When Balck Smif N' Wessun Started Wrecking They Shows

Shuttling north right now. Commute today has been nuts because of the weather. Rainy. Stupid precipitation.
Moved into the new apartment over the weekend. Borrowed Lasse's van, which is creepy but fully legit, and ran a ton of errands. Staying at grandpa's was actually pretty OK for the last couple weeks. I think he appreciated the company and my aunt Pam came up from TX for the last week which was pretty fun.
The new apartment is pretty legit. Getting set up. Kia has been unpacking and setting stuff up the last couple days and its starting to look reasonable. Got some good deals on furniture from a coworker which helped a lot. Mattress got delivered today and the internet went in so we are officially a couch away from being real people.
The apartment is a couple of blocks above Haight st. which will work well for the shuttle and gives us access to Cole Valley and Haight/Ashbury which should be good.
Gotta run and grab a secret Santa gift in the Haight before I get home to finish setting up furniture. Shuttle ride has officially been 1.75 hours and will be on the better side of 2 hours by the time I get there. Well, at least I don't live in Mountain View.
Music:

Props to Free's beard. Extra grimey. Also shout out to Brother Ali's voice cracking.
Keep it grindy.

The Real Noreaga, He Owe Me A Hundred Favors

Shuttling back to the east bay right now. This has been my first day back at work which has been pretty good so far even though I made some tactical calendar errors my first day. Staying with gramps in the east bay has been as expected which is to say its been very nice of him and a little bit odd at the same time. Kia has been on the apartment hunt pretty hard the last few days trying to lock something down in the city with limited success but then again, its only been three days.
The last few months have been pretty hectic with the decisions to leave and come back to Google even though I never really left but in the end, here we are, back in the bay, doing big things.
Had a pretty epic month off mostly spent in Anchorage relaxing and spending time with family. Kia and I went to Maui for a week which was super chill and fun. Lasse came up to Anchortown for the Thanksgiving holiday and we showed him around a bit, taught him about American food, went snowboarding and introduced him to the locals. Some of his photos are here.
This is the anthem for the week.



Like a boss.
Keep it grimey.

I Ride The Soundwave Ridiculous, Omnipotent, Scientific, Chace Infinite

Just heard this for the first time thanks to the 1998 iteration of the History of Hip Hop mixtapes from The Rub.



Holy moly. These mixtapes are monsters. Can't recommend highly enough.
Back to work.
Keep it grimey.

Shame On You When You Step Through To The Old Dirty Bastard Straight From The Brooklyn Zoo

Fresh back from NYC and Rock The Bells. Had an epic time with the AK roll dogs and my brother from a Danish mother. The show was bonkers. 1:30pm to 12:00am of hip-hop legends. When DJ Premier is opening the show you know its going to be ape shit. Lots of good performances. Slick Rick rocking purple Tims asking the crowd if they like the colors, Rakim with more swagger on stage than a rhino, KRS with Bumpy Knuckles as his hype man and bringing out Buckshot. Lauryn Hill brought out all of her kids after performing To Zion.



She brought a ton of other people out just because they were hanging out in the wings. Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Chris Rock, Jay-Z, John Legend. That was nuts.
Tribe was dope, super live on stage. Wu was crazy and Snoop killed it. Still trying to process what happened on that stage.
The day was pretty rough though. I was standing in the pit for the first six acts with people pressed against me and by the time the seventh act came up I had to get some space.
It was wild.
Long night of flying last night though so I am headed home for some well deserved sleep.
Grind hard.

"Knowing Heaven'll Shun Us Being Devil's Miners, That Ain't Got Shit To Do With Tea In China"

One of the blogs I follow recommended this set of mixtapes from Rub. I have listened to the 2006 mixtape and its really good. Check them out.
Headed out to NYC early on Friday to go to the Rock the Bells show at Governor's Island. It has the makings of a monster day.
Got a couple things to do. Going to wrap those up.
Grind extra hard.

Knocked Down Round For Round, You're Feeling Like You're Shot Down On The Ground

Back in Dublin from my leave. Things are progressing. The trip was bonkers fun. NYC was epic and included puking, things hitting me in the head from many stories above and of course the wifey's big 3-0. The cabin in Pennsylvania was super relaxing and it was good to catch up with the fam. AZ was great, beautiful scenery and nice to see Josiberry and her mutt. The big wedding in New Mexico was amazing and great to see the Santillanes clan and eat some green chile. SF was burrito and beer filled dopeness. Hopefully I will be back in Cali soon enough. Some music that has entertained me lately:



I've been pretty impressed with KiD CuDi.
This one isn't new but the song is pretty sick and the video is straight up nuts.



