The Belly Button of the Universe

I think that you think that I think that he thinks that I think that she thinks that we think that it’s not gonna happen. But I know that if you knew that she had known what would happen that things would have been different.

And I feel that you feel that having felt all of these emotions, things could have turned out better. And being that here we are, and being that there she is, and being that we are what we are, well, I guess, it is what it is.

Seeing that we can’t see into the future, but that we have a clear view of yesterday, let’s put on our x-ray goggles and look into the belly button of the universe.

Therein we will catch a glimpse of all tomorrow’s elevator rides, hushed silences, and muffled sneezes. If we don’t cover our mouth with our hands we might infect the stars. Turning and turning, the big dipper scoops out dirt from the backyard for its own vegetable garden in the sky.

Why, big dipper? Why did you do that? We need our dirt, here on irth. There is only so much dirt on irth. The dirt is what makes the irth. The animals and the plants and the trees and the fish and the humans and the amoebas huff the oxygen molecules and cough the carbon dioxide. Big dipper, please stick to the moonrock, even though it is less accessible and harder to extract.

Rational people

Under tremendous pressure

photo information -- An Indian vendor arranges the arsenal for celebrants of Holi -- colored powder -- at his shop in Hyderabad, India, on March 18. (Mahesh Kumar A/Associated Press)

Progress (Part Two)

Folks – how you doin. Seems like I’m starting my blog posts off with the word ‘folks’ recently. Whatever I like it. Soooo, ladies and gentlemen…

Ellipses are funny. Online they’re funnier. Like, it’s hard to describe what an ellipsis conveys. It’s kind of like a fill in the blank isn’t it? Or is it subtlety? I dono. Just funny. We don’t use ellipses a lot, and that’s probably for a good reason.

So I had some hot sauce today. Like, the 100% pain, habanero infused, spicy madness hot sauce. The kind where you take a tiny drop and it hurts your throat and your lips. Then you get a stomache ache. Then you feel kinda drunk. Yeah, that happened to me today. Pretty sure I still feel messed up.

Intense hot sauce is a doozy. There are so many different kinds – how do people make money off this stuff? There’s like 8 million ways to combine peppers and salt. Sheesh. Well, I guess people love the stuff. I was totally addicted to Tabasco in high school, so I can understand.

Well, I was grumpy this morning. Probably because I hadn’t exercised in a week. Thursday through Sunday I just watched basketball and hung out with people. Got out of the house and such, but didn’t go to the gym. I was gonna go to the gym last night but I went grocery shopping instead. Not a bad play out of me, but today I feel like I’m atrophying. My legs hurt – not because they’re sore from working out, but because I haven’t been working out. It’s the worst feeling in the world for me, reminds me of the month after rowing season ended.

Thank goodness I have a men’s league basketball game tonight. That’ll help me out. We’ll see how winded I am. I wanna get in shape and have some fun rowing this spring/summer/fall.

I chatted with my friend Shane today who’s out in Kabul, Afghanistan until April 10th. Shane, please come back home soon safe and sound. Still thinking of you brother.

Seems like the nuclear reactors in japan are doing better. Sounds like there’s not gonna be a full scale meltdown, thank god. Still there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced. So many people living in temporary shelters. Repair costs in the hundreds of billions. Thousands dead and missing. Such insanity. I can’t even imagine.

And now there’s this stuff going on Libya. Boy. Ok I should probably move on from talking about international events, I’m not the expert, but they’re hard to ignore.

So I still have a dumbphone. No, not a smartphone. A dumbphone. I love it, and it does a great job at making phone calls and text messaging, but it’s not gonna be my long term solution for the next couple years. So, I need a smartphone. The time has come. The iPhone is not for me – it’s too small, I feel awkward and clumsy when I use it. I have massive hands, and I guess big thumbs too, because I struggle on that thing.

Thankfully, a solution is here. The HTC Thunderbolt. I’m going to hopefully get this phone in the next couple weeks (no rush), and I’ll let you know how it goes. I had the chance to play with one and it’s pretty awesome – big screen and super fast.

Ok yall, be well.

-Dave

Snow Row

This isn't a photo from this past weekend's Snow Row. It's just some DJ photo. But I was in the Snow Row on Saturday at the Hull Lifesaving Museum, and I won the event that I was entered in with my Dad.

It was pretty awesome. It was kind of funny – the start process involved five different 'waves', all groupings of different classes of boats, and the start was a cannon blast. The bigger whale boats had ‘le mans’ style starts where all the oarsmen and women carried the boats in the water and then hopped in as soon as the starting gun went off. very entertaining to watch.

It was very windy, challenging conditions. I did not have the right gear – I should have been wearing booties. Like, the surfing kind. Instead the boat swamped with water and my socks got soaked and I was frigid and shivering after the race.

It was a great race tho. We were in a brand new 30 foot alden double. Beautiful boat. We were heavy, which helped, because the wind and chop was really bad. However, this time we actually put the oars in right, so it went well. We passed a lot of boats, but had to make a bunch of steering changes. We stopped to bail once (don’t even bother). My port oar fell out of the oarlock at one point, but I was able to get it back in after a short break.

This time I was more scared than my dad – a role reversal after our first ocean race.

So I’m very happy to have won a race. I think it’s been since 2005 since I actually won a race. I mean, it was just our event, and I don’t have a medal to prove it, and there wasn’t an official starting line, but I’m still gonna count it. It wasn’t too cold and the sun was out, so it was a beautiful day. I was super tired and sore and cold after it, but it was totally worth it. Now I’m looking forward to essex river race in may.

I freaking love racing and rowing. Kayaking and canoeing and rowing and sailing. I don’t do it enough. I’m going to try to do more this year, maybe it involves getting up early on a Saturday or Sunday every week and just getting out there and doing something every wknd.

Being on the water is a little scary though. There were a lot of boats that flipped on Saturday. In my event, seven boats started, and only four officially finished. There were a bunch of ambulances and fire trucks at the race course afterwards, just probably there to support the soaking wet people coming in.

So, good times. I’m finally amped about competing again. However, I’m not gonna do what I did last year and erg and train for these things. I’m just going to keep in shape by playing basketball and getting on the bike at the gym. I’m going to do core strength so that I don’t get injured. It’s more fun this way, and look at the results!

