Wake up in the Morning Feelin' Like Neil Armstrong?

For several weeks now I have had this very catchy song entitled "Tik Tok" by an artist named Ke$ha stuck in my head. I always thought that the song was rhythmically interesting and the lyrics were clever, but I had apparently missed the deeper meaning. When Ke$ha performed on Saturday Night Live the other night, I realized that this song was more than your ordinary dance song about partying. The song is clearly about space or aliens or astronauts or America or ...something...I am not entirely sure, but I will try to make some speculations and We The Internet and try and solve this one.

Was Ke$ha trying to take a stand to keep the astronaut program? This has been an issue recently. The future plans for NASA have people everywhere wondering if people will ever get to go back to space. In this number, her dancers and her band are clearly dressed like some sort of astronaut, although I do not think those suits would do too well on the moon (but they might have more success on "Dancing with the Stars"). Her microphone stand had an American flag on it, as if she was claiming the famous studio 8H stage the way Neil Armstrong did the moon. People from all walks of life have expressed their disappointment in the future of space exploration. Astronauts are the rock stars of the scientific community. They are the reason kids want to become scientists. Perhaps Ke$ha is expanding on this metaphor by being a rocker astronaut (but she'll kick 'em to the curb unless they look like Buzz Aldrin).

Did anyone ever stop to think maybe we are the aliens? In the middle of the song she asked this question during her SNL performance. Is this supposed to be a symbolic commentary on the way immigrants are viewed in America? Other political commentators and musicians alike (most notably The White Stripes out of the music I listen to) have made the point that American was founded by immigrants and we were the aliens who kicked the Native American tribes off their land. And now we are doing the same thing in space? Maybe we are the aliens. Maybe we are the ones who do not belong. But what does all this have to do with having a night on the town like the song's lyrics suggest?

Quite frankly, I have no idea. I just thought this song was really catchy on the radio and I did not thik too deeply into it until I saw the SNL performance. Maybe I am just an idiot who is trying to find meaning and symbolism in what an artist just thought was a cool costume theme for a concert (English majors have an annoying habit of doing that). Maybe there is a deeper message, but I am still way off. Please comment on this post either to tell me I am an idiot or to provide your own insight into this. Together, as one giant collective blogoshpere, We The Internet will figure this one out (by the way, I really like the sound of "We The Internet". That would make a great start to the preamble of the Internet code of law if America ever goes totalitarian and starts censoring people's rights online while still trying to appear to uphold the principle of liberty, but that is another story for another day). Yes we can!

NBA Playoffs 2010

What a difference two years makes. Two seasons ago, the Boston Celtics had the same starting five they have now, but they produced much different results. In the spring of 2008, there were extremely high expectations for a team that won 66 games in the regular season. The Celtics, in an impressive all around team effort, continued to push even when they lost to inferior opponents, and ultimately embarrassed the Los Angelas Lakers in six games in the NBA Finals. Two years later, those same Celtics, minus a few key bench players like James Posey, P.J. Brown, Eddie House, Leon Powe, and Sam Cassell, are an old, mediocre team that showed very little discipline or determination in what was a very frustrating regular season to watch. I still give all the credit in the world to Kevin Garnett for what he did two years ago helping the Celtics win their first championship in 22 years, but now he is a different player. Las year's knee injury has really compromised his defensive capabilities. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen are two years older now, too. If Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins did not improve their game, the Celtics might not even be in the playoffs this year. Nevertheless, the Celtics are in the playoffs, and they have a chance to go back to the finals. The first round is already underway against the Miami Heat.

I think the Celtics will win this round, but I am not sure how much further they will get after that. They have not shown they they can beat elite teams (or bad teams for that matter), and Orlando and Cleveland seem to want it more. While I am talking about this, lets go through the other first round match ups.

I do not see a way that the Cleveland Cavaliers lose this series. They were the team favored last year when Orlando knocked them out in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Cavs have the best player in the NBA in LeBron James and one of the greatest of all time in Shaq. Shaq might not have many chances after this season to get back to the finals, so he will want to make the most of this one. Chicago has a good young team, but they are not a true title contender yet.

I am really rooting for the Bobcats in this series. Orlando has got to be the most overrated team in the NBA the last few years. Dwight Howard is a great player and so is Vince Carter, but I do not like the way they play. They do not seem consistently dominant like last season when they knocked out the Celtics and Cavs and did not show up against the Lakers in the finals. Larry Brown is a great coach and he has done great things with Charlotte, but they are not all the way there yet. If they pull off an upset against the defending conference champions, it will be a great step forward for a franchise that is in its first post-season. I think Orlando will win, but I would rather see Charlotte.

