The Best Things To Do on the Internet This Weekend

Image via Complex Original

You think it was tough getting cut from your JV basketball team? Then try imagining getting the pink slip when millions of dollars and your entire career are on the line. Writing for Peter King's recently-launched website, MMQB, former Jacksonville Jaguar--and current Kansas City Chief--Austen Lane details the thoughts and feelings that go through a player's mind when they're let go by their team. Commenting on his own experience of being cut by Jacksonville earlier this offseason, Lane says, "Ninety minutes ago I was a Jaguar. Now, without warning, I'm ... I don't know what I am." Check out the full thing here and stay tuned for part two of the series in the near future.

Sick of putting together playlists or unable to find any good, new music to listen on? If you're a Spotify user, then fret no more, because Lazify has you covered. Similar to iTunes' Genius feature, Lazify takes all the hard work out of finding some quality tunes by assembling a playlist of up to 50 songs based on one song of your choosing. What makes it an improvement over Genius is that Lazify has all of Spotify's digital catalogue to choose from instead of just your iTunes library. Finding your new favorite band has never been easier. Search "Lazify" in Spotify's App Finder today and download it for free.

Charlie Warzel of the BuzzFeed staff gives a thorough breakdown on the rise of paid-subscriber content on the Internet, and where we can expect that wave to take us in the near future. The trend was somewhat gradual, but after years of getting slammed by file-sharing, illegal downloads, and free content, organizations like the New York Times, Warner Bros. Records, and others are finally finding ways to navigate the economical unpredictability of the Internet age. Warzel explains that, "The rise of paid sites like Netflix coupled with wildly effective crackdowns on online piracy and the shutdown of massive file sharing sites like Megaupload mean that it's now often easier for the average internet user to pay a nominal monthly fee for a Netflix account than navigate the murky waters of illegal streaming and bit torrent sites." What's your method for obtaining the movies, music and content that you want? Spotify? Torrents? Whatever the case, Warzel's piece is a must-read for those looking to better understand today's digital economy. Read it on BuzzFeed.

In the summer months, when blockbuster season is in full swing, there's really no better time to catch up on all those old movies that you've been meaning to watch for awhile now. And to give you a few more names to add to the list, the Pop Culture team has assembled a list of the 50 Foreign Films to See Before You Die. I mean, why would you spend $10 (or more) to watch some overrated action flick when you could watch a classic film like City of God instead? And if you're deciding to see Grown Ups 2 instead of Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave essential, Breathless, then you're most definitely doing something wrong.

The Mad Decent Block Party is making its way to its home city of Philadelphia this weekend, and to get you hyped for it, the team over at Do Androids Dance has been providing a full run-down of the electronic record label's history and roster this week. Says DAD editor, Khal, "For the last seven years, Mad Decent has purposefully put on a number of artists you'd probably never heard of, which is a big part of their staying power." Catch up on all the names you've been sleeping on here.

If you're looking for a definitive era in the history of performance footwear, you may be hard-pressed to find a more important time than the 1980s. Sneaker Report writes that, "the decade saw the first women's specific performance shoe (the Reebok Freestyle), the beginning of Michael Jordan's era with Nike, and the invention of most of today's technical running technology." MJ and Nike? Say no more. Get the full run-down here.

If you haven't been following the travels of Grantland writer Rembert Browne this summer on his road trip across America, then you've been missing out. His latest piece is one of the best in the series as it covers his mission to get to Chicago in time to catch R. Kelly's performance at this past weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival. Soundtracked by Kidz Bop, 2 Chainz, and a gun-shot symphony of Colorado hail, Browne delivers all of his reliable humor and witticisms along with an unexpected, but poignant, twist at the end of his journey. Read it on Grantland today.

Saturday Night Live is one of those shows that, even in its weaker seasons, is still 10 times funnier than anythng you can think up. And it's kind of endearing to see that even the show's most experienced players sometimes can't help themselves from seeing just how funny and awesome the place that they get to work at is. If you need something to pick you up today, then watch this. Laughter is always contagious. Related: did Bill Hader somehow overtake Jimmy Fallon as the cast member most likely to break character? Didn't think that was possible. 

Having gained a reputation for the intensity and abrasiveness of his sound, Djibouti-based electronic artist, Arca, has been on the receiving end of some serious buzz this year, primarily because of his working relationship with Kanye West on West's latest album, Yeezus. After listening through some of &&&&& it should be pretty clear what sort of textures Kanye was looking to grab from Arca's sound. These scatter-shot, iceberg-industrial tones instantly set the table for an extremely uncomfortable meeting, at times resembling a soundtrack to an old 16-bit video game, processed through some sort of nightmarish Auto-Tune. Paradoxically, &&&&& is fun to listen to because it taps on those hard to reach places in our head that we don't often like to explore. In the same way that say, Jonny Greenwood's teeth-clenching score for Punch-Drunk Love or Justice's aptly-titled "Stress" toys with our adrenal glands, so too does Arca. This is music that doesn't let you sit still, whether its because you're climbing up the walls—like on the opener "Knot"—or stumbling about in the sleepy, druggy hazes of the mixtape's later tracks. Keep an eye out for Arca in the future, and stream &&&&& on his SoundCloud.