Play ball

It's the first game of the season for the defending World Series Champion Boston Red Sox, and they begin 2014 with hopes of repeating another title. Can they do it? Here are my predictions for the 2014 season, including division champs and individual awards.

AL East: Boston Red Sox. The expectations were low in 2013 for the Red Sox, as many picked them to finish fourth or fifth in the AL East. Not much has changed from the World Series winning team, except for the departure of Jacoby Ellsbury, and the warm arrival of Grady Sizemore to the big leagues. The bullpen added depth with Edward Mujica, and the starting rotation remains intact, and the Red Sox repeat atop their division.

AL Central: Kansas City Royals. Yeah, you read that right. You probably didn't know it, but the Royals had 86 wins in 2013, finishing 5.5 games back of the second wild card spot. Kansas City returns a young core of talented players, and if their pitching, led by ace James Shields, can stay solid, the Royals will be crowned AL Central champions.

AL West: Oakland Athletics. The Rangers and Angels made some noise this offseason, and the Mariners did as well with their signing of Robinson Cano. But the team that has figured it out is the Oakland A's, led by now-famous GM Brad Pitt Billy Beane. A young and talented team, Oakland took the Tigers to five games in the ALDS last season, and are determined to make a deeper run in October this season.

AL Wild Cards: Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays
AL MVP: Mike Trout
AL Cy Young: Yu Darvish
AL Rookie of the Year: Xander Bogaerts

NL East: Washington Nationals. The Nationals have been injury-plagued for the last couple of seasons, but I believe that this is when they put it all together. Led by dynamic duo Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg, Washington hovered around .500 at the All-Star Break, but managed to finish in the playoff picture, four games back of the second wild card. Everything goes well for the Nationals this season, including what may be a very deep playoff run.

NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals. I see no reason that anyone will dethrone the Cardinals atop the NL Central. Despite the division having three separate winners in the past three years, The Cardinal Way has remained the paradigm of success in terms of a franchise. St. Louis returns to October with another strong season.

NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers. I'd like to see someone else win the division, but with the players that Los Angeles has, I can't see anyone doing it. Maybe the Giants if their pitching has a fantastic season, but the Dodgers can hurt you too many ways to miss out on the postseason.

NL Wild Cards: Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds
NL MVP: Paul Goldschmidt
NL Cy Young: Stephen Strasburg
NL Rookie of the Year: Billy Hamilton

World Series: Washington Nationals over Boston Red Sox. Yeah, yeah, say what you will about me picking the Red Sox to lose the World Series, but I'm speaking partially in terms of superstition here. There were absolutely no expectations for this team in 2013, and they went all the way. If everyone takes the Red Sox to repeat, where is there room for error? How can they exceed expectations? Only one of the 30 MLB teams can win the last game of the season, and while the Red Sox are certainly capable of doing so for the second year in a row, the Nationals' firepower and youth will win out in the end. But let's hope I'm wrong.

10 letters about March Madness, pt. 3

This is the earliest into the tournament I've done my "10 letters" post. In 2011, I wrote letters before the final weekend; last year, it was during the Elite 8. For those without a Twitter and any knowledge of college basketball, the Sweet 16 starts tomorrow night, and as such begins my second of two "best four days of the year" in March. And with that, here's my third (of who knows how many) "10 letters about March Madness."

1. Dear anyone who thinks the First Four is a good idea,
In 2011, you had VCU in the Final Four. The year after, South Florida upset #5 Memphis to make it to the Round of 32. Last year, #13 La Salle made the Sweet 16. This year? #11 Tennessee is in the Sweet 16, but had to beat an overseeded UMass team and a 14th-seeded Mercer team. The First Four is still terrible.

2. Dear Duke,
I'm getting this out of the way early in this post. You let me down. Where was the defense?! Hey, maybe Jabari Parker will stay one more year.....

