Friday Musicians of Note

So the other post I wanted to get out here was about music. As I realize far too many of you don't care about sports and baseball (which I don't understand how that can be, but whatever) I also want to throw up a post about some bands I like. And yes, I went with the cheap pun, musician, note, etc. har har har, i'm just like fozzie bear.

In any case, this will be a weekly thing where I talk about a band I like, why I like them, and then throw some youtubes of their songs up here. Maybe you'll find a band you like, maybe in a few weeks this turns into me detailing the greatness of Huey Lewis and the News because I've run out of bands. (Man, I hope I don't end up having to write a long opus about why "Back in Time" speaks to our generation)

But anyway, we'll start this off with a band that's still playing (that's right, I actually know some musicians that are still recording and alive!) The band is called Motion City Soundtrack, and I've liked their stuff for a while. I want to say I got into them through Tim and Chris (which I'm willing to bet are the reason I got into a fair amount of my modern music).

Now, I'm not a music critic. I could throw big words like zeitgeist or pop-punk fusion or garbage like that here. You would read it and say "Holy crap John is a full bag of douche." But I know what I like. I like fiery passion. That's what it always boils down to with all my music. I can get behind you if you want to sing about how you love some girl or feel some feeling, but dammit, emote the hell out of it while you do! Don't get me wrong, there are some slower songs I like, but as a general rule, quicker = better. (and yet I don't listen to speed metal. Huh.) So I like my music quick and passionate. If it's too fast, it runs the risk of losing the meaning for me and I end up not liking it as much. And yet I also like songs about love and girls and such, because I am clearly a hopeless romantic idiot.

Motion City Soundtrack (hereafter MCS) combines all of what I like. They have fast songs, they have songs about girls, and as a fun bonus they have pop culture references. Their song "Calling All Cops" starts out with the line "Calling all cops and autobots" before transformers was cool again. The song "Antonia" namedrops Indiana Jones and Annie Hall. They mention "Ocarina of Time" in a song from the new CD. They even named a track "Pulp Fiction" on their most recent CD, which they then proceed to rip in the song!

But it's not just name dropping. They also know how to make the songs catchy and fun to listen to. Try listening to "Broken Heart" or "Stand Too Close" or "Point of Extinction" or "Capital H" or "@!#?@!" and try not to bob your head in time with the music. It's catchy without being aggravating, which is what makes it fun.

And as I said, hopeless romantic idiot. So the songs about girls are actually some of my favorite music about love and girls and such. Give "When 'You're' Around" or "It Had To Be You" or "Broken Heart" or "Her Words Destroyed My Planet" a try and you'll see what I mean.

But enough about me fellating the band for you. I (if I figured this out right) have thrown a few youtube videos of the songs I really liked below, and if you like them, feel free to ask me for some more songs by them, or even a CD or something. The more people I can introduce to some bands I like, the off chance I'll stumble into something they think I like, and thus more music for me. Enjoy!

The Future Freaks Me Out, a song constantly in my grad-school addled brain.



This is the song "@!#?@!" which is catchy and has cursing, so enjoy it kids!



Even If It Kills Me, a song that has given me some hope for a while.



and we close with Antonia, a song about a girl.

Friday That Guy Sucks

So as promised from yesterday, I’m beginning a new series here called “That Guy Sucks!” I want to use it as a springboard for some of my thoughts about players of all sports and help me form more cogent arguments about why players are good or bad.

First, the obvious. I am not anywhere near as good of an athlete as any of the people I will critique. I will never be as good as them. That being said, most of the people I'm going to criticize here receive praise far more than their actual worth. Sportswriters or dipsh*t fans or announcers or someone gets the idea in their head that this player is the greatest thing since Babe Ruth or Walter Payton and then I get subjected to all sorts of pleas and questions and stories about this new hero.