Ok peace

This just in

Folks – what’s up. I blew it on the self compassion post. There was a post on nytimes about how self compassion leads to happiness, then a link to this woman’s site who’s the expert on it. There was a quiz, which I took, and, not surprisingly, I did not score well. I’m working to change that though! Definitely going to be more self compassionate going forward

We had a men’s league bball game last night, didn’t win, oh well. Hopefully we’ll win another game. Just glad that I’m getting some exercise and getting a sweat up. Went over to B’s, but he was passing out. 5HTP and valerian root will do that.

There was a three day span several years ago where I thought that valerian root would relax me during the day. So, I would take it in the morning, and then be falling asleep by 10am. By the third day I realized “wait, this is for when you want to sleep, not just to relax.” So yeah, that didn’t last long. Haha, ridiculous story tho.

So I went to the new balance factory store on Saturday and I got this pair of true balances. Huge mistake on my part. They were awful. Made me feel awful, emotionally and physically. Just no support. There’s a lawsuit out now too. Yikes. So I’m gonna return em tmrw. Looking forward to that. Just glad that I have the receipt.

Oh man I started reading the human rights watch world report yesterday. God it was awful stuff. Really makes me glad that I live where I live and that I don’t have to see those things every day. Made me want to join an NGO. Made me want to get involved. The thing is – there are human rights violations in dozens of countries. Hard to know where to start. Stuff is so awful. It’s really hard to read about women being oppressed, gays and lesbians being oppressed, and political dissidents being jailed. It’s just awful story after awful story.

On a more cheerful note, the snow has melted. Parking ban has been lifted in my town. Thank gosh. Easier to deal with now. There was so much snow it was covering the roadways. Just glad that I don’t live in Camberville and hafta deal with all that nonsense.

Aright, talk to yall soon.

PS -- spring starts March 20

Truffles

Folks – what’s happenin. I’m mad tired. Can’t get myself to go to sleep on time. I’m working on it, gimme a chance.

I think it has to do with caffeine. Even if I have a diet coke at 10am it still affects me late at night. Lame. Especially lame after I read an article about how a third of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep a night. I’ve been right around 7 a night this week I think. I could learn something from my brother – he goes to sleep on time.

Well let’s see. It’s march. Thank goodness. February is my least favorite month, therefore march is better.

Had a couple basketball games this week. We didn’t win but they were fun. I weighed in this morning at 193.4 lbs – lean and mean. Just hangin out right now, doin my thing.

Ummmmmm what else. There’s plenty going on. Went to w hotel bar briefly last night to see D and her friend. Hmmmmm. Oh yeah I got that video game dragon age. It’s like a nutty role playing game. I haven’t gotten a video game in a year or so. This one’s pretty fun, even though I just started. It’s hard, and I’m not that good at it. I need the dragon age wiki walkthrough to help me out.

I’ve got some cool photos here from the Koch center at mit. They’re photos of like cells and neurons and stuff.

I’ve been following what’s going on in Libya. Ugh it’s so awful. Seems like a civil war is brewing. So sad. I hope it passes soon. Crazy that all this stuff is going on in the middle east and africa at the same time.

Recent music digs – magnetic man (skream, benga, artwork), lil b (controversial hyphied up wack job out of Berkeley, part of The Pack), ceo (I was introduced by D), Robyn (also introduced by D), and Poppin Bottles by Drake. Good jam.

Ok yall ttys.

-Dave


New post to come soon regarding self compassion…

Just woke up

Just woke up. But not in this bed that you see pictured here. Where the hell did I get this photo? Hrm

I’m doing my morning routine breathing exercises and such. I’ve kind of given up on meditating (I know, super lame).

Soooo I wrote that two hours ago, and then immediately realized I was gonna be late for an appointment. Haha whoops!

Some outstanding posts that I haven’t written – ny trip recap, skiing trip recap, individual albums of the year recap (though I might let that one go).

I’m just sitting in bed right now. I can hear sportscenter in the other room. Reading online news and such, dealing with e-mail etc. gotta figure out something for lunch. Ugh leftover mediocre pizza? Hmmm maybe.

I really want upper crust. Am I just gonna hafta suck it up and get upper crust? It’s a distinct possibility. I’ve sworn off upper crust for a couple years right now, but I haven’t had a good slice of pizza in forever. I wanted to get pizza in ny, but all I really had the opportunity for were those $1 a slice places, which I passed up. I had a pizza at Fiorella’s in Waltham a couple months ago that was good, but it had a ton of ricotta on it. Like, huge mounds of ricotta. It was good, but I don’t think I’ll be getting it again.

Hmmm I miss blogging and writing. Gotta rally and do it more. I think if I get some momentum that I can keep on doing it. Gotta be meta. Meta meta meta.

It’s raining outside. Flood watch is in effect. Floods are super annoying. More annoying than snowstorms in some ways.

I’ve been watching a ton of movies. I just watched “The Next Three Days” with Russell Crowe. I liked it. Russell Crowe looks fat. It was a prison break movie, which I’m a sucker for, so I had to watch it.

Let’s see, what else. Almost too many to list. I watched “A Single Man” with Colin Firth. Also good. During the ski trip we watched “Chloe” and “Unstoppable”. Good times! I wished I could remember some of the other flicks I’ve watched recently. Gah I can’t remember. I’ll just have to fill you in as we go along.

Banff mountain film festival was Wednesday night. I missed it for the second or third year in a row. Massive bummer, but I was able to give my tickets to jeff, so he went with pat, and it’s all good. Banff mountain film festival is so dope, check it out some time.

Ok here’s my last impressive thing for this post. It’s called https everywhere. What it does is it forces sites to use the encrypted version of their site, which starts with https instead of http. A bunch of sites, including google, have https, but unless you type it in it will just default to http. So there’s this awesome firefox plugin. Use it, and be more secure. Later, Dave

HTTPS Everywhere -- electronic frontier foundation

Back in Boston need to blog more

Got home tonight. Skied Bretton Woods today. I skied glades for the first time. Didn't break myself (though came close). Feelin good. Need to write a recap about it.

