TVotR and Dirty Projectors

Two nights ago Maranda and I attended a TV on the Radio concert at the 9:30 club in DC. The opening group was Dirty Projectors. We had never heard of Dirty Projectors, but were quite impressed. They are an odd group, they were all dressed in very dated looking clothing (vintage?), had frumpy hair, and had very awkward dancing styles to say the least! They are touring their just released Bitte Orca album, which we found to be really amazing! With two female vocalists singing elaborate harmonies in sharp contrast to the guitar riffs and the powerful male lead singers voice. Based on our ears, this group has tremendous potential. See Bitte Orca review on Pitchfork (linked above) for a much better review than my meager attempt.

TV on the Radio performed their extremely successful 2008 album Dear Science. It was a smashing performance, with Nigerian born Adebimpe ripping up the stage with powerful and expressive vocals and equally expressive dancing. Guitarist and vocalist Kyp Malone has a crazy cool beard and hair and an equally expressive personality. In Dear Science he often soars into falsetto, which combined with Adibimpe's expressive whistling adds a lot of uniqueness to the TVotR sound. While I liked the album pretty well on the iPod, I LOVED IT in concert, the songs took on an entirely new life, making it a night to remember!

Rainy Days per Year

So you often hear folks talk of the average rainfall for a given area as an indicator of the how wet the climate is, but a more important metric (in my opinion), is how many rainy days you experience a year. For example, Mobile Alabama has the distinction as being the wettest place in the lower 48 states, with over five feet of rain a year, yet they only have 122 rain days a year, far less then many other "dryer" areas. Indeed, drizzle is far more depressing than a sudden downpour.

So if you are interested in how your current city fares, take a look at some charts that I created based on 30-50 years of rain data for each city.

To see a chart that is sorted by the cities with the MOST rainy days at the top, click HERE. If you would like to see a chart with states in ALPHABETIC order, click HERE.

Top Ten Lists

I am sure most people are well innundated with top ten lists by now, but in case you are not, here are a few I found interesting:

Time Magazine's 50 Top Ten lists.

National Geographic's Top Ten News Stories.

NPR's Top Ten Music Albums by genre

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Rolling Stone's Top 100 Songs.

Top 100 companies to work for in 2007.

Technorati's Top 100 blogs (list is dynamic).

Wired's Top Ten Scientific discoveries

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PC World's Top 100 products of 2007.

PC Mag's Top 100 undiscovered websites.

Lifehacker's Top Ten lists (tech nerds only).

Dogfish Head

Maranda and I occassionally sample a new brew in an effort to expand our growing knowledge and appreciation of beer. This week it payed off big with a fantastic discovery of Dogfish Head's Raison D'Etre. One of the most complex, interesting, and tasty beers I have ever had, this wondferful concoction is a very dark ale, loaded with flavors of molasses and plums. I noticed on the box that this beer was voted American beer of the year in 2000, clearly for good reason!!

For you seasoned specialty beer consumers, this is probably old hat and well known to you. For those like myself who are still discovering the tasty variations of the darker brews, check this one out at your local beer speciality store!