Music Monday: Family by The Cast Of Cheers

Hello readers,

It is Monday and thus time for my new music suggestions for the week. After a few listens of several albums I decided that Family by The Cast Of Cheers would be my recommendations by being the newest. I will not even review Good Morning To The Night by Elton John vs Pnau because that is something that unless you clearly have a problem with Sir Elton you should give a listen. The whole album too. But back to TCOC, this album starts very nicely. I would describe them as up tempo Indie. Many aspects of their style remind me of Foals with the interweaving guitar, direct bass and drums and the sometimes shrieking vocals. The tracks to look for are "Family," "Animals," "Goose," and "Marco Sava." Check it out as an album though.

Honorable Mentions:
Good Morning To The Night by Elton John vs Pnau

 Just listen to it. It's good. It's well played. It's smooth. It's funky.

Gossamer by Passion Pit
I generally do not listen to Passion Pit but I did like this album. They've been out for a while. "Take A Walk" is a great opener with a great message. It is a great listen alone. Most of the songs are up beat but some are slower such as "Constant Conversations" and "Cry Like A Ghost." It really feels like a narrative and that you are getting to know the singer. The beats are very good too but you expect no less from Passion Pit.

MTMTMK by The Very Best

TVB is an electro-Afro-pop consisting of Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya (who sings vocals in Chichewa, Swahili, Portuguese and English) and british DJ/production duo Radioclit (Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron). They formed in 2008 but this album is the first I heard of them. The music from MKMKMT is a good for anyone that likes bounce in their music or is just a fan of Afro or Carribean influences in electronic music. The opening track "Adani" gives you a clear indicator of the direction of the album with loads of sound effects over a catchy beat. There are even a few guests such as K'Naan. The tracks "Adani," "Moto," "Come Alive," and "We OK"are good tracks to look at but the whole album is pretty even.

Weight & Glory by KB

Now I'm not a practicing Christian so lyrically it isn't really as relevant to me but this rapper KB is really impressive. If you are Christian or into strong Christian lyrics I highly recommended this album. His story is he basically moved around a lot, was involved in drugs and depressed until he was saved and introduced to Christian Rap. Some of the messages hit pretty hard such as in "Anomaly," "Mr. Pretender," and "Open Letter (Battlefield)." Not my cup of tea like I said but very respectable and why I still mention it.

Enjoy the rest of your Monday,
Daniel

Just Checking In

Hey everyone,

I am still alive. Just not a lot going on. I have been setting up a database of Sprachschulen (language schools) that I will be visiting to market the Verbwheels and just generally not being very outdoorsy. That will change next weekend since it is already almost August. In two and a half weeks my internship will already be over and I will be back in jolly old London. Time really has gone past. I am literally almost halfway done. I still need to put effort into going to some of the places like Museums and the Allianz Stadium tour. It is always weird though when you are time zones away from people you know. I find myself just not having a morning which is bad I guess.

Olympics have been mildly entertaining but outside of watching some football matches I haven't been tremendously bothered since the Opening Ceremony. So it goes.

Weather has also justified me staying in. Quite a bit of rain.

Lastly, I love cooking for myself and will miss it on my last year of being on a dining plan at school. I fully understand why some try super hard to get off the dining plan. It really is only for convenience that I stay on it. Well looks like time to watch Brazil play in the Olympics.

Tchuss,
Daniel

The First Week In Munich

As some of you may know, I have been in Munich for just over a week. I have been extremely lazy about updating here because sorting out work, doing the work, Chelsea Blog, and yes just plain not doing it. But with a bit of down time now, I am forcing myself to make this post. Here it goes:

Munich is a wonderful looking city. The public transport is very convenient (though some parts of the Metro are closed) There are ticket buying machines at stations and on the trams themselves. As with a lot of other cities, you aren't regularly checked on tram (especially for short rides). I just walk mostly because I am literally never in a hurry. The first few days I really only sorted out going to LiDL (on a budget here) for groceries, the slightly aggressive efficiency in this process, and the outlay of my general surroundings. After this and my trip to Nuremberg, my employer was gone to visit his kids in Cologne which meant basically a week off for me minus the tedious excel sheet making I chipped at each day. Admitedly, I did not do much last week but that is also because I don't really know people here and I had to make the money stretch a bit until I could withdraw more. I did got out with a friend from Munich on Saturday who had just gotten back to Munich last week. It was not what either of us expected but at least I was out and met another person who I can hang out with around here.

