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Hooray for school being done next Monday. Then Project Graduation and Dethklok.
What are the upcoming tournaments besides the one in Watertown? Are there going to be any big tournies?
Cause All You Have To Do In Meelle Is Hit L Afte R You Attack And Ou Win. Whow Is That Skill?cause All You Have To Do In Meelle Is Hit L Afte R You Attack And Ou Win. Whow Is That Skill?
Good story, Jam. I agree with <3 that the pacing was kinda fast, but it was a good read nonetheless.http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=4700136#post4700136
My new short story. Read it GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO
It happens on some stages. The Ganoncider probably hit one of Port Town's roads but the Ganoncidee was just a little bit past the edge of the road and fell to their doom. I've also seen it happened on Norfair when I (the Ganoncidee) died before Boxman (the Ganoncider) because the lava came up practically 1 frame later.I just Ganoncided my wife on Port Town...but I survived somehow.
since i dont feel like adding tons of quotes, everything in all caps is a response from me:
haha u wish
Hell yea.I love Liv Tyler's body..>____>;
LMAO that happens in movies. or with really old crazy people. who aren't even religous. and are crazy.Lol really? Don't live near the Boston area too? I would imagine there would be a lot of hardcore Red Sox fans who would swear on their mothers ashes God is a Sox Fan.
You were raised JW right? Or am I mistaken? They have really bad theology. But regardless I don't think that the fact that there's suffering in the world makes it impossible for people to be or feel blessed. Like I said there's a difference between being thankful for what you (for some reason) have and being *proud* of it.The story I offered was simply an over exaggeration on how my mom and many people in her generation feel. I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm an atheist however this doesn't stop her from telling me god has blessed her and our family through tough times.
Then again all I have to do is mention Ethiopia and she goes away for a month.
I find that to be a fairly common misconception of prayer these days. People think it's some selfish shopping list where you list all your needs (wants) out and then wait for them to be filled. Or people looking for slightest direction pray and then expect a voice to come down and be like "Ryan.......apply to this job.....move to this town.... order the hummus sandwich....it's goooooood". I certainly don't think it's a one way street, though. I just think people misinterpret it and should rather Trust that tho God can work in their lives it's probably mostly in ways they can't recognize. It's a deep subject and one for another thread lol. Paul in his letter to the people of Thessalonia "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances"I never understood the whole meaning behind prayer it just seemed like something that would promote selfish actions.
no johns sonI also use Shiek and from what people tell me....its pretty good.
And who isnt a tier crapper anyway?
Anyone who is anyone that is good in Brawl uses the top 5-10 best characters.
Look at Ankokus tier list that he has assembled from tourney results.
Meta Knight and Snake own the rankings.....How is that different from people using Fox, Falco, Shiek, and Marth in Melee?
ok, once i get gas moniesi dont wish i know, come play me and you'll see : ]
I found this to be the most poignant statement in the entire essay.It's fantasy to them, in the same way that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are: visceral representations of a life they will never experience.
Jam, that was a beautiful read. I look forward to your future thoughts on this matter.I'm going to stop at this point. I could keep going for much longer, but I think I've said all that needs to be said right now.
Okay, here's my promised response about rao music. PLEASE NOTE- This is all my own personal conjecture, and as such, I may be totally wrong in my analysis and my conclusions. Take everything here with a grain of salt:
African-American music has always been about two things: struggle and celebration. The truly American forms of music that we have today have their common roots in the blues, which by definition is a genre of music characterized by woe and pain. From there, musical forms like jazz, rock & roll, R&B and rap all sprung. One of Elvis Presley's idols was Muddy Waters, the famous blues singer from Mississippi. In addition, several of the early rock and roll pioneers were black, such as Bo Diddly, Chubby Checker, Little Richard, etc. Due to their common ancestries and the similar people who influenced both, rap and rock are much more similar than most people will admit.
Rock and Roll in particular was a more celebratory take on the foundation that the blues laid. "Sex, drugs and rock and roll" is one of the many phrases that illustrates this. And out of rock grew rap, an inner-city version of that good-time music. One can look at rap as rock for the economically disadvantaged: the tools required in early rap were far less numerous and far less costly than their rock counterparts. Rap, in the beginning, was essentially party music: it lent itself very well to the block-party nature of the inner cities, and the playfully combative nature of the residents of these areas were infused into the music in the form of "battles", where rappers would take turns insulting each other.
That party music atmosphere would dominate in the early 80's, and it wasn't until the appearance of rappers like Big Daddy Kane, Rakim and others that rap took on a more overtly combative tone, but even this was in a bragadocious, jokey kind of way. It was "I'm a better rapper than you, and here's why" kind of mentality. Beef was present, but not in problematic ways.
Music is a reflection of social conditions though, and the 80's quickly became a dark time for inner-city communities. The plagues of crack, teen pregnancy and STD's descended on the black communities, and gangs and violence were not far behind. Beneath the gleaming exterior of the Reagan years, the cities were rotting from the inside out, and this soon found expression in the culture's music.
