When I travel abroad (or sometimes within the states), I always like to try something new and try to take it home with me. Previous attempts have more or less failed, such as a gravlax habit that would have been prohibitively expensive here in the states or gradually losing interest in international rugby after the 2011 world cup.
Ever since I went to Australia I have been fascinated with cricket and even attended a couple T20 matches ahead of the cricket world cup, and I have been able to maintain an interest in cricket long after my interest in other foreign tidbits has already faded. During work I can tune into a test match and have it running in the background, and watching limited-overs cricket leads to every ball being important, which can't exactly be said for many other sports. Even in test cricket, where the strike rate is relatively unimportant, can provide constant entertainment over several days, such as the current iteration of The Ashes. Combine test and limited-overs cricket, and you have a sport that could entertain in any situation.
It seems that the primary hurdle of watching cricket is achieving a basic understanding of the rules, as otherwise it would be impossible to enjoy the game. While the game doesn't seem quite so complex after watching for a while, I realized that it can be very difficult to explain to other people with all the ways to get runs, to get out, etc. Once that significant hurdle has been overcome, it seems that cricket can be something I can enjoy for a long time to come.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Panda Cheese
Back in 2010, Panda Cheese, a cheese made by an Egyptian dairy company, made commercials featuring a panda destroying stuff. I remember these commercials having great success over the internet and having quite a few good chuckles back in the way. I was reminded of these commercials recently, and while they still provide good comedic value, I was more curious about the song featured in the commercial.
Buddy Holly's True Love Ways is reminiscent of songs of generations past, where the instrumental was more than just a series of beats and the chorus didn't repeat over and over again. The lyrics were meant to be meaningful and the song overall was easy on the ears, instead of today's overstimulus in all facets of life. Kind of like...
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Mahler Symphony No. 3
Mahler Symphony No. 3
Saturday, June 20, 2015
8 PM
Symphony No. 3 in D minor - Gustav Mahler
Kräftig, Entschieden
Tempo di menuetto: Sehr mässig
Comodo, scherzando, ohno Hast
Sehr langsam, misterioso
Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck
Sehr langsam und durchaus mit inningster Empfindung
Christianne Stotjin, mezzo-soprano
Northwest Boychoir
Women of the Seattle Symphony Corale
This was my final concert for the 2014-2015 season, and needless to say I was excited heading into the concert, as it's not every day someone performs a Mahler symphony. Most are marathon affairs, and the third symphony is no exception, with the performance clocking in a shade under 2 hours from start to finish. I was impressed by the overall body of work , but as usual, I was not blown away by the performance. Most of the piece was technically sound and everything was together for the most part (and they even sent the trumpet player up high into the balcony for the 3rd[?] movement), but there were some things that stuck out (including the dude two rows in front of me and the guy next to me who were both using their phones during the performance). Firstly, it is my belief that no one individual should stand out during the performance, but at every performance, there is one guy in the first violin section who sticks out like a sore thumb. He is much more animated than the rest of the section (and by a long shot), and it's always a little unnerving for me to see a head (and the musician) not quite in sync with the rest of the section, bobbing and swaying excessively to a point where I feel it is distracting. Additionally I didn't feel that the soloist was able to project into the hall, as I had some difficulty hearing her in the middle of the orchestra-level seating.
As the season has concluded, you are now free from hearing me write about my Seattle Symphony performances until September! Rejoice!
Friday, June 19, 2015
End of a Musician
Before I went to college, playing music wasn't about playing for fun, but instead music was about being the best musician possible (and hopefully the fun would follow). I had started to take the violin very seriously and I was even considering it as a career option. To that point I even attended Interlochen Arts Camp in high school in addition to the standard high school orchestra festivals. Outside of my academics, playing the violin was probably the endeavor I took most seriously.
