Hits Snooze Twice

Favorite 2011 Albums

Carlos — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:27:45 +0000

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I love Year End “Best of” lists. I look forward to lists from various publications about the best new recipes, television shows, books, movies and my favorite best albums of the year, which I use to discover new music and to get upset when some of my favorite bands don’t get a high enough score in certain lists or are completely left out. Usually, I get really upset at Pitchfork for leaving someone out or putting one band higher than another, but then again Pitchfork is a very frustrating online music magazine—I love and hate them.

So there really isn’t an order to the list. I just added them as I searched through my iTunes library to see what was released this year, so the number 1 spot is not really the number 1 album per se to me, it just happens to be the one I happened to list first. By the way, this is much harder than I thought it would be. I am always afraid of leaving something out or what to say in describing the albums. I eliminated getting heat for ranking an album higher than another by putting the disclaimer of it being ranked in no particular order. I know its a cop-out, but this is my blog and you will deal with it! I could have listed them in a bulleted list, but I started with numbered lists and I was too far ahead in making the list to change it.

Wilco- The Whole Love: Okay, so I lied. I have to list this as the number one album on the list because they are my all time favorite band. I was anxiously awaiting this album, and it did not disappoint. To me the very first track of a Wilco album has really set the mood for the entire catalog of songs, and “Art of Almost” is this wonderful medley of noise, pops and wizzes which ends in a head-bopping Nels Cline shred.
Fleet Foxes- Helplessness Blues: This was my second most anticipated album of the year. I loved the first Fleet Foxes album for its rich harmonies, beautiful melodies and deep lyrics and their sophomore album did not disappoint. To be quite honest, this is the true album of the year and the last track on the album, “Grown Ocean”, became a favorite of mine. I love that song so much that I have it as my opening track in a playlist entitled “To Get Yourself Pumped Up”.
The Decemberists- The King is Dead: This is probably one of the most underrated albums of 2011 in my opinion. Usually a The Decemberists album is created around a theme, concept or story, but this one is not. Its a more Americana version of The Decemberists, that still retains their unique Decembersists sound. Its a solid album, and it perplexes me as to why it is not in a lot more Best of 2011 lists.
Destroyer- Kaput: I discovered Destroyer when I was listening to my favorite podcast The Dinner Party Download. I decided to check them out and I loved the album so much. Its not an album I would expect to love, but its fantastic. Next time a band tries to emulate 80s soft-rock, sign me up to be a fan!
Bon Iver- Bon Iver: This is the year that I learned how to pronounce Bon Iver correctly after being a fan for a while. By the way, in case you’re interested its not pronounced Bon Eyever but pronounced Boni Ver. A friend once told me that he always pronounced Bon Iver by imagining himself walking in a freshly snow covered forest in Norway. Sounds about right.
Cults- Cults: This is such a catchy little band. Someone I follow on Tumblr posted “Going to see them tonight” and a link to their song “Go Outside”. Instant falling in love, guys. I fell for them hard.
Real Estate- Days: I also randomly heard of them thanks to a random post on Tumblr. I “loved” the track and reblogged it and as the original poster blogged more and more of their tracks I went out and bought this album and their previous album. It was a very wise decision.
Jay-Z & Kanye West- Watch the Throne: Was this the most anticipated album of the year or what? It did not disappoint at all. I had it on repeat several times since it came out.
Childish Gambino- CAMP: While Watch the Throne was all about excess and how their huge megastardom has affected both Yeezy’s and Jay’s lives, CAMP is the complete opposite. Here Donald Glover does not talk about how fame has changed him, but in how he has struggled to not ever belonging into any worlds and how that has affected him. He just wants to be Donald.
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks- Mirror Traffic: I really liked how Beck put a stop sing on some of Stephen Malkmus jams. Not to say that I did not like his jams, but sometimes they felt a bit too long or that they did not fit in a song. It still sounds like a Malkmus release, but its more polished. Thanks Beck!

Others albums I enjoyed this year were:

Mariachi El Bronx- Mariachi El Bronx II- Punk + mariachi music? How can you not love this. In the words of my mother “This is disgusting and vile”, but its so damn good.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.- It’s A Corporate World: really fun album, even funner name.
Of Monsters and Men- My Head is an Animal: I heard them on NPR and found out they’re from Iceland. Also, this is as good as time as any to say that I cannot stand Sigur Ros, but this band gets a pass because I can understand them.
Feist-Metals: Just put on this album and enjoy the melancholy.

So there you go! My favorite albums of 2011. If you have Spotify there is this wonderful playlist that has all the best of 2011 albums in one convenient location. Its four days of wonderful music and its from your wonderful friends from Reddit! If you have Spotify just click on this link right here to open the list.

Its worth protecting

Carlos — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:02:19 +0000

I’ve always felt that videos like these highlight the beauty, wonder and complexity of our planet and that they are the ultimate tool to raise awareness of how precious this planet is and that we, in the grand scheme of things, are merely children who are playing very roughly with this amazing gift.

