The Earth is (not) a cold dead place, pt. 3

Here's the quick synopsis of why I'm writing right now - I got an update on my phone saying that pederal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev. I googled it, clicked a couple links, read about it, and now I'm here. Doing the same will likely get you caught up to speed. But I'm not here to talk about that news - I'm here to talk about what I think about the death penalty. In my first post of 2014, ten posts I'd like to write this year, I said that I'd like to give some takes on difficult conversations - abortion, religion, and euthanasia were the three I mentioned in the post, and I guess I'm writing about this ahead of schedule.

I'm not sure how I feel about the death penalty in general, let alone in this case. There are religious reasons for and against it, there are moral reasons for and against it, there are financial and societal reasons for and against it, but perhaps the one reason that has stuck out the most to me came from psychology - you can't learn from your mistakes if you're dead. Seems a little tongue-in-cheek at first, but it's still true. An argument that I envision one could make against this is that some people don't deserve the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. That's an argument, yes, but to me, it just feels that the death penalty is too final, too ultimate. And I know that's the exact point of it, that what someone did is beyond any ramifications in this life.

I've never believed in much, except for some kind of latent, universal force that is always hanging around and strikes at the most opportune moment. At the end of this point, I'm planning on saying something to the effect that there's no wrong or right answer to this. Then I realized that House had something very similar. Turns out this quote is in the episode "One Day, One Room." Perhaps you've heard of it. House sedated his patient after she asked him if his life sucked. He had no answer, and then went to Cameron (who told him to say his life has been good), Foreman (who told him to say his life sucked), and Chase (who told him to keep her asleep). Then Chase said "There's no wrong answer. Because there's no right answer." I felt like telling that scene because of this latent, universal force that I occasionally believe in.

After that digression...there's still a part of me that never wants to see or hear about Dzhokar Tsarnaev again, and that's probably never going to happen. I still remember how it felt to watch TV at 4:00 a.m. and be afraid for everyone I knew in Watertown, and I still remember sitting in class the next morning having panic attacks because I wasn't watching the news. I remember being afraid to live and being aware of what that felt like in the moment. I never want to experience any of it again. And I feel that an ultimate punishment is exactly what would remedy that. But then I think about the fact that this kid has a family and people who care about him, and people who would be devastated by this. Maybe he lost the right to have his family care about him, but this is something that I'm just so torn on. I think this would be different if this wasn't Boston, if it wasn't Watertown. But it is, and that means home, and I'm not sure I want to walk the streets of Boston and Watertown and know that he's alive. I'm not sure about any of this.

Life's too short to eat a carrot whole

Forty-minute drives to and from Stonehill/Watertown/Providence are absolutely fantastic for music playing. Straight highway, jam out, all that fun stuff. One album that I've been listening to on said drives is Mind Over Matter, Young the Giant's most recent album. It's pretty good, but that's not why I'm blogging about it. I got the idea on one of these drives to write the lyrics to "It's About Time," their first single from the album. I don't know any of the official lyrics - I just listened to it and wrote down what I heard. Here's the video. As you listen, read along to what I think the words are, and then check out what they really are here. Turns out I was horribly wrong, which is awesome. Oh, and regarding the post title...here's why.

All the kids are throwing sticks, politics, nights on the water

Everybody wants to get by

It’s a test of the times, a test of my lights

It’s on, pretty lady

Born to be angry, grip of the vice

Click on the trigger girl, sip right on ice

It’s about time, press the rewind

You better blow

(Pissed off, pissed on, pissed off)

Lights are gone, baby, gone

It’s about time

I’m on a tightrope

Gone, gone, gone

It’s about time, it’s about time

Everybody come on, lights on the beaches

Everybody come on, be light

Close the front door, I don’t wanna go

I’ve got mon a june and chole

Best to let go, you don’t wanna know

You all better blow

(Pissed off, pissed on, pissed off)

Lights are gone, baby, gone

It’s about time

I’m on a tightrope

Done, gone, gone

It’s about time, it’s about

All the years of paradise, paradigms paralyze us

You’re crazy

All the cards you organize

Shuffle tries in front of our eyes

Everybody has needs, wants a cold cut

Lights are gone, baby gone

It’s about time

I’m on a tightrope

Done, gone, gone

It’s about time, it’s about

(Pissed off, pissed on)

Notes speak louder than words

I've got a lot keeping me up at night lately, and some of it is blog-worthy, so here you go. It feels good to be able to actually connect to one of my blog posts, something that I've determined hasn't happened to me in 2014 yet. That's about to change, and it's all thanks to lyricless music. You should give it a try, some time. There's something about this kind of music that you can't get from songs with lyrics in them. Here are some of my favorite examples.

