After an Unnecessarily Long Break...

1. Yeah...about that.

2. It's Monday, so it's the Starting Nine. But I felt it wasn't right to start without acknowledging my long absence. Between vacations, Band Camp, and the start of school, it's been busy. Hopefully, I can get this started again with some degree of regularity. So let's get to it.

3. As just stated, school is back, and with a vengeance. I can't remember starting off a year with more reading. I think all my classes are going to be pretty interesting - that is, the actual class time. The work is going to suck. Greek History will be the worst of the five, but that still won't be too bad. Although my Honors seminar won't come close to topping the mind-blowing experience I had last year, it was a nice change of pace to have a discussion today that I fully understood. And my 3 Comm classes will be really good - one is with a reporter for the AP, and the other 2 are really small and ask a lot of thought-provoking questions. We'll see what I think about them when I'm reading every night until 3 in the morning.

"And They're Playing Home Run Derby Early This Year at Fenway Park!"

It's time once again for the Friday Fives. This week, I'm giving you My Top 5 Sporting Events and My Worst 5 Sporting Events ("sporting event" meaning a game I was personally at).

My Top 5 Sporting Events

Honorable mention (tie): Jamie Silva ripping the ball fully out of a Virginia Tech player's hands, 2007 ACC Championship, and Nathan Gerbe's 360 degree spin-o-rama penalty shot against Providence, 2008 Hockey East Quarterfinals
I normally don't/won't do honorable mentions, but these two singular plays were so incredible that they deserved a mention. Silva's "I'll take that, thank you" was probably the most BA play I've ever seen in any sport, and Gerbe's goal was, in a word, unbelievable.

5. BC shutting out Notre Dame 17-0 at Alumni, November 8, 2008
In the middle of what was, at that point, a lackluster year, fighting just to keep our ACC Championship hopes more alive than credible, a 17-0 shutout at home in primetime was quite the morale-booster. However, because it was against our archrivals, it was exponentially sweeter. And to cap it all off, as Jimmy "The Emu" Clausen and Charlie Weis walked ashamedly and hobbled, respectively, off the field, we in the band just kept on playing for a full 10-15 minutes after the game ended. The Superfans all stayed and danced and sang, and it was just a great night to be an Eagles fan.

It's About Time

It's Monday again, so that means it's time for the Starting Nine.

1. Thank goodness the Sun is back out. Enough said.

2. With the subsequent decrease in rain, I've been getting out and playing a lot more tennis than I have in years past. I've only ever played really sporadically, so this is a change - but a welcome one, I must say. Tennis is a lot more fun than I used to give it credit for, and I've found that I've gotten significantly better the more I've played.

3. I have to get this one in fast before the Derby starts - but my pick to win it all is either Pujols or Howard. No one in the AL has a decent shot at it - Carlos Pena and Nelson Cruz are the only ones who might get to the second round. When you've got Brandon Inge as one of your representatives, you know it's a down year for your league.

3,2,1...Liftoff

It's that time of week again, time for the Friday Fives. And this week, I'm going with My Top 5 Roller Coasters and My Worst 5 Roller Coasters. Yes, even for a roller coaster enthusiast like me, there is such a thing as a bad roller coaster.

My Top 5 Roller Coasters

5. Great Bear, Hersheypark
This is a bit of a sentimental choice, as it was the first coaster I went on to a) go up a significantly large first hill, and b) go upside down. I remember doing something just short of praying as the tow cable slowly brought us up to the top of the hill - I was just a bit nervous - and wondering if I had really made the right choice in the split second before the track let us go. But man, was that fun. The loop was awesome, the train made a sound like a bear roaring as we zoomed around the track...just an all-around good time. Okay, so my memory of it is a bit rosy because it was the first serious coaster I went on, yadda yadda yadda. But it was a significant step, and for that, it gets #5.

4. Expedition Everest, Animal Kingdom
I know, I know - this is not exactly an extreme coaster. BUT it's insanely fun, to the point where it should be illegal to have that much fun on a roller coaster. The backwards section is genius, and as with all things Disney, the atmosphere and level of detail is fantastic. Threat of a mythical 18-foot Yeti? No big deal - we rode this three straight times within 10 minutes during one trip.

Should've Gone Bowling Instead

It's Monday, so like Fridays, that signifies a recurring post - and on Mondays, it's The Starting Nine. This is when I run down a list of 9 things, with no specific rhyme or reason to the topics. So here we go.

1. Went golfing today with my brother and grandparents, for the first time this year. Despite having previously only hit one bucket of balls at the range and chipped for about 15 minutes, I thought I did pretty well. The 55 over 9 holes is deceiving, because 7 of the 9 holes were played at one-over bogey golf. It would've been an exceptional first time out, had it not been for the 1st and 8th holes - where I golfed a pair of strikes. That's a nice way of saying that I shot 10's on both holes. Apparently I thought I was at a bowling alley instead of a golf course.

2. Finally finally FINALLY - the sun came out this weekend and it was excellent. Stayed out just long enough for me to jump in the ocean twice up in Maine, and then the thunder came. Oh well.

3. It's a little weird going up to our trailer in York Beach nowadays, because I'm four/five years older than anyone else under 20. Not exactly the age of people I'd prefer to spend time/play wiffleball/go to the beach with, but what can you do? We had our time with friends our own age years ago, and we knew it wouldn't last forever.

