Black Friday

Black Friday is usually known for the craziness that accompanies everyone trying to shop the day after Thanksgiving, but we and my friends gave Black Friday a new meeting. We had come up with a plan where we were all going to drink in my friend Mehdi's basement with all the alcohol that we could manage getting from Thanksgiving dinner, which turned out to be a lot more than any of us thought. So after I went out with my mom and my sister to the Outback for a late birthday dinner, we went over to Mehdi's to start the festivities. To begin the night we went out in the backyard to light some fireworks, which was more entertaining than any of us thought. We then went down into the basement to where the party was really about to start. Everyone started to take shots and before we knew it, we were all drunk. The rest of the night was kind of a blur to me until one of the sober people there decided to drive me home despite me being completely intoxicated. This was a mistake. Upon arriving home and going upstairs to my room, I decided to walk around for a little while, which was when I attempted to walk down the stairs. This failed miserably. I ended up falling down all of them, injuring my ankle in the process and got up to find my mom looking over me kind of upset with what happened. This was when I was caught and when she decided we would have a little talk the next day about what I had done, which was as fun as always.

Thanksgiving '06

This year, Thanksigivng was a change from the usual, mundane kind of day. The problem initially was getting back from UMass to Norton, which typically is only a 2 hour drive, but I found out the day before that I no longer had a ride. Because of this I had to take a bus from UMass to Boston then from Boston to Foxboro, a town next to Norton. It was good to see everyone because it was different than any year before because I had not seen most of the people for a couple of months because I have been up at college. We went to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner where I stuffed my face full of food and then took a two hour nap on the couch while watching football during any times I woke up. Later that night, when we got back, Chase, my sister, and I realized we were still hungry so we went out to CVS around 11 o'clock at night to buy some frizen dinners, 24 cans of Pepsi and a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. We got back and had a little Thanksgiving of our own after that.

The Patriots

They couldn't have just lost to the Jets could they? Oh wait, they did. Six days after losing to our biggest rivals, the Colts, in a game in which Vinatieri missed two field goals in his first game back at Foxboro in a uniform other than a Patriot, the Patriots do it again and lose to the Jets of all teams. Simply put, the Jets suck. No one thought this was even going to be a game, but yet I come back from lunch to find that they lost. Now the loss to the Colts was hard enough to take. I don't think I've yelled that much during a football game in a long time. They looked pretty bad. I haven't seen a performance that bad from Brady in a few years, especially in a game with the magnitude of this one. These are the games that he steps up big in and picks apart the defenses, but instead he goes out there and throws 4 picks and can't move the offense down the field. Then our defense, which has always been great against Manning decides not to show up and they beat us. And then we go out the following week and lose to the Jets. This may turn out to be a very long year if they odn't turn things around soon.

Rain

Why does it have to rain for the entire day? I woke up this morning, or afternoon I guess since it was around 1 o' clock, and it was downpoaring out. If it were during a weekday I would care so much less because I have classes and the rain would make me stay in my room all day so I could study and do homework, but no, it has to rain on a Sunday where I have nothing to do but play guitar and do whatever else I felt like. So instead I wake up and have to walk down to Franklin and get completely soaked which made eating much more unpleasant than usual, which was then followed by the walk back up the hill and getting even more drenched than I did beforehand. So with the weather so subpar, I proceeded to spend the next few hours hanging around in my dorm because there was nothing to do until I got a phone call from my friend who wanted to get the band together to play at the fine arts center, which normally I look forward to but the walk down to the hill in the rain with my amp and guitar did not seem too inviting but I did it anyway. So I had to wrap everything in plastic so my guitar or amp would not get ruined and walked to to the fine arts center to find out that one of our guitarists was not going to make it. So the entire trip was wasted because we only played for about two hours before heading back up the hill to my dorm which I have spent the remainder of the time since. And all this because of the rain.

Poems and Readings

The poems and the readings that were given to us in class to read were rather confusing to follow along with. Throughout many of them I would reread them over and over again just to try and see where the writer was trying to go with their topic, but it seemed almost useless because many of the times it still wouldn't make sense to me. The biggest reason for this is probably because I didn't find any of the subjects of them very interesting, which did not allow me to get into them very much and actually enjoy reading them, especially "The Night of the Great Season". I understand that it definitely has a deep meaning that I fail to see, but the reason why I really feel as though I can't find it is because it does not interest me very much. I can also appreciate how well "Notable American Woman" was written but it just wasn't something that I would typically read in my spare time. The poems were probably the best pieces I read out of it because those were a little more enjoyable to read because they were a little less monotonous. It did, however, open me up to a style of writing that I do not typically see which is something that I do not typically do, which was a benefit from it.

