Take this Compliment!

I try to be nice. Really. I make an effort. So when I see someone wearing new clothes or an article of clothing that is especially flattering I make an effort to compliment it.

When I extend these compliments to others (usually females) I seldom receive a "thank you" in return. Rather, this individual will respond by telling me which store the clothing was purchased at. My compliments usually go something like this:

Me: That's a nice sweater!
Basic female: Forever 21!

Like I care. I'm not going to run out an imitate your outfit, and I don't care where you bought it. In fact, I am shocked by the number of people who respond by confessing the bargain price at which the clothing was purchased. No one wants to know how frugal you are.

So a word of advice to whomever reads this: learn to take a compliment. Respond appropriately.

Summer is the Best

Hello again, and PRAISE THE LORD! I am on summer break. For children and young adults in America, we spend nine months of the year waiting for summer. Now that it's here, I think it's time for me to embrace it and enjoy it.


I say this every year. I tell myself that I am going to have a phenomenal summer and accomplish a lot, yet it never seems to happen. This year I am going limit my goals, but really seek to hit these goals.

First and foremost, I am going to relax. This simple objective is enough to make my summer amazing. People complain about being tired for the majority of the year, so by the time summer finally rolls around we have an excuse to relax. 

Ultimately, the summer doesn't change anything other than the weather. We choose to change our mindsets, but since summer is here I am going to utilize this excuse to change my mindset.

Meaningless Holidays

Happy President's Day all! I'm sure you're like me and did nothing to acknowledge our founding fathers.


President's is among the holidays that most people get off of work, but no one really celebrates. To be honest, those are the best holidays! I love not having to do anything. It give us time to relax, get caught up with our lives, or plan something to do.

Holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving get all the glory because they're based around celebration and tradition.The truth is that everyone needs a little relaxation, and we can thank President's Day for giving it to us!

Awkward Time Spent Alone

I am currently sitting in the car waiting for my friends to arrive. To my surprise, they will be a half hour later than I had anticipated.

As I wait, I am thinking of the best things to do as I spend these 30 minutes in my lonesome. Here's what I enjoy doing:

1. Play with my phone. That's what I'm doing right now so clearly I have some interest in it. But this gives me an opportunity to get caught up with all of my apps and to look at all those old photos I have stored on my phone.

2. Listen to the radio. I can do this while. I drive, but I never take the time to browse stations. Now I have opportunity.

3. Examine my surrounding. I've been in this parking love thousands of times before, but I've never looked around. Today I will.

4. People watch. The best of all. I wan to see the stupid things people do and how silly they look. Of course, once I get out of the car someone will probably judge me in the same way I'm judging others.

Snow Sucks

I sit here, in the middle of Nor'easter Nemo, watching the show come down. Most of New England got what they wanted, a snow day. As nice as it is it have a day off, it doesn't change the fact that snow sucks. Here's why:

1. It's cold. I know this is obvious, but it is.
2. You have to shovel it.
3. My hate for melting snow is stronger than my love for a snow-covered scene. I like the way freshly fallen snow looks, but it's not worth the disaster that we will be viewing for the next two months.
4. It makes driving harder. Streets will be covered in sand, and that will reflect on your car.
5. It cancels school...sometimes. When it doesn't, it makes like harder.
6. It's never as nice as the movies. If you try to make a snowman, the snowballs are never perfect. Your snowangel always gets a hand print in it.
7. You have to dress up to go in it. It's easier to take clothes off than to put them on.
 

Keep Calm

Anyone else getting sick of the "Keep Calm and..." trend? I see it everywhere.

The trend originated when an old piece of British propaganda from World War II resurface and became popular. It simply read "Keep Calm and Carry On." Now, people enjoy replacing the "Carry On" with a variety of annoying nonsense phrases.

It's no longer funny. In fact, it was never funny. I am not going to "Keep Calm and Tim Tebow," nor am I going to waste my money on anything that starts off by telling me to "Keep Calm"

5 Reasons Beyonce Was the Shit

 

Superbowl 2013 has come and gone, and The Ravens won. But we all know who the MVP is...BEYONCE. Here's why:

1. She had too many hits to perform. Her performance was like Beyonce Roulette. You didn't know if your favorite song was going to be played or not, but you knew her performance would be good anyway.

2. She brought out Destiny's Child. We all wanted to see this reunion, even if we forgot the names of the other two members.