I don’t get people who don’t want to help preserve the planet. Even if you’re not a believer in global warming/climate change, being proactive about curving environmental damage is never a bad thing because at the end of the day it barely matters that environmental regulations “stifled” your profits because you can’t pollute as much as you’d like to. I place a higher priority on making sure that this planet and its gorgeous ecosystem are around for future generations to enjoy. I want to make sure that future generations enjoy scenes like that in person, and not in an internet video and say “Oh wow, too bad we don’t have that”.

Be right back, I’m going to hug a tree.

Its Okay to be Alone

NaNoWriMo

Carlos — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:19:15 +0000

National November Writing Month starts this upcoming Tuesday. For those unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, its a 30 day challenge in which you try to write a 50,000 word novel. For several years I have wanted to try to do NaNoWriMo, but I have been preoccupied with school and the semi-brutal holiday shopping season at work for me to actively focus on it. This year is different: I have free time–well, sort of. I don’t have school so I just need to focus on making sure things are running smoothly in my department at work during this month and trying to get ready for DATG.

So why would I do this? For the challenge, and to finally be able to say that I have written a novel. I know its not going to be pretty, and that there are going to be a lot of crap written, but quantity over quality is the game here. Out of the 50,000 words that are going to be written I am bound to find some gems in there. Who knows, maybe with a little polishing my month long experiment can actually amount to something!

So what will I be writing about? Well, I got the idea from my friend Zach when him and I were talking about time travel and he mentioned something about how wild would it be if someone went back in time to live a second life at the same time of their younger self. This spun to traveling in time for a specific purpose and changing the time stream and pivot points in that time stream. Out of that conversation I came up with the idea of people known at catalysts, who their seemingly ordinary choices let to the creation of the time machine. These people are spread throughout time—some of them live ordinary lives, others are semi-important and others must make choices that will affect other’s lives, but each of them plays a role in setting the ball in motion for the creation of the time machine. There are three forces at play here: the catalysts themselves, the time travelers helping them/watching them to make sure everything is going along what is supposed to be and then there is a group who fear the time machine and see it as evil and do everything in their power to stop it from ever being created.

Hopefully I will be so focused on my novel that I will be just like this lady after I get to the 30,000 mark:

Wish me luck.

Another Spring- Kenneth Rexroth

Carlos — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:23:29 +0000

The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.

The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.

O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever

Slide unconsciously by us like water.

One of my favorites and I thought I would share. The last three lines always hit me hard. How about you?

It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter

Carlos — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:55:34 +0000

Alfred Eisenstaedt said that when talking about candid street photography. Its a lesson that I must remember when I take my camera out with me so that I can take more photos like these:

While these photos might be good, I think I can always do better when interacting with potential subjects. I currently just try to act like I am not there and be sneaky about taking a picture of a person, and most of the time it works, but sometimes I am noticed and I look guilty and scamper off somewhere. Thankfully there are articles like this that tell me that I should be more bold in my picture taking and to really connect with the subject otherwise the pictures might be pretty to look at, but are stale. Plus, you can probably tell a lot about a person’s character by how they shoot others and you can see that I am not that bold in front of others. I must change that.

Be bolder, Carlos…and always have your camera ready.

He said his name was not important

Game 162

Carlos — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:39:39 +0000

Evan Longoria celebrating his game winning home run in the 12th inning, sending the Rays to the post season.

I was partly right back in April when I said that the Rays were going to win the AL Wild Card, but I was wrong about the Red Sox and I am amazingly and jubilant about it. The Red Sox, who where crowned the 2011 equivalent of the 1927 New York Yankees back in January, who acquired the most sought after free agents–Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez–to bolster their already great lineup, who were the best team in all of the Majors for months; they are going home and the team that gets made fun of for their low attendance and lack of fan support did the improbable and fought hard and won in September to play on in October.

I have been watching replays and reading as much as possible about the Rays today, because I am in such a happy mood and I just can’t believe that the team who was written off and laughed at did it. We did it! We are in the post season for the third time in four years.

I often tell people that baseball is a reflection of how life is, but this happens to be the most accurate description of why I love baseball and why I love my Rays so much:

Baseball, like life, revolves around anticlimax. That’s what you get most of the time. You stand in driver’s license lines, and watch Alfredo Aceves shake off signals, and sit through your children’s swim meets, and see bases-loaded rallies die, and fill up your car’s tires with air, and endure an inning with three pitching changes, a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk.

and also this:

The Braves failed to score. Papelbon blew the lead. Longoria homered in the 12th. Elation. Sadness. Mayhem. Champagne. Sleepless fury. Never been a night like it. Funny, if I was trying to explain baseball to someone who had never heard of it, I wouldn’t tell them about Wednesday night. No, it seems to me that Wednesday night isn’t what makes baseball great. It’s all the years you spend waiting for Wednesday night that makes baseball great.

At 5 pm on Friday we once again will tune in to see what this scrappy team will do.

At 5 pm on Friday we will resume writing our history.

Let’s go Rays!

Going on Vacation. NBD

Carlos — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:29:32 +0000

You won’t be hearing much from me this week since I will be in the New York City/New Jersey area visiting my dear friend Angela, exploring New York City for the first time since Ernie and Katie took me when I was 12, going to a Central Park concert to see Wilco and just having an unbelievably good time.

