the daily muddle » General

Snowboard Vids

Andrew — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:28:05 +0000

In keeping with the snow sport theme, I found this snowboard video and thought I’d share. I used to watch a ton of snowboard videos in my younger years…when I was snowboarding every weekend (which you obviously don’t appreciate until you can’t anymore). Remember Mack Dawg Productions? I used to watch those videos religiously! Anyways, I haven’t watched one in I don’t know how many years so watching a this trailer for a new one was kinda interesting to see how it’s changed. It’s certainly a little more extreme than I remember.

Big Mountain. Big Love.

Andrew — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:26:52 +0000

I grew up skiing at Sugarloaf in Carrabassett Valley, Maine. I have A LOT of memories there – besides the memory of being constantly FREEZING, they are almost all amazing. Recently, Sugarloaf has been looking to expand, which is really great – it’s nice to see growth in this economy. Last year, Sugarloaf worked with Kurt Miller (the son of famed ski and snowboarding filmmaker Warren Miller) to put together a short film celebrating Sugarloaf, which they are releasing this weekend. There is a lot of great footage in the trailer and it certainly brought back a lot of great memories. I hope to get back to Sugarloaf very soon.

Cliff Jumping in Norway

Andrew — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:48:23 +0000

My sister’s boyfriend passed this video along to me today. Norway is easily atop my list of places to visit and this video didn’t help the want. The cliff jumping is cool and all, but the Norwegian mountainous landscape is what really gets me. Tell me you don’t want to visit here. At any rate, enjoy the video. Also – the song in the video is pretty stellar. Yup, stellar. It’s a Boards of Canada remix.

Last Walk Around Mirror Lake – Boom Bip (Boards of Canada Remix) from FroschYankee on Vimeo.

The Comparison Effect | How They Getcha!

Andrew — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:16:19 +0000

Almost all of us dine out at restaurants every once in awhile, right? In this economy, it may be less than usual and even when you do, you’re probably looking to keep the bill to a minimum. Well, next time you head out keep the comparison effect (Simonson, 1989) in mind. The comparison effect comes into play when individuals are faced with options regarding a decision that trades one feature for another. The most common trade-offs are quality and price. When this case is presented to people, most choose options which lie towards the middle. Ok, now coming full-circle….how does this apply to your next restaurant trip? Your choice of wine. How many of you often choose the bottle of wine that is 2nd cheapest? I know I’m guilty of it. You don’t want to appear cheap or buy the “worst” wine, but you also don’t want to spend a lot of money. This often ends with selecting the 2nd cheapest bottle of wine. Unfortunately, you’re selecting the wine which the restaurant has marked up the most. So, in essence, you’re paying more for less. They know about the comparison effect and use it to their full advantage. So next time you’re going out and want to save some coin, go with the cheapest bottle. You’ll save the most money and be getting more for it.

I decided to place this post in the regular posting area of my blog, but it is very similar to the type of post you’ll find in the Portfolio section of TDM. Head on over there to find similar psychological type posts. Enjoy!

Simonson, I. (1989). Choice based on reasons: The case of attraction and compromise effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 16, 158-174.

Life in Graph Form

Andrew — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:51:24 +0000

Awhile back I posted a Demetri Martin bit where he used charts as the basis for his humor. It’s hysterical. Today, my father forwarded me an email that contained a slew of graphs aimed at putting your life into picture form. These are some of my favorites.

Alphastates | A Great Irish Band

Andrew — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:49:49 +0000

This summer I was lucky enough to enjoy a cycling vacation with my family in Ireland. Besides the beautiful landscapes, incredible soups (seriously…the soup there is out of this world), and wild weather something else really awesome occurred – our trip leaders happened to be 2 of the 4 members of a now inactive Dublin band named, Alphastates. Over the course of the week I had the privilege of getting to know guitarist & lead vocalist Catherine Dowling & bass guitarist Stevie Kavanagh (far left, 3rd picture). It really was an awesome experience. I’m kind of in awe of musicians and feel somewhat removed from them if you know what I mean. Having the chance to sit down and have a conversation with both of them on an array of subjects was a lot fun. Chatting about music was particularly fun; Catherine was listening to a lot of Nina Simone, Tom Waits, & Patti Smith at the time. I think the thing that impressed me most about them was their shyness / humility towards their music. Never once did they try to plug their music – I was actually a couple days into the trip before I even found out they were musicians!

I was also lucky enough to hear them both perform a little – both ‘trad’ (it’s what Irish folk call their traditional music & it’s phenomenal) and some more contemporary stuff. Moreover, I was able to get my hands on their latest album, “Human Nature.” It’s a great album. I admit, I may be totally biased because I got to spend some QT with 2 of the band mates, but trying to partial that out – I really do think it’s a great album. Catherine’s voice is right in my wheelhouse.