3. Dear Creighton (and by Creighton I mean Doug McDermott),
You were my only Final Four team to lose in the first weekend, an embarrassing blowout against Baylor. I'm convinced that you all forgot you were supposed to win, and stuff like that.

4. Dear Florida, Virginia, and Louisville,
You three are my other Final Four teams. DON'T LOSE! For once, my bracket actually looks in decent shape after the first weekend. Could be better, but it could also be a lot worse.

5. Dear T.J. Warren and the rest of the N.C. State Wolfpack,
The only thing you can do at the free throw line that's worse than missing is to make the free throw but commit a lane violation. You're telling me the ACC Player of the Year is supposed to go 6-for-14 at the free throw line (violation not included)?

6. Dear every head coach with the ball in a tie game while the shot clock is turned off,
Don't start your offense with 6.5 seconds remaining. It's a high ball screen, your guard dribbles around to the wing, gets double-teamed, and puts up a terrible look. It happens at the end of every half and at the end of every tie game. Run your real offense with 11 seconds left, leaving you a much higher probability of scoring, while still leaving an opportunity for an offensive rebound if need be.

7. Dear anyone who doesn't know what I just talked about,
Try this article on for size. It might not make any more sense than what I just explained (if anything, it's probably more complicated), but it presents this idea very well.

8. Dear winner of #11 Dayton / #10 Stanford,
Have fun losing by 30 to Florida, whichever one of you makes the Elite 8.

9. Dear Warren Buffett,
You're the real winner of March Madness. Everyone knows about your brilliant plan to award $1 billion to whoever comes up with the perfect bracket, and to my knowledge, everyone is out of the running. Must be nice to have billions of dollars to throw around like that. Spare me some?

10. Dear March Madness,
Despite all of the things I may want to change about you...don't ever stop.

Because you are reading

I just need to write right now, and this is one of those posts that will just have a bunch of thoughts written down sporadically. It'll be very similar to this post, and will have a reflective, melancholic mood to it, much like my three end-of-a-Stonehill-year blog posts (here's my most recent one).

This morning, I took a test that I had studied a total of two hours for. Two. And at that, that's probably two more hours than I would have liked to have studied for it. But because of the huge inertia that has been with us for our 17 years of being students, we feel this immense guilt if we don't study for a test. So after doing some math and realizing that I watched approximately 26 hours of college basketball between Thursday at noon and Sunday night, I studied for one hour before bed, and one hour at breakfast this morning. I think I did well on the test, which is a scary thought, because I'm now wondering if I could have always done relatively well in school with a lighter study regimen. Imagine all the time I'd have on my hands.

I almost just wrote "Actually, we have no time on our hands," but I'll rephrase this. We have plenty of time on hour hands, but we don't know when it's going to end. If we all live a life as long as we're supposed to, then we have plenty, plenty, plenty of time. But life doesn't happen like it's supposed to. Sometimes planes get lost at the bottom of the ocean, sometimes the driver of a car isn't paying attention...sometimes it just happens. We don't know when, and that's scary. I talked about appreciating everything that's ever happened to you. Appreciate everything that will happen to you, too. Again, not in some predeterministic, "everything happens for a reason" sort of thing. Maybe appreciate life because "everything happens" or something pithy like that.

Hearing about MH370 having no survivors is terribly sad, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me think about music. One of EITS' songs is about a Russian ship that was at the bottom of the ocean for six days. So I immediately thought of that. I turned on some news channel and they showed a map of where the plane might be, somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Some 1,200 miles from Perth, Australia, the source of another important song to me.

Speaking of Explosions in the Sky...I learned today that The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (you know, the album that is literally a part of my soul) has an answer to the question of why the Earth is not a cold, dead place. On the vinyl, you will find the words "because you are listening, because you are breathing." After what happened at the Boston Marathon last year, I was pretty quick to believe that, well, the Earth was a cold, dead place. Two days later I changed my mind, but I'm really glad that I ran into this message. We're here. You're reading this, some amount of time after I was typing it, listening to music, staring out my window.