The World Series

Will someone tell me what happened in the World Series because it seems like it when by in a flash. I was very happy to see that the Tigers had made the World Series and I was rooting for them all along to face the Mets, which didn't end up happening, but they were the team that no one gave them a chance until they got there and then they became the favorites only to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't even remember seeing a single game of the Championship this year and the only thing I even heard about it was the Kenny Rogers pine tar and scuffing baseballs incident. It seems like I can never end up following the playoffs when the Red Sox aren't in it because at that point I think to myself, "why does it matter?" because usually after the Sox lost like they did, the only two things on a Red Sox fan's mind is, there's always next year and at least we have the Patriots. Once the Red Sox lose, it becomes Patriot season, which happened to be a little too early this year but at least the Pats are quietly winning again this year with a team that everyone said had too many holes for them to make a run at the Superbowl for a 4th time in 6 years. Then there's always the Celtics who haven't looked good in way to long of a time.

Red Auerbach

This past saturday one of, if not the, greatest basketball coaches and owners died. Red Auerbach spent close to half a century coaching and building the Boston Celtics franchise into one of the proudest NBA teams in history. In his tenure with the Celtics, Red won 16 Championships as well as coaching 11 Hall of Famers in the process. He was one of the msot respected figures in basktball in history. He was known for lighting a victory cigar at the end of every game the Celtics had won, which was more frequent than anyone during the times. He coached greats such as Bill Russell and drafted Larry Bird when everyone had said what a bad idea it was at the time. Everyone during the draft time would always try and see who Red was looking at because they knew that if he had an eye on a player, that player was destined for greatness. No other teams would make trades with him because they knew that Red would always get the better of the deal in the long run. He helped basketball break the color barrier by drafting the first African-American player ever as well as hiring the first African-American coach in history. He will be greatly missed in the basketball world.

Why I hate the Government

Now, I've always thought that our government sucks and for any of who disagree with me, I could careless. I've never been a big fan of politics in the first place. I don't like politicians because are very few if any who actually tell the truth most of the time and most of them buy their way into whatever positions they end up getting because last I checked, you need quite a bit of money to run for something like President in this country, which doesn't make any sense to me because the wealthy only represent a small portion of the country. Either way, I've realized to expect the worst from our governent after seeing all the stupid decisions that its made. My feeling was at this point was that as long as it doesn't affect me directly then I don't really care what it does. Within the past few years its broken that rule a few times, originally with this whole war thing because I know people fighting over there and it all seems to pointless and there's no reason for it. I hate having people I know fighting over there and risking there lives for something that we should have never been involved with in the first place. Then I find out, while I know it's not nearly as serious as a situation as the war thing is, that apparantly the government is outlawing online poker sites. This just absolutely ticked me off. Why is it such a big deal, especially with everything that's going on, that they had to take the time to write a bill banning online poker playing? How do they expect college kids like me to make money to go to college? Thankfully there are still sites out there that let me still play, which means I won't have to get a job for another few months until those sites don't let U.S. users play anymore, which will be a very sad day for me.

The All-American Rejects

Now, I must admit I was ashamed to go to this concert because it exemplifies everything that I hate about what "rock music" has come to now. After saying this, I went to the concert anyway because it was a Friday night and I had nothing better to do at that point anyway and I got a floor ticket for only $5. So I went going with expectations so low that I couldn't possibly be disappointed. When I got there, I realized how close I actually was to the stage and figured that it was at least the closest I have ever been at a concert. The first band to come out was Damone, who I had only heard of by name before, but never knew any of their songs but they were surprisingly better than I thought they would be. So after they were done I figured that maybe the show wasn't going to be that bad after all, and then Ima Robot came on. I've never heard of them before and after they were done I wish that I still had not heard of them. The only thing I have to say about them was that there drummer was actually pretty good but nothing else was very good. The next band that came out was Under the Influence of Giants. They came and just by the way they looked I had a bad feeling about it. Surprisingly they were also not that bad and I ended up wanting to listen to some more of their music after. When they left stage, I knew the only band left was the All-American Rejects. Now like I had said before, I really didn't care much for their music eventhough I did find a few songs catchy. They were represented all the no-talent new "rock bands" coming out now a days whose music was filled with a bunch of power chords and two note basslines and whose "solos" could be played by 5 year olds. Despite all this they did put on a good show and I came away more impressed with them than I thought they would be, but I still wouldn't pay more than $5 for a ticket.

