Why I'm deleting Facebook

It is important for me to share that the deletion of my Facebook account has nothing to do with New Year's resolutions. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and right now seems like a good time to do it. Before that happens, as always, some thoughts...

It's interesting to me exactly how I'm going about this. Over the past month or so, I've been priming myself for this to happen - saving pictures I wanted, rereading through old message conversations with friends, removing the app from my phone, and the bookmark in my browser. Kudos to you if you go cold turkey, but I've learned too much psychology to be able to do that. Anyone who finds their way to these pages often enough knows that I frequently introduce blog posts on Facebook and Twitter. This is unsurprisingly where a lot of page views come from. (I can see as much as anyone that people rarely actively seek out this blog.) I still care about saying what I want to say, and I still care about those who take the time to read it, but there's just nothing useful on Facebook anymore.

I have 462 friends on Facebook, and I wish I could confidently come up with an accurate number, but I will say that no more than 75 of them are people I would keep in touch with on a minimal basis, let alone regular. Maybe I'll spend one day comprising said list of people. I will get in touch with anyone I need to - there's this crazy feature on our phones where we can speak and another person can hear what we're saying. (I've heard Snapchat is alright, too.) Anyone whose thoughts I care about publicly reading has a Twitter, and anyone whose pictures I care about seeing has an Instagram.

Here's a picture of a sad pug, because visuals.

Please also note that this post is titled why I am deleting Facebook, and not why you should. I have no idea if you should delete Facebook - that's your call. There are too many articles on why you should do this, why you shouldn't do that, how you should spend time here or there or anywhere...too many people are telling you what you ought to be doing, and the only people that should have a say in those matters are the ones you choose to listen to. Don't let someone tell you what to do, including the nature of this sentence. If you base your life off what you read off Buzzfeed and Thought Catalog, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you. (Sorry, that paragraph has been waiting to be written for a while.)

The way that I base my life is what you can read at the top of this and any page you're reading at this blog. Facebook isn't a room I want to keep going into - I have a feeling that my relationships with people aren't contingent upon the existence of either of our Facebook accounts. I never needed Facebook to stay close with those I am close with, and never used Facebook to have contact with those I am not close with. Shun the utilitarian argument if you may, but at the end of the day, what will be, will be.

5 TV shows I want to start watching

Turn back the clock one year, when I was watching four or five episodes of Breaking Bad a day. I was captivated, I needed more, and after finishing rewatches of House and The Office, I need to watch some new material. Here are five shows I've been thinking about watching:

1. House of Cards

It seems to me that if one show had taken over Breaking Bad's you-need-to-watch-this-now title, it's House of Cards. And as was the case with Breaking Bad, I would be showing up late to the party with House of Cards. But apparently it's epic. My one reservation about picking it up is that I don't really like waiting long periods of times for new episodes - sure, the entire season is released at once, but there's still a cold period between seasons. Although Kevin Spacey might be my favorite badass actor.

Case in point for BBT - who are those two chicks on the left?

2. The Big Bang Theory

I have always been sort of a fan of this show, but not to the point where I've following it for more than a week at a time. Half-hour episodes are easy to binge through (see: the 9 seasons of The Office I watched in two months), and I've always been meaning to catch up on this show. There's just more of it to catch up on now.

3. Modern Family

Again, something I've very late to the party to. The handful of episodes I've actually seen are awesome, with that mockumentary-style that made The Office so hilarious. I feel like I'm doing a disservice to society by not having seen every episode of this series, but again, once I catch up, it's waiting every week. Which might be okay with this show since it's not as drama-driven as Lost or House.

4. The Following

This was one that I was thisclose to watching from the pilot episode, when it was on TV every week. Little did I know that it's still on TV every week, which is a nice surprise to see a new show on FOX stick around for a while. Serial killers are incredibly fascinating to me, as well as the psychology behind getting a following of people to help you out. If Dexter became one of my favorite shows, I have faith in this one.

5. The Simpsons

My work might be cut out for me on this one....more than a few episodes that would need to be watched. This is such a classic show though, that at some point it's going to have to be done. I feel like I will achieve a whole new level of weird if I've seen every Simpsons episode. Look out, world.

H / L

Go reflect, right now.

No seriously, don't even finish reading this post right now. Come back to it later. Take a few minutes from whatever you're doing (which, if you're here, is reading a post that has explicitly told you to do otherwise) and think about you. What the best part about yesterday was, what the worst part about yesterday was. The day before that, and the day before that, if you can remember far back enough.

Start compiling a list of the best parts about each day and the worst parts about each day. What's nice about this from an analytical standpoint is that you are guaranteed data. What's important about this from an analytical standpoint is what you do with said data. How you categorize the bests and worsts. Maybe you interacted with someone you haven't talked to in a while. Maybe you read something that really got you thinking about life. Maybe you're pumped about the Patriots' win against the Jets. Maybe you were really excited about something coming up. Maybe you did nothing yesterday when you had wanted to be active. Maybe you didn't get to that thing you wanted to. Maybe someone really pissed you off.

So spend a few weeks, compiling the bests and worsts of each day. Create categories for them based on what is important to how you live your life, and how you feel about how you live your life. After a few weeks, come back to it and find patterns. That you can't try to control the uncontrollable. That you can control your relationship with people. That sports, music, people, and thinking about things makes you happy, and can also make you upset. Use the patterns to live a better life, to live the way you set out for yourself.

Then, and only can, should you come back and read this post.

Out of reach

Something I'm struggling with on a secular level that I need to put into words and be done with forever - this is the third or fourth blog post I've tried to write tonight. Previous attempts have included laugh-worthy grammar mistakes, something about music, and a third thing that I can't even remember right now. But this post isn't about the secular, it's about the connection that we desire so dearly as humans. A connection shared by two individuals with equal knowledge of something. Or perhaps, lack thereof. For purposes of setting, I'm listening to the same music I listened to when writing my end-of-a-Stonehill-year blog post, and what's eating at me right now is the notion that not one person knew exactly what I was feeling at that point in time. Which is why I write, to try to put across some semblance of emotion that you can glean from a post.

