Mac's Morning Music: Lord Huron - The Birds Are Singing At Night

Howdy y'all!

After making it one whole day, I ended up skipping yesterday's edition of Morning Music. Baby steps and all that jazz.

Anyway, I first heard this tune when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. tweeted it out a few
months ago. It's a pretty solid jam, though not one I listen to all that
often. Still, it's what was in my head when I racked it for a tune to
put here, so it'll have to do.

Mac's Morning Music: Flatland Cavalry - No Shade of Green

Reviving the blog once again, I feel like adding a new feature/series/whatever you want to call it. Every morning (except maybe weekends, haven't decided yet), I'll be posting a song that's stuck in my head or that I feel is particularly good. My taste in music is both diverse and occasionally out there, so this could get interesting at times.

My first entry in "Mac's Morning Music" comes from Flatland Cavalry, a band from Lubbock that one of my buddies currently believes is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Of course, I wouldn't be posting this if they weren't starting to grow on me as well.

Like many local bands trying to find their start out here in West Texas, the video itself is, well, pretty awful. Don't let that deter from enjoying a solid tune about meeting a girl at a party and remembering every single detail but her name.

Midnight Musings: T.O., Gary Patterson, and Old Video Games

I’m done with homework. I’m a little sleepy. My truck has been parked several streets away from the Texas Tech University campus for about 11 hours or so, meaning it’s probably been defiled by a homeless person or at the very least become a cozy home for a family of raccoons.

But I’m in the mood to write; more accurately I’m hopped up on Monster and Whataburger and I’m stuck at the library waiting for a few videos to upload so I honestly have nothing better to do.

And so begins a new series, a daily frequent post where I just ramble on about whatever comes to mind. And what’s coming to mind? Well…

Terrell Owens Wants to Play Football Again

Yes, the 41 year-old man-child who is as notable for his tantrums on the sideline and tears at the podium as he is for football highlights still thinks he can play football and the NFL level. More specifically, he wants to join the Dallas Cowboys, effectively filling in for the injured Dez Bryant.

Never mind the fact he hasn’t played a regular season game since 2010, when he caught a respectable 72 passes in 14 games for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Or that he hasn’t seen a football field since 2012, when he survived just 20 days of preseason football before getting cut by the Seattle Seahawks.

Or that, as previously stated, HE’S 41!

It’s also important to note the end to Owens’ first stint with the Cowboys wasn’t the cleanest of breaks, what with the accusations of conspiracy and such. To be fair, Owens has said he’s matured and become wiser than he was back in 2008.

This of course raises other issues. For one, people who say the phrase “I’ve matured” typically have a poor record of maturing. Secondly, half a life is a rather long time to grow up as a human being; sure, talk from myself regarding maturity isn’t the fairest thing in the world – I’m 27, back in school, and have a YouTube channel that largely involves me playing old video games while making childish jokes about them. Still, it’s hard to believe even I'm not capable of having things figured out by the time I turn 40.

But that’s typical Owens; to him, the T.O. Show will never end, even though it’s been off the air for several years and nobody’s cared enough to even watch the reruns.

Then again, as SBNation notes, he could turn out to be right…by 2112?

Gary Patterson Throws Shade at Baylor

There’s always a certain dirtiness to judging someone you’ve never met. This is especially true with sports figures, who you usually only see at their most competitive and resultantly worst moments.

That being said, TCU Head Football Coach Gary Patterson has always rubbed me the wrong way. Because of this, I wasn’t all that surprised that he decided to reference Baylor’s recent issues involving defensive end Sam Ukwuachu’s sexual assault conviction while defending his own DE Mike Tuaua; Tuaua, along with wide receiver Andre Petties-Wilson, was arrested Monday after allegedly assaulting a student and stealing a case of Keystone Light, glorified water in a can that somehow still manages to get people drunk.

 Now, I understand wanting to defend your players. To be fair, much of Patterson’s rant on Tuesday was aimed at the media and included a plea to cover the story equally as fiercely once the facts come out, implying (but certainly not confirming) he may know something we don’t regarding Tuaua's innocence in the case. Also, while I don’t particularly like Patterson in any way, shape or form, I get this feeling he’s the type of coach who would legitimately invest in the lives of his players, so it isn’t a surprise to see him this fired up.

That being said, using convicted rape to diminish alleged robbery is fallacious at best, if not a touch classless. I love a great spat between rivals; given that TCU and Baylor are currently the best football programs in the Big 12 and that they absolutely hate each other, it’s the most fun rivalry in the conference. But there are moral lines that should never be crossed, especially by those at the tops of their respective programs; it’s very arguable Patterson crossed that line.

