This weekend, Apollo came to Idaho to celebrate his grandma’s birthday. We were planning on hanging out, so I told him I’d drive over to his grandma’s house in Payette and give him a ride to the airport so he could fly back home.

When I talked to him on Friday, he told me that he had a gift for me to make me say “Damn!” When I got there today, he gave me a bag from Rasputin Records. In it was the DVD of Krush Groove. When I pulled the DVD out of the bag, I did, indeed, say “Damn!”
If you’ve never seen this movie, here is a quick summary. Krush Groove stars Run DMC, the Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow and Sheila E. It also has New Edition, L.L. Cool J and is the first film performance by Blair Underwood. (He’d been on an episode of Knight Rider and the Cosby Show previous to this movie. Thanks IMDB.)

The story revolves around a small independant record company that has a few up and coming stars. Greed and personality clashes in the group threaten to ruin the whole thing. This is a fun movie from the 80’s when rap was fun and sometimes silly.

One of the greatest parts of this movie is when Krush Groove records is holding auditions. In comes LL Cool J, then a fairly unknown artist. The Krush Groove crew say “Sorry…auditions are over. Come back next week!” LL shouts “Box!” and his homeboy starts the giant boombox he’s carrying. Then LL proceeds to kick the first verse of I Can’t Live Without My Radio. That short scene pretty much stole the show.

This is a fun movie and it is such a nostalgia thing for me. Good lookin’ out, Apollo. Now they just need to get Tougher than Leather on DVD.

While I’m at work, I like to listen to/watch podcasts. The majority of the ones I watch are tech news podcasts, such as T.W.I.T. and GeekBrief.TV. I enjoy getting the different perspectives on what’s going on in technology.

The latest one I’ve found is TeXtra, hosted by Natali Del Conte. Like GeekBrief.TV, TeXtra is on the PodShow Network. TeXtra is a technology news podcast with some culture and humor thrown into the mix. It is recorded on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The show mixes a professional look and feel of a quality television program with the accessability of a podcast. Natali, being an established tech journalist, does a great job in presenting tech news. She is knowledgable, funny and cute. She sometimes seems a little nervous on camera still, however. I’m sure that will improve as she does more shows.

I would recommend this podcast to anyone interested in finding out what’s going on in the world of technology. I enjoy it and will continue watching.