Choice Of Music These Days

Oh my goodness gracious. This blog is not dead! At least for now. Honestly, I have no idea if posting on this blog is going to become a regular thing. I've got two other blogs which are more important to me. And I only decided to temporarily resurrect this one because I was bored and I finally came up with something to write about.

If you look a couple posts down the page, you'll notice my post "Choice Of Movies These Days." Well, unfortunately, it's not the only form of entertainment in which people seem to have lost their minds. Music is another category as well. 

In today's musical world, there are three different types of music fans in general that are easily findable. There's the country fans. There's the hip-hop fans. There's the pop fans (I'll elaborate on that genre later). Sometimes hip-hop and pop cross together for fans. 

Now, this isn't a post to diss certain music genres. People in general are going to have their opinions on what genre of music they like (sadly). What I want to comment on here is what happens to be in the content of said music that always seems to hit the charts. 

When it comes to pop... well, if you think close-minded about it, it might just include artists like One Direction, Carly Rae Jepsen, or Rebecca Black. If you include the electronica artists and all that good stuff, that might include Lady Gaga, Owl City, Bruno Mars, and I guess Taylor Swift now since she branched out recently. 

But the fact is, the content of most of these lyrics is flat-out filled with nothing but mindless partying, and more often than not the negatives that come with it (sexual & drug activity). Now of course there are some exceptions (Owl City's Christian, so he wouldn't write about stuff like that, for example). But when you generalize, the lyrics of these bands/singers are just pathetic. There's no feeling to them. They're just... what are they even singing about? 

But the hip-hop lyrics usually are even worse. And although admittedly I'm mostly exaggerating here, most of what you hear on a hip-hop/rap disc are bleeps. Like, seriously though. It's as if cussing is the only thing they can think of to say. That's just flat out uncreative. And let's go back to the whole partying thing gone amok. Sometimes it's even worse here. 

And sadly, that right there is the type of stuff that hits the Hot 100. 

In comparison, let us go to some other genres that although occasionally they get some hits, it's not like it used to be... or it never was. Alternative. Rock. Hard rock. Screamo. Metalcore. And it's not just about having some grating guitars that grant the different lyrics, even in the rock genre. This can extend to bands that don't do such things, like Coldplay or U2. But the lyrics within them are hardly ever filled with that type of partying crap. And usually, they don't cuss too much (if at all). One or two cuss words is nowhere near the same level as any hip-hop disc, and in those cases, they're not uncreative... they're simply trying to get their point across, and from their point of view, that's the best way to do it. I don't necessarily agree with that notion, but it doesn't bug me nearly as much as the bozos whose main vocabulary is made up of four-letter words. 

Now this does *not* mean that these genres are perfect. Screamo and metalcore in particular are quite mixed bags--several of the bands in those genres do indulge in the overloading of cussing, or sexual/drug content. But for the most part, these bands aren't just blathering about nothing. They're talking about the hardships they have faced in their life, and (hopefully) they're trying to get past them. And even if they're not, it's still got much more substance than Carly Rae Jepsen or One Direction ever will. Because they're being *real.* 

Furthermore, let it be known that this is *not* a post to endorse CCM (contemporary Christian music) either. Quite frankly, I don't like that stuff at all. On rare occasion, something decent in that genre will pop up, but the problem with *that* genre is that the people writing those lyrics, more often than not, act as if when you're Christian and following God everything's perfect. But this is not the case. The world's a rough and dark place. I think that the songs should be endorsed are the ones that acknowledge this. What makes them even better is the desire to fight past the struggle, or already seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone listen to nothing but dark depressing music with absolutely no sense of hope at all. If that were the case, the suicide rate would go up. 

