Exploring Choice and Finding Dignity » Pit Fat

My Personal Top 20 Rap Names of the Twenty-Seventh Century

ryanwoods — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 07:38:57 +0000

Do you ever feel like you’re taking crazy pills? Seriously, I feel like I’m so out of the loop on this one that I must be nuts. If I called myself P diddy, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, or Gnarles Barkley and tried to be cool or tough or bad ass or whatever…I’d accomplish none of those feats. Those aren’t bad ass names! Those are kiddie names. Right? Am I crazy? Even if you’re holding a gun I’m going to have a hard time fearing you if you call yourself “Snoopy”, “Charlie Brown”, or “Pigpen”. I’m just sayin’.

And what about the redundancy of the hip-hop scene? While I am fully aware that switching a “K” for a “C” is fun, and while I know that a “$” is always better than an “s” at some point don’t the people within the hip hop scene start to observe the awkwardness of over usage?! We can all spell our names wrong on purpose in silly and interesting ways but it doesn’t make it creative or new. I could call myself “Rye Anne” and probably be quickly accepted within the hip hop community. But “Rye Anne” is kind of a stupid name.

If this is the norm that the hip hop/rap community has accepted, if this is the game they have decided to play, then I’m going to give it a go. I give complete permission to any budding star to use the names I suggest below.

Sir Ca$h
Cilla’ (No, that’s not Spanish. It’s “killer” with the “k” switched to a “c” and an “a” and apostrophe replacing the “er”)
Gnotty Pippen
2-D (like the girl from Facts of Life or as in two dimensional…which just so happens to be how my rhymes are going to smack your face)
Ice Latte
Ice Cream
Cream
TMWGMDCIHG (it could stand for something like “The Man Won’t Get Me Down ‘Cause I Have a Gun”
50 Gigs (pronounced “fiddy gigs”)
Toast Master Deluxe
Deluxe Master Toast
Master Deluxe Toast
Toasty Deluxe
Little Bill (or lil’ Bill)
Doc Chicken
Mick E. and the Gang Haulas
Hypocritz
Boossta
McPickle and the Pickle Gang
Fryd
€lvira (Yes, that’s the Euro sign. How awesome and bad ass is a Euro symbol instead of an E?”
Christian Bale

While I realize that this rap and hip hop is all about the musik and all that jazz…but…I mean…come on! Can’t you still call something goofy and/or redundant when it is! Ke$ha? Lil’ Wayne? T-Pain? Gnarles Barkley? Ice Cube? McPickle and the Pickle Gang? Those are like kiddie playground names, and they’re…well…they’re just redundant in the hip-hop/rap scene. It’s time we all try to be as innovative as Eminem and spell out our initials.

Sincerely,

Arghdubbleyou

Double Rainbow Excellence. What does this mean?

ryanwoods — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:04:05 +0000

I feel like I should be able to make some deep spiritual application about joy or something. But I just can’t do it. I just can’t.
Double rainbow. Double awesome.

Jewel Dupes Crowd at Karaoke Bar

ryanwoods — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 03:18:45 +0000

This is awesome

Undercover Karaoke with Jewel from Jewel

A Day in the life of a photo a day

ryanwoods — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 06:13:22 +0000

The last few days I have been intrigued by a few photographers who took a photo of themselves every single day. The most amazing story is of Jamie Livingston who took a polaroid of himself every day for 18 years until he died of cancer in 1997. You’ve got to check out the website that has posted all of his photos: http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/ its sad to see him slowly deteriorate in his final year of life.

More recently you can see Noah Kalina take a digital photo of himself everyday starting back in 2000: http://everyday.noahkalina.com/ You can see his youtube video that has gone viral below. This video only chronicles six years (some 2300 days!) worth but is a fascinating watch!

I’m intrigued by one main thing. One, is how valuable and powerful a steady and consistent routine can be. If we commit to doing something every single day it becomes something more than it ever would have been on its own. This fits positive things like saying something you appreciate about your spouse every night at bedtime, to negative things like drinking a couple glasses of wine. You do either of those things every single day for 10 years and something changes. It becomes something more.