I'm glad that I'm here, and I'm hopeful that I will continue to be here for a very long time. I'm also glad that I've continued to blog for over three years, now, and if you haven't figured it out by now, there's one reason (among a few others) that I've continued to blog. So thank you.

7 reasons spring semester is way better

1. Warm weather! It's supposed to be 50 degrees this week. That's a lot of degrees for this time of year. And pretty soon it'll be warmer and warmer and the days will be longer and sunlight and all that fun stuff and everyone will be outside hanging out together having a great time and we'll have so much fun! (Editor's Note: I think I just packed five reasons into one. Hopefully this doesn't ruin the rest of the list.)

2. Double vacation! I'll see you a Spring Break and raise you an Easter Break, non-religiously-affiliated colleges. Can you say five entire days between classes? Thanks, Jesus!

3. Mumford & Sons. Specifically Sigh No More. I remember listening to this album in each of my first three springs at Stonehill, so it seems only fitting that I continue to listen to it one last time.

4. March Madness. Even if you know nothing about college basketball, you're aware that there's a relatively important tournament that starts tonight but should really start on Thursday because play-in games are stupid.

5. JAMnesty. Specific to Stonehill (not that I ever intended this to be applicable to all colleges), JAMnesty is essentially a social justice/coffeehouse extravaganza on the quad, which is totally fun. I remember my freshman year (maybe sophomore year) that me and my friends all had pizza delivered to JAMnesty and we ate it in front of O'Hara. That was fun.

6. Opening Day. Literally the best day of the year. I should do a blog post where I talk about all of the days that I award this title to. Duke/UNC at Cameron, Opening Day at Fenway...probably only those two, but I'm sure there are others.

7. Reflecting. I'm a little upset that this last reason has a lot of meaning to it, because everything else on this list is about super-fun stuff that's awesome. But reflecting is always good, and especially so in the spring semester. Especially especially so in your last spring semester. In related news, I know what the post title is going to be for my fourth and final end-of-a-Stonehill-year blog post. No teasers yet, but it's going to be the best title of the four.

Alright, more fun spring stuff now.

Choosing the mascot bracket

The March Madness bracket is out, and instead of offering some opinions on the seeding and brackets, I figured I would let you in on the method to my first bracket. Unfortunately there is a 0% expectation of this bracket doing well, because I pick the school whose mascot would beat the other's in a fight to advance. I go through all 63 of my picks (don't worry, I'll be quick) and give further explanation on the tougher choices. Enjoy!

Round of 64

• In the South region, Florida moves on because I think play-in games are stupid. Colorado (Buffaloes), VCU (Rams), and Tulsa (Golden Hurricane) move on in the top half of the bracket, joined by the Ohio State Buckeyes, Western Michigan Broncos, New Mexico Lobos, and Eastern Kentucky Colonels. The Broncos have a favorable matchup against the Syracuse Orange (and this will be the only time you'll ever read those words in that order) because it's pretty easy for a large horse to defeat a fruit.
• In the West, I face my first tough decision - Arizona Wildcats vs. Weber State Wildcats. Always run into this problem when I do this bracket. Weber State's wildcat looks tougher, and it's always fun to take the 16 seed over the 1 seed, so they move on. Oklahoma State (Cowboys) advances, but Oklahoma does not. Not really sure what a Sooner is, and research didn't help at all, so their opponent, the North Dakota State Bison, will advance. San Diego State, Baylor, Louisiana, BYU, and American advance.
• The East region features two trends of Mascot Bracket selections - humans usually don't fare well, and weather usually wins out. The George Washington Colonials go down to the Memphis Tigers, the UNC Tar Heels defeat the Providence Friars, and the Iowa State Cyclones take down the NC Central Eagles. Other winners in the bracket include Virginia, Cincinnati, Michigan State, UConn, and Villanova.
• Over in the Midwest, there's our second Wildcat battle - Kentucky against Kansas State. To be honest, neither team really deserves to move on, but let's give it to Kentucky. Their wildcat looks like the lesser of two evils here. Wichita State advances on the same play-in terms that Florida did, and is joined by Saint Louis and UMass under similar circumstances. The defending champions (Louisville Cardinals) move on, as well as Duke (no bias, I promise), Michigan (Wolverines) and Texas (Longhorns).