Glad to be home and bloggin again.

Out skiing in Vermont

Hey everyone, what’s up? I’m in vermont, skiing. Or, I’m going skiing tomorrow.

Today we just kinda took it easy. Slept in (somewhat), cooked breakfast, that sort of thing. Then went home cross county skiing, checked out this reservoir. I’m in Ludlow, VT, by Okemo. Pretty awesome! I love it up here. It’s been cold, sunny, windy. Tomorrow it’s gonna snow some. I’ve got enough gear, just gotta make sure that I wear the right stuff.

So I’m very happy to go on a little trip and get out of town a little. I miss everyone back home, but I needed a break. I’ve got this whole room to myself, and while it seems a little lonely, it’s worth it. Downhill tomorrow, and then we’ll see what pans out the rest of the week.

I missed the dunk contest. Will have to see it when I get back.

Ok night.

-D

Dichotomy

Folks – what’s happenin. You been listening to the new M.I.A. mixtape? I guess it’s a couple months old. Relatively new.

It’s called “VICKI LEEKX”. Get it? Wikileaks, Vicki leekx. Clever huh?

So I was reading one of the like eight recent boston college sports blogs that have popped up recently and I read the quote below. It started off with talking to scott van pelt from espn who gave these guys advice on how to do a good blog. He pretty much told them not to be negative. I then read the below which I really liked:

“Bloggers in general have very little concept of how much time and effort many sports figures put into training, coaching, and developing game strategies. Athletes and coaches put in countless hours during the week and many bloggers think they have the ability to ruthlessly critique them after watching a game for five minutes on the couch.”

So, I’m obsessed with sports and sports blogs. But at heart, I’m an athlete. Fans are very, very quick to criticize. In terms of college athletics (which are amateur endeavors, not professional ones, which we all seem to forget half the time), I feel justified in commenting on the athlete/fan dichotomy (ugh I hate that word).

People that haven’t been a college athlete don’t understand what it takes. I rowed crew, which I still think is the most demanding sport in existence, so I feel extra qualified to talk about how hard it is to be a student athlete. Here are some challenges that come to mind:

1. Travelling. You have to go to competitions around the country. This means that you’ll miss an exam and have to retake it, you’ll miss the big party weekend of the term and only hear stories from your friends, and you’ll leave your girlfriend for a week because you have to go to California (pretty sure that all these things happened to me, some of them multiple times).

2. Exhaustion. Imagine that your class is on the third floor and it’s 9:55 AM. You had practice at 7:15 AM. You start walking up the stairs and your legs hurt. They hurt the whole way up and the whole way down. Not only that, but you’re so tired in the evenings that you might not go out, you might not have enough energy to do all your reading, and you will probably have to go to sleep early because you must get 8-9 hours of sleep, otherwise you’ll be a wreck at practice the next day.

3. Isolation. You spend hours a day with your teammates. You practice together, eat together, compete together, go to spring training together, go to winter training together. Some guys live with each other, some guys only hang out with each other. If you’re too busy with your sport and classes, then you might not have much time to meet other people in the school, which stinks. You might also not have enough time for other extracurriculars that you’re interested in.

Anyway, I had to vent a little. Being a college athlete was really, really hard, and I sometimes get the impression that these sports bloggers and fans and commenters were not college athletes, so they are a little unclear on what it even takes to graduate in four years while being a varsity athlete the whole time.

Aright the rant’s over. Spring’s comin everyone, I can smell it.

-Dave

Goin to ny for the wknd

Folks -- I'm going to ny for the weekend. catch me there. i'm behind schedule at this point, so i gotta scoot.

ps i got really good news yesterday. get in touch with me to here.

pps i'm happy for egypt and i hope that everything works out.

gahhhh i need capitalization. must...open...microsoft...word

too late. adios

Get on board with Google Art Project

Art Project, powered by Google
Pretty cool eh? Google art project. Google is nuuuuuuts. Wow they do a lot of stuff. Gonna hafta spend some time checking it out. I might have been drawn in because the lead in new york times article had a botticelli painting. Good stuff!


oh yeah and here’s a link to this cool looking exhibit at tufts. I gotta go! I still haven’t been to museum of fine arts to see art of the americas. I gotta go to that so bad! Sheesh.

Tufts exhibit showcases women of the Pop movement - The Boston Globe

Well everything’s good here. Weather is nasty. Rain snow slush, rain snow slush, cold wind sun, you get the idea. Kinda nasty outside.

I read an article this morning about plow drivers and snow companies. It was about how a winter with a lot of snow doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of money for snow removal companies. Apparently the reason why is that some of the contracts that these companies have are fixed rates for a whole season. I read that and I was like “huh?”. They’re pretty much gambling every winter – if it doesn’t snow that much they make money, if it snows way too much (like this winter), they might end up losing money.

I guess they have contracts that are per snowstorm, but boy they should change it up and get rid of these fixed rate contracts. I feel for these guys and the drivers, workin 80 hour weeks and insane stuff like that.

Going to new york this wknd! I’ll let yall know about that soon. Peace

Egypt

No joke.

So I've been steadily reading about Egypt. It's absolutely crazy. Tough to say what will happen next. Just hoping for the best.

Here's how Egypt shut the internet down. I've been reading the stories and it sounds like for a lot of people living in Egypt it was profoundly isolating to be shuttered up inside with no internet access.

How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet

The photos and stories coming out of Egypt have been crazy. One link that I am not going to post is the link to all of the stuff broken and destroyed in the Egyptian Museum. That stuff was horrible. I mean, I read that the experts said that it could have been a lot worse, and that stuff could be restored, but it's still horrible.

But then I was reminded of what happened in the Iraq War, with the National Museum or whatever being completely ransacked and destroyed. That was so, so much worse. And for a war that never should have happened in the first place, a war where the American people were fooled into believing something that never came true -- that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But that's another story for another day.

Did you see the broken artifacts in Egypt? Some of the things and objects were so beautiful it was so upsetting to see them messed up.