But something that should also be known is that I'm not dissing pop and hip-hop as genres. Sometimes, some pretty good stuff in that genre comes up. I will listen to most musical genres. And again, this is not a post to diss certain musical genres. This post is more focusing on the lyrics that we listen to. And this is how I feel about this situation. Sure, as a whole, the lyrics that I'm endorsing might be found more often in the music genres that might be just too heavy for some people. Well, allow me to introduce you to Coldplay, Anberlin, and U2. These are three alternative rock bands that have very good lyrics and as a whole I don't think they could possibly be too musically heavy for anyone. That would be a good place to start. And over time, you might just find other bands on your own that I didn't mention that would fit your musical criteria. 

Postscript: On a few occasions, I don't mind songs that are about partying... if it's handled in a responsible matter. Without the negatives that too often come with it. I couldn't listen to Family Force 5 and like them if that were not the case. Just to clear that up. 

Update

Well, this blog appears to be dead in the water.

I hope to resume this place eventually, but it won't be until at least January. My original plans for this blog have been partially scrapped. Right now, when/if I resume this place, I intend to just write about what's on my mind. Maybe that plan will work out better, in terms of actually delivering some posts. We'll see.

Choice Of Movies These Days

Alright, here comes one of those posts that is liable to leave people stunned at my difference of opinion--and perhaps my boldness as well.

But let me lay out the idea right here for you: In general, peoples' choices of movies to watch these days are just terrible.

When I've heard about the movies that people want to see over the weekend this year, only once or twice have I really agreed with them, and that was on the Hunger Games and the Amazing Spider-Man. (The former I initially wasn't going to see because I was getting disgusted over the hype.) Other than that, here's what people have talked about seeing: Prometheus. The Dictator. Magic Mike. Ted. The Campaign. And even The Expendables 2.

Notice all how of all those movies have one thing in common: they're rated R.

Now, this is not a post to rant against R-rated movies in general. This is more of me noticing that the movie has the R rating on it, and suddenly people want to see it. And what is in those movies? Movies of which are supposedly comedies, and yet from the sound of what type of humor is in there, I would have the TV turned off five minutes in. The only one on that list that isn't a comedy is Prometheus, the prequel to Alien, a 1979 film which spawned of the scariest movie franchises ever. Prometheus doesn't appear to be any exception.

But that's another thing about the choice of movies these days: either they're so-called comedies that is really just filled with loads of foul language and inappropriate humor/content, or they're slasher R-rated films where the amount of blood spilled could fill more than five gallons of milk.

Honestly? Is this really what people want to watch? Really?

Now, it all sounds like shock value. And for some reason people get a laugh out of that. I simply do not understand these things. And back to Prometheus for a moment: a couple people I know said they were more interested in that than the Dark Knight Rises. I just about had a conniption. How can a mere mortal like Prometheus be better than the Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman? It's impossible. Literally.

I have seen four movies in theaters this year: The Hunger Games, the Avengers, the Amazing Spider-Man, and the Dark Knight Rises. All four of these felt more like the type of movies that people should be watching more often. And sadly, although they may make so much more money than those comedies do, they're still not just talked about as much--when really, in my estimate, we should be getting those type of movies every weekend during the summer instead of other junk.

And as much as I love movies like the new Batman trilogy or the Avengers, a lot of my favorite movies just happen to be... animated ones. Particularly from Pixar or Dreamworks Animation. Apart from the Batman trilogy, some of these movies convey more emotion than all the movies I've mentioned. They've got plots that are about as good as anything you can find in the live-action world. And although you won't find any awesome special effects or explosions here (except in The Incredibles), you can still find some heart-racing action in there. And especially in Pixar films, you won't find any inappropriate humor. You'll find some actual humor. Some good, clean humor.

I find myself asking that question fairly often: What happened to good, clean humor? However, when I watch those type of animated movies, it shows me that there is still hope for the human race.

I'm not suggesting that you dive your nose deep into animation and watch nothing else. There are great live-action movies to be watched out there as well. But if you're going to shun animation, at least try hacking off the R-rated movies a little bit. There's so much more out there.


