Goodblog

Well its come to the end of another fantastic adventure of globe tackling, although this one was predominantly Western Europe and Netherlands based. Although the weather has been a nightmare and my year has essentially boiled down to 3 seasons instead of 4 (2 falls), I really loved being in the motherland. Being Dutch and doing as they do has been a nice culture change from the bustling city. I have gained a firm grip on the language, although I still speak broken Dutch, I can understand it with near perfection. The random festivals with cheap beer, techno trances, fresh markets at every corner and parades will be missed. It´s gonna be tough to say goodbye to the toilet shelf’s, which are essentially inspection decks of for your poop (its more fun than you would think).The Dutch specialties like food, drink, and “coffee” were incredible and I am going to really miss enjoying my French fries with a mayonnaise, breakfast buffet of bread and spreads, and sparkling ice tea. Withdrawal will not be easy on my body as I will have to say goodbye to Grolsch and Jupiler, mini pancakes, stroopwafels, and fresh fish from the market. I am dreading my first trip back to Subway. At least I still have fried spaghetti.




Some things I learned about the Dutch:

- Dutch dinner is between 530 and 7. Restaurants wont serve you after 9-9:30

- The Dutch are not surprised whatsoever with the weather no matter how shitty.

- Dutch people unnecessarily belong to gyms. They bike so much that they don’t need them. They use gyms for the spa.

- The older and more worn down your bike is the less chance it will be stolen.

- The Dutch will throw planned parties anywhere, at anytime, for anything, but always ends by 1 latest. (Bars, coffeshops, and clubs open all night)

- It doesn’t matter how beautiful it may be out, it will rain, and soon.

- They are the nicest to tourists as a whole than any other country I’ve ever been in.

- When in doubt do as the dutch do, find a café and get a drink or a coffee…then stay there for hours.

- Dinner doesn’t end after the plates are cleared, expect to have to ask for the check after your required twenty minute wait.

- They are too friendly. One man walked past me and told me to enjoy my lunch, another a woman asked me if I had taken nice pictures. Both were complete strangers.



This will be my last blog under this address as you can find my work going forward on either foxxtacklesthecity.blogspot.com or Tradedebate.com (Launching early September) With the launch of my new website, Tradedebate, I will probably be blogging less in coming months as most if not all of my writing and time will be dedicated to building a successful site as my two partners and I are attempting to revolutionize fantasy sports trading by offering a completely new and innovative platform. Below is a description of my new site:



TradeDebate.com is a free fantasy trade evaluation site created in order to help fantasy sports managers make tough decisions when making trades. Whether it be a trade that you have made or are contemplating making, the Trade Debate nation will examine your trade and vote on what they would do had it been their own team. Trade Debate offers a comprehensive database that tracks every trade, the players who have been traded, and who they are being traded for. With this knowledge fantasy owners can gauge the value of their players worth, and the market in which those players are being traded for.

Once your trade is posted, it will immediately be given a 48 hour window in which the Trade Debate community will vote for which side they would rather have. You will then receive an email after the 48 hour poll period ends with the results of your trade and comments attached. With that, you can decide whether this is the right trade for you.

Trade Debate also offers free fantasy articles discussing trades, players, strategies and tips, polls and waiver wire advice. We also offer a message board to not only talk about all things fantasy, but smack talk your friends and their horrible trade offers.

We present free evaluation, information, and analysis in the fantasy trading community. Tradedebate.com is a place to receive and give free fantasy trade advice and insight so you can have a better chance to win your league!



A little self promotion and free advertising never hurt anyone, and I write this not just to hopefully steal more of your internet time (I plan on it), but also to say thank you for the time you have already given me. I have had many compliments, some from people I don´t even know, about this blog and it encourages me to keep writing. I do believe that my writing has improved the past two years, although my titles certainly have not, and I have been a bit more focused as well, and I´m gonna need it. The writing I will be doing for the site will be less diary or journal based as you have, but rather fantasy sports based articles and features. Although they may be more information based you are sure to see my writing style in all its witty, self deprecating, pop culturely glory coming out from time to time. So again, thank you for reading and I hope you continue on the new site as well as follow my blog at Foxxtacklesthecity.blogspot.com.



Before I go though and make sweet beautiful music in the fantasy community I thought lets bring a piece of it to this blog. Before the madness of fantasy football starts I thought that we should take a look back to when this whole traveling the globe thing first began view them like seasons. So let’s have some fun with Split stats shall we. Split stats to the none sports fans out there are the breaking down of player´s in game statistics but viewing them in specific sample sizes, in this case by year. Without further ado a look at the trends.



Wearing shorts

2009 2010 2011

85%   98%   4%



Fantasy Analysis: Normally a 92% percent shorts wearer in the summer, Foxx’s average took a severe dip this summer. Before we panic and start calling him Adam Done lets remember that he played his vacation almost entirely at home, thus subsequent to the poor ballpark and inability to raise his pct. We think it’s a fluke though and expect his average to go back to the norm next summer.