How to deal with the Snowpocalypse

If you don't have an ark (or a giant snowmobile, or whatever the winterized version of the ark is), then you're gonna have to rely on these techniques:

How to Stay Productive During the Snowpocalypse

Jeff says we should go to the gym tonight. I should def rally and do that. He can drive. It will be good to get out of the house. Hopefully there's no ice.

Hmmmmmmmmm. I've got the humidifer on full blast here in the dining room. Need it so bad. I think it's working. I gotta bleach that bad boy. Freaking bleach. What the hell do I know about bleach...

Gotta go to the grocery store or CVS or something and buy some new air refreshener thingies. Those things are critical. Prob some other things too. Oh, and bananas too. I'm out of bananas. Code YELLOW.

Blogging a storm

Blogging up a storm. Or, blogging a storm, depending on how you look at it.

Hold on I need to do a little more breathing exercises, just a second. Ugh I feel so wired right now. Like, not caffeine wired, but technology wired.

Just think if the electricity went off! I would just be stranded in this 68 degree (read: warm) apartment with only books! Well, if I had some serious lanterns or candle light I would totally read books. I got no fireplace, and no hot cocoa, but maybe I’d fish up some apple cider.

Weird storm right now. It’s changed to like rain, at least here. Only question right now is whether or not it’s going to turn into freezing rain. I wanna drive my car cause it doesn’t look that bad, but I should probably hold off. Omg I need to eat breakfast, that’s my problem right now. I gotta put some toast in.

Reminds me of one of the best comics of all time, I gotta go dig up the name of the comic. But it’s the one with the little girl talking to her dad as she’s making toast – “Daddy, the toast comes out, but where does the bread go?!” haha, still like that one.

Wow for the first time I’m looking at the number of posts I’ve had the last couple of years. It’s not that high. Disappointing. I think I should start thinking about this blog more. Or no, not thinking about it, acting on it, and writing more.

I got some good inspiration last night from a close one, so that’s awesome and invigorating. I wanna hit you with some links and such, but for now all that’s really on my mind is the raindrops I’m looking at collect on the one window that isn’t blanketed by an insulating/light blocking curtain. Many raindrops. Freezing rain is the threat. Jeff’s out driving right now but I dono if I’m gonna make it out. I hate, hate, hate skidding, and that was happening yesterday. Even though my car is four wheel drive it still skids in these bad conditions.

I’m listening to the new DJ E-V mixtape. This is the guy that’s from Cleveland and reps Cleveland real hard. I’m digging it. good mixtape.

So there’s so much snow everywhere. Like, on porches and roofs it’s really added up. I actually preemptively shoveled part of our front porch a couple weeks ago because it just seemed like so much weight. Roofs have been threatening collapse, it can happen, just glad ours is sloped.

Aright well I’m probably gonna be pretty busy today, but I’ll be in touch.

-Dave

Heem

Lil B is real weird. "post Lil-Wayne deconstructionist"? maybe. sure why not

trying to sneak in a post here before i go to bed. shoot i'm not using word hold on.

Ok phew that’s better. I can’t deal with the straight blogger.com text. No punctuation or capitalization. Looks like it was done a typewriter. Blech.

So yeah, lil b is super weird. I’m listening to “Blue Flame”. I think one of the globe sportswriters recommended it?

It’s late and I’m trying to sneak a post in before going to bed. But “Im Heem” is a good song, “Cold War” is a good song, and I like “Im Burnin” too.

Got our second basketball game tmrw. It’s supposed to snow. I really hope the game doesn’t get snowed out. I’m optimistic that it won’t. this snow has been relentless. I think that’s the word that menino used. Relentless. It’s fitting.

There’s no place to put the snow. It’s everywhere. They’ve been taking it to “snow farms.” Something like thousands of tons of snow were took out of boston this past weekend to seven area snow farms. Snow farms. That’s the funniest term ever.

Come out to my snow farm where I grow snow. I only grow sustainably raised, organically fed, free range, hormone free snow. Visit Dave’s snow farm, go home with a handful of snow.

But seriously, the roads are ridiculous. I am so, so glad that I don’t live in Somerville or Cambridge with a car. It’s a zoo out there! Like, even if I go to pick up a friend or park at a friends house in Camberville I have to jockey for a spot and it gets kind of intense. But that might be cause I’m not used to living in crowded cities any more.

Ok I gotta get some rest for this game tmrw, wish me luck. I’m way less nervous than I was for the last one, but I still wanna have a good game so I gotta get focused and get in the zone and play well.

Night!

article of the day -- How Meditation May Change the Brain - NYTimes.com -- i totally buy this stuff. meditation totally changes you.

Humming and Singing

Matt & Kim

I am humming Matt & Kim

But I am listening to The Blow

Lyrics to "Why Don't You"

Why don't you come over here into my world
I've got a place for you
You can see that I've moved my bed across the room
I would open my sheets
And open my arms
I would make you a food or two
I would run right into you
Oh the ocean is wide
The ocean is wide

"It's Kind of a Funny Story"

Is the name of a movie that I want to see soon. Recently I saw “The King’s Speech”, which I really liked. I just saw “127 Hours” too, which I also really enjoyed. Bunch of other movies here and there. Yaaaaaaaay movies. They are way too good at keeping me indoors.

Well I’ve had a good week. Kept busy. There were a couple snowy days here and there. Just mad storms left and right. Dumping lots of snow. I just went and checked outside and my sidewalk and driveway are shoveled, which I had nothing to do with. Hey, I’ll take it!

So I’m considering getting up early tmrw morning and going to the gym. Why? Because the basketball leage starts back up Thursday night. I havent been to the gym in a couple weeks. I gotta go to the gym a handful of times before Thursday night so that I can be somewhat confident in my fitness. We’ll see. If I wanna get up at 8am tmrw morning I’ve gotta go to bed relatively soon. Hmmm.

Oh yeah pats lost. It was awful. Not even thinking about football right now. Celtics are crushing the jazz, which I’ll take.

So I got some new speakers. They had been sitting in my attic. I didn’t think that they worked. Turns out that some of the inputs are just a lil busted, but with some finagling, I now have a really nice ipod dock system and tv stereo system. It’s all hooked up. Huge subwoofer too. A friend gave it to me because the inputs were always wonky for him and he just was sick of it.

