Jacoby's Steal

Here's that video of Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home. It was so awesome! Look how wild the fans are going. Also, look how fudging mad Pettite and Joe Girardi are. This just fills my heart with happiness. Enjoy.

Just Some Thoughts

I just thought I'd get on here and write a few of my thoughts from the past little while. First off, baseball's back! I went to a Salt Lake Bees game with my family a few weeks ago and man, it felt good to be back at the ballpark. I can't wait to go to some more games. Also, this weekend I got to watch a couple of Red Sox games on TV, even though I probably should have been studying for finals. This series against the Yankees was awesome! Game one on Friday night was incredible. Jason Bay hit a two-run homer off of Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the 9th to send the game into extra innings and Kevin Youkilis ended it with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 12th. It doesn't get much better than that. Then yesterday, the Sox were down 6 to nothing and I thought it was over. Jason Varitek hit a grand slam, and everyone just started hitting like crazy. The Sox ended up winning 16-11. 16 runs is a lot of runs. Tonight's game was awesome too. The Sox ended up winning 4-1. The highlight of the game was when Jacoby Ellsbury stole home with the bases loaded to put the Sox ahead 3-1. He's the first Red Sox player to steal home in like 15 years. Anyway, it's just super nice to have baseball season back.

In other news, it is dreaded finals week. I really should be studying right now instead of writing this blog but I needed a little break. I just finished a six page paper on the history of Punk Rock and it was harder to write than you would think. Now I've got a sack full of 20 stacks of physiology flash cards that need to be reviewed before my final on Tuesday. Also, I've got half a semester's worth of History of Rock notes to memorize. On the bright side, I don't have to take my Math final because I got a good enough grade that my teacher isn't making me take it and I'll be completely done with all of my finals by Tuesday night. That will give me about 5 days of freedom before my nose is back to the grindstone with a maymester statistics class and a summer calculus class. I really am not looking forward to those classes, especially calculus, but it will be super nice to have them over with.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well. Good luck to everyone who still has finals, and have fun.

Bayside

I realize that lately I have been blogging about music a lot. This is probably because my life consists of hours upon hours of studying in the library whilst listening to tunes. On Friday I had the good fortune of seeing one of my favorite bands live in concert: Bayside. It sure felt good to get out of Manti and see some live music. I have liked Bayside for a long time. They are not well known and I have not been able to figure out why because they freakin' rock. Friday was my second time seeing them in concert. They were one of the opening bands for New Found Glory. New Found Glory was ok but I would've much rather seen Bayside as the headlining band. Their most recent album is called "Shudder." If you are a fan of good rock 'n roll, I would definitely recommend giving these guys a listen. Frontman Anthony Raneri has a really unique voice and guitarist Jack O'Shea has some real face-melting guitar solos. I know because I was about 5 feet away from one of them on Friday night. Bayside has released 4 albums, one live album, and one acoustic album. I would definitely recommend their acoustic album as well as "The Walking Wounded" and "Shudder." As a matter of fact, I would recommend any of their stuff. Just give them a try and tell me what you think.

Angels & Airwaves

Lately I have been thinking a lot about one of my favorite bands, Angels & Airwaves. Wednesday, March 4th marked the one year anniversary of my first time seeing them in concert. I also saw them in October with Weezer, which was great, but the show they did in March where they were the headlining band was nothing short of mind-blowingly awesome.
For those of you who may not know anything about AVA, it was formed by Tom DeLonge shortly after his band Blink-182 announced their hiatus. Other members of the band are guitarist David Kennedy (who was a part of DeLonge's side project Box Car Racer), drummer Atom Willard (formerly of Rocket From the Crypt and The Offspring), and bassist Matt Wachter (formerly of 30 Seconds to Mars). They have released two albums: "We Don't Need to Whisper" and "I-Empire."
When Blink-182 announced that they were getting back together I was super happy, but I was also a little worried about what would happen with AVA. My fears were soon quieted though. DeLonge announced that nothing would happen to Angels & Airwaves and they're working on a new album right now.
If you haven't ever listened to AVA, I would highly recommend it. The best way to listen to them is to listen to one or both of the CDs all the way through without doing anything else at the same time. I love to listen to them when I'm driving by myself at night. Their lyrics are really cool to listen to and their sound is kind of outer-spacey, without sounding weird or like techno.
Their new album should be coming out this year as well as a feature film which is sounding pretty awesome. However, I've heard that they won't be touring this year because of DeLonge's commitment to tour with Blink-182 this summer.
Anyway, I hope this gave you a little insight into one of my favorite bands, maybe even my most favorite. I would highly recommend listening to them, I mean really listening to them, preferably in the way I described earlier. So go do it, and tell me what you think.

