Red Sox Offseason Update: Andrew Bailey, "10 things"

Ten things I like about the Red Sox' acquisition of Andrew Bailey


1. He's young. At only 27, Bailey has had 3 seasons' worth of MLB experience.
2. He's good. In those three seasons, he has a 2.07 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and has 21 BB in 75 IP.
3. He's NOT Jonathan Papelbon.
4. He's way cheaper than Jonathan Papelbon. (He's made $1.3 million in 3 years, which is significantly lower than the four-year, $50 million deal Papelbon received with the Phillies.)
5. We didn't really give up anything. The Red Sox traded Josh Reddick and two prospects (so basically Reddick), and we have enough young right fielders where we can afford to trade away one...or five, if we want.
6. Ben Cherington means business. Theo came to Boston with a plan, and that plan succeeded, and it looks like Cherington is following a similar MO now that he's at the helm.
7. The pitching just keeps getting better. You really can never have too much pitching, as we've seen with the career-long demise of Daisuke Matsuzaka, the frailty of Tim Wakefield, and all of the shenanigans that went on in the Boston clubhouse this year.
8. The 2012 Red Sox are a new team. With the many offseason moves made, it will be a different look for the Red Sox as they celebrate the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park, which will help to diminish what happened in 2011.
9. Daniel Bard gets to start. With Mark Melancon sliding into the setup man role, Bard can move to the starting rotation. Which I really like because it will force Bard to think like a pitcher, instead of pumping 98-mph fastballs across the plate in one inning of work.
10. "You ever drunk Bailey's from a shoe?"

Self-reflection

I think that one of the coolest things we can do with our lives is to learn about ourselves. Learn how we think, what we think and why, and what makes us who we are. I believe that interactions with people are the driving force behind the revealing of our true character. Our relationships with people can bring out the best and the worst of us, but in either case, it's something about ourselves that we know as a result of that interaction. The interactions will never stop, the relationships will always be forming and changing, and we must change and adapt with them. When we do that, we find out more information about ourselves and what we're capable of, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. That is valuable information that must be harnessed and carefully crafted in a way to touch the lives of those around us. To extend our knowledge beyond ourselves, to others, so they can learn about themselves. To pass on the wealth of information there is about our minds. If we embrace the bad and use it to create the good, then we can achieve greatness.

"A season is a lifetime, Krzyzewski likes to say, and whether you win or lose that last game, you're born again. You go back to work - back to applying a standard and discipline and showing empathy and emotion."

Bicycle

A secret, shared for the world to see
Coated in clever words and phrases
So some know some, and one knows all

A secret, tucked in between bursts of loudness
Quiet, but with as much meaning as the loud
That it can be whispered or yelled

A secret, representing the cycle
Building you up to stand taller
Among the fallen and the small
So when you fall
It can bring you up to ride the highs of the cycle

Desktop backgrounds: NHL

Since I have so much free time on my hands, I figured I'd look up some NHL desktop backgrounds, and see what cool ones are out there. Same deal as my post for the MLB teams, so here we go!

Anaheim Ducks

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

Calgary Flames

Carolina Hurricanes

Chicago Blackhawks

Colorado Avalanche

Columbus Blue Jackets

Dallas Stars

Detroit Red Wings

Edmonton Oilers

Florida Panthers

Los Angeles Kings

Minnesota Wild

Montreal Canadiens

Nashville Predators

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Ottawa Senators

Philadelphia Flyers

Phoenix Coyotes

Pittsburgh Penguins

St. Louis Blues

San Jose Sharks

Tampa Bay Lightning

Toronto Maple Leafs

Vancouver Canucks

Washington Capitals

Winnipeg Jets

An honorable mention classical piece

By honorable mention, I mean I have NO IDEA how I didn't put this in my classical pieces post. Just kidding! I know exactly how it happened. It's the "I love this but have no idea what it's called" phenomenon. Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner. And if you grew up with Hey Arnold, then you might know it from one of my favorite episodes ever, when the class goes to see an opera. One of the top moments in Hey Arnold history.

Life events

If you didn't believe Facebook dominated our social lives before, you better believe it now. With the introduction of the timeline, Facebook (as far as I'm concerned) IS our life now. We have our friends, pictures, family members, work, education, cover picture, places visited, what you did on this day in this month four years ago, and our "life events." As in, sicknesses we overcame, when we got glasses/contacts, when we learned a new language, bought a new car, got a new pet...where does Facebook get off on insisting we tell everyone everything? People don't need to know how many pets I've had - that is not something people usually dish out to the public.

Would it bother you if you didn't know any of this about me? Me neither.

It's unsettling to think that so many people want the world to know this much about them. If everyone knows everything about us, then nothing becomes special. No one becomes special. At least not in the eyes viewing a computer screen. The people who you want to share your life with should not be all x-hundred friends you have on Facebook.

10 classical pieces

(Editor's Note: No, this is seriously about classical music.)