The last time I was in a dark Sem common room playing Values Game was 18 months ago, which is terrifying in its own sense, but life goes on. I remember a lot of questions and answers from that night, but one in particular that is relevant now is what superpower I would have. Breaking from the flying/invisibility majority, I decided that I want to be able to experience pure empathy. And I don't mean a nice understanding of what you just experienced, I mean that I want to know exactly what you were feeling in the moment in which you were feeling it. The only way that I think this can happen is if two people are sharing such a moment together. I'd like to think that I have a wide selection of examples to choose from, but one that comes to mind right now is the click at 9:27 of "The Only Moment We Were Alone." There's a particular relevance of those two drum sticks colliding, that you probably don't know about. (If you do, thanks for reading.) There's a buildup right before the part with the click that kind of overcame me one day when I was driving, possibly on the highway. I'm not sure anymore, but it was a moment that felt incredibly real to me, one that I wish I could properly explain with words. But the thing is that I can't, and unless you were in that car with me, you're not going to know the tension and release that came through that part of the song (which I've switched over to listening to).

I want to know what you feel when you're staring over an expansive sea of beauty as the sun beats down on your neck. I want my heart to beat as far out of my chest as yours as you stand watching a ball suspended in midair, waiting to fall through a hoop. I want to see as far down to the ground as you do, walking on a quarter-inch of rope, tens of thousands of feet in the air. And I want to leave you with the thought of what I'm feeling, what you're feeling, and what you wonder others to be feeling. The human connection is strong, but we will never be able to perfectly capture multiple experiences as one. Perhaps that is the beauty of it all. For now, it remains just out of reach.

Can you feel what they do?

Canvas

I wish I had studied writing a little more when I had the chance. It's interesting that I phrase it that way, because in all likelihood, I have the chance, it's just a matter of digging into the depths of what exactly that entails.

There's a lot of potential energy in this world, in a metaphorical sense. I am not nearly the writer I could be, and I believe that the same holds true for anyone else. Are we ever fully what we are?

There's a term in developmental psychology called the zone of proximal development. I italicize it there so you focus on it. The zone of proximal development is the space between what we can do on our own, and what we cannot do on our own - this is otherwise known as what we can do with help.

How exactly you define "help" is entirely up to you. The space between where I am and where I could be as a writer is filled with help from books, movies, articles, conversations...anything that has tools to make me a better writer. Teachers and instructors are help. Personal trainers are help. Therapists are help. Textbooks are help.

One way you could visualize the zone of proximal development is to imagine a chasm to be crossed. How you go from one side to the other is your help. For me, I like to imagine it as a canvas. An empty plane on which help will be ascribed to.

Think about something that you want to do with the time you have. Where do you currently stand, and how far do you want to go? What steps will you take to reach your goals? These are questions that are commonly asked, and one that I'm pushing you to think about is, what help is there?

7 mega-fun songs

I've been posting quite a bit about music lately, and here's a post that is more evidence of that. Ten super-awesome, mega-fun songs that are worth listening to, and if you're into the whole dancing-around-your-room thing, then that too.

1. Silhouettes - Colony House
I haven't read the lyrics for this song yet, but whatever this song is about, it's very fun. Kinda trippy, but fun.

2. If You Wanna - The Vaccines
I have read the lyrics for this song, and it's definitely not a collection of lyrics that make it seem a mega-fun song. But it totally sounds that way, and this song reminds me of getting ready for weekend shenanigans at Stonehill, so hooray!

3. Party Hard - Andrew W.K.
Those that remember Madden 03 (that seriously came out 12 years ago?) will enjoy this one. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, try this Android commercial.

4. Battles - Hudson Taylor
This song makes me want to drive really, really fast on the highway. Hell, this song makes me want to drive fast anywhere. It also has the greatest two bars of sudden a capella (2:49), a perfect setup for the crash.

5. I Ain't The Same - Alabama Shakes
First off, Alabama Shakes are an excellent band. Secondly, and fittingly, this is a PERFECT song for this group to play after their opening song at concerts. Everyone's cheering them after their first song, and before they can quiet down, the two-beat pickup starts and everyone cheers more. According to setlist.fm, they've played the song 25 times since June 2013...never second. Damn.

6. I'm On a Boat - The Lonely Island, feat. T.I.
Hell yeah this song is on this list. If you haven't heard this song before, any of my words can't do it justice. Enjoy.

7. Paradise By the Dashboard Light - Meatloaf
Not exactly sure how to explain this song being on this list, because it totally doesn't fit in with any of the other songs here. I had been trying to find this song for a while, knew that Glee sang it (which they did), and I've always had a predilection for two-part songs.

And, I think I'll stop there. Primarily because I found a video of the top ten most heartstopping WWE returns ever, and as much as I've been on a music kick lately, I've been on a nostalgia trip to my days as a professional wrestling fan.

Every censored swear in The Office

Well, I was going to post a list of every episode that had a censored swear in The Office, but this has already been done. Enjoy one of my shortest blog posts ever and this link to the list of episodes!

88

Seventy-six keys sit glowing in front of me, a combination of letters, numbers, commands, and functions. Eighty-eight lay to my left, no more than two feet from where I'm sitting, waiting to be played. This is the first time that I've combined playing piano and blogging into a simultaneous post, and I have no expectations or ideas where this will go. I'm just going to play and type, type and play, thoughts running across the screen as I go along. For setting, I'm alone in my house, wearing the most comfortable t-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants I own, with socks and slippers for bonus comfort. That's kind of the mood I've been in all day, and I'm curious to see the impact it will have on the songs I'm about to listen to and play. It is 7:10pm as I begin this, and I am unable to tell you what time it will be when I end this. But enough typing...for now.

