Several Things (in Sevens)

I was blog-hopping and was inspired by Jessica. Even though I wasn’t tagged, it looked like a fun thing to do. In all honesty, I think it’s because I miss my almost-200 Facebook notes and not being able to do notes anymore and this post reminded me of them so I got a little teary-eyed and felt obligated to do it. Oh, and I also made a few adjustments, of course, so it’s a little different than hers.

(7) Random Facts

1. I hate wearing fingernail polish. I am a nail-biter and a polish picker so it’s pointless because of both of those things. I also just don’t like the look of it. It’s weird because like something inside me cringes when I see girls with fake nails/annoying nail polish. I feel embarrassed for them. And I’m being a hypocrite because I’m wearing nail polish right now, but I already peeled a lot off and you can barely tell because it’s so light.
2. I think it’s funny when people talk in weird voices. For some reason, I find this really amusing and adopt a lot of weird voices when other people do them. It’s kind of embarrassing because I laugh at myself when I do weird voices and no one else does.
3. I get excited about stupid things and vice versa. Today I did a pretty awesome cartwheel/flip thing and none of my friends thought it was intense. I also get really excited when I beat my high scores in games. But if you tell me something really exciting in your life, I probably won’t care at all.
4. I talk a lot but I also observe a lot. With the amount of talking I do, you would think that I never think about anything besides what’s going to come out of my mouth. But I love watching people and looking at them and seeing what they wear and how they talk and walk. I also sketchily make up stories about them in my mind. People inspire me.
5. I wish I was an awesome photographer. But I suck at taking pictures. Period.
6. I don’t wear socks to bed. I hate that feeling of your feet being all suffocated at night. No matter what, I always kick my socks off at night. It feels 423949214529 times better. I actually can’t even explain how awesome it is.
7. I say things weirdly. There’s about five different words that I say “strangely” and my friends make fun of me ALL THE TIME. It’s gotten to the point where I just spell them out (almond, apricot, museum, breakfast) because it’s just really bad. Today I said apricot to someone random and even THEY made fun of me. I blame my parents.

(7) Things That Make Me Happy

1. Frozen raspberries
2. Air-conditioning
3. The perfect playlist
4. Sweet moments that you think about the rest of the day that were only important to you
5. Summer dresses
6. Working really hard and something really good coming out of it
7. Making someone’s day

(7) Favorite Songs At The Moment

1. Sand in Your Shoes This Providence
2. The Only Exception Paramore
3. Wounded Third Eye Blind
4. Point of Extinction Motion City Soundtrack
5. Zzyzx Rd. Stone Sour
6. The Boxer Simon and Garfunkel
7. It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing Shania Twain

If you read all of these narcissistic lists, I love you. :)

All That Hollywood

Sometimes, people just get too worked up about little things. Like getting bad grades (aka a B+) or freaking out if you get a speck of dirt on your shoe and killing whoever is around. But besides that, people get much too worked up about this whole Hollywood phenomenon. By that I mean OBSESSING over actors/actresses/movies/TV shows/music/media stuff. Of course everyone likes movies and music and thinks that actors and actresses are cute or hot or whatever. But there’s definitely a limit.

I never got the whole scream-about-cute-actors thing. I’ve never really had a “favorite” actor or actress. If I see someone in a movie, I’ll just be like, “Oh, they’re cute” or “Oh, they’re a good actor/actress.” But, ~hypothetically speaking~ if I were to see Twilight and I were to think that Edward Cullen was cute (this is VERY hypothetical) I wouldn’t be an obsessed fangirl and start drooling on the TV when Twilight commercials came on or take pictures of Edward and pictures of me and Photoshop them just so or be like EDWARD BITE ME or start ripping up pictures of Bella. That’s just me.

