Mae back from the ashes!

Not too long ago I was sad to see that two of the members of one of my favorite bands had decided to leave. This band being Mae and the members leaving being Rob Sweitze the keyboardist and Mark Padgett the bassist. This was frustrating because it came on tails of a big CD kickoff as they had barely been signed by a large label, (Capitol Records) and they had just barely came out with an album that seemed to be getting a decent amount of radio play.
I was further disheartened to hear that people who heard them in concert were not very impressed with what they heard or saw. I had never seen a Mae performance that didn't at least make me wish that I could join a band or their band and rock on stage with them because they made it seem so fun and rewarding. I was sad to see an awesome band have to leave before I felt it was their time.
I worried that the nail in the coffin was when in early 2008 they announced that they had decieded to split ways with Capitol Records. I feared that this would leave my band in the type of convoluted uncertainty that I had seen kill so many other good acts out there.
The other day I decided to stroll onto their website to touch a bit of nostalgia and I found the song that you are hopefully enjoying right now. Not only that but they are using their current music to support an awesome charity, (In true Mae fashion.) I hope you enjoy these tunes as much as I do and give to this awesome charity.
So in short, the band has regrouped and become the band that I fell in love with again with a new CD, a new sound, and a new tour. The Salt Lake City date is this May 16th at the Avalon theatre. I can guarantee you that you will be very hard pressed to find a better show for less than $12.00, For the price of two value menu combo’s you can go see an amazing band play their hearts out. A fair-trade if I ever have heard of it. I hope you can make it because I know that I’ll be there, (Nate this means you.) Be sure to bring some extra cash for a CD and a T-shirt at the goodies table.

The Good Ol Days

Man I miss the good ol days, I know you can remember it, the good ol days when you had a little more ownership with the Jazz Franchise. I remember a time when I didn’t care about the teams record, I didn’t care about anything except for the fact that to me they were family. Mike Brown, “The Bear,” Mark Eaton, even though he seemed more like a Viking warrior than a basketball player, Theodore “Blue” Edwards, and of course Karl Malone. But I miss most of all John Stockton.

A time when the Lakers sucked. But like I said I didn't care all I wanted to do was see my boy's playing the game. I was a Junior Jazz man myself which meant that in a small way I was a member of the team. But something happened, maybe it was because the Jazz had those two years when they went to the champoinship Maybe that gave us a taste and maybe that taste was Pandora’s box where we wouldn’t be happy unless we won the championship. Or maybe it’s the fact that the NBA isn’t what it used to be and has just a bunch of punks in it. It wasn’t like I didn’t realize that there were better teams out there, we knew but for a small second those people were family, I remember when the Jazz lost to the Sun’s in the first round of the playoffs. I went out to shoot some hoops right after. I don’t know why, maybe I was just coddling my broken heart maybe I thought I was training for a time when I could grow up and save the Jazz and lead them to the championship. Still the fact was that the Jazz were less than perfect and I knew that but I still loved them because they were family.

Every time I opened up some of my Hoops, or Skybox cards I hoped for a few things, a Michael Jordan card, a rookie card, or a Jazz card, in that order. I remember when the Jazz were in the finals, my dad and I were at a campout (Camp Concentration) where it was against the rules to listen to the game, this didn’t really matter since we were in the mountains and it was impossible to see the game anyway. But my dad and I luckily got reception in our car and we spent the good part of that night listening to the game while running our battery down in the middle of the woods.

Fact is I still consider John Stockton Family. Part of me would still be crushed if he were ever impliccated in something negative which isn't the same thing to say about Karl malone as he lost favor in my eyes after he kinda forsook the team to go to the enemy. And especially since last time I saw him (At Larry Millers Viewing) in any media he looked like he had just come from a prison yard. But even though he fell from grace I still would give any of these gents the shirt off my back. Because they still are family as I grew up with them. And in a very real way they taught me how to play basketball.

But times have changed and the sad reality is I am now a bandwagon fan. And that is the best-case scenario fact is that somewhere between the lockout and now I kinda stopped paying attention. Oh well at least there’s still the memories.

That Sick Feeling

About a week ago my Fiance reminded me that I would only be single for about three more weeks. And I wouldn't say I got scared because I really am not scared of being married to Emma 
But I do think that it kind of freaked me out to be reminded that I had a final in about a week and a half. Lately my Fiance reminds me about once a day of how much time we have left until we get married and I can't tell if I am nervous about getting married or nervous about finals and the end of the semester. Oh well either way I'll have to deal with both of them sooner or later, and I'll tell you this much I think that I am deffinately more nervous about my finals than getting married. And that isn't to say that I'm doing bad in my classes, and this blog isn't to say that I'm scared to get married I just thought it would be interesting to bring it up. To be completely honest I think with both instances I'm more excited for the day after the event than for the day of the event.

