Oh man, I’ve been slacking on the blog! Still have more niche things to write about though!

I’ll give more of a detailed review when I listen to it all, but I must give an honorable shoutout to Goose’s EDM-coated remix of their album Everything Must Go. I love their rave themed coloring of their original album cover, and love the explorative side. U2 did some electronic remixes of their songs too. I always love seeing the creativity and branching out. Some songs I like better than others, but always cool nonetheless to get this surprise! Must have been fun for them!

The last few days I went up to the mountain to ski with one of my best friends. This ski season at Mt. Hood for anyone following has been unseasonably weak this year. I’ve gone up on the best days in a weak season, so conditions have been at least average. Sometimes weather has been amazing, but snow quality has been a B at best. Getting outside, especially on a Friday is so important to me. The fresh alpine air, or going out for a run, it’s important when your job is very sedentary, indoors, and on a screen. My friend and I have been alternating on who drives to the mountain rather than paying each other back and forth for gas money. But you know what? The ski season isn’t over yet, so we’ll hope for a miracle March. The days are getting longer, and I feel grateful to live so close to so much beautiful nature.

It was also fun going over to his house and playing video games this weekend, particularly the cross-platform Dead by Daylight (DBD) game. It’s very niche, but my former roommate and I became obsessed with it during the lockdown early days of the pandemic. Since it isn’t first person shooter (FPS) like Call of Duty or Battlefield, I actually was able to get proficient enough at playing. I don’t watch much TV, so I’ve thought about adopting one of my friends' PS4 consoles now what we have a couple of smart TVs that we got for free. My wife though loves that I don’t play video games, and comically hated the Dead by Daylight game when we all lived together early into dating. When DBD was playing on the living room subwoofers, she thought my roommate was watching porn! The the female survivor characters in the game (notably Feng Min) would squeal and moan in a very sexual sounding way, particularly when injured, or getting hung on one of the map’s sacrificial hooks by one of the killers. It was pretty hilarious! Whoever conceived the idea of this video game were probably a bunch of hetero men, no doubt.

Anyways, regarding getting outside, if I don’t start my day at 5:30am running with the dogs, I definitely do so at lunch or at least walk around and stretch during my morning or afternoon break. I have a foam roller in my home office area, and I’ve been good lately about doing 5 minute breathing meditations via my Oura app, and “rolling” out my body. I’m also trying to get my morning sunlight and setting my circadian rhythm. It seems to do wonders. I learned that from prior podcasts listening to Andrew Huberman.

I’m not a big fan anymore of popular health and science podcaster Andrew Huberman. I think he has credible info about sleep, sunlight, and circadian rhythms, among other topics. But I found his anti-vax tendencies alarming. His statement on not getting the flu vaccine years ago was eyebrow-raising, but everyone’s own autonomy I suppose? Worse yet, he circumvented discussing Covid vaccines, which was also strange. My fear was all but confirmed when he hosted Jay Bhattacharya, the current NIH director, who’s stance of letting the virus run rampant was nothing short of reckless. The fact that Huberman had on this Trump 2.0 appointee, without tempering it with a mainstream guy like Anthony Fauci said everything I needed to know. I’m all for openness to dissenting or unpopular opinions. But let’s also not pretend like they’re all perspectives have equal credibility. Even the most plausible conspiracy theories at best to me seem just short of 50/50 with the “official narrative.” There aren’t two sides to a story when one side is a lie. For example, flat earth, pizzagate, etc.