So I’m bumping loud now. Neighbor’s probably gonna hate me soon. I guess I’ll use my backup mini speakers to prevent that.

Ok I’ll talk to you soon, D

Recovering

Hi. How are you.

I freaking got food poisoning. Remember how I was all excited to go that restaurant? Yeah, I take it back. I think they poisoned me.

Was it on purpose? I think not. But I still felt awful yesterday, had an awful night tossing and turning in bed, and still feel pretty weak today.

Yeah. So stupid. I need to eat something. Maybe I’ll just drink a bunch of apple juice and then have a sandwich later. That sounds pretty good.

I think it was the seafood I got. I don’t think it was the monkfish. I think it was the mussels. WHY AM I EATING MUSSELS IN JANUARY. That’s gotta be it. Never again. Never going back to that restaurant, never ordering mussels in January again.

Well, I had a pretty good week. Looking forward to a return to normalcy. Boston college lost to miami by one point yesterday. Very bad. Not happy about it.

Pats are about to play the jets in a couple hours. I’m real amped. Let’s go pats.

Ok I’m gonna try to recover, I’ll talk to you soon.

In the meantime, here’s a fascinating article on the Stuxnet computer worm. You buyin any of this stuff? It’s totally wild.

Stuxnet Worm Used Against Iran Was Tested in Israel - NYTimes.com

Waving to the plow drivers

Hey how’s it goin everyone. We had a big snowstorm here. Like, big heavy wet snow. Took a lot of work to shovel out, but we persevered. It took me, Jeff, and our neighbor. I was able to back my car out, and our landlord helped a little too. But boy oh boy was there a lot of snow this morning. Here’s hoping that the roads aren’t too bad tmrw. I have trust in the commonwealth, we’ll be ok.

So yeah, boston college lost their bowl game. That was too bad. Well, just wait til next year! Haha.

Hmmmmm I’m finishing up a big project that’s been occupying me since August. I’ll finally be over with it this wknd and can return to normal life. I’m looking forward to it big time, lemme tell ya. Next week will be one long celebration. I’m starting it right this Friday night with dinner at Craigie on Main. I swear that they have some of the best cocktails I’ve ever had. I’m excited for that one.

Craigie On Main - 853 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 | tel: 1-617-497-5511

Ok, I’ll talk to you soon. –Dave

Snowzin

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone! I played basketball tonight and still haven’t eaten dinner, but right now I feel like blogging is the right thing to do. I apologize if my writing is bad – if I have a low blood sugar I’m not gonna be good at anything. Oh well.

Well, let’s all hope for a good 2011. I think I was still telling people happy new year today. Why is it such a happy new year? Well, 2010 was pretty intense. Maybe we want a little mellower 2011. Hmmmm I’m not making any sense. I probably shouldn’t blog on no dinner, nothing’s gonna come out right.

Ok, I’ll turn this into an honorable mention post. Doing that top ten list was a huge pain in the butt. I’m looking forward to it next year, but now it’s become something I kind of obsess about. Here are some albums that I listened to a lot that didn’t make the list.

Actress – Splazsh
Good weird album. Not really techno, more like experimental. If I had put it on the list it probably would have been the least accessible album. Lots of weird noises and such. But it’s still pretty awesome. My fave song is “Maze.”

Matt + Kim – Sidwalks
Incredible album. 9 songs, and it’s all really good. Good rock and roll. “Cameras” is my favorite.

Sleigh Bells – Treats
I saw these guys live. They were awesome. I really think that they’ve made their own sound. They opened for M.I.A. and are on her label. It’s not often that you hear a band that really kind of defies genres and doesn’t fit into any neat space. This is one of those bands. “Rill Rill” is my favorite and hard to not listen to on repeat.

Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday
I’m not crazy about a couple of the songs including the song with Eminem (Eminem always just sounds like he’s yelling at me), and so I can’t really say that it’s that incredible. But some of the songs are really beautiful, really beautiful beats and rhythms. “Save Me” is my fave song.

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
All of these songs individually are really good, but some are too long, and some get too weird. This album would be one of the best, but Yeezy kind of messed with his own art a little. It’s totally got a far out/out there/piece of artwork/concept album kind of thing going on, but I just want to skip some of the songs. Granted, I’ve heard a bunch of these songs on the radio or whatever a bunch of times, so I may just be sick of them. The first five minutes of “Runaway” are my favorite, before the awful guitar solos kick in.

Drake – Thank Me Later
If I put on the list “top ten albums that I listened to the most”, then this might be on there. I certainly listened to an absurd amount of Drake last year (I’ve mostly moved on now). Still though, love this guy and his work. Fave song is easily “Miss Me.”

Lil Wayne – I Am Not A Human Being
Great album with great jams. Fave song is “Right Above It”

Top Ten Albums of the Year (revised)

Revised top ten albums of the year list. I combined my top ten albums and top five hip hop albums and came up with the below. WOW did I put a lot of time and thinking into this. Enjoy, individual posts to come about each and every one, as well as my more comments on my line of thinking.

In no particular order, the best ten albums of 2010, without a doubt, are:

1. Mount Kimbie – Crooks & Lovers
2. Kid Cudi – Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager
3. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
4. Balam Acab – See Birds
5. Salem – King Night
6. M.I.A. – /\/\/\Y/\
7. Die Antwoord – $O$
8. Phaeleh – Fallen Light
9. Ital Tek – Midnight Colour
10. Aardarck – Choice

Hope you like it. I know this won't please everyone, but I back each and every one of these albums.

Albums and Artists of the year -- 2010, preface

OK, so for the past couple years I’ve done my favorite artists and albums of the year. This year will be no different. I have to preface these lists by saying that these are just the albums that I enjoyed the most over the past 12 months. There were likely two week spans for each of them where I literally listened to them nonstop. That is one of the defining criteria for me for an album or artist of the year – I kept on coming back to them.

I love music and sports. I can’t get enough of them. Honestly, it’s all I can do to keep up with both of them. I’ve been told that I hyperfocus on these things. At this point, I just embrace it. I understand that it impacts other areas of my life, but the hedonistic side of me leads me to indulge in these pursuits. I swear, I can’t help it!