The Bucks improves a lot this season, but the Hawks are the better team. Altanta has gotten consistently better since they took the Celtics into a seven game series in the first round two years ago. Most of the season, they were neck and neck with Orlando so I expect them to improve from last year.

Kevin Durant has emerged as one of the elite players in the NBA, but it is not yet his time to shine in the playoffs. I cannot stand this Lakers team, but the Thunder are not the team that will knock them off. The Lakers are just too good. Hopefully, Phoenix or Denver or Utah or Dallas will eliminate the Lakers later on, but they will get out of the first round.

These are two teams who seem to be in the thick of the championship hunt every year. San Antonio has won four in the past decade, Dallas has come up empty handed thus far. I think Dallas will win this series. They seemed to be playing better throughout the year and that group is long overdue. I would also like to see the Mavs take out the Lakers. Will this be the year (unlike the 2008 election) where a Maverick wins it all? We will see.

The Phoenix Suns are back. They missed the playoffs last year, but Steve Nash and company are looking to show that they are a good team once again. Portland is a good team, but I think the Suns will take this series. Phoenix's ability to score is one of the best and most efficient in the NBA. They too, are a team that could knock off the Lakers.

This is the most interesting first round mach up for me. These are two very good teams that are capable of beating Los Angelas. Carmelo Anthony has had a phenomenal season and he is certainly in the running for MVP. Jerry Sloan has done a tremendous job coaching the Jazz after his hall of fame induction in the fall. The one thing that has eluded him in his 22 year coaching tenure with the Jazz is an NBA championship. He had some great teams in the 90s with John Stockton and Karl Malone, but they lost to Michael Jordan's Bulls in the finals twice. Maybe this is their year. Chauncey Billups will also want to add to his championship collection. Last year, when he took the Nuggets to the conference finals, it was the 7th straight year he had played a conference finals series.

One issue I have with the NBA playoffs is that they are very predictable. It is not very often that a major upset occurs in this league. The team with the biggest strongest players almost always wins in these best of seven series. Maybe this will be the year things change, maybe it will not. Maybe I will watch, maybe I will not.

Psycho Thriller Qu'est-ce Que C'est?

Some of the best movies come from a very under-appreciated film genre. There are always people who enjoy horror movies, science fiction, action, and romantic comedies, but perhaps the least talked about genre is the most interesting films fit into a different category: the psychological thriller.

These are the movies that make psychology classes more interesting. These are movies that you see once, and spend the next few weeks thinking about it all the time. You are forced to watch them over and over again to try to pick up on the different clues as the movie goes on. Even if you know the twist ending, the movie is still interesting. A well done psych thriller is perhaps the most cerebral and the most intense and the most terrifying product the film industry ever creates. Horror movies can be scary; that is true, but horror built upon the notion that it is not real. The gore is dramatized for the sake of entertainment, and it often looks fake. With a psychological thriller, it often hits closer to reality. Everyone has a brain. Everyone has dreams and nightmares. Even if the film presents an extreme case, like leading an anarchist group to destroy the financial centers of every major city and level everyone's debt back to zero, there is the idea that this could happen.

Psychological thrillers target the feeling that you get when you wake up disoriented from a dream you thought was real. This seems to happen to me all the time. In the months where I had no roommate at school, I used to have what I diagnosed as "roommate dreams". For a few weeks, I kept having a similar dream every night for a few weeks where the Fitchburg State housing department would assign me a new roommate and I would have to deal with it. The worse imaginary roommate I got was Jay Leno. Every day, instead of going to class or working on his cars or something, he would sit in the room and monologue, but there was no audience, just me. Instead of poking fun at George W. Bush or Bill Clinton or Michael Jackson, he would make jokes about my every action. He was a real jerk. I vowed I would one day get my own show to get back at him, and NBC offered me the Tonight Show when Jay retires.... and then I woke up.

Also, sometimes I stay up so late that I do things I do not remember. Sometimes I wake up the next day and see an essay that is done that I do not remember finishing, or a blog post I do not remember posting. I usually assume I was awake and aware when I did it, but I can't help but wonder if I have my own Tyler Durden-type character doing things when I think I am asleep. For some reason, my ridiculous dreams make psychological thriller film more believable and I sometimes feel that a movie inside my head would be much more interesting that a sitcom about my life where I am seen in the third person (although if you want to make my life a sitcom, I would not be opposed).