I also could never be a movie junkie. Like people that pull out random facts about obscure movies that no one cares about. Why isn’t it enough to see the latest movies and just be up on the latest pop culture so you don’t sound like a complete dork instead of remembering every nuance about every movie. It’s not like memorizing songs (which, yes, I do because I like music and I have a good memory so why not). A movie in and of itself has plot lines, actors, acting styles, subtle humor or surprising twists. It’s basically a book. It’s basically like reading a thousand books and keeping all the plot lines, characters, and details straight in your mind and being able to pull out any fact of any of them at the drop of the hat. HELLO TOO MUCH BRAIN POWER! OBSESSED! For example, I’ll say a line and some kid will be like, “Oh, like that GREAT 1980′s movie with George Clooney. SO GOOD. That one scene where he was like milking the cow and he squirted in his face but it was totally a set up by his ex that was in with his like mom OMG QUALITY.” Yeah, no one gets it.

And also music. I love music, but I’m not obsessed. I don’t go to concerts 24/7 and I’m not best friends with bands and I’m not a screaming fangirl who faints if the singer’s sweat drips on her in the middle of a concert. I respect people who are knowledgeable about music, like they know things about it and they’re talented in it. But fangirls are just annoying. It’s too much.

It’s like telling Hollywood: “Oh, you are wonderful for putting out crap and infiltrating our brains! I love you so much that I’m going become obsessed with every movie, music, actor, singer thing that comes out of your machine!” But I hate Hollywood, so that makes sense. I just think that all things Hollywood should be done in moderation.

Mac vs. PC or Why Macs Pwn

Pretty much ever since Macs have been created (yay Apple!), people have been arguing about whether Macs or PCs are better. (MACS ARE AMAZING! UMM ARE YOU HIGH? PCS FTW!) I’ve used a PC all my life because my family is a) technologically challenged and b) lazy so we were like LETS KEEP OUR 34280410912 YEAR OLD COMPUTER! But finally, my parents wanted to have a computer in the main part of the house, so my dad just got a laptop. A Macbook Pro, to be exact. And it’s probably the greatest thing since sliced bread. No joke.

• Better Looking - K, it’s shallow, but I want my laptop to look good. I don’t want to have this bulky piece of junk with wannabe personalized covers or whatever these Dell netbooks give you nowadays (DELL NETBOOKS LET YOU GET ANY COLOR YOU WANT ON THE TOP WOOHOO!) I want a sleek, smooth, lightweight laptop with a screen that’s pretty to look at, flat keys, a sweet touchpad mouse thing (I believe it is called “multitouch technology”–swipe, pinch, rotate, scroll, tap etc.), and all the gadgets built into the sleek sides.
• Better Apps - Safari is better than Internet Explorer. iPhoto is better than My Pictures. iTunes actually comes WITH the computer. Pages and Keynote is way better than Word and Powerpoint (yeah, I’m all unconventional not using Word, sue me). Mail is built right in the computer so its like “Hey, I wanna email a picture–Oh look! It’s all on the bottom bar so I don’t have to open 41041852 windows in My Computer or whatever and get all confused and copy and paste stuff that doesn’t even work!”
• No Viruses - I hate Norton Antivirus. I don’t know if it was just my computer or if all 80 year old PCs do this, but literally every time I’d log onto my desktop it’d be like NORTON ANTIVIRUS. I don’t even know what the hell it is. I think it was supposed to be some ‘keep viruses away!’ software but instead gave us more crap than ever. We got our computer cleaned and 2 weeks later it had pop-ups and viruses all over again. I’ve had the Mac now for over 6 months and haven’t had a single pop-up or virus. Yeah. Dwell on THAT.
• Cheaper – So think about it. You buy a PC for 700 dollars, let’s say. You buy a Mac of the same size for about twice that. OMG SOO EXPENSIVE NOW I’M BROKE! Two years later: Your PC crashes and you have to buy a whole new one because you’re a technologically retarded. 700 more bucks. Wait, what’s that? Your Mac is working like new? Four years later: You’re up to your third PC. $2100. Oh, sorry? Did I hear right? Your Mac is JUST NOW slightly slowing down, but still completely capable of performing? Yeah. So in the long run, you save way more money with Macs. 1 Mac=5 PCs*
• Easier to Follow - It’s so easy to troubleshoot on the Mac. If my Internet is screwed up, I just go to Network Diagnostics and I can get back my Wi-Fi like THAT. When my Internet didn’t work on my PC, I had to go to the ROUTER in my house and like press a bunch of buttons and scream at my dad that the Internet wasn’t working and I needed it RIGHTNOW and what the heck, PCs are SO ANNOYING. Plus, all of the system stuff is in ONE PLACE. There aren’t 50,000 places to add a program. It’s all compacted into one place so the room can be used for more helpful apps.