Will we commit to anything? If we don’t…haven’t we then already done so?

Charlie Korsmo Vs. Ben Savage

ryanwoods — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 01:15:09 +0000

Remember Charlie Korsmo? Does the name ring a bell? Oh, you cannot forget little Jack in the movie Hook can you? How about Dick Tracy or What About Bob? The kid was cute as kittens (yes, I did just type that) and was supposed to win the Oscar for his Hook performance. Instead Gene Hackman won the coveted best supporting actor award for his work in Unforgiven (as a side note, umm, remember Curly from City Slickers? Yeah, he won best supporting actor the year before. Something is wrong with America) But little Charlie has not been seen or heard from since his performance in Can’t Hardly Wait back in ’98. All in all, despite his acting prowess Charlie was only in a total of seven movies.

Ben Savage was known for his work in Boy Meets World. While he garnered significantly more film and television roles he was really only known because of his seven year run as Corey on Boy Meets World and as the real life younger brother of Fred Savage from the Wonder Years. Oh Ben, you and Topanga were the perfect couple and I in no way felt awkward watching your love develop through your post-pubescent years.

Today Ben and Charlie find themselves as bitter enemies. Why? Why, you might ask? Well Charlie graduated from Yale law school and spends his time fighting for the Republican party while Ben graduated from Stanford University and for a period of time was an intern to Arlen Specter the well known Democrat. While they are brothers when it comes to the childhood acting ring, the are bitter enemies when it comes to their adult responsibilities. Ben drinks Sprite while Charlie drinks rootbeer. Charlies likes to ski while Ben snowboards. They have become the bitterest of enemies despite their amazing similarities.

The exciting reality is that it will all come down to a fight, a fight to the death, a fight to celebrity death. My money is on Charlie. While he didn’t really get the ladies, he does have sword fighting experience, not to mention the fact that he’s friends with Thudbutt who has that killer roll thing he does. That’s the one rule I live my life by, never bet against a dude who has a friend who can curl himself up into an impenetrable ball and roll around and knock people (including, but not limited to pirates) over.

Beard

ryanwoods — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:17:38 +0000

Ever wonder what I’d look like with a beard? Now you won’t have to use your imagination. (oh, and I realize it looks like a mug shot, but I’m fairly certain that’s what would happen if I got an awesome beard.)

Team Coco and Cynicism

ryanwoods — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:48:57 +0000

I don’t watch any late night talk shows, but if I did it would be Conan. Watch this clip below and watch it till the end. His words on cynicism are excellent and timely. I, myself, have a very hard time not being cynical and am working hard on it (though, if you ask me I’d have to say I’m doing a terrible job of it and probably will give up on it soon*).

Speeling

ryanwoods — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:14:16 +0000

I thank the Lord for spell check. I’ve never been a great speller, I don’t know if I should blame my homeschool education, my brain malfunctions, or just a lack of effort on my part. But whatever the reason I can’t spell worth beans. In our electronic age it hasn’t really been much of a problem either. I managed just fine through my bachelors degree without needed to spell correctly (thank you again Microsoft Word), but it’s at this point in my life that I’m being reminded on a nearly daily basis how poor my spelling really is.

You see, when your kids get to a certain age they begin to understand everything that you say. If I comment to my wife during dinner “Oh, you should run to the store and get some ice cream for after the kids go to bed” the kids will them comment with “I want ice cream too!” So you start to do what nearly all parents never want to do. You start to spell things out. “Mmm, honey you know what sounds good? I-c-e c-r-e-a-m.” This way the kids are either forced to live in ignorance or forced to learn to spell (both of which are valuable options). But here’s how things usually work at my house…

I say, “Mmm, you know what sounds good right now? C-h-o-c-o-l-a-t c-h-i-p c-o-o-k-e-s”

Or sometimes Jess says “Hey maybe we should take the kids down to the c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n-s m-u-s-e-u-m later” and I’m like “what? can you spell that slower? You want to take them to the…ch…OH! I get it! Yeah that would be a great idea!”