Day After Day After Day

Disclaimer:  This post is basically a big whining session so you may not want to waste your time reading it.  

After reading a blog by my good friend Winters, I realized that I am not alone in my feelings of hatred for school.  I have been told that one's college years are the best years of one's life.  This is a flat out lie.  Gone are the days of happily playing with friends every day and feeling carefree.  The only thing college does for me is put a huge load of stress on my shoulders.  I never get to play with my friends and every moment that I'm not busily involved in something school-related, I feel a huge wave of guilt spread over me because I know I should be working on something.  At the start of the semester, I was actually excited about school and I was really into trying hard and doing well.  Now it is only halfway through the semester and I am just about ready to throw in the towel.  After spending 5 1/2 hours in the library yesterday studying for my physiology class, it hit me: this drudgery is not going to end for at least 5 more years.  Holy fudge.  Hopefully this hopelessness is just a stage that will pass quickly.    

A-Rod

  You have all probably heard more than you could ever possibly want to hear about Alex Rodriguez and his testing positive for steroids in 2003.  It is all over ESPN and every sports website on the web.  In no way do I think steroid use is right or acceptable, but come on, give the guy a break.  

   A-Rod's name was apparently leaked from a list of 104 names of players who tested positive for steroids in the early years of this decade.  Bud Selig (being the genius that he is...not) didn't ban steroid use from major league baseball until 2004.  Therefore, even though using steroids is obviously cheating, these players weren't breaking any rules by testing positive before the 2004 season.  Now people are talking about criminally charging A-Rod and other players for their steroid use.  My question is, how will that help anything?  It is widely known that a huge amount of players used steroids before they were banned from the game.  If you're going to charge A-Rod, then you better release the rest of the names on that list and charge those players too.  In my opinion, that won't help anything though.  The whole "steroid era" of baseball is an embarrassment to the game, but going back and calling out every player who ever used steroids is not only impossible, it is unnecessary.  There's nothing we can do about the past, we can only make sure that baseball is clean from now on.  So, let's quit worrying about the idiot cheaters that got away with their dishonesty because of Bud Selig's incompetence.  Let's make sure there are no more cheaters in the future and enjoy America's favorite Pastime this year. 

Blink 182

  For those of you who watched the Grammy Awards tonight, you know that the band blink 182 is back together!  I wasn't even watching the awards but my sister who was watching, yelled and told me to come and see what was going on.  When I saw all three of the members, Tom DeLonge, Travis Barker, and Mark Hoppus, on stage together, I couldn't believe my eyes.  Then came the announcement that they are back together, making a new album, and planning on a world tour.  This is the best news I've heard in a while.  I can't wait to see what these guys come up with next.  Just like so many kids who grew up in the '90s, they were the first real band I ever really loved.  

  However, I do have a few questions.  Angels & Airwaves (the band DeLonge put together during blink's hiatus) is another one of my favorite bands.  What will happen to them?  Are they finished, or is DeLonge going to take on both projects at the same time?  Also, the band +44 (formed by Barker and Hoppus).  Are they finished also?  It will be interesting to see what happens.