"I'm Bored"

Check this one into the "angry rant" category.

This world that we've created, where we are in constant contact with one another, enhances our human "need" to communicate with someone. Anyone. It's easier than ever. Cell phones, texts, IMs, emails, tweets, Harry Potter's owls, and mind control.

So all this communication should be a good thing, right?

I'm over it.

Now you ask why.

Lately, I think we all use this as a way to make us feel important. We reach out to try to talk to anyone. The biggest crime of this is people during work. Let's be honest - most people get bored during their work day. The monotonous routine 5 days a week makes people not want to work when they are supposed. They want to talk to someone else, just to talk to someone else. They don't have to say anything, just they feel more important because they've been making some kind of contact.

Some of the messages I've gotten just this week include "ughhh I'm so bored and hungry" "I'm so f****ing bored I hate this place" "I want to quit" "ughhhh this day is draggginggg" and so on. And not from just the same person. Several different people. My response? I don't. I don't care. Everyone gets bored at one point or another. Telling someone how bored you are doesn't change anything - it just makes you sound miserable. Nobody really wants to talk with someone who is miserable. It just brings down the other person who isn't bored.

Another random sidenote - people say the world is getting smaller because of media. More and more people know each other. While I agree, people know each other through whatever you want to call it - six degrees of separation or whatever - I think it keeps us closer connected to our close circle of friends, making it harder to meet other people. When you see other people out, 90% chance they are doing something with their cell phones. Talking, texting, playing games. What's the point of going to a bar if you're going to sit on your phone the whole time? It's a huge crutch. I'm not innocent here either. It sucks. I'm very tight with people who aren't here with me in NYC, but I haven't really made many new friends. Maybe part of that is my low budget, but facts are facts. I tweet/text/call/video chat with the same 5-10 people everyday, but almost none of them are here. It's nice having that connection, but it'd be nice to have the in-person connection too, which can't be duplicated over technology.

Anyways, if you're bored. Find something to make you not bored. But don't share your boredom with others. It's unbecoming and makes you look pathetic.

I also think social media inflates people's perceived self-worth, and make us think that everyone can and should hear us. They also think it's a perfect platform to complain. I'm in a group of people in my building, and it feels like every discussion topic is something wrong with something else. Some people's tweets are just complaints. Stop complaining. be positive.

You're supposed to note the irony here - I'm complaining on my blog about people complaining via our evolving technology. This is like a poorly written Seinfeld episode.

Thanks for hearing my rant, now back to your regularly scheduled Thursday!

The Heat Will Win

Quick basketball post.

I think the Heat are going to win. I know I'm jumping on the bandwagon about 8 months too late, but I also didn't realistically think it would happen. I didn't expect the Celts to get so old so quick. I didn't expect the Magic to make that brutal trade. I didn't expect the Lakers to get swept in round 2.

But beyond all that, even if all of these teams were still involved and could play well, the Heat are a real tough match up for a seven game series. Can someone beat them once? Yes. Can they beat them 4 out of 7 times in a playoff series? Doubtful. The youth, the energy, the talent is very much to their advantage. The only team that (to me) could stand in their way is the Mavericks. I watched all of the Thunder/Grizz last night (3OT till 2AM, sleep deprived this AM) and I just saw a very sloppy sloppy game from both teams. The Bulls are hurting. I never considered the Hawks a legitimate contender. I also haven't seen a single game they play, so that might help with my opinion.

It just seems like the Heat are a train that will keep rolling over everyone.

We are all (unfortunately) witnesses.

One Year Out of College

This week marks the 1 year anniversary of being out of college. Wow. Really?

Time never really happens in perspective. People talk about memories in terms of "it felt like yesterday" or "that felt like years ago." It's all about feel. So how long does it feel since last year? Certainly not yesterday, but it's been a while.

My roommate has an app for his Foursquare that tells him his checkins on this date last year, and right now last year we were in the middle of senior week - which I wrote about a little on here (probably about this time last year. I know, who would of guessed.) This day last year? We were at Foxwoods.

What's shocking is how while that chapter of my life is over, some of the things still remain very much the same. I'm fortunate to have moved to New York (another blog post coming on that soon. I told you I was coming back to you. That sounds creepy...), live with my same roommate for the past 4 years, have two of my other best friends here, and still keep in touch with all of my closest college friends on a near-daily basis.