Today, after withdrawing money and realizing I had walked half way to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), I decided I might as well check the city center out. I have made it a tradition since Barcelona that for any place I spend a decent amount of time, I will get their discount football jersey/shirts. Valencia was the exception (I got the official) because I like them and it was maybe 40-50 Euro, not the 80+ I have to pay for the other official shirts.  So being in Munich, I was in search for a Bayern Munich and Germany discount shirt. My hope was to get Schweinesteiger Bayern and Oezil Germany. In Barcelona, this search took 20 min tops. The stores by Sagrada Familia had these for giv ore take 20 Euro. Palermo, I went to a market and it took again maybe 20 minutes to find the shirt: 10 Euro. here in Munich, no-one even knew where you would find unofficial shirts. It wasn't like anyone even knew that there is a place where these are available. It really is official or bust here. I hope maybe by the stadium but I'm starting to doubt I'll find the Munich one but I did find a Germany one for 20 Euro (shown above). Unfortunately no name on it... Ah well.

But yes this is basically my week. I have become accustomed to this place and hopefully this coming week I will start being a bit more touristy and check out all the must-see sites and such.

gute Nacht,
Daniel

Music Monday: + by Ed Sheeran

Hi readers,

I know I've been getting a crazy amount of traffic from my recent introduction to the larger realm of Chelsea blogs but I still want to figure out how best to appeal to the other readers. So I'm not sure yet how I will schedule it but I want to add more music to this blog. Right now, I may make it music Mondays. Since starting Spotify, I now am a lot more up to date on recent music so I think I will just throw suggestions of albums that I have found worth looking into and why. Hopeful this will be a feature that people come to like.

Today I would like to suggest + by Ed Sheeran. I really enjoyed this album. For one thing, the guy is obviously very talented but what I found more important is how he avoids cliche so well. After a couple listens, you feel like you know him personally. It is a well paced album with good lyrics. The tracks to watch for in my opinion are "Small Bump," "Wake Me Up," "A Team," and if you listen to the deluxe edition "Sunburn." Obviously, no album is for everyone but it is definitely worth a try.

Daniel

P.S. For anyone that is into anything with even a hint of R&B and good lyrics, "channel ORANGE" by Frank Ocean is a must listen.

Good News Regarding My Chelsea Posts

Hey faithful readers,

Just posting to let you know that now I will be contributing to a Chelsea blog:

http://thechelseablog.org/

in place of my Chelsea posts on this one. There are some good posters at that level but it will be a fun opportunity to reach more people. I will still post about football in general and about travels and all the other usual but my Chelsea specific posts will more often than not end up there if they are taken. I will have the link at the top of my page to the blog. You should start to see a few things from me on there relatively soon (a few of my old posts included). I will notify you all when that is the case.

Stay tuned,
Daniel

What I Got From Chelsea F.C. vs Seattle Sounders

Yesterday, I did not expect I would actually be awake for Chelsea's first preseason match since it was at 3:30 a.m. Munich time. Surely enough, I did stay awake and it was worth it primarily for the first 45 min at least. The starting line-up saw the likes of Josh McEachran (a fan fave that really hasn't had a lot of opportunities) and Romelu Lukaku (a big purchase that didn't really see any first team action last season) playing along side new boys Eden Hazard and Marko Marin. I will not recap the match because you can find that basically everywhere else. I will, however, say why this showing excited me a lot about the new Chelsea.

I will not say too much about defense. It was shabby but during the season the Chelsea defense causes few serious problems. The first goal just cam from McEachran passing directly to the attacker. The game really wasn't about defense because with Terry, Cahill, Cole in the mix we are pretty secure. Chalobah and Hutchinson put in good shifts and I will be happy to see more from them in the future.

The midfield was where the magic happened. This is the first match these guys have played together (and for some in a Chelsea shirt) and for the short amount of time they've had together, Marin and Hazard played off of each other very naturally. Hazard was likened to Joe Cole for how sturdy his is through his cutting runs in midfield. There was a lot of hype about Hazard and he has already gotten a few good awards to his name but seeing him at Chelsea was entertaining. That is the biggest difference right now is that between the cutting runs through the park by Hazard and Marin's Robben-esque cuts and runs into the box, we will most likely be spending a lot of time in the opponents third. Adding Mata to these two would make a small but very dangerous three in that 4-2-3-1 and would be a dream for any striker worth his salt. If Torres does not find his way to the top of the score list this season he is not meant for this team. Josh was magnificent in the beginning getting in and stealing the ball to set up the first goal. It's a shame his confidence took a hit when he let up that bad pass but he has a bright future as many would say. Kevin de Bruyne showed a lot of raw promise but needs some polishing, especially on his shots. He will probably go on loan for a season or two but I expect good things from him.