Turns out Boos was onto something with the Ratatat/Hot Chip recommendations about 2 years ago. Shout out to Boos.
Keep it crackalackin'.

God Made Dirt And Dirt Bust Your Ass

Just wrapped up my last day at work for a month and I am feeling pretty ready for some leave. Thought I would leave the blog for a bit with this gem.



ODB. Greatest of all time.
I will try to update a bit while I am in the US.
Grind hard.

Feel Free To Hate, I Ain't Tryin' To Be Your Mate

So Ratatat did the impossible and made Dizzee Rascal sound cool.



Respect to Dan Cheezie on the Ratatat remixes hook up.
I just realized that the comment moderation setting for Blogger requires me to check who has commented by logging into my account. I enabled the email notification now so that my dad won't have to send three of the same messages thinking that I am ignoring him. Sorry dad.
Got back from Portugal and Amsterdam on Sunday. The trip was great, totally relaxing and great sites. I caught the Spain/Portugal game in Lisbon and the Brazil/Holland game in Amsterdam. The game in Amsterdam was pretty entertaining. The entire city became a victory celebration with people driving their boats up and down the canals drinking and singing.
Kia and I are getting ourselves together for the one month of traveling in the US which is going to start mid-July (next week). We will be in NY for a few days, Pennsylvania for about 10 days with Jason, Heather, the boys, her parents and Liz, Arizona for a few days to visit Josi, Vegas for a couple days and New Mexico for a few days for Maria's wedding before ending up in SF for about a week to visit my grandpa and some friends. Its going to be a lot of traveling but I am pretty excited. I have a few things to wrap up at work before I jet but its looking doable. Kia is similarly busy trying to wrap up stuff.
One more music link, cause I can.



Yup, Dead Prez are better on this beat than Drake. The mixtape is pretty good. Give it a listen.
Grind hard.

Me And These Is Like ET And Reeses' Pieces

[x]http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=13744327

So Chinese comment spammers suck. That's right, I said it. You all suck, eat it. I turned on comment moderation for the blog to try to curb the flow of links to Chinese pseudo-porn. We will see how long I put up with comment moderation. It might be time to switch blogging platforms. Maybe I should get a domain too. That would solve a lot of my photo hosting problems. Then again, I am lazy and will probably just deal with having to approve Nelson's fashion comments and my dad making fun of me.
Work is ape, I shouldn't be blogging so I will get back to it.
West, west y'all.

Please Mr. Boss Man I Need This Job More Than You Know

[x]http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=13744327&postID=1683443689582372562

Hey everybody. Going to try to keep up with my commitment to Sara to actually post semi-regularly. We will see how that goes.
Things have been good. The wifey and I were traveling for a couple weeks and got back on Sunday. Spent about a week in Greece, couple days in Berlin and almost a week in Croatia. Good trip all around. Decent amount of beach time. I went from transparent white to a color I would describe as eggshell. Been grinding it out at work this week but I have a decent break on the horizon in that I will be taking a few weeks of leave from mid-July to mid-August which I am looking forward to. Spending some time in the 'ol US and A.
This track has been following me around for the last couple months and I figure it deserves a post. Stonesthrow stand up!



Still haven't seen the show but I will put it on the to-watch list. Finishing up the sixth season of The Shield and its pretty awesome.
Watched the US get robbed in the World Cup today by this man.

Eat it buddy.
USA! USA!
Grind hard.

"Running Through Snow Like Blades In The Winter"

Haven't blogged in a while. Tough nuggz. Work has been a bit ape shit crazy. Lots of different things going on. Kia and I have had some visitors in town over the last month or so. Her mom, mom's boyfriend Cliff and (surprise!) little sister Josi showed up about a month ago and hung out for a couple weeks. My dad and step-mom Kirsten are in Ireland now heading back to the US tomorrow. Sara showed up this week and we had dinner and there have been a bunch of visitors from Mountain View/Beijing/Tokyo and Seoul to hang out with. Did a bunch of traveling but I will refrain from listing trips and rather work on posting some photos soon.
Anyway, the point is that I've been busy, so get off my back about blogging. Sheesh.
Kia and I are headed to Greece/Berlin/Croatia for a couple weeks leaving Saturday which are a welcome break at this point.
Been listening to Danny Brown the last few weeks and you should too.



