Things That Don't Matter

I received several complaints about the length of my domain name, and I admit it is quite a mouthful, or rather a fistful, seeing as you’re typing. So today I registered the domain ttdm.info, which redirects to here. So if you have lazy fingers and don’t feel like typing out thingsthatdontmatter.net to get to my site each of the hundreds of times you probably visit every day, you can now type ttdm.info, the two are interchangeable.

So yesterday was that Wednesday when all the people of one of those christian denominations decide that they should give up television or pizza because some guy walked around in the desert for a while. For me, lent ranks third on the list of annoying religious practices. Right below the pointless torture and killing of millions of people and racism/discrimination, but just above pretentious spiritual attitude. I think that lent tends to be more of an inconvenience for those who don’t participate in it rather than those who do. I have a friend who once gave up video games so for a month every time I went to his house and said “Want to play video games?” because that was what we normally did he would say “No I can’t, I gave it up for lent, but you can if you want to.” Well great, if I wanted to play video games by myself I could have stayed home. Lent makes communication harder as people give up cell phones and email, things that have become essential to life in the 21st century, right up there with food and breathing. For the next month we will all have to endure these people. It only takes one in a group to put a stop to a fun activity because they gave it up for lent. I’ve never understood the whole concept of lent. So this guy you worship spent some time in the desert, why does that mean that you have to annoy people for a month? How about instead of depriving yourself of something which doesn’t do anyone any good you go out and help people, do community service or something. Community service is about the only plus there is to religion so how about you focus on that a little more than this pointless annoying archaic ritual stuff which I see as really just a less extreme version of what those “pain is the cleanser” people do when they wear belts with spikes on the inside and whip themselves.

Music, like television, has both the annoying and the awesome. Really as far as music goes, people can listen to what they want, but where’s the fun in that? Also like television, a lot of these topics will probably be revisited and expanded on at some point.

Annoying: I’d say that the cut off date for good music was around 1995. With few exceptions, I can’t stand modern music. Occasionally I’ll hear a song on the radio and think yeah that’s kind of catchy, I can see why it’s so popular, but other times I don’t get it at all. This is especially true with rap music, which generally speaking I cannot stand. The only rap music I’ve ever come close to liking is songs done as jokes, like the ones in the SNL Digital Shorts. Sometimes real rap music seems like a joke, it’s just so ridiculous. They all seem to be about how tough it is to live in the “hood” or something sickening like that. The truth is, all of these things like gang violence and drug addictions come from just plain being stupid, no two ways about it. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think a pretty easy way to avoid gang violence would be to not join gangs, is that such a hard concept? Rap music therefore boils down to people being idiots and if there’s one thing I can not stand it’s idiocy. The other music I don’t understand is heavy metal. Congratulations, you can turn your amp all the way up and make noise while screaming into a microphone. It’s just loud noise, not music. Also I’m not a fan of country music, it all seems to be about trucks or guys who cheated on you (probably because you sing country music!).

Awesome: Most of the bands I like stopped making music decades ago and resurface only occasionally for some sort of revival tour or Superbowl halftime show. Bands like The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Boston, Pink Floyd, Queen, the list goes on. There isn’t really much to say about them except that they were, and continue to be, awesome. Now, I mentioned before that with few exceptions I can’t stand modern music, it’s time to talk about those exceptions. In general, the modern music I like is commonly referred to as “indie” because these bands at some point released albums on record labels independent of the big four. However, all of the ones I like have since signed with a big four label, making them simply alternative, which is great because it means I don’t have to be a pretentious twat to listen to their music. It seems that the definition of the word indie has been expanded to include everyone not born with a record contract. It almost seems like it’s become it’s own genre, which is stupid. I’m very strongly against liking music just because of the image it purports, which admittedly is somewhat of a double standard because I’m totally for not liking music based on its image. Anyways, #1 on the exceptions list is R.E.M., who are probably just about my favorite band of all time. I’m counting R.E.M. as modern because their latest album, Accelerate, was released last year. #2 on the list is The Decemberists. The Decemberists stand head and shoulders over every other band I’ve ever heard when it comes to inventive lyrics. Their next album due out in March entitled The Hazards of Love is going to be a rock opera, telling a narrative throughout the entirety of the album. Up until a few days ago they had a song from the album publicly available as a free download on their website. The song is called The Rake’s Song, and it’s about a guy who gets married at 21 and has 3 kids, but then his wife dies giving birth to a fourth and now he’s stuck with the kids. He want’s to go back to his life of freedom so he kills them. How awesome is that for a song?