The players like Essien, Mikel, and Lampard will be crucial in this midfield for size, tackle, and playmaking ability. You could tell they feel more expressive just by being in the mix with these young players. Lukaku played very well off of these two, netting his two goals. He in my opinion just needs play time plain and simple. He will be a fast and physical player with a pretty good shot. He just needs to play and make it natural.

For these reasons, I believe Chelsea will have a great run in taking back the Premier League and defending the Champion's League and even if it doesn't all happen this year, we will finally play the beautiful football Roman has been searching for.

KTBFFH,
Daniel

Summary of Importance Of Voting Abroad

Sorry readers for the little hiatus there. Just got to Munich this week and started my internship. I will probably have a couple more posts but this one I wanted to relay the information I got from a meeting in Nuremberg that I attended with my employer on the importance of voting abroad for the upcoming American elections. If you are not interested tin that then stop reading now.

So a little back story, my employer is Chair of Democrats Abroad in Germany but this event was a bipartisan one and part of Vote From Abroad. The presentation was led by Kathleen Burnett, the Chair of the Democrats Abroad Munich/Bavaria. The main objective of Vote From Abroad (which is bipartisan) is to get as many of the approximately 6 million Americans abroad to vote. If all Americans abroad voted, that would be about the amount of people in Missouri just to put that into perspective.

The presentation then brought up a few points on the importance of this election. The healthcare policy is obviously a big deal. The debate on taxes is a case where America needs to decide which they they want to go but both increase and decrease in taxes could potentially work. Jobs have been a term that both parties like to throw around but the Democrats seem to have more direction on what they actually want to do as far as job creation. Foreign Affairs is another topic that seems to be in Obama's favor. Obama has been disappointing in the Environmental department but the Republicans have yet to make a platform that exploits that. Human Rights (such as to women and minorities) seems to be much more of a concern for the Democrats than Republicans.

To bring it back to voting abroad, another big reason for the need to vote abroad is the fact that less Americans in America are being able to vote because of some of the new voting restrictions such as the need of specific forms of identification. Vote From Abroad focuses on the three Federal elections (Presidential, House, Senate).

They then went over the four steps to overseas voting. Changes have been made to the process so that if you request a ballot, you can request it be sent online. You still have to manually mail your vote in but it still makes the process more efficient. Voters abroad are also reminded that they must register for ever election year individually. You are not guaranteed a ballot if you do not ask for one. There are two ways to do this. The FPCA (Federal Post Card Application) and the FWAB (Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot). FWAB should be considered a back-up to the FPCA.

To round up the presentation, they talked about the MOVE (Military & Overseas Voting Empowerment) Act. This is what made the aforementioned process easier and there are many pros to this but as stated before, the cons are the fact that you must register for every election you plan to participate in and there is a grey area amongst local elections.

After this a few people got registered on the spot and that was the day. It was very interesting to me though not at all related to my internship. If you think this information will help anyone you know, forward them this link. For more information on each organization, go to their corresponding website:

• http://www.democratsabroad.org
• http://www.votefromabroad.org 

Until next time,
Daniel

Is Transparency In Athletics Really What We Want?

I don't want to really talk about this John Terry ordeal much longer but it brings me to another topic to talk about today. The main topic I would like to touch on is the use of social networking with athletes and how it contributes or detracts from the idea of athletes being role models. I find this very interesting because athletics and technology are two things I'm seriously thinking about going into but also because I feel this specific aspect is getting more relevant and important.

As it is, there is already a war going on about enforcing sportsmanship in professional athletics whether it be against foul language, unnecessary violence, or racism. Many argue that these actions on the field are picked up by the youth and thus will be perpetuated. To draw an example from the Terry ordeal, Rio Ferdinand's agreement in referring to Ashley Cole, Terry's black teammate who testified for Terry, as "Choc Ice" over Twitter brings about something that has become a bit of a trend for athletes and fans alike. Twitter provides a very fast and open way to react to and talk about current events. The problem is that it is very public and even though you can delete tweets (as Ferdinand did), there is still usually enough time for eager followers to screen shot your comments. If you think mildly ambiguous actions on the field can be impressionable on the youth, I would say rude comments over the internet are just as direct if not more. The growing number of athletes coming to Twitter is beginning to make it harder to keep up the "role model" fight because you get to hear their unedited thoughts and for some it really doesn't do them any justice. We all know that many professional athletes come from somewhat bad or rough backgrounds so to me there is an understanding that in the heat of the match things will get rough. This new transparency over Twitter has exposed a new battlefront for which actions can actually be taken for "banter" that gets too offensive.