We all know that Inception is a great movie, and one of the reasons why is because of the incredible soundtrack (thanks, Hans Zimmer). If you listen to "Waiting For a Train," skip ahead to 4:00 or so. The strings go through a bunch of step-by-step movements, and if you catch this part around 4:38, there's one note that is held for a longer time. At 4:44 there's a lower note that comes in and creates this absolutely perfect harmony. This repeats a couple more times (5:02 and 5:23), and might be my favorite harmony ever.

I'm not totally finished with Breaking Bad yet (14 episodes left!), but one of the most memorable scenes for me was Walt throwing matches into his pool. It summed up everything in his life at that time, and there were no words, no dialogue, and no voiceovers. Just music.

Possibly the best example of music replacing dialogue in a scene is in The Social Network. Specifically, the boat race that the Winklevi twins were in. I know the actual score is from something else, but it's perfectly used to capture all of the emotions in the race.

And finally, also from The Social Network, "Hand Covers Bruise." I fell in love with this piece as soon as I saw the movie, and I remember one time laying in bed, falling asleep to the DVD menu as this played in the background. It's just such a simple and perfect piece. What I've come to realize is that my favorite musical technique, whatever you wanna call it, is a presiding note that just stays for the entire piece. It happens here with the feedback and what sounds like strings throughout the song. And the piano falls and it's perfect. This might be the best song to stare off into space to. Kind of exactly how Jesse Eisenberg does in one of the best scenes in the movie.

Rainy mood songs

If you've never had the amazing experience that is rainymood.com, you should check it out. It pretty much makes certain songs even more awesome than they already are. Here are a few that I've been listening to in conjunction with Rainy Mood - it should be of no surprise that all of these songs are relatively quiet, minimal pieces that really sound like they were meant to be played on a rainy day. Feel free to comment with your own selections!

Out of My Hands (Live at Radio City) - Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds

Trouble - Coldplay

Re: Stacks - Bon Iver

I Have Made Mistakes - The Oh Hello's

What happens over winter break...

...gets sent out to the entire Internet universe via blog post. In reality, it isn't much anyway, but I figured I would wrap up my last winter break ever with a blog post of a complete arbitrary nature. Which is exactly what we're all about here.

I finished the third season of Breaking Bad about half an hour ago. People have been saying that it's the best TV show of all time, so obviously I had to check it out. What I will say is that it might be the most captivating show out of the ones I've seen. The Big Four as far as TV dramas that I've watched are House, Lost, Dexter, and now, Breaking Bad. And I'll let Breaking Bad be the most captivating. I learned the most from House (otherwise I wouldn't have dedicated an entire section of my blog for it). Lost was the one that I was most dedicated towards. (Anybody who watched the show as it aired on ABC knows that it was a strenuous six-year relationship, but worth it in the end.) Dexter seemed like a mystery show at times, but I can't say anything with conviction about the show right now. Maybe I need to rewatch it, but even then, the seasons are so discrete that I could probably get away with watching my favorite seasons (4 and 6 are really the only two that are above the rest).

Why do people say "In case you were wondering..."? I thought about this the other day. If I were wondering about something, I would have thought about it to the point where the information you're about to tell me is review. It should be "In case you weren't wondering," right? Like "Hey, you probably never thought about this, so..." or something like that. I'm gonna start saying that and maybe it'll catch on or something.

I entered my second month of Spotify Premium (first as a paying customer) last week, which means that I have lots of cool, new music to get into. Not that that music didn't exist before, but my ways of accessing it were limited. I'm more into Dave Matthews Band than I was, I put together a playlist of songs from House (thanks to this website), and I'm getting into music that I never thought I'd listen to. I definitely recommend it if you think you're serious enough about music to pay $10 a month for it.

My room is getting destroyed fairly soon, apparently. My parents are moving in and breaking walls down, which means I get their current room, more spacious and stuff. But looking at everything in my room has made me realize that I don't really need any of it. I don't need all of my high school awards that reinforced me being good at math...I know I'm good at math. There are a lot of books that I'm just never going to read, too. I'm very okay with imagining getting rid of a lot of stuff, because I like the idea of having little. Two years ago I blogged about 38 things that represent me, and I remember from The Gospel According to Larry that he only had 75 items to his name, or something like that. This is what 9th-grade English courses are for.

Fun fact, if you Google "the gospel according to," then Larry comes before Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This gets its own paragraph because it makes me happy, independently of 9th-grade English classes.