Totally not sure how I want to do this second part...I ended up playing eight songs, which I'll list below. After briefly thinking about it, I'm curious about the causality between songs/mood. I was in some sort of hazy, melancholic mood, and I believe as a result, gravitated to these songs. Although one could make the argument that listening to these songs puts one in a hazy, melancholic mood. I only know the causality this time because I felt the mood first and then went to the songs. Would it work the other way around? In any event, here are the songs I played, with reasons unbeknownst to you, and possibly to myself, as well.

Name - Goo Goo Dolls

Round Here - Counting Crows

A Long December - Counting Crows

The Space Between - Dave Matthews Band

Keep Your Head Up - Ben Howard

Iscariot - Walk the Moon

Juner - Polydream

First Breath After Coma - Explosions in the Sky

The Only Moment We Were Alone - Explosions in the Sky

The first penguin

Every now and then, I'll have a bit of trouble falling asleep at night. I've become too conditioned to sleep on the same side of my bed with the same two of three pillows under my head. (No seriously, I think this is a real issue.) Sometimes my mind can't stop racing about certain things at night, and other times, I'm able to focus on a singular idea and ride that thought train until I fall asleep. Here's what I came up with last night...

For starters, this thing happens to me where my room almost pans out and expands greatly, all while my eyes are closed. I don't want to call it an out-of-body experience or anything along those lines...it's very hard to explain, but it feels like I'm floating into some kind of space vortex that is only darkness. It's kind of cool, and I know that when that happens to me, I'm in some kind of mental zone. I was thinking in particular last night about how we encounter things in our lives. I believe, and have for the past few months, that people fall into one of two groups - those who would rather experience something new and for the first time, and those who would rather re-experience something to glean something new from taking it in a second time. I'm firmly in the latter group, and the evidence is simple - I've blogged about the same Explosions In The Sky album three separate times. I'm not entirely sure how strong which group you're in correlates to you being an extrovert/introvert, respectively, but I have a hunch there's something to it.

I also thought about penguins, metaphorically. In The Last Lecture, which I quasi-blogged about in the past, Randy Pausch describes an award he gives out to the project group that experienced "glorious failure." He compared this to the first penguin who enters what may be predator-infested waters, because someone's gotta do it. I connected that line of thinking to looking back at various moments in my life, and how I've matured in each aspect since those moments. Think about the first week of your job, if you have one, and how you've developed since then. Think about the first month of your relationship, the first dates you went on, and how you've grown as a lover since then. Think about the difference in class participation from the end of the semester to the beginning. Growing as an individual only happens when there exists room to grow, and there exists room to grow only if you allow yourself those opportunities. You might think this has nothing to do with penguins, but that's the connection I made. Go be the first penguin - you'll look back on it knowing you've become a better person for it.

3 up, 3 down: musical selections

I had a tough time coming up with a decent name for this idea, and I'm still not sure I have one. In any case, here are three musical selections/passages/phrases/parts that I really like, and three that I'm not as big a fan of. If it sounds like I've done this "3 up, 3 down" thing before, it's because I have, twice.

3 up
1. The drum beat in "Feel Good Inc."
Huge fan of this song in general; it's catchy and I'm strangely okay with the rap parts. But by far the most credit in this song goes to the measure at 1:42; it just sounds real smooth despite being four quarter notes. Set up nicely by the drum pattern before, too. Fantastic four bass drum notes.

2. The main theme in The Dark Knight Rises main theme

This selection is very similar to my first choice in the sense that it's set up as one idea and then contrasted as another. Hans Zimmer is an absolute genius and works this technique to perfection. If you're looking for the two notes that comprise the main Dark Knight-ness of The Dark Knight, listen for it being set up at 23 seconds, and it coming for real at 38 seconds.

3. The final solo in "Satellite" by Guster

Mega-catchy tune, super-fun to sing in the car, and by far my favorite part is the outro solo that you can find at 4:09. Eight of the sweetest guitar-solo measures I've ever heard. Love the sound, love the notes, love that it keeps on going after you think it'll stop after four measures. Well done, Guster, well done.

3 down

1. The backup singers in "Rolling In The Deep"

I used to like this song a lot, and I'm just not a fan of it anymore. I've always been displeased with this one particular part, which hits right at 1:00. It's the first thing the backup singers sing, and it's totally not in the scale. "Wish" is a half-step higher from "met," "gonna," and "in" and I hate it.

2. The chorus in OneRepublic's "Love Runs Out"

Overall I can't decide if I like this song or not, but the second part of the chorus is one beat too late, I think. There's "I've been running," one, two, "I've been running," one, where I think it would be way better if it were "I've been running," one, "I've been running," one, two. Just a minor change I'd make. That, and mashing the song up with "Love Lockdown."

3. The number of times the chorus is sung in "How to Save a Life"

Look, I love this song. It's one of my favorite to play on piano, and one of my favorites to sing to. Amazing song. I just don't think the chorus needs to be sung 6.5 times.

Time, pt. 10

It's been too long since I've blogged about time (ironic, because of the whole time-doesn't-exist thing), but I've been realizing a number of things tonight that I'd like to write here. If there's a first question to oppose the time-doesn't-exist theory, it's probably something along the lines of how we measure our lives. Well, we've assigned this thing called time to our lives, but why can't we think of our lives as a collection of moments? A series of rooms, if you will. Top of the page - "I'm gonna base this moment on who I'm stuck in a room with. It's what life is. A series of rooms." Time, moments, rooms, whatever you want to call it, here is what I've been thinking about...

Think about the oldest person alive right now. No one else who is alive is older than that person. Additionally, no one currently alive was alive when the oldest person on life was born. If you're reading this and you're not the oldest person alive, you, me, and everyone else had yet to exist when this person was born.

Staying on this theme, the oldest person alive will be the oldest person alive a lot longer than how long the youngest person alive will be the youngest person alive. People are always being born and they are always the youngest people alive. People are always dying, but they are not always the oldest people who were alive.

We don't know what our grandparents were like as children, or what our parents were like as children. Nor will our children and grandchildren know what we were like at their age, aside from stories passed down. The people who we will know for the longest amount of time are our siblings, so it's important to have as strong a relationship that you can with them, if you have any. If not, think of your oldest friend.