Round of 32

• Same regional order as last round, and Florida continues to roll over the Buffaloes. So do the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes, Western Michigan, and Eastern Kentucky. One of the few brackets where you'll see the 13, 14, and 15 seeds all make the Sweet 16, but hey, that's the Mascot Bracket for you. I'm still unsure as to whether or not a Golden Hurricane is any more or less dangerous than a regular hurricane.
• In the West, the Oklahoma State Cowboys move on over the Wildcats - cowboys can shoot stuff and stuff. The San Diego State Aztecs move on over the Bison, because, well, I'm not really sure. Aztecs just seem really old and powerful and something like that. In the matchup between the Baylor Bears and the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns, the Ragin' Cajuns advance on being ragin', and more exciting and badass than bears. The American Eagles advance and probably should just be declared the winner based on patriotism right now.
• Over to the East region, and the Virginia Cavaliers take down the Memphis Tigers on account of being good at war and having various skill sets like that. The Michigan State Spartans advance as well, and I can already tell this will be a great Sweet 16 matchup. The Cyclones continue their torrent (bad pun intended) and will square off in the next round against the Villanova Wildcats.
• The Kentucky Wildcats, fresh off their win over fellow Wildcats from Kansas State, move to the Sweet 16 past the Wichita State Shockers. After googling exactly what the hell a Billiken is, I've decided that Saint Louis probably should have packed their bags in the first game, even against a playoff team. Louisville moves on, as well as Duke. Again, no bias, but it was certainly a closer contest against the UMass Minutemen for the Blue Devils. The Michigan Wolverines advance over the Texas Longhorns to complete the Sweet 16.

Sweet 16

• In an upset only in this bracket, top-seeded Florida moves on over 13-seeded Tulsa. My reasoning is that gators can just go underwater while the hurricane passes, so Florida will find its way in the Elite 8. In the other matchup in the South region, between the Western Michigan Broncos and Eastern Kentucky Colonels, the Broncos advance because colonels ride on them. Might be flawed reasoning, but welcome to the Mascot Bracket.
• Took a few rounds before I googled what an Aztec is, and in relation to San Diego State, I'm not sure there's any viable explanation. So they fall to the Cowboys, who are making the equivalent of a Cinderella run in this bracket. They'll face the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana, who pull out the win over the American Eagles. Tough game to pick though.
• Great matchup between the Virginia Cavaliers and Michigan State Spartans. I think I'll go with Sparty, because they usually perform well in the Mascot Bracket, and I think they eke out a win over the Cavaliers. Close call though. No contest between the Iowa State Cyclones and Villanova Wildcats, though. Weather moves on to the Elite 8.
• In a rematch of a regular-season contest, Kentucky and Louisville square off, and I think I'll go with the Wildcats over the Cardinals here. And I SWEAR that there's no bias, but I'm going with the Blue Devils over the Michigan Wolverines. It's the devil! Lucifer is pretty tough to beat. I'm not even sure the Wildcats can do it.

