You're Going To Be Embarrassed When You Realize I'm Wilmer Valderrama!

One of the surest signs that I am getting older is my taste in music. If the 2008 Me would've told 1999 Me that right now his favorite song was "American Boy" by some British chick and Kanye West, 1999 Me would've punched the 2008 Me in the mouth (but it probably wouldn't have hurt too much, he was a pretty big pussy. Then again, I still am, so all bets are off.)

Back then, my views on rappers were pretty much black and white (whooooaaaa! no semi-racist pun intended.) Either you were gangsta, or you were a poser bitch. If you did multiple songs that prominently featured a chick singing in it, you were a bitch. I wasn't interested in hearing different artists' versatility; I wanted to hear about robbing and shooting and drinking 40s and talking shit about other rappers. If I wanted to hear a song about love, I'd go buy a John Mayer CD. "Your Body is a Wonderland" might be the worst fucking song I've ever heard in my life. But I digress.

In my close-minded opinion, you were either a rapper who rapped about badass stuff, or you were essentially an R&B singer who tried to act hard, but was really a pussy. Dr. Dre? Badass. P. Diddy? Bitch. Wu-Tang? Badass. Ja Rule? Huge bitch. Ice Cube? Badass. Jay-Z, once he started singing duets with Beyonce? Bitch (he would later redeem himself with the Black Album, but for a while there, I was pretty worried. I don't want to hear if you're "so crazy in love." I want to hear about "Big Pimpin, spending cheese.")

Even 50 Cent, who almost single-handedly revived my hope that rap wasn't dead with songs like "Wanksta" and "Back Down", immediately became involved with songs such as "20 Questions" and "Candy Stick"....and that was the end for me and my respect for Fitty.

Now? Meh. For one, rap music sucks, I hate everything about it, so I find it hard to get worked up about 'rappers' singing duets with girls. Whatever floats your boat. I'm still not listening to dudes like Usher sing about his 'boo'....but at the same time, I'm not having those pointless, "it's 4 a.m. and everyone at the party is hammered, so let's start arguing about something stupid" disagreements where I rant about how Ja Rule is ruining hip-hop.

Gotta love 400 word tangents from a white North Dakota kid regarding rap music, when really the only point I'm trying to make is that my favorite song right now is "American Boy" and I find this very strange.



OK, question of the day time. I know that Noles, Horp and I talked about this on The Boards quite a few months ago, but I was reminded of the topic again last week at the Royals/Rays game. Alex Gordon's at-bat music was the exact same snippet of the song that is played during Knocked Up when Seth Rogen is dancing with Katherine Heigl at the club. Consequently, for the rest of the game I was counting down the batters until Gordon came up again, and then dissolving into giggles as soon as he was announced, as I couldn't help but picture Rogen doing the dice move on the dance floor over and over again.

So, the Question of the Day is: if you were a major league baseball player, what would your at-bat music be? Keep in mind that you only get about a 10-second window to hear your song before it cuts out.

"Dude, I think he's doing the dice thing a little too much."

"That's really all he's got."