Grind hard.

They All Got A Sales Pitch, I Ain't Buyin', They Tryin' To Convince Me That I Ain't Tryin'

Pretty quiet at work today. People are mostly out for the holidays. Went for some Christmas pints with Jonas yesterday which was quite festive. Leaving tomorrow afternoon for the holiday odyssey to eastern Europe. First stop Budapest for a few nights then Vienna and Prague for a few nights each. Christmas in Budapest and New Years in Prague, should be pretty European. I will have to remember to bring my Puma F1 racing shoes - just kidding.
Not going home for Christmas will feel pretty odd but Kia and I will make the best of it. A train trip through Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic will probably help.
Music:



Shout out to Albert on the track - update the blog Shalbs. He sent it to me in August but I effectively ignored it until yesterday. If you want to see the music video (and hear the edited track, click here).
Back to it. Happy holidays everyone.

I Paint Flows With The Feathers From The Wings Of Angels

Another monster track off of the Priestisms album.



Short post, trying to get out of work. Got back from Spain on Sunday. Kia and I saw a ton of the southern part of the country. I think our last count was like 13 cities in 10 days. It was pretty epic. We went to Tanger for the day which was definitely pretty high on the highlight list. There are about 4000 photos which need to be gone through and uploaded. I am trying to figure out if I should upgrade my Picasaweb storage of just pony up for the Flickr pro thing. I don't really want random photo nerds commenting on my photos but maybe I can avoid that by not tagging them. Anyway, need a better solution for the online storage thing because I am fast running out of my free space in Picasa. Anyhow, hope things are good with everyone and that their run up to the holidays is going smoothly. Kia and I will be in Europe for the holidays this year - the first time in the 10 years since we left AK that we won't be back for Xmas or New Years. We will make the most of it though. Back to work.
Grind hard.

I Make Hitler Wear a Yamika, KKK Celebrate Kwanza, Should I Proceed Further?

YouTubin' you to death.
Just caught this track off of Priestisms The LP which is a crazy album. KP is definitely one of the craziest MCs out there. There is an interview with him which was featured in Harpers back in 1998 I think where he talks about his theories on space, ETs and all sorts of stuff. If you can get your hands on it, read that junk, if not, I might know a guy.... Oh yeah and anyone who models their own t-shirt on Moose Limited is awesome in my book.



Oh and I like the fact that Nas is basically angry as shit. His latest album is getting some decent spins on the Ipod.

Warm It Up Chris, I'm About To, Warm It Up Chris, That's What I Was Born To Do

Shuttling with Smarbs. He is giving me a hard time about not blogging so I am going to do a micro post and show him. I made cameos on both Dougherty and Sara's blogs over the last couple days which basically makes me as big an online phenomenon as the Kanye West "Imma let you finish" jokes. Smarbs has the Marc Ecko Gmail skin which is his way of expressing his streetness, that and the fact that he is toying with MNM for his new baby's initials. We are chatting inboxes and social media. Yeah, we are nerds.

Hopping off the shuttle. Keep it grimey.

As You Step Up To Bat, Man, I Play The Riddler

Shuttling from MV to SF right now. Spent the evening with Pat, Dave, Ryan and Dan watching a terrible football game. The Cleveland Browns are basically terrible and the Baltimore Ravens are only slightly better. Got to drink a couple beers and eat some fried food though so it worked out alright.

For those of you not paying close attention to my travel schedule I am in California right now. I came in for a conference and to do a little work. Its been nice to catch up with people while I've been in town. Played a little poker with some knuckleheads from work on Friday and caught up with some friends from the city over the weekend. Even went down to the south bay to visit Matt, Brigitta and Violet which was awesome. Parenthood looks good on Matt and Brigitta. Its kind of weird being in SF but staying at a hotel in Union Square which is a part of town I don't know much about. They are setting up the Christmas tree in Union Square and they have a skating rink set up. Its not Thanksgiving yet and most of the big stores have their Christmas decorations up.

Haven't blogged in a while but you know how that goes. Things are clipping along in Dublin. They managed to keep me pretty busy for the most part and Kia and I are pretty settled in. Its hard to believe that we have been out there for six months already. We aren't headed back to AK this year for the Christmas holiday for the first time since we moved away from AK back in 1999 which is pretty crazy to think about. Kia has some designs on a trip to Prague, Budapest and Vienna for the week around Christmas and New Year. I guess that could work.