It's not surprising that rap took on a more negative tone in the 90's. In fact, it was not the only genre to make this transformation. Nirvana became a mega-hit around the same time due to their darker, more topical form of "grunge" rock. But while grunge was dark, rap took a sudden detour towards violent subject matter with the success of the rap group NWA. Many consider this the birth of "gangsta" rap, where the topics focused more on selling drugs, killing cops and the struggles of everyday life in the inner cities of California. Soon, the happy-go-lucky and semi-combative styles of the 80's were drowned out by a chorus of voices that expressed, and sometimes glorified, the types of inner-city horrors that many people did not realize existed.
From there, gangsta rap spread rapidly on the West Coast, and quickly reached across the country. The boom in gangsta rap reached its crescendo with several high-profile incidents, culminating with the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. It was at that point that the industry seemed to have a gut-check moment: suddenly, people who were rapping about guns and death were actually getting shot and dying. Things quieted down for a few years, until the summer of 1998. That was the summer of Cash Money, and the message of rap changed again. No longer was violence the main topic: instead, an almost ludicrous focus on materialism took center stage.
To this day, the rap world revolves around who has the most diamonds, the most cars, the biggest house and the most women. In recent years, a focus on lyrical talent has resurged, with rappers like Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and others leading the charge. Still, they cannot compete with the sheer commercial power of 50 Cent, who mixed equal parts materialism and ghetto-machismo to huge success.
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So, there is the history lesson. But what does it all mean? Why has rap music come to the point it is at today? I don't believe there was ever a "golden era" or rap: there's always been more crap than good music. But today there just seems to be so much MORE crap than good music. Music has always been a hit-driven industry, but it's gotten to the point where seemingly every week a new rapper is the "Best Rapper of All Time", and no one is interested in cultivating talent. They're all looking for the next one-hit wonder. P. Diddy perfected this search, and it has become the industry standard ever since. These are the top five rap albums this week according to the Billboard charts (in album name/artist name format):
1. II Trill/Bun-B
2. Trilla/Rick Ross
3. Fight with Tools/Flobots
4. Still Da Baddest/Trina
5. Units in the City/Shawty Lo
I've never even heard of four out of five of those artists.
The formula for fleeting (but massive) success in the rap world seems to be mixing violence, drugs, and misogyny with some clever rhymes, but that's only 25%. The other 75% includes production and marketing. We are at a unique point in musical history, where the names of the producers are just as famous as the performers. Under different circumstances, we would celebrate this as those who are behind the scenes finally getting the recognition they deserve. But what this really means is that the producer is more important than the artist. People listen to rap more for the beat than the actual rhymes. In this climate, lyrical skill has degraded to an almost non-existent point. No one cares though, because the beat is hot.
When we do take a look at what the lyrics do say, it's almost depressingly negative. These are the partial lyrics from the #1 single on Billboards Hot 100 list, Lollipop by Li'l Wayne:
This is the #1 song in the country right now. True, Li'l Wayne also has a song about the destruction that Hurricane Katrina brought to his hometown of New Orleans, but he and his bosses have decided to market Lollipop aggressively enough that it became the #1 song. Lyrical content has always been the Achilles' Heel of rap, where all the critics have aimed in order to take it down. These attacks are deflected with grand appeals to the First Amendment and freedom of speech, but recently I've started to realize that the freedom to speak freely comes with the burden of speaking responsibly. Rappers, on the whole, reject this responsibility.[Intro: Lil Wayne]
Ow…
Uh Huh No Homo…
Young Mula Baby
I say he so sweet
Make her wanna lick the rapper
So I let her lick the rapper
[Hook: Lil Wayne]
Sh, sh, she lick me
Like a lollipop
She, she lick me
Like a lollipop, lollipop
Sh, sh, she lick me
Like a lollipop, lollipop
She, she lick me
Like a lollipop
[Chorus: Static Major + Lil Wayne]
Shawty wanna thug
Bottles in the club
Shawty wanna hump
You know I'd like to touch
Ya lovely lady lumps
[x2]
Anyone who's listened to more recent gangsta rap has heard the same line in many different ways: I'm still hood. From Memphis Bleek to Jadakiss to 50 Cent, these multi-millionaires go out of their way to ensure the listener they're still on the block selling drugs, robbing, stealing, killing, etc., trying to "get rich or die tryin'". We all know that's not true. 50 Cent recently bought (and sold) Mike Tyson's former mansion in Farmington. You don't get much further from the hood then a house in Farmington with over forty bathrooms. As anyone who's spent time in the inner city will tell you, it is not somewhere they would want to be if they had a choice. So why are rappers constantly trying to convince the listener that it's not only where they want to be, but it's where they are? Rock music has the same destructive, violent and misogynistic sub-genres, but they don't enjoy anything near the level of success that gangsta rap does. What's the difference?
Frankly, it's because that's what the listener wants to hear. More white people than black people buy rap albums. These are people that are vicariously experiencing inner-city life. They don't actually have to deal with the problems that these lyrics are shedding light on, but they like to hear about "Money, Cash, Hoes" and how many bullets a Glock can hold. It's fantasy to them, in the same way that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are: visceral representations of a life they will never experience. But how does that explain the sizable amount of inner-city and minority people who also buy this? They don't need the vicarious thrill, because they live it every day.
