Spoon's "Written in Reverse"

Today on NPR's All Things Considered, they premiered the first single off the new Spoon album Transference. The track is titled "Written in Reverse," and in typical Spoon fashion it's a tasty cut that is a bass and piano driven stunner, using the guitar more as a texturing device for the other instruments. Of course, you also have Britt Daniel's increasingly bluesy vocals, especially highlighted as he yelps "I'm not standing here...no I'm not standing here" towards the 2:45 mark. Incredible.

The NPR commentator stated he's gotten hold of Transference already and stated that it may be the best album yet. If this track is any indicator, he's probably right. Don't miss All Things Considered this week if only for that track.

The Weekend Edition (Thanksgiving Edition)

The only thing better than a weekend is a long weekend. Well, that and vacation. Vacation definitely beats long weekends. Regardless, this weekend was a holiday weekend and because of that, it was an extended weekend. It found myself getting into all kinds of ridiculous activities because that's what I do, simply put. What went down?

• Moose's Tooth with Darren, Colver and Eric
• An Education at Fireweed with Katherina and Kerstin
• Thanksgiving! Lots of football, food, and family!
• Friendsgiving at Gen's place (along with a viewing of the Christmas classic Prancer)
• Working a crazy Black Friday event (lots of talking to customers while being semi-conscious from being sleep deprived)
• Snow City with Joanne, Kyle and Jessi (Pier 49 Scramble = best thing ever)
• Taking a crash course on Karl Kerschl's The Abominable Charles Christopher
• Dinner and tons of ring toss at Snow Goose with Chris and Eric
• Crush with Chris, Eric, Emily and Katherina
• Ridiculousness aplenty at Emily's with Chris, Eric and Katherina
• Two days of Middle Way Cafe avocado breakfast burritos (mmmm)
• Tons and tons of writing (about comics and Ludacris mostly)
• The Colver family house warming party (with complimentary airplane rides!)
• Ballin' at the AK Club with Colver

When I think about it some times, I really have a remarkably easy and fortuitous life. Nearly nothing bad ever happens to me, I have a wonderful family and an incredible group of friends, I accidentally fall into pitch perfect opportunities such as my writing gig for the ADN, and frequently the biggest problem in my life is solving the riddle of what I want to eat for dinner. Woe is me.

Saturday was a great example of this, as I had a brilliantly care free day, mostly based around eating delicious foods, drinking impossibly tasty scotches (so long as it is cut with coke - I'm only so classy) and high class craft beers, and hanging out with my best friends. We played beer pong, gave each other airplane rides, sangalong to Michael Jackson, had hysterical moments of zen featuring girls playing video games, and shared the gift of cream cheese laden hot dogs. That the evening closed with myself falling asleep on a friends couch as we talked about life and how ridiculous it can be was but the icing on the cake.

I know it's not exactly kosher for someone to drone on and on about things of this sort, but sometimes it's impossible to not want to. Ain't life grand? It really seems to be, and has been perpetually for quite some time. Let's hope it stays like that. I'm a firm believer in the concept of life being what you make of it, so I find this to be a very likely scenario.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! This year I'm thankful for many things: my burgeoning writing career, my continued success at my job, becoming a thespian, Pontificators, Wes Anderson, Yoni Wolf, Passion Pit, dance parties, 80's nights, crushing Moose's Tooth, Germany, Canada, trivia, Team Breakfast Burrito, comic books, book books, Bill Simmons, the New England Patriots, delicious foods, Middle Way Cafe, Kaladi Brothers, and many, many more things.

Most importantly, I'm thankful for my family, my friends and all the new ones that have been coming about lately, and my wonderful friend Ryan Sobolik's continued domination of the scourge that is known as Leukemia. He was faced with as difficult a turn in life as any person I know and he and his wife Sarah's perpetual victories have been an inspiration to us all. Love you buddy!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, once again.

Shamefest Update and Official Announcements

I have two announcements today. One is affiliated with a post from last week, while the other is in relation to a post I wrote back in September of this year. Both are extraordinarily good news and both I'm excited to share.

First off, I have an update on my potential new writing gig. It turns out I will be writing for the Play section of the Anchorage Daily News after all as a freelancer, and my first assignment will likely be previewing Ludacris' upcoming show. For a person who really started writing again because of my incessant need to over share, actually being paid to do so is quite surreal. Quite literally, I am a journalist now. Or I suppose I will be once I actually get paid for it.