Finals week means many different things to people. For some, it's the countdown to going home for winter or summer break; others see it as the week from Hell where there are papers, exams, projects, whatever, and about five each to get done in not a lot of time. For me, finals is the best opportunity I get to listen to classical music. I'm able to focus a lot better if I'm listening to strings and brass (although for whatever reason, I haven't applied this knowledge outside of the end of the semester). Not that I can't focus and listen to Foo Fighters or Explosions in the Sky at the same time...it's just that classical music creates the notion that I'm in a study-type atmosphere (as in, I own a study with shelves of books, mahogany-painted walls, and a globe on a table that I never use). So, without further ado...

1. Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture. V for Vendetta lovers, you know what I'm talking about here.

• Part 1
• Part 2

2. Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake. I don't know how, but I feel like I've heard every movement of this song at some point or another.

• Scene
• Waltz
• Dance of the Little Swans
• Introduction, Scene, and Dance No. 2
• Hungarian Dance
• Spanish Dance
• Neapolitan Dance
• Mazurka

3. Tchaikovsky - Romeo & Juliet. The chromatic scale in this piece....om nom nom.

4. Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude. I don't care how much I'm currently in love with Tchaikovsky...this piece is transcendent of literally all other classical music. The end.

5. Pachelbel - Canon. Like just imagine crafting a flawless study guide listening to this. Imagine doing anything listening to this! Automatic peace setting.

6. Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man. Two things make this not really classical. Dude doesn't get referred to by only his last name, and he was born in the 1900's (even if it was 1900). Regardless...try telling a story with this playing. Greatest feeling ever.

7. Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata. Literally as soon as I typed that out I pictured this piece being the music for a sex scene in an Inception-type movie where it's really slow and minor-sounding.

8. Carl Orff - O Fortuna. This piece will forever remind me of the ALMOST most epic moment of my entire life. Ask me about it some time.

Where it all happened.

9. Giachino Rossini - William Tell Overture. QUICK DO SOMETHING REALLY FAST AND EXCITEDLY!!!!

10. Jacques Offenbach - Le Galop Infernal. Despite part of this being my text message alert for a few months last year, this is just awesome. Probably not the best studying music, but I doubt the William Tell Overture is either. I'm not even really trying for good study music. This is just awesome classical stuff.

What I want to do for my career

I drafted my fantasy basketball team this morning, and before the draft, I was looking up some draft-day tips and strategies on ESPN's website, and I came across a simple graphic.

Simply put, this chart shows the numbers of players who are 1, 2, 3, and 4 standard deviations above the mean for all of the categories on the left. From the chart, you can see that 12 players are 3 standard deviations or more above the mean in assists, which means that there is an abundance of assists to draft. I wasn't as intrigued by the chart itself instead of the work it took to create the chart. ESPN has statistics and data from every single player, every single game, and every single box score, combines them to create season totals for each player, and then uses the data to see which players excel above all others at their position. And I thought about it...all the data entries, research, number-crunching...I would LOVE to get paid to do that.

Stonehill "problems"

Every time I give a tour of Stonehill, I'll mention at least once or twice that I absolutely love it here, never want to leave, and will have to be removed from the premises for them to get me out of here. Know why? Because Stonehill is AWESOME. I've unfortunately come to realize that not everyone here feels the same way I do. Which is too bad, because you can never have enough of the purple sunglasses feeling. One hashtag that I come across when I hit up the Twitter is #stonehillprobz. What I don't like about this (besides the fact that it's not "problems") is 1) people complain about things and attribute them to Stonehill even though Stonehill has nothing to do with it, and 2) people complain about things about Stonehill when this is, as I said, AWESOME. Allow me to explain:

• "crappiest thing about finals week? Friday is my worst day."
• This falls under the "more of a college problem" category. Also, it being finals week throws off the daily schedules. Comes with the territory.
• "calculus final..."
• Really? I mean you're in a Calculus class, did you not expect that you'd have a Calculus final?
• "should be writing some papers or studying for my finals yet i find myself on twitter and deleting my 100000 listserves"
• I feel like that one's on you...
• "The worst part about leaving campus is knowing that when you get back you're most likely going to have to park in lot 17"
• Deductive reasoning: You have a car which implies you're not a freshman which means you don't live in the Sem. Meaning that any walk on campus you're going to have to make is probably 7 minutes, tops.

I mean maybe it's a good thing that this is what people have to complain about here, but still - what good does it do you to complain about your school? And yes, I know what you're probably thinking - I'm doing the same thing, right? Sure, this is probably hypocritical of me to talk about people complaining, but that's what I have the problem with, not Stonehill. I'm not complaining about Stonehill (nor would I ever). Stonehill has been too good to me in my first three semesters for me to think it's anything less than exactly what I was looking for in a college. Which is why I push the "this place is awesome" theme. Which is what I believe everyone here should do. You came to Stonehill for a reason, so stick by it. Be good to Stonehill, and it will be good to you. Simple as that.