Over this past year, there were some interesting trends. Rap that didn’t sound like rap (see Diddy Dirty Money’s “Last Train to Paris” [which is not one of my albums of the year, but certainly provoking]), house music that didn’t sound like house music (specifically, “witch house” [see oOoOO’s self-titled album]), and dubstep that didn’t sound like dubstep (see Jack Sparrow’s “Circadian”). These past two albums ended up on my honorable mention list. I won’t go into detail about them here, but there’s definitely some good music there. I also liked “Down There” by Avey Tare (member of Animal Collective), as well as Four Tet’s “There is Love in You.” I had to mention these artists, but they did not make my final cut.

Also, this year I chose to submit three, not two lists for your review. This year I’m going to do a Top Ten Albums of the Year, a Top Five Hip-Hop Albums of the Year, and a Top Ten Artists of the Year. All of these lists are in no particular order.

The final artists of the year list may prove to be somewhat controversial. Some of these artists are polarizing, some of them did not even release albums, and some of them may have only released a few songs that were just such bangers that I had to mention them.

For me, there are a couple iconic songs of 2010. Gyptian’s “Hold Me” is one, Chris Brown’s “Deuces” is another, and Big Boi’s “Shutterbug” is the last. These are all excellent sings that I’ve probably listened to hundreds of times over the past 12 months.

Wow, I can’t stop blabbing about all this music. Well, I’m going to put the finishing touches on my list, and I will be submitting it here over the next week.

Talk to you soon, and thanks for listening, Dave

State of the State -- Christmas 2010

Can you tell that I got this photo off of google images? Yeah, I think it’s probably pretty easy to tell. Still, ice skating on ponds is pretty sweet. I can’t even remember the last time I did it, and I was probably scared of falling through, but it’s a nice thought. I remember a kids book from growing up that had like all these dutch kids skating down frozen rivers. That’s what I want to do – get on some big skates and just skate down some thin long river where the ice won’t break.

Well, it’s been a good 2010. I know that the year isn’t over yet, but it feels like it’s getting close. No need to give a full recap, it’s been a whirlwind, but certainly the most productive, busy, and rewarding year I’ve ever had. I can’t say enough how thankful I am for the support of my friends and family, as this life requires a lot of hard work and dedication. At times I have been awfully stressed, but mercifully there are always responsive friends who will pick up the phone when I call stressed out.

But enough about me, let’s talk about some of the artists of 2010…

Ongoing Maintenance, and Impressive Links

Ok, first, here are a couple of impressive links. I don’t know what to think about google tv. Honestly, I don’t put much weight into these new google labs technologies. What was the most recent one that came out? Oh yeah, Google Wave. Yeah, exactly. Nobody knows what google wave is and nobody uses it. I don’t think anybody uses google tv and nobody knows how to use it either.

Searching for the Future of Television - Technology Review

Second, wikileaks. I don’t know how familiar you are with cablegate, but I really think it’s one of the most interesting, bizarre, and revealing occurences of modern time. There were a couple weeks there where every day nytimes was writing a new article about something. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

The Blast Shack (a take on The Wikileaks Cablegate scandal

"im sure that i could fall in love with you"

Lyrics from Count and Sinden’s “Hold Me”


the moonlight and the heat
has got us on the street
my heart is thumping like the beat
as you walk up to me
the light reflecting on my skin
has got you wondering
how it would feel to hold me

open up your heart
i see the colour red
my cheeks are blushing too
from thoughts inside my head
open up your eyes
i see the colour blue
im sure that i could fall in love with you

Bump it Up

Ok, gotta get a post to bump down the creepy image below. I always get worried about posting creepy images, sorry about that. Ok lemme get a christmas post poppin here.

Merrrrrry christmas everyone! It’s a white christmas in this neck of the woods, some snow on the ground. Nice and cold outside. A little overcast, but I hear that the sound is coming out tmrw.

I’m wearing this old navy techno hoodie right now. It’s got headphones built into the drawstrings. So I just plug in my ipod in an interior pocket and put the earbuds in my ears. It looks a little goofy, but I’m feelin it right now. Having said that, my mom and bro are in the room, but whatevs. We’ve opened presents and getting ready for an early dinner.

Ok I gotta post again hold on.

No Hands

DJ turn me up…

Good morning everyone. It’s very dark and rainy here. I’m looking at the radar and it looks like it’s gonna be wet for a while. I’ve texted several people so far this morning to see if anyone wants to get breakfast, but nobody’s gotten back to me. Ben, Luke, Monica – wtf? I know that we’re all challenged, but come on, we need eggs bad. We’ll see if anyone gets back to me, but it’s not looking good.

I would cook, but the kitchen is still kind of a mess from the last time I cooked, so I prob shouldn’t do that. Maybe a better idea to do dishes and go grocery shopping. Genius…

Big day sports wise. Gotta watch the BC Maryland bball game and the Pats Bears foosball game. Should be a couple good ones. Let’s hope that the good guys go 2 for 2!

Jeff thinks I should be playing basketball with him on Sunday mornings. I didn’t really realize that I was invited. Why am I hesitant? Cause I’m rusty, or cause I’m out of shape, or both? Unclear. Maybe I’ll get in shape this week and play next week.

Hmmm ok I gotta eat something. Rain rain go away!

Super

Ok ok. I got a giant christmas tree today. It is a fir.

But what kind of fir is it? And is it a good kind of christmas tree? Hmmmm. Well, it’s funny that you asked. Because I have the answer.

Let’s consider the possibilities. It could be a Balsam Fir. Or maybe a Noble Fir. Or even a Grand Fir.

Douglas Fir? Nope, guess again. Canaan Fir? Uhuh, getting cold.

Concolor (White) Fir? No. That’s not right either.

It’s a Fraser Fir. Is the Fraser Fir the top choice for a christmas tree? May be.

It’s a good tree. I’ve got four strings of lights on it, but I might get another one or two for it, it’s got some width to it. I watered it, and dude said that it would smell strong, which is what I wanted. Last year’s tree from Mahoney’s disappointed me scent wise. I’m happy with it so far except it doesn’t have any ornaments on it yet. I’ll solve that soon.