Many people are proponents of the carpe-diem, life-is-short mindset. That's not an incorrect mindset to have, but we will do nothing in our lifetime longer than we live. Living your life is the longest thing you will ever do. Enjoy it.

The most important thing I learned in each college class

Five days short of having been a college graduate for six months, I have finally completed a list of the most important thing I've learned in each of my college classes. I had been working on it for a couple of weeks, but we're good to go. Unsurprising is the fact that very few of these takeaways are academic - instead, most of them are about the college experience itself, life, and what exactly we're doing here. Or something like that. Here we go!

Freshman year, fall semester

• Calculus I: Even professors don't want to have class at 2:30 on Fridays
• Computer Science: Knowing your way around a computer program will pay off greatly...eventually
• French I: I probably learned more English grammar by taking French than I did taking English
• Literature: Always be asking yourself of the implications of something
• Religious Studies: Anything can be sacred to anyone

Freshman year, spring semester

• Calculus II: There's value in skipping a 2:30 Friday class when it's gorgeous outside
• Developmental Psychology: Professors will believe you if you lie about a doctor's appointment to avoid death in Shark Attack
• French II: I'm probably never going to speak French again
• History: Theodore Roosevelt was a badass
• Philosophy: Nothing is absolute, not even that

Sophomore year, fall semester

• Calculus III: It's not about memorizing material, it's about knowing where in the book to go to understand it
• Intro to Music: Reading sheet music is a necessary evil that must be practiced often
• Language of Math: Be cautious of the use of words such as 'every' and 'never'
• Public Speaking: The more prepared you are, the less scary public speaking is
• Stats for Psych: It's worth spending even 30 seconds of your day reflecting

Sophomore year, spring semester

• Discrete Math: Night classes that are 2.5 hours long are not a good idea
• Intro to Sociology: You'll run into a professor who you know will grade generously, but remember that that's only if you do the work
• Linear Algebra: Graphing calculators become useful for the first time since 10th grade when you need to do matrix multiplication
• Music/Psychology Seminar: Everything is music
• Research Methods in Psychology: Not getting significant results does not mean your work was not significant

Junior year, fall semester

• Abstract Algebra I: Some professors will hold enough review sessions to leave you wondering how they have a family
• Ethics: Be aware not only of the role society plays in your life, but the role you play in society
• Physics I: Go to review sessions. There will be people who know more than you, and people who know less than you. Both groups can make you feel better
• Social Psychology: The more social psychology studies you know, the more you'll be able to manipulate others without them knowing about it
• Real Analysis I: Those who think Calculus is hard should consider themselves lucky they never had to prove it

Junior year, spring semester

• Abstract Algebra II: Class after lunch is way harder to get excited for in the spring
• Music Theory: Sometimes, rules are not meant to be broken
• Physics II: There actually are classes in which you'll never need to know anything about it later in life
• Real Analysis II: Take the hardest class in your major; it only gets easier from there
• That time I taught Baseball Statistics: You learn best when you interact with others who share your passions

Senior year, fall semester

• Combinatorics: A class is far more enjoyable when it's the professor's favorite area of study
• Gender & Sexuality: No one gets to speak on behalf of an entire race, gender, sex, ethnicity, population, or group. Support them, but don't speak for all of them
• Psychology Capstone: If life-hacking were a college class, it would be taught under psychology. Everything is psychology
• Sport Psychology: We would be much better instructors if we told people what to do instead of what not to do
• Theories of Learning: Punishment stops behavior; reinforcement changes it

Senior year, spring semester

• Abnormal Psychology: Not caring how well you do sometimes gets you just as far as caring does
• Cognitive Psychology: Take enough upper-level psychology courses and you'll think of something every week out of school you once learned
• Math Thesis: Sometimes, the bare minimum is perfectly fine
• Sabermetrics Directed Study: Knowing your way around a computer program will pay off greatly...eventually

FQH, the final four

It's been a while since I had a two-part blog post, and a while since I blogged about Stonehill, and a while (previous post excepted) since I blogged about music. So why not do all three right now?

The best tradition that happened while I was at Stonehill was the FQH party at the end of each semester. For the last hour before 24-hour quiet hours during finals (so we're talking mid-December and early May), and last two hours our senior year, we would all get together, and have a grand celebration of noise. We were sticking it to quiet hours while we still had the time, stemming from a fun little incident freshman year that involved the future namesake for said tradition. (Write a letter to the editor (that's me) if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) As soon as 10 pm hit, we were quiet and on our way with whatever we would do next. Usually just retreat to our individual rooms, now that I think about it. Anyway, in a direct tie to my previous post about music you listen to if you can never listen to music again, here are the final four songs of our FQH playlist, in chronological order.

Boston - Augustana

Baba O'Riley - The Who

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Fix You - Coldplay

The day the music died

A couple years ago I asked on my blog what the first pick in the draft of all the songs ever would be for any given listener. The answers were varied, but the persistent theme was that each song was important to each listener. Now, I ask a question on the other side of the coin - what would you listen to if you were going to be unable to ever listen to music again? Here's what I have on my final playlist, in no particular order:

Piano Man - Billy Joel
Maybe it's because 60 Peer Mentors sang this three summers in a row. Maybe it's because the senior class sang it at formal during Cape Week. Maybe it's because any bar playing this song will have everyone singing along to it. Whatever the reason, Piano Man is a song that you sing at the top of your lungs, every time, and unifies you with everyone else you're singing it with.

Your Hand In Mine - Explosions in the Sky

As much as I play up the first two songs on The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (go ahead, look up any of the nine blog posts with direct references to it), Your Hand In Mine is the one that I'll always stay in love with. There's something about it that reminds me of perfect innocence; a sweet bliss to close your eyes to and be in peaceful harmony with.