The Journey

I don't care that I'm writing my one-year anniversary blog post a week early. What I have to say won't be as good if I say it at any point other than right now, and if I let that happen, I won't be okay with it. One week from some time last night will be one year since the beginning of my blog. This will be blog post #149. And in the past 148 blog posts, I've learned a lot more about myself than I have in any year of life, I think. I've become aware of who I am as a person, fought with what I believe, been afraid of whatever circumstance belief leaves me, shared in bonds and relationships that I never want to lose, cried more than I have in probably the first 19 years of my life combined, been continuously moved by Explosions in the Sky, and a ton of other things that I could write an entire blog post about. But that's not what this is for. This is for the journey.

At the mass for Jeffrey Cooney today, Father Mark was talking about Jeff's journey, and how he had already completed his journey with us, and how he was successful in living and loving. He would then begin his everlasting life with God, and life goes on. But that word. Journey. We're all on one. And no, I won't cliché you with it being more important than the destination. This is bigger than a cliché.

The first great poem I read was "The Journey" by Mary Oliver. Since my sophomore year of high school, it's been my favorite poem, and when friends engage me in emotional struggles they are facing, I always connect it to that poem somehow.

The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to savethe only life you could save.
     -Mary Oliver

Stars burning through the sheets of clouds. That's what I imagine nirvana to be like. Or perfect bliss, or grace, or whatever you wanna call it. To me, there is nothing more powerful than the idea of stars burning through the sheets of clouds. That penetrating force that shreds what is in its path. And in the poem, that sensation can only be felt by listening to your own voice. The voice that keeps you company as you stride deeper and deeper into the world. There will be people in our lives that come and go, that enter and exit our lives, but there will always be one constant. You. You will always have yourself as you stride deeper and deeper into the world. Be aware of that. Acknowledge it. Everything comes from within. We have the people around us, who we surround ourselves with because of the love and care we share with them, but the only one who can save us is ourselves. When we save ourselves, we can then be there for others in their time of need, so they can save themselves. Listen to your own voices first. Indulge them. See what they have to say. Keep it by your side as you stride deeper and deeper into the world. Into life. Let that voice be the foundation for the other voices you have around you. The ones of your friends and family. The voices of the people who you share love with. Because we are all on a journey. And that's what doing the only thing you could do is about.

Values Game #6

What is your favorite quote?

Two things before I answer this question. One - this question wasn't part of our Values Game during Orientation, nor was it in the packet containing all of the questions, so consider this my first original Values Game question. And I think it's pretty easy to see why I'm posting it; everyone has a favorite quote, but it's why that makes it so meaningful. It's that distinction to only you that makes those words so special. Two - Explosions in the Sky is horribly beautiful to listen to. It almost always makes me think. Not even about anything in particular. I can focus on my homework while listening to them, or I can type out words that seem to have effortless flow while listening to a song I discovered as recently as today.

As far as my favorite quote, I have two of them. One about quotations themselves, and one about life.

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ironic bliss in this quote is pretty easy to see, but the depth behind it is amazing. Like I said before, we all have a favorite quote (or two). We all have a favorite song, or poem, or saying, or whatever. But what we have to say is more important. What our values are, instead of the values we take on from what we see between the quotation marks. The words we produce ourselves, instead of copying and pasting them from someone else. Sure, they may have said it better. But how do you say it? And with that, my second quote:

"Life is nothing until it is lived, but it is yours to make sense of; the value of life is nothing other than the sense you choose." -Jean-Paul Sartre

Unfortunately, Sartre did say it a hell of a lot better than I did, and in way fewer words. And if that sounds familiar, you're probably thinking about my meaning-of-life post, my last post of my freshman year at Stonehill, sitting on the stone wall outside Martin, facing the residence hall where I spent some of the most important months of my life. The value of our lives really is the set of values that we create based off what we surround ourselves with. The people in our life, the love we share with others, the ties we establish, and the memories we create. And none of that comes from quotes. Sure, we can read a quote and start believing in it and living by those quotes, but ultimately, this is our life. Create your own quotes to live by.

Now that I can take a deep breath, I'm going to have to think about this blog post in the months to come. By which I mean, I'm going to have to find a way to condense this into the five seconds I have to answer should this question come up during next summer's Orientation.

TFB

I almost never blog about football. Initially, I had a second half of a sentence planned, but had no idea what I wanted it to be, so it's just that one sentence. Anyway, the Patriots' magic number is 1, given that we swept the Jets and hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over them, and the Pats are finding ways to win and keep pace with the rest of the division leaders, currently sitting at 10-3. The lone division leader without a 10-3 record is the Denver Broncos, sitting atop the AFC West at 8-5 after another weekly miracle by Tim Tebow. New England will travel to Denver to face the red-hot Broncos, who are 7-1 since instating Tebow under center. (Editor's Note: Is "instating" even a word? I know "reinstating" is, but I never hear "instating" used...) Now sure, Tebow's good. But that's a very loose definition of good. Yeah, the dude's 7-1, but he's completing less than half his passes and barely has over 100 yards passing per game. But come on...the dude's 7-1. He's second in the league in game winning drives (4) and tied for first in comebacks (4). So we know the guy can win. Here's the thing though - we already knew the guy could win. He won two national championships at Florida. and the SEC Championship in the two years he didn't win the BCS title game.

