If you don't know, now you know...

"I got this money baby, I want to spend it on you...I got this Sunday baby, I want to spend it with you.  We can do what you like, I promise that I'll be true..." - Childish Gambino

Do you ever listen to something or watch a movie, or play a video game, and just love it to death?  Love it so much that you're so excited to talk to someone about it?  And then when you go to school or work you find out that nobody has even heard of it?  I hate that.  For that reason I am going to list some of the shows, music artists, movies and videogames I wish more people knew about.

Music:

Childish Gambino - Culdesac

Download here: http://www.culdesac-album.com/

Best known for playing Troy on my favorite show on television right now, Community, and writing for 30 Rock, Donald Glover is legit.  Despite being able to find him doing stand up comedy, and on classic Youtube videos his rhymes are no joke.  Sure some of them will make you laugh, but he isn't trying to make a comedy album like Weird Al or Lonely Island.  In his mixtapes he often raps over Indy groups such as Discovery and Vampire Weekend.  His album Culdesac has hints of Indy but with Kanye/Lil Wayne caliber rhymes.  Go download his album, it's free!

Television:

Community - NBC Thursdays 8:00pm

I'll be honest.  Before this show aired last year I had no interest in watching it.  A show about Community college with that douche-bag from The Soup?  No thanks.  Unfortunately nothing was on at 8:00pm on Thursday so I decided to check it out.  The first episode was okay, had a few laughs, I enjoyed the way it was shot and the humor...but I wasn't overly impressed.  Still, I liked it enough to tune in for the second episode.  Ridiculousness ensued with Chevy Chase and Joel McHale, giving the worst presentation ever...pretty funny episode.  And then the end credits rolled and Donald Glover and Danni Pudi did the Spanish Rap.  I was instantly hooked.  The great part about this show is that it knows no bounds.  It has reality based episodes like Episode 3 - Introduction to Film where it ends on an extremely touching moment with Abed and his father.  And then it has off the wall episodes like Episode 23 - Modern Warfare where the entire school is engulfed in a paintball war full of classic action movie references and awesome gun fights.  If the episodes aren't awesome enough, the end credits are usually just some delicious icing on top.  Watch this show.

Other mentions: 

Parks & Recreation (Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones)

Lie to Me (Tim Roth)

Movies:

25th Hour - Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Anna Paquin, and Barry Pepper.

One of my all time favorite movies.  A Spike Lee joint, this movie revolves around the last night of a man before he goes off to prison.  Edward Norton is awesome...always.  Just a great story, the best part being a rant that Norton goes on in front of a bathroom mirror.  If you get a chance, put this flick on your queue.

Other mentions:

Confidence (Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz)

Way of the Gun (Ryan Phillippe, Benicio Del Toro)

Jackie Brown (Samuel L. Jackson, Pam Grier)

Heat (Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro)

Video Games:

Mass Effect Series

Despite being the greatest game of all time (IMO and in a lot of game reviewers O) not a lot of people around me have played the series.  Maybe they were turned off by the RPG elements from the first game...or the massive amount of dialog.  Maybe it was the wonky shooter mechanics...boy I'm not really selling this game well am I?  This is definitely a game where the end product is greater than the sum of its parts.  When this title was announced, it was announced as a trilogy.  The first one was ground breaking, the second one just improved vastly on the shooter mechanics, inventory system, and dialog system.  Unfortunately it improved on the first one so much I can't bring myself to go back and play it again.  As I sit here eagerly awaiting the 3rd and final installment to this trilogy I have only a few people to talk to about this wonderful feat of gaming ingenuity.

Other mentions:

Ico

Shadow of the Collosus

Well that's what I have for now.  There are a ton more that I could have added but I can't think of them all.  If you haven't heard of any of these, or thought to yourself, yeah it looks cool but I don't have the time to check it out..give it a shot.  If anything you'll know you'll have someone passionate about any one of these things to talk about it later.

- Joel