PANDA PANDA PANDA

According to Soundscan tracking numbers, there's 75,000 new music albums released every second. At least 15,000 of those are Hip Hop albums and mixtapes. Nobody has time to listen to all of it, there's just not enough hours in a minute. So, I'm gonna do you a favor, here's two Hip Hop albums from this year that, if you haven't heard 'em yet, it's about time you rectified that:

Telefone by Noname – Female artist from Chicago, her first mixtape, it's the happiest album about bummer happenings that you'll hear today. It sounds like looking out a window on a day that's almost too warm but is actually just right.

Malibu by Anderson .Paak – California dude, second proper album, it's full of big sounds like horns and drums that make you shake ya butt, and small sounds like subtle background vocals and funky bass lines that keep your head nodding. It's an album that's very inviting and too cool for words.

Also, maybe just listen to Panda by Desiigner over and over until you love it? Then maybe keep listening until you're completely sick of it? Then listen even more times until the word Panda loses all meaning? Then listen like five more times? Then you'll be where I'm at. That's where I'm at.

Whoa, hey, isn't there a new Time Cheetah page you could be reading? What are you doing here? Time Cheetah fights an AI Stalin! Check it!

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THE MAKING OF STALIN ISLAND PT 1

We don't often talk about how Time Cheetah came to be, but let me tell ya: this page has been many years in the making. I'll paint you a picture:

Cut to the fall of 2013. Beyonce caused a blackout at the Super Bowl, the Harlem Shake came and went in about 5 months, and Miley Cyrus ground her butt on Beetlejuice, which traumatized more people than the Red Wedding. My brother Alejandro and I sat around a table, discussing some Time Cheetah. Specifically, how the hell are we supposed to start this thing? We needed to introduce people to the idea of a dude with a cat head who doesn't talk and can travel through time—in a fun, ridiculous adventure. Not a lot of precedent for that, unfortunately.

My brother and I brainstormed for a while, before I mentioned numbers stations, of all things. That led to some random conspiracy talk, which led to mentioning lost Russian cosmonauts. Seemed like a good idea: Time Cheetah fighting dudes in USSR spacesuits. But where does he run into these cosmonauts?

That's when my brother brought up some history: apparently, there's a set of islands known as the Kuril Islands, part of which have been under dispute by Russia and Japan ever since WWII. What if a bunch of cosmonauts crash landed on one of the islands—lost to the history books due to some territorial disputes—and Time Cheetah arrives to fight them? So far so good, but nowhere near ridiculous enough...

And that's when we hit it: the cosmonauts aren't the only threat on the island! The island is a full of abandoned Russian labs and facilities, a place full of crazy, secret experiments! And the craziest secret of all: Stalin A.I.! A computer intelligence imbued with the mind of Joseph Stalin. He'd be a pixelated face on a computer screen, complete with ridiculous mustache. And this rogue A.I. would command the cosmonauts to take our hero down!

But if Stalin was on this island, then he'd want everything to be communist: communist labs, a communist theme park on the island, and even... a mountain with his spittin' image carved on it like Mount Fucking Rushmore! And that became Stalin Island.

There were still A LOT more hurdles to clear and changes to make before the story you're reading now came to be (spoilers: there's no cosmonauts anymore and the communist amusement park also fell by the wayside). But you could trace a direct line from that moment of moronic inspiration to this very page that you can read now. On the internet. For free.

Back then, I don't think we could imagine how far we'd get on our Time Cheetah journey. Looking back now, I don't think we knew just how fucking stupid the idea of a Stalin computer really was. And let me tell you: it's not even the stupidest idea in this story. Please keep coming back, faithful readers, and continue to be surprised at just how dumb Time Cheetah can get!

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From Art Exhibit to Blade 2

Alejandro reporting in, having hacked my brother's account to give you all the hottest tip of the season: Guillermo del Toro's new special exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts is amazing. 

Del Toro is one of Mexico's greatest contributions to the world, behind only the Chile Relleno. He's the visionary behind Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy and even Pacific Rim; and the exhibition is full of props from these films. You can witness the craft and care taken to create these films up close!

But Del Toro is ALSO kinda insane and collects a worrying amount of horror parafernalia that is also on display. The exhibition is actually set up to kinda mirror his 'Bleak House', a private man-cave full of life-size horror movie replicas and confusing contraptions instead of flat screens and nachos.

It's a fantastic exhibit. They even have TV's set up that have montages of his work, showing his artful cinematography and poignant themes. 

You know what else they show? Dope ass footage from Blade 2. You know what's on Netflix? Blade 2. Watched it that night.  I got a double dose of Del Toro in one day, and I loved it. 

Go to the exhibit and go check out the newest page of Time Cheetah. Our heroes walk into the scene of a horrible crime, could the perpetrators be club dancing vampires? Stay tuned!

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Cinema Solo

In today's New Time Cheetah Page, our titular hero expresses his absolute need to go at it alone. I found myself admiring his confidence in this decision, and so I too decided to go at it solo.

I went to the movies yesterday. Alone.

What?! How could you be so handsome and reckless, Alejandro? Society deems movie-going to be strictly a group activity, and those who choose to go alone are outcasts. 

Well today I tell you it was GLORIOUS. One ticket was cheaper, at a show time of my convenience, and gone were the debates of where to sit or what to eat. There was only one decider in this trip, ME, and I exercised my freedom with an iron fist. That the movie, Hell or High Water, was an excellent Texan Crime Drama was but icing on the cake.

So I plead with you: the next time you feel the urge to go to the movies alone, do it. Be like Time Cheetah. He's a strong, independent agent who don't need no Rodriguez!

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