3. She dismissed Destiny's Child. You would think that having Destiny's Child on stage would be the big finale, but you'd be wrong. Rather than keep Kelly and Michelle on stage until the end, she dismissed them so she could close out the show all by herself.

4. She kept family first. Last year Madonna needed big names like Cee Lo and Nicki Minaj. Beyonce just had her old bandmates and her sister come out...and it was AWESOME.

5. She sure the Superdome down. Even the lights needed a break after her performance.

Game On

 

The Wii U was release just in time for Christmas. It seemed like a likely candidate to become a hot ticket item for the 2012 holiday season, but Nintendo was met with disappointing sales. When the original Wii was released for the 2006 holiday season, it was very difficult to find. Then in 2007 the console shortage continued. The Wii was a huge success, but it wasn't able to produce longterm interest in the Nintendo brand name. This year I was able to locate the Wii U on store shelves in the weeks leading up to Christmas, a surefire sign that the Wii U had underwhelming sales.

Now Sony and Microsoft are getting ready to release new systems, I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to offer. I'm just a casual gamer. I can be convinced to buy a new gaming system, but I'm not going to be standing outside a store to get it in its first hours of release. I like to wait for the reviews of both the system and its games. 

What I'd like to emphasis is that I am interested in the quality of the games, and that is what Nintendo is lacking. With the Wii, I feel like they focused way too much of motion control and not enough on the quality of the games. The idea of motion control seemed cool, but people lost interest over time. When Xbox released the Kinect, people became more interested in that, which is just an add on. Motion control is not required to use the Xbox 360, but you can have motion controlled games if you're willing to upgrade to the Kinect.

For the next generation of gaming, I want to see a stronger focus on the games. The Wii U does not yet have a huge title, and I think that is holding back the sales. Now that information about the Playstation 4 is trickling in, it seems that the focus on games is uncertain. The PS4 may not have backwards compatibility with games from previous generations, which would hurt sales. The PS2 was a very successful system and gamers do not want to retire all of their old games.

It also seems like gaming systems are going to focus on computer content. The ability to connect with other gamers and stream online content is going to be on all the systems. While I do like this, every electronic device does things like this. Even my phone gets me online, so this is not a stand out reason to buy a gaming console.

I'm sure I'll buy at least one of the next generation gaming consoles, but I want to see quality games. It's not a race to release the console fastest (if it was, Nintendo would have won), it's more of a race to be the first to produce quality content.

Five Things That Are Really Annoying

Everyone has their pet peeves. I thought I'd share some of mine with you. Enjoy!

1. People that constantly clearing their throats or coughing. I get it, you feel something in your throat. After ten minutes of coughing or clearing, guess what, it's not going to work! Deal with whatever is bothering you or excuse yourself to find an alternate method of tending to your need.

2. When people ruin my story. Sometimes I'll be telling a friend a story while another friend (that already knows/experienced the story) is also present. I explain the background information and build up to the good part, and then that other friend butts in and tells the good part of my story. It drives me fucking nuts.

3. People that test my patience. Sometimes I just want to get shit done, while others want to take their sweet time. When others are waiting on you, hurry up! You're causing a delay and no one want to deal with it.

4. When people are only interested in something because I'm using it. Last year, I got an iPad. It would be sitting around, doing nothing, and no one paid attention to it. The second I wanted to use it, my friends would all ask for a turn. Really? Did you not care about it three minutes ago when I wasn't using it.

5. When people tell me to "calm down." It never works. I just get madder. When you tell someone to calm down, you're acknowledging that someone is frustrated but are unwilling to let that person express frustration.

The Perks of Being Unfiltered

 

 As we grow older and become more educated, I feel that people start to lose much of their childhood innocence. Because individuals become increasingly educated, the are expected to develop manner. Despite the fact that few schools truly teach children what manners entail, it is an expectation that we develop manners by the time that we are adults.

As children we say whatever the fuck we want. It's likely that parents will correct children when they say something deemed inappropriate and eventually children learn to bite their tongues when they want to say an inappropriate comment. 

Now that I am technically an adult, I try to repress my inappropriate comments. Occasionally I will blurt out something that other are surprised by. Then people consider me rude, or express shock that I would "say something like that." However, it is less common for people to disagree with me. I would much rather have someone disagree with what I say than only receive reactions of shock. 