Norton Golf Team

Over my four years at Norton High School there was only one sport I ended up playing because I never ended up playing basketball due to injuries. Now, I had been golfing since I was about 8 but I missed tryouts for the team my freshman year, which was probably a good thing because I wasn't that good at that point. However, not being able to try out made me work that much harder to make sure I made the team the next year. Over the summer before my sophmore year, I golfed more than I ever had. When I arrived at tryouts at the end of the summer, I was ready to prove to everyone that I was good enough to be on the team. One of the benefits to playing for the Norton golf team was that we got to play on the TPC at Boston (eventhough it was in Norton) which is the nicest course in the area. I was the second youngest kid at tryouts, the youngest being my friend Adam who was a freshman and I knew I had to show a lot to them to have them be impressed and surprisingly I did. I played better than I ever have and they were about as amazed as I was. I ended up making making the team, but unfortunately not as a starter. The season started and I soon found out that the team wasn't looking very good. We had only won about 1 match the year before so our expectations going into the year. As the year went on however, I soon showed my value to the team and finished the year playing in the number 6 spot in the order. We only ended up winning 2 matches and my personal record wasn't very good but the experience was very valuable because I was projected to be the number 2 golfer on the team the next year and the co captain in my second year. Over the summer I knew I'd have to improve a lot to even think about competing with some of the people I was supposed to be facing. When the season began again, I knew we were in for another rough year. We had the youngest team in the league and we were facing some of the best competition in the area. Our entire team knew this and we went out and just had a good time the entire year and eventhough we only won 2 matches again it was still fun. I played well most of the year but was hindered by a couple of nagging injuries which costed me a few matches but I was excited to find out I was going to be the captain and the number one player next year. The only problem with this was that we lost 6 of our 8 starters which crippled our lineup and we had a new coach who hadn't coached any teams before this. As always it was looking like another tough season. As usual again, it didn't disappoint. I started out struggling again and the team followed suit. We had one senior, three juniors and 8 underclassmen who switched in and out. It was another interesting and fun year to say the least. We ended up winning 4 matches which combined our previous two year's win totals and despite my struggles, I made the State Championships. Unfortunately, the year didn't end that well as I struggled during states due to a partially seperated shoulder I had gotten from frisbee a couple weeks before. At least I got out of school for the day to golf. I made a lot of new friends while on the golf team and I was happy to see that they are actually doing very well this year with the addition of a bunch of talented freshman and are looking to make the playoffs.

Our Band

The beginning of my senior year was around the time where I really started to get into music. I began to listen to a lot more of the classic rock bands and started appreciating how good the music they played was. I started to listen to Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Doors and thought about how cool it would be to be on stage and playing in front of thousands of people. Two of my friends had played guitar for a fews years at this point and had taken lessons for awhile and both of them had become pretty good. They played in our schools talent show the year before and were the best set all night. I asked them what it was like to play in front of a bunch of people and they said that the first 10 seconds were completely nerve racking, but after that it was absolutely amazing. Over the summer I had thought about buying a bass guitar because I had always thought it was a cool instrument to play. I figured that everyone I knew had learned how to play electric guitar, but no one knew bass. So for my 18th birthday my parents ended up buying me a bass and I started playing. I was horrible for awhile. I knew a whopping one song (Seven Nation Army which is the easiest song u can probably play) and struggled trying to get anything else down. I had only played one instrument before this which was keyboard which doesn't really translate well into bass. At this point after my friends found out that I had gotten a bass and started playing they wanted to start up a band with two of my friends on guitar and another singing. We didn't have a drummer and there was only one of us who was very musically inclined and that was our lead guitarist. Once they saw me play too they knew that this was going to need some work. We never really got around to playing much during the school year since everyone was busy and I wasn't really progressing on bass and by the end of the year we didn't have a song to play at the talent show but our two guitarists ending up playing a song with a few other people and rocked the house again. We tried getting together over the summer and it looked like we were finally starting to put something together after spending 12 straight hours in my friends basement. While I still wasn't very good on bass, we ended up covering a couple of songs and created a couple of our own using our singers lyrics. We never got anything going to much as far as playing in any shows because we still didn't have a drummer and we figured that we were all going to the same college so we should just wait till we get there to put everything together. So we got to college and completely forgot about the entire thing until about 2 weeks ago. One of our friends had brought his drums up here and we figured that this would be the perfect time to bring our band back together. After spending a month up here and playing bass almost every night, I had actually become pretty good. Our lead guitarist was as good as always and our rhythm guitarist had also become a lot better. Our singer was iffy still but his lyrics that he wrote were good enough to keep him in anyway. Today was the first day we played together eventhough our drummer was unable to make it and eventhough it took awhile to get everything back together like we did before, we are all happy and are looking forward to playing together some more eventhough we still don't have a name so feel free to make some suggestions.