That’s about all that jumps out at me right now.

You know what’s funny? I actually worried more about offending people with this post than I did with religion.

I’m somewhat reluctant to call this story “The End” because in case you hadn’t noticed, the stories about these two have all been out of order and I’ll probably revisit them again somewhere in the earlier stages of their relationship, and who knows, maybe they’ll meet again someday… I personally really like this one, it’s probably my favorite out of everything I’ve written so far. You’ll have to excuse grammatical errors for a few days because it’s 1 am and I don’t feel like revising it right now.

The End

The night was clear and warm, however the occasional breeze contained a hint of the coming chilliness of fall. The sky was awash with stars, bright and burning in the vast expanse of nothingness. The August moon hung low in the sky. The two of them sat on the bench atop the hill that overlooked the town. They sat next to each other, he had one arm around her shoulders, and his other hand placed on her thigh. She rested her head against him, they both looked out, across their town, across the hills to the night sky. They sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, content just to sit and enjoy the comfort of their embrace.

He couldn’t find the words to describe what he was feeling, it was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Everything was going to change, it was scary. That was it, scary. But there was excitement too, change held opportunities, yet it meant giving up the security of the status quo. He couldn’t believe it really, his stuff was all packed, tomorrow he would drive off to college, another state, new people, new life. She too left the next day, yet her education would take her across the country, thousands of miles instead of hundreds. It would be pointless for them to try to keep their relationship alive, and they both knew it. The distance was too great, and besides, who wants to be tied down in college? They hadn’t spoken about it yet, there’d been a moment, back in the winter when they told each other about their acceptance letters when they’d looked at each other and known, but not said anything, just congratulated each other and gone on. They’d spent the summer as if nothing was going to be any different, like they would be going back to high school for another year. Yet here it was, their last night together, the situation confronted them and refused to go away or be ignored.

“So, how are we going to do this?” he asked, and with that question resigned them to their fate.

“I… I don’t know,” she replied, she too had been pondering this issue. The entire evening they’d spent together had felt somehow forced and uneasy, the both of them thinking so this is it.

“Well, I guess we have two options. We can be adult about this and just agree to go our separate ways,” he said.

“Uh huh.”

“Or, we could try to have a little fun with this.”

“How so?”

“I always thought it would be fun to have one of those messy breakups. Like if we were at a point where we couldn’t stand each other, and just wanted out, rather than having this forced upon us. What do you think?”

“Okay, well, let’s try it out. Here’s a simple one: I don’t think this is working.”

“What? Am I not good enough for you?”

“No, it’s not you, it’s me.”

“Yeah right, whenever someone says that they really mean ‘It’s all you’.”

“Not true at all.”

“What is it then, what about you makes you not want to be with me?”

“I… it’s just that…”

“Well fine then, I don’t want to be with you either, we’re through,” he said, ending their first breakup.

“Ha, that wasn’t bad.”

“Yeah, it was okay, want to try another?”

“Sure, I have a good one: I’m seeing someone else”

He mocked a gasp, “No, how could you!?”

“I… I don’t know, it just sort of happened.”

“How could it just ‘happen’? I thought we had something.”

“We do, or we did.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“Well…”

“You have!?”

“Fine, I have! And he was better at it than you.”

“You whore! It’s over between us,” he said, thus ending their second breakup. They sat in silence again for another minute.

“I don’t know, I guess I don’t really want us to be mad at each other, because really, I don’t want this to be the end for us, but there’s no way it can’t be,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“That’s one of the things I loved about us, we always understood each other, as much as it’s possible for members of the opposite sex to understand each other.”

“I loved that you always listened to what I had to say, or at least acted like you did.”

“Hmm, what’s that? I was zoned out there for a moment,” he said and smiled at her. “I loved that we had fun with each other.”

“Yeah, I loved that too, although I can’t say that it was always fun.”

“No, it certainly was not,” he said, and silence enveloped them as they reflected back over the time they’d spent together.

“Remember the first time we came here?” she asked. “Right after our first date, and we just sat here on this bench and talked the night away.”

“Yeah I remember it, my mom was pretty damn mad at me when I showed up at the house the next morning.”