A postscript: Here's a shortlist of animated movies that I love: WALL-E, The Incredibles, Cars (and the sequel), How to Train Your Dragon, Bolt, Kung Fu Panda (and the sequel), Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (don't be fooled by the title or the fact that it's based on a children's picture book), and the Toy Story trilogy. That's just the basics. Pretty much anything else by Pixar is great too, and I haven't even gotten into the rest of DreamWork's library. Oh, and be sure to catch Wreck-It Ralph in theaters November 2nd--that one looks to be a classic.

Social Networks: Problems and Obsessions

These days, the world pretty much operates on social networks. Especially teenagers. Teenagers can't seem to live without social networks. Facebook is the prime one. But it's not the only one. There are some people who don't like Facebook as much (or not anymore, because of Timeline), and so they use others instead. Twitter and Tumblr are the two other biggies right now. MySpace used to be a big one, but these days it's pretty dead there.

Now, I'm not saying the idea of social networks are a bad thing. Being an avid Facebook user myself, there are certainly many advantages to it. Being able to stay in touch with friends is certainly a fantastic thing. But what happens is that the type of powers you now have are abused.

Here's the type of things that happen: the posting of simply ridiculous and pointless things. Twitter is a nasty target of this; but really, Twitter is kinda pointless if you think about it. All it really is texting, only  you're sending the text worldwide. Tumblr? That's just a ripoff of Blogger that caught the attention of all the teenagers looking for a place to vent their junk. Oh yeah, and I guess we musn't forget Google+, although I suppose if you think about it, it hasn't really gotten quite the popularity Google hoped for.

Let's start with Facebook. Now, this one seems about as awesome as it can be: a place where pretty much all your friends are, so that you can keep up with what they're doing and chat with them anytime when they're online! Seems like a dream come true. And really, it is. But what it boils down to, though, is that if you don't have your security settings set to the max, everyone else can see what you're doing as well. And there's always a chance that if you accidentally friend someone you don't know... well... yeah.

One thing that's rather ridiculous about Facebook is that you get Friend Requests from people you're not really actually friends with in real life, or get requests from people whose name you might perhaps know, but you don't really actually know them in real life. Why? Just so they can add an extra Friend to their roster. It's like they're just adding you for the sake of adding you. This can be traced to the rather wacko ways in which girls fight--which includes comparing the amount of Friends you have. "Oh yeah I've got 1500 friends..." Really? You actually *know* that many people in real life? Really? And *all* of them are really actually your friends?

And how about those posters that go "Repost if you believe in God," "Repost if you want to help this poor person," "Repost if you're against bullying," and ending with "I bet 99% of you won't." There's a reason for that. Although there is a little bit of point to the anti-bullying ones and what not, the "Repost if you love God" ones are just ridiculous. The general idea is if you don't repost that picture, you're gonna go to hell. But really? Would God condemn us just because we didn't share a stupid picture? Really?

And what's the deal with Twitter? Well, basically, like I said earlier, it's just worldwide texting. When you tweet things like "Sooooo tired" and what not... well, here's the truth: The world doesn't care! Only the people that are Following you are gonna care. And really, this can actually be applied to Facebook as well.

And here's a couple things that really just pollute all social networks. For example, girls these days are totally into photography. That's all good and fine and well, but it's when they start taking pictures of food or are literally uploading pictures of random things every 10 seconds that it's going overboard.

And also, there's the fact that people are so obsessed with their social networks that they can't step away from it for 10 seconds! We've got teenagers literally trying to pull out their phones in the middle of school just so they can look at their News Feed or their Twitter Feed, or whatever they use. Honestly? That's about as bad as cell phone/texting addiction. I can live perfectly fine without either. I love Facebook, but I'm not addicted so badly to it that I'm checking my News Feed every 10 seconds, or posting a new status update every 5 minutes, or worse still--doing stuff for the sole purpose of being able to post a status about it.

But sadly, this is the truth about social networks: when something like that is super-popular, and/or when people have too much time on their hands, they start abusing the newfound powers they have.

What to Expect (Now That I'm Back)

My little seizure of activity might've made some brief visitors think "Oh-oh, there's a blog that didn't last very long." Well guess what? They were wrong.

