Finis SwiMP3 Review

Along with doing a whole host of weird stretches and exercises on the mat for my physical therapy, I've had to return to an age old nemesis for cardio: swimming. My sister always was part of our town summer swim team and loved the sport so much she went on to captain our high school team. My mom made me join her on the town team when we were kids, and I would find any excuse I could to get out of the practices.

Once my ph

ysical therapist told me that I'd need to get back into swimming I decided I'd need something to help out with the monotony of going back and forth in a pool indefinitely. Naturally, I turned to my loves of gadgetry and music to help me through these dark times and found the Finis SwiMP3 underwater mp3 player.

The Finis SwiMP3 is not your standard iPod. Rather than a mp3 player with headphones, it's two connected pieces that you press against your skull (attached through your goggles). According to the website, the technology "is revolutionary in that it relies on bone conduction of sound. When the device is placed on any bones of the skull (i.e. the cheek bones or the mastoid tip) it leads to vibration of the fluid in the inner ear."

Yes...you read that right, it relies on 'bone conduction' technology. After reading this absurd description and some positive reviews I decided to try it out.

At first, it was a little difficult to comfortably set the pieces up with my goggles. After a good deal of arranging, I turned on the player. It is seriously one of the most odd and amazing sensations with technology I have experienced. Above water, you barely hear the sound...only as though its being played through a really crappy cell phone speaker. The second that you submerge yourself, the sound instantly becomes crystal clear. It was almost jarring how weird the sensation was at first. After a lap or two of total amazement, I got into the rhythm of things.

The device is almost "Apple-like" in its user-friendliness. Between the two ear/temple/skull-pieces is a little USB connector with a waterproof cap that you can plug directly into your computer. It reads just as an external hard drive, and you can drag over an iTunes playlist.

Swimming with music can go on forever and is almost relaxing. I realized early on that, unlike running, rather than intense techno type music, you can go through even Radiohead or Sigur Ros albums. The only caveat is I attempted a podcast and spoken word doesn't really translate to well to the swimming experience. Other than that, I would strongly recommend this device to anyone looking to add a little life to the repetitive world of swimming.

Grassroots

Doing volunteer work with the Obama campaign last year gave me an opportunity to try to translate my obsession with reading about politics into actual tangible activism. However, the extent of my work was limited to Manhattan, and it can get a little difficult to get that warm, fuzzy grassroots feeling while phonebanking from fancy hotels or checking in Anna Wintour at a fundraising fashion event.

Well, there's a special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, and my friend Josh had been volunteering for the campaign of the US Rep Mike Capuano. I was a little on the fence about Capuano as a candidate, but last Tuesday was the big Democratic Primary and I was excited to help Josh out on voting day. It was grassroots time, baby.

We began the day at 6am, driving to donated political office space in a small city I'd only known of from seeing exits on the highway. The goal of the day was purely a Get Out the Vote operation: Phone calls, organizing rides, reminding voters, providing information, etc. As we set up the office with some munchkins and coffee, our first two volunteers showed up: Two guys from the Bricklayers Local 3.

They assumed they'd be given some signs and told to just hang outside in front of a polling booth, but the campaign specifically had said they needed everyone making phone calls. It was kind of awesome watching Josh, in full "young hotshot politico" mode was in a suit (no tie, you know, to be relaxed), try to explain to them the complicated phone banking system. Somehow we were soon cranking out phone calls and within minutes began getting both lauded and berated by voters.

The Bricklayers soon filtered out to get to "a job", and there was a steady rotation of some extremely random people. There was a 65 year old guy who had to use scissors to push phone buttons due to a lack of feeling in his fingers, the daughter of a local politico who I imagine will soon be seriously on the scene, and a few random older women in business casual. Most entertaining was probably the mid-life divorcee who had apparently once lived in the grandeur of D.C. in with her British diplomat husband. After "cleaning her husband out", she now does volunteer work to meet people and repeatedly asked me to friend her on facebook.



The phone banking technology was surprisingly much more advanced than that used during the Obama campaign. The technology around us, however, was not. Proudly displayed on the shelf was a Netscape Communicator box, now with "Internet compatibility" and to be used with Windows 3.1....about as grassroots as it gets. Another favorite piece of technology I found was a document shredder that had an option for "CD/DVD/Disk" shredding as well....only in politics.