Unfortunately, Alphastates is no longer together. Catherine is in the process of recording an album of her own (which I begged her to let me know when it comes out in the States) and Stevie is part of a band named, The Rags. At any rate, definitely give Alphastates’ “Human Nature” a go. I just realized that there are some differences between the album they gave me versus the Amazon MP3 one, but it seems pretty much the same. I think my personal favorites are Human Nature, You Talked (which sounds a lot different on my album), and Astronaut. Have a good weekend everyone.

The Cyclisk

Andrew — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:01:35 +0000

My sister’s boyfriend forward me this article this AM. I’ve been really into cycling these days so I thought this was particularly cool. Take a look.

The Beauty of Graph Paper

Andrew — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:36:23 +0000

I recently purchased a pack of “County Fair” Field Notes (Maine, of course) because I was finding more and more that not writing something down (e.g., blog post idea, grocery item, research idea) was leading to me forgetting them (this never used to happen, right?). I’ve tried a million different technological solutions to this problem, but there is nothing easier than just having a little notepad with you to jot something down. When the Field Notes arrived I noticed they used graph paper, instead of normal ruled paper. I didn’t really think much of it, but after about 2 weeks of having one of these guys in my back pocket all the time I realized I really liked the graph paper. This led me to buying all graph paper notebooks for my schooling this term and I have to say – I’m really liking the decision. I write particularly small and graph paper works much better with this than ruled paper. I’m also what you would consider “structured” when it comes to taking notes / doing homework and graph paper really feeds this compulsion quite well. For anyone out there who may have some of these same tendencies or has ever used graph paper in the past and thought, “wow, I kinda like this” – definitely give a graph paper notebook a try.

You’ve Been Looking For Me, Haven’t You?

Andrew — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:45:47 +0000

Or maybe not. Either way, 3 months…yup, 3 months. That’s how long it took me to reconstruct The Daily Muddle. If you’ve been periodically visiting throughout the summer you will have noticed that I’ve gone through about 5 different templates before landing on this here one. I went from really complicated (web2feel makes really great free themes by the way) to the relatively simplistic (the layout you are now looking at). And the summer is always busier than you think it’s going to be so it took me a lot longer than expected – that and I wasn’t loving my reconstruction until I landed on this theme by Siiimple. I also must give credit to the designer who helped me with a lot of the problems I was having.

Anyways, let’s first discuss what hasn’t changed (relatively):

The Content | For the most part, the content of the posts will be relatively the same – things I come across which I find relatively interesting and would like to share. There are a couple small additions that I will address in a second, but as for the main blog posts….mostly the same.
Currently Enjoying | This was part of the old blog that I really enjoyed so I decided to stick with it. The location has moved a little bit, but the premise is the same. And as for Previous Albums, that link has popped up to the top right-hand corner menu.

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Ok, enough of the old stuff, let’s move on to the new stuff:

Portfolio | This is a new section added to TDM for a couple reasons. Mainly, I wanted to give the site something consistent. TDM doesn’t really have a theme like a lot of blogs do and I wanted it to have at least a small one. Secondly, I am now studying for my Ph.D. in Industrial / Organizational Psychology…a field that I obviously think is pretty cool. I figure that throughout my studies I will come across tidbits of information that you (as a human being and more specifically, a human being who works), will find really interesting. I will try to keep them very concise….more along the lines of fun facts. Just check in every once in awhile to see what new updates I’ve made – you might find some of them really interesting.
Gallery | The gallery addition is pretty trivial. Just photographs that I enjoy…taken by me or others. No rhyme or reason, just ones I like. I am certainly no photographer so don’t expect much! There isn’t much there yet, but I plan on adding pictures periodically.
Twitter | A Twitter feed has been added. This is one pretty self-explanatory. Follow me?
Favorite Posts, Here or There | This section is located in the footer. Basically, it is a more specified version of the Friends & Links section. They are links to specific posts, either by me, or others, that I particularly enjoyed. I created it because there are some posts I put a lot of effort/thought into and I don’t really like losing them in the bowels of the site. So I decided to give myself a place to keep them relevant. I also wanted to include posts by others that I thought were particularly cool. Credit is due where credit is deserved ya know?

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That about wraps up the changes here at TDM. I’m not ruling out further additions and/or updates, but for the most part I think I am finished with the layout. I hope you all enjoy it and will come back to enjoy the updated content!

Under Construction!

Andrew — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:30:30 +0000

Hey everyone! Well, its been about 18 months since I started TDM and I’ve really enjoyed it. On that same token, I feel like it needs an update – so over the next several weeks I will be changing things around a little bit….or a lot a bit. I’m no pro with CSS and/or WordPress so I don’t see the process going super smoothly, but I want to attempt it. You can check back periodically to see the progress I am making and after I am finished I will write a new welcoming post.

In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys the beginnings of summer. Check out my new music post for some great new tunes to get it started off on the right foot!

- Andrew