But you know who else can win? TFB. The guy who's on pace for seven million passing yards this year, has completed over 60% of his passes every year he's been a starter, won his first 10 playoff games, and is 120-35 as a starter. Look at the quarterbacks Tebow's gone up against since Week 7 - Matt Moore (Dolphins), Matthew Stafford (Lions (and Tebow's lone loss this season)), Carson Palmer (Raiders), Matt Cassel/Tyler Palko (Chiefs), Mark Sanchez (Jets), Philip Rivers (Chargers), Christian Ponder (Vikings), and Caleb Hanie (Bears). None of these quarterbacks are near the same level as Tom Brady. And none of these teams are as good as the Patriots (despite the fact that our defense may or may not play with 9 men on the field at all times). Besides, we have Miami and Buffalo at home to close out the season - we will win at least 2 of these final 3 games, if not all of them, putting us in place for at least a wild-card-round home game, if not a first-round bye, and potentially home field throughout. The offense is putting enough points to salvage the lackluster defensive outputs each week, no one beats us at home (except the Giants (why can't we beat the Giants? #cursed)), and TFB. That's it. TFB. Basically, here is what the Patriots should be thinking before every game.

"Does the other team have Tom Brady? No. Do we have Tom Brady? Yes. Alright cool we're gonna win this game because we have TFB." We got this. I ain't afraid of no Tebow.

Life is like a last-second shot

You have the ball with 20 seconds on the clock, and running. Standing in front of the defense, in a tie game, waiting for the right fraction of a second to start your play. You've been entrusted with the ball, and you can't let your teammates, coaches, and fans down. You don't want to, either. Your team has no timeouts, so you don't have a chance to draw up a play. You're not sure how the defense will react once you start your offense, and all of these thoughts are swirling through your head as the clock ticks down to 14, 13, 12...You begin thinking about whether or not you can win the game in overtime. But you don't want to have to worry about that. You don't want to think about what happens if you don't make this last-second shot. So what do you have to do? You have to make it count. You have to use every ounce of strength you've built up, you have to use every brain cell you have to react to the defense, and you have to use every molecule in your body to make the right moves and have the right form once that shot goes up. Nine, eight, seven, and you begin to run your play. Your teammates position themselves should you want to utilize them, but this one's all you. Take your defender below the free-throw line, step back, and take a 17-foot jumper. The same one you've practiced hundreds of times. The same one you dreamed about taking as a kid. But this isn't practice. This isn't your dream. This is the last-second shot. This is it.

The world we know

What happens when you know exactly what you want to say, but have no idea what the right words are? After multiple failed attempts to answer that question, I've decided that when you can't find the right words, find someone else who does. And all throughout this evening and tonight, I've been trying to find the right words. Some words don't do it enough justice. Some words don't seem to fit. And when that happens, I go searching for something that can say what I'm thinking better than I can.

“Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose.” --Jean-Paul Sartre

"In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." --Proverbs 3:6

I've been trying to find something to piece this all together, and haven't come across anything that's stuck. Not even House has been able to help me. I couldn't help but play "Lose You" by Pete Yorn at least once today, thinking about that episode and what happened today. Then I listened to "The World I Know" by Collective Soul, and grew attached to that for a few minutes. But as I was sitting here, typing this post out, I thought about a song that I haven't heard in a long time, and a song that has the feeling (right now, at least) that could tie this together. "Strength of the World" by Avenged Sevenfold. It's not perfect, it might not even be close to perfect, but that's where I'm at right now. This blog post is so immensely all over the place right now, but I'm strangely okay with that. I think that's how this stuff goes for a while. No one knows what to do this soon after something like this. But everything works itself out in the end. Heh. Everything works itself out in the end.

"It only ends once. Anything that happens before that, is just progress." --LOST

Let there always be progress in our lives, and let there be progress in the eternal life that Jeff has.

Rest in peace, Jeff. You will be missed and loved.

Time, pt. 3

Here's something I was thinking about before Calc today. Is having a blog timeless? Or posting, or writing, whatever you wanna call it. What I thought about to support this is the amount of checkpoints we have in the world around us. Many of us are counting down the days until Christmas break, or until finals begin. Sports teams are looking at the next game they have to play, or when the next homestand is arriving. Students with assignments are constantly saying, "I'll do x amount of work before this day." TV shows are beginning to enter their winter breaks. What about my blog? Never have I ever said, "I'll blog some time in the next 3 or 4 days." I've wanted to blog in a timeframe, but that doesn't mean I'll force myself to. Like I said in some earlier post this month, I've only gone more than a week between blog posts once. Will there be an end to my blog? And if so, how, when? Why is the end of this post sounding horribly as rhetorical as my previous post? WHY?!?

Moral of the story: some things have time caps on them. The end in sight. Light at the end of the tunnel. But what about the things that don't?