Elite 8

• Florida Gators against Western Michigan Broncos. Not even a close call here. The Gators continue to roll through their bracket and find their way to a Final Four. Pretty sure I don't need to say more here.
• The Ragin' Cajuns keep surprising the country as they make their way into the Final Four themselves. A close-fought victory over the Oklahoma State Cowboys puts the Ragin' Cajuns another win closer to a national title. Of being a cool mascot.
• The East region features the toughest Elite 8 matchup to pick, as the Michigan State Spartans and Iowa State Cyclones meet. These two teams are almost always making deep runs in my Mascot Brackets, and it's a shame that one of them goes home before the Final Four. But as it's been, the weather makes for the stronger case, and the Cyclones will head on to the Final Four. Another team that usually makes a deep run is the Florida State Seminoles, but they did not make the tournament, and Michigan State remains the lone warrior until their defeat.
• Duke has never made it this far in my Mascot Bracket, and with a few of my suitemates as witnesses, they continue their surge into the Final Four over the Michigan Wolverines. Seriously, I could care less if Duke advances far in my Mascot Bracket (I would much rather see them go deep in the real one), but it's all about the matchups, and they'll head to the Final Four.

Final Four

• GATOR NEEDS HIS GAT! Florida to the finals! The Gators trounced the Golden Hurricanes in the Sweet 16, so why not stave off another weather-themed opponent? This might be a historic run for the Gators, as not only are they one of a few non-warrior, non-weather teams to make it to the championship, they're also one of the few 1-seeds to advance this far. Great run for Iowa State, but the Gators move on.
• In the other national semifinal, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns take on the Duke Blue Devils. A well-fought game, I'm sure, but the Ragin' Cajuns move on. Not sure if it's because they're ragin' or if they know how to handle the devil well, but Duke's spectacular run ends here. Which sets up a phenomenal Florida Gators, Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns national championship. And the winner is...

CAN'T STOP THE RAGIN' CAJUNS!

With wins over the Creighton Bluejays, Baylor Bears, American Eagles, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Duke Blue Devils, and Florida Gators, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns are the Mascot Bracket Champions. Tremendous run by the Gators, but they were stopped in the championship against a team that knows very well how to handle gators. Congrats to Louisiana on the victory - likely the only one they'll get this March.

Your soul you must keep totally free

Someone once told me, some time ago, that I always had to put meaning to everything, that everything mattered and it required meaning to be attached to it. Well, that person turned out to be right, and that fact has just as much meaning to me as anything else that has ever happened to me. Because what's life worth living if you can't appreciate what's happened to you? I'm not saying to live life with no regrets, I'm not saying to buy into the "everything happens for a reason" theory, and I'm not saying that you have to have an obscene relationship with Explosions In The Sky for your life to have meaning. All I'm saying is that you got to where you are, in this moment, because of every single thing that has ever happened to you. And that's worth remembering and appreciating.

The Final Four changes I would make to March Madness

As I sit watching mid-major conference tournament championships play out on ESPN and ESPN2, I can’t help but think about how these teams will fare in the Big Dance. The best thing about college sports can still be improved, and here are four things I would do to make March Madness even crazier.

1. Move the field back to 64 teams. The biggest reason that none of these changes will happen is because there’s too much money to be made by too many people. As pointless as I think the First Four is, enough people watch the games in Dayton for it to stick. What’s worse is that in 2011, VCU made it to the Final Four after being a First Four team, making it seem like a good idea to let more teams in. It’s not.

2. Get rid of automatic bids. Not only should the field be 64 teams, it should be the best 64 teams. It’s nice for mid-major conference champions to be in the NCAA Tournament, but a 16-16 Mount St. Mary’s squad just won their way into the tournament. A Milwaukee squad that’s 7-9 in their conference is in as well. There’s a reason that these teams end up with 15 or 16 seeds – they’re terrible!

3. Double elimination after the Sweet 16. There might be no better weekend in sports than the four days that are home to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. A bunch of 1 vs. 4 , 2 vs. 3 matchups on Thursday and Friday, and then the best of the best, marquee-brand programs on Saturday and Sunday. Duke’s opponents in their past two trips to the second weekend; Louisville and Michigan State in 2013, Arizona in 2011. Some of the biggest programs in the country playing each other, and why not let it keep happening? Have everyone stay around a little longer.

