Overdoing It.

In Today's world, it seems that there is not one person that still believes in the concept of less is more. Instead, people cling to a constant desire for more, to be the person with the most of whatever. I have noticed that there are a few certain things that are incredibly excessive and completely unnecessary. I have compiled a list of the top 9 most overdone. Here it is

1. TVs in the home: My house has two TVs, one in both rooms that people frequently gather in. Both are HD flat screens and are a tad excessive in their own right, but compared to some other homes, we are TV impoverished. From the time I was young; all my friends had televisions in their room. I instantly thought that I should have one too. My father struck this idea down with an iron fist. I slowly began to realize and agree with him that there is no reason to ever have a TV in your bedroom, and even more so the bathroom. There is no justifiable reason, rather than flashiness, for the need of a television in the bathroom. EVER.

2. Tweets Twitter has taken the country by storm, and has provided young girls yet another outlet to confess their love for the latest fluff-pop teenage boy singer. All while adding in a big OMG. But it isn’t just women; men have fallen into the twitter trap as well. Exhibit A: Minnesota Vikings Offensive Lineman Bryant McKinnie. As of December 29th, 2010, Mckinnie has exactly 29,404 tweets. 29,000? Are you kidding? Do you honestly think anyone wants to know that much about you? Each of Mckinnie's tweets has about ten minutes between the last one. This is a prime example of the world relying too much on technology.

3. Christmas Music See Beating a Dead (Christmas) Horse.

4. Documenting. Sometimes, people aren’t invited to things. There is usually a reason somebody is left out, whether it’s a relationship problem or that that person is just "That guy." But, if you do happen to be "That guy," have no fear, because your friends, who went and had a good time without you, probably took enough pictures to make you feel like you didn’t miss a second. There is a time to take pictures, and then there’s a time to put the camera away, here are a few examples

Good: Group of friends in front of a tourist attraction
Bad: Drunk friend making out with drunk guy at club

Good: Sights seen on a vacation
Bad: The guy that sat next to you on the plane

5. "My Life is...." Websites This one started with one simple idea, and then spiraled completely out of control. FML.com was the original of these websites, giving users the opportunity to submit stories from their day to day lives that were embarrassing or unfortunate, and end it by saying FML, which stands for blank my life. This was somewhat creative, but the websites that followed are just plain unbelievable. There are sites such as MLIB, which stands for my life is bro, where "bros" talk about things they did with their lacrosse sticks at the same time they were drinking Natural Lite Beer. Then came MLIA, which stands for my life is average. Dumb. Other websites include TFM (Total Frat Move), TFLN (Texts From Last Night) and MLIH (My Life Is Hoe,) the female counterpart to MLIB. The kicker: Almost all of the stories are fabricated.

6. Work Out Multi Tasking When most people work out, they like to have something to take their mind off the pain or stress caused by said workout. Ex: An iPod, a book, the newspaper or watching one of TVs on the machines. But, all of these things rolled into one, just seems cumbersome. The other day, while working out at a local YMCA, the man on the machine next to me was listening to his iPod, reading the paper, and watching Jerry Springer all at the same time. After seeing this, I was slightly impressed with his juggling act, and then I looked and down and noticed that his machine was barely moving. I wanted to say "Why are you even here? Can’t you do all those things at once from the comfort of your couch?"

7.Bumper Stickers This one is pretty self explanatory; We really don’t need to know how many awesome trails or mountains your Jeep has driven through.

8.Boots Once, a long time ago, there was one type of boots, cowboy boots. But these days, thanks to women, there are thousands of different kinds. There are ones with fluffy insides, ones that go all the way up your leg, ones that stop the ankle (which honestly look like elf shoes) etc... Boots are boots. That’s it.

9. Connection This is an overused word. I can not tell you how many adults have said to me "Hey man, I really would to "Connect" with you." What does that mean? Just why do you want to connect with me? Even worse, it usually ends with "Let’s get some coffee." Here's the thing, I hate coffee, so any chance you had of "Connecting" with me just went out the window.