Walking slanted

It's moderately disconcerting for me to think that the best blog post I could come up with in the six days since my previous one is about the length of my legs, but I'm pretty sure that this utter arbitration is what I intended for my blog the entire time. Anyway. My right leg is definitely shorter than my left one. Not only shorter, but smaller in volume, too. To the point where I have three examples to show how much it sucks:

• Whenever I wear sweatpants, the bottom of them ends up going underneath my sneakers when I walk. And just on the right leg. Leaving the bottom of the right leg of all my sweatpants to be significantly more tattered than the left ones.
• In baseball in high school, we used to sit on the ground and put our feet flat on the grass, with our knees bent, and lean back. This was to work our cores, but every once in a while, for the entire two minutes we would do it, I'd be wondering why I can't get my right foot planted on the grass. Only took me about 50 times of doing that to realize it.
• This is where the volume comes in. And by volume, I mean my left foot is bigger than my right foot. I just started wearing some new (and by new, I mean I got these sneakers in August and have worn them six times since) sneakers, and I can move my toes way more comfortably in my right shoe than my left shoe. Sucks to suck.

What I'm wondering (and I'm legitimately curious about this (which should come as no surprise to anyone who's read a decent number of my blog posts)) is whether or not leg size has to do with hand dominance. I definitely thought I wrote a blog post talking about hand dominance, but after searching to no avail, maybe it never came to fruition. Anyway, is the leg that's longer/foot that's bigger on the same side of you as your dominant hand? Where do you fall into this? Does it mean anything that this [could be] the case? Is there any better way to end this post than with multiple rhetorical questions? (No seriously, I really don't like how that feels. I need me some closure.)

Judging by that parenthetical comment, apparently not. Except apparently so, because I just did it. I need to stop this now. Here's a funny video.

ps. In reference to the title of this post...I had no title until after I was done with the whole thing, and thought about what would happen if the leg that was shorter got increasingly shorter as time went on...and that's what would happen.

High school Tardiff

Funny how things always seem to come back into your life after long enough. I'm sitting at my laptop on Thanksgiving night, no TV on, no music, just me and my asymptotic-towards-atrophy body. I've been trying to think up ideas for the 2012 scavenger hunt me and all my friends from home are gonna do over the summer (we had an epic one in 2010 and I'm hoping SH'12 will be even more epic), so I went back into the archives of my life to find the document containing the list known as "The Ultimate Super Greatest Scavenger Hunt in the History of Forever and All-Time," or better yet, "TUSGSHITHOFAAT." Catchy, right? Anyway, I looked into some more documents in the stuff from my computer from high school, and I came across an email to Ms. T (literally the hero of Watertown High School) where I told her about all the awesome things that the spring of my senior year held. In that email, I said, "rarely this spring have I not known what to do – that’s just because everything seems to have been falling in to place this year." This immediately brought me to a chuckle, thinking about the post I had where a misconception of me is that I know the right thing to do a lot of the time - obviously contradicted in the first part of that sentence. Upon further review, the latter part of the sentence got me thinking some more - after one year of college, I ultimately, at one instant, decided that I didn't have all the answers, that I didn't always know the right thing to do. Does that mean that not everything had fallen into place after one year? Probably not, actually. Sure, I had a seamless transition at Stonehill, but that was from being an awesome, kick-ass, devilishly handsome high school senior to a pretty awesome, run-of-the-mill, devilishly handsome college freshman. And that's not gonna happen until 2014 rolls around.

So I read the rest of my email, tried to put myself in the mindset of "Hey, your last day of high school is tomorrow," and think about the meaning behind the words I typed onto the Word document. On the day before our last day, I was talking with my friend Timm in Physics about the story our Psych teacher told us the period before. The moral of the story was that us, being in the position we were in, were very lucky to have led these lives so far, and to make sure we don't lose sight of where we're headed. Sure, everyone has something to deal with in their lives, but for a lot of people, they can say they truly are happy. In the grand scheme of things, when we go to sleep at night, we don't wish we had entirely different lives. There are people out in this world who are way the fuck worse off than we are, and we don't even see that half the time. And what sucks is that I can't truly understand that being worse off unless I live through it myself. Which isn't something I'm willing to readily accept at any point in my life soon. Catch-22. We can't understand how lucky we are until we live in unluckiness.

The end of senior year of high school was a very high-impact time on my life, as I'm sure it's been for anyone going through that process. As I'm sure graduating college is, and getting married, and having kids, or whatever is super important to you in this life. I still get bugged about what happens when there is no life, but I can't conceive of that. What I can conceive of is my conscious living, and that's something all of us can do. My advice is this. Cherish the fuck out of what you'll remember for a very long time. If you can foresee that it's something you'll take with you as long as you live, well then make damn well sure it counts. Maybe it won't mean anything to us once we're gone, but it will sure as hell mean something while we're still here. And that's good enough for now.

Life is about memories. Surround yourself with the right people, strive for the right goals, believe in the right words, and you will give yourself many opportunities to create memories that you'll have forever.