Meanwhile, TCU is preparing for a matchup in Lubbock against Texas Tech. As a Red Raider myself, I’m hoping for but certainly not expecting an upset of the third-ranked team in the nation. Of course, if Patterson is wasting time thinking about the team “south of here,” maybe that’s a good sign for the team west of Fort Worth.

Speaking of TCU Weekend…

…Here’s a hype video:

I Love Simple Video Games

Hang with me for a second here.

As I stated earlier, the content on my YouTube channel pretty much entirely consists of "Let's Plays" – a fact which I hope to change within the coming weeks. Recently, I recorded a 54 episode (seriously!) series of me playing a mid-90's RPG, aptly titled Super Mario RPG.

Battles are fun in spite of being rather uncomplicated in comparison to other games of its genre; the plot isn't overly convoluted and doesn't take itself overly seriously; the music is great; the characterization of the main cast, both familiar and new, leave you rooting for every hero and secretly enjoying the presence of every villain; in short, I absolutely adore this game.

What can I say? I'm one of those nerds who sees video games as an art form as much as they are a way of passing the time. Old games like SMRPG might not have a grandiose setting or an "important" storyline that leaves you contemplating life.

But they are fun, and when done right, they can provide a meaningful experience that lingers long after "The End" paints itself on your television screen.

I was glad to be reminded of that.

NASCAR: Power Ranking the Chase Contenders

Are your feet cold yet, because these words can only mean one thing: Hell has frozen over and I’ve dusted the cobwebs (again) off the blog to bring you something hard hitting, thought provoking, and all-around entertaining.

Or I’m bringing you some more NASCAR commentary.

Hey, you’ve got to start with what you know, right?

This weekend marks the beginning of NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup. The Chase is a motorsports twist on the playoff systems found in stick-’n-ball sports involving eliminations and bonus points and automatic advancements and…well, it gets a bit convoluted the deeper you get into it.

Simply put, a championship eligible driver who finishes well and wins races over the next ten weeks will likely be crowned the 2015 Sprint Cup Champion.

(By the way, 16 drivers qualify for the Chase each year. Yes, that is way too many.)

So, without further ado, let’s meet the 16 participants in this year’s playoff, in descending order of how likely it is that they will win the championship according to myself.

16. Paul Menard

Despite only four top ten and two top five finishes so far in 2015, Menard still managed to score enough points to sneak his way into his first Chase – a fact which could lead into a whole discussion regarding the flaws in the current point system, but that’s for another day.

While Menard is capable of showing speed, he and his team aren’t capable of doing it often enough to advance past the first round. But at least he got some cool Chase gear out of the deal.

15. Clint Bowyer

As it turns out, 2015 is the swan song for Michael Waltrip Racing. So far, it’s been far from a storybook ending; Bowyer’s teammate, the No. 55 team, began the year with a revolving door of drivers before David Ragan was given the job, with which he showed plenty of speed each week before settling for some metaphorical form of spectacular failure, be it getting struck by lightning or shooting himself in the foot.

Meanwhile, Bowyer’s year has mostly been an exercise in anonymity with a few (11) top ten finishes sprinkled in to remind us that he still exists. Safe to say, he won’t win the championship this season, although he is a solid dark horse choice to advance to the second round; making it to the third is stretching it.

14. Jamie McMurray

Like Menard, McMurray is making his first postseason appearance. Unlike Menard, the Missouri native is a former Daytona 500 champion and was part of the winning race team at this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona. In other words, there’s a sneaky large amount of talent here.

The question will be if there’s enough car, and while Chip Ganassi Racing is far better than the near-dumpster fire they were a few years ago, they aren’t good enough to seriously compete with the better teams in the sport quite yet. Then again, McMurray may have another upset in him.

13. Jeff Gordon

It pains me to put him this low, but let’s face it: Gordon’s final season in NASCAR has been Clint Bowyer levels of “meh.” The team just doesn’t have the speed to compete for wins, having not been a real threat to claim victory since Talladega back in May.

That being said, this is Jeff Freaking Gordon we’re talking about here. If anyone’s capable of turning a switch and making one final push for one last championship, it’s this guy. But that’s going to take a whole lot of will, and I just don’t see the way it happens.

12. Ryan Newman

In the 2014 finale Newman was the runner-up to Kevin Harvick, finishing only one position away from winning his first championship despite not winning a single one of the 35 previous races. His uncanny ability to “decent-day” everybody to death means he could stick around for a while in the postseason, and maybe even qualify as one of the final four drivers when NASCAR makes it to Homestead.