Less than a week left in SF at this point and the schedule is booking up pretty quickly. Speaking of SF, just got into the city, going to hop off the shuttle.

Grind hard.

...And Find a Newport, And I Don't Mean No Loosies, Or Desi Arnaz

Been listening to this track over and over the last day or so. Hipster hop at its best:



Shout out to DP on the hook up on this track.
Wale doing his thing too:



Time to bust out the skinny jeans, cardigan and desert boots.
Things are good. Haven't blogged in a while. Lots of things I want to say but I will keep it to the time sensitive stuff. The wifey is in AK for another week or so. She has been out for a couple weeks having a good time in Anchorage and doing a road trip with her grandparents who are up visiting. They went into Canada (aka Alaska jr.) and hit up Kennicott which sounds like a fair amount of fun to me.
Nelson is in town this week. Went to dinner at Gruel which was pretty tasty.
The Giants are still numerically in the race for the NL wildcard though their chances are looking pretty slim at this point. I have to admit, I am pretty damned satisfied with their play this year even if they miss the playoffs. To be in it in September far outpaced my expectations considering their complete utter lack of a batting line up. Still holding out hope that they make the playoffs.
9ers are playing some decent ball too. If they can get their passing game in order they have a decent shot at winning the division as far as I am concerned. Oh and Michael Crabtree is officially a dumb ass for not signing. I understand him wanting to get paid but the team seems to be moving on without him pretty effectively. Honestly though, I would love to see him suit up and pull down some passes. One of the stories I read outlined the fact that Crabtree's agent is effectively a draft agent saying that if Crabtree doesn't pull very top dollar his agent is at a disadvantage going into the next draft because he is essentially only as good as his last post-draft contract. I think they are both shooting themselves in the foot at this point though.
Anyway, things are good, a little bored without the wifey but she is headed back soon so I imagine I can survive. Lots of photos to post at this point, still haven't posted the AK photos, the Belgium or the Switzerland photos, so I will get up on that.
Grind hard.

Hit Like Barry, Score Like Jerry

Haven't been posting much lately. Work has been extra grindy lately. Been playing a mess of ps3 lately. Even went back and restarted both Resistance and GTAIV which has been pretty fun. Haven't started playing Fallout 3 yet but I will.
Because my ipod crashed and my hard drives with all of my music are safely tucked away in a box in AK I have been listening to what little music I had on my laptop HD. Needless to say, shuffle on my ipod has been exposing me to stuff outside of the norm. This is the long and useless way I am trying to explain that I have been listening to San Quinn. A couple West Coastin' anthems for you:

I think I saw Dougherty and his dogs in the background on that one.

OK I will point this out up front, the hook on this track is a little questionable. I have to admit though, I have watched this particular video like 5 times in the last couple days.
Things are kosher though. Work is busy but that seems par for the course. The Giants are playing decent baseball despite their utter lack of a batting line-up. I do like the fact that Pablo Sandoval's nickname is freaking Kung-Fu Panda. At the beginning of the Giants season I said that if the Giants can stay at .500 going into the all-star break and scoop two decent bats in trades they could make the playoffs. Well, they are better than .500.... Hell, as of today they own the third best record in the NL (60/48). Go Giants!
Alright all for now, grind hard.

"Because, Man, Somewhere In These Memories Is The Evidence"

Just caught the Tron trailer that they unveiled at Comic-Con last week (it turns out they released this trailer last year at Comic-Con but the put a date on it this time around and they are releasing it in 3D). I would put money on the fact that my brother is going to be all over this.
Here is the old school trailer just for reference:



Pretty cool. Can't go wrong with some Jeff Bridges and some futuristic craziness. Check out min 0:44 for some Lebowski-esque goodness.
Here is the new Tron trailer. Embedding disabled - boo.
Um, yes.
Back from Belgium. Trip was a blast. Lots of Belgian ales tasty food and good sites. Went for an epic bike ride through the Belgian countryside into the Netherlands and along the Belgian coastline. Pictures to come.
Back to work, grind hard.

Now Your Leg Is Missing, Blood Will Glisten, Then Your Soul Will Seep Into The Solar System

I admit it, I slept on the Mr. Lif album when I first got it. The Sun was a clear winner but I wasn't really following the rest of the album. I repent for my errant ways.