, 05, 16 for me.  Tecmo Super Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl III.  NFL Blitz...all close.

And that does it!  My favorite games ever.

"But Cowriter!" says Danny, "Where is Battletoads!?"

Battletoads is fun, but you basically play two levels, then die every time.  But I will leave you with this...Battletoads has the BEST video game song ever made.

The game should be updated and remade.  The song should be as well.  And if you pause the game, it also has the best pause music ever.

Enjoy 10 hours of it.  I will.  While playing Royal Rumble.  And listening to Freezepop.  Oh nostalgia!

Jeff

PS  Any suggestions for next blog are fine.  I'm most likely going in a direction of top 3 of a specific artist, going with Outkast next.  Unless I don't.

Trophy

This will be my first in a LONG LINE of Compact Disc reviews....a CD if you will.  Back in college, the year 2005 to be precise, my buddies and I would throw little get together's...every night of the week.

When you throw "get together's", you need to have some really good tunes...music...songs, whatever people call it these days.  A lot of the copies are gone, but since I'm super anal, and a pack rat, I'm only missing two of the entire collection (whoever has Mallet, and the second CD, you are super lucky!)  So I decided for fun, I am going to review these mix CD's, to not only see how well the songs have aged, but to also include stories behind them...cleaned up versions of the stories I should say.

Now we gave an interesting name to each album, as you saw above, Mallet was one (came from nut ball, better left unsaid how that went), Subbitin', 3 Amigos, Sock Pain and this CD, Trophy.  Trophy, if I recall, was named as such because we thought we were at the top of our game musically.  About 98% of the songs were hip hop/rap, we really love/d rock music as well, just during this time we were more in to having a party and playing hip hop music  Hip hop in the mid-2000's was reaching it's peak commercially, so we had A LOT of songs to choose from.  A LOT.

So the following is a list from the album "Trophy" and like I said...if anyone has the second album or Mallet, I will legit pay $25 for it.  (Also for those of you who do not like JUST hip hop/rap, I will be reviewing one of my personal mixes from 2010 titled "Sarah Michelle Gellar", I love all music, so that one is more my all around taste in music, so that's next time).

Also there are a lot of swear words on this.  A LOT.  So listen to it with headphones, or quietly, or just maybe later?  The majority of us have kids now, but this is probably why I have an issue with cussing.

Let's begin!

Let's start with 50 Cent - Disco Inferno!  This came off his album "The Massacre", which I think is far superior to his first major album "Get Rich or Die Tryin"...and that album was amazing!

50 Cent was pretty much done after this album, having maybe 4-5 more hits after.  You can now find him ringside at UFC fights or in really bad Stallone movies.

Joe Budden ft Busta Rhymes - Fire.  Songs great.  Still holds up!  His career didn't.  This could come out today and be as big of a hit...maybe.

Fam-Lay (get it!?) - Git Busy.  We thought this guy was going to be huge.  He has two legit songs, and the rest?  I literally have no idea.  But this song is still really good.

Dr. Dre - Mr. Ski & Me.  So this was when we were waiting...and waiting...and waiting for Detox to come out.  Detox is Dre's long awaited album that...still hasn't came out.

In between all of that some songs were released that we thought would make Detox.  None did.  The song is alright, but I see why he ditched it.

Daddy Yankee - Gasolina.  Still.  Holds.  Up.  I'm getting amped just listening to it right now.  During this time, Lil Jon could add 5 songs to any song and it would be a massive hit.  Also Pitbull used to not suck.  And that's something to remember, his early catalog is really good.

Ciara - Goodies.  Goodies was huge during this time.  Ciara was played ad nauseam in the house, until Dustin ruined it.  And then Russell Wilson ruined it even more.  The song is still great though!

We are 5 for 6 so far!

Mariah Carey - It's Like That.  Remember when she had a breakdown?  Then she came back and had a few huge hits, this being the first of them?  Then she went batty again?  Yeah, me too.  The song is still catchy though.  And a Jermaine Dupri sighting!  Oh my!

This song makes me think of two things.  I never got a pair G Unit sneakers, maybe I should look... and of Aaron Pew's room where he'd play 50 Cent videos and chill.  That could be a t-shirt in the future.

The song is still great.  He should've just spaced all of these songs out over 10 years, it would've worked for most of the hip hop artists from that time.

Wreckx-N-Effect - Rump Shaker.  A classic.  The song was added as we occasionally would put a classic song on.  This song will never age, it's great.  Thanks Teddy Riley.



A true hero!

Mario - Let Me Love You.  I will never forget this song.  Ever.  Heard it for the first time in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Oh Canada, how I loved thee.

