When I'm not writing record reviews or pseudonymous articles for Cat Fancy, I like to peruse baseball blogs. A quick scan of them this morning reinforced something that occurred to me a few years back: When it comes to baseball commentary, I vastly prefer bloggers and web-only writers to their print-journo counterparts. (Unsurprisingly, I don't feel the same way about rock criticism. But that's another post entirely.)

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Recently, I caught up with Lil' Wayne in New Orleans. I was there to interview the self-proclaimed greatest rapper alive for a feature for Rolling Stone’s upcoming "Best of Rock" issue, due out next month. I first met Wayne last summer, at Hit Factory studios in Miami, where he was recording songs for his upcoming album Tha Carter III, which is coming in May. When we met in New Orleans, Wayne recalled our first meeting, he said, because I look like Conan O'Brien. (Not really true, but I was happy he remembered me for something.)

During the interview — which took place on Wayne's tour bus, with the permabaked MC smoking blunt after blunt — Wayne showed his wonky side and wide range of interests, two attributes that have served him well on his spate of recent mixtapes. (If you don’t have Da Drought 3, hit up BitTorrent post-haste.) I'm saving the best stuff for the story, but here are a couple fun facts I picked up:

• Wayne is taking online psychology classes from the University of Phoenix, having gotten his G.E.D and taken a few courses at the University of Houston.

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