To that point I ended up electing to study to become an engineer and, after high school, music became a much lower priority. There was no longer time for me to be able to continue playing at the level that I had become accustomed to playing, and playing music primarily turned into an outlet for stress relief. While I was able to play in the orchestra for two years and play chamber music all four years, I didn't receive the same fulfillment as I previously had. I wasn't thrilled that I was playing at a decreased ability, and the stress relief outlet didn't quite compensate for the lack of enjoyment. My motivation was greatly reduced, along with my desire to play music. At that point music was no longer an immensely integral part of my life. This culminated with one last hurrah-playing Brahms' String Quartet No. 1 in C minor and walking off into the proverbial musical sunset.
It has now been a little over two years since I've picked up my violin, and I'm not sure when I will next bring it out of its case and play it again. Now there is no end goal of becoming a better musician, and I find it difficult to play music without direction.
To that point I ended up electing to study to become an engineer and, after high school, music became a much lower priority. There was no longer time for me to be able to continue playing at the level that I had become accustomed to playing, and playing music primarily turned into an outlet for stress relief. While I was able to play in the orchestra for two years and play chamber music all four years, I didn't receive the same fulfillment as I previously had. I wasn't thrilled that I was playing at a decreased ability, and the stress relief outlet didn't quite compensate for the lack of enjoyment. My motivation was greatly reduced, along with my desire to play music. At that point music was no longer an immensely integral part of my life. This culminated with one last hurrah-playing Brahms' String Quartet No. 1 in C minor and walking off into the proverbial musical sunset.
It has now been a little over two years since I've picked up my violin, and I'm not sure when I will next bring it out of its case and play it again. Now there is no end goal of becoming a better musician, and I find it difficult to play music without direction.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Brahms Symphony No. 1
Brahms Symphony No. 1
Thursday, June 11, 2015
7:30 PM
Egmont Overture - Ludwig van Beethoven
In lieblicher Bläue for Violin and Orchestra (US Premiere) - Julian Anderson
Carolin Widmann, Violin
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 - Johannes Brahms
Un poco sostenuto - Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Un poco allegretto e grazioso
Adagio - Più andante - Allegro non troppo, ma con brio
Originally I wasn't planning on going to this performance, but I had a change in plans and I was unable to attend Pinchas Zukerman's performance. I was able to exchange that ticket for this one, as subscribers are allowed to have free exchanges. I have always been a fan of the Egmont Overture and the Brahms symphony, but I'm always skeptical of anything recent, and Anderson's work did nothing to dissuade me from my dislike of contemporary music, where I feel that the composers are so obsessed with following rules that the choose these rules over the music itself. The work began with the soloist offstage before the soloist emerges and begins playing from the side of the orchestra. The white noise continued, and the piece concluded with the soloist turning away from the audience. Interestingly, this performance was the first time I had heard the conductor speak before a Seattle Symphony performance (another no-no in my book). Barring another change in travel plans I'm hoping to avoid any more performances featuring anything contemporary.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines has been out for a while now, and I've been having a lot of fun playing the game. It's basically almost everything you wanted the Sim City franchise to be, and it's much more addicting than any previous Sim City game.
My favorite part of Cities: Skylines is how you can turn the game into a sandbox for whatever your creativity comes up with. The game allows the build of custom assets so that you can supplement the stock assets the game provides. Additionally, the game allows for modding, allowing for amazing user-generated content. If you can imagine it and build the mod, it's available for your use. For example, the Traffic++ mod can be used to create bus lanes in the road and can restrict turns at intersections for better traffic control. One of the built-in mods allows for infinite money so that you can be completely free to do whatever your heart desires without having to make your city viable at all.