This is my fourth blog post of the month, which means I'm on pace for twelve in January. The only other time I've blogged in double-digits since November of 2012 was this past August. Hopefully I can make it to ten this month.

Well, that's it for now. As always, thanks for reading, and if you just skipped everything to see what the last thing I would say would be, well, this is it.

Live blogging the 2014 MLB HOF ceremony

12:03pm Catchy title, eh? MLB Network has coverage on the 2014 Hall of Fame induction, with 36 players on the ballot. I'm pretty sure that the actual ceremony is happening at 4:00pm, but there's some half hour of coverage on. So I'll blog during this half hour and then revisit later today.

12:06 It seems like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas are the three guarantees for HOF election. Other candidates include Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jeff Kent, Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, and Curt Schilling. You can find a complete list here, but these few are the notables.

12:09 Quick rundown of the criteria for HOF voting - the voters are members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA), and can vote for any of zero to ten players. Players are in the HOF if they have 75% of the vote, and are removed from the ballot if they don't get 5% of the vote, or do not make the Hall after 15 years.

12:11 An interesting development in the voting process is exactly who gets to say belongs in the HOF. Personally, I don't think that the BBWAA should do it. At least, not exclusively them. Have some players vote, have some managers vote, have some people already in the HOF vote. Having the BBWAA vote means that the votes come from only one perspective. None of these writers played against these candidates. Deadspin acquired the ballot from one of the voters, and opened up their HOF vote to the fans. All of this is making induction into the HOF mean different things at different points in history, but when it comes down to it, the Hall should be reserved for the elite of the elite.

12:24 Another important conversation that determines HOF voting is the "eyeball test" or looking at the raw numbers. As huge a stathead I am, a believer in numbers and sabermetrics, when you're voting for the best ever to play the game, I think there's value in just knowing who deserves it. Because of that, if I were to have a vote, I'd leave off a lot of players who played before my time (Jack Morris, Tim Raines to name two). I watched guys like Maddux, Glavine, and Mussina pitch, and I know that they were regarded as the best in the game.

12:27 There's a conversation that Maddux could have received 100% of the votes, which has never happened in the HOF vote. Tom Seaver has the highest with 98.84%, and the question of on what grounds you don't vote for Tom Seaver or Nolan Ryan or Greg Maddux came up. Twelve people didn't vote for Hank Aaron to make the Hall of Fame. Why? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think that some politics are in play here, which dampens the integrity of the vote.

1:57 The inductees to the 2014 MLB Hall of Fame, voted on by 571 voters, are Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas. No Craig Biggio or Jack Morris, who were probably the only other two who could have made it in. Biggio missed it by 0.2% in his second year, so he'll likely be there next year.

2:02 Had I realized this was happening earlier, I would have come out with my ballot. I would have voted for the three who made the HOF, as well as Biggio, Bagwell, Piazza, Martinez, Schilling, and Mussina.

2:05 Bonds and Clemens lost votes from last year, and I'm not surprised by this. I think that suspected PED users should not be immediately disqualified in the minds of the writers, but I think that if they are ever elected into the HOF, it will be after the next six or seven years, once we make some serious progress with wherever the game is with steroids.

2:07 Frank Thomas is the first player to enter the Hall with the majority of his games being played at DH, and this bodes well for the likes of Edgar Martinez, and eventually, David Ortiz. There are a lot of debates about the designated hitter, steroid use, and many more topics surrounding the Hall of Fame, and I think that each has its place. Martinez and Ortiz are both deserving (in my mind) of the HOF, and Thomas being in is a good start.

2:10 Well, this has been fun. Congratulations to Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas, very deserving inductees to Cooperstown. Thanks for reading!

Predicting the 2014 NFL playoffs

Well, this is the first time that I'm predicting any sort of playoff system other than the MLB, so let's see how this goes. Wild-Card weekend is tomorrow and Sunday, Divisional round the week after that, the Conference championships after that. Then it's the Super Bowl. Four wins for some teams, three for others, but only one team can hoist the Lombardi Trophy on February 2.

Wild-Card Round
Chargers at Bengals
The San Diego Chargers have no business being in the playoffs. They made it into January with Miami and Baltimore losses, and a fairly controversial win against the Chiefs. Meanwhile, Cincinnati has stayed atop the AFC North for quite some time, and just generally seems like the better team. (Editor's Note: See how little I know about this? Pretty soon I'll be picking teams based on which uniform I like better.) Cincinnati moves on, and as the 3-seed, will play the Patriots in the Divisional round.