It's times like these we learn to live again...Class of 2010

Don't regret this life

I forgot my Bose headphones at Stonehill over Thanksgiving break, which is gonna suck. I remember every night over summer I'd end up on my laptop, chatting away on Facebook or whatever, but I'd always have my headphones on. Every song is made 50 times better with those headphones; it's like the song completely surrounds you and encapsulates you. Fulfills you. And of course, the best songs to represent that feeling are the ones with the heavy power chords and tonic bass notes. In other words, Daughtry. There's nothing like listening to Daughtry and having every chord resonate throughout not only the headphones, but my entire body, sometimes. The music literally takes me over with the moment. And that's what we need to have happen in our lives. We have to let those moments happen, and let the music and the moment control us. That's what fulfills us.

One of the many things LOST taught me

I originally had the title of this post as "One of the few things LOST taught me," but after harboring between loving and hating the show, I have to concede to the former. Despite the many times during LOST where I explicitly stated my contempt for the series, it was, in the end, a very good show. Unfortunately, I won't be talking about any of that. Perhaps I will over the summer, if my plan to watch every episode goes accordingly (spoiler: it won't), but for now, I'm going to talk about episode titles.

As with any great TV show (House and "Everybody lies," The Office and "That's what she said"), LOST had its fair share of memorable quotes. However, something that's always stuck with me are the episodes that have Latin instead of English as the title. Examples:

From "Tabula Rasa"

• "Tabula Rasa," 1x03
• "Deus ex Machina," 1x19
• "Ab Aeterno," 6x09

 Respectively, they mean "blank slate," "God out of the machine," and "from eternity." Ab aeterno has never come up for me outside of LOST (and to be honest, I didn't even know that was one of the three episodes with Latin in the title), and even Deus ex machina hasn't been said a lot. Nor have the English translations, is what I'm getting at. Clean slate. That's what I hear every once in a while, and as soon as I hear it, I immediately think to myself, tabula rasa. And think about that LOST episode where some character said you can be whoever you want on this island. No one knows anyone (spoiler: everyone knows everyone), so everyone has a blank slate. Tabula rasa.

I was thinking about that. How a simple phrase immediately triggers something in your mind where you can relate it to something very vivid. This always happens to me with House episodes. There will be an actor or actress in a TV show who was in House, and I'll be like "OH SHE WAS IN HOUSE" and then talk about the entire episode accurately. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but it's a thing.

What I haven't done in a while is encourage you guys (yes, I am aware that I have readers) to do something at the end of my blog posts. Probably because I'm not springing philosophy on anyone anymore. But I'll break that streak now. Think about those phrases, people, pictures, that jog your memory. Where you hear "blank slate" and think about that LOST episode, or see someone who was in some movie (I find this to be the most common one, now that I think about it. How many times a movie do you go "WHAT ELSE WAS THIS PERSON IN?"). It might not be practical to anything in our lives, but you have to admit, it is pretty cool.

Values Game #5

Do you believe in life on other planets?

I actually don't remember this one from the summer, but my answer is pretty simple as it stands right now. Mathematically, Earth is not the only planet in the entire galaxy with life. Assuming there are billions of galaxies with billions of planets, there has to be life on other planets. Maybe not in our solar system, maybe not in our galaxy (besides Earth, of course), but somewhere. I chose this question because it gave me a chance to look back on my self-philosophy post, where I talked about this. I thought I had a lot deeper argument about it, but I guess not. Maybe because if the math is there, then how can I refute it?

10 songs from the 90's

Hump Day, thou hast not yet defeated me. Despite my four classes, homework for four classes (of which included Multivariable Calculus), there is one thing to give today that kick-ass feeling: 90's music. (Editor's Note: I always used to be a strong proponent of not using an apostrophe when referring to decades or centuries, but as of right now, I kinda like it.) Thanks to StumbleUpon, a Google search of VH1's Top 100 Songs of the 90's, and immediate rejection at the first 26 songs, I decided to post what I think are 10 songs many people think of when they think about music in the 1990's, while tossing in a couple of my favorites as well. So, here you go: killer songs from the 90's. The number in front of the song is VH1's placement on its Top 100 list.

1. #42: Shine - Collective Soul. Whenever I would go for a run during baseball practice in high school, I'd always listen to this song. Repeatedly. It's just such an awesome, heavy, kick-ass song. Straight up.

2. #27: Mr. Jones - Counting Crows. This was the first song I liked (as a 90's song) on the list (there are plenty I love before #27, they just didn't have that 90's feel), and that's because everyone knows it, it's another awesome song, and fun to pretend you know the words to.

3. #90: You Get What You Give - New Radicals. If I ever do a post on the greatest songs to listen to on Saturday afternoon in the summer with the windows down because it's sunny and 90 degrees, this is going to be at the top of the list. And likely to reappear multiple times on said list.

4. #72: One Week - Barenaked Ladies. These guys have the most ludicrous lyrics which are horribly impossible to sing/learn/understand. However, I think that's what makes them a really cool band. The fast, short words make it seem happy. Even if what I can hear from the lyrics doesn't sound that happy.