“Yeah, mine too, I remember we couldn’t have a second date for a month because they were so mad at us. I think they still believe we had sex that night.”

“Yeah, probably. Doesn’t make much of a difference now though does it?”

“No I guess it doesn’t,” she said and they smiled at each other, and then kissed.

“That was another thing I loved about us,” he said after they had pulled away from each other. Things were quiet again for a minute, then he asked, “So do you want to keep in touch?”

“Yeah I don’t see why not. It’d be nice to still be able to talk to you, we’re both about to be thrown out into a world of strangers, having someone you know you can talk to, even if they can’t physically be there, is a comfort.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same. It’s scary isn’t it, we’re about to leave behind almost everything that anchors us to who we are, our friends, our families, all of it.”

“Everyone does it at some point.”

“Yeah, and look at how messed up everything is.”

“Good point.”

They sat and looked out over the hills, out to everything that faced them in the all too near future. He looked at his watch, it was late and they both had to be up early to travel the next day.

“We should probably go,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess we should.”

“We brought your car didn’t we?”

“Yeah, you want a ride home?”

“No thanks actually, I was thinking I’d walk, it’s not that far.”

They sat for another minute.

“I guess this is goodbye then,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“So I’ll call you, or email or something, tomorrow or the day after, depending on how things go.”

“Sure,”

“Well, goodbye,” he said, and they kissed. They held it for a while, their last kiss, before he stood up and walked off down the road that led into town.

He folded his arms across his chest as he walked down the hill, it was suddenly very cold.

Story time everyone! Today we revisit our two as yet unnamed characters as they muddle through the mess that is a relationship. The thing about these stories is I’m never sure if I’m getting it right, because I’ve never been in a relationship, I need to find someone who is to be a consultant. Anyways, here’s the story:

Things I’ll Never Be

“So, you want to go see a movie tonight or something?” she asked. “I think there might be something good playing at town hall.”

“Sorry, I can’t, I’m going to one of those skating party things tonight,” he replied.

“Well, can I come along?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why not, there’ll be girls there.”

“Yeah, there’ll be girls, but not girlfriends.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, whenever a guy brings his girlfriend along to something like this, he’s not any fun. Trust me, I’ve witnessed it first hand many times. He’s focused totally on her, and not on anything else.”

“Well, I can be different. You can totally ignore me, forget I’m your girlfriend.”

“It wouldn’t work out like that and you know it. Anyways, that’s not something I want to forget anytime soon,” he said with a smile, which he hoped would put an end to the matter.

“Why are you being like this? You never want to take me to any of these things, why?”

“Okay, you really want to know? It’s because back before we were together, when I was a lonely nobody, there were certain things I swore to myself I would never do, no matter what the circumstances, because other people doing them annoyed me so much. One of those things was that I would never be one of those guys who brings his girlfriend along everywhere, because as I said before, they get totally absorbed in each other, and even worse, all the guys without girlfriends feel even worse than they already do. Unless she’s a total bitch that is, then they feel better.”

“Okay fine, I won’t come. But now I’m curious, what were some of these other things you swore you would never do?”

“Hmm… let’s see. Oh, I swore I would never put a picture of myself kissing up on Facebook, and god forbid I should set it as my profile picture. I… I swore I would never be one of those people who make out in the hallways, or show much affection in public otherwise, those people annoy the hell out of me.”

“Hey, I was one of those people!”

“I know you were, so it’s a miracle you got me.”

“Huh, go on.”

“Well, I swore I would never profess my love for someone through a Facebook status update…”

“Hold on a minute, these all have something to do with a girl, and if I remember correctly at the time there was little to no chance of any of this even being an option for you.”

“Well it’s an option now, I was being prepared. Besides, it’s fun fantasizing about these things, it’s all some people have. It’s all I had.”

“Do you have any not related to women?”

“Not really, almost all of my big annoyances were related to this. But the most important of all of them was I swore that I would never desert my friends if I ended up with someone like you, which means not doing any of the above.”

“Nice of you.”

“I know, I’m a nice person. Also a genius, and the luckiest guy on earth to be here with you. But most importantly a genius.”

“Shut up,” she said playfully.

“Well I am, and actually right now, I’m a genius who has to go, so I’ll see you later okay?”