Chiefs at Colts
Indianapolis went 9-3 against AFC opponents, tied for the best record in the conference with Denver and New England. The Colts also went 6-2 at home, losing only to the Dolphins and Rams, both out of the playoffs. The Chiefs, who started 9-0, lost five of their final seven games, and are sort of stumbling into the playoffs. It's chalk on the AFC side, as it's a 1/4, 2/3 setup in the next round.

Saints at Eagles
The NFC seems like it will have the better of the playoff games, the more exciting ones. New Orleans is pretty good, and Philadelphia is pretty good too. The Saints went 2-3 in their final five games of the regular season, while the Eagles went 7-1 in their final eight, including some must-win games. Hot hand goes to the Eagles at home, and they'll face the Panthers in Carolina.

49ers at Packers
As good as the NFL playoff system may seem, it often puts the better team on the road, in this case of the 8-7-1 Packers, NFC North champions, hosting the 49ers, coming in as a 12-4 wild-card team. Green Bay couldn't figure it out without Aaron Rodgers, and the 49ers have seemed pretty solid all year, coming pretty close to the top seed in the NFC and home-field advantage. In the lone upset of the first weekend (and I use that term ironically), the 49ers move on to set up a divisional contest against the Seahawks.

Divisional Round
Colts at Broncos
It's almost as though this postseason was created by the NCAA selection committee (for basketball, that is), because both of the AFC Divisional Round games are rematches won by the visiting team. The Colts beat the Broncos 39-33 to hand them their first loss of the season. The Broncos are 1-3 against potential AFC playoff opponents not from Kansas City (they beat the Chiefs twice), but are 6-2 on the road, albeit against fairly weak opponents. Everyone wants to see a Brady-Manning rematch, so let's see if we can make it happen. Broncos move on to the AFC Championship, fairly arbitrarily.

Bengals at Patriots
If there's one thing that's dangerous at this time of year, it's New England in January. The weather, that is. Not that Cincinnati is a ray of sunshine in the winter, but it's especially tough to play in Foxboro in the playoffs. A Broncos win means this would be the Patriots' only home game of the postseason, and they too will avenge a loss against a familiar foe. New England lost to the Bengals 13-6 on the road in October, a game in which Tom Brady went 18-of-38 passing for 197 yards, not even close to his season averages of 60.5% completion and 271 yards passing. The real Brady shows up at home, and it's once again Brady-Manning for the chance to win the Super Bowl.

49ers at Seahawks
What a game this should be. Each team defended their home turf during the regular season, with the Seahawks picking up a 29-3 win in Week 2, and the 49ers winning the rematch in San Francisco, 19-17 in December. And what a matchup of quarterbacks, too, Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick. Quick, mobile quarterbacks that can still sling it in the air. Seattle is one of the best teams at home, going 7-1 in Seattle this season, and having the ability to cause a minor earthquake. The Seahawks move on to the NFC Championship, also held in Seattle.

Eagles at Panthers
This is the point in the predictions where I realize I'm probably going to be totally wrong, as I'm about to take straight chalk to the championship games. One and two seeds throughout. Maybe that's how it will actually work out, but if there's anything I've learned from March Madness, it's that it's rarely chalk. Alas. Tough to say no to the Panthers and one of the best defenses against the league, although Philadelphia is exciting with Nick Foles and LeSean McCoy. Ah, to hell with it, let's mix some things up. Cam Newton falters under the playoff pressure and Philadelphia finds a way to move on to the NFC Championship.

Conference Championship Round
Patriots at Broncos
You asked for it, football world, and it's a rematch of the Patriots and Broncos, this time with much higher stakes - a trip to the Super Bowl. New England won the regular season contest, a game in which they trailed 24-0 at the half, stormed back in the second, and won 34-31 in overtime. It was a game in which the Patriots probably had no business winning, but they did. At home. This game is in Denver, where the Broncos went 7-1. Denver also has one of the best offenses in history, breaking the single-season points record, passing yardage and passing TD records (individually by Peyton Manning), and probably lots of other stuff that highlights their offense being really good. But, as I warned, there was not going to be much to these playoff predictions, and I was right when I picked the Red Sox to win it all, so hell, let's take the Patriots to the Super Bowl.

Eagles at Seahawks
Seattle seemed to be one of the favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, and rightfully so. They're a sound team overall, are one of the best at their home field, and have a quarterback with the most wins in his first two season in the league. The final NFC playoff game will be a true testament to the exciting nature of these football games, and it will be one that Seattle takes home at home. The Seahawks move on to Super Bowl XLVIII (that's 48 for those keeping score at home) against the Patriots.