And not only does Mac/Apple/whatever make better computers, the phones are better (why do you think every company has their own version of the iPhone) and the iPods are pretty much the only worth it music device (mp3s? REALLY?) So yeah, what I’m saying is that Macs are amazing and you should probably chuck your PC right now and go buy one.

*untrue statistic

If I Hear These Songs Again, Radio Personalities Will Suffer

I got this blog idea from Darren Barefoot’s 55 More Blog Posts I Hope You Write (not about technology) because I was in the blogging mood with nothing to blog about and I didn’t want to post one of those posts. Plus, I figured that this is a good topic to blog on anyway.

I don’t know what occurs in the mind of radio personalities or whoever decides the music line-up for a certain period of time. I mean, do they think it’s a good idea to put on Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” for the 800th time? Or Justin Beiber’s “Baby”? I mean, I know that thousands of screaming girls are probably like AAAHH JUSTIN BEIBER FOR THE 3548202352TH TIME = LOVE! But when I’m flipping through the radio and I hear his voice bursting through, it bothers me. It bothers me that I can’t even flip through a radio station without hearing Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Ke$ha or a super trendy, bad hip-hop song with weird, vulgar lyrics.

First of all, I don’t listen to the radio much because 1) it’s basically an iPod except without the songs you actually want to listen to and 2) the commercials piss me off (no, I do not want to enter a contest to record a duet with Miley Cyrus that’s “going to be on her new album”). But if I’m having one of my pop moments (I have those on occasion) or I want to hit up a song that I don’t have on my iPod or I’m in the car with a friend and the radio’s on, I’d like to hear something A LITTLE more substantial than Tik Tok, where the lyrics are literally Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy Grab my glasses, I’m out the door, I’m gonna hit this city Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack ’Cause when I leave for the night, I ain’t coming back. YOU JUST PLAYED THESE LYRICS 82 TIMES IN ONE DAY! THANK YOU FOR ENLIGHTENING US!

It’s not even that bad when they overplay a crappy song. I mean, it can’t get much worse than that. But how about when they bring a good song to the dark side (meaning the landfill of overplayed, burnt out, hear-them-again-and-die songs)? This, to me, is the worst and is another reason I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t want to have one of my favorite songs ruined. Remember a few years ago when OneRepublic’s Apologize is ALL you’d hear on pop radio? Or what about KT Tunstall’s Suddenly I See, Love Song by Sara Bareilles, or any of Taylor Swift’s hit singles like Love Story and You Belong with Me? People liked these songs once upon a time (or at least I did). These are songs that to me, personally, when they first came out, struck me as good, great, or even my favorite songs. But as the radio chipped away at them little by little, they became less and less appealing. I think I got to the point where I’d hear It’s too laaate to ‘pologize! in my dreams. Okay, maybe not. But it was getting there.

Is it really that hard to put together a list of songs that are new and likable without overplaying every single one? Seriously, like 300 albums (or something) come out a day. You don’t need to play the Top 10 songs on repeat every day of the week. We get it. You wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy. We don’t need you to confirm this irrelevant fact 82 times.

Is it just me or do radio stations completely destroy perfectly good, innocent songs on a regular basis?

(Note: Yes, all of the numbers in this post were completely exaggerated.)

