I like Radiohead, I think...

So back in grade 11, on my birthday, a friend of mine got me a Radiohead cd. It was "The Best Of" (see attached image), and I was stoked. It had like 30 of the best Radiohead songs and this is just what I wanted. Over the next few weeks I really fell in love with Radiohead. I put the cd on my ipod and I listened to it all the time, but then something happened. I started noticing that I would only listen to about half the songs. Then I wouldn't even put on Radiohead I just went back to shuffle and I thought fine, this is where it stops, I like about half the Radiohead songs and I'll listen to them when they come up, but something changed. Pretty soon I was skipping all but a few select songs, such as "My Iron Lung" "Just" or "True Love Waits." And as time went on I soon realized I was skipping those ones too. Now if I made a conscious effort to not skip the songs, I could listen, and enjoy the songs, but something in my subconscious would take over and just keep skipping. I usually skip a lot of songs for no good reason but this was different, it's been a while since I've actually listened to any Radiohead. In fact if I check my recently played only "True Love Waits" appears on that list.

Does this mean I really don't like Radiohead? Then why do I tell people I do? Most likely if you've ever asked me about my music preferences I'm sure I said Radiohead. But do I really like them? It almost feels like I want to like them but deep down I really don't. I went through a similar thing with The Beatles. I just thought I was supposed to like The Beatles, so I did, I even bought a greatest hits cd, but soon I was skipping all of those songs too. Now there isn't a single Beatles song on my recently played list, and I am fine with that. I came to the conclusion that I don't like The Beatles, but I do respect them. Is that what's going to happen with me and Radiohead? But why do I bother saying I like them? Radiohead isn't like the Beatles where you say you don't like them and the room becomes silent like you personally insulted everyone in the room. People aren't too crazy about Radiohead, even in my group of friends I think I'm the only one who insists they like them. I think its because somewhere even deeper inside me I do like them.

Value Village and Bad Parenting 101

So those of you that know me might know that I've been working at Value Village for the past 5 months or so. Now this job isn't terrible but it definitely has its problems. I'm sure that throughout the existence of this blog I will talk about the problems enough times that you too will dislike the job, that's my goal anyway. So today I am going to talk about the some of the kids that come into the store.

First of all I just need to say that a lot of kids I see in there are behaving perfectly fine but there are enough of the bad ones to make up for that. Here's an example from the other night. I was on the cashier just tidying up because it wasn't very busy when suddenly I heard a bone-chilling shriek coming from a couple tills over. I turn my head slowly, half expecting to see some deranged man shoving kids into a potato sack, but what did I see? A couple of parents paying for all their stuff and trying really hard to just ignore their screaming child. There were two kids with them, there was a girl probably about 7 and a boy about 5. The girl was the one screaming. I didn't make out exactly what was going on but by the sounds of the child's scream, she wanted a doll. The craziest thing happened after a couple minutes of her screaming, the boy just starting screaming as well, for no conceivable reason! This kid didn't want anything he just felt like screaming I guess... Now first I have to commend the parents for not giving in, good work, but I'm not sure the best way to deal with kids is to just ignore them. I don't claim to be an expert on kids and if this is appropriate then feel free to let me know, but somehow this seems wrong. So now there were two screaming kids at the front of the store being dragged out by their parents. The parents didn't say anything, they just grabbed the kids and left the store. That example doesn't happen very often. There are a lot of screaming kids but the parents usually step in a get them to shut up.

Another  way too common occurrence in Value Village has to do with the toy section. This place is like Lord of the Flies, total anarchy. I don't know how many times I've gone back there and seen a lot of kids, a huge mess, and no parents for miles. Usually I don't care. I wash my hands of the situation and go somewhere else in the store, but sometimes I get sent back there specifically to clean up and this is the worst. I go back there and begin just grabbing any loose toys and throwing them back on the shelves, I consciously put the coolest toys on the top shelves to hopefully avoid this situation but it never works. Now after I've put away about half the toys, the kids are starting to notice me. This is where I get nervous, thoughts go through my head. I become convinced that these kids are going to rise up, attack me, and reclaim this area as theirs. And I'm not really afraid of kids attacking me but I'm afraid of what I'd do in that situation, like when is it okay to hit a child? But I digress, these kids stare at me and I just continue to put the toys away because that's my job. After I've cleaned up most of the mess I begin to wonder where the parents are? I'm assuming not every kid wandered in from the local orphanage. The parents just leave their kids with the toys cause they know they won't leave, what kid would. If this was any other store the parents would be holding there kids hand but because we sell second-hand stuff they figure who cares if they break it. Parents, I beg of you, keep track of your kids cause I'm sick of risking my personal security to clean up after your little terrors.