I’m doing the BC Interruption college bowl pick em this year. I’m a fan, but be warned: they’re doing the confidence point style, which complicates things a bit. Definitely join the fun if you want tho.

Join BC Interruption's College Bowl Pick'Em - BC Interruption

Yo has anyone seen Storage Wars yet? That show rules. Good show. Check it out. Oh, and The Vice Guide to Everything. That one’s insane, looks like it just got picked up by MTV. Recommended.

Night, and happy holidays.

Post Up

Ahhhh Blogger's now uploading images correctly again, how nice. Let's commemorate the occasion.

So what’s up everybody. So I admit it, I’m crushing NFL RedZone right now. More importantly, I went to the Boston Tip-Off Classic last night at the Boston Garden. It was pretty awesome. I went with Kane and we got there for the end of the Drexel Northeastern game. The Huskies lost which was a bummer. The BC Umass game was a good game. The funniest part was that it was technically a Umass home game. So there were a ton of Umass students and a ton of Umass fans who were really fired up and the announcer was totally pro-Umass. BC won, and there were some good dunks and good plays. A great time, and I was happy because I haven’t been to the Garden in a while.

So I’m super busy with stuff, but so long as I don’t make too many excuses I’ll be ok. Hmm I’ve seen some good movies recently. I finally watched The Town which I enjoyed. Some other good ones too. I need to start keeping a list I guess. Hold on lemme set that up.

Ok cool. Tonight I wanna go to Wonder Bar to see Sub Swara but I dono if that’s gonna happen. Looks like a fun show. I’ve been dropping the ball not going to dubby and dubstep shows. Gotta rally sometimes.

I’m listening to a bunch of music. Right now I’m listening to Phaeleh’s new album, “Fallen Light.” Pretty good.

Omg I finally have a couple good links.

This article is secretly about witch house (a good new weird niche-y electronic music genre that I’m into):



DJ Screw’s Legacy - Seeping Out of Houston, Slowly - NYTimes.com

Kanye West's 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' chopped and screwed: The full album, slowed down to a crawl

We're Over Here

We’re over here, we’re over here

Ok how’s it going everyone. First of all, happy thanksgiving everyone! It’s been a happy thanksgiving. I slept in, said what’s up to baba (he crashed on the couch), watched bc beat texas a&m in a thriller, watched the pats beat up on detroit in a blowout, then ate way too much good home cookin, then watched the whole freakin awful cowboys game.

Cowboys are so bad. Remind me to never be a cowboys fan. What a mess of a game:

a. I don’t like dez bryant. For a number of reasons, I swear, it’s not entirely baseless. It’s the kinda thing where I can’t put my finger on it. Also, in this very close game guess what? He was an enormous distraction on the sidelines which carried over onto the field, you can't deny it.

b. Why didn’t you kick that field goal there at the end? It was a 51 yarder and your kicker had already made a 53 yarder.

c. The shots of the owners box are easily the best in a cowboys game? Why? Because inevitably the cowboys have some great plays where it looks like they’re going ahead or coming back and jerry jones is always so pumped and the oil tycoons in the box with him are fired up but then they end up losing anyway

Ok that’s it. That’s my cowboys rant for the day. I’m all done.
Jets are on now. Cmon bengals, beat the jets!

Ok, sports free post needed, hold on…

good album name, v2

i like this one:

"You Thought You Saw a Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears and That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With the Sky So Clear and Sea So Calm"

good news

is better than bad news. so, mostly good news, thankfully

Lost in the city

Hi everyone. How are things. I’ve been keeping busy. Just had a pretty good weekend of being productive and watching sports and such. Went over to Chris’s last night – he made jambalaya in the slow cooker and i watched the first half of the pats steelers game. Good stuff. Chris unfortunately still has a milk crate as a tv stand, but he has assured me that he is working on it.

Oh yeah, I watched most of that movie “Enter the Void”. It was pretty intense. Reminded me of a david lynch movie. It’s directed by gaspar noe, who I guess must be a little bit of a nut. I talked with robbie about it. He had seen the trailer, which is definitely seizure inducing. There were multiple times during the movie that I had to look away from the screen, just like when you’re at IMAX and you think you’re gonna be queasy and you have to look away. Yup.

I didn’t even finish the movie. I got so weirded out and freaked out that I stopped with like 20 minutes or so to go (it’s a long movie). Anyway, good times. Weather’s been crappy here. Looking forward to thanksgiving. Later.

it's bedtime

it's bedtime, but had to put this quote up. i think it's my favorite of all time, other than the one i can't remember from when i was really young.



"If there is magic on this earth, then surely it is contained in water."
- Loren Eiseley

recovering from a cold

been fighting a cold all weekend, still under the weather today.

speaking of weather, it's been nasty. cold wind and rian (like the grateful dead song).

talk to you soon

Numerator

Hey. What’s up. Super busy. Being very productive.

Considering not participating in halloween activities for this wknd due to other priorities. Don’t have a costume. Don’t really feel like doing anything this weekend other than good responsible productive things. I’ll watch the celtics-knicks game tmrw night, then I’m going to the BC-Clemson game on Saturday, then gonna watch the Pats game on Sunday. Don’t really see how I can fit much partying in there if I’m gonna try to get stuff done.

It’s gonna be like this until Christmas probably. Gotta reach for the stars. Shoot for the moon. Call it what you want. I’m goin for it.

Celtics season has started. First game was good, second game was bad. I’m having fun watching with Jeff.

It started getting cold but now it’s warm again. 74 degrees and sunny today. I wore shorts and a tshirt. This morning in the car I heard a set of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. I then listened to him on my iPod and thought of chilling with him on a rooftop in Central Square. And then I listened to his cover of “Hot Boyz”, which rocks.

The ol’ “Golden Tunnel” by the Belmont Country Club is back. It’s fun driving through. A canopy of yellow and orange leaves overhead.

Ok everyone I gotta go I miss you, bye.

hanging in there

please give me time

It's Head of the Charles, are you ready?

I am. Let's go.