“Alright, I’ll see you later, you’re getting away with this one, but one of these times I’m going to force you to break your rule and take me along with you.”

“Ha, I’d like to see you try,” he said, kissed her, and left.

I’ve come to the conclusion that post-Christmas winter sucks. In December winter is this magical time with snow and Santa and happiness. Everyone’s looking forward to being able to spend their year’s earnings on generic gifts for their relatives and friends in the hopes that they’ll get stuff back in return (I’m a big believer in that nothing we do is ever totally selfless), but after Christmas it just sucks. It’s cold and gray and wet and depressing and you’ve still got half a school year ahead of you. In December there’s all those songs, people singing “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” but when you hit late January and I hear anybody say that I say shut the hell up it’s friggin cold and it’ll probably just rain and I have homework and two essays along with a project and it’s been a few days so I need to come up with an update for the site but everything sucks so bad right now I can’t come up with anything past “things suck” and who wants to read that? I miss green. I look at photos from this past summer’s vacation and I get this longing feeling. I want it to be green and warm and sunny again, with school almost over and summer with it’s lack of responsibility. Although this year it’ll probably suck as bad as the rest of the year. My parents want me to get a job, as well as I’ll have to decide on colleges and start putting together applications. This counts as a job right? Takes more effort than bagging groceries, and if I can get more people to visit I might actually make money off of it as well. Anyways, there are three good things about winter, 1. skiing, but I don’t get to do that this year because my dad had knee surgery. 2. snow days, but they get added on to the end of the year which it really stupid, and if we have too many they cut out of April break which is even stupider. Sometimes I just want to go up to whoever’s in charge and deck them. 3. skating. A friend of mine sets up this skating rink in his back yard every year and it’s loads of fun. He has these awesome skating parties which I absolutely love because, well, they’re the only real parties I ever get to go to, and there’s other people from my school there who I don’t always know as well but are nice, and I get to socialize and be a normal person. Also I’m much better at skating than most of them so I get to show off a little, which I rarely get to do with anything non-academic. Still, none of it is enough to make up for the cold wet and miserable part. I miss summer.

By popular demand, here is the poem I wrote last year for my English class that everyone absolutely loved (especially my teacher, resulting in a 26/25).

I Had a Poem

I had a poem
It was four pages long
It was about living a day, just one day, in my life
I wrote it immediately
It was done by the end of the day
The words just seemed to flow and there it was

Last night I gave up on it
I just couldn’t do it
I couldn’t stand up and read it
I knew I wouldn’t be able to

I thought it was my chance
My chance to share all my thoughts with the world
But I realized I couldn’t do it
Never all at once, maybe not at all
Even if I could
It was depressing
And that’s not what I’m going for

I wanted it to be perfect
Like the ones we read in class
I wanted it to be funny, but sad
I wanted it to be captivating, awe-inspiring
But reading it I was unsure it would be any of those
And that uncertainty tore me apart from the inside out

Is this really the world we live in?
Where I cannot complete an assignment for fear of being judged?
We’ll I’m not going to rant
That was what the other one was about
And that’s partly why I gave up on it

Well now I have a problem
I’ve got two minutes till English and I’ve got nothing
I’ve got killer writer’s block
I could write about the drooling idiots in my Spanish class
It would go something like this:

I feel sorry for my Spanish teacher
It’s Spanish three
And these kids can barely say “hola”
I feel like yelling at them
And occasionally I try
But my voice is drowned by another flood of stupid questions
I guess I shouldn’t care
I don’t have to do any work

No, might offend someone
I could write about my dog
No, not interesting at all
I could write about soccer
But I don’t play anymore
I could write about war and/or peace
Way too cliché

It should have a message but not be preachy
It should make you think
When I read it
Everyone should know its good
Even if they don’t know why
I want to look into the faces of my audience
And see that I have changed their lives
I miss my old poem
But I can’t go back now

Oh god the bell
Even if I had an idea I could never write it now
Did I really not complete the most interesting assignment I’ve had all year?
And possibly ever?
No
I did complete it
But as I said, I gave up on that poem

True story, I wrote that in my Spanish class and finished up in the couple minutes before the final bell for English. Everyone was pretty impressed. It’s funny to look back on it now because this website is entirely about sharing my thoughts with the world, although not in person. Also looking back I don’t think the first one I wrote was that good either. I’m not sure how well this reads on paper, it was designed to be read aloud, so if I get around to it I might put up an audio version.