Unless the racing gods decide it’s time to play a cruel joke, however, he’s not earning the championship without actually winning a race or two along the way. There’s no evidence from his 62 races driving for Richard Childress Racing that suggests that’s a serious possibility.

11. Martin Truex, Jr.

This team has shown plenty of times this season they have the speed needed to race at the front. The problem is, those times were at the beginning of the year. Truex has been cooler than cool (aka ice cold) over the past few months, with five finishes of 25^th or worse and only three top ten finishes in the past 11 races. That won’t be good enough now that the points have been reset.

Still, this has been a wonderful bounce-back year for Truex, and it’s hard to imagine this team taking a step backward next year. And who knows, maybe the No. 78 can rekindle the magic that led to 14 top tens (including a victory) in the first fifteen races of 2015. Just don’t be expecting it.

10. Kurt Busch

To say the elder Busch Brother is an enigma is a bit of an understatement. He has a ton of talent, but is also one hell of a head case. Because of this, it’s hard to predict exactly what will happen with the No. 41 team.

Could they hit a switch and seriously compete and even win the championship? Absolutely. Could they self-destruct, finish poorly several times out of the gate and ultimately fail to advance past the first round, leaving Busch a fuming mass of anger and sass? Absolutely.

9. Carl Edwards

Despite his recent victory at Darlington and a streak of nine straight finishes of 13^th or better, I still don’t think this team is ready to legitimately make a championship push. This is, admittedly, one of those times where analysis takes a back seat to a gut feeling, so I’m totally prepared to own it if I turn out to be utterly and completely wrong.

Edwards definitely has enough talent to get the job done and, after a slow start, his pairing with crew chief Darian Grubb has turned out brilliantly for both parties. Still, I’ve seen way too many hot streaks flame out between Richmond and the first Chase event, and I have a feeling this will be one of them.

8. Denny Hamlin

Can Denny Hamlin finally avenge his 2010 meltdown at Homestead? Will he be able to build off of his current streak of four finishes of sixth or better? How many more body parts will he injure in 2015? (I put the over/under at 1.5)

Seriously, I don’t believe anyone doubts his talent behind the wheel, he just has to get the job done. I honestly don’t have any better analysis than that.

7. Jimmie Johnson

If I’m completely honest with myself, seventh in my rankings might actually be too high for the six-time champ. Call it the Jimmie Johnson factor; they’ve done it so many times, it’s hard to believe the No. 48 team won’t flip the switch and go into “destroy ‘em all” mode once the Chase starts until every possibility of it happening has slipped away.

Johnson has won four times this season – although none in the last 13 races – which means he’ll start the Chase tied atop the leaderboard. Hi recent results have been all over the board, so it’s difficult to label him as either “hot” or “cold.” Essentially, he enters the postseason, like so many times before, as the ultimate question mark.

*Note, past this point are the six drivers I feel have a legitimate chance at winning the title*

6. Brad Keselowski

The 2012 champ comes into The Chase on a bit of hot streak, with nine top ten and three second place finishes in the past nine races. He also led the most laps in two of those events, one of which is one the Chase schedule (New Hampshire).

Yet, somehow, I couldn’t place him higher than sixth on my grid. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll ruffle some feathers or push too hard in a crucial situation. He did banzai Jeff Gordon at Texas; then again, he also pulled through with a clutch victory two races beforehand at Talladega. In all honesty, it’s easier to make a case for him to be ranked first than to be ranked sixth, but these aren’t your rankings, they’re mine. So tough.

5. Matt Kenseth

Seriously, where did Matt Kenseth come from? He went from having a relatively decent season to claiming victory in half of the final six events of the regular season – twice in dominating fashion, once because 100 cars in front of him (give or take a few) ran out of gas.

He’s arguably one of the most consistent drivers in motorsports and is racing for an organization (Joe Gibbs Racing) that has won eight of the last 11 Sprint Cup races. If he isn't one of the drivers with a chance to advance to the final four when the series gets to Phoenix, I’ll eat my hat...well, one of them anyway.

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

We’ve entered this weird dimension where the No. 88 might be Hendrick Motorsports’ best shot at a title. Okay, maybe it’s just the nature of the 2015 season. Though he doesn’t put himself in position to win a bunch, he’s fast enough and consistent enough at different types of race tracks to have a real shot at qualifying for the championship final.

