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.