Hit by a Pitch

I just . . . um . . . I . . . um . . . it appears I have been rendered speechless by what I’m about to share with you.

If you don’t know, Danilo Gallinari is from Italy and plays for the Denver Nuggets. As we speak, the ink is drying on the 4-year, $42 million extension he just signed with the team. He’s also on my fantasy basketball team, which appropriately and lamely is named the Galloping Gallinaris (in my defense, it’s only named this because I was totally messing with the guy who kept trying to trade some dude I’ve never heard of, a melted Snickers bar, and a bag of Fritos crumbs for Gallo, but goddamn if I didn’t know better than to take that deal).

Danilo Gallinari also apparently has some killer dance moves, if by “has some killer dance moves” I actually mean something else entirely. I hate when people post videos and tell you to watch them, really, they’re hilarious, but that’s exactly what I’m doing here even though it fills me with the existential angst that results from doing what you hate people doing. I’m not only speechless, I’m also incapable of conducting myself in accordance with the standards to which I hold others. I hope you’ll forgive me, though, because I make the party start.

Much love to @nuggetsnews for bringing this to the world’s attention.

Next time I go to a Nuggets game, I’m going to bust out the Gallinari.

Because I can’t listen to local sports radio these days (you turn it on and it’s all blah blah Tebow blah blah, still, nine years after they were eliminated from the playoffs), I’ve been listening to music in the car. Also, Soren likes music in the car. Usually, before we even get down the block, he’s asking for “Dew song?” (dew = more in Sorenspeak). He likes music in the car as much as he hates when you pull down the sun visor and look at yourself in the mirror, thereby besmirching his view with your hideous visage.

The best musical entertainment my car has to offer is a CD player and a random selection of CDs from many years ago when I still bothered putting anything on CDs, plus one I got from the face-tattooed artist himself outside the liquor store by the Unsafeway  (which, for the record, is no longer unsafe). I’ve discovered that it is in fact possible, after many years, to get tired of Wale remixes, as well as pretty much everything else.

The one CD I haven’t been tired of lately is labeled, in Ben’s handwriting, “TRACY THINKS SHE’S THE SHIT.” If I recall correctly, it features songs I picked out from his music library in the early 2000s. It’s a lot of deep, housey stuff — Mark Grant, Maxwell, Naked Music NYC — I seriously can’t get enough of It’s Love (Joshua’s Mo Luv Vocal).

Because this is what I’ve been digging, this is what I wanted to put on my January 2012 playlist. But I can’t make a whole playlist of old stuff. So I took a little disco and mixed it with some Crisco and brought it back — no wait, that’s not what I did. I took a little early 2000s housey stuff, mixed it with some space disco, and threw in a few new things I just discovered today. Playlists (the exception being very meaningful playlists) are always better when you include new stuff you just found and think will fit but aren’t totally sure. I also advocate including at least one song that really doesn’t belong at all. (I was thinking about this today while pondering the anatomy of a good running playlist, which I’ll share with you as soon as I get it all figured out.)

Sidenote: How do you discover new music these days? My two favorite sources are Ben and Hype Machine. Hype Machine can be a little like looking for the perfect dress in a thrift store full of dubstep, but I always end up finding some good stuff.

Anyway, for a limited time, get the whole thing here. Here’s the tracklist. Enjoy!

Update: I forgot a song! Duh! Here is the updated playlist with the song (Stuck by Peven Everett). The tracklist should be amended to add that song at #25, then change Polish Girl to 26 and Contact High to 27. Sorry about that! Attention to detail = not my strong suit.

For some mysterious reason, I’m kind of obsessed with red velvet cake. I’ve only had it a few times and was never all that impressed with it because it doesn’t really taste like anything. I decided that making red velvet cupcakes that actually taste like something would be my baking project for January.

I hit up google and found this Smitten Kitchen recipe, which seemed good because she shared my issues with red velvet cake. Then I clicked the “adapted from” link to check out The New York Times red velvet cake recipe, which is exactly the same, word for word. (I noticed the same thing with her pineapple upside-down cake recipe, which, aside from omitting the cardamom, is an exact copy of the Gourmet recipe.) I thought it wasn’t cool to copy a recipe word for word, even if you link the original. What’s up with that?

Anyway, I followed the Times recipe exactly but for switching cake for cupcakes and using cupcake liners instead of butter and made the following high-altitude adjustments: decrease sugar to 1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons and decrease baking soda to 1 1/2 teaspoons. I used this creamy vanilla frosting, which was kind of a lot of work but really good. Don’t cut this recipe in half — it didn’t result in the tragedy some commenters indicated but it wasn’t enough frosting. Also I recommend beating everything for longer than the recipe says — just a minute or two for the butter and butter and sugar and a good 5 minutes more at the end. The sugar granules went away after the 15-minute (exactly!) refrigeration.

So, if you’re in the market for good red velvet cake and coordinating frosting recipes, there you go!

Here’s something awesome you haven’t seen before, short film “On My Way” by Chavar Dontae.