Final Thoughts on the 2010-2011 Jazz Season
What a roller-coaster ride. Though this certainly was not the Jazz's finest hour, it was still an enjoyable season with plenty about which to be happy. It really hit me how much the Jazz had changed when I was listening to the national anthem at the Jazz – Nuggets game. The only Jazzman from last year suited up was Paul Millsap. Literally everyone else was a brand new face. Who would have guessed? I remember last year looking at the Bulls and being slightly of the envious that their roster turns over a lot simply because of the fact they get to see a lot of different players whereas the Jazz hardly ever budged. After such a dramatic turn, I realize how much I appreciate the stability the Jazz had. That is not to say that I am lamenting the new players in Jazz uniforms, but I hope we start back on the path we were on before. Anyway, I have some disjointed notes on the season and how it went.
Mac OS X boots to “No bootable device — insert boot disk and press any key”
Update 10/21/2012: This problems seem to be still pretty common. This page gets several hundred page views a day. As such, some of the comments are extremely useful to look at, particularly one of the first ones from Steve. Best of luck! Ask questions in the comments and I'll try to be of help.
This is a pretty scary problem if you run into it. According to the guy at the Apple Store, it's a pretty rare one too. Being such a rare problem, it's not very well documented. It just showed up one time when I rebooted the computer. More or less, when your computer restarts, it's goes to white screen for a while and then it goes to a black screen with the white text "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" and hangs there. Restart the computer and it does the same thing. Needless to say, when you need to take an online quiz before midnight, you start freaking out.
Championship Rings in Salt Lake City
Upon further ponderings and evaluations of the Deron Williams trade, I have come up with this rational for why was, in fact, a necessary trade. Or, at least, as a fan proudly blinded by his team pride, a justification for my team as why the trade was necessary. Let's look at it this way: the core of the Jazz from earlier this season was not going to win a championship, now or later. We could not chalk it up to youth because other than Hayward and Evans, our team is pretty old, or at least in their prime. Essentially, as time progressed, we were not going to get any better. Even after making some moves, such as getting Bell back or acquiring Al Jefferson, our team stayed more or less the same in terms of competitiveness. It also was apparent that we were not one good player away from championship; we were at least two good players away from even contention.
I can only imagine that the management saw this too. We were far too mediocre. We were a team destined to be in the playoffs year in and year out, exiting the playoffs after the first round, second at best. We would get drafts and trades just enough to stay in the same spot because we would not get high draft picks and Utah never was a free agent destination. Simply put, Deron Williams is not good enough to win a championship with the (good) role players that surrounded him. More than that, we were not going to acquire the pieces necessary to win a championship in the foreseeable future. As such, the management decided to try to put us in a position to win a championship the only way we really can: the draft.
Looking for study music? Part 2
Considering of all the traffic that come to my blog, over two-thirds of it come from my study music post, I figured I might throw out a second one as I have some new ones, including a new one that came out last week. By way of introduction, I love to have music when I study, but I typically cannot handle my normal rotation of music. Lyrics and music that is too attention grabbing distracts me far too much and is actually detrimental whereas I feel when I have music conducive to studying, it not only renders my experience more enjoyable but enhances the quality of my session. As such, I have compiled quite the library of study music. People constantly ask me for it, yet I can hardly ever remember on the spot, so here is a compilation of it all. If you would like to check out part one, click here.
My ambivalence on the Deron Williams Trade
UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this, ESPN posted another story (ESPN.com) airing the same grievances I have.
I have both good and bad feelings about this trade. Let's start with the good. The Jazz were in a bad situation poised to get worse. We were going to be MeloDrama part II and it was not going to end up pretty. Deron has continually expressed his frustration with the coaching staff and front office. With no real prospects of improving the team on the horizon, it was all but sure that Deron was aiming to jump ship. When I saw Deron picked to play in the All-Star Game, I cringed a bit because it was just to remind him that Utah only has one star and is not going to attract any more. Just like Deron said, Utah just is not a destination where stars want to play. He tried to bring in some big names himself (I ask myself who, but I believe him) but was unsuccessful. The point is this: Utah was stuck in mediocrity. We did not have the supporting cast around Deron to win it all and yet we were not bad enough to get any of the impact players from the draft. We were stuck in rut where we were a perpetual low-seeded playoff team.
Lakers fans are just as bad as Jazz fans.
People give Utah Jazz fans a lot of crap for being blinded by short-term success. A lot. That isn't the topic of this post, but I'll acknowledge is not without merit. Actually, it has a lot of merit. I admit I was looking forward to an 82-0 season when we went undefeated in the preseason (that's a joke, by the way.)
This blog post, however, is about the Los Angeles Lakers and their fans. Where we Jazz may be blinded by short-term success, fans of the Lakers find themselves oft blinded by long-term success. I find it difficult to have sort of conversation with a Lakers fan before the subject quickly turns to how many rings Kobe has or that Jerry Sloan can't be that great of coach because he doesn't have any rings. I've had a particular Laker fan honestly try to make the case that Derek Fisher must be a better point guard than John Stockton because John never got any rings. Before going further, I acknowledge that I'm biased on the subject and am probably of incapable of segregating my objective and subjective feeling on the subject, but that is flat-out the most ridiculous sports argument I've had on a sporting subject. I won't expound the matter, but for me it just shows the height of the madness of the argument.
I caved: I’m on Twitter
Follow me if you'd like. It will mostly consist of the random things that I can't flush out enough to make a full blog post.
My Thoughts on the Conference Realignments
Utah jumped ship. Of course an avid BYU is going to point the finger first at the rival, but really the dream began to unravel when Utah bolted the Mountain West at the first possible opportunity. I think they'll find in retrospect that they've made a poor choice. The Mountain West was on the fast track to be the next automatically qualifying conference with BYU, TCU, and Utah all putting up strong numbers to make a case for AQ status. People's complaint is that we were too top-heavy. After the big three, there wasn't much to write home about. Let's be honest: it's a fairly valid complaint. SDSU, Wyoming, UNM, and UNLV haven't ever really had more than below average teams. CSU and Air Force have their flashes of brilliance but soon fade back into their relative obscurity. The MWC perhaps was doomed to marginalized, to forever be a footnote in the BCS.
Really? You ruined my favorite song.
Scouring the net for new music, I stumbled into this trainwreck. I saw some punk band had done a cover of The Postal Service which instantly piqued my interest. I have a special spot for covers especially when they're cross genre. Anyway, give it a listen. I warn you may not be hardcore enough.
Embedding is disabled, so follow the link.
Confide - Such Great Heights (The Postal Service Cover)
Turn up the sound for extra effect.
Inception Music Madness
This is just another reason why I think Inception is a fantastic movie. I'm going to write about it later this week, but here's a little tidbit for those that have already seen it. There aren't any spoiler for those who haven't seen it, but you won't really get it until you see the movie.
I love the little subtleties that Christopher Nolan throws in his movies.
This part is a spoiler though. Stop reading if you haven't seen it.
The music thing totally makes sense. In the movie, time slows down when they're in the dream, so when they're listening to that music through the headphones, it would be slowed down like that.