Basically, it's the Brett Favre effect. Granted, Favre was unique in that since he has been around so long, he knows all the journalists as friends, so they treat him better. But the point remains the same. And while bashing Favre is fun and all, there's a limit to that. Besides, he's ended the last 3 years of his career with interceptions, leads the league in all time number of interceptions, and has won the same number of Super Bowls as Eli Manning or Joe Theismann. Frankly, I salute the man's longevity, but I'm not here to complain about Favre. Fish in a whiny, retiring barrel.

I'm here to hate on Mark DeRosa.

What? John, how could you? He's a Cubbie legend! He was the best second baseman the Cubs have ever had! He once cured my dog's cancer through hugs! His mere touch can make the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear! He was the strongest offensive member of our team!

OK, first, every single sentence in that previous paragraph is false, but you wouldn't know that according to the stereotypical Cub fan. (Side note, it's Cubs. Not Cubbies. Cubbies are where you store books in kindergarten, cubs are baby bears). The best second baseman we ever had was Ryne Sandberg, DeRosa sucked in the playoffs, and he cannot cure cancer. I have to criticize DeRosa first. Because of two main points. First, I need people to stop talking about how re-signing Mark DeRosa will solve all our problems. Second, if I criticize any other team first (White Sox) then I get comments about how I would never hate on my own team, blah blah blah. I'm planning on alternating weekly between a Cub player and a Sox player I hate, but they will be recent players and some may still be on the team (I'll hate on White Sox Juan Pierre but not Cubs Juan Pierre, as that was far enough ago that statute of limitations have passed on bitching about him. I may also start a competing "That guy rocks!" post if I can care enough....we'll see)

But to the meat of this post. Mark DeRosa will not save our team. He was good for the two years we had him, yes. But you know what happened since then? He aged a year, dropped 35 points in batting average (BA), lost almost 60 points in On Base Percentage (OBP, basically think of it as like BA but with walks included....and yes I'm oversimplifying), and just had offseason shoulder surgery. He's also 35, that point in time when baseball players haven't just started their skills decline but where they are already skiing down the mountain. If he hadn't played for us and had two good years (and keep in mind, I'm not denying those two good years....yet) no one would want to sign him. But because he has name recognition, well let's add him back to the team! He'll fix that hole we had in second base!

Except he won't. He would have cost too much money that the team didn't have (bankruptcy is expensive) and if we look at his defensive stats, (http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1392&position=2B/3B), specifically UZR (which ranks defensive abilities of players) he is atrocious at 2nd base. Negative scores are bad. His "defense" at second was costing us runs. He was much better defensively at every other position, when he was playing as a super sub. But you know what? Half our team is super subs. We don't need to pay for another one when he already have such "capable" subs like.....Xavier Nady, Mike Fontenot, and Micah Hoffpaiiur? Seriously? That's my team? Aww, dammit.

So even though he makes every fangirl's naughty dreams with his masculine beard stubble, his defense is mediocre to bad and he just had shoulder surgery, and he is on the trending-down side of his career. Am I ecstatic about Baker? No, not really. But within a year, Starlin Castro (our SS prospect) should be ready, so Theriot can slide over to second, Castro can have short, and then I don't have to deal with any of this mess. Yes, Theriot will eventually need to get replaced too (BTW, did anyone else know that midget was 30? Holy crap, he looks like he's 12!) but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. For now, though, this year it's Baker and Theriot all the way. And then things will get good in 2011!

I really wish as a Cubs fan that I wasn't already in "wait until next year mode." Ugh. Another post coming up after this one guys, so keep reading.

The Sad Yet True Focus of this Blog

Sports sports sports sports sports sports.

Sports sports sports sports? Sports, sports sports sports, sports!

Oh, you thought there was going to be something more important on my mind? Hate to disappoint you, but nope, there is not. And as I am currently waiting 4 hours before I can go into the cleanroom and need a break from reading textbooks about the reflection of light, we're talking sports. While I'm sure there are one or two of you that want to read about my work and what's going on with it (or more accurately, what's not going on because I can't get the machines to work correctly for me. And I've tried talking to people, it doesn't work. Hopefully things work out in the next day or so as I'm getting quite tired of not having results and blah blah blah) I'm talking about what interests me. And what interests me at the moment is sports.