"Misery loves company" sums it up pretty well. The African-American community has been struggling for so long, that we have come to identify with, glorify and even love struggle. If you get out of the hood, off the block, into school, out of jail, off welfare, out of an abusive relationship, married, don't have four kids by 25 or do anything positive to get out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that has locked generations of people in projects, then you are a "sellout" and you don't understand the struggle anymore. Terms like pimp, hustler, gangster, G, hood chick and a host of others have positive connotations now. We constantly degrade each other by referring to each other as the N-word and the B-word. School isn't cool, you're hard if you've been to prison, and the only successful black faces you see on TV are those that belong to rappers, singers or sports stars.
One in three black men in this country are in some phase of the criminal justice system. Almost 70% of black children in this country live in single-parent households. There are more black men in prison than in college. Yet these aspects of our community are glossed over by our "leaders" who have the audacity to blame the woes of an entire race of people on the "white man", as opposed to trying to address the true roots within our own communities, homes, and families. We are not embarrassed by what is presented to the entire world as "Black Entertainment Television", a 24-hour parade of scantily clad women, iced out performers and lowest-common-denominator comedians. We don't demand more from ourselves, and expect reparations, welfare, forty acres and a mule, or whatever it is that we're waiting for to finally turn our situation around ourselves. Instead, we demand Affirmative Action, make a huge cry when a videogame is designed with African zombies, and turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the fact that young black men are killing each other on a scale that approaches genocide. The enemy is not the white man, it's ourselves. Our lack of motivation, of role models, of courage, or knowledge, of hope.
Given all of that, is it any wonder that rappers only sell us what we already believe about ourselves?
I'm going to stop at this point. I could keep going for much longer, but I think I've said all that needs to be said right now.
LOLLMAO that happens in movies. or with really old crazy people. who aren't even religous. and are crazy.
Baptized Greek orthodox but my mom basically raised me as a catholic till the time I was ten or so. Then the JW faith was more a less pushed onto me.You were raised JW right? Or am I mistaken? They have really bad theology. But regardless I don't think that the fact that there's suffering in the world makes it impossible for people to be or feel blessed. Like I said there's a difference between being thankful for what you (for some reason) have and being *proud* of it.
And thats why I'm going to stop discussing this in this thread LOL. because I know for a fact if I started it wouldn't stop for at least 3 months LOL.I find that to be a fairly common misconception of prayer these days. People think it's some selfish shopping list where you list all your needs (wants) out and then wait for them to be filled. Or people looking for slightest direction pray and then expect a voice to come down and be like "Ryan.......apply to this job.....move to this town.... order the hummus sandwich....it's goooooood". I certainly don't think it's a one way street, though. I just think people misinterpret it and should rather Trust that tho God can work in their lives it's probably mostly in ways they can't recognize. It's a deep subject and one for another thread lol. Paul in his letter to the people of Thessalonia "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances"
lol 2 strikes against you. >_>Baptized Greek orthodox but my mom basically raised me as a catholic till the time I was ten or so. Then the JW faith was more a less pushed onto me.
LOLthanks modest egoist!
lol 2 strikes against you. >_>
Next time I see you, I'll bring some of the literature, while it's hilarious (at least from my perspective) It's rather interesting LOL.I got my first ever JWs come to my door the other week... well it was like 2 months ago... but I enjoyed debating them lol. They sure don't listen though. Also pretty pissed I didn't take their watchtower.
LOL, I know for a fact that if you're a JW you're more a less encouraged not to associate with non-JW's. Though they'll deny this it's very obvious when you actually talk to them. They make no reference of friends outside of the community (if any at all.) They're home schooled.edit: Aesir tell us the dark secrets!
I knew about the Trinity thing definitely, the whole denying the true divinity of Jesus ectNext time I see you, I'll bring some of the literature, while it's hilarious (at least from my perspective) It's rather interesting LOL.
LOL, I know for a fact that if you're a JW you're more a less encouraged not to associate with non-JW's. Though they'll deny this it's very obvious when you actually talk to them. They make no reference of friends outside of the community (if any at all.) They're home schooled.
The religion as a whole denies blood transfusions, so as you can tell that would leave to some rather preventable deaths.
blah blah..
More a less it's like Scientology, only the Christian version.
They also deny the holy trinity which more a less is a staple to being a Christian. It's like polytheism almost. They view Jesus as a separate entity, and the holy spirit as an active force.
furthermore they seem to deny basic freedoms, their whole watchtower society is like some weird thing taken out of the dark ages.
Theres some articles about this I could dig up and in all honesty I wasn't even aware of this until I was like 18 or so. Once I learned about it I connected the dots and more a less yeah LOL.
Watch Attack of the Clones, you haven't seen horrible yet.I watched The Phantom Menace with my wife last night. What a horrible movie.
FINAL DESTINATION capsno Birthdays.
No Sex. (until Marriage Anyway)
Guess What That Means?
No Birthday Sex.