Two weeks ago, I was a normal, well-adjusted American man. Now, I'm a fiend in need of repeated fixes. I'm a junkie who can't get enough of that sweet stuff.

I'm addicted to Candy Crush Saga.

Let's say your mail's addressed to the rock you live under. In that case, you may never have heard of Candy Crush Saga. So, let me tell you what it is and what it's like to be hooked.

Candy Crush Saga is a game app. Anyone with an Android phone, iDevice, computer and tons of time to kill can play. It's only been a thing to do since its release in November 2012. And since then, in six short months, Earth's inhabitants have collectively spent the equivalent of 103,000 years playing it. According to King, the game's developer, more than 50 million people play it every day.

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Photos by Autumn de Wilde

If you would have heard the names Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone or Akiva Schaffer six years ago, you probably wouldn't have known who they were. Now the trio has become famous through a combination of their work on Saturday Night Live, their 2007 full-length film Hot Rod, and their mock-rap group The Lonely Island.

It's that same rap group that's finally gone a step too far with their new single, "I Fucked My Aunt," featuring T-Pain.

The song, off the Island's upcoming third album, The Wack Album, starts off with Taccone musing, "Damn, I fucked my aunt.../ I can't believe I fucked my aunt.../ I fucked my aunt, y'all," before jumping straight into the first verse. There, he talks about growing up in the country, summers with fireworks and baseball before saying, "five years later, I fucked my aunt."

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When I think of Taylor Swift, my mind immediately goes to the category it has labeled as "sheer hilarity." From the Kanye incident to the bleating goat videos, the poor girl has become synonymous with accidental antics, and those are the best kind in my opinion.

Taylor, who has skyrocketed to fame thanks to a warbly, country-meets-pop music catalog and a really complicated love life, is just so easy to be amused with.

She's Disney-cute, a tween icon, and has a laundry list of famous ex-boyfriends she uses as the target of her multiplatinum breakup anthems. She's a magnet for silly situations in a modern-day Lucille Ball kind of way, but with that whole "serial dater" problem that Ricky would have put the kibosh on.

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Photo by B. Breaux

Lousiana's Thistle! encounters a little van trouble.

The sheriff department's officer was standing on my doorstep, still trembling with excitement. The red and blue lights from the patrol car flashed over his face, which was incredulous at the site of the person who opened the door at three in the morning - me, a middle-aged, gray-haired man in Nick & Nora PJs with horsies on them.

"We had to take your friend to jail because he was banging on someone's door with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a full-handled axe in the other," he said.

He was trying hard not to let the trace of a smile materialize over his proud face. In this neighborhood, nothing interesting ever happens, so flatfoots in patrol units aren't likely to become gun-pulling guardians of sleeping innocents.

"I almost shot him!," he said with a kind of glee not totally appropriate for such an admission.

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Photo by Marco Torres

You know the hardest conversation I've ever had in regards to music criticism? The one about Lauryn Hill.

It feels as if every time the former Fugees star reappears into public form, there needs to be a hefty, long-form "think piece" about her and her 1998 album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It's arguably the one single album people will not only trumpet its greatness, but literally attempt to chop the heads off of anyone who says otherwise.

Feel free to come at my head, but it's not really a classic. A good album? Yes, even a great one. But it's the initial sign that, post-Fugees, Hill believed in her own greatness far more than the opinion of someone who could have easily reined her in.

And we cannot blame anyone other than ourselves for allowing it to happen.

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Rap music is forever turning out to be a fun influence on things we'd least expect. When your grandmother starts using terms like "turn up," you realize that there is no getting away from it.

Even the creative and artsy folk over at Etsy.com combine their passion for crafts with their admiration of hip-hop. Here are a few of the best, and funniest, Etsy items showing love to rap music.

10. Hand-Embroidered '90s Rap Towels
Another gift idea for the perfect hip-hop homemaker is the set of for beautifully hand-embroidered towels featuring rap legends made by Laurel in LA. The set includes towels with the faces of Tupac, Biggie, Coolio and Snoop Dogg.

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Photo by Marco Torres

Tyler, the Creator

Tyler, the Creator has never been known for being a sensitive man. Quite the opposite, he's known for unambiguous lyrics about controversial and disturbing subjects such as rape, murder, homophobia, and infanticide. One of his most infamous lyrics is from the song "Tron Cat," where he promises to "rape a pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome."

Yeah, that's the kind of rapper we're dealing with here. Nevertheless, he's amassed a fanbase that seems completely willing to take lyrics like that in stride, and has become one of the most popular artists among the younger crowd in recent memory. He even beat Wiz Khalifa, Foster the People, Kreayshawn, and Big Sean for a VMA for Best New Artist.

But some are saying that Tyler has finally gone too far with his recent Mountain Dew ad, which has been accused of being racist, among other things. Well, has he?

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Photo by Groovehouse

Iron Maiden at Cynthia Woods Pavilion in August 2012

Remember being in school and having to listen to all those awful educational songs? Our teachers would do anything to teach us, but most often they really have no idea what will appeal to anyone under the age of 40, so it gets hairy when something perceived as cool, like "that rapping stuff," gets incorporated into lessons.

You might think there hasn't been a good educational song written since Schoolhouse Rock, and you'd be mostly correct in that assessment. However, it hasn't been all bad, even if some educational songs might seem a bit preachy. Here's five of my picks for teacher's everywhere to combine music and education without embarrassing themselves.

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Snoop Lion (formerly known as Snoop Dogg) is a legend in the rap world. Everyone, even grandma, knows who he is. In the past 20 years, the rapper has branded himself well enough to be a household name.

In a recent interview with UK publication The Guardian, Snoop shares his views on a few social issues. One particular issue that Snoop touches is his current views on gay marriage, and says he supports it.

The interviewer, Simon Hattenstone, proceeds to ask Snoop his views on Frank Ocean coming out as bisexual. His response was "Frank Ocean ain't no rapper. He's a singer. It's acceptable in the singing world, but in the rap world I don't know if it will ever be acceptable because rap is so masculine.

"It's like a football team," Snoop continued. "You can't be in a locker room full of motherfucking tough-ass dudes, then all of a sudden say, 'Hey, man, I like you.' You know, that's going to be tough."

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Creative Commons

Cosplay, short for "costume play," is the art of normal, everyday people going balls-out to depict themselves as their favorite fictional characters from comics, movies, video games and television. It's hugely popular, thanks to ComicCon and our obsession with all things pop-culture.

Cosplayers gather at conventions and contests where defense attorneys can morph into Darth Vadar and librarians become Sailor Moon. But seriously, who's more suited for the task than a music artist?

They're dramatic, attention-seeking and competitive. Admit it, you'd be excited to see any of these artists mingling amongst the Chewbaccas and Captain Kirks, but maybe even more so if they cosplayed these recommended characters:

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