Rough Draft

NFC Championship: Eagles vs Panthers

And so the Eagles 2003-2004 season ended just as it began, miserably. They lost the NFC Championship game for the 3rd straight year. This time they lost to the Panthers 14-3 at home. There really weren't many bright spots for the Eagles for any of the game. Their defense played fairly well, and they did get Troy Vincent back, though he seemed sluggish and definitely wasn't playing at 100%. Offensively the Eagles were terrible. Receivers dropped balls, ran incorrect routes, the running game didn't generate any big plays, McNabb was under constant pressure. In my opinion, the rib injury which caused McNabb to miss most of the second half didn't affect the outcome of the game, because the Eagles were just overall playing terribly and even a perfect McNabb couldn't have won the game for them. Not much else to about the game itself.

As far as the Eagles season as a whole, they surpassed my expectations. They didn't play brilliantly throughout the season, but they kept finding ways to win, most of the time coming from behind. I honestly didn't expect them to make it to the NFC Championship game again this season. After their dreadful play in that game though, it should be interesting to see what changes the offseason brings.

Duce Staley probably won't be back next year, and both Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent could be free agents. The Eagles have used draft picks the last few seasons on defensive backs, so they should be good on defense. I'd really like to see the Eagles bring in a high caliber receiver. Also, as long as Brian Westbrook gets healthy again, he should be able to handle the running back duties on his own. At any rate, the Eagles aren't going to be torn apart this offseason and I fully expect them to be back at the top of the NFC next season. Hopefully they'll be able to make the necessary moves in the off-season to bring in the talent necessary to get them to the Super Bowl next year.

Final Semester

I've been really slacking on updating this ever since I got back to school. There's been a bunch of things I've wanted to post, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. With that I'll get to the actual content of this post.

My second week of classes in my final semester here at CWRUis just about wrapped up. I'm taking 5 classes this semester: Music Theory, Classic Japanese Literature in Translation, Computer Graphics, Computer Security, and Autonomous Robotics. Originally I was planning to drop one of those five classes, since I only need 9 credits to graduate, but after 2 weeks, they all seem like they're going to be worthwhile so I'm not going to drop any of them. Though I'm most likely going to end up doing Pass/Fail for Computer Graphics.

Autonomous Robotics is going to be my most fun class. By the end of the semester each of 10 groups of 3 people will have built a completely autonomous robot out of Legos to compete in the Egg Hunt.

I've been wanting to learn OpenGL for a while now, so I'm looking forward to that in Computer Graphics. Though from the first homework and the lectures so far, the class is going to be weighted a lot more to the math behind computer graphics rather than how to write OpenGL which is ok with me. We still have assignments that need to be written in OpenGL, so though I'll probably have to learn how to write the code myself, at least I'll have the motivation to do so.

The other class I'm actually pretty excited about is Music Theory. I've been playing guitar for a few years, and took a few years of piano lessons while I was in middle school, so I can read music easily, but I'm looking forward to learning more about the construction of music. I have a feeling taking this class will let me do lots of fun things with GarageBand and Soundtrack.

NFC Divisional Playoff: Eagles vs Packers

Yesterday's NFC Divisional Playoff Game between the Eagles and Packers was very exciting indeed. The Eagles won 20-17 on a David Akers' field goal in overtime which was made possible by Brian Dawkins' interception of an errant Brett Favre pass.

The Eagles were down 14-0 early in the first half, with one of the Packers' touchdowns being the result of a McNabb fumble. However the Eagles were able to cut it to 14-7 by halftime, thanks to a 45 yard pass to Pinkston on one of their drives in the second quarter which set up Duce Staley's 7 yard touchdown catch.

At the beginning of the 4th quarter, the Eagles tied on the game with one of the greatest touchdown's I have ever seen. McNabb was nearly sacked by no less than 3 players and managed to get a perfect pass off to Todd Pinkston who was standing right on the front corner of the endzone and was able to catch the ball and keep his feet inbounds.

Shortly after that the Packers managed a field goal and took a 17-14 lead. The teams traded punts for several possessions and eventually the Eagles got the ball with just over 2 minutes left and with only a single timeout this was going to be their last scoring opportunity. After a couple sacks the Eagles were looking at a 4th and 26th but they were able to convert the first down with a 28 yard pass to Freddie Mitchell. Eventually they got into field goal range, and David Akers kicked a 37 yard field goal to tie the game (he has missed a field goal from about the same distance earlier in the game).