Ocean - John Butler Trio

There are a number of versions of Ocean that I could choose from for this, but the one I'm going with is the first version I ever heard. It's the shortest version and also the simplest of the Oceans that John Butler has played. Again, I have a connection to many versions of this song, but the first time I saw what John Butler was about, with the raw emotion and putting his physical willpower into the song, I knew I would never stop listening.

Awake My Soul - Mumford & Sons

The mental image that I will always have while listening to the end of this song is driving on the highway, singing as loud as possible, the music even louder. This is one of those songs that gets me that stars-burning-through-sheets-of-clouds feeling, an invincibility that cannot be broken.

Layla - Derek & The Dominos

This is the one song that was always on this list. Some songs just missed the cut (One Headlight, Postcard From 1952, How's It Going To Be) and others were debated, but Layla has always been number one on this list. It's the painful guitar solos, it's the four-minute piano part, it's the birds chirping at the end; it's everything. I know that I've said before that I would be content leaving this world to the end of First Breath After Coma, but leaving existence as I know it to the end of Layla is just as good.

So, there it is. The Pantheon of songs that I would listen to if music were never to be a thing again. Some of this you might agree with; or, you might have a different idea of songs you'd listen to one final time. What would they be?

Madison Bumgarner and the real MVP

The winner of the 2014 World Series has yet to be determined, and by all official counts, so has the winner of the 2014 World Series MVP. One or two games will determine the former; I'm making the argument right now that the latter has already been decided, regardless of outcome. Only once has a World Series MVP come from the losing team (Bobby Richardson, 1960), and if it's going to happen a second time, the Giants' ace is the one to be that player.

Bumgarner's numbers are plain filthy - an earned run average of 0.29 in four career World Series starts and a 2014 postseason ERA of 1.13 in six outings. These are good, but exactly how good are they compared to his 3.06 career ERA? Well, that's where math comes in. Allow me to explain:

• Bumgarner's career ERA is 3.06. He's thrown 47.2 innings in the 2014 postseason, so at a standard rate, should allow 16.2 earned runs, or 2.7 runs per start. His actual sample of earned runs allowed this postseason is {0, 2, 0, 3, 1, 0} across those six starts. The likelihood that this sample occurs against the average of 2.7 runs per start is 1 in 46. That's some serious statistical significance.
• Now, a similar method with his four career World Series starts. In 31 innings, he has allowed one earned run. Compare this sample ({0, 0, 1, 0}) against what should be an average of 2.6 runs per game, and it should occur every 1 in 392 times.

Bumgarner has the lowest career World Series ERA ever for pitchers who have thrown at least 20 World Series innings. He has been effectively automatic in this World Series, being all but sharpied in for two victories before he even stepped on the mound. He steps up big in the playoffs, and has been the best player throughout this entire postseason. Kansas City may have already won the World Series if it wasn't for the dominant Bumgarner. Instead, the Giants stand one win away from their third championship in five years, and you can be sure that Bumgarner will be doing a lot of celebrating if San Francisco wins it all.

Like I said, a lot of celebrating.

How to win at social media

It's clear that we're at a point in our technologically-driven world where we spend a majority of our leisure time (or non-leisure time) staring at a screen, eyes and minds rotting for several hours a day. When so much time is spent swiping left, right, up, down, and in circles, scrolling through facades our peers, a pattern of how we use social media emerges. And when patterns exist, opportunities arise to take advantage of those patterns. Allow me to explain:

Facebook
To me, Facebook is good for three things - storing pictures that I don't already have downloaded to my computer, having group chats that I normally wouldn't have over text (the fantasy baseball and basketball leagues I'm in are good examples), and posting links to this blog for all of you wonderful people. We've taken to Twitter for sporadic updates about our lives, following along with breaking news, and a majority of our photographical escapades take place on Instagram. Facebook in its heyday was a place where people could put literally everything in one place. Now that other platforms are dedicated to individual pieces of that puzzle, Facebook seems to be lost in the storm.

Twitter
I love Twitter. I think that every single one of my tweets are golden. Twitter is an excellent place for me to tell everyone something that I'm not sure who I should tell individually. There is a lot of humor in the Twittersphere, and if you can craft a balance of friends who you're obligated to follow, friends you actually find interesting, well-known accounts (celebrities or sports teams are good examples), and accounts meant for nothing but the sheer joy of humankind, then you're all over the Twitter game.

Instagram
I was steadfastly off the Instagram train for a long time, but then decided that it was worth dipping into. Here's why everyone is on Instagram - it's the easiest thing in the world. You see something that's worth taking a picture of, choose from one of 19 filters, and you're done. When you're scrolling through your Instagram feed, you're doing the same thing you are on Tinder, minus the social implications. Snap judgments of a picture, and an imperative to double-tap and like the picture, or keep scrolling. The lure of Instagram is that everything is right in front of you. There are no links to take you to the picture, nothing extra you have to do to like it. It's a big reason why I aim for all pictures and videos on my blog to be within the post - because you're not really going to sit through a YouTube ad just to see a video I've linked up, but you'll watch if it's right there.

So that's the haps on social media. We're all about the right now in the technological world, so we wants pictures readily available, we want to be able to click one button to serve approval across the social realm, and we want lists because they're chunked into small bits of words we can read instead of a large paragraph. Social media is a social game, but we're the players. Play on.

Room #437

I can't. I can't put together words to formulate a blog post. Read about what happened in Washington state today, and read about what happened in Ottawa this week, and you'll know where I'm coming from when I say I literally cannot come up with a blog post. I'm sick of hearing about this and I'm sick of reading about it. I have nothing to say.

Rippy bits

Here's what happens when I don't blog for eight days:

A feeling that I need to blog arises. It festers. Sometimes I'll think of things I want to blog about, but don't feel strongly enough to blog about in that moment. I'll come up with post titles, ideas, words, but not be able to put them together cohesively. I remember song lyrics more often, quotes from movies.

So here's everything that I've been thinking about for the past week, in shredded bits and pieces. At various points in time, I believed that they were enough for a blog post, and now, they finally are.

