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

Big Week

A lot of important things are happening this week. Numero Uno is I return home for the first time in a few months for Thanksgiving, which, incidentally is the second big thing. I realy cannot wait to just get home and see people, hang with the family and have an awesome holiday. Not to mention my drumset is at home, and I really want to play something soon on that just because it's been so long since i've had a real drumset session.

Second big thing: BYU v. Utah. Yes, BYU has cemented it's place as the Mountain-West Conference champions, and yes they have been invited to the Las Vegas Bowl, and yes their record is actually really good, but there is one hitch. If we don't beat Utah, this season will really have meant nothing. The rivalry is the biggest thing this season has going, and BYU is a good enough team to beat the Utes. If we do, it'll be the highlight of our season, no doubt, but we have to thwomp them good.

Third big thing: Tomorrow is the return of the Roc, H.O.V.A, the Jay-Z. Kingdom come due out in stores tomorrow. If you haven't already seen the single (Show Me What You Got) then go see it. The single's not quite what I expected, but if the album lives up to Jay-Z's name, then it should be worth checking out.

Fourth big thing: I am coming home for Thanksgiving.

Rebuilding New Orleans

I had an epiphany whilst watching the Reggie Bush Project (http://thereggiebushproject.com). New Orleans isn't quite back on track, but Reggie Bush seems to be a sort of uniting figure. So who is Reggie Bush sponsored by? Pepsi.

So what if Pepsi rebuilt New Orleans- from the ground up? Reggie Bush's face plastered all over, nothing but Pepsi availabel at any stores, and most importantly- big money for the Big Easy. What's better than a corporate sponsor for a major city? The city gets money, and jobs, and in return the corporate sponsor gets huge advertising and influence and respect. This could catch on. I'd love to see big names running big cities. Imagine it- the taxes would be lower for the citizens!

Honestly, this is a brilliant idea. They could even rename the city- Cherry Orleans with a twist of Reggie.

Get on it major companies!

Updateish

School has been going okay. I've had a lot of papers to write and I still have another paper due this week for book of mormon, but that's what wednesday morning is for!

I'm actually really excited about writing this Political Science paper. My argument is that political attack ads force downsian retrospection on voters, which I'm pro-downsian, so in a way that's good. But the biggest problem I think right now is that people lie about stuff so downsian is harder to determine.

Okay. I'm a nerd, but I actually really am excited about this paper.