So there you go. Kids have become the bane of my Value Village existence and you parents aren't helping.

Check your pretentiousness at the door.

So later today I have a night class which I have begun to regret taking. It's English: Reading in Popular Culture, sounds awesome right? That's exactly what I thought but this class is the prime example of how a professor can totally ruin a class. The prof is John Leblanc and I feel bad saying anything bad about the guy because he is a really nice guy, its just he is super pretentious when it comes to music, tv, movies, or anything related to the media. So far in the class we've listened to a bunch of music, and we've watched clips from tv shows and movies, which he always ruins the endings to. So even if I had a remote interest in whatever we were watching he spoils it by giving away the major twist. The first movie we were assigned to watch in full was a movie called Elephant, ever heard of it? Yeah didn't think so. This is my first problem with this class, it isn't pop-culture. We should be looking at popular music, tv, and movies, yet he almost always picks really obscure "artsy" texts (he calls everything we look at texts by the way, told you he was pretentious).

Elephant is one of these "artsy" texts that he seems to think is really well done. Spoiler alert, it isn't. The plot to this movie is based on the Columbine shootings and it tries so hard to be different and interesting, but it fails in almost every way. Anything interesting at all is overshadowed by poor movie-making and atrocious acting. 90% of the scenes in this movie feature the backs of high school students walking throughout the halls not doing anything interesting. This movie is only 80 minutes long but somehow over half of it seems like it's just filler. The other major problem with this movie is the acting. All the actors are incredibly wooden throughout the movie. Everything about it feels so contrived, while watching it I could just see the script being read, that's not a good thing by the way. Now I could forgive the terrible acting if this movie had anything interesting to say. You might think that this is a social commentary, but what is the comment? That kids with guns are bad? That bullying is wrong? That the school system is flawed? Everything this movie tried to say has already been said a hundred times in much better ways.

This is how I feel about pretentious movies like Elephant, they think because they're "artsy" they can break the rules of film. Like the rule that states your movie shouldn't be just a bunch of kids walking around doing nothing for an hour. The fact is that when you break the rules you're left with a boring, silly movie that is condemned to be taught by pretentious professors who think they know what a good movie is.

Introduction to a blog

So I've decided to start a blog... Not too sure what else to say in this first post. I wish I could tell you what to expect from this blog but, in all honesty, I don't know myself. I wouldn't be surprised if by next week I lose interest and never think about this venture ever again, but who knows, maybe I'll really get into this. Currently I'm thinking the former is more likely.

Right now you're probably thinking a couple of things. First you're thinking "why would this guy write a blog?" And secondly "and why would anyone ever want to read it?" To the first question, it boils down to a number of possible different reasons. Maybe I have a lot of really interesting thoughts that are just dieing to be heard by someone, maybe I just really enjoy writing and I don't get enough of it in university, but the most likely reason is that I'm just bored. This gives me something to do when I'm procrastinating. Thats right, to avoid writing I have decided to write. Doesn't make a lot of sense but who really cares and who are you to question why I do things? Now to answer your second question with a question. "Why are you reading it?" I'm assuming you know me somehow, and therein lies the main reason that somebody might read this, to gather more knowledge about the enigma that is Matt Burke. If by some twist of fate you have absolutely no idea who I am well you've probably stopped reading by this point but if not then this calls for an introduction... Hello, my name's Matt, I'm a second-year university student, I'm a history major going into education, I live in Kelowna, B.C., and that's about it.

This first post marks the beginning of something. I'll occasionally update so feel free to stop by anytime, no need to call ahead, it's just always nice to see you here.