The post following the introduction was more or less to give you an idea of how things are gonna be on this be on this blog. I'm not going to be discussing things that may have that sensitive of a nature too often, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

Overall, I'll be discussing things from the entertainment world; whether it be music, movies, books, video games, the Internet, or whatever comes to mind of that nature. I might throw in a more serious topic once in a blue moon, but you probably get the idea.

Course, there'll eventually come the day in which I'll run out of topics. But hopefully that will not be for a long time. Expect a new post later this week.

The Difference Between Homeschool and Public School

The rivalry between homeschool and public school can sometimes be rather nasty. Almost like the Steelers-Ravens rivalry--without physical violence.

So the question is: Which one is the correct way to do school?

Here's the answer: Neither.

It may shock you, but I have experience in both places, so I do know what I'm talking about. So let's go through the advantages and disadvantages of the two.

For a start, you can get more sleep when you're homeschooled. I'll go further on that in another post, but face it, *you need your sleep.* Especially when you're in high school. Even if you're not doing any late-night-partying nightly and what not--even if you have no nocturnal activities--it's still hard to get a good night's sleep when you're in public school. So if you're in public school, I recommend canceling all the lasting-til-midnight parties (except for the Friday and Saturday ones, of course) and getting some extra sleep. You may thank me later when you're able to focus more during class and/or sports practice and your grades and performance go higher.

With homeschooling, your schedule is extremely flexible. You can pretty much drop the homeschooling for a few days anytime if you need to go out of town for a funeral or a family visit or whatever, and *still* finish everything in time. What it means is you still have school in summer, but basically all the time you get off from school during the year due to cross-country outings and what not, that will fill in for summer. 

In my experience, with homeschooling... yes, it's true. People in homeschooling are generally brought up far better than in public school. But that doesn't mean that every public school student will turn out to be all messed up. It may depend on what school you go to. Some schools have more nastiness than others, and all of them have their problems. But there will usually be some kid in there who has been brought up well. So this argument goes both ways. 

What I've just said about homeschooling may make it seem pretty sweet, but there are a couple things as well about public school worth bringing up. No. 1: sports. That is the one big sour spot in homeschooling that led me to want to leave it behind, because unfortunately the words "sports team" are not in homeschooling's vocabulary. In my area, all they had was soccer (I think), and my inability to play soccer plus them only having that led to a pure hatred for soccer. 

Public school has that. They have sports teams. That is the standout of all standouts about public school. 

Now that's not the only thing. Public school does have a very stable schedule, which is an advantage in its own right. Although it does mean you have to deal with missing school if you go out of town for any reason, it also means there is almost never any uncertainty. The time is set; the time is final. I'm beginning to find that I work well around a stable schedule.

The other advantage to it (in the long run) is that if you at least go through high school in public school, you're in for much less of a culture shock when you go to college if you would if you were homeschooled all the way through senior year. Unless your homeschool circle included a lot of messed up people, that is. 

The fact is, there is no right or wrong way to do it. You just gotta do what seems to be best at this point, and what's best for the kid. I know that I wouldn't have lasted 10 seconds in public school the first seven or eight grades, so doing them both during a kid's lifetime also works. I'm living proof. 

Now, when it comes to homeschoolers vs. public schoolers in terms of smarts? ...That's an argument for another day. 

Introduction

Who am I?

Just another random blogger out there on the Internet. However, there is something about this blogger that will make this blog possibly different or unusual. This is not a typical blog, for most blogs either are a place to post photos and what not (although that applies more to Tumblr), or for journalism. 

This blog, on the other hand, is a place where I will vent out how I feel about certain stupid things about my generation, or humanity, or offer perspective on other subjects.

As I write on this blog, you'll probably be offended by something I say at one point or another. And not because it's inappropriate, but because you might strongly disagree with it. Other times you might be cheering me on from behind your computer screen.

I come from a place where I don't belong. I come from a place where many of my opinions and what I think doesn't seem to matter very much. Well then, let's see what the rest of the world thinks about them.

Let the [hopeful] era begin...