Why I Stay Off of Social Networking Sites

People are addicted to social networking sites. This is not an exaggeration. If you live anywhere in the world, there is 99% chance you’re involved in a social networking site (statistic made up off of the top of my head). There’s Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, AIM, Tumblr, Formspring etc, etc. Personally, I like to stay clear of them because although they help you communicate with lots of people, I think the cons are greater than the pros. (Note: I know that people — the two of you reading this, props to you — are going to get all huffy about my social networking bashing, so sorry, but this is just a matter of opinion).

Distractions, Distractions

This is your schedule one day after school: lacrosse from 3-5, pasta party 5-6, band 6-7:30, dinner until 8, homework till 9:30 and you still want to watch the game on TV, plus shower. So you hop on the computer at 8:15 so you can knock out your english, math, history, and language homework at the speed of light and watch the game. HEY FACEBOOK! HEY TWITTER! HEY FORMSPRING! Look, 15 notifications, 8 comments on my Twitter status, and 12 Formspring questions! Everyone knows that no one gets on Facebook, checks notifications, and logs out. Duh. Facebook is made for stalking (….I think…) so you have to look at your news feed, latest photos, latest Facebook fights, join a few groups. LOOK AT THAT IT’S 9:15! You just spent an hour mindlessly commenting, answering retarded questions, and looking at people’s latest dumb updates! GOOD USE OF TIME! Now you can’t watch the game and you don’t start showering till 11. Perfect.

Pointless News

X  and Y are fighting? Why does everyone hate X? Guess what Y and A did last weekend? Wait but A and B are going out?! WHO. CARES. As soon as you log into a social networking site, you learn tons of information that is COMPLETELY POINTLESS. I really care that X and Y, who I don’t know and have never talked to in my life, are in a big fight and no one knows why. Yes, now that I have this vital piece of information, I am going to spend the rest of the night secretly stalking and calling in my spies to dig up information on X and Y to check out the nuances of their complicated relationship gone awry. My life is now complete.

People (aka “The Sensitive Type”) Get Hurt

SOMEONE TOLD ME ON MY FORMSPRING THAT I’M FAKE! *BAWL*
K, one, why do you have a Formspring in the first place  if you can’t take these comments? People are going to write crap about you. Get over it, or don’t post it. Two, clearly the person who wrote this is too afraid to say this to your face so that should make you care even less. If I think someone is fake, I won’t be friends with them or I’ll be like, yo you’re fake. I won’t be like OMG I LOVE YOU wait just kidding she’s fake. So, yeah, don’t get upset over these comments if you choose to subject yourself to the anonymous bashers. But also, now that these “sensitive, touchy-feely types” got a crappy comment their day is ruined (HOW CAN I BE FAKE WTF!) and they’ll complain about to their posse (OMG SOMEONE CALLED ME FAKE ON FORMSPRING! You’re the realest person I know, don’t listen to those haters, I LOVE YOU!) Feel better now? I didn’t think so…

Addiction

There’s some weird magic thing about any social networking site you choose that makes you addicted in no time. It really is like a drug. I think it’s because you’ll never have seen, read, or talked about every single new piece of information on the site and people are constantly posting and updating and you can’t keep up with the updates so there’s always something new and exciting about someone. Being addicted to these sites (kind of like the distractions piece) takes away from your non-screen life when you could be doing more productive things (of course, if you have nothing better to do by all means, sit on your computer typing away your feelings on random people’s Formsprings). I feel like you’re almost free when you stop Facebooking, emailing, tweeting, IMing, even texting. It’s like not so claustrophobic or something. I don’t know maybe it’s just me and I’m weird but I kind of like not knowing every tidbit every one second about every person who I don’t really care about. It’s like following celebrities. It gets you ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE.

I know a lot of people LOVE social networking, and it’s definitely good for a bunch of things, but I think that staying off of these sites really has no negative effect and actually helps you. Call me crazy, but try it and maybe you’ll agree with me.