The toughest stretch for Earnhardt is likely the first round, which places this prediction in a very precarious position; lucky for me, he has shown speed at Chicago in the past and, earlier in the year, finished a solid fifth and 14^th at Loudon and Dover respectively. Still, given this team’s tendency to underperform in crucial spots there is nothing safe about this pick, which makes picking Earnhardt to qualify for the finals almost as sketchy as…

3. Kyle Busch

…picking this guy. Despite missing the first 11 races of the season, the younger Busch Brother still managed to acquire a crucial victory (four of ‘em, in fact!) and the needed amount points to still qualify for the Chase. He’s a driver on a tear with a company on a tear.

Still though, given his past disappearing acts when a strong performance was absolutely necessary, it hard to trust him without actually seeing him pull through. I’m going to do it, though. He has all the talent in the world as a racer and JGR equipment might be better than ever at the moment; it’s simply up to Kyle Busch to make this thing happen.

2. Kevin Harvick

He has 18 top five and 22 top ten finishes in 26 races this season. That’s…absolutely insane. Nobody has been as consistently fast as Kevin Harvick has been since the green flag dropped in Daytona back in February. That’s one heck of a way to defend a title.

If he isn’t one of the four Chasers remaining at Homestead, I’ll be absolutely stunned. If he survives through the elimination rounds, no one can stop him from repeating. No one…except maybe…

1. Joey Logano

The driver who was formally known as Sliced Bread when he entered the sport and then became Burnt Toast while struggling at JGR before finally earning the acknowledgement as simply a really talented racer at Team Penske has already had one heck of a 2015. He won NASCAR’s most prestigious race, the season-opening Daytona 500; he won a road course race at Watkins Glen; additionally, he conquered the night race at Bristol for the second straight year.

He’s entering the Chase having finished better than in 11 of the past 13 races, numbers which are pretty ridiculous in their own right. In his finals appearance last year, he was within striking distance of Kevin Harvick before a disastrous pit stop late in the event took him out of contention. In 2015, he’ll win at Homestead and earn his first ever Sprint Cup championship.

At least that’s what I, some random dude on the internet, think.

NASCAR: My Night of Being Worthless and Watching Racing

I spent the entirety of Thursday night on the couch. 

While performing this solid impression of a sloth I ate an entire Little Caesar's pizza along with an entire bag of crazy bread; this combination has to rank somewhere between bacon grease and uranium as far as health foods go.

I was also on my phone the entire time, tweeting away as is the custom of most writers, journalists, experts, and wannabe's—I'll let you decide which category I'm in—during live events.

Still, despite the amount of time I spent typing my thoughts 140 characters at a time, I managed to miss a call; how it slipped past me flabbergastsing to say the least.

It was a local number that I don't have saved in my phone, so it could have been anyone from a professor telling me how gifted I am to some beautiful lady of the plains professing her undying love for me to my landlady telling me to get the hell out of here (the last one is obviously the most likely). It could have been a once in a lifetime opportunity or something ridiculously important.

And I missed it. While ruining my body. While committing the ultimate modern-day sin of not tearing myself away from my phone for two seconds.

I'm sorry I'm not sorry.

Imagine where your so-called "happy place" is. It could be in a stadium watching a season opening kickoff or first pitch; it could be in the middle of a shallow river with a fishing rod in hand; maybe it's at a dancehall and there's an open seat at the bar; it might simply be on a couch with you buddies and an Xbox.

Silly as it might sound to feel this passionate and (faux) poetic about watching cars drive in circles, that's mine. 

For me, there is nothing cooler than watching a pack of cars scream by at over 190 miles per hour. The drivers become one with these machines in order to analyze every measurable aspect of the cars performance. They then relay that information to their crew chiefs who have the job using driver feedback to essentially read the car's mind to determine what will make it faster. Then it's up to a pit crew to apply the crew chief's adjustments, acting as the most well-oiled machine of well-oiled machines and doing in 15 seconds what I can't do in 30 minutes.

Motorsport gets me fired up, and Thursday was the first opportunity to watch meaningful racing of the year.

And I wasn't going to miss it.

Annually held on the Thursday night before the Daytona 500—the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' first points race and the official kick-off to the season—are a pair of 60 lap dashes called the Budweiser Duels. The finishing order of these events, each containing half of the cars attempting to make the 500, are used to set the field for Sunday's race. Basically, the first race determines the inside of each row on the starting grid while the second race determines the outside.

While these races don't usually affect the bigger names in the sport, this night is always a fun, albeit intense showcase of some of the lower budget teams as they fight and claw their way into the biggest stock car race of the year.