Second off, I have an update on Joanne, Cate, Lorna and I's weight loss campaign called Shamefest 2009. While I got off to a rather inauspicious start, as I a ballooned four pounds in the first week, I have since responded with vigor and tenacity. Every week I've either stayed flat or I've lost weight, dropping from my second week weight of 221 down to 207 at this point. Not only that, but I'm back to running sub 6 minute single miles while my endurance is up as well (1.5 miles in 9 minutes and forty six seconds) and I've gotten my strength near pre-Europe levels.

It turns out when you go to Europe for a month and only walk from place to place and eat tons of food, you don't lose a lot of weight, and it makes you really not want to work out upon your return. It's taken me that long to get back on the horse, so to speak. Throw in the fact that I've now added the stellar Group Centergy class taught by my friend Stephanie to my repertoire, and even my flexibility and core strength have improved dramatically.

So yeah...it's been a pretty quality couple months for me. I'm really looking forward to keeping all of this going as I move along as well. Assuming I don't rediscover my passionate love of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and become illiterate over night, I should be fairly safe.

The Weekend Edition

Another Weekend Edition almost missed - no more! Of course, this weekend went well into the evening on Sunday and then my Monday night was dominated by my new found love Group Centergy, so there was no time for writing. Thankfully, I'm a persnickety ol' fella.

• 2012 with Cate (epic in its terribleness - review coming later)
• Trying Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop with Stephanie for the first time (delicious!)
• Coaching a BlackBerry training class for work
• GREEK NIGHT! (lamb/falafel/wine and lots of ridiculousness)
• Going out on the town with everyone (so much dancing)
• Middle Way breakfast with Joanne and Eric
• Getting some writing done
• Helping Emily set up her new place
• Watching Goodbye Lenin! with Stephanie and Gen (amidst popcorn wars)

While many wonderful things happened this past weekend, I'll take this time to share something many of you may have missed: my marriage to Joanne Ballagh.


Joanne and I have had a legendary friendship. We've been inseparable for basically the past 11 months and after my good friends Colver and Lorna's wedding, I decided it was time to take that to the next level. That night I texted her and proposed marriage and she accepted. Of course it wouldn't be happening until we were 35 assuming I never met anyone better, but it was a proposal all the same.

Then our ridiculousness sped up the timeline, as we quickly realized being fake married on Facebook would be a hilarious idea. Predictably it turned out incredibly well, as the announcement of our nupitals resulted in an avalanche of text messages and status update comments like the world of Facebook has never seen. It was ridiculous. You would think I just changed my status to "deceased" or something. Things of that nature are sort of Joanne and I's business, and business, my friends, is good.

Like all relationships between star crossed non-lovers though there have been trials and tribulations. One evening she annoyed me and I quickly divorced her, leading to us having a heartfelt embrace at trivia night that week as we discovered we couldn't live without one another. And by hearfelt embrace, I mean she said "it actually makes me sad that we got divorced." and I responded with "I guess we can get "remarried"?" and then we hugged, and by couldn't live without one another I mean we realized it was more funny to have us listed as married.

Strangely enough though, my fictitious wife and I are one of the only purely platonic, simultaneously single, opposite sex pairs I've ever heard of. It's amazing, although I do wish she would hog less of my bed. I guess in some regards it is like a real marriage then.

Going Legit

This past weekend I was departing Middle Way Cafe after scarfing down another of their tasty avocado breakfast burritos when a stranger stopped me.

Guy: Slicedfriedgold?
Me (wondering who the hell would be named such a thing): Ummm....
Guy: It's me, DJ Encyclopedia Brown
Me (realizing this is a Twitter friend): Oh...hey there.
Guy: Your name is David right? I'm Spencer.
Me: Oh yeah, Spencer Shroyer right? From the ADN?
Guy: Yeah...let me give you a business card.

Of course, I'm perplexed. Why am I getting a business card? This was a similar situation to a few years back while on a ferry to Victoria, British Columbia when a really intense looking man with a shaved head came up to my car, knocked on the window and said "Are you Shaft?" and turned out to be someone I played Counter-Strike with. Except far less creepy and much cooler. Why was it cooler?

Well, it turns out I may possibly end up writing for the Anchorage Daily News as a freelancer. I'd be writing about music and pop culture, which is pretty much my thing. I have not actually been officially added on as a freelancer yet and it only would pay a minimal amount per piece I write, but I felt I needed to share. If I do get hired on, I'll have to learn how to write. That part is problematic, at best.

Hopefully I become the Bill Simmons of the ADN, as my friend Erik suggested. I really cannot imagine something I could want more than that. Okay...there are a few things (the ability to fly, a golden ticket that allowed me to get on any airplane first class, a debit card with infinity dollars on it, other things that will go unrevealed) I'd want more, but this is better because it's real.