Salvador Dali's "The Persistance of Memory"

The 2004 Boston Red Sox

The summer and fall of 2004 ended up being one of the best and most exciting six months or so ever, mainly because of the Red Sox. Now I have grown up a Red Sox fan. I've seen everything from the good to the ugly, if not live than through numerous replays throughout the years. I've seen all the clips of Bucky Dent beating them to the ball going through Bill Buckner's legs. It's all been hard to watch and for anything that I didn't see, my dad would fill in all the blanks. I had lived and died with them every year, including the heartbreaking loss in 2003 where they had looked so good. After every loss, there was always "Well, there's always next year" which had been said for about 86 years. Every year the Red Sox would go into spring training with the hope that it would be the first team to win a World Series since 1918. Now it was not an easy year to say the least. The Red Sox had many ups and downs but were always in the hunt for the playoffs. It was always the Red Sox and Yankees fighting for the lead in the AL East. When it came down to the end of September, it didn't look good for the Sox as far as beating the Yankees for the division lead, but luckily there was the wild card, which they ended up winning to get them into the playoffs where they faced Anaheim Angels. The Red Sox had made quick work of the Angels and won the first three games to sweep the series. After the series had ended and the Red Sox were victorious, the big challenge loomed ahead. For the second year in a row, the Red Sox had to face the Yankees in the League Championship. It had ended in heartbreak last year after Aaron "Bleepin" Boone hit a game winning homerun off of Tim Wakefield to beat the Red Sox in Game 7. Now it was time for the Red Sox to get some revenge. This, however, did not look like it was happening after the first three games of the series. The Sox were beat in everyone, especially in Game 3, where they were absolutely destroyed by the hated Yankees. It looked impossible for the Red Sox to come back from this considering no team had ever come form an 0-3 deficit to win a series in any sport. Now being the die hard Sox fan I am, I had still believed that there was a still a chance because someone would have to do it eventually. I stayed up the next night for all 4 or 5 hours of Game 4 to see the the Red Sox win by walkoff to bring the series to 3-1. The next night was the same kind of game. I stayed up until about 1 in the morning to see the Red Sox win in dramatic fashion for the 2nd night in a row and saw them bring the series to 3-2 and had to head to Yankee Stadium for the next two games. Now after the Red Sox won Game 6, all bets were off. The series was tied and it didn't matter who won the past 6 games because it all came down to this. One game to decide it all and it was one of the greatest games I ever saw. While it didn't end in dramatic fashion or anything, it was the most satisfying win I ever experienced. They had beaten the Yankees. They made the biggest comeback ever in the history of sports to beat their hated rival to go to the World Series for the first time since 1986, the year, coincidentally, before I was born. Once the World Series began, it seemed like the Red Sox couldn't lose. They were facing the St. Louis Cardinals, but after they came back like they did, there was no way they were going to lose, and they didn't. They swept the Cardinals to win the World Series. I was so happy for every Red Sox fan who had been waiting since 1918 to see the first Championship for the Red Sox. They did it, and while it didn't always look good for them, they still managed to pull it off and there were celebrations for weeks after that. There were going to be no more "Well there's always next year" for awhile.