It's a night where you get to watch guys like David Ragan, a guy who floundered at Roush Fenway Racing and has since moved to little Front Row Motorsports and become something of a plate-racing savant, wreck early in his race only to have his team repair his car enough that he could finish 14th, securing his spot in the Great American Race.

It's a night to watch guys like Casey Mears blow an engine early in the first race and then follow along as he and his team crunch numbers and wait out the remainder of the evening with the slightest of hope that they still might get to race on Sunday; they will, from 42nd position. 

That's not to say big names are irrelevant. In the first Duel, Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. put on a drafting clinic during their turns at the front of the pack; Earnhardt, who started the event last, won the race. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jimmie Johnson, did the same thing during the second Duel, leading 40 of the 64 laps run.

Of course, the story of the evening was the roller coaster night of Danica Patrick. After being spun out by Denny Hamlin in Wednesday's practice session, she was forced to a backup car tonight. Still, she managed to run in or around the top 10 for most of the night; that is, until she was spun out in the closing laps by, you guessed it, Hamlin.

Despite receiving a decent amount of damage in the incident and restarting 18th with only two laps to work with she was, with a push from teammate Kurt Busch, able to surge ahead to a 10th place finish. Afterwards, Patrick and Hamlin had an argument that, while not exactly the Cale Yarborough/Donnie Allison fight of 1979, was pretty entertaining to watch and listen to.

And with that last little bit of vocal fireworks, the night was over. After three hours of watching cars going in circles and living as slovenly and detached from the humanity as possible, another number gets exed off the calendar.

But it never felt like a waste. We all have to take time to enjoy the things we love, regardless of how mundane they may be, even if they cause you to tune out the world for an hour or two.

There are things in all of our lives that make us (sometimes irrationally) happy. One of mine is racing.

And it's back.

Posting for the sake of posting.

Just chilling at a lake by a fire. Nothing else to report. #DontBreakTheChain 

Golf: A Casual Golf Guy's Take On Tiger Woods

I am by no means a golf expert. 

My attention to golf doesn't go much further beyond the four majors and the occasional final round that's going down to the wire. My playing experience is all rolled up into a class I took a few years back; after a semester I still couldn't drive a ball off a tee to save my life.

I can't analyze swings; I can't understand, much less explain, the effects playing four rounds of 18 holes in a weekend can have on a person.

But I know a man breaking down when I see it. And on Thursday afternoon, Tiger Woods' (seemingly rapidly) aging body once again betrayed him.

To say Woods isn't what he once was is too obvious; nobody is at age 40 what they were at 25. That's just the nature of time.

The thing is, Woods doesn't seem to be what he was not even two years ago. During the 2013 campaign, he won five times—although he went o-fer in majors—on his way to being named PGA Tour Player of the Year. He seemed on track to return, if not back to prominence, then at least back to competitive relevance.

Now, Woods' career is heading down a path of uncertainty.

He appeared in only seven tournaments in 2014, battling multiple back injuries along the way. He missed the cut in two of those events and finished in the Top 25 only once—he tied for 25th at the Cadillac Championship.

This season isn't looking any more optimistic. Last weekend he shot a career worst 82 in the second round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, leading to him missing yet another cut. And of course, we now know what happened Thursday, as an ailing back forced him to withdraw from the Farmer's Insurance Open.

To be fair, a unique set of circumstances helped contribute to Woods' latest injury. Fog delayed tee times, which extended the duration between his warm-up and when he actually started his round, possibly causing his muscles to tighten up. Additionally, Woods was forced to wait again when he made the turn from the back nine to the front, which seemed to be the killing blow.

Still, that his body is so fickle further speaks to its possible frailty. Also, there have been far too many blips on the radar the past year-plus to not be proof of a trend: Woods' body just can't hold up these days.

Given all that Woods has been through the past few years—albeit with almost all of it being self-inflicted—I personally have been wanting him to make a comeback, to be relevant again. Remember, I'm a casual golf fan; the sport is just way more fun when he is among the contenders on the fourth day of a tournament.

I just don't see it happening with any regularity ever again.

Sure, I would never rule out Woods winning a tournament or two along the way; he might even pull out a miracle in a major. While he may be an aging golfer, he's still Tiger-stinking-Woods, his natural talent outclassing possibly anyone who's ever played the game.

But one single win will never mean he's back, unless we adjust our expectations and redefine what "back" means for Tiger Woods.

I don't think it means what most of us think it means—at least not anymore.