I love using the Amazon Cloud player both on the cloud and with music downloaded to my phone.  I have been expanding my music library a lot this year.  Here are some of my favorite albums I became aware of this year.

Watkin Tudor Jones  - "The Fantastic Kill"
South African white guy rap who keeps changing his name.  He used to be Max Normal, then Watkin and becomes the Ninja in Die Antwoord with Yo Landi

Die Antwoord-" $0$ "
Check out some of their videos.  Evil boy, enter the ninja and rich bitch.   They sort of both embrace and are satirical with their South African white trash kind of presentation.

Tim Exile's-" Nuisance Gabberet Lounge"
Seems like a haphazard dj thing but isn't at all.  He is a great innovator, creator and teacher of his craft.  Also seems like a very nice nerdy guy.   I keep playing this one over and over for some reason.

Tune Yards - "WHO KILL"
What a voice.  Her song Powa builds into the winner for sexiest song of the year for me.

Afx- "Analogue Bubblebath" and "Hangable Auto Bulb" (love the song Laughable Butane Bob)

James Blake- Four albums: " CMYK"  Also" Klavierwerke", "James Blake" and "Enough Thunder"
Very unique stuff that is very well thought out.

Tinariwen-I love both their albums I have  "Tassili" and "Aman Iman: Water is life"
I don't know how to label them, North African rock? blues? with soul.

 Boubacar Traore- "Marcre"
Old school song writer from Mali  Wiki

Squarepusher- "Go Plastic"
Listen past the first few minutes of the first song.

I also like all of these a albums a lot but find myself just adding them to a my random mixes rather than listening to them as a solo album.  If you plan to ignore all of these I would encourage you to at least look into Amon Tobin.  Jazz meets electronica.

M83- Hurry Up We're Dreaming
Deer Hunter Halcyon Digest
Boards of Canada- Music has the right to children
Amon Tobin- Supermodified and Permutation
Four Tet - There is Love in you
Youth Lagoon- The year of hibernation

Don Cherry's Piano Desk

Why don't down hill racers use fat bike rim and tire sizes?

What do you ride when 6'9" 235lbs.  Nolan from the MTBR fat bike form rides this.  This bike is a beast.  Notice that is a big fat larry on the front looking so much like a regular old tire.

 The rim cut outs are very nice.

Moonlander

I want you.  
 I want you so bad.

Pic from http://fat-bike.com/

From a great site I found called Street Art Utopia.

Fun ride near Gifford Lake

 Minnesota River down by Chaska

 I love my little frame bag.

 They are doing a lot of work on this trail. I think it will go to Belle Plain in a more formal fashion in the future.   Looks like they took out a rail bridge over the river at one spot.  This one has the tracks off and was a bit nerve racking to ride over when icy.  Scary to look down through the big gaps while ridding over it.

 Crooked face that does not convey the fun I had.

Hard to see in this pic but Gifford lake is on the right.  The marsh land was frozen just right to ride over.

Winter Bike Expo

Freewheel winter bike expo in Minneapolis was a great event. I thank Freewheel, Surly, Salsa and whoever else made it happen. I really enjoyed it and learned a ton. Lots of nice people and I keep questioning myself but I am pretty sure I counted 48 new fat bikes in one room. Wow. I couldn't even get them all in one shot. Rode two sizes of both aluminum Mukluks, tow sizesof the necro pugs and one Moonlander. What I learned is I love them all. Mukluks have a taller head tube feel and my current pugs, the necro and the Moonlander all ride very similarly. Any doubt I had about the moonlander being my next bike is gone.   I really enjoyed all aspects of the event I attended. The talk about the Arrowhead 135 was great. People interested in winter cycling and fat bikes specifically are a diverse, low key and friendly bunch that I feel proud to be a part of.

If you are in the market for a laptop/tablet computer I wish some one would buy the android based ASUS Transformer Prime when it comes out in mid December.  I don't need one an really want to at least buy it vicariously through someone I know.  Looks like it will be super functional especially with Ice Cream Sandwich operating system coming soon to it.  Yes that is the same software that will be on my likely next phone the Galaxy Nexus (prime).   Other than your soul being completely in Google's hands I think this will be a fantastic combo to merge all my media, calendars, phone, apps, books, soul debt etc.   These same things can certainly be done a lot of creative ways already but these two products really seem unique and to be getting a lot of attention by the android world which means they will also be on the front end of new software and rooting/hacking/bug fix like info.  My HTC incredible was a little like this when it first came out and I have had a year and a half? of being glad I was on the front end of the amazing and wonderful android/smart phone wave. 
 I am primed for the next wave.  

Perspective

Why do I suddenly feel like I live with 7 billion other people in a crappy little efficiency apartment.  Click here for full size image.

Bike event

I plan to go to this event on Sat Dec 3 from about 9 or 10 to whenever.  Seminars, fat bike test rides etc.  I really hope but doubt they will have a moonlander to test by then.  Pic is unrelated

Illumine Nighty

I wanted Lupine lights.  Then I saw that they are not priced for me.  Geomangear gets lots of love on the Internets and sells these creatively described Magicshine lights for a lot less.  Lets go ride at night.  Here is a link to my exact light set up.  

I always wanted some humanized quick install lights with a decent design.  It would be handy.  

ArtCrank

I was in One on One last week and now have Art Crank on my mind.  I love the idea of submitting a poster some day.  Unfortunately I don't know how to make posters and have no talent.  They have a nifty little video about artcrank here I think the only part really worth watching however is at about 3:03 in the video.  

Minnesota River

Super fun ride  by myself from the Bloomington Ferry bridge to Nine Mile Creek on Saturday.   A couple miles before the finish I hit this easy seeming log crossing hard as if to do a tiny sort of jump over it.  At the peak while feeling weightless came a bad sound.  I came to a stop with the rear wheel out of the fork ends and the disc rotor bent badly.   I needed to put all my weight on it to straighten it enough to have it not hit the frame.  I had no idea how strong with great metal memory these rotors are. I didn't have a tool to take off the rotor so I pulled the whole brake off to ride to the car.  

Including me there were13 people on the trail ridding with 7 being on fat bikes.  Lots of shinny new Mukluks out and about.  With the exception of One on One yesterday the other bike shops I have recently been in I have seen other people coming in to buy fat bikes and fat bike supplies.  Angry Catfish, Hollywood Cycles, Eden Prairie Eric's and the new Eden Prairie Freewheel.  Sadly I missed out on the Midtown freewheel winter bike expo day and the Moonlander test ride at Hiawatha last weekend.  

It is a fat world and I suddenly fit right in.  

Pumpkin seeds

Pumpkin seeds made. Check
Stomach ache from eating way too many scheduled for about an hour from now.

Image dump. Thanks to those I took them from.

 New carbon belt drive.

The left wheel is like the Larry tire on my Pugsley.  The Right is the new Big Fat Larry.  

Fatback Ti frame, New 45degree North brand/fat tires from QBP and new Eric from the old Epic designs now Revelate designed Salsa frame bag.  

I don't know why I think this is so funny.  

I now have a dog that will need hair cuts. 

 Interesting font

My next phone

The Nexus Galaxy by Google/Samsung  will be my next phone.  The new ice cream sandwich software seems great.  

Fat weekend

 Murphy and Wirth in the same weekend.   Super fat fun.  Of course my fat bike is a skinny 4x29 not an 8x36.  I am kind of a weight weenie that way.

 This one is apparently now owned by a dog.

Pic dump

 Crime stands no chance.

 We celebrated some birthdays a few days ago.

 The farm behind our house.  See the combine just below the farm.

 Our dog Mazy.

As requested on the bike tour