Welcome to my new segment, greatest movies of all time. Films that I cover here are certified (by me) to have obtained high levels of excellence. Everyone should see these movies. If I cover a movie that you haven’t seen, then go see it!

So, the movie! I guess Annie Hall is what you could call a love story, but I wouldn’t. It is about relationships, but it’s about ones that don’t work, rather than ones that do. It pulls away from all the other cookie cutter romantic comedies that end with whoever you wanted to get together getting together and it’s implied that it’s happily ever after. Annie Hall takes happily ever after and turns it into miserable before, during, and after, and I absolutely loved it. The movie had a lot of messages, but one of the more prominent ones was that relationships are always a mess, so why do we bother. That really spoke to me because, well, I’m always asking the same question. Woody Allen has this one great line that goes, and I’m paraphrasing here, “There’s this joke. This guy goes to a psychiatrist and he says “Doc, my brother thinks he’s a chicken.” “Well, you should bring him in,” says the psychiatrist. “Well I would, but I really need the eggs.” And that’s how I feel about relationships. They’re totally irrational, but in the end, we all need the eggs.” And that’s how I feel about relationships, I just never had such a great way of putting it. There’s another line that’s not so major to the plot of the movie, but I picked up on it, and for me, it really put the whole thing over the top. Woody Allen says, “You know, you know how you’re always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because, uh, it’s real difficult in life.” And that really spoke to me, because in my own work of art, I’m angling for the perfect ending, the one that’s not going to ever happen for me in real life. Even when Woody Allen wasn’t saying anything profoundly connected to my own thoughts, I still identified with his character, pessimistic, sarcastic, removed, everything about him was me. There were several scenes I loved where he would sort of step out of what was going on to comment on the scene. Sometimes others join him. There’s one scene where he stops and addresses a couple on the street, asking them how they’re happy, to which the girl replies “Uh, I’m very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say,” and the guy says, “And I’m exactly the same way.” The movie had so many great lines I could fill pages with them, but I won’t, you just have to go see it for yourself.

Today we said good bye to George Bush. I’m not at all sad to see him go. In my English class we’re doing a unit on poetry, so I thought I’d try my hand at it.

The Bush Years

I was walking down the street one day
in one of my better moods
The sun was bright, the sky was clear
Everything seemed all right

But then I stopped in my tracks
for there was the most peculiar spectacle
an elephant
perched precariously on a telephone pole

I inquired of him
“How did you get up there?”
to which he replied
“I do not know”

I questioned him
“What are you doing”
And he said
“Looking for terrorists”

“Up there?”
I asked, unbelieving
“Where else?”
he replied, as if I were unworthy of his time

“I don’t see any”
I put in
“Neither do I”
said he, with a sigh

He stuck his ear
to the wires
“Whatever are you doing now?”
I asked, almost not wanting to know

“I’m listening”
he said.
“To what?”
I asked

“Phone calls, what else could I be listening to?”
he replied haughtily
I stared dumbfounded
“No seriously, is there something else I could be listening to?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal”
I said, more concerned than ever
“Nonsense”
he said
“It’s as American as apple pie”

I decided not to pursue the matter
it didn’t seem worth my time
Exasperated I looked to the sky
Where a vulture circled

The elephant noticed the vulture too
“That bird’s a Dick”
he said
“I know he’s just waiting for me to die”

“How are you going to get down?”
I asked
and he looked at me bewildered
“I don’t really know”

“Well shouldn’t you have thoug…”
“No more questions!”
he exclaimed
and fell off the pole.

Here’s a mini article to fill in for the past few days (and probably the next few as well).

Every day when I get home, I turn on my computer. My computer, being awesome, is also quite the noisemaker. If I turn the fan speed all the way up you can hear it throughout the house. Well, maybe not the whole house. But anyways, it’s loud. So for the rest of the afternoon, whatever I’m doing, watching TV, playing videogames, homework, the computer is running, and making noise. I don’t notice it. It’s a constant drone that my ears adjust to and I simply don’t hear it. Then at night, (morning technically) when I decide to go to bed, I turn it off, and the noise stops. It all goes quiet, and I get this feeling like I’ve been leaning on a wall that’s just disappeared, and I’m about to fall flat on my face. I can’t tell whether that’s symbolic of something or not…