It's cool, I checked

Howdy. Gotta pass on some updates. Not sure how impressive it all is, but there’s some decent behind-the-scenes action. Um, so yeah, everything’s good. It’s getting cold outside. My apt is old and has old windows and gets cold pretty easy. the giant largely uninsulated attic doesn’t help either. I feel like I need to blow on my fingers now!

Gotta get some of that window rope caulk and put plastic over some windows. Soon enough.

Oh yeah I’m not gonna row in head of the charles this year. But it’s cool. Next year I’m hopefully gonna row in an alumni eight, which would be awesome. I look at it as kind of an every other year thing. What it means is that I get to be committed to cheering on three dartmouth alumni/masters eights on Saturday, including one that has my old coach, Scott Armstrong. That’s gonna be awesome. So, the good with the bad.

My injury is a trunk/rib injury. I haven’t seen a doctor yet, but I’ll have to if it doesn’t completely go away. From what I can remember about rowing injuries (I should probably do some more googling), it has to do with the interstital muscles. We used to do core strength exercises every week, and I just hadn’t done them for five years. Hence, the injury. Or at least I’m pretty sure that that’s what happened. I was just doing a lot of training and it caught up with me. Not exactly overtraining, just not adequately compensating for stress/strength differences. Gah! Hopefully I’ll fully recover soon.

Aright I gotta get goin soon, gotta take my car to the shop for a little bit. Ooh I should get a carwash first. aright folks, I’m ultra busy with stuff but will be in touch. Bye

-D

blogger repositioning

i need a little break, hold on

oh, yup, you guessed right -- that's 20,000 north korean soldiers

i've also quasi-injured my back from rowing too much and not doing enough core strength exercises. currently my head of the charles quest is in doubt. i did a lot of exercises tonight and i'm going to take the next two days off and continue to work on core strength. i'm hoping that i'm recovered by this wknd. i'll keep you updated

blogger sore

Wow I’m tired. I rowed in the textile river regatta today. Aka head of the textile, or just “lowell.” “lowell” has made me very sore. I rowed the 3.7 mile course in a masters double with my dad. It was a lot of fun. I talked to some guys from my high school on the water, and reconnected with an old dartmouth alum from the 92 boat. Good stuff.

We had a good row. It was a long way to the finish line, and there were about 8 million junior girls eights on the water too. Lowell is actually a huge regatta, 3300 participants or something. There was chop for the last mile or so, which was tough, but we slogged through it. Beautiful day for rowing, and I’m glad I trained for it and did it.

But now I am very tired. I can’t even recount what I’ve been up to over the last couple weeks. I know that at one point this past week I went to see mount kimbie at wonder bar. The speakers weren’t great, but mount kimbie is awesome. The best part is that I didn’t even know about the show until about 4 hours beforehand. I randomly went on dubstepforum.com and voila! There it was. If I had missed that show I would have been devastated. Thankfully, the internet saved the day.

Incidentally, I met a guy who had found out about the show in the exact same way! So bizarre. A guy who grew up around the corner from me said hi too. I also bumped into a couple acquaintances.

I met the two guys in mount kimbie afterwards. Or at least I went up to them and shook their hands and thanked them for their music and for coming to boston. It was their first time in the states, and we gave them a proper welcome. Gotta appreciate that. The crowd was amped, and they said it was good to see that they had so many fans. Rep yo citi Boston!

But I am just so, so busy. I’m trying to deal with a lot right now, and I'm doing a decent job of not getting too stressed out, but I’m taking on a lot of challenges right now. It’s ok, and this blog is a good way to feel more grounded. I’m not being insanely aggressive, and I’m keeping myself in order by selectively blowing off certain things (didn’t go to a couple parties this weekend). This week is crammed – pats game tmrw night, M.I.A. show Tuesday night (free tickets thanks to jefe), then I think there’s a young alum thing Thursday night that I should go to.

So yeah, time’s flyin by. It’s getting cold too. I almost turned on the heat here, then I manned up and just put on some more warm clothes.

Ok yall I’m glad I got to do some writing I’ll talk to you soon and post some impressive things.

Peace

blogger busy

lemme update you in a bit, too busy

The greatest Boston Globe article of all time?

Ladies and gentlemen – seems like my recent style is to blog up a storm on Wednesdays. As my brother would say, no shame in that. Oh yeah, today is technically the last day of summer. And it’s like 80 degrees outside, can you believe it? this summer rocked. Best summer ever(?). possibly. It was very fun, plenty of hanging out and partying. I’d do it all over again.

I had a massive scare last night when my brand-new tv wouldn’t turn on. Panic! Or, as the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy reminds us, “DON’T PANIC.” So I didn’t. but I wasn’t happy about it. we got on the horn with customer service. Eventually the tv actually did turn back on, but we’re still gonna have a guy come over and reset it or something (apparently the problem's not isolated to us). Fingers crossed over here…

Well, what’s been going on? Hmm let’s see. In eight days it will be illegal to text while driving in Massachusetts. You ready for the change? Don’t sleep on that one. Detint your windows and stuff your phone in the trunk from now on would be my advice.

Saturday I went to the union sq farmers market (only a handful of them left, sad). I then went into Boston with a friend where we stumbled upon a gathering (ask me if you want details). We then went to “Serb Fest” aka the Serbian Festival in Cambridge. My friend from the former Yugoslavia invited us. Turns out that her mom was the lead singer of the band. We showed up a little early and ordered up some lamb on a spit, delicious. Ate some adjvar too (not pronounced the way we thought of course). There was a ton of music and dancing, it was really cool! The people sitting at the table with us threw a plastic knife at me to get my attention so that I would take a photo of them. It took four tries, but I think I got a good one, I hope they like it!

Ok, well now on to the real reason for this post. Folks – I think the Boston Globe peaked today in terms of breakthrough journalism and excellent writing. That’s right – I have uncovered the single greatest news article in New England journalism history. Don’t believe me because it sounds too good to be true? I wouldn’t joke about this kind of thing.

Best quote – “I never get anything more than a numinous tickle from the Cheez-Its display. It’s not magical, but rather obliquely legendary.”

Where shopping becomes a roller derby - Somerville - Your Town - Boston.com

I lived in Somerville til I was four years old or so, so of course I can relate.

Cheers everyone, and happy end of summer (that just does not sound right for some reason).