Cities: Skylines also improves upon a lot of other things that were wrong with Sim City. When you start building the city, it becomes very evident that the Cities: Skylines road-building tool is much better, allowing for customized curved roads, and roads at different heights (and trying to create crazy interchanges as a result). In addition, the engine itself for Cities: Skylines would simulate every individual and assign them to jobs at specific locations and to specific residences, instead of the nearest location. The traffic simulation is also much better, with Cities: Skylines providing a detailed simulation, leading to emergent puzzles where players will have to adjust how the build their road system to better cope with how traffic develops (and this is easily one of the most challenging things with the game-developing a smart road system that can handle high traffic without huge backlogs). With the detail in the simulation, you can see where each person is going, where they work, and where they live. The same works for vehicles, such that each person/car/building/etc actually serves a purpose instead of just being there, which is what Sim City does.
What's also great is that Colossal Order, the minds behind the game, continue to develop the game. For example, the first big update included the use of tunnels for roads and trains and multi-levels underground in addition to controlling the height of the roads in the base release.
Naturally, playing the game doesn't mean I'm any good at traffic simulation, and I often continue to create huge traffic messes. However, the dynamic nature of the game prevents me from settling on anything and provides an ongoing challenge to keep me interested long after I stopped playing other games.
My favorite part of Cities: Skylines is how you can turn the game into a sandbox for whatever your creativity comes up with. The game allows the build of custom assets so that you can supplement the stock assets the game provides. Additionally, the game allows for modding, allowing for amazing user-generated content. If you can imagine it and build the mod, it's available for your use. For example, the Traffic++ mod can be used to create bus lanes in the road and can restrict turns at intersections for better traffic control. One of the built-in mods allows for infinite money so that you can be completely free to do whatever your heart desires without having to make your city viable at all.
Cities: Skylines also improves upon a lot of other things that were wrong with Sim City. When you start building the city, it becomes very evident that the Cities: Skylines road-building tool is much better, allowing for customized curved roads, and roads at different heights (and trying to create crazy interchanges as a result). In addition, the engine itself for Cities: Skylines would simulate every individual and assign them to jobs at specific locations and to specific residences, instead of the nearest location. The traffic simulation is also much better, with Cities: Skylines providing a detailed simulation, leading to emergent puzzles where players will have to adjust how the build their road system to better cope with how traffic develops (and this is easily one of the most challenging things with the game-developing a smart road system that can handle high traffic without huge backlogs). With the detail in the simulation, you can see where each person is going, where they work, and where they live. The same works for vehicles, such that each person/car/building/etc actually serves a purpose instead of just being there, which is what Sim City does.
What's also great is that Colossal Order, the minds behind the game, continue to develop the game. For example, the first big update included the use of tunnels for roads and trains and multi-levels underground in addition to controlling the height of the roads in the base release.
Naturally, playing the game doesn't mean I'm any good at traffic simulation, and I often continue to create huge traffic messes. However, the dynamic nature of the game prevents me from settling on anything and provides an ongoing challenge to keep me interested long after I stopped playing other games.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Pot-Bellied Cyclists
One of the most interesting things I see on a regular basis are cyclists who seem to have a little too much in the belly department. It's always a little humorous to see people dressed in the standard biking jersey and shorts carrying some extra weight. While these individuals are fairly active, especially those I see most days commuting to work, there are several reason I believe this to be the case.
Cycling isn't particularly a full-body exercise, especially if you're leisurely biking without an intent to treat it as working out. While it's great that you're biking to work or getting out on the weekends for an easy ride, not using your upper body at all just might lead to a slight pot belly. Having an overall good body of work would probably require working out the entire body.
Another idea is more psychological, in that people seek to reward themselves after exercising. Except, instead of rewarding, they use exercise as an excuse to maintain unhealthy parts of a lifestyle ("if I go to the gym, then I can have this chocolate bar/burger/etc"). Obviously these things don't cancel out, and good overall health requires a good diet as well.
Maybe so, maybe not, but these cyclists always give me a good chuckle.
Cycling isn't particularly a full-body exercise, especially if you're leisurely biking without an intent to treat it as working out. While it's great that you're biking to work or getting out on the weekends for an easy ride, not using your upper body at all just might lead to a slight pot belly. Having an overall good body of work would probably require working out the entire body.
