Scared Stiff

     My son laughed for the first time tonight...I was at Scouts. I was pretty bummed. So, when I came home I sat him on my lap and turned on a video of laughing babies to see if he would imitate the behavior, he didn't. So I looked up another video and he still didn't. Then my wife comes over and chooses another video and we watch it for awhile...and watch it...and then the baby's mouth and eyes go dark and it screams really loud! It scared me so badly! I yelled and turned it off as fast as I could and so of course my son starts screaming and my wife is wondering what the big deal is. Anyway, I'm still geeking out over this and it's three hours later but phew! it scared me half to death. It got me thinking about how context and mood can change everything. I was looking for happy laughing babies and I got a possessed one! It's a real shocker when that happens. Plus, I have this emotional attachment to a new baby so seeing one screaming and possessed really messes with your emotions. What is even funnier/interesting about this is that now my wife is watching laughing baby videos and it's driving me crazy because I think that any second now one is going to scream and scare the pants off me again.
     This is all very wimpy I know and I'm suppose to be a strong male but I'm not that tough. In reality I'm pretty reactive (obviously). Plus, there aren't too many more things scarier than possessed babies. In fact I was going to stick the link in here but I thought Dr. Coyne might watch it and go into pre-term labor.

Remember the Titans

     I was really aching for some Remember the Titans this weekend. I knew I didn't have any time to watch so I decided to turn it on while I did my chores around the house. My wife really hates it when I do this because it turns a 30 minute job into a 60 minute one but I think it's great! I think this is probably the greatest movie ever made. I've been listening to the soundtrack for the past two weeks. I can't get enough of "fire and rain" by James Taylor.
     Race issues have always been a passion of mine. I can't understand why we make such a big deal out of skin color. It bothers me to no end that we are socialized to see different races in different ways. It's one thing to point out cultural differences it's another thing to teach that black people are scary. The media probably does this worse than anyone.

This is my most favorite example of racial bias in the media. If you can't see it well it says that the black man is "looting" and the white couple is "finding". I'm assuming this is legitimate but even if it's not it's obvious that there is a racial bias in the media.
     That is probably what I love most about Remember the Titans that it combats the stereotypes. Anyway, I really like this movie I feel like I can do anything after I watch it plus Denzel Washington is a stud. It's definitely up there with Rudy and Rocky.

The Hiding Place

My wife and I finished The Hiding Place tonight. We have been reading it for the past few weeks. The story is about a family who helps hide Jews and others who are in danger of being taken by the Germans during World War 2, as a result they are captured and put into prison and eventually two of the sisters are put into concentration camps. I generally shy away from holocaust books because they are so depressing but my wife really wanted to read it and had read it previously. I am really glad we did. The book gave me different perspective on WW2 and on religion and the role it can play in our lives. I think that I probably take my religion for granted and seeing how much this family relied on God and on Christ for support was inspiring. Much of the time I do things because I am supposed to but for this family religion was a part of them, it wasn't about doing anymore because they had become. It was a great book and very inspiring we've decided to keep up the tradition of reading a book every night for a few minutes. I hope we can keep it up.

Classroom Protocol

Recently, a classmate raised a question about the use of a laptop during class. Specifically, surfing the net or cruising facebook during class. I was really curious about this topic and have formed some of my own opinions but I was also curious about policies regarding this in my current classes; so I did a content analysis. I looked at the syllabi for my classes this semester and was surprised by what I found. In SFL 331 their is a provision which asks students not to use cell phones or PDAs in class however there is nothing about inappropriate laptop use; at the same time we did talk extensively about classroom distractions on the first day. SFL 351 says nothing about laptops or cell phones. What about this class? Nothing. Humorously, I've actually mistaken the first paragraph of the syllabus in this class as a list of "do-nots" in fact almost every time I look at the syllabus it catches my eye but there isn't anything about classroom protocol. However, Dr. Coyne has included a large section about interaction in the class, which is less possible when people are surfing the net, etc. I decided to look online and found plenty of syllabi which outlawed surfing the net such as this one:

 "Once in the classroom, you will silence your cell phone or PDA, and keep it packed inside your purse or backpack. Same goes with iPods, etc. During class lecture, you may not use your computer at all unless we are doing an in-class exercise or search. Do not surf the Web or check e-mail; if you do so, I will ask you to leave the class, and the dismissal will count as an unexcused absence."