Books Read

2009 2010 2011

11       13      9



Fantasy Analysis: Yes, the drop in books read at first glance is very alarming. The expectation was a third year breakout of fifteen was even being talked about in certain circles so to put up only nine was definitely disappointing. What’s not talked about though is the girth. The length of some of the books read were longer than in past and the highly addictive nature of I Touch games. Foxx has already told his readers than he is committed to double digits minimum next year.



Countries Traveled

2009 2010 2011

11       6        3



Fantasy Analysis: Every traveler has a regression, and this one is no different. It was the end of a 3 year contract with Europe, throw in an apt. swap, and Foxx kinda cruised this vacation. A lot of mornings without an alarm clock. Unfortunately we don’t see Foxx putting up 2009 numbers again in the near future. Sigh.



Countries Traveled

2009 2010 2011

11       6       3



Things lost or broken

2009 2010 2011

1         2        1



Fantasy Analysis: Not much to see here. Foxx loses and breaks stuff, then usually he writes about it.



Blogs Written

2009 2010 2011

0        11       7



Fantasy Analysis: Like Milli Vanille was claimed “Blame it on the Rain“. Bad weather brings less stories and stuff to do, which makes his life less interesting, and his blogs more boring. At least they are both sharp increases since 2009.



Thanks again for reading, see ya on the other side of the pond.



As always, Aloha means goodbye



– Foxx

Don't be a drag, just be a queen.

Where were you when Mr. Gay Netherlands was announced? Wherever you were you missed a glorious twink named Tom get crowned the best looking gay male in the country. His trophy? Techno. That´s every Euro´s prize whenever a festival commences. When in doubt, pump those hard core beats and let the techno orgy take over. Why does everything always end in a techno party anyway? I know European’s love techno more than mayo on french fries but I thought that all the gays want for their Christmas is Mariah Carey.


Gay pride weekend is every homosexual´s X-mas, and at the least very happy place to be. All the fags there were smoked, or smoking hot depending on how you view the word while subsequently turning Amsterdam the color rainbow. Although Holland only has one queen, this weekend there were thousands. A city wide party that was basically an ode to Gaga as everyone is beautiful in their own way so everyone should know that they were born this way. It was truly something else as all wakes of life flooded the streets wearing less than the most of the girls.

The best part of the weekend (besides the Techno in drag) was the gay pride canal parade. Thousands of people filled the canals to watch 72 ultra gay boats pull through the Prinsegracht canal. They had a boat for everything: gay cops, positive and proud, young and gay, gay in the military, gay superheroes, gay dance teams, and even the gay youtube channel. Sounds impossible right? I have footage to prove it. Unfortunately stupid blogger isn´t letting me post any of them. It was big, it was gay, it was an experience.



Ok, truth be told the real best part of my weekend was when this super hot gay guy winked and pointed at me. I know I shouldn´t get excited about a man eye flirting with me, but you know what, it felt good. Gay guys are notoriously the better looking of the two sexuals, so the fact that I was even in the conversation increases my self esteem more than it should. I get why gay guys like me though, I´m a bear. I am big, hairy, muscular (it´s my blog!), and have great hair (again, my blog).


I had an incredible summer, but when people ask me one of the things that I did I will have to say that I rode a girls bike in a sweatshirt in the middle of august on the way to a concert that may or may not have been popular in the mid 80's in a town that most people in Amsterdam have never heard.
37 minutes later: Leaving this horrible concert was thankfully welcomed by the usual sight of cold weather and rain that was actually better than the show itself. If it wasn't for the Napoleon Dynamite clone I would have left 36 minutes before that. Instead of spending the evening with Good Charlotte I choose to send us to the east of Holland to an obscure concert set in a town that has residual memories from my childhood.

To be a little philosophical here, that's the beauty of traveling though, you win some and you lose some. Sometimes you end up in Hengelo, sometimes you get pointed and winked at by a gay male, but regardless of the highs or lows its the adventure that counts. Life´s a mess, we are just doing the best we can to make the most of it..A very unwise traveler once said: if anything, you get a good story.

I´m back in Amsterdam now, safely away from suckiness, and off to a traveling festival that has a silent disco. I hope their playing techno.



Aloha means goodbye folks.



- Foxx





Quick Bonus Random Tangent:

Broke my 2nd camera in 3 years on vacation, with the third camera being ruined by my mother. Sigh.

Spent a few days on the far west of Holland in a very tiny beach town, its always a funny feeling being on the edge of a country and being the only ones who are American. And it´s not just because you are always being looked at, but because you so far connected from everything that seems routine.