5. #45: Only Wanna Be With You - Hootie and the Blowfish. Hootie is another band that I immediately think of when I think of the 90's. A lot of their songs are really singable, and easy to play on guitar. Kinda seemed like a theme of the 90's.

6. #34: Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind. This is pretty much synonymous with the concept of everyone singing this song once it's played. Yet another theme of the 90's. Also really good for the song. It also helps that this song is simply one of the greatest songs ever.

7. #39: Iris - Goo Goo Dolls. Maybe it's just me and my friends, but I feel like certain songs are meant to be sung in one and only one circumstance. For this, it's when you're driving home from somewhere and it's night, and you know that there are only one or two more songs left.

8. #48: 3 A.M. - Matchbox Twenty. Yeah...this is what we play once Iris ends. My favorite part is the end of the bridge, right before the chorus. It's always fun to yell to and pretend you're good at singing. Which should probably left to Rob Thomas...nah...

9. #37: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day. I'm not sure why it's taken me until now realize the contradiction between good riddance and having the time of your life, but, when in Rome... This was also the 5th-grade graduation song for two of the three elementary schools in Watertown. The school that didn't have it was mine. Wanna know what was? Gettin' Jiggy With It. Hell yeah.

10. #33: Wonderwall - Oasis. I was reluctant to put this on the list, only because it's the epitome of "You play guitar? Cool! Do you know Wonderwall?" Not that I don't like the song, but I feel like it's a little more cliché than it needs to be. Although it is always fun to jam out to.

Honorable Mention: Absolutely (Story of a Girl) - Nine Days. I'm beginning to think that this might be the greatest song ever. Any time it's on the radio or Pandora, a little more of me thinks this. And it's probably true - there are a handful of different versions with slight differences in intricacies, but the main structure of the song is the same. Basically, this song is the greatest. The end.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

              - Robert Frost

November sunshine

I don't know how, but it's supposed to be in the 60s AGAIN this week. Score one for New England weather, I guess. Either that or this whole global warming thing is legit. Anyway, the non-crappy weather was the first thing to get my last-full-week-before-Thanksgiving-break week off on the right foot. That, and realizing that I only have 2 or 3 classes of each course before the break (despite an exam in two classes). And that my friends are visiting me this weekend, which is totally awesome, because it's always one of the best/most hilarious days of the semester when they visit. I also just sent out an email to the Orientation Group telling them to kick some serious ass in this last week-plus before we go home for a few days, and that obviously got me in a rather exuberant mood.

But to know where you're going, you have to know where you came from. Last weekend was also really great - me and Vicki went to Watertown for a couple of nights, saw J. Edgar (which was well-done and a pretty interesting movie (especially for someone who knew literally nothing about it going in)), went to the Bruins game on Saturday, and then came back to watch Hitch (which is actually a pretty underrated movie. Maybe I'm just drawn to someone saying things, a lot of things, and as he says them, they are immediately true (see: House, Gregory)).

So, yeah. Basically, it's a pretty good month so far. Which is fantastic, considering November is the second most lethargic month of the year (August). Cold, wind, rain, leaves falling, bare leaves...definitely seems like there are a lot more than 30 days in the month. But what's great about this year is that it definitely has seemed like fewer than 14 days have passed by. Guess that means that before I know it, it'll be the weekend before 2 days of class before a 5-day weekend. Can't complain with that.

YAY DUKE

Today is the first Duke game and I'm so excited and I can't wait to watch it on my TV at home and not on my computer at school and turn up the volume real loud and bring my Duke t-shirt back to school with me and Vicki's gonna see me jumping up and down again which will be funny but she'll probably think I'm mad weird...good thing she thinks that anyway. LET'S GO DUKE

 

Jokes With a Guitar

Can't wait to learn this entire thing.

Red Sox Offseason Update: Carl Crawford

Alright, Mr. Crawford. Your turn. You at least get a second year before I go around telling people you suck. You, like John Lackey, fit into a category with Dice-K. Although this one is in good company. Josh Beckett is also in this category, as well as one or two other players. This group of people includes players who were mediocre in their first season with the Red Sox, yet had a significantly better sophomore campaign. Allow me to explain:

• Josh Beckett. Year One with the Red Sox? 16-11 with a 5.01 ERA. Seventy-four walks, eleven wild pitches, and 1.6 HR/9. Not really what we expected out of the World Series champion. But in his second year, Beckett went 20-7, had 40 walks, flirted with 200 strikeouts, cut his HR/9 in half, was an All-Star, and finished second in Cy Young voting.

• Dice-K's inaugural season in America was, well, something we would have totally expected if we'd seen him for 5 years already. He went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA, gave up 100 earned runs, 25 homers, and had a 1.32 WHIP. His next season with the Red Sox was (in some aspects) far superior - he went 18-3 with a 2.90 WHIP, giving up only 12 home runs, and led the majors with 6.9 hits per 9 IP, finishing fourth in Cy Young voting. (Strangely enough, Matsuzaka also led the American League with 94 walks and had a BB/9 ratio of FIVE, but hey...let's pretend that's not here.)