The Eagles won the coin toss in overtime, but couldn't get any offense and were forced to punt. It was on this first possession by Green Bay in OT that Favre was picked off and the Eagles drove for the game-winning field goal.

A couple other key plays from the game, were the Eagles stopping the Packers on a 4th and goal from the 1 in the first half and the Packers decision to punt the ball with just over 2 minutes left on a 4th and 1.

Overall the Eagles played a very high quality game, especially given the many key players they have lost to injury the last couple weeks of the season. Once again McNabb showed why he is such a great quarterback by taking the game into his own hands by running the ball when he had the chance and making several perfect throws in clutch situations.

Next week they play the Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship game. I haven't followed the Panthers that much this year, but I see no reason the Eagles can't beat them, and finally advance to the Super Bowl after losing the NFC Championship game the last 2 seasons.

Best of 2003

2003 was a great year for the punk/indie/emo/whateveryouwanttocallit scene. Many bands (Brand New, Thrice, Thursday, Something Corporate) released highly anticipated sophomore albums while we also saw the emergence of many new bands (Straylight Run, Fall Out Boy, The Postal Service).

AbsolutePunk.net listed its annual Best of... list, and I thought I'd do my own personal list just for fun.

So here it is, my Best of 2003 lists.

Best Album
5. Blink-182 by Blink-182
4. Take This To Your Grave by Fall Out Boy
3. War All The Time by Thursday
2. Deja Entendu by Brand New
1. Give Up by The Postal Service

I purchased no less than 15 albums this year, and loved every single one, so narrowing this list down to my 5 favorite albums and then trying to rank them proved incredibly difficult. In the end, I decided that if I could only listen to one album from 2003 it would have to be Give Up by The Postal Service. Ben Gibbard created another lyrical masterpiece with this album, and the unique sound of the album is something you will never get tired of.

A very close second for my favorite album of 2003 was Brand New's Deja Entendu. This is another simply amazing album, both lyrically and instrumentally and it represented a major change from Brand New's first album, Your Favorite Weapon. Deja Entendu is one of those albums that takes a few listens to grow on you, but then you quickly find yourself listening to it more and more frequently and loving it more and more.

War All the Time by Thursday is by far the most emotional album of 2003. Geoff Rickly shares some of the most traumatic and devastating moments in his life with listeners. You can feel his pain in each and every song and in every word he sings. You can't help but be touched by this album.

Fall Out Boy is "pop punk" at its finest and Take This to Your Grave is just their first album. All the songs are fast and catchy. I've listened to this album probably the most of any album this year, because a lot of times you just want to sit back and hear something upbeat and Take This to Your Grave provides exactly that.

Blink-182 was one of the most anticipated albums of the year and it surprised many, many people. Blink is all grown up and their newest album shows that. Fans looking for more toilet-humor filled "pop punk" may be disappointed, but in my opinion this is Blink's best sounding album to date and I am quite happy with the new Blink.

Best EP
3. From Depths to Dreams - Senses Fail
2. Notes and Photographs - JamisonParker
1. Make Yourself at Home EP - The Starting Line

Best New Band
3. JamisonParker
2. Postal Service
1. Straylight Run

Best Song

5. Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't
4. Play Crack The Sky
3. Such Great Heights
2. Division St.
1. Mistakes We Knew We Were Making

Best Lyricists
4. Jesse Lacey - Brand New
3. Jason Gleason - Further Seems Forever
2. Geoff Rickly - Thursday
1. Ben Gibbard - Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service

Best Vocalist
4. Ben Gibbard - Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service
3. Jason Gleason - Further Seems Forever
2. Claudio Sanchez - Coheed and Cambria
1. Geoff Rickly - Thursday

Best Live Show
5. Finch
4. Something Corporate
3. Yellowcard
2. Fall Out Boy
1. Allister

Most Underrated Bands/Albums
Mae - Destination: Beautiful
Further Seems Forever - How to Start a Fire

Best Music Videos
2. Brand New - Sic Transit Gloria
1. Finch - What it is to Burn