A lyric from "Holocene" by Bon Iver: "We smoked a screen to make it what it was to be; now to know it in my memory." The post, which would have been called Smokescreen, would have been something along those lines of putting up a screen to make life appear differently; perhaps rose-colored lenses, if you will.

Two quotes about perspectives of life that I really like. The first, from The Town: "But I know I'll see you again; this side or the other." The second, from Lost: "If you don't see me in this life, you'll see me in the next."

The idea that perception is reality. Not necessarily that I believe this idea, but that nothing is seen or experienced the exact same way by two different people. How I feel the cold air on a snowy night is different from how you feel it, and if you and I are together, whose reality is correct? There's a quote from the final Harry Potter book (and yes, I opened the book for this quote, instead of the movie clip) that is absolutely perfect for this:

"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

My hero

I think Dave Grohl just because my favorite person of all time.

He might have actually been atop the list to start with, but the more I learn about him, the more I love him. There's this element to him that just oozes a deep understanding of music and the human connection that it fosters. If you have some time for yourself, watch this interview. Some of the things that he says are just absolutely perfect, about the kind of music he wants to create and the process he wants behind it. Absolutely worth the watch.

In a related matter, here's an incredible video of "My Hero" during the Foo Fighters' concert at Wembley Stadium in 2008. There was a line that Dave Grohl had in the interview saying that the audience was the sixth member of the band. I think this video is a perfect testament to that.

5 lists of 5

5 things I miss about college that I didn't think I would
1. Correcting TA homework while watching Patriots games on Sunday
2. Fat brunches on Saturday and Sunday mornings
3. Little walks around campus, e.g. to the library or to print something
4. Watching full movies during the afternoon
5. Waking up at noon

5 ways I would speed up the game of baseball
1. Eliminate pitching coach, catcher, infield mound visits
2. Immediately award intentionally-walked batters first base
3. Limit warmup pitches in between innings to five
4. Spinning around to second base from the mound without throwing is a balk
5. Batters who do not swing are not allowed to leave the batter's box

5 songs I've never listened to until this week
1. Gracious - Ben Howard
2. Neon Cathedral - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Allen Stone
3. I Can Feel a Hot One - Manchester Orchestra
4. The Riff - Dave Matthews Band
5. You & I - Local Natives

5 articles from ESPN the Magazine / Sports Illustrated that I've kept
1. "Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building"
2. "A Theory About Aaron Craft"
3. "Mourning Glory"
4. "What Makes Roy Run"
5. "The Art of Winning an (Even More) Unfair Game"

5 reasons I might actually like autumn
1. Sweatpants
2. Cold air feels pretty nice
3. Cold bedsheets/pillows feel really nice
4. Apple cider and pumpkin beer with cinnamon sugar
5. Listening to Bon Iver every day for four months is totally cool

Predicting the 2014 MLB playoffs

For the fourth time, establishing itself as the longest-standing tradition of One Day, One Room (I think), I bring you MLB postseason predictions! After successfully predicting exactly one series outcome in two years between 2011-12, I totally nailed it last season, getting each series right. So to be honest, I have no idea what will happen in 2014. But I suppose that's what I'm here to figure out.

League Division Series
Angels vs. Royals
For the better part of the past two months, it's looked as though everyone else is playing a different game than the LA Angels. They've played better than .600 baseball during that stretch, and save a freak injury to Garrett Richards, have the most complete team in the American League. A balanced offense and the experience of Jered Weaver propel them past the feel-good Royals, who enjoy their first postseason series since they captured the 1985 World Series, but make little noise against the team with the best record.

Orioles vs. Tigers
This is going to be an interesting series featuring two very different kinds of teams. Detroit, one of the juggernauts of the AL for the past few years, hasn't cashed in, while the Orioles have had a quiet yet very successful season under Buck Showalter. Baltimore, led by MVP candidate Nelson Cruz, who is definitely maybe still on steriods, surprise Detroit and advance to the ALCS.

Nationals vs. Pirates
It doesn't matter which team wins the NL Wild Card game - the way the Nationals' pitching rotation has shined, they coast into the next round on the heels of Stephen Strasburg, Doug Fister, and he-of-the-Game-162-no-hitter Jordan Zimmermann. Washington has been atop the NL East for a majority of the season, but they have their sights set much higher in 2014.

Dodgers vs. Cardinals
This will surely be a highly-anticipated rematch of the 2013 NCLS, which the Cardinals took in six games. Saint Louis hasn't had the firepower this season, but got hot at the right time. The Dodgers, meanwhile, have cruised through this season, largely in part to the best pitcher in the game, Clayton Kershaw. The dude went 21-3, and this was after missing SIX starts to begin the year. Los Angeles went 24-3 in Kershaw's starts, and will go 2-0 en route to another NCLS berth.

League Championship Series
Angels vs. Orioles
There are two interesting World Series that I could set up, although my 2012 Orioles-Nationals World Series didn't quite pan out as I had hoped. It's tough for me to conceive of a team beating the Angels in a best-of-seven series, but if there's a team that can do it, it's Baltimore. Unfortunately, I don't think they will. The Angels are too strong across the board, so unless the Orioles catch a lot of breaks over the next few weeks, the top seed from the American League will advance to the World Series.

Nationals vs. Dodgers
Last season featured a World Series in which each league's best team represented in the final matchup. Skeptics may say it's unlikely for it to happen again. I say nay! At the beginning of the season, I picked Washington to win the World Series, and they haven't disappointed thus far. I don't think either team gets a two-game lead in this series, but I do think that Washington takes it eventually. If we can get this series to happen, it could be the best one of the playoffs.

World Series
Angels vs. Nationals
As exciting as a Trout-Kershaw World Series would be, a Trout-Harper World Series is probably the next best thing (from an individual standpoint). Two of the game's brightest young stars could face off for baseball glory, but until now, not much has been made of the Angels' pitching staff beyond their ace. These two teams match up very evenly on paper - well-rounded offenses, deep pitching staffs, and an excellent bullpen. We've seen that outstanding pitching rotations doesn't guarantee victories (read: 2013 ALCS), and when you've got Mike Trout and Albert Pujols in the same lineup, you have to feel confident about scoring runs in any game. The Angels, who have had one losing streak longer than two games (four, August 5-8) all season long, will be the 2014 World Series Champions.

