I remember the days when I used to get angry at predatory businesses. Those businesses that decided rather than operating an honest establishment and providing a true service to their customers; they would look for any opportunity they could find to rip their customers off under the belief that these consumers were not powerful enough to damage their credibility. Oh, how I love you internet!

Let’s start this saga from the beginning. About a week ago, I purchased a very slick Lexus ES 300 from a dealer in Chapel Hill. Yeah, the game’s been good to me. But not that good. There was a minor problem with the purchase in the fact that the dealer was not in possession of the original keyless entry remotes that should have come with the vehicle. Usually, I would’ve demanded this problem to be rectified prior to the purchase, but the dealer was willing to play ball on the purchase price, so I agreed to eat the cost of replacing the remotes.

I first looked to a Lexus dealership to replace the remote, but their $450 price tag on the new key & programming made eBay a much better option. It cost me about $80 bucks to replace the key (the keyless entry controls are built into the key itself) and the merchant sent programming instructions, that initially scared the shit out of me, but actually worked and it only took me about 5 minutes to program the thing. I was relieved that I had just saved myself a couple hundred bucks and figured the hard part was out of the way. Wrong.

Although, the keyless entry system was now working, I still had to get the key cut. For some reason, Lexus decided to make this process very difficult, by inserting the grooves to their keys inside the metal frame as you can see in the picture above. I called around to Wal-Mart and a couple of other places I knew to handle key duplication, who all told me that they didn’t have the technology to perform that sort of duplication and I would have to find a locksmith.

Finding a locksmith to handle the task was a bit harder than I thought, but I finally talked to a nice old scumbag guy, who recommended Marshall’s Locksmith in Raleigh. I looked them up, found their website and was even able to submit my information online and receive a price quote from them before making the trip out there.

They quickly responded letting me know they could handle the job for $35. Not bad, although still more than I wanted to pay to get a fucking key duplicated.

So I finally make the trip out there today and explained what needed to be done. The inbreed guy behind the counter informed me that they could handle the job…for $125. I gave the guy a cockeyed glare and let him know I was quoted $35 for the job. He was obviously disappointed by the news and began to try to convince me that simply cutting the key may not work because “it may have a transponder chip”, which would require the car to be hooked up to a computer and programmed. Hence the word may in the previous quote, as at this point he was definitely not certain that this would be an issue.

It didn’t make sense to me that the key would need any sort of extra programming, as it was clear that my car was already accepting whatever radio frequency this remote was emitting. I told him I’d take my chances on just having the thing cut.

Clearly disappointed that I wasn’t buying his bullshit, he takes my keys and proceeds with the duplication. This process literally took less than 2 minutes. Not even enough time for me to update my Twitter status about this adventure.

He returns with my newly cut key, rings me up for $35, which he certainly deserved for all that labor he put into this job. Then as he hands me my receipt, he confidently informs me that they will be happy to handle the programming of the transponder when I “decide” to have it done. If this guy had not been about 3 times my size, I would have tried to stab him in the eye with the key right there on the spot. I knew before I got to my car that this key wasn’t going to work and so did he.

And, of course, it didn’t. I’m still not sold on the idea that a transponder has anything to do with this, as the key definitely seemed to fit awkwardly in the ignition and for all I know the guy used some secret locksmith trick to ensure that the thing would come close, but not start the car. Frankly, I don’t care. My problem is that this guy knew from the time I explained the job, what it would entail and I’m confident that he didn’t learn anything new between the time I walked in and after he had processed my payment that would allow him to predict that simply cutting the key would not work.

Rather than spend any more time on this stupid process, I’m cutting my losses and will just shave the non-working key down to function as a keyless entry remote (which is all I wanted to begin with) and continue using the key I’ve got.

As for Marshall’s Locksmith, I’m happy to use my secret search engine optimization tricks to ensure that anytime a customer looks them up, they will not fall prey to their deceptive business practices.

Thanks Marshall’s Locksmith! It was a pleasure being ripped off by doing business with you…

Anybody that can listen to this freestyle from Lil Wayne’s new mixtape and still keep talking about what a great lyricist he is needs to stop listening to hip-hop. I’ve tried to give the dude a chance to convince me that I’m just missing something within his lyrics, but I’ve got to call this like I see it and Wayne is just a rapper with a harmonic flow that sounds good when its matched with the right production. When put with the wrong production his records sound like a DJ who has train-wrecked and has two records playing at different speeds. Hopefully no more Lil Wayne and Soulja Boy collaborations are in the works.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Why do we let Bill O’Reilly get away with these constant attacks on hip-hop? My IQ is above 75, therefore making me predisposed to hating Bill O’Reilly. I wonder about the type of person that listens to this sort of rhetoric and is actually amused by this attempt at a joke. Bill’s condemnation of hip-hop is nothing new, but his attacks are becoming outright disrespectful to the entire culture of hip-hop and have absolutely no substance to back them.

Love him or hate him, Diddy is a power player in the hip-hop industry and epitomizes the success that is obtainable in the business. To put the man on the same playing field as Paris Hilton or to characterize him as a socialite is unfair to someone who has worked hard to achieve success. Furthermore, O’Reilly’s inability to give a reason as to why Diddy will be able to continue to do whatever it is he does, demonstrates that O’Reilly is once again taking a cheap shot at hip-hop to stir the pot, with no political rationale to support his statement.

There’s no denying the fact that O’Reilly is a threat to hip-hop. Most shrug off his remarks as having little impact on the industry because of the assumption that most of the people watching his show don’t listen to hip-hop music. They’re right. But that mindset is a little too obtuse because it ignores the trickle down effect that these attacks have on the people outside of the industry who, unfortunately, gain insight on hip-hop culture from people like Bill O’Reilly. His derogatory remarks about hip-hop cut off potential revenue streams outside of the musical realm, as was demonstrated during the Pepsi-Ludacris fiasco a few years back.

How is it that we can be so powerful as a culture, yet can’t silence a man as weak as O’Reilly?

Jay-Z was honored by the United Nations this week for his humanitarian work that has helped bring clean water to various villages in Africa. When was the last time O’Reilly was recognized for his positive contributions to anything?

Joe Budden made a good point about O’Reilly in the October issue of XXL when discussing the inexplicable reason we let O’Reilly play the role of the hip-hop police.

Who does the checking in hip-hop? In hip-hop? There’s nobody out there. Nobody does it. And then we leave all these people, like Bill O’Reilly, that have no idea what hip-hop means, or what it stands for, or what it’s about, to check hip-hop. They can’t do that. They don’t know shit about hip-hop.

It makes no sense that we have yet to create our own outlet, outside of the music itself, that can counter-balance the viewpoints of people like Bill O’Reilly and others who share misguided opinions on hip-hop. Why is it that any rapper willing to make a fool of themselves on national TV can get their own reality show, yet we don’t have a single show that regularly features hip-hop artists speaking intelligently on the actual reality of the world and issues that are important to us?

We can blame the large corporations, the networks, or the Republicans in general for our lack of progress in presenting an educated hip-hop culture to the mainstream, but I don’t buy it. The power is there, it’s on us to take the initiative to create the outlet. Regardless of what people will say about the intelligence of hip-hop music today, you cannot deny that there are plenty of artists capable of presenting and defending an argument on the same issues O’Reilly talks about every night.

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I dream of the day a rapper can make an intelligent statement on a social or political issue which will be appreciated by the mainstream media for the profound thought and original viewpoint that is being expressed and CNN doesn’t have to create a special segment that says “Look! A rapper had something smart to say!”