I met a follower traveler who brought new meaning to the term “Nurse a beer”. This guy didn´t only nurse it, but he sang it a bed time story and tucked it in for bed. Good guy, but he started drinking a beer at midnight, carried it all the way back to the apartment, nurse, sing, tuck, and eighteen hours later took it out of the fridge and finished it. Didn´t even bother asking how it tasted, rather how can I be such a good father like you.

"Everyday feels like a Holiday"

I don't know many Warren Haynes songs, actually I don't know any other than Soulshine which I am pretty sure is a cover, but I do know this: Ludicris believes that Everyday is a HOEliday, and Haynes sings that Everyday feels like a holiday. For me though, in a way being a reverse camp counselor does make everyday a holiday because of my lack of agenda, alarm clock, and overall urgency. It?s going to be a rough road to recovery in early September, but for now holidays happens 7 days a week. Today?s is going to be called Senor Blog Day. Why? because the only thing stopping me from going to the beach in a little bit is Maneer Blog. So it?s his day, or at least his morning, plus Faux Fall is back raining vengeance of precipitation and grey. Tomorrow will be what will I wear for halloween day.

 

So I went to the Warren Haynes concert last night, you probably haven't heard of him unless your either in Southern rock or jam but he has played with the Allman Brothers and The Dead for many years and is the lead guitarist of Gov?t Mule. I had never paid to see a concert in another country, and he is one of the sickest guitarists I've ever heard, so I figured why not. It was ear candy is the truest sense as Mr. Haynes isn?t the most attractive man to look at, and his guitar roadie might have been his brother, but man can that guy wail on an ax.
Do you know the only place you can't smoke pot in Amsterdam? The Paradiso in Leidseplein. Which just happens to be an old church turned into a concert hall. Awesome venue though, really cool to see a concert inside a church. ahh the Dutch legally smoke your joints outside please, then come back in for 3 dollar beers, all while being as polite as possible. 

 Spent the past few days in Rotterdam during Carnival. If Gent taught me anything it was that this was an event not to miss. I wasn't not going to miss the smoking, drinking, and chocolate milk before it hit the ground. I expected thousands of Nederlanders that looked exactly like me, Dutch pop songs, and as much Chocamel as I could drink. Well only one of those things came true: the chocolate milk.
Instead we walked into the Caribbean version of "Drumline" minus Nick Cannon. I'm all over fesitvals, esp ones that are sponsored by Ferdinand the Bull, but even I felt a bit out of place when one of the hottest women I saw had a flat top. Regardless of gender this was one of the best flat tops I have ever seen, and would have been the best haircut if not for the boy with the shaved head and party in the back dreadlocks. Imagine a mullet with a bald cap on top of it, that's the style he was rocking (and pulling off).

It wouldn't be a Caribbean extravaganza without steel drums though, and no amount of pouring rain can take me away from music that I moderately enjoy in small doses.

 Friday night brought the battle of drums in very inclement weather where we spent the evening guzzling Heinekins, eating surinamese food and trying to figure out what tune they were playing....I think I heard a lot of usher. The drums were entertaining, but not nearly as incredible as watching the dancing. It was a mosh pit of gyrating hips, fist pumps and Axel Rose type snake moves...and that was just the guys. I really didn't want to leave but rules say when your the only white people left its time to leave.

The second day and night however was a whole different atmosphere. Starting with a never ending parade of culture that lasted at least 6 hours and did multiple laps around the city. It was as if the members of the parade were all forced to do the subsequent night after walk of shame after Halloween. Some were pulling it off and had some sense of dignity, many wore costumes 3 sizes too small, and some were never meant to see daylight. As far as extravagant costumes go it was a cornacopia of color, but the people underneath the costumes were the real monsters. Mix in an a few awkward token white kids just to include the honkeys, a bunch of toddlers in tiaras, and repetitive beat that is some sort of salsa infused techno and we have a parade that was a one good microphone away from a revolution. Someone always has to ruin the party though, and after a crazy afternoon of heavy partying and even heavier woman nightfall casts its wicked shadow on those crazy caribs. In just 2 days the garbage was worse than the 10 days that Gent allowed its citizens free reign of the city. When out of nowhere everyone starts running away from the main beer tent. I presumably should have done the same but I had just gotten a fresh beverage and wasn't willing to part with my new best friend. Instead, we venture closer to the action where we see this snookie looking creature take the square by storm. Blond snookie was inciting a riot, fighting her boyfriend, and smoking fresh cigarettes all while bowling ball her way into people. Next thing you know the po are on horses and clubs are out. Snooki is throwing herself at anyone she can find (sexually of course), caribs are hurling beer fueled expletives at them, cops are using their clubs, and a woman even punched a horse. All the while I sat 10 feet away enjoying the action. The dutch woman next to me said it best "when they don't listen, they have to be told." Awesome night.

 Finally, I asked laura how many times I would have to fry spaghetti as my dinner before i was forced mention it in my blog. The answer was 3. Don't knock it till you try it.