Not that I blog often, but I will have my handy-dandy Moleskine with me to write down things. Oddly enough, I have misplaced my other Moleskine that had a lot of good stuff on it, from quotes to names of bands to listen to, restaurants, etc. No fear, I am hopefully going to fill it out when I am up there.

No worries though, I’ll still be tweeting and posting stuff on Facebook, but mostly it will be pictures and maybe a few status updates and what not.

I shall see you all on Saturday when I get back!

Call Me Carlos

Carlos — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:24:59 +0000

Or C-Los ¹, or ‘Los ², or C-Stro ³, or Caco ⁴,or CC ⁵, or Castro ⁶, or Los Lobos, or Losweed ⁷, or Carlitos ⁸, or Carlito Supreme as my friend Huma likes to say every once in a while or Koso as my good friend Megan likes to annoyingly call me.

The point is, I have a lot of names and I have no idea why people like to give me nicknames, but they do all the time. I guess I must have that type of face? Despite the nicknames, there is no one name that no one can call me because it annoys the crap out of me: Carlito. I really do not like that name, more so than Megan’s wretched Koso nickname.

So it doesn’t matter what you call me, just never call me Carlito or Koso.

Damn you Megan!

Notes:

Ashley first started calling me C-Los is high school, and to this day people still use it ↩
My friends on Ants Marching first started calling me this, which carried over the the real world and is what Becky normally calls me ↩
Theresa’s nickname for me ↩
Again with Theresa ↩
I think Gabe started calling me this, or was it Other CC because people call Carl Crawford CC? Anyways, the other person that calls me this is Stuart ↩
People seem to like my last name. I don’t blame them ↩
an old boss of mine was telling me this story about how he went to high school with a guy guy named Carlos, who sold weed in the parking lot of the high school. He calls me Los Lobos because he likes the sound of it ↩
When I was little this is what my Mom and Abuelita used to call me ↩

Trying to lose the love handles

Carlos — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:54 +0000

I’m 5′ 8″ and weight nearly 220 lbs. I have a BMI of 33, which makes me obese. Ideally my body weight should be between 150 and 165 according to most BMI calculators and charts, but I am gunning to be a more healthy 180 lbs to start with. I remember the last time I was 180 and that was back in 2009 when I was pretty much very motivated in getting things done school wise, but this is when I developed a sedentary life style and being out all the time at either school, work or with friends and it lead to really unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits. Fear not, I do not have that many commitments anymore besides being at work nearly everyday with plenty of time to actually go to a gym and to shed all this fat that I have on my body. I know, it won’t be easy and at times I will just want to quit, but I am sure that this public confession and admission in my unhealthy lifestyle will be a catalyst to get me started to a healthier Carlos.

I already started to wean myself into being active and healthy by changing my eating habits and counting my calories and researching which supplements to take in order to feel better and look better. I already eliminated soda from my diet and drink only water, orange juice and an occasional iced tea. I haven’t eliminated alcohol out of my life because that would just be crazy, but I am limiting myself on what it is that I drink and how much I drink ¹.

I joined the local branch of Anytime Fitness and so far I like it. The facility is close to my apartment and I get to go whenever I want, which usually means that there are not a lot of people there hogging up the machines and I get to do what I want when I want it, plus they have rowing machines and even though they destroy my mind, body and soul I think that they are incredibly fun and give you an excellent workout; the same can be said of an elliptical machine, the bikes and the Arctrainer, which kicks my ass as well.

This is something that I have to stick with. Its imperative that I stick with going to the gym and working out. Why? Because I feel pretty disgusted with my self and how far I have let my body go to waste. At one point in my life I was at the 165 lbs pound range (sometime in 2005, I believe) and I did nothing to actually to tone myself up despite working with the merchandise pickup department and being fairly active. I have lots of clothes–good clothes–that I can no longer wear because I’m so huge. I wear XL jackets now instead of mediums and wear a size 38 waist, 17 1/2 neck and God know what else. I remember when I was tinier and was able to wear a size 34 and every medium jacket fit me perfectly (and I could actually button it!), and the plethora of dresshirts I could pick out because of my ideal neck size. Now I’m just fat, big and disgusting.

Okay, maybe not disgusting, but its not healthy specially when my family has hit the genetics lottery of awful diseases: diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease. If I keep doing what it is that I am doing then I am not going to be around long and won’t get to do the things that I want to do in life. More than anything I just want to look at photos of myself and not be disgusted with my big belly.

So yes. New healthy eating habits. Going to the gym everyday and getting rid of the junk in my life.

Sounds like a plan.

Notes:

To be honest, I’ve done this for quite a while. I usually nurse my drinks and start pretty consistent with the types of alcohol that I happen to drink, even though I’ve never quite listened to the rule of “liquor before beer” since I find that to be pretty dumb. ↩

SPAM!

Carlos — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:26:31 +0000

Normally all the spam I get is for real estate investment opportunities in Chile (don’t ask why) and today I received my very first “Nigerian” style transfer funds spam message! ME SO EXCITED! Naturally, the first thing I thought of was to take a screen cap in order to document this monumental milestone.

Seems Legit