This is a remix, a far superior one at that.  Also you'll notice there's a few remixes.  This is legitimately the golden age of remixes.

112 - Don't Hate Me.  112 has played an oddly huge role in my life.  They started off these mixes with their most underrated song "If I Hit".  My daughter was also born on 1/12.  So I'll never forget her birthday.

But...this song sucks.  I'm sorry.  7 for 9!

Ciara - Oh.  Ludacris was huge.  Arguably he is the greatest rap feature of all time.  So he made this decent song above average.  So it makes the cut!  8 for 10!

King T ft Dr. Dre - Money.  Remember King T!?!?!  The great KING T!?!!  Neither do I.  It's a throwaway song on a Dre album.  It's King T's biggest song?  But nobody has heard this right?  So if King T rapped in a forest, would you hear it?

8 for 11....

Stat Quo - Like Dat.  Stat Quo was AMAZING.  I'm not sure what happened to him.  He had a few great songs, this one is clearly on that list.  STATLANTA 4EVA!

9 for 12.

Big Tymers - Beat It Up.  This song is the entire reason that this blog has a parental advisory in the title.  It makes Too Short blush... I completely forgot it was on here... It's still really catchy.

10 for 13.

Jae Millz - You Want No Problems.  Throw on remix, although this was when Pitbull was good.  I'll allow it a listen just for that but...

10 for 14

Jim Jones - Certified Gangstas.  This is pre-ballin' Jim Jones.  It's an average song, it is what it is, but my percentage is dipping down!

10 for 15...dammit!

Young Buck - Stomp.  And then we totally go and redeem ourselves.  11 for 16.  The song is still good.  It's not a single.  It's a diss track, but it's super catchy, Ludacris is on it which is never a bad thing.

So that does it!

Thanks for reading.  Coming up next are my top 10 video games of all time.  More family friendly, less swear words.  More Mario.  Less...Mario?



Jeff

Everyone Blogs

Oh hey there!  If you're a usual reader of this blog you might have a sense of deja vu.  "Is this the 30th time he's going to begin a blog explaining why he hasn't blogged in a long time!?"



Yeah, I don't know.  The motivation hasn't been there.  There's a lot of reasons really.  I'm drained at the end of the day.  Kid.  Work.  Fantasy football trades.  TV show binges (Shameless is back!  We started Dexter!  Sharp Objects is depressing!)  The past few months have also been super busy with weddings, events...and for a bit I couldn't blog because I was running for public office.  Some of the topics I had weren't "voter friendly" so this site was put on the back burner just so I could tie in an election.

Oh and everyone blogs now.  Everybody, myself and yourself included.  Everyone has an opinion now.  Facebook statuses, Twitter, etc.  It's basically a blog, a short blog, but you're blogging.  How does this one stand out?

So is this my last blog?  No.  But I am going to list every single blog idea I've had in the past few months, this way I can start all new.  A clean slate!  Or if I like one of the rejected ideas I'll revisit it in the future.

Ya'll ready for this?

The Hall Pass 

This was an idea that's been pondered for years.  There were a few ways of going about it.  One would've been a tournament for a new hall pass.  One would've been asking a group of friends who theirs were.

The reason why I didn't do it?  Ha, where do I start!?

It looks REALLY BAD.  A tournament seems fun in theory, but it's pretty demeaning.  I can see people getting really offended by it, because people get offended by everything now.

Also I'm a happily married guy, my wife was actually okay with the blog idea, but I mean...it looks REALLY BAD!  So I didn't do it.  Plus if I got new readers out of it, it'd be a bunch of thirsty dudes just looking for pictures....this blog let's me know what pictures are clicked on specifically and let's just say if I include a woman in any of them, people click them...it's weird.

So this one will never see the light of day, but if you wanted to know who it was, the AT&T lady gets a lot of love on this site...



BUT....I usually go back and forth between Margot Robbie and Alison Brie....



Boy I cannot wait to see how many clicks those pictures get, ya freaking creeps.

If I Won $2,000,000

Pretty self explanatory.  What I would do if I won that massive amount of money.  I would do a joking deduction, but the main joke was my student loans would take off $1,374,000.

So then that leaves me with a really short blog, it's not too funny, I'm bored just typing about it.



Best Song By "Insert Band"

This might still happen.  I think it'd be fun.  The first one clearly would've been Limp Bizkit.  The answer?

Nookie.  Which is also their biggest song.  Their best song.  And my favorite.  See, that's fun!

Three categories.  Ex: Notorious B.I.G.