I am curious to see whether this becomes a vehicle for making an example out of athletes. If they could use a shady Youtube video against John Terry then it makes a lot of sense that if someone actually tweets something offensive, action should be taken. Will this then bring more control from the clubs over who can be on Twitter? Will this then finally make people give up on the idea of athletes as role models or will it actually help the cause by giving another way to punish the bad examples? These are questions I'm anxious to see answered.


Daniel

A Terry-ble Look At Race Relations

As most of you probably know, current Chelsea and sometimes England captain John Terry was found not guilty on racial abuse allegations towards QPR defender Anton Ferdinand (brother of Terry's England teammate, Rio Ferdinand). The reason I choose to post about this is because while I obviously dislike racism, I think it's somewhat hypocritical the way this case came about and how this represents a shift to a society where things are possibly to politically correct and "racism" can be used as an easy way of incriminating someone you don't like to begin with.

Let's begin with what I consider a racist. A racist to me is someone with racial motives for negatively discriminating or showing aggression towards another individual or group of people. All of us harbor a very slight amount possibly from lack of exposure to a race or a few bad instances. Just in the same way that people make mistakes and people make bad decisions time to time but are not considered that mistake, racism should be seen the same way. A non-racist individual can use a racist term and not be considered one if they have many interactions with said race and "racist behavior" is usually not a problem. Even if Terry had been found guilty, I wouldn't consider Terry a racist because he has a much longer history of good relations with black players, especially the ones on his team. He could very well just dislike Anton.

This brings me to another point, the only thing that even brought race into the phrase "black f***ing c**t" is the word black. It should be obvious to people that the real insult was every other part of the sentence. Identifying race doesn't make someone racist. This phrase if said is just offensive and should be treated as such. This is all on the basis that he actually said this as an insult since apparently he said those specific words because he was denying calling Anton this and the camera's just picked it up out of context.

This again brings me to yet another point. Anton had to be told he was "racially abused." Then after the charges are pressed, everyone considers Terry guilty because of previous reasons to dislike him that have nothing to do with his racial relations. Fabio Capello lost his job for trying to defend the captain under the legal perspective of "innocent until proven guilty." Now the verdict is out, so many people (many of them supposedly credible on the sport) are saying this is a bad day for football and it has set the sport back decades. They are basing this again on something that was brought to court and not proven guilty. I think the more embarrassing part of this is that a man faced with such a serious charge can not be found not guilty without still being guilty to the public. What was the point of the trial then? Should we just allow everyone who is charger with racial allegations to just be found guilty because it dealt with race regardless of truth or proof? That would raise the conflicts between races because it would be an easy out for black players. Terry went through everything as he legally should and won.

To summarize, the worst thing football can do is keep this ordeal going longer. I do not defend racists but they need to actually be a proven racist before I question my support. So in this case, I support John Terry, club and country.

Daniel

A Night in Mondello

So my friend Sam and I set on this adventure with no idea of what we would get into. Let me tell you, we did not expect the scene in Mondello. We figured it would be sort of touristy and full of young people since it's a hot beach spot but that wasn't quite the scene we expected. It primarily consisted of families, a lot of couples, and groups of people that would be our age. But there were no real bars in the traditional sense of sit in and order and maybe talk to the people around you. It is a lot of patio by the beach where you can sit and have a meal or drinks with the people you came with. The people of our demographic (late teens to mid-twenties) were all sitting in the dark on the beach by candle light listening to music and hanging out. The most interesting part had to be the beach football that was going on. There is apparently a tournament happening of 5 a side. This was still going on when we left at 12:30-12:45. It was pretty entertaining and a lot of people would stop by to watch a match or two before continuing their night. All in all, it was a lot less of an open scene and a lot more of a spot that Italian's just go to visit and hang out. I still really like the place but would love to come back in any of the three types of groups previously mentioned. Tomorrow, we are going to go enjoy the day time scene on the beach.

Daniel

The Future of England

As the "Golden Generation" of English football is coming to a close and making way for the young stars such as Welbeck, Carrol, Ox, Wilshere, etc. and the German and Spanish machines (amongst others) are doing big things in the scene right now, I (as I'm sure some of you) am contemplating the effects of certain correlations between the strategies enforced in the youth squads and the adult squads.

Spain (just like Barcelona) seems to focus on replicating the formations and strategy of their adult team in their youth which makes it easy to call someone up when they get to the right age and another player gets old, out of form or injured. Another factor that plays into it is that after a while, the player will more likely than not end up Barcelona or Real Madrid. The recent acquisition of Jordi Alba is an example of this. It seems like anyone who is rising in Spain starts in their youth squad and goes through the Barca or Madrid youth system and then regardless of what they do or where they go for the next 5-10 years, they can be summoned on a whim and fall in line. Germany in some ways is similar but with a larger reliance on their excellent and efficient youth system.