And believe me, I have a lot to talk about with regards to sports. Much of it is baseball related, a good portion is football related, but for this opener i'll talk about my relationship with sports and athletics as a whole in regards to life and all. Get comfortable, for even though I'm going to try to be brief this could take a while.

Thinking back, the first memory I have of sports is playing soccer, or as Mary and Alfredo call it, "futbol" (look you guys, I totally have a u in there Spanish style!). I was goodish if memory serves, played midfield, or for you espanol kids, "midfieldo." I never went into traveling leagues with it or anything, even though my sister did, as I was happy with the lower, in-house leagues where I wasnt stuck traveling an hour weekly. I also remember liking the White Sox, and watched a lot of Bulls games when they were good. Nothing against hockey, but I have never really given a crap. Sorry, Hawks, maybe in a few years.

Fast forward to high school. I cared about little to no sports, and was happy in my nerd world of science and reading and equations and holy crap I was an even bigger nerd than I realized. Damn. Blah blah blah, played ultimate frisbee and soccer and dodgeball with friends during the summer, still do. Went to college, and sports exploded.

So I went to nerd school. It is a school for nerds, and many of those nerds are anti-social dicks. Sorry, U of C, but most of the kids in my English classes I wanted to hit in the head with rocks. Physics kids were alright, but every now and then there's one or two kids that are aggravating. But thanks to friends, I discovered football, which I love, baseball, which I am still working on figuring out how to marry in a civil ceremony, and running.

I enjoy football and baseball, but a) there are seasons for those two sports and b) you need other people to play. You can only toss yourself the football from one hand to another so many times before you get bored. But running? Running can happen all year round and you only need yourself and maybe a CD player. I like it because I can get less fat (196 yesterday, trying to get down to 175 by April 2 - but food tastes so good, so it's hard) and I can ignore all those problems I feel with regards to anything. One of your friends says something douchey? Go running for an hour. Your experiment not work for the 5th or 6th time? Go running. Your baseball team signs Milton Bradley to a three year deal? Oh you better believe I went running.

So I like running, but it's hard to get fully going. As I'm at 196 pounds, it's difficult to keep running full out, which is what I prefer. I also need a new running CD, but I can maybe make one of those this weekend. But those are all excuses. The real hard part is ignoring those and actually going out there and working out/running/etc. But running and I are pretty good.

As for why I like the Cubs and Bears? I went to school in Chicago, and when I first started fully watching football, the Bears were starting to get good. I want to say I started liking them a year or two before that Super Bowl run, but I watched highlights of the team from previous years and read Walter Payton's autobiography, and that was what truly made me a Bears fan. I had watched a few games in the years before college, so I had a decent idea of who to hate (Wisconsin) but that hate developed year round with the help of the Cubs. Basically, it was a continuous cycle of Cubs hate Brewers (because Ryan Braun is a twatwaffle, and Prince Fielder is a fat twatwaffle, and Corey Hart has a midget face, and Bud Selig unfairly got that team money because his family owned it, etc) which helps make Bears hate Packers easier (because Favre got his dick sucked (and still does for that matter no matter what he does), and they arent that good, and the team has only won so many games the last 10 years because our division sucked) and Bears hate Packers makes Cubs hate Brewers easier as well. Yes, I'm vaguely rooting for the laundry, but I'll root my own way. As for why I never rooted for the Sox again? I'll make some dismissive notions about how the team abandoned me, or their fans were jerks, or something.

The real reasons? Probably that my closest friends have more often been Cubs fans or fans of National League teams. Sorry to Dan and Nate, but Jack, Andy, and several friends at home ruined it for you guys. Plus the DH rule is for weenies. "wah wah wah, my pitcher can't hit the baseball, he's too old and slow!" Plus I hate AJ Pierzynski. And Ozzie Guillen. And you know what, screw Kenny Williams for not treating Frank Thomas like the good guy/player he was.