4. Home games! I’m obviously biased towards this, because it would create a significant advantage for Duke, but imagine if there were home games in the NCAA Tournament. I absolutely understand neutral-court games – it makes perfect sense and I’m not saying I hate them. But just imagine if Kansas was playing for a championship at Allen Fieldhouse, or the Cameron Crazies could help the Blue Devils go to the Final Four at home. As nice as these 20,000-person arenas are for the big games, nothing beats the home court atmosphere.

Like I said, none of these will probably happen. But if I had all the power in the college basketball world, I would first snag season tickets at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and then make some changes, small and large, to the Big Dance. For now, I’ll be patiently awaiting the three best weekends in sports. 

NHL standings on point

It's been too long since I've done a sports post, and probably even longer than that since I've done any sort of numerical analysis with it. So, here we go. NHL standings. After having watched the Olympics and seeing the different point system play out, I'm all for switching the NHL to the same thing. The Olympics (in group play) award 3 points for a regulation win, 2 for an overtime/shootout win, 1 for an overtime/shootout loss, and 0 for a regulation loss. I'm not sure of the advanced metrics of teams' performance and effort in those games to secure a regulation victory, but it makes sense that in the NHL, when you're getting 2 points for any kind of win, why risk losing a point when you have nothing to lose by going to overtime? It's a strategy that makes for some fairly unexciting ends of games. So that's one change I would make. Another is to eliminate the shootout and 4-on-4 overtime hockey. The San Jose Sharks are 9-5 in shootouts this season, which means they've picked up 9 extra points because they excel at a particular skill in hockey. Would they still get those 9 points if overtime was continuous, 5-on-5, just like in the NHL playoffs? Well, that's what I want to find out. We obviously can't make any assumptions in terms of which teams would win these 5-on-5 overtimes, but we can work with what we have. Let's take a look just at the Atlantic Division with the Olympic point system.

• Regulation wins are worth 3 points, OT/SO wins worth 2. OT/SO losses worth 1, and regulation losses worth 0 points.

Atlantic Division

Boston Bruins 35-5-5-17, 120 points

Montreal Canadiens 25-10-7-23, 102 points

Toronto Maple Leafs 21-12-8-23, 95 points

Tampa Bay Lightning 25-12-3-24, 102 points

Detroit Red Wings 23-5-13-21, 92 points

Ottawa Senators 21-6-11-25, 86 points

Florida Panthers 16-7-7-32, 69 points

Buffalo Sabres 10-9-8-35, 56 points

Not much would change in terms of positioning, but the Lightning would be helped out by the fact that they have more regulations wins than the maple leafs, pushing them into a second-place tie with the Canadiens. And let's be real, Tampa Bay is probably a better team than Toronto even without Steven Stamkos, who is returning this week. So yes, this is a small sample size, but it gives us an idea of how things would be if regulation wins were rewarded more. Teams would play for regulation wins and it would make for more exciting end-of-game hockey, which is good for everyone.

3 up, 3 down: songs

So it only took me nearly a year to do a second one of these "3 up, 3 down" posts, but I think I can actually make this one happen. Same deal, in this case three songs that I've been all about recently, and three songs whose stock is falling.

3 up
1. "Jenny" by Walk the Moon
I'm just generally expanding my music selection, and Spotify Premium has a lot to do with that. Albums on albums are finding their way to my playlists, and Walk the Moon is well on its way. This song though, is really upbeat and fairly provocative and it's just a really fun song. Definitely a sweet driving song.

2. "Battles" by Hudson Taylor
I found this song last night while listening to some relaxing Spotify radio. I'm not really sure how this song found its way on that radio station, because it's the least bit relaxing. Cool, story-like lyrics, fun guitars, and two measures of a capella that are my two favorite measures to listen to as of late. Think Ben Howard meets Mumford & Sons.

