Post-Thanksgiving Assessment

Jay-Z's album's dropped, and it's pretty solid. Not the Black Album, but not a pile of black something, if you catch my drift. The title track has absolutely my favorite opening, "I don't know how life would be in H.I.P. H.O.P. without your boy H.O.V. not only NYC, I'm hip-hop's savior, so after this flow you might owe me a favor.." Truly classic, and I mean it. The worst track, IMO, is "The Prelude," the first track, which starts off vaguely Raekwon/Method Man-ish with a movie quote over some classical-ish sampling. It's good sampling, but then Jay launches into a long, boring flow about himself. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's back, but he doesn't need to remind us of how good he is- the songs will take care of that. Usher's feature track- "Anything" has a bumping beat, but not a great flow or anything, but man, the beat is sweet. Plus, it's Usher, so you know it's hot. Not a club beat, something this album lacks- thank goodness, i'm sick of the cliche club track on every hip-hop album for the last ten years. But, The album is solid, diverse, and not too repetitive, though by "Dig a Hole" you might be getting tired, but you definitely want to ahng on- "Beach Chair" with Coldplay's Chris Martin is one of the best tracks on the album.

Thanksgiving was awesome- i realized that i've essentially had the exact same thanksgiving dinner my entire life, but I couldn't be happier about it. It's simply the greatest conglomeration of foods that there is, and it's impossible to improve on the best. I love my family, honestly, they're the best, even if my brother got me up at 3 in the morning to go to Gamestop to try and get the Nintendo Wii only to be 7th in a line where there were only 6 Wii's delivered. And even if my sister is a little prying, she was good enough to choose The Cheesecake Factory for her birthday dinner. And my mom, for taking me shopping for cold weather stuff, whcih it turns out I badly needed.

BYU v. Utah, wow, what a game. First off, BYU played their worst of the season, by far, but managed to make an amazing pay in the last seconds to win. There were some terrible calls or missed calls and etc, but overall, it was a great game because we beat Yewtah. And now we're just on to the Vegas Bowl- where we should win, hopefully, but we'll be playing Oregon most likely, which I dunno how that'll go.

So, when I arrived home Monday morning, it was lightly snowing, and it was very lucky I bought all my cold weather stuff there in Houston, because it is snowing like nothing else. I love snow- it's truly amazing. I walked to class today and it was all I could to not play in it. Honestly, people say I'll get tired of it, which I no doubt will, but as long as I'm enjoying it, I'll brag about it. Give it a month or two though- I'l get sick of it.

Okay, so this Christmas is going to be amazing- I'm going to NYC. No joke. I love my parents.

Cum Veritas et Spes

Dan