Biggest: Hypnotize
Best: Juicy
Favorite: Sky's the Limit

The main reason I'm hesitant to do this one, is the music blogs do worse than my pro wrestling blogs numbers wise.  They are my favorite ones to write too, so that's a nice kick in the sack when I get the numbers and a blog where I just show celebrity philtrums destroys a "Celebrity March Madness Tournament" blog that took me 3 hours.

I also did a review of music videos that BOMBED.  The Verve/Verve Pipe blog still haunts me to this day.



The Double Barrel: Where Are They Now?

This one was going to go one of two ways.  But first a backstory for those unfamiliar.  The Double Barrel was my house in college.  We had a lot of fun stories, we met a bunch of really fun people.

That leads to part one.  I was going to do a joking "Where are they now?" on the people who visited the house and ended up getting iconic nicknames.  This was all my buddy Alex's idea and it's great.
We had a lot of weird people show up, half had "crazy" before their name.  But here's a few names:

- Greta von Crazy
- Stabber Guy
- Squabbit Dude
- Crazy "insert name"
- TurboSlut 3000

The reason I couldn't do these?  Some things are better left in the past.  The blog might get back to whoever and they might get upset it's brought up.  Did I mention I was running for politics? Ha or that I'm a dad.  I don't need my kid finding that blog whenever she can surf the web and read about a person who thought rabbits and squirrels mated, then killed said squabbit and made a soup.... okay, wow, that might be a really good blog actually.

The second part was going to be a recap of our friend group, kind of a comparison of then versus what's happened to them now?  But that's a really, really, really, really, REALLY bad idea haha.
So that one won't see the light of day...but man, has anybody even heard from Brian in a while!?

The character one, that ones really good.  Alex, let's do that one.



Brief aside, the guy above is also Nature Cat, and that is absolutely crazy to me. For you non parents, don't worry about it.

Everybody Is a Blogger

Long story short, I've met or heard of a lot of weird people lately who do a blog.  Some great stories out of this, I was going to share some of the stories.  I was going to probably complain a time or two about why some people think they should write.  I was probably going to be a huge....jerk.

That's why I didn't write it.  Writing is really cathartic for me.  It's fun.  I like it.  The other people who blog, they might be crazy, but as long as it's not offensive or spreading hate, write away.  I'm not a jerk at all times.  Plus if I'm making fun of someones blog, they can just pull up the aforementioned The Verve/Verve Pipe blog and tear me apart.

Rapid Fire Blog Ideas

- anything ant-Trump, it's not worth my time to post it or argue about it.  People all have their beliefs, we all think differently.

I was at a gas station today and a man who was a politician in town was heckled because he's a Democrat by a Republican guy who had a ton of misinformation.  I debated interjecting until I remembered this blog idea, or really any political debate I've seen online.  Not worth the time.

- anything NFL.  They bomb.  They take too much work.  Who cares.  We did a top quarterbacks of all time blog.  It was fun, but there's like a hundred of them.  The best jerseys one was fun, but I'm over it.

- parenting ones are really fun.  They do really well, I just don't like oversharing a lot about my daughter.  So ya know, sure, I can do a few more of these a year.

- the Nintendo blogs were a blast!  I might re-do them...for a 3rd time.  I will be doing my favorite 10 games of all time list at some point.  Did I lose 50 of you after typing that?  Damn. 

- one I will never do, but would've loved to do a few years ago.  I wanted to recreate Instagram models poses shot for shot.  I'm really glad I didn't, there was going to be some almost nudity, nobody needs to see that stuff...but what an amazing idea.

- older stories from my friend group would be a great read...for people from my friend group.  I might attempt one down the line (a clean one, never one of the crazier ones, and definitely not my top 5 favorite stories from college)

* regarding the top 5 favorite stories from college, if anyone can guess 2 of them, The Kleeman Report t-shirt still hasn't been won...just saying.

Well that does it for me!  This one was fun.  Let's do this again sometime.

The National Past Time

This here is Ken Griffey, Jr.  He was the coolest baseball player of the 90's (sorry Omar Vizquel!), arguably the best player of that generation (Barry Bonds would win in a landslide, except his head grew about 8 inches because of...workouts), and most importantly he was marketable as hell.

This guy had his own candy bar, video game, and a great shoe! 



So of course you would think Major League Baseball would build on the marketability of Ken Griffey, Jr., hell, even some other 80's and 90's baseball stars during that time and continue to be toe to toe with the NFL and the NBA at this very moment in popularity, right!?  Right!?

No.

Oh baseball, what went wrong with you?  Bad ratings.  Bad attendance (you can say attendance is great, but look at the stands if you catch it on TV).  No marketable stars.  It's long.  It can't catch the attention of millennial's who would rather see something fast, quick, and more entertaining. 