• David Ortiz wasn't really a big-name player when he arrived in Boston in 2003. He quickly made a name for himself by hitting 173 HR in his first four seasons, as well as, you know, winning us the ALCS. His 2004 season was also statistically better than his first season at Fenway. His batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, HR, walks, RBI, hits, and runs all increased, and he also won the Silver Slugger award in 2004.

Point is, I think Crawford will be fine. On a sidenote, there's no hope for Lackey, because he's sucked in his first two seasons with the Red Sox, but there's hope for Crawford. He had significantly lower totals in 2011 for hits, steals, average, and on base percentage, when compared to 8 of 9 full seasons with Tampa Bay (excluded is his rookie season, where he only played 63 games). But I'm convinced that the reason for the discrepancy is the difficulty acclimating to expecting to finish at the top of the AL East, being around the media way more often, seeing sellouts frequently, and seeing an entire pitching staff for the first time, for 18 games (the Rays). Dude's fine. If this happens again next year, then we can talk. But I'm not worried. (About Crawford, at least.)

And, as usual, huge props to Baseball-Reference. Seriously people...all you need is knowledge of baseball and numbers and you can confuse the hell out of people, too.

10 good songs

(No seriously, that's all this post is about.)

So it's been a while since I last put a bunch of music on the blog (precisely September 7th), and with my iTunes seeing a makeover after upgrading to iOS5 for my iTouch, there's been some shuffling around of music (no pun intended (doesn't mean it wasn't funny)). Actually no, now I definitely intend for that pun to be there. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna shuffle through my iTunes and see what comes up, and if it's a good song, bam. It goes here.

1. Untouchable - Luna Halo. Some people might know this as a Taylor Swift cover, but that doesn't stop me from loving this song. If every Taylor Swift song were like this, I would love all of them. Alas...

2. Wounded - Third Eye Blind. Third Eye Blind always seems to have some awesome combination of guitar picking, heavy choruses, and awesome lyrical melodies. No exception here.

3. Lost! - Coldplay. I was never a fan of Viva la Vida, and I'm still kinda not, but it somehow found its way into my iTunes...like the entire album. Violet Hill is a great song, but I haven't come across that one yet, and Lost! is a pretty legit song.

4. See the World - Gomez. This song is just so much fun to harmonize to. Like I bet someone out there wakes up and listens to this song every day. Also it was on House, so mad bonus points there.

5. You Girl - Sam Adams. Sam Adams - the paragon of music that's awesome to listen while driving...by yourself.

6. Satellite - Guster. Goes under the category of "awesome." Done deal.

7. Black Roses Red - Alana Grace. It would complete my life if Daughtry covered this song. It's absolutely PERFECT for him. Major props to this song for sounding badass.

8. Savior - Rise Against. Mmmm...

9. Bad - U2. Despite the fact that you can mash this up with Take a Picture by Filter and Heartbreak Warfare by John Mayer, this song is AMAZING. It builds up perfectly and then Bono yells and everything is so awesome about this song.

10. Philosophia - The Guggenheim Grotto. This song is simply perfection. Electronic keyboard for one, fantastically crafted lyrics, two, and three-dude harmony? GTFO. I listened to this song on repeat for probably the entire month of April last semester while I was working on my Literature final paper, which dealt with the philosophy of the idea of physical evil conveyed by Voltaire in Candide. Everyone download this. Please. Do yourself a favor.

Complexes

I definitely think I have complex issues. Allow me to explain two. And by two, I mean the only two I think I have right now.

The House Complex
So I have this problem where I have way too high expectations for House episodes now. Because the first 5 seasons were so great, and 6 and 7 were decent enough for me to still be in love with the show, I had some high hopes for season 8. And this has worked out in some paradoxical way for me. The previous episode was REALLY GOOD, but I didn't have that "OMG THIS EPISODE WAS SO GOOD" feeling I had after a multitude of House (and even Lost) episodes. Actually, it happened more in Lost, I'd say. Where at the end of the episode, I'd be sitting there slackjawed, not knowing what the hell just happened, yet somehow understanding most of it, and thinking that that was an awesome episode. House doesn't do that anymore. House can be really good for 41 minutes and then have an indie rock montage that makes the entire episode seem solemn and peaceful. The last thing House is is peaceful. So because of all of this awesomeness that previously surrounded House, I've come to expect every episode to be amazing. Except that I don't let any episodes be amazing. So that kinda sucks.

The One Day, One Room Complex
What works out cool about that ^ is that it refers to my blog and a House episode at the same time. But here, I'll be talking about my blog. Rather, my blogging. If you were around me 24/7, you would see that there's always a 30-second span each day where I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. When the reality is I've gone more than a week between blog posts once. Part of this complex could be that maybe I don't have thoughts that I consider necessary to actually blog about. I dunno. I mean I clearly blog enough, if there have been two months in 2011 where I've had fewer than 12 blog posts. So I have no idea what this is. Probably just something else I should get over.