This is obviously not the only factor because teams like Netherlands, Portugal, and Brazil do well without migrating they're players to certain club teams. My question is what does England need to do to get itself to match it's FIFA ranking and be considered an actual quality team and system? From what I've seen, it seems like our youth system isn't that bad at all. We seem to do well in youth tournaments. What could be responsible for what happens in senior squad tournaments. The recent showing at Euro's was pretty good but it wasn't very quality in the midfield or up front. The idea will be to get Walcott, Ox, McEachran, Wilshere, Welbeck, Carrol to form some team chemistry before they're in their 30's worrying about form and if they are in their last tournament. Would consolidating the teams the play for in the EPL do that? Would it involve them switching leagues (I doubt that since most of the international players who play outside their country come to the EPL, Serie A or La Liga)? Does it really just come down to an organized national manager? Maybe all of these need to be maintained in order to produce a winning, impressive squad. We will have to wait and see.

Daniel

Palermo So Far

I am alive and now in a Bed and Breakfast in Mondello with my friend Sam. Mondello is the beach/touristy side of Palermo. I really like it and this B&B was very easy to find (we didn't have any reservations). We will be checking the night life and heading to the beaches tomorrow. There are a lot of similarities between Italy and Spain except the Italians are less likely to try English with you once they know you don't speak their language. Made for some funny but drawn out interactions. Probably won't be so around Mondello since there are many more tourists here. The streets, mannerisms, environment, etc are all pretty similar though. It is weird being in a country where I know nothing about the language besides what sort of sounds like Spanish. We're getting by though. What is also interesting is that, just like in Barcelona, it's hard to play football in the park or just randomly with people. Well I will try to get a post or two this weekend while I still have internet. Not much going on in sports outside of Wimbledon at the moment and I refuse to talk transfers NBA or football. So til next time,

Daniel

To Palermo I Go

 (I will take my own pics of Palermo eventually).

After a couple days back in London I am off to Palermo for a week bright and early tomorrow. This will be another first for it is my first time in Italy. The place I'm staying at will not have wifi so I will be on the internet more sporadically. I will try and come up with some good posts over the course of the week and get them out a.s.a.p. Sorting out my travel but if I get time maybe I will post something today. A few topics going around now that could be worth talking about. Generally has been mild outside of Olympics and Wimbledon though but we shall see.

Daniel

Some Leagues Are Better than Others

 

Traditionally, it is the target for most players with a lot of talent to go to the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and to a slightly lesser extent Ligue 1 because of the historic teams to come out of these leagues and their affinity for what many consider the ultimate club prize, The Champion's League trophy.

A recent trend in football has been the massive increase in money going to clubs from outside investors and owners. It is natural that this would happen in the aforementioned leagues because being arguably the biggest sport in the world, there is opportunity in buying a football club. The part that's most interesting is in the leagues with a lot less popularity and cannot participate in the Champion's League. Beckham and Henry started the trend of people not quite ready to retire going to the MLS (Major League Soccer) in the United States to boost popularity. So far it has been fairly successful it seems and though I don't really like to look into rumors, it seems like MLS is beginning to become more appealing to players hitting their 30's, with enough fame, and who are not looking to end their careers. Even more recently has been the migration to Russian and Asian (primarily Chinese) money clubs to promote these leagues and collect huge wages.

My curiosity is whether there will be a time where one of these leagues will gain enough popularity to become a big league in their own right. I exclude the Brazilian league from this conversation because I believe they will maintain their own niche of being low key, fast-paced football and a respectable league in their own right regardless of the viewers. I believe the MLS is close in some regards but the inability to participate in European competitions and the sheer number of competing sports in the country is a huge disadvantage. I believe as long as the leaders in world football decide to stick to the top European leagues then there will not be a league that draws quite as close. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming decade or two.

Daniel

The Day in Frankfurt

So I got up for the 10 a.m. meeting and around noon we took a tour of the city and eventually got some good BBQ. Won't really go into detail about my specific day because it doesn't really warrant that. What I do want to point out is what I felt about the city.

Frankfurt struck me as similar to Valencia in some ways. There is a lot of renovation going on for the better. It's not really congested. There is a high influx of non German passport holders which makes it rather multi-cultural. They have a skyline forming which brings some to liken it to a German New York City. I found all of this very fascinating. It's a shame I didn't plan on staying longer but I will probably be back in due time.

Sidenote: I am also quite a fan of German beer so far. Lived up to the hype. Can't wait for Munich.

Back to London tomorrow!

Gute Nacht,
Daniel