Movies that fall into this genre include Fight Club, A Beautiful Mind, and The Sixth Sense. Those are three of my favorite movies and they share similar traits. The use of first person or stream of consciousness narrative is an effective way to set the mood for a psychological thriller. Showing what the protagonist sees easily fools viewers and makes them believe that what they see is real and not a delusion. Flashbacks to previous experiences can also be a good way to shed light and give clues before revealing the huge twist ending. I was reminded of all of them when I saw Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. The most recent addition to the psychological thriller genre strikes gold once again. Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kinsley are brilliant in this movie. I will not say anymore about Shutter Island except that it is a must see movie. If you want a movie that will make you think, this is one to see.

Stanley Cup Playoffs 2010

The playoffs are upon us once again. There has not been a Stanley Cup celebration in Boston since 1972 (unless you count the year that Ray Bourque won with Colorado and everyone in New England was pulling for him because the Bruins were non-contenders) and it is time again to hope that this could be the year. The Capitals captured the President's Trophy for being the best team in the regular season, but the President's Trophy is not the best indicator for the Stanley Cup winner (last year, the Sharks lost in the first round). Below are the different match ups for round one.

#1 Washington Capitals vs. #8 Montreal Canadiens

I expect the Caps to take this one. Washington has a very prolific offense led by Alex Ovechkin who scored 50 goals this year. As good as they are at scoring, Washington's goal tending has not been the best by any stretch of the imagination. I do not think this will be a problem against the Habs, but in future rounds, it could be a problem against the other goalies in the East.

#2 New Jersey Devils vs. #7 Philadelphia Flyers

The Devils are the better team this year and they will be tough for anyone who has to face them in this tournament. Martin Brodeur is still one of the elite net minders in the game and he will make it difficult to gain any momentum. Philly will make this series competitive and physical, but New Jersey will prevail.

#3 Buffalo Sabres vs. #6 Boston Bruins

This is a very interesting match up for my hometown team. The Bruins did what they had to do to get into this position and Buffalo is the team they have the best chance of beating. Ryan Miller has had a great year and has been phenomenal since the Olympics, but Tuuka Rask has been pretty impressive in his own right guarding the Bruins net. Rask has played well against Buffalo this year. The Bruins seem to be playing their best hockey of the year right now as the moved up to #6 in the Eastern Conference down the stretch. In the season finale, Michael Ryder had two goals and Marco Sturm had one, which is encouraging since both of them had trouble finding the back of the net the last few weeks. The Bruins three short-handed goals in a single penalty kill against Carolina on Saturday, was phenomenal and it showed that if they play aggressively, the Bruins really can score. This one will be fun to watch.

#4 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. #5 Ottawa Senators

The Senators had a good season, but the have the misfortune of playing the Penguins right off the bat. Pittsburgh was neck and neck with New Jersey all year and their star power is intimidating and tough to beat. Sidney Crosby had another amazing year and the young captain already has a Stanley Cup title and a gold medal under his belt. Again, goal tending in the playoffs is huge and Marc-Andre Fleury can play with the best of them. Sorry Ottawa, better luck next year.

#1 San Jose Sharks vs. #8 Colorado Avalanche

I am hoping for the upset in this one. I have nothing against the Sharks, but I have always liked the Avalanche ever since they helped Bourque get his name on the Stanley Cup. I believe that Adam Foote is the only player left from that team still in Colorado, but I always liked the way he played. Colorado had a good year, but they lost some ground in the standings when Detroit got hot. They are a team that would dominate in the East but seems very average in the West.

#2 Chicago Blackhawks vs. #7 Nashville Predators

Chicago will advance and will be one of the teams fighting to represent the West in the finals. Nashville had a good year, but Chicago is just a better team this year. Chicago can challenge San Jose, or Detroit or Phoenix, or Vancouver and I would not be surprised if there is a victory parade in the Windy City when all is said and done.

#3 Vancouver Canucks vs. #6 Los Angelas Kings

I do not know much about either team. I might have seen one Canucks game this year and I do not remeber seeing the Kings play. I think I will go with Vancouver because they are the higher seed and the time I did see them play, they beat the Bruins, as I recall.