Beating a Dead (Christmas) Horse

Christmas music;It's fantastic. It is one of the first signs that the "Most wonderful time of the year" is upon us. The sounds of the season accompany many family traditions such as decorating the tree, Christmas dinner etc...... Every prominent music artist makes it a priority to make a Christmas album, some more than one. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas music, but I love it in moderation. These days, after December 1st, you cant go anywhere without hearing a festive tune. Now, it's not so much the infinity at which the songs are played, but rather the unnecessary amount of times every song is re-done.

"Mary, did you know?" is one of my all time favorite Christmas songs, however, it is hard to decide which version is my favorite, not because I love them all so much, but because there are a about 100 different versions. The best example of these is one of the all time classic Christmas songs---Jingle Bells. There is absolutely no way that anyone could ever put an exact number of how many versions of this song there are. It has been sung as a part of every different genre, in a million different pitches and in countless accents. Some artists go as far as to add word in the song, or even a long instrumental solo. It is almost sad to see what has been done to a song that, in its original state, was close to three minutes long.

To go back to a point I made earlier, every artist seems to think it a necessity to publish a Christmas album at some point in their careers. Plenty of artists do actually release wonderful Christmas albums, such as James Taylor. His Christmas album is delightful and he truly possesses the voice for Christmas music. But, "Metallica at Christmas" is not something I imagine would be pleasing to drink eggnog to. (I don't actually know if they have a Christmas album, but you get the point)

Christmas music, I say again, is very enjoyable and adds a lot to an already happy and festive season, but honestly, "Little Drummer Boy," how many different ways do you need to tell me that they told you to come, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum?

Constant Connection

I'm 18, and I'll be honest, I always have my cell phone and am sometimes in a state of constant communication. But, there are certain times when it absolutely distasteful to use your cell phone, or any other technological outlet for that matter. Recently, I have noticed that people are beginning to completely ignore this unwritten rule. This not only infuriates me, but makes me sick to my stomach. Recently I was at a local Italian restaurant with my entire family and at the table across from us, there was what looked to be a grandmother, a mother and a daughter having dinner. I glanced over at the family, and noticed a bright light shining on the granddaughter's face. I glanced over again and realized that she was looking at her smart phone. This young girl seemed no older than 10, and was playing games and texting on a blackberry. I'd like to know, just who are you texting at the age of 10? The mother did not help the situation. It was almost as if she had given the girl the phone and said "Here, take this, entertain yourself, and dont talk." On another occasion, I was having dinner with my brother before a football game, and a little girl was standing in line, using the Internet, on, get this, an iPad. This girl was nowhere near even six years old, but she had a firm grip on the worlds newest piece of technology. I had no idea what the Internet was when I was six years old, and am still somewhat behind on its intricacies. Technology is waging a war against a sense of family. It is a fear of mine that the next generation, will lose communication skills completely, and only contact each other through email, text or even worse "tweet." Twitter has become an incredibly popular social networking site recently, and users type their everyday lives out into 140 character blurbs. People seem not to realize that most people on twitter could honestly care less that you are "Now eating captain crunch #sodelicious" or that after that you're "About to hit up the weight room #beachbod." Trust me, the whole world does not care what type of cereal you're eating. You know who I bet would like to know? You're father, who probably asked you at the table, but you were too busy hashtagging someone too even hear him.

Which brings me to my next point, if you have ever tweeted, facebooked or written on any social networking site something along the lines of "Hate my parents" or "OMG my mom/dad is such an expletive" than this next paragraph is directed right at you.

Are you kidding me? You hate your parents? You hate the people who have literally done everything for you, fed you, clothed you, gave birth to you (clearly that's for mothers only.) How would you feel if your parents saw that tweet? I can not stand people who do this, because really, I don't care how much of an expletive your father or mother is, they are still you parents and you should still appreciate them.

Social networking, cell phones and electronics in general are slowly stripping the world of its once strong sense of family. The people in your family are the people who made you who you are, and no phone or electronic tablet is ever going to be able to tell you that,