There are also occasions when I will encounter someone that is unfiltered. Often, I find myself angry with this person for saying rude things. However, there's something genuine about someone that doesn't give a fuck. After a while I realize that this person is the first to say with many others are thinking. You need people like that. They allow you to grow through criticism and this makes these people less forgettable. Perhaps that what I should aspire to be. Unfiltered and unforgettable.

...this is YOUR song?

If you turn on any top 40's radio station now, you're bound to hear a rap song. While rap is nothing new, and neither is featuring a second artist on a track, songs have taken collaborations to a new level. There are now songs featuring so many people that it's hard to know who's the actual artist behind the song.

Kanye West is a huge culprit of this. His songs Monster (featuring Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, and Jay-Z) and Mercy (feating Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz).

However, the song that takes the cake is Celebration by The Game. The songs features Chris Brown, Tyga, Wiz Khalifa, and Lil Wayne. In fact, Chris Brown sings both the chorus and has his own verse, meaning his vocals appear in the song more than The Game's does. I know Game is trying to make a comeback, but it appears that he is trying to regain popularity by featuring popular artists in his song.

On the local hip hop station (JAM'N 94.5 in Boston) they sometimes play the song Get Low by Waka Flocka Flame. The song features Nicki Minaj, Tyga, and Flo Rida and Flocka only has one verse on the song. When JAM'N plays the song Waka Flocka's verse is removed, even though he receives credit for the song.

I've never been one to complain about trends in music, but I do think that featuring artists in a song is just an attempt to make a song popular without putting much quality into it.

Am I Offensive?

Swearing, I feel like everyone does it. I'm certainly guilty of it, and I have been for the past ten years. My friends swear, my parents swear, I even swear in front of my parents and they don't care.

So who cares about swear so much? If you watch TV or listen to the radio, all the swears are censored out. Everyone knows what words replace the beeps, yet the radio continues to bleep these words out.

In fact, the FCC fines radios and TV stations hundreds of thousands of dollars if a swear slips through the cracks.

So are we trying to protect children for swears? If that's the case we shouldn't let them out of the house. Or are the people out there that are really so offended by swears that they refuse need to rally against programming that uses offensive language.

Once again, the prudes are able to take away everyone else's fun.

Your Baby Is Ugly

It takes about nine months to bake a baby, so once it pops out the mother expects compliments. People can deny this all that they want, but it's true.

Sometimes, babies just aren't cute. He or she turns out to be a collection of the worst genes that the parents have to offer. In the eyes of the parents, this baby is probably an adorable little angel. In everyone else's opinion, the baby is just an eye sore.

Nobody wants to be the person to break this news to the parents, so they continue with their lives as if the baby is the adorable angel that the parents see. I guess this is one of the lies that people tell each other daily. If given the chance to talk anonymously, people would let the parents know the truth about the baby...it's ugly.

This post was inspired by Teen Mom. Thank you MTV for allowing me to anonymously insult the appearances of small infants.

I'm Old

Recently, I've started to realize that I am getting old.

I mostly blame Adele for this. At the age of 21, she wrote an album that ended up going ten times platinum in the United States alone. When I was 21, I wasn't writing anything longer than 140 characters.

Despite the fact that Adele is only a year older than me, it is people like her the make me feel unaccomplished for my age.

Last night I went to bars with a few of my friends, and once the clock hit 1 AM I got worried. Not because someone was missing, but because I was worried about messing up my sleep cycle. I didn't go to bed until 2:30, and this meant that I would have to sleep in much later than normal to get my 8-hours.

Is this normal? I really don't feel that other recent college grads are concerned about their sleep cycles on Saturday nights. But this seems to be happening to a lot of my friends. Slowly, they are finding things that are making them adults. As we realize these small things that make us adults, we slowly being to realize something else. Being an adult is lame.

Why I'm Blogging

It's always the same. I tell myself I'm going to start blogging, and then I never stick with it. I've had a few blogs throughout my life, but most of them have failed. So why I am starting this? Well, I want a place where I can store my thoughts.

Sometimes I have ideas that I quickly forget. I wish I could revisit them, but they've faded into nothingness. This blog will provide me with a place to store these thoughts. If I am able to maintain this blog...GREAT. If not, then I guess the blog with fade to nothingness.

Whatever happens, at least I can say I tried.