Heading Into the Winter
Get out ya coats!
Happy FriYAY y’all,
It appears we’ve truly ventured into one of my favorite times of the year: pea coat season. Falling just behind hoodie season and cherry blossom season (every place has its ‘getting warmer’ comp), it’s where winter begins in my book. I don’t know why the winter solstice is the real “beginning” of winter, since it’s the shortest day of the year. Wouldn’t that mean that it’s the exact middle of winter? Who came up with these? I can’t be too mad, since that’d probably bump me to being a winter baby instead of a fall baby. Apparently, it’s also snowed in Massachusetts, which is giving me life, and I’m hoping it’ll snow again in about two weeks’ time.
Side note: maybe I should power rank the ‘seasons’ sometime. Hoodie season, pea coat season, etc. Just some food for thought. Someone please remind me.
Some good news and bad news for y’all. The bad news first: I have jury duty on Monday. Just kidding, that’s good news because it’s my civic duty (even though DC lacks accurate congressional representation), right? The actual good news, though, is that you’ll hopefully get some solid juror content next week. That is, if the court lets me out by Thursday night to write the blog.
I’m diving into my Spotify Wrapped on this week’s segment, but I love all the “Spotify Wrapped” spin-offs. Especially Beli’s “Plated” theme. I’m a big proponent of Beli to rank and bookmark restaurants, so it was pretty cool to see what random restaurants made the cut for me — three in DC, one in Boston, and one in New York. I’m shocked that Italian beat Japanese in my cuisines list, but hey, you can’t fight the data.
Spotify Wrapped: Not-So-Surprising
Did you know that Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay released this week? Shocker! Unless you don’t have social media, or unless you still exclusively own a record player (respect) or a CD player (get with the times, grandpa), you’re very well aware. As every other year has been, mine was pretty rap-centric, with Future and Don Toliver in my top 3.
Anyways, as a numbers guy, here’s some key stats from my own Spotify wrapped.
71,564 minutes listened. Note this does not include the “soft cozy fall jazz” YouTube live stream I throw on for most work-from-home days.
5,392 songs played this year. I’m not sure why I expect more
61 listens to the song “Temporary” by 6lack & Don Toliver, placing me in the 0.01% of listeners to that song. This does not shock me whatsoever, since I think I played it 30 times in a day when I was toying around with remixing it.
Top 0.5% of Future listeners. I’m not sure if there’s something wrong with me, or if I’m just able to lock in when he’s in my ear.
And my musical journey:
March was my “Wild West Slow Dance Country” phase. I mean, how else was I supposed to prepare for the Zach Bryan concert?
May was my “Academic Beats Edm” season. Probably mostly because I started seeing John Summit all over my TikTok. Or something like that.
June was my “After Hours Wrestling Rap” moment. I mean, this wasn’t too hard to figure out.
Even with all this, I promise my music taste isn’t only rap. “Beast of Burden” clocked in as my #6 song on the year, and I had a ton of Arctic Monkeys and the Strokes towards the end.
What’s Cookin’: Cinnamon
I decided to shout out cinnamon this week after taking a stick and dropping it into my Wednesday morning coffee. At first, it didn’t make that much of a difference, but as my mug got down to the wire, it added that second-half boost that made the coffee less of a “get-through” drink and more of a “hm, this is pretty good” drink. I’m all for cinnamon as a spice in the fall and winter. I even use it when I make birria. The sticks look cool, but the powder is acceptable too. It’s a great compliment and adds a certain richness and warmth, especially alongside brown sugar (for desserts and sweets) or paprika (for dry rubs). See if you can expand your kitchen creativity and fit it into something.
Song of the Week: “Right Down the Line” by Gerry Rafferty
I don’t know how long this has been on my Daily Mixes, my playlists, my Daylists, or anywhere else on my Spotify. Maybe you’ve heard this before, maybe you haven’t, but whichever camp you’re in, add it to the queue. Just not the back of the queue, like where the Wild Rover bouncer would tell you to go. How about up next?