Please Perez Don't hurt her

Be careful the video has a little language for those who are sensitive. Now I have some very real and very strong opinions about what happened at the Miss USA pageant with regards to the Miss California debacle. But I don’t feel like talking about that right now except to say that I don’t think that it was just a coincidence that Miss California got a question that talked about Gay Marriage, what with the prop 8 situation. And also to say that this was the worst answer to a question is to forget the Miss Teen USA that although was in a different contest, it puts that question to shame.

I think that if we're being honest with ourselves the only thing that miss California was truly guilty of is being a little too upfront with her political opinion in a situation where she couldn’t defend it or give her answers the true credit they deserved. I think a better orator could have pulled it off but seriously this girl isn’t no Obama. But you got to hand it to her. This chick has cajones. I think if you were honest with yourself you’d have to admit that it would be very hard to share your opinion to such a hot question on national television. She probably knew what she had to answer in order to get the make that talking heads and sycophants happy, but she decided to stand for something so good on you. I wish I had that kind of gumption.


With that being said I would just like to say that what this whole situation brought to light was how much I really hate Perez Hilton. Just because you are loud doesn’t mean that people like you, just because you are Gay doesn’t mean that you are the voice of the Gay community, and just because people know who you are, that doesn’t really mean you even famous and it especially doesn’t mean that you are admired.

The saddest thing about the whole situation is that I know that there are a lot of people who knew this douche bag and just were okay with it because they knew that what goes around comes around and that in the world wouldn’t stand to support such an idiot let alone let him thrive, and now they stare in awe because for whatever reason someone decided to let this idiot become famous. I’m sure it just kills people when they realize this. Granted… life is not fair, Michael Bay still gets to make movies, Paris Hilton will spend more money on underwear this year than I’ll probably make in two, and Perez is obviously respected enough to be a judge for the Miss USA pageant (which is a scholarship program BTW.)

Still I don’t understand why people allow idiots to be the voice of their beliefs. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Tom Hanks. Fact is they are just people and in my opinion very small and very obtuse people. Let us not forget this. 

I remember as a child thinking of all the people who bullied me. I had a fantasy that the Jazz would draft me when I grew up and I’d lead them to the championships, and at a press conference after I’d say, “Derek ______, Ricky _____, Pete ______, And _______ was always a jerk to me when I was a kid, if you are employing them please fire them.” I thought this would be the sweetest revenge. Now I just think that they are all probably rich and doing well, and I hope they are. At least they aren’t a Gay overrated overpaid blogger who makes it his job to out the whole Gay world and tried to announce Castro’s death even though *spoiler alert* he hasn't actually died. I mean just because you’re Floridian doesn’t mean you don’t have to do real research when you claim a Cuban Dictator is dead. Heck if you claim anyone’s dead they very well should be dead. Cuz if they aren’t they’re probably going to say something, just ask Tony Almeda.

Sometimes I applaud a well placed error

Sometimes for fun I like to listen to the Sean Hannity show. Mostly because he is an ignoramus, sycophant and well like Toby from the office said, “Michael's like a movie on a plane. You know it's not great but it's something to watch. And then when it's over, you're like, how much time is left on this flight. You know, now what?” That’s how I feel about Sean Hannity. I guess I just bring it up because that clown is always complaining about, “The Liberal Press.” Creating one of the greatest SNAFU’s of Irony since well all of those stupid tea partys that keep coming up protesting wasteful spending, because he’s the embodiment of what I consider non-partisan. I realize that there does exist slanted media… I believe it is called Fox News, but other than that I hold true to a theory that was presented to me in a Chuck Klosterman book. There doesn't exist a slanted media because if you have ever worked for a real news outlet you barely have any time to even put out the news period let alone slant it towords your own plitical agenda.

Case in point is what happened at Brigham Young University the other day. A typo heard around the world you might say. I honestly feel a little bad for the poor undergrad who was

unfortunate enough to make this mistake. Now on the video there is a student who claimed that he felt like it was too obvious of a typo for it to be a typo and claimed that it must have been done on purpose. Who does this guy think he is? I’m sure that this poor person spent the good part of the day majorly bummed out. But feelings apart from the issue the fact still remains that the paper went through two more editors before it was released for printing. I know that the Utah Statesman (USU's Student Paper) has its fair share of typos and AP errors in it but luckily *knock on wood* none of their errors have caused so much controversy as this one did at BYU. Although most people just think it is funny as do I, but understandably The Daily Universe didn’t think it was too funny as they went through the pain of pulling all 18,500 published copies of its printed papers from newsstands around the campus. As well as releasing a lengthy story as to what happened and a full apology.
All I can say is this is NOT the semester to be taking a news writing class at BYU. I shudder to think what their final is going to look like. On the other hand I already took a news writing class at USU and Jay Wamsley my professor always made us do our stories in word pad. The reason why, he didn’t want us to use the spell checker on Word. You are wise beyond your years Jay. If only BYU had a Jay Wamsley of their own they’d never have found themselves in this problem.