Another idea is more psychological, in that people seek to reward themselves after exercising. Except, instead of rewarding, they use exercise as an excuse to maintain unhealthy parts of a lifestyle ("if I go to the gym, then I can have this chocolate bar/burger/etc"). Obviously these things don't cancel out, and good overall health requires a good diet as well.
Maybe so, maybe not, but these cyclists always give me a good chuckle.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
City Sterility and The Idyllic Use of Rustic
Recently I received a catalog from Uncommon Goods in the mail, and several items were highlighted as being "rustic". For example, a set of large wooden dice in a brown cloth bag and a beer caddie made out of wood are both characterized as "rustic". While perusing the catalog, it was very apparent that Uncommon Goods tended to target what I call rich "city people", where many of the items served very specialized functions and command large price premiums.
This interesting sales pitch of essentially just using more natural materials in making objects seem more "rustic" is an interesting observation of the thought process of those who primarily are exposed to cities. Our living spaces have become jungles of concrete and metal, and the great outdoors are often absent from the urban environment.
With these observations I tend to associate cities with being too sterile. Everything is supposed to be clean from the environment, and nature is seen as dirty. Dirt almost seems revolting and non-domesticated animals become freaks. People have become so separated from the outdoors to the point that it seems to be a plague that contaminates on contact. (Ok that might be a big too much hyperbole, but the general idea stands).
What this has been replaced by is a more idyllic view of the "rustic" country style, where people sit on their beautiful porches all day overlooking perfect views (which of course are somehow super clean without the rest of nature getting in the way (or the real life). It would be entertaining to see "city people" spend an extended period of time away from the cities to see what it's really like to live out in the middle of nowhere.
This interesting sales pitch of essentially just using more natural materials in making objects seem more "rustic" is an interesting observation of the thought process of those who primarily are exposed to cities. Our living spaces have become jungles of concrete and metal, and the great outdoors are often absent from the urban environment.
With these observations I tend to associate cities with being too sterile. Everything is supposed to be clean from the environment, and nature is seen as dirty. Dirt almost seems revolting and non-domesticated animals become freaks. People have become so separated from the outdoors to the point that it seems to be a plague that contaminates on contact. (Ok that might be a big too much hyperbole, but the general idea stands).
What this has been replaced by is a more idyllic view of the "rustic" country style, where people sit on their beautiful porches all day overlooking perfect views (which of course are somehow super clean without the rest of nature getting in the way (or the real life). It would be entertaining to see "city people" spend an extended period of time away from the cities to see what it's really like to live out in the middle of nowhere.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Trying New Ingredients
Part of cooking is learning new things to expand the cookbook, which definitely helps cut down on the monotony and repetitiveness that cooking can become. So every once in a while, I'll pick up a new ingredient from the Asian grocery store and give it a shot, often with mixed results (as expected).
My latest epic failure was cooking with Thai chilies. I'm a huge fan of Thai food, and I though it would be interesting to substitute a chili paste I use with some Thai chilies. However, I greatly underestimated their spiciness the first around, and ended up dicing six of them for a single serving, seeds and all. Naturally that did not end well, and it took me almost an hour to finish my dinner. Since then I've cut down the amount of chilies I use in a single serving (one or two now supplemented with a little chili paste) to add another flavor profile to my dishes.
Lately I've been greatly expanding my mushroom library when it comes to cooking. Before I consciously began exploring new ingredients my primary mushrooms and fungi of choice were white mushroom, shiitake mushroom, and wood ear fungus. Recently I've began cooking with enoki, oyster, and chanterelle (at the right price) mushrooms. However, I'd have to say that my favorite has been the shimeji mushrooms, particularly hon shimeji (which should NOT be eaten raw). The particular variety seems to absorb flavors pretty well without wilting too much; maintaining enough crunch without being bland. I've tried it with several different preparations, and it seems to hold up as a pretty versatile to the point where it seems to have become my mushroom of preference. Shimeji mushrooms also seem to keep much better than other varieties of fresh mushrooms, which also makes it an attractive option since I only go grocery shopping once a week.