#4 Phoenix Coyotes vs. #5 Detroit Red Wings

I think this is the most intriguing series in the Western Conference. Detroit was a game seven away from back to back titles last year. Phoenix was out of the playoffs and bankrupt last year. In the pre-season, Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky stepped down and the team's future seemed uncertain. Phoenix's future is still uncertain as there are talks of moving them elsewhere, but in the meantime, they put together a very impressive regular season. The Red Wings had a bit of a disappointing first half but have played really well lately. It is too bad that they play each other in the first round because this would be a great conference final match up and a great story later in the playoffs.

Anything can happen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It is not like the NBA, where upsets rarely happen. I am excited to see how it all goes down.

Really? Robert Pattinson to Play Kurt Cobain? Really!?

I recently heard (and I hope this is just an internet rumor) that Robert Pattinson will be portraying Kurt Cobain in a movie about the Nirvana frontman's life. I was at first excited about this news. I thought that it was long overdue for a film about the life of one of the most influential musicians of the last twenty years. I thought it would be good to see what Kurt Cobain was all about, more than just the music, more than the tragic death. I was hoping to get a movie that explains Cobain as a person, and not just a pawn of the music industry. I wanted to see his rise to fame and his struggle to deal with it. I was excited to see the full story of the world's most reluctant, most misunderstood rock star. I then said to myself "Robert Pattinson? Hmm, where have I heard that name?" and proceeded to look him up on Wikipedia. I realized that he is the actor who plays Eward Cullen in the Twilight movies, and just like that, all my excitement for this movie was gone faster than the Millennium Falcon's departure from Tattooine.

I honestly do not understand this one. I know that at the end of the day, Hollywood producers just want to make money, but is turning Kurt Cobain into a sparkling vampire really the right thing to do? They have their target audiences all wrong. The people who get excited about Twilight and Edward Cullen and those stupid movies and books are not the same people who would want to see a movie paying tribute to Nirvana's music and Kurt Cobain's life and legacy. Cobain wanted nothing to do with the mainstream music scene. His fame and success scared him. He would be rolling in his grave if he knew that he was being portrayed by Edward Cullen.

I have been thinking about other alternatives to Pattinson. At first I thought any actor would be a better choice. Narrowing it down a bit, I thought that Leonardo DiCaprio would be a good choice. He is experienced and more talented than Pattinson, but I thought he would be too recognizable from other famous roles. To do a biographical movie like this right, it is probably best to cast a lesser known actor, perhaps even an up-and-coming musician, to really capture the character. Regardless, the casting decision they have apparently made is not a good one and it will not be able to win over the true Nirvana fans.

In the beginning of high school, Nirvana was practically the soundtrack of my life. It was the bridge between my classic rock phase and getting into modern alternative rock. That music made up for what it lacked in polish with a strong passion and intensity. The story of Nirvana is something that is too special to be ruined by anything involving Twilight. They already ruined vampires and werewolves, and now they're ruining Nirvana? (I thought they would at least ruin zombies first) They probably will make it a teenage comedy called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for all I know.

Hopefully, this movie will either not be made or flop, so they can make a better version with a better casting job.

The Final Push

With an underwhelming and bizarre regular season almost over, the Boston Bruins can clinch a playoff berth today with a win over the Carolina Hurricanes this afternoon. Thus far, the Bruins season has been disappointing to say the least, but if they make the tournament, anything can happen. This is true in hockey more than any other sport.

The Bruins have had chances to prove themselves time and time again this seasons. They had countless opportunities to win over their passionate, but championship hungry fan base. For months now, people in Mass. media have been calling out Peter Chiarelli for building this offensively challenged team. People have criticized Claude Julien for using injuries as an excuse for the teams struggles and not lighting the fire and anger that defined the Bruins franchise for decades. For most of the season, Dennis Wideman has been the scapegoat for all of the Bruins on-ice issues. All of this can be forgiven if the Bruins revert back to the Big Bad Bruin way in the playoffs. If they show some toughness and show the Causeway Crowd that they will not go down without a fight, there will be anticipation and optimism heading into next season.