I feel like an idiot…maybe I am.

Last week we were able to be around our good friends from Canada Aaron and Amy. It was great. Except that Aarons an english snob. No, he’s not from England, but he’s one of those people who correct your english if you use the wrong tense or something. Aaron, if you’re reading this I want you to know with all my heart that I won’t let you leave your church planting work in Canada to plant a church down here in Washington with us unless you stop. And i mean that.

So with that said, to all of you who correct spelling and grammar in an instant messaging conversation or in a text message…shame on you. Its over betwen us.

Good Times

ryanwoods — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:33:27 +0000

I’m so irritated right now. As it turns out most, if not all, of the emails sent out over the last week or two have not actually been sent. Outlook says that they’ve sent, but they never show up! Incredibly frustrating especially for a guy who does much of his work via email.
And to top it all off, one of our chickens got murdered by a cat/racoon last night! And today while I’m trying to figure out this whole email thing our remaining three living chickens escaped through the space made by the aforementioned aggressor! Now I’ve got chicken poop on my hands after trying to catch them, I’m even more behind on everything that I’ve got to get done, and I’ve still got two sick girls at my house that I’m trying to take care of.
Good times.

You can’t make this stuff up

ryanwoods — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:30:22 +0000

This story is like a bad Disney movie…except for the fact that it’s true and it’s a great story and it’s not Disney it’s the Yankees…which may be worse.

Anyway, here’s the deal, Brett Gardner is a backup player for the Yankees. He’s not real good. He’d hit 1 home run in his two year career in over 200 at bats. He only hit the ball a quarter of the time (which isn’t all that bad…but not all that good either). He’s just a utility player.

Well Brett was reading stories to some kids at a hospital when one of them, a die hard Yankees fan, gave him a bracelet that said “hope” on it. I think it was one of those bracelets that help support causes. She asked him if he would take the bracelet and then hit a home run that night at the game. Brett told her that he’d do his best and give it a shot.

That night he wasn’t even scheduled to play, but a third of the way through the game one of the players on the roster before him got ejected. Brett not only got to play but he hit an inside the park home run (which is quite rare in todays baseball game). Cool story right? Little used reserve gets asked to hit a home run in a game that he isn’t even play in, and then he ends up playing half way through the game and not only hits a home run but hits an inside the park homer! Great story right? Well how about this, the very next day that girl who had been waiting for a heart transplant for three months got news that there was a heart for her!

Thats right, sick girl asks reserve player to hit a home run. He comes into the game late, hits a unique home run and then girl gets heart transplant next day.

Go ahead Disney, make your movie…though, I’d suggest that to make the movie better you should replace the sick girl with a talking poodle, switch the Yankees with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and have it end with the girl getting her heart transplant while she watches the backup player and new Pirates leader take his team to the World Series which he wins for them in stunning fashion as he is forced to pitch and play shortstop at the same time and then surprisingly ends up recruiting his hamster Jerry to bat clean up for the Pirates. In the end while the poodle gets her heart transplant both Jerry and the reserve player hit home runs to lead the Pirates to a come from behind victory. The joy that overflows from the Pirates winning the world series causes the poodles dad to come back home and talk to her for the first time since he left her at the age of four. He apologizes for what he did to her and promises that he will always love her and never leave her side again. This is made more possible by the fact that her mom and dad are getting back together and they’re all moving to upstate New York where there is a house waiting for them with a beautiful Christmas tree, lots of presents, and a bow around the front door. The Poodle then says to her parents that “There’s one way this could all be even better.” obviously her parents wonder what, what in the name could she want that would surpass the joy of the home run, the heart transplant, the world series victory, Jerry the hamster, her dad returning home, her parents reuniting, the new house and the many gifts!?! And that’s when the poodle says “a baby brother.”

Roll credits.