My latest epic failure was cooking with Thai chilies. I'm a huge fan of Thai food, and I though it would be interesting to substitute a chili paste I use with some Thai chilies. However, I greatly underestimated their spiciness the first around, and ended up dicing six of them for a single serving, seeds and all. Naturally that did not end well, and it took me almost an hour to finish my dinner. Since then I've cut down the amount of chilies I use in a single serving (one or two now supplemented with a little chili paste) to add another flavor profile to my dishes.
Lately I've been greatly expanding my mushroom library when it comes to cooking. Before I consciously began exploring new ingredients my primary mushrooms and fungi of choice were white mushroom, shiitake mushroom, and wood ear fungus. Recently I've began cooking with enoki, oyster, and chanterelle (at the right price) mushrooms. However, I'd have to say that my favorite has been the shimeji mushrooms, particularly hon shimeji (which should NOT be eaten raw). The particular variety seems to absorb flavors pretty well without wilting too much; maintaining enough crunch without being bland. I've tried it with several different preparations, and it seems to hold up as a pretty versatile to the point where it seems to have become my mushroom of preference. Shimeji mushrooms also seem to keep much better than other varieties of fresh mushrooms, which also makes it an attractive option since I only go grocery shopping once a week.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Visiting The South
This past weekend I traveled to the deep south for the first time (because we all know Florida doesn't count as the deep south), spending the weekend in the Mississippi gulf coast town of Ocean Springs. Naturally I wasn't expecting how the south is portrayed in the media and entertainment industries where everyone sits on their porches with sweet tea overlooking vast plains of grass (and other portrayed stereotypes). However, I am unable to provide a great perspective, as I was pretty busy with an event most of the weekend and I wasn't able to really explore. I was only able to go out to eat once, and that was the Wendy's next to the hotel because the Waffle House was too far away. All my other meals were catered as part of the event, which didn't help me explore the south.
That being said, there were a good number of observations. Everyone I engaged with seemed happy to just chat and shoot the breeze, starting with my taxi driver from the airport, who essentially gave me a small commentary of the coastal areas we were passing from Gulfport to Ocean Springs and continuing onward with the drivers of the shuttles for the event. At Wendy's (and a restaurant at the airport) every customers were addressed as Sir of Madam. They're also really into their soda (or coke as they call it). The Wendy's had one of those touchscreen soda machines, but the selection was huge-they carried seemingly every known variation of Coca Cola (including the flavored variations) and Fanta flavors (lime) that I had never heard of before. No wonder obesity is such a problem. They also really like their sweet tea, and I have to say it's quite tasty, and I even took the liberty of making my first Arnold Palmer (and I see why people like it so much). However I would have to say that the Mississippi gulf coast is a place I would like to stay for an extended period of time-sure the food would be good for a few days, but after a while I would easily get bored.
That being said, there were a good number of observations. Everyone I engaged with seemed happy to just chat and shoot the breeze, starting with my taxi driver from the airport, who essentially gave me a small commentary of the coastal areas we were passing from Gulfport to Ocean Springs and continuing onward with the drivers of the shuttles for the event. At Wendy's (and a restaurant at the airport) every customers were addressed as Sir of Madam. They're also really into their soda (or coke as they call it). The Wendy's had one of those touchscreen soda machines, but the selection was huge-they carried seemingly every known variation of Coca Cola (including the flavored variations) and Fanta flavors (lime) that I had never heard of before. No wonder obesity is such a problem. They also really like their sweet tea, and I have to say it's quite tasty, and I even took the liberty of making my first Arnold Palmer (and I see why people like it so much). However I would have to say that the Mississippi gulf coast is a place I would like to stay for an extended period of time-sure the food would be good for a few days, but after a while I would easily get bored.
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