"Tha Carter III" Lil Wayne

"Tha Carter III" is a solid offering though it doesn't show any surprises.
So over my long weekend I checked out Lil Wayne's "The Carter III" on my long flight days going to Minnesota from DC via Atlanta so I had plenty of free time.

The album is about what I've come to expect from Lil Wayne infectious beats, catchy hooks and something that will show up in heavy club rotation. It also had what I've come to expect from Lil Wayne, lots of rapping about how hard he is, how many bitches he gets, how many women he racks up, how many vehicles and chains he has and his struggle.

My favorite tracks
"Mr Carter" This track made me think it was a Rockafella joint as it had production by Just Blaze and a Jay-Z cameo. It also has some decent lines about the haters and his struggle in the rap world.

"Let the Beat Build" Kanye has partial production credits on this one and it really is all about the beat building.

I'm going to give a 3 of 5 is solid listenable, but not very deep.

Politicians Lie, Numbers Don't

Slate made a chart showing the economy under Democrat and Republican Presidents and guess what Democrats are better for the economy.

VoodooPad for iPhone

Seeing a port of VoodooPad to the iPhone that syncs with the desktop version would be very sweet.

A Shitty After School Special

We tried this experiment before in Minnesota

Specials at My Favorite H-Street Bar

If you head in and go upstairs tell Lee, DC Dan says hi!

Argonaut Specials

The Moses* Phone aka the iPhone 3G

[please note I'm writing this while drinking a 40 oz of OE so if there are typos whatever]

So my contract with T-Mobile ended on August 16th and being the Apple Fan Boi (that's for you Professor) that I am, I waited in line at the Pentagon City Mall Apple Store to get mine. There is a roped off area outside the store where they have you wait in front of the always tempting Sony Style Store. I waited for about 35 minutes inline during which on of the Apple Store employees would check with people waiting inline to make sure they had their shit together, unsurprisingly many didn't. "I need to have a credit card?; I need to know my phone number?; This isn't the line for Sbarro?"

Anyway after 35 minutes of waiting I was invited in, I talked a very nice person who worked at there who got me setup with in 15 minutes, the only delay was my need to look up my T-Mobile (oh how I loved thee, but I'd be remiss to scorn you for your lack of 3G) account number, which I did using the iMac in front of us. I was impressed because the Apple Store employee knew enough to reset Safari after I got my info to ensure that people wouldn't be mucking around in my account later in the day. She told me, kiddingly, that I'd have to come back tomorrow to pick it to which I replied that's cool I'll just wait in the store. Any activation with the help of the Symbol magic handheld thing that they use had me out of there in 10 minutes and told me that it should be ready to get calls within the hour and a day at the most. It took about 20 minutes which I don't consider too bad considering that I switched providers.

So here is my break down:
The Good:
I only carry one nerd device in my pocket on the regular and the wifi option is nice because when I'm at home, the 18th Amendment or the Tune Inn I've got a fast connection.
The interface is mostly intuitive, I'll touch on this in the bad.
The screen is great.
The form factor is right.
The silent mode switch is genius, I've never seen this on a phone before, I didn't realize that it existed on the original one, though it took me a few minutes to figure out what that "button" did.
Everyone is writing apps for this mofo so all of the cool shit you want is there as a first class citizen.
If there is a battery life issue I haven't noticed it yet.
The correcting for fat fingering spelling is goddamn amazing.
**
The killer app though is Safari mobile, this is the first time that I've used a phone browser that didn't h-u-r-t to use. Is it perfect, hell no but like MC Hammer nothing else can touch this.
**

The Bad:
Syncing is slow, but is flawless
I want to use the home button to go back, not to go to the home screen.


The Ugly:
Really no MMS?

[update] I forgot to mention that I named it Blackberry

*Moses because I was raised Jewish and just like Elvis, Jesus don't mean shit to me.

Tax Plans and the "Middle Class"

How McCain and Obama will change your tax bill

The numbers say a lot, so if you are worried about tax increases from a Obama you only have to care about paying a lot more each year if earn over $603,000 a year.

Apple Event Prediction

My guess is that the new version of iTunes will support DVD ripping, which is why Real announced their DVD ripping solution this week.

Book Recommendation of the Week

Since I spent some time on a plane this weekend I had a chance to re-read "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk such a great book, I may actually go to see this in the theater. Speaking of which I went to see "The Black Night" now I'm not sure that Heath Ledger should get an Oscar, but he certainly deserves to be nominated, great movie.

On Palin and Sex Ed.

One of my pet issues is sex ed. The people on abstinence only side of the house seem to paint a picture that those who are in favor of a full view of sex ed, neglect abstinence. They miss the point.

Abstinence only teaches only one thing the curriculum is incredibly small and can be summed up in one sentence.
"Do not have sex, until you are married." That's it, that's all it doesn't teach you about family planning even if you are married, it just says don't do it. If you do "do it" you will have no clue.

On the other hand sex ed teaches about abstinence, it teaches that if you want to have a very low risk of catching an STD and virtually no chance of becoming a parent. abstinence is the way to go, but it also teaches you that if you decide to have sex (even if you wait until you are married) how to protect yourself from STDs and how to prevent pregnancy.

To show an example of how silly the abstinence only thing is imagine if a first aid class was taught in a similar manner.
"Don't get hurt" was the only lesson, you'd probably be pretty pissed if that is all that was taught wouldn't you?

[ps my editor is out, recovering from a car accident so if the grammar sucks, sorry]