Best of The Office B-List characters

The Office will go down as one of my favorite shows of all time. It was one of only three shows that I watched as it aired on TV each week (Lost and House being the two others), although I will admit I stopped watching once Michael Scott (Steve Carell) left in the seventh of nine seasons. However, plenty of time to kill on the weekends offered me an opportunity to go through the entire series, and while it may be worth my while to talk about the series as a whole, I'm going to talk about some of the characters that made the show what it was. No, not the Michaels and the Dwights or Jims or Pams, but the B-list characters, making intermittent appearances but bringing many laughs along the way.

Thanks for Stopping By: Josh Porter, Hunter, Nick the IT Guy

These three gentlemen arrived at various points throughout the show, but each of them brought interesting times with them. Josh Porter, manager of the Stamford branch, was actually a relatively important character in seasons two and three when there was discussion of the Stamford and Scranton branches being merged. Hunter was Jan's assistant for all of three episodes, but he will be most remembered for his music. Nick the IT Guy was actually shown as someone representing a graphic design school in the fourth season, but later reappeared as the office's IT guy. Again, he was in and out of the office quickly, but not before making a departure worth remembering.

Who's the New Guy?: Nate and Hide, warehouse workers

Nate and Hide were primarily seen in the later seasons of the show, after the old warehouse crew left. Neither of them were particularly useful, although that perfectly fit each character's charm. While not having any lasting memory, these two gentlemen were prominent B-listers in the later seasons, part of the effort to keep the show surviving as it did. Perhaps the shining moment out of this category is the story of Hidetoshi Hasagawa and how he came to Scranton, PA:

Wait, They're Still Here?: Carol Stills, Elizabeth the Stripper, Hank the Security Guard

Of these three, Hank is the one who is in the most episodes, but each has had their moments over the years on The Office. Carol is remembered mainly for being Michael's girlfriend for a little while, and always finds her way back on the show, just when you forgot that she was ever around. Elizabeth the Stripper appeared in three episodes, the same number as Hunter and Nick the IT Guy, but she was certainly more memorable in her appearances. Her 15 minutes of fame included stripping for Michael at Bob Vance's warehouse bachelor party, accepting a check in the name of science, and making a second stripper appearance at Dwight's bachelor party. Hank, despite appearing in 23 episodes, never really did anything vitally important. He had useless input on the copier/chair dilemma, although in my opinion he did have a nice sound when he sang at C.R.I.M.E. A.I.D.

The A+ B-Listers: David Wallace, Bob Vance, Todd Packer, Mose Schrute

Where to begin with this group...one could argue that the two-time CFO of Dunder-Mifflin would be an A-list character, but David Wallace's appearances are intermittent enough to earn him the highest honor a B-lister can achieve. While not perennially hilarious, Wallace is around enough to be the most important B-lister, appearing in 37 episodes over the nine seasons. His crowning moment? Suck It.

Now, on to Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration. While having an air about him that always reminded me of this guy from Lost, Bob Vance was always around to protect Phyllis by any means necessary. As was with Wallace, Bob Vance wasn't so funny himself, but it was the situations that he entered into that made it worth the while of having him around. And he's always one for introductions.

Todd Packer is another character who could potentially be a list higher, especially because he has an episode named after him, but again, he was around the perfect frequency to be an excellent character. Sure, his humor might not be reach all audiences, but with the raunchy crowd, he's on top of the world. Bonus points for actor David Koechner for being in this role with Steve Carell, if you're that big a fan of Anchorman. This clip pretty much summarizes everything that Todd Packer stood for.

And finally, Mose. By far the most hilarious person not regularly seen on the show, and even if you were to include that group, Mose finds his way near the top. Whether it's how he runs, what his relationship with Dwight is, or this, Mose just wins at everything. Everything he stands for is what makes The Office what it is. Every good show has its core group of characters, but only the great shows have characters that add more than what their lone value is worth. Or something like that. Here's to you, Mose.

Holocene

Something that has recently occurred to me: we're not going to be here long enough to learn everything there is to learn about life. And that is awesome. Think about it...there are so many unanswered questions, so many philosophies and doctrines and beliefs that we're going to be able to have these discussions forever. I believe that our beliefs are in a constant state of flux, that they cannot resist the gradual change as a result of our life's experiences. Overarching themes may persist, but there are so many facets to belief systems and philosophies for everything to remain perfectly intact.

We are always learning, we are always experiencing, and we are always changing. I remember one afternoon during sophomore year, probably a Sunday, listening to Holocene by Bon Iver and quietly playing along on guitar, minutes away from a nap. (Either that or Ocean.) This is the first time I've thought about that moment since it happened, and it's a nice reminder that little moments can carry their way through our lives, reappearing every now and then. I like the idea that we are not magnificent, despite prior allusions to the idea. As Justin Vernon says when describing the mood behind Holocene, "I think there's a significance in that insignificance that I was trying to look at in that song."

You are one of seven billion people currently alive. Eventually, maybe today, maybe in a year, maybe in 50 years, you will become one of way more than seven billion people who are dead. In the ultimate, grand scheme of the universe and your place in it, you are insignificant. But in the ultimate, grand scheme of you and your place in your own existence, nothing is more significant.

The end is never the end

This post is going to be somewhat along the lines of one that I had late last year, just an amalgam of thoughts about things that kind of have to do with one another. Actually no, I feel like bullet points right now. Here is my path of thought:

• I came across this article, in which German scientists have apparently proved that there is life after death.
• I had the following reaction upon seeing that this article even existed, before reading one word of it:

• This whole time, I've been listening to the newest album by This Will Destroy You. Their first song, "New Topia," is very awesome, and you should listen to it.

