guilty pleasure revealed
Two for the price of one.
Lately, I have been in need of some great gym-located-sprinting-workout music or pre-cycling tunes that have strong, hard-hitting dance beats. I used to have such a weakness for great dance music, but my love for the genre waned leaving me a general appreciation for most rhythmic or electronic music. Right now, a quick search of “Electronic” by genre in my iTunes library brings up 30% of my songs. Anyways, buying dance music is tough - the quality of albums and types of dance/techno/house/club tunes varies significantly - but the sampling capabilities of the iTunes Store allows me to find a lot of great stuff. Then, it hit me. Dance Department, a once favorite podcast. Now, I am overflowing with training tunes and satisfying my repressed urges to rhythmically nod my head.
Deep inside, the “primal urge” to groove to a consistent beat but years of training ourselves to ignore such instincts spawned other music style, each beautiful in their own right - baroque, jazz, The Beatles. I’m surrendering to my ancestors’ great beginnings, at least temporarily.
Second. My roommate occasionally calls me “a battlefield type of guy”. Over 4 years ago, I purchased Battlefield 1942 once it was cheap. It was kind of a neat game, at least worth the $20 I had to give to BestBuy in order to take the box home. After I first beat the game, I pretty much stopped playing video games entirely and only messed around with it once or twice per year for the next so many years. Then, Battlefield 2 became cheap, $10 cheap, and I picked it up from Amazon. Then, my Intel iMac magically began booting into Windows and I messed around with BF2 to see what it was like. After a month of on/off playing, I had effectively mastered the single player potential of the game. Boooorring.
One day, I randomly hit the Multiplayer button, assuming it would jump me out of the game and to a website where I could pay X dollars per month for online multiplayer gaming. Instead, clicking Multiplayer brought up a real-time updated menu of free servers where I can hop onto a game with other BF2 players. Thousands of them. I found a popular server and joined the game.
I must say, playing a complex, team-oriented video game with a team of real people makes it a lot of fun. Using actual military tactics with people who are anticipating your moves is a wild transition from anything artificial intelligence can manufacture. I never thought I would be this interested in a video game, but Battlefield 2 is crazy fun.
So, I actually play a video game now, which is something I would have scoffed at a year ago. Honestly, it’s neat. It can swamp your time if you aren’t careful, but I quickly learned how to minimize my weekly exposure to the game.
And, anyways, cycling or working on my bikes takes up most of my time now, which is far more enjoyable than a game. Speaking of cycling, I recognized one of the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team backup bikes from Flickr shots of the Tour of Missouri. It’s the second one from the driver side of the SAG car [support & gear]. Another photo reveals that it is actually my bike, but likely outfitted with Dura-Ace shifters and derailleurs; I even have that same saddle now (eBay purchase). Kind of neat, I thought.
Worlds sprint tonight. Hot dog.