I have much more to discuss about all sorts of sports, but for now we'll close here. Tomorrow if I have the time, I'll start a new series of articles called "That guy sucks!" starring many "beloved" sports players. I might do it over the weekend as I'm currently in the middle of an all nighter at the moment. We'll see soon enough. As always, comments and future writing suggestions are appreciated

Let's Start Off Easy - Religion and Politics

So as I mentioned previously, problems are showing up in many aspects of my life. Granted, I don't want this to turn into just me bitching daily about "the governent" or "there are too many states today, please eliminate three, ps I am not a crackpot," but these first few posts are just going to be some venting along with some questions about where I'm going with them in the future and all.

So religion is sorta easier to figure out really. I believe in JC, I like JC, I'm happy with my choices. We're all good there. But I've been lazy with it all. I've skipped church the last 2 weeks or so, as I've realized that a lot of the reasons I kept going was fear for my soul. Like, I believe the teachings, but (as in all things) I have a few questions. Not the simple, "why do bad things happen to good people" (which is actually a good book, btw, if i could only remember what it said), but more along the lines of "why is there a hell if God loves everyone?" and "why do I know far too many people back home that are judgemental about me being a Christian/Catholic?" and "Are some of my friends going to hell because we don't strictly follow church teachings? Am I?"

So I took a few weeks off. I'll be back soon enough, as I do like the stability church gives me, even if a lot of things it does aggravate me. But politics. Now there's the problem.

I am a democrat. I am happy with that. I am one because gays don't scare me, and I believe we should actually help the poor (which ties into that catholicism thing, don't it). And acknowledging that I have several friends who are republicans (who I don't know if theyre actually reading or not), but for heaven's sake, I hate Republican leaders. I suppose a lot of it is the sites I frequent (tbogg, huffpost, etc) but that can't be entirely it. The delaying tactics, the hissyfits, 8 of the past 9 years in presidency and the ruination of so much of this country and what we stood for, etc etc, whine whine whine. Better people than I have bitched about politics in this country and me whining doesn't fix anything, but it makes me feel better. Granted, then we have the fact that my party doesn't feel like actually doing anything to resolve the situation, because its too hard to try.

I guess I want a choice between the Stupids and the Douches without having to vote for a third party. (Go ahead, throw your vote away!) And I want to figure out exactly what I believe in and who I believe in (and that applies to both religion and politics)

Anyone with thoughts on these general issues is welcome to comment. If you don't care for either, expect something different tomorrow, probably about sports or entertainment or something. (That's right, I'm blogging daily now. I can't promise to write something every day, but I can and will try. Any suggestions for what to write about, I'm willing to listen.)

Inaugural Post

So here I am, taking a break from work and school to start this blog. This is mostly going to be an account of my life, with frequent digressions into music, sports, movies, politics, TV shows, my research, my search for a job, my friends, my family, and where I am headed in life. I'd like to think this will be inspirational or something; right now I'm just hoping for whatever the opposite of asinine is. Feel free to comment on my musings, as knowing someone else is along for the ride is always a joy. Any specific people I know will most likely be pseudonymed, unless they give me permission to reveal their names. While I'm sure that he is cool with other people knowing that secret, or that she is, I want their permission before I go revealing that A is in the closet (or is he out, now that he told me?) and that B once dated someone that should have caused a literal Amber Alert.

But as this blog is mainly about me, I suppose the real question is where am I now? See the title of the blog. As Paul once said (or was it John?) it can't get no worse. I am about to lose my parent's health insurance coverage, I'm not getting paid for this semester of work, my research is a spiraling black hole of sadness, and baseball season hasn't started yet. I once read something (that's gonna be a common theme of these musings btw) that a man has 5 aspects of his life: Religion/Politics, Sports/Entertainment, Work, Females, and Friends/Family. Any problem in one of those areas can lead to problems in the other four.

It does not help that currently I am suffering from various levels of problems in all 5.