Baseball was the first sport I really fell in love with.  Besides Griffey, there was Kirby Puckett and his Puck Pack (he was a horrible person off the field, let that be known), Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds, Maddux, Randy Johnson...a who's who of people to market, real quick, name me the most marketable star in baseball right now?  I'll go ahead and wait.

Oh Mike Trout you may say?  Yeah, what does he look like?



Is this him?  Or is it Tim Salmon?  Maybe it's Bryce Harper?  Maybe Clayton Kershaw?



Is this Clayton Kershaw?  Because if you thought it was you are wrong, although he has a striking resemblance to Fernando Valenzuela.



Besides the Chicago Cubs World Series win in 2016, has there been anything marketable about the sport lately?  Are you super excited to see the Diamondbacks play the Reds on a Sunday?  Can you name a single player on either if you were a casual fan?  To compare leagues could you name a few Bengals or Cardinals if they were to play football this fall?  I bet you can at least name 4-5 as a casual fan of the NFL. 

I love baseball, and more should really get in to it.  Where baseball is failing is they aren't picking up any steam in this interesting time for sports.  The NFL is having issue after issue, domestic violence, kneeling, concussions, the Cleveland Browns...The NBA is pulling in great ratings...but only for it's playoff games, and more particularly games featuring LeBron James, other than that it's tank city for most franchises and you're getting the same teams in the finals 4 years straight, and now it'll be even more boring with LeBron leaving the east. 

Baseball?  As I stated earlier, bad attendance, bad ratings, no marketable stars.  Let's fix this.

How to Fix Major League Baseball

- allow some emotions!  Bat flips, celebrate after a strikeout!  Show some emotion. 



Market that it's fun!  The players who still go by the "unwritten rules" of baseball suck.  Someone hits a monster home run so the retort is to throw at that hitter the next time he's up?  Suck it up.  If someone does that how about a new rule, that pitcher has to stand in the box and the person batting can throw directly at his stupid face.

- get women involved!  Have you seen how the NFL and NBA have embraced women coaches?  You mean to tell me there aren't capable females who can coach or manage baseball?  And market better to girls and women!  Get them involved in the game, it's another thing the NFL and NBA have a heads up over MLB on.

- speaking of marketing, it's time to market more to African American's as well.  It's embarrassing how few are currently playing the sport.  Growing up most of my favorite players were black, I can't name more than 5 players off the top of my head that play now (Denard Span, Jason Heyward, Carl Edwards...um....okay 3).  Market this sport better MLB! 

- have pyro or fireworks or cheerleaders or awesome intro music for each person.  Get people involved in the live game.  I went to a game this year, and it was fun because I was with my friends, and it was Wrigley which is always great.  But if you're going to a game in Kansas City, which I've also done, it doesn't have that same feel to it.  If you make the game more fun or interactive it won't matter how long the game goes.

Oh and get bad ass entrances.  WWE/UFC, music cranked, pyro, get me amped!

- that being said, some things seem outdated as for the pace.  How many times do you need to attempt to pick off a runner?  They already made it faster to intentionally walk someone, that's good.  The extra innings experiment in the minor leagues I think is an interesting idea (a runner starts at 2nd automatically to start the inning, sign me up!). 

- add two more teams.  Right now it's 3 divisions per league, with 2 wildcards for each.  How about 4 divisions with 4 teams?  Cool.  Make the divisions matter.  The wild card is kind of cool, but I think it's a cheat to the division winner.  As for cities to add?  Charlotte, Montreal or Vegas?  Oh and movie Tampa Bay, dear god they don't deserve a team.

- can we get the managers to stop wearing the jersey's? 



Creepy.  It's just not flattering to see a man over 45 wear a jersey of any sort.  The only way I'd be on board with this in any league is if Bill Belichick put full pads and jersey on for every Patriots game in the NFL or for the NBA coaches to have their own shorts and jersey. 

- do something about the DH.  Either keep it in both or get rid of it.  It's like if the NFL decided to not use a kicker in the AFC and you had to go for two each time, but the NFC made you have the option to kick or go for it.  It's dumb and makes no sense. 

While we're at it, make TV more interesting.  The announcers are boring as all hell.  It's like watching golf with bats. 

For the World Series, have it at a warm weather or domed site, make that a thing.  If you're playing in to October and New York makes it (which they will this year), it's going to snow and you'll have delays. 

- lastly, figure out who your star players are and market them!  If I didn't play fantasy baseball I wouldn't know who most people are, and I LIKE BASEBALL!  Kris Bryant, Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Aaron Judge.  After those guys, there's not much else, and I still couldn't recognize a single one of them off the street. Start building up some players and make them important.  It's what the other leagues do. 

Thanks for reading,

Jeff