Capuano lost by the margin expected and we missed the concession speech as we rushed to get over to the hotel where the main campaign event was taking place. It was fairly anticlimactic as we knew the results via Twitter way before arriving. I guess sometimes real-time information has its drawbacks. In the end, one similarity existed between the grassroots organizing of a local race and big-city, fancypants politicking. Win or lose, everyone involved in the campaign went straight to the bar in the aftermath.








Josh in fancy pants suit

It's All Relative

A bunch of my classmates were partaking in the time-honored Movember tradition last month, and had me "remotely mustache" for a video they were making. I have always had a soft spot for ridiculous mustaches and couldn't turn down such an opportunity.

I only had nine days to grow it before they needed the submission, so took the standard route of growing a beard and then shaving it into a mustache at the last minute. During the process my mom was complaining every day about my beard...labeling me both "terrorist-like" and "homeless". However, the day I shaved it into a mustache, she said "okay, well now you at least look proper".

Only then did it occur to me, she is an Indian woman, and consequently a mustache is completely normal to her (we all know the Indian population is not lacking in mustaches). It then hit me, there are entire generations of women who would consider a man more attractive with a mustache. If a woman who came of age in the 1970s or 1980s (I'd consider this late teens to your 20s) does she still find a man with a mustache to have an irresistible appeal to him? How can there be such a discrepancy in the continuity of what is physically attractive? Shouldn't biology somehow control for growing hair on your upper lip ever being attractive?


The 3rd eyebrow



*Disclaimer: I will concede this is a standard "I will philosophize about mustaches to post mustache pictures of myself" blog post. I feel it must be an institution among bloggers.

4th and 2

Sunday night wasn't fun for Boston sports fans. Bill Belichik's call to go for it on 4th and 2 from our own 28 will seemingly be debated for weeks. When it happened I was completely shocked. However, with a few days of reflection and obsessive reading I'm slightly more okay with the decision but still confused with the overall play-calling around the series.

The Monday after had Boston in an awful mood. One thing that I'd forgotten since living away from Massachusetts was the ability of a tough sports loss to palpably affect the entire mood of the state. The Boston Sports Club Locker room where I've been going to the gym was no exception.

I've been going to a BSC location in Waltham with amazing facilities, especially compared to the kinda dingy city locations I'm used to. The clientele is definitely different, as the daytime scene at the BSC is all retired old people who make the gym their hangout.

One thing I've learned....old men don't fear nudity. The majority will walk around with a reckless naked abandon. I've unfortunately come to realize that the ageing process shrinks one's frank while exponentially growing the beans; in ways I never thought medically possible. If any medical folk have any insight into this, please let me know.

Normally I've found the sauna is off limits for conversation with strangers. Monday was definitely an exception. There were five of us...the other four all old men sitting towels unfolded and totally relaxed. One guy started it simply with, "I can't believe he went for it." That was it, a solid 10 minute discussion analyzing the minutiae of 4th down percentages, clock management, and Peyton Manning followed. The intensity of emotion in everyone threw any awkwardness out the door.

It made me wonder, after seeing the NFL pregame shows trying new angles like broadcasting from Afghanistan, would the public be receptive to this as a new angle of sports shows? Cris Collinsworth in there with Shannon Sharpe (naturally with a super flashy towel) and Herm Edwards all sitting around bantering? It really could be the Best Damn Sports Show. Period.

My Life is Complete

My physically induced house arrest has naturally led to very little person-to-person interaction in my daily life. After moving from a job where you are constantly surrounded by people to the massively social b-school environment, my Thoreau style solitude has definitely been an interesting transition.

Luckily, Electronic Arts and the PS3 have resolved this dilemma for me. I've been a huge fan of the FIFA franchise on the gaming system, playing obsessively for the last three years. The recently released Fifa '10 has a new feature where you 'become' a virtual player in the game. After uploading a front and profile image of yourself, you enter a 'lab' online to create a 3D rendering of player based on yourself. The final output is both freaky and amazing at the same time.