3. "Cruel and Beautiful World" by Grouplove
This song's chorus sounds absolutely perfect to be sung in a bar by a bunch of people holding large mugs of beer with foam up to the heavens. Seriously, like Miller 64 status. Grouplove have a few solid songs, but this is one that originally fell through the cracks of a first listen of their album, Never Trust a Happy Song. Now this is one of my favorite songs to listen to as of late.

3 down
1. "Hey Brother" by Avicii
No knock on this song as a whole, but from where it started and all the hype it got, I think it's already finished its run. It's a decent song, but I just think it's getting overplayed right now. Then again, that's where we're at with popular music, which is why I try and put music that I like out there every once in a while. Not because it's better, but because it's different.

2. "Trojans" by Atlas Genius
Again, I actually like this song. But there was a period of time where I would have put it in the "3 up" category in a heartbeat, and I haven't listened to it a lot recently. Then again, I'm playing it now because I'm listening to it, and it's all coming back to me as a great song. So I suppose this is more a reflection on me than the song, but again, it's here for a reason. Check it out though, because it's a good song.

3. "I Don't Care" by Icona Pop
This is a song that I can confidently say that I don't really ever listen to anymore. It was fun to listen to when it was popular, which seems like forever ago but was realistically 6-8 months, but by now it just sounds like every other Top 40 hit out there. Maybe I should have just done a "6 songs I'm listening to more recently" post and have been positive and all this fun stuff. But then it wouldn't have been "3 up, 3 down" which I also wanted to do. So that's where I'm at. Hopefully you enjoyed the good music and want nothing to do with the bad music!

Young the Giant live

I really have no idea what to call this post, but I can tell you that it's going to be about seeing Young the Giant live in concert at the House of Blues this past Sunday night. It was a stellar concert at one of my favorite places to be at a show, and I saw them at what was the perfect time to see a band - right after the debut of their second album (Mind Over Matter came out in January). They played 11 of the 13 songs off Mind Over Matter, and 6 of the 12 from Young the Giant, their first album. One thing I can say about these guys is that they're very in tune with their performance. This might be something that comes to bands after their second album, after they've been touring for a while, but here is some of what I mean:

• They opened with "Slow Dive" and "Anagram," their first two songs off Mind Over Matter. I totally saw this coming because if you listen to the two songs consecutively, it pretty much screams "play this as your concert opener." It reminded me a lot of Coldplay's opener, when they played "Mylo Xyloto" and "Hurts Like Heaven," the first two songs off their most recent album, to start their concert.
• YTG's second album is a lot edgier than the first. For one, there's a lot more feedback and distortion in the guitars, which is my favorite new trend of music-playing, and a lot of the songs are more upbeat, in contrast to the summer-y feeling of their debut, self-titled album.
• Again, these phenomena seem more likely to occur the more a band performs, but they seemed to play all the right songs at the right moments. They finished their set with "Crystallized," one of the singles off Mind Over Matter, and their encore set was "Apartment," "Mind Over Matter," and "My Body." The bookends of the encore being possibly their two best-known songs off their first album, and the middle being the namesake of their second album. Seemed like it was an easy setlist for them to write.

Music-wise, they were AWESOME. They sounded really good and you could easily see that they were fully in every song during their performance. They had a fun time, we had a fun time, and it was just a giant group of people having an awesome time. Which is what concerts should be. So yeah, Young the Giant kicked ass, and I would totally see them again. I've actually never seen one of my favorite bands twice, despite having seem all of them (except Foo Fighters) once. Either way...they were great. Here's "In My Home," one song they actually didn't play from Mind Over Matter.

Hourglass

Well, I tried to write a poem this morning, and to some extent I did, although to be honest, I haven't really worked with a poem or struggled with it in the way that I used to, which didn't really upset me until right now. I wish I had that knack for "thought expression with awesome word selection," as I would tell one of my friends in high school. Maybe blogging has usurped that ability, but nonetheless, I gave it a shot and here's what I came up with. It's about how you think time can be going one way, but eventually, it'll go the other way. You just have to get there.