The Bruins have been playing better recently. Ever since the humiliating loss to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago, the Bruins have turned it around. In the Pittsburgh game, all the hype was about the Bruins getting payback for Matt Cooke's cheap shot on Marc Savard. Savard's teammates did not fight for him in the game he got hurt, and the effort on the ice in the next game was nothing to be proud of either. With the exception of Shawn Thornton's beat down of Cooke two minutes into the game, the Bruins seemed lifeless on the ice next to the high powered Penguins team. Since that game, however, the Bruins have been playing a much more inspiring brand of hockey. They still have difficulty scoring. Marco Sturm is the only 20 goal scorer on the team, and Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci are the only players with 50 points or more. On the other hand, the Bruins play very good defense as a team. Anchored by rookie goaltender Tuuka Rask, the Bruins have allowed only 195 goals all season. The New Jersey Devils are the only team that has allowed fewer this season. If you think about it, it is pretty impressive that the team that scored the fewest goals in the NHL this year has a shot at the playoffs. The Bruins defense is underrated and has not gotten the credit it deserves this year.

Having said that, the Bruins defense is currently plagued with injuries. Mark Stuart, Andrew Ference, and Dennis Seidenburg are all out, possibly for the entire playoffs. This means that players like Matt Hunwick and Dennis Wideman really need to step it up if they Bruins want to make any noise this post-season. Wideman has been playing better lately. he scored a goal in the Buffalo game a few nights ago and he has been playing solid defense for a few weeks now.

The Bruins also need to find a way to score more early and often to have any success. In the playoffs they will face Washington, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, or Buffalo at some point. The Washington Capitals have a very prolific offense that can intimidate people, but their biggest weakness is their goal tending. The Caps expressed an interest in acquiring Tim Thomas from Boston earlier in the year so they could have a more stable net. Historically, teams that have dominant goalies have made runs in the playoff and sometimes get further than they were supposed to. The other three teams that the Bruins might play have superior goalies to Washington: Martin Brodeur for the New Jersey Devils, Ryan Miller for the Buffalo Sabres, and Marc-Andre Fleury for the Pittsburgh Penguins. All three of those teams are teams the Bruins are capable of skating with and being competitive with.

The main concern I have for the Bruins this year has been leadership. I know Zdeno Chara is the captain and he is the defending Norris Trophy winner, but he does not seem to be the angry vocal leader that an NHL locker room needs. Somebody needs to step up and really take on the role of pumping up the team and motivating them. I do not know it that player is Bergeron, or Mark Stuart, or Tuuka, or veteran winger Mark Recchi, or enforcer Shawn Thornton, but somebody has to do it. Claude Julien does not seem to be the fiery motivator in the locker room. Julien is a good Xs and Os guy but there should be a player who inspires this team to play to their fullest potential. They might not be able to win a series against Buffalo, or Pittsburgh, or Jersey, or Washington, but they need to at least show us that they can hit hard, and make those teams earn every point they score. The slogan going into the season was "Big and Bad Are Back", so they need to prove that this is true.

If the Bruins can gain some momentum from a strong showing this year, next year should be a huge bounce back season. Thanks to the dismal play of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Bruins have a 67% chance of getting either the #1 or 2 pick in the draft. Chiarelli has been criticized for the signings he made, but I still think this was a great move. Phil Kessel is a great scorer but clearly did not want to be in Boston. It is good that they have a chance to really improve the team for the long run with this draft because they need another scoring force. Kessel can stay in Toronto. The Bruins will be better off without him.

Whatever happens in the next few weeks, the Bruins will still be my favorite team. I can only hope that they get better and that they play tougher hockey, but only time will tell. Just last year, they were the class of the Eastern Conference. I hope they get there again. It is too bad that they declined in play this year when we were supposed to be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Stanley Cup winning team. Hopefully by next year, the Big Bad Bruins will make their return.

Near Space Ballooning: The Almost Final Frontier

When I first heard about amateur high altitude photographers last week, I was in disbelief that something like this could be so accessible. My astronomy professor did say that this field was the last scientific field where amateurs could make significant contributions, but ordinary people taking pictures that NASA needed rockets and space shuttles to take? That seemed too good to be true. I think it is amazing that people are innovative enough to come up with ideas like this and be able to do it much more cheaply that the methods NASA used and all it took was a digital camera, a weather balloon, a GPS, and a tank of helium. Granted, theirs was an unmanned mission, and NASA has better quality cameras, and NASA is able to accomplish more and study more than one thing in each space shuttle mission, but it is still really cool that people can do this by themselves. NASA should seriously consider employing these methods to get more photos of the edge of the Earth's atmosphere. An amateur balloonist spends a couple hundred dollars per mission to gather these photos, while NASA spends hundreds of millions on each of their missions. A lot can be learned from amateurs exploring space as a hobby. It is too bad that other fields of science require higher levels of qualification, because the most innovative minds are not always the ones with the advanced degrees or the ability to focus on just one field.