So, a month or two back, I ordered myself the following belt buckle as a belated birthday gift to myself, and I was totally stoked to be receiving such an amazing present. It took a while to arrive, as Merch.com was not exactly prompt about sending the thing out, but once it arrived, all was forgiven.

The buckle is a loving recreation of the Maryland license plate, with the letters raised and the Maryland flag shield flat out pops. The photo above truly doesn’t do it justice - even the little screws in te plate are raised, with indents for your imaginary flathead screwdriver to go into. The backside of the belt has the unmistakable Clutch logo imprinted into it, and that’s about all, but that’s cool. The only problem with the buckle, which measures an impressive 2.125 inches by 4 inches, is that the hook is pretty poorly designed and likes to pop free of the belt hole at inopportune moments. Really, today’s belt buckle technology has licked this issue pretty well, and it shouldn’t have been all that difficult to add that little ball on the end of the prong to ensure people’s pants stay up while they’re steady rocking.

All in all, I dig it and, despite the retarded-high price tag, mediocre service from Merch.com and the fact that the buckle pops free at random times, I’d buy it again in a heartbeat. But, hey, I’m kind of stupid that way about some things.

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For all the kerfluffle over Miley “Hanna Montana” Cyrus’ Vanity Fair spread, it’s downright wholesome compared to a campaign that’s popped up on Beijing billboards for Disney underwear. To be fair, the ads aren’t quite at that Victoria’s Secret level of titillating, but it’s still quite disconcerting and disturbing to see girls that look to be 12-13 posing in their skivvies. The billboard on the Slate site is probably the most mild, actually - TMZ has an entire photo shoot that has a grimy, over-airbrushed, near kiddie porn feel to it. Apparently Disney’s China licensing company simply runs their own game without clearing things with Disney corporate, and this is the end result. I have a feeling that freedom is about to go away pretty damn quick, especially with the Olympics coming up.

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During my bi-weekly trip to the local 99¢ Store, I came across the following iPod-styled FM radio and, quite frankly, had the buy one. Take a look for yourself and tell me you could resist.

Cracking the plastic casing open took a little bit of slice and dice, but once I had the radio freed I was pretty stoked to find out that the photo of the dude blowing the sax is permanently stuck to the radio and not just some teasing insert! Bonus Points!

The functionality is predictably limited. You can change stations only by clicking on the “Scan” side of the disc. Clicking “Reset” takes you all the way back to the beginning, and there’s absolutely no indicator of what station you’re currently tuned to. That said, the reception is impressively strong and within seconds of plugging the earbuds into the jack, I was listening to the dulcet tones of the Tom Tom Club.

For a buck, I wasn’t expecting anything much, so I’m pleasantly surprised to be writing this post with the earbuds comfortably pumping music into in my head-holes. Just think - without GoRadio, I may never have known Mariah Carey wrote a song telling her man they can have sex but he better not have the video pop up on YouTube! Oh, silly Mariah…

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Seriously, Snoop Dogg is hands down one of the best dudes ever. Guy’s got a great sense of humor, charisma, amazing rhyme skillz, knows a good hook, and is obviously no dummy because he’s managed to stick around long past hip-hop’s notoriously short and fickle shelf life.

And now the stalwart proponent of cheeba cheeba and former porn magnate is starting a new venture: a series of kids books called “Where’s the Cheese.”

The series will focus on a character called Lil Mouse and her constant quest for cheese, reports AllHipHop.com. The website also claims an animated “Where’s The Cheese” TV show is in development - which may be narrated by Snoop’s daughter Cori ‘Choc’ Broadus.

Last month, Snoop announced his youth is to be turned into an animated series for Comedy Central cable TV network.

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Wayne “Frosty Freeze” Frost, a member of South Bronx South South Bronx-based breakdance pioneers the Rock Steady Crew, passed away last week at the age of 44.

The first public faces (to mainstream American culture, at least) of breakdancing, the Rock Steady Crew were for a time the most widely recognized breakdance crew and some of the people most responsible for the popularity of the dancing style. To that end, they also helped push hip-hop and b-boy graffiti culture into the mainstream.

Frost toured the world with the Rock Steady Crew and other hip-hop artists, including Fab 5 Freddy, Futura 2000 and Kool Lady Blue.

Frost’s appearance with Rock Steady Crew in “Flashdance” spread the breakdance phenomenon globally, said Joseph Schloss, a visiting scholar in the music department at New York University. “He was one of the first B-boys that most people ever saw,” Schloss said.

Graffiti artist and close friend Zulu King Slone, who knew Frost for 15 years, said he was “like a walking hip-hop culture encyclopedia.”

As a member of the Rock Steady Crew, Frost also appeared in several movies on hip-hop culture, including “Wild Style,” “Beat Street” and “Style Wars.” He also appeared on the cover of the Village Voice in 1981.

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How many of you got Rickrolled yesterday? I did, twice - once through an email from a friend and later by YouTube. Not on YouTube, but by the actual YouTube company. Seems they got into the spirit of The Meme that Was Made For April Fools Day by linking all their featured videos on the main page to video of Mr. Astley. In celebration of what might become the biggest meme to date, NewTeeVee has traced the history of the Rickroll all the way back to it’s roots.

May 28, 2007: “Official” You’ve Been RickRoll’d! upload of Never Gonna Give You Up appears online, courtesy of YouTube user YouGotRickRolled. As of April 2008, it has reached nearly 9 million views.

June 15, 2007: Wigantoday.net declares that “the Astley backlash is beginning.” Rickrolling is thus officially here to stay.

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USA Today declared Amazon the number two source for digital music downloads (legal, of course) the other day, behind Apple’s iTunes store, after being around for half a year. Of course, former #2 eMusic isn’t happy with this, so they’ve quietly started a protest campaign with a little blog posting from the CEO of eMusic.

I’d like to address both of these points. First, allow me to point out that no sales or market share figures were cited in the USA Today piece. In fact, the article states that Amazon “won’t say how many songs Amazon has sold but will say that consumers love the experience.” Is that enough for USA Today to make such a bold pronouncement, particularly when there is plenty of widely available evidence to the contrary?

While Amazon isn’t willing to make sales data available, we are more than happy to: eMusic sells more than 7,000,000 songs a month. Seven million tracks of independent music covering everything from Cat Power to Miles Davis. Since Amazon opened its MP3 store on September 25, 2007, eMusic has sold 40,000,000 tracks. Since November of 2003, we have sold almost 200,000,000 songs. These are huge numbers, and firmly back our claims to be the #1 site for independent music and the #2 digital music service after iTunes. Those declarations have not previously been disputed.

Number two, three or twenty three, it doesn’t matter to me. Amazon’s become my de facto choice for buying mp3s for myself, The Wife™ of the little one, it’s just so easy and pleasant to use.

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