• I went back and forth between deciding whether or not to name this post "Life after death after life after death" or something along those lines. For a brief moment I used ||:, like a musical repeat, but then recalled the main theme from The Stanley Parable, which is a philosophical masterpiece. See post title for main theme.
• Anyway, this quote..."Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist." Brilliant quote (by Epicurus, a Greek philosopher) and one that I thought applicable in this situation.

So that was pretty much how I spent the past 30 minutes of my life, and I'm glad that I wrote it down here, because I'll bet a decent amount of money that I'll come back to this post at some other point in time. Thanks for reading.

Read between the signs

(And here I am, thinking that nothing good could ever come out of Tinder or BuzzFeed...)

So I just read an incredibly fascinating article on BuzzFeed about Tinder and all of our preconceived notions about, well, everything. It's a lengthy article, but the long-and-short of it is that for a few seconds, in the time between our eyes casting first sight upon a picture of another person, and our thumb swiping left or right, there is a lot more going on in our mind than we're aware of.

First, my thoughts on how exactly this works. Think about the seconds that an NFL quarterback has between receiving the ball from the center, and passing to one of his receivers. There are dozens of judgments and decisions being made on a subconscious level, all within a few seconds. The quarterback doesn't have time to stand around and think about who to pass to...he just knows.

But how does the quarterback excel at making a decision? He does so based on a prior knowledge of formations and plays, and in the seconds between snap and pass, his brain is sifting through all that prior knowledge to reach a decision. We're no different when we're on Tinder. There exist many cues that fire certain signals in our brain, and when all of these cues fire in a span of seconds, out comes a decision - yes or no - that we didn't have to think about at all.

In the article, there are many examples of preconceived notions taking over the decision-making process, based on the social reinforcements of our culture - what a certain hairstyle implies, what a certain clothing choice says about that person's character. Tinder, despite its primary use, turns out to be a really interesting look into the signs of our society and what we find attractive.

In just one picture, there are many things that are being said, without actually being said by the person in the picture. I have long hair and a beard, so I'm probably not religious. I'm not smiling in my picture, so I must not be fun to be around. The thing is that they're not saying this. Instead, we're projecting our suppositions onto this person's character based on what our society has deemed attractive. Is that fair?

Culture shock

Alright, I can't wait. I need to blog about the NFL and how much I despise it. I'm going to do my best to avoid writing this as an angry rant. I'm going to make as many efforts as I can to write a well-constructed set of claims about the culture of the league and how there's no way that it's okay as a sport. As with my previous post, and with any post that I have, my goal is not to impose a belief upon you - it is to get you to think about your own life and why you place value on the things you believe.

My first problem with the NFL is one that can be extrapolated throughout the world of sports, but a problem with which the NFL provides the greatest number of examples. There are things that professional athletes do that they get an equivalent of a slap on the wrist for, a handful of games and a handful of cash as a penalty, that us normal folk would be arrested for. Fired-on-the-spot, don't-bother-packing-up-your-things acts that equate to a suspension of a few games for professional athletes.

The larger issue that I have is regarding the culture of the sport. It shouldn't matter that the sport is predicated on successfully bringing down someone else to the ground. It seems as though very few players in the league have a keen, publicly-stated understanding of what the sport is truly like. There's this incredibly vivid image of what a football player is supposed to be like. Tough. Macho-man. Strong. Warrior. Substitute any synonym for 'masculine' that you want, and you're going to have an accurate description of what people think a football player should be. The problem is that this is what makes the game worse - it's a self-generating loop where the more we see bone-crushing hits, the more we expect the rest of the league to do the same, and the rest of the league reacts in response to what our expectations are. Players, past and current, are blind to this because they're in too deep.

Football is not a good outlet for aggression, either. Go find any study regarding violent video games and school shooting and you're going to find a similar argument. Football is what makes the aggression worse. The culture of the sport trickles into the personal lives of a number of football players, and you see guys doing things that make absolutely no sense for someone to be doing. And I'm done with it. I'm done thinking that the NFL can exist in a positive light in this regard. There are too many people doing too many stupid things, and it's a result of having to live up to the expectations of the fans and everyone in the game. If you're not tough, you don't belong in football, and what we end up with is a group of people who have no idea how to conduct themselves.

I'm not making sweeping generalizations here. I'm not saying that there are no NFL players who should be role models. Some of them are worth paying attention to. There are just more who aren't.

(Don't) look back in anger

I'm angry at the world right now.

I'm angry at all of these celebrities who are making complete fools of themselves, and then trying to put on a façade of being apologetic and repentant and remorseful. Cee Lo Green for comments about rape. Justin Bieber's arrest for dangerous driving and assault. Wes Welker for doing drugs at the Kentucky Derby. (Welker's example also BARELY scrapes at the surface of the problems I have with the NFL. That's a rant for another time, although I'm sure that time will come soon enough.) I'm hoping to have some more concrete evidence with this, but my guess is that at least once a day on Twitter (or that trending-esque feature Facebook has) a celebrity is trending for the wrong reasons. I know that there are hundreds of people doing these exact same things as celebrities, but the so-called role models that we pay all this attention to and that we give all of these TV shows to are the ones we hear about most. Yes, I have a problem with the choices that these people make. There's a bigger problem I have with this, though.

WHY DO WE STILL CARE?!

I'm at a point in my life where nothing surprises me anymore. At least with this kind of stuff.

[Insert NFL player] got suspended for [insert act that would get you and me fired from our jobs, and arrested]? And he still gets to play in a majority of his teams' games?

[Insert celebrity] did [insert (again) something that would get you and me arrested] and as a result, everyone is talking even more about them?

Why do we put so much value into following these peoples' lives? The number of people whose lives are actually affected by what Justin Bieber did today, or will do tomorrow, upsets me. And yes, I'm fully aware that there are people in this world who I will never meet, and yet I follow their lives intently. If you really care that much about Bieber, or anyone who you think fits in to the general group of people that I'm pissed off at, go ahead and tell me I'm an idiot.

I'm not telling you that you're wrong. I'm asking you to think about why you think you're right.