The first draft that you edit

I've been playing FIFA against my friend Corey online for years now, and he instantly joined me in the excitement of creating a virtual player. We've since consistently been playing against each other (usually Roma vs. Liverpool) with both of our virtual players on the field. Corey and me played soccer regularly in New York, and now this is pretty much exactly the same. I find it no different than meeting up Sunday mornings in Brooklyn for pickup or playing in a league at Chelsea Piers.



From a "gamer's perspective" (and I gladly will wear the label 'gamer') having 'yourself' in the game adds an unreal level of experience. I'm pretty convinced that the future of video gaming will head in this direction. I will not deny that I hit a dangerous level of excitement when I scored my first goal and Fernando Torres ran across the field and jumped and hugged me. Yes, my life was finally now complete.

The Wall Came Tumbling Down

Today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Much like most foreign geopolitical events of the 1980s, I don't really have concrete memories of "where I was when it happened", but have vague recollections of various moments throughout the chain of events.

It was only years later that I first discovered quite possibly the most earth-shattering of footage from the time. There are few moments in the annals of history that so perfectly capture, and I can't think of how else to phrase this, "what I like", better than the video below.

The most significant of geopolitical news. Large, jubilant crowds. Barriers, whether physical or mental, being broken down to allow people to again remember our common humanity. Music and performance. One man, wearing a jacket made for a god, singing to the people about their quest for human freedom.

If we can only weave this absurdity into the tapestry of the history we record, we will eternally prove our generation worthy of 4.75 stars.

One morning in june some twenty years ago

I was born a rich man's son
I had everything that money could buy
But freedom - I had none

I've been lookin' for freedom
I've been lookin' so long
I've been lookin' for freedom
Still the search goes on
I've been lookin' for freedom
Since I left my home town
I've been lookin' for freedom
Still it can't be found

I headed down the track, my baggage on my back
I left the city far behind
Walkin' down the road, with my heavy load
Tryin' to find some peace of mind
Father said you'll be sorry, son,
If you leave your home this way
And when you realize the freedom money buys
You'll come running home some day

I paid a lotta dues, had plenty to lose
Travelling across the land
Worked on a farm, got some muscle in my arm
But still I'm not a self-made man
I'll be on the run for many years to come
I'll be searching door to door
But, given some time, some day I'm gonna find
The freedom I've been searchin' for

Damn Yankees

Living in and loving New York City as a Red Sox fan is a complicated situation. 2003 and 2004 were the absolute height of emotional intensity and conflict as I was still new to the city and it was the apex of baseball drama for the rivalry. My mother's friends sometimes ask me if I became a Yankees fan from living in New York for so long. My stock answer is, "Do American soldiers who come back from Iraq come back with a love of Iraqi culture?" Maybe a little extreme, but I hope you get the point.

Living in enemy territory is additionally complicated, because there is the part of you that realizes the absurdity of some of your more closed-minded friends. I've had friends from Boston argue that Derek Jeter is a terrible player and "no way would I every sign him", which is simply a ridiculous statement. You learn to be more impartial in your appreciation of the game.

However, you're also on the front lines and deal with Yankees fans on a daily basis. As a coworker who's a Mets fan once put it, "Yankees fans are all dicks. There are lifelong Yankees fans who were formerly nice people that became dicks during the winning 1990s. Then there are people who are just dicks and don't give two shits about baseball. However, they became Yankees fans as another channel through which to express their dickishness". Truer words hath never been spoken.

This year felt a little weird. In the past I would've been rooting with every ounce of my being that the Yankees lost. However, after seven years in NYC, I have enough friends who are lifelong Yankees fans who I knew would be genuinely ecstatic over a win. There was a part of me, that as Mariano took the mound in game 6 that actually thought, I guess I'm happy for them. Picturing an old boss with his family, watching his son's first Yankee championship, or close friends who are intense baseball fans celebrating with their friends and families, or even friends in Asia rooting away in their mornings, made me for a brief moment actually think that I didn't mind the Yankees winning. Maybe its the painkillers, or the yoga and meditation I've been doing in physical therapy, but I felt I'd achieved an internal peace that made me happy for everyone.

Then, high in the stands, I saw a massive sign, "New Home, Same Destiny!"

I hope it pours down rain on today's parade.