It also makes you appreciate the days when you "get the band back together" - the weekends when you go visit or someone visits you. We're getting the band back together this coming weekend for a friend's birthday party in Philly, and I expect it to be an awesome time. We got together last weekend in NYC, and had another great time. Yeah, we're still not seeing each other every day/night/weekend like we did at school, and we're doing different things, we're still able to get back together and enjoy it.

I'm sure everyone's grade/high school had different experiences post-graduation, but I barely keep in touch with most of those kids. I've got two best friends, a random slew of kids I hear from/talk to every now and again with the "let's hang out soon" ender that never really goes anywhere. So I'm excited to see that I've been able to hold on to so many of my close friends from college.

Other interesting notes from 1 year out of college: I haven't been back to Boston since graduating. I honestly don't miss it. Part of the reasoning is I just kind of shrug my shoulders and say "what would I do?" And I think that's a legitimate gripe. What would I do? Am I going to go to the same 5 bars that I went to as a student? Go to the same 5 places to eat? Boston is a small enough city where there is still plenty to do, you would most likely end up doing the same thing after time. (I say that, but I'm in NYC and almost always end up in the same area. Maybe I'm just a creature of habit). Boston just wouldn't be the same without my friends.

Being unemployed wasn't fun. That lasted far too long (approximatively 7 months, with a two month break for my "temporary" job somewhere in there). It was depressing. I didn't have many friends in and around Philly. The uncertainty of if/when/how you'll get a job throws you through a loop. You're got no income, and as a result rarely want to go anywhere/do anything because everything costs money (and when no one's around to do it with, makes the going anywhere more rare). You lose your mind a bit. I probably gained somewhere between 1000-3000 pounds (numbers may be exaggerated). I grew a beard for 2 months. It's all terrible. This isn't where I blame BU for not helping me but I always felt like I was never appropriately prepared to graduate and attempt to get a job.

This isn't meant to be an "advice to the class of 2011" post. This is my personal experience. Everyone has different ones. Some of my friends got a job before they graduated. Others are still working on it. Others are doing something else to try to do what they want later. It's interesting how it all works out. I've been employed for a little over four months now, and it's been a nice transition into the "real world".

So, conclusion. A year later, do I miss school? Not really. I miss the free time and my friends, but I got 50% of that still working for me. I think I wrote this before (if not then I've had several debates on it) but college isn't real, or anything like the real world. Having class for 12-16 hours a week is nothing like working for 40+. And the idea is you motivate yourself to do other things, "find yourself etc". Reality is probably 90% of 20 year olds would rather sleep/watch tv/drink than do something else. Part of the American culture we live in. Smells like teenage spirit. But you can't keep living in a college "fantasy life" forever. Time rolls on. And you've got to keep rolling with it.

Cover Bands

Okay, so now that Osama-mania has calmed down enough for us to return to somewhat normalcy (until tomorrow), I've been meaning to write about my Friday night. I went to a band that's a tribute band for Bruce Springsteen (who else would I possibly see?) The band was covering the Boss' legendary 4 hour show from New Years 1980. Legendary doesn't really describe it. It's epic.

It was at a small bar in Manhattan, I didn't have much expectations besides just trying to enjoy some live music, have some beers, dance in the dark, and enjoy the night.

Overall? Not terrible. Because I'm anal for Bruce? It never had a chance. But, the show was good because I wanted to do something in the city that was affordable (before I saw my bar tab) while enjoying something I love.

The cool part was it was such an intimate show. By that I mean it was one of those small venues where you are literally on top of the stage. Being that close, listening to that kind of music was great. I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I got a little mad because it wasn't exactly the same. But the show was good.

Something you get at Springsteen related shows is the various age ranges. There's the youngin's like me and then there's people old enough to be my parents. Goes to show the guy is cross-generational here in the Land of Hope and Dreams.

The Death of Osama

This post is going to be very scattered. Too many things going on to just focus on one.

Last night was weird. It's one of those nights that you get really excited about, but you don't know why, until it breaks on Twitter, but you don't believe it till you hear it for sure.

Me personally? I was switching to watch MSNBC because they have Sunday night "To Catch a Predator" marathons that are always fun to watch. Instead, I got the "Obama to make announcement at 10:30.