Super Bowl XLVIII
Patriots at Seahawks
Well, I just found out that Bruno Mars is the halftime show of the Super Bowl, so I'm going to have to find something else to do at that time. Damn. This seems like a Super Bowl matchup that a lot of people are picking. I'm not sure why, but it also makes pretty good sense. Two good teams with not impossible paths to the Super Bowl. Which will be held outside, in the north, possibly in the snow. This would help the Patriots more than the Seahawks, especially because they play at least one game in the Meadowlands each year, when they travel to play the Jets (the Giants also play at this stadium). I've put a lot less into my NFL predictions (you can tell the difference between this and my 2013 MLB predictions, if you've read them), but the end result is the same - the hometown team taking home the title. Again, there's little merit to why I'm actually picking the Patriots, but we've seen that they can do this before. They're a few plays away from being 5-0 in Super Bowls since 2001. (Conversely, they're also arguably a few plays away from being 0-5. But that's a little tougher to argue.) The experience and winning nature of this team, this franchise, and the head honchos (Belichick, Brady, Kraft) are going to be the key factors in this unusual Super Bowl. New England takes home the title by a score of 27-17, and claims stake to the Vince Lombardi Trophy for teh 2013-14 season.

10 posts I'll write in 2014

Disclaimer: this has absolutely nothing to do with resolutions, commitments, whatever you want to pretend happens at the beginning of every year. Just ten posts that I would love to write this year.

- I want to post on April 21 and talk about what the first Patriots' Day since the Marathon bombings will feel like. I can't even imagine how emotional it will be in Boston, at the starting and finish lines, and at Fenway. Hopefully I get to experience some of it. It will be scary, but there will be an insane amount of pride in the city of Boston on this day.

- Not that I'd be trying to start an argument with people, but I have some opinions on abortion, religion, euthanasia, and probably others that could be written as a result of being pissed off at something or someone. I actually almost did this two or three days ago, and googled (Editor's Note: is this capitalized? Do we do this yet?) "10 hot topics to debate." The first link took me to a page that started "Greetings from the house of the Lord Jesus Christ!" So this should be pretty easy.

- Kind of a cop out here, but I'll be predicting the 2014 MLB playoffs. No surprise since I've done it for three years, but it's important to note that I was just about perfect this postseason. Thankfully so, too.

- I also know that I'm going to have some emotionally-charged, ultimately final post from Stonehill. Again, something I've done for three years, but unlike the MLB playoffs, my time at Stonehill is unfortunately coming to a close. Here's the most recent end-of-a-Stonehill-year post, and expect a fourth and final one in May.

- It was also pretty fun to take a look back and see what my favorite posts of 2013 were. Hopefully I'll be able to do the same in 2014, which will be especially interesting as it will be about seven months since graduation that I'll be doing it. Graduation is slowly becoming a theme all over the place right now....

- Alright, time to focus on pre-graduation. This semester I'll be interning with the Providence Bruins doing gameday operations and other fun things, and it's probably as close to a job in sports that I've come thus far. Hopefully I'll be able to talk about how awesome my internship is, and what's especially cool about it heading into the internship is that a lot of the players on the Boston roster have come from Providence this year.

- Opening Day is going to be awesome, too. Not sure why I didn't mention this immediately after Patriots' Day or the MLB playoffs, but the Red Sox won the World Series, which means we get to have another ring ceremony. Not sure why the first home series of the year is against the Milwaukee Brewers (thanks technology), but like I said...ring ceremony.

- Again, another cop out, because I'm planning on doing this tomorrow, but I'll probably predict the NFL playoffs too. Four games this weekend and the weekend after that, and then it's Conference Championship time. I can't promise I'll take the Patriots all the way, but I would much rather be wrong and have a second parade in four months, than be right and see the Patriots lose at some point.

- Finishing House will probably happen in 2014, and if you've been following along with my favorite episodes, hopefully you'll check in on wrapping everything up. I blogged about the series finale when I watched it on DVR, so I figure I'd like to blog about the series as a whole after a second time rewatching every episode. (Let's be honest, I've probably seen many episodes at least a handful of times, but not as an entire unit successively).

- In recent years, my June blog posts have culminated around two things, primarily - Orientation and the Bruins' Stanley Cup run. One of those things is never happening again, so hopefully I get to write another summer post about playoff beards, best-of-7 series, and hoisting a Stanley Cup. One of the things I've realized as a sports fan is that I want parades. I realized it during the Bruins' Cup run this summer, that one of the best things with championships is the parade throughout the city, and I want to blog about another parade. Nothing better.

Well, that's ten. I'm hoping to follow through with these, and I'm hoping that you'll come along for the ride! Thanks for reading.