What Keeps Me Going...and What Doesn't

It's Friday. As that will from now on signify, it's time for the Friday Fives - when I run down a Top 5 and Worst 5 in a given topic. For the inaugural lists, I'm taking inspiration from the 2-miler I ran through the twilight tonight, and running down the Top 5 Running Songs In My Experience, and the Worst 5 Songs I've Found Myself Running To That My iPod Pulled Up on Shuffle.

Top 5 Running Songs In My Experience

5. All These Things That I've Done by The Killers
It's kind of a wildcard pick, I'll agree with that. But it's an upbeat song, and has a pretty constant feel all the way through - perfect for pacing. The lead singer may have said that the "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier" bit might not mean diddly squat, but that section in the song is a highlight regardless. Plus it was the song in my favorite Nike ad in recent memory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ae3tFI8wXE.

4. Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses
It was a tough call here between this or Welcome to the Jungle, which is what I presume most people would pick. And while Jungle is a great song, I just happen to like the guitars in Sweet Child O' Mine better. The riff is classic, the solos are incredible, and the guitars just have a really clean sound. Clocking in at just about 6 minutes in length, it's a really handy stopwatch when trying to fly through a mile at a near-sprint.

AL All-Star Shortstops - Ripken, Garciaparra, Jeter...Bartlett???

I figured that, as voting winds down for the 80th MLB All-Star Game/Popularity Contest (c'mon people...I love Junior to death, he's one of my favorite players, but - 7th?!?!? The man is hitting .220!), it was about time that I posted my ballot. I mean, what else am I going to do - I can count the number of days it hasn't rained over the past month on my fingers.

American League

1B - Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox (I know Morneau and Big Tex have better stats - but I can't vote for Big Tex, he's a Yankee. And I still haven't forgiven Morneau for stealing the HR Derby last year. As a good friend of mine once opined, you vote for the guys on your team if they're close to the top. Youk certainly is.)

2B - Aaron Hill, Blue Jays (Kinsler is having the best year stat-wise, but I felt like if I voted for him, I was voting too much against Pedroia. Since there was no way I could justify voting for Pedroia, Hill was the next-best option. He's having a breakout year - nearly Kinsler's equal - and plus, he played Double-A ball half an hour down the road in Manchester for the Fisher Cats.)

CEVR Part 2

So here it is, finally - after an extended break, I've finally gotten my act together, crunched the numbers, and figured out what the #1 movie of all time is according to CEVR (Critical and Entertainment Value Rating). But first, a little analysis of the results. As previously stated, The Godfather was the only movie to be on all three lists (Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb), while Dr. Strangelove (Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes), Pulp Fiction (Metacritic and IMDb), and Return of the King (Metacritic and IMDb) were the only other movies to be on more than one. Metacritic had 9 movies exclusive to its Top 13, which had an average CEVR of 90.6, Rotten Tomatoes had 11 exclusive movies with an average CEVR of 90, and IMDb had 10 exclusive movies with an average CEVR of 90.3. Among the following list of the Top 15 movies, Metacritic and IMDb both had 4 exclusive movies, while Rotten Tomatoes had 3. Without further ado, the Top 15 movies of all time according to CEVR (asterisks denoting that Metacritic scores weren't available) -

Who's Our MJ???

All the weirdness aside, all the alleged child molestation aside, all the naming his kid Blanket aside - Michael Jackson was an incredible artist. Incredible songs, incredible talent. There's a reason they call him the King of Pop. And while I can't say he's my favorite artist of all time, there's no denying that some of his stuff - especially Beat It, the guitar riff is one of my favorites - is well, incredible. There won't be another like him for a long, long time...if at all.

It got me thinking, as I sat on the couch watching the coverage of his death - "this is what it must have been like when Elvis died." My grandparents' generation's seminal entertainer was Elvis, my parents' was Jackson (the Beatles being the age group in between). And I suddenly had a startling thought - who is ours? And, more interestingly - do we even have one?

Going all Bill James on Movies - CEVR

I love comparative statistics. Can't get enough of them. There's something about discovering how something is better than another thing that I just find fascinating. Maybe that's why I enjoy fantasy sports so much. But that's another story. Tonight (and tomorrow) I want to delve into something else that has statistics readily available online - movies. Friday's release and subsequent warm reception of the Sam Raimi-directed Drag Me to Hell is what got me really thinking specifically about the 3 main sites which track statistics on how good a movie is judged to be: Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb.

Drag Me to Hell will certainly not be in the running for any major best-of awards at the end of the year - yet it is among the year's best-reviewed movies to date, holding a score of 82 on Metacritic, a 94% and "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a user rating of 8.2 on IMDb. For those unfamiliar with how these sites arrive at these scores, here's a brief summary.

1) Metacritic takes the average numerical scores given to a movie in a review (and when no score is given, it's approximated)
2) Rotten Tomatoes decides if a review is merely positive and negative - the percent denotes how many reviews are positive
3) IMDb allows users to rate the movie themselves
*For more info, visit the respective websites*

Whoops

So yeah...I kind of forgot about this. School will do that to you. But it's summer now, so I'm going to do my best to keep this going at a pretty consistent rate. It's about time I did. And that's all I've got for now.