It was like television you couldn't turn away from. Literally, the news staff didn't even know what was going on. They thought it was something else - Libya, gas prices, birth certificates, whatever. Then slowly you hear rumors. NBC had a lead from Pete Williams, but never said it. Then you'd read the other networks saying it. It all sounded so ridiculous. We have his body. Shot in the head.

It reminded me of the Michael Jackson death. Something was happening, but nobody knows what. But everyone's speculating. Low and behold: Twitter was right. And on it blew up. I personally tweeted more than I would during a Lost episode (which is alot, because I would tweet "WTF" every 30 seconds watching Lost.) Some of it is funny hearted (Team America, Jack Bauer) some is the amazement at what's going on via the media, etc.

What's really interesting about this? How long this has gone on. It's really more than just since 2001. Long long before. At least 15 years. 3 administrations. We had no idea. There would be rumors everywhere. South Park would make fun of him endlessly. (My personal favorite was comparing Osama bin Laden to Gandalf the Grey, think that was an SNL skit). We've portrayed this man as living in cave to cave, showing himself on a video, telling us what he's doing next, etc. Yet he's been living in this "compound" for quite a while, while not living the good life, he certainly wasn't stuck in caves all day. There would be rumors about his death previously.

I made a Jack Bauer reference previously, but this really sounds like a episode of 24 or a scene from a movie. Secret operations storming in via helicopter, a firefight, etc. I think I know a little more than the average person, but I don't know much about our secret teams. We must have so many Jack Bauer types. Men in Black almost. The government agency you don't know about, where they make people disappear. Trained assassins. It sounds crazy, but I really believe it all exists. Goes to show how much we really don't know about what's going on behind the scenes. All the data and missed intelligence and the potential opportunities, but it finally worked. None of our forces were killed in the firefight. That to me is extremely impressive about the training we give our soldiers.

From the media standpoint, beyond the confusion, the mad scramble to get their top people on the air. I'm pretty pro-NBC over the other networks, so seeing their top staff rushing to get to the studios was fascinating. Then watching some video from last night, they were still on the air through at least 4AM. I turned on the TV this AM? Same people are online. Talk about stressful. Also - I haven't watched 24 hour news networks in a while. I remember why I stopped - they just literally talk out of their ass with no clue what's going on, just because they need to have something to talk about. They have no idea what's next from Al Qaeda. No clue what the reaction is in the Arab world. At the end of the day, they're Americans in a foreign world. Who knows what they really know.

My favorite thing from last night: Chuck Todd was talking about how all of this came together from the media standpoint, and he got an email from a White House correspondent. The email basically said "get over here. this is big. can't say what, but trust me. BFD." You should remember, BFD is Biden's tagline for "Big Fucking Deal." Who knows if that's a common term for the White House staff, or if they're trying to be funny, but it makes me laugh.

I don't understand the need for celebration yesterday. They couldn't stop showing footage from outside the White House and near Ground Zero. That's a weird concept we have. When something huge like this happens, we gather with strangers and celebrate in a somewhat riot like instance. It looked to me like the DC crowd was just college kids, who I bet were hopped up on Aderral and Red Bull and were looking for any excuse to get out of studying for finals. I thought about going to Ground Zero, but for what? To stand there and chant USA? Makes us look like barbarians.

Some people really suck. This was an exciting moment, and some people wanted to talk about how Osama should have stood trial, how we have focused too much on Osama and not enough on our own country, including gas/jobs/the stupid budget thing. We also jerk around too much talking about Obama's birth certificate. What a waste of time and resources. Putting Osama on trial is a waste of time and would become more of a circus than true justice. Everyone knows he's committed terrible crimes. Not a secret. Putting him on trial would just end up with demonstrations and the security alerts from that would be catastrophic. We put Saddam on trial and what was the verdict? Death. Osama's was going to be any different? And he would milk it and be a martyr and all this garbage. Let it end. While I think it's BS that we say Osama has been "brought to justice," we talk about justice in law and everything. I agree, but let's not act like we're holier than thou.

Again, who knows what Osama had really been up to. Some people say that he was more of a figurehead than the true leader. Either way, it's a big deal (or a BFD) and it's an exciting thing. But we need to keep treading. There's more people and programs out there to squash.

Now let's solve this budget BS.