It thought that was pretty intense especially because I take notes on my laptop. Last semester there was a guy in one of my classes who listened to his ipod during class, I thought that was odd.

I'm hoping to be a professor someday and I wondered what my policy might be in my future classes. I think when it comes to these things I take a bit of an Amsterdam attitude. That is, do what you want as long as it's not bothering others. I've been distracted a few times by people in class who are surfing the net on their laptops, most notably when they are playing games. However, it's usually a problem but I almost always sit in the front. I'm sorry if I've ever distracted you, as I'll admit, sometimes I get sidetracked in class and look something up. Usually it's related to the course but I'm not perfect. That's my general feeling about this. What do you think? Dr. Coyne?

Professor Gumby

I figured I would post this eventually, I suppose now is as good a time as ever...I posted a video (not this one) for my brother's birthday a few years back and realized that I enjoyed making youtube videos. Then I made this one on a sunday afternoon while my wife did the dishes (yeah I know). It had a small run for awhile and after about 2 years now has over 200 hits. That's no where near viral but it's funny to have old friends see me and tell me they saw my video.
     I started these videos as more of a privately public thing and they turned into more of a publicly private thing (hopefully I'm using the terms correctly). It's funny how you can put a side of yourself out on the web that you don't normally show to others. It's even funnier to me how after awhile you don't care anymore.

Star Wars Kid and new media

I wrote this post almost a month ago. I say this because there is some sort of pride in addressing something before we do in class. I didn't have time to finish it and became busy with other things but today's class was relevant so I decided to finish it up and post it.


So I'll bet many of you have seen this:



This was really popular when I was in high school. This was the first of many videos on the internet to be termed "viral" (the first is speculated to be "the dancing baby" ca. 1996). This particular youtube video has over 15 million views! However, it has been estimated that in 2006, only three years after the release of the video onto the net that the video had over 900M. The current view king of youtube has only 165M.

Viral videos are all over the place and most of us have seen well, all of them. "Chocolate Rain", "Tunak, Tunak, Tun", "The grape lady", "Lazy Sunday" if you haven't seen these you probably should, because they may be an answer on a game show you may be on someday. For the most part these videos are all in good fun for example "evolution of dance" is a comedy sketch, or "lazy sunday" which is a SNL skit they are meant to be seen and laughed at.

Then there are the ones that weren't meant to be funny but we laugh at like "Grape lady falls" which (I'll be honest) still makes me laugh. But is that ok? Is it really ethical to let these videos just post all around the world? Or should libel/slander laws be expanded to apply here? I don't honestly know but it's something to think about.

Let's look at a few examples:

The grape lady, this lady reported for Fox news out of D.C. that means that everyone watching the news saw this, plus the over 5.5 million views on youtube plus everyone that saw the episode of Family Guy plus everyone that then saw the Family Guy clip on youtube. That's a lot of people, how would you like your most embarrassing moment of all time to be broadcast to 10 million people? I wouldn't, now in the case of the grape lady she's doing ok, she works in New England somewhere or something as a reporter. But what about old Ghyslain?

That's right Ghyslain, Ghyslain Raza? A.K.A. "The starwars kid", this poor guy was already an awkward teenager when this video came out it didn't help that his shame was posted all over the web. If you don't know the story poor Ghyslain taped this video in the schools studio and then forgot to erase it. Some peers of his found the tape digitized it and posted it on the net. I remember feeling that this would have been my dream, me fighting with my sweet lightsaber for all the world to see! I would be the closest thing to a real Jedi Knight, MTV would interview me, I'd start a franchise which Lucas Films would purchase we're talking merchandise, autographs maybe a talk show. All that happening is really a long shot but I had an avid imagination. It wasn't the same for Ghyslain though, in fact his parents filed a lawsuit against the kids, they ended up settling out of court but he still had a hard time with it. I looked him up on facebook hoping to find a huge fan site for him but no he (if it really was him) was just a normal guy, I think he had about a hundred friends which means he doesn't just let anyone jump in. Poor kid, he probably gets more friend requests in a day than I have in my entire facebook career, which isn't saying much.

It's interesting to say the least, the latest viral video which pokes fun of someone that I've seen is John Daker. Some poor christian guy got up to sing a song made a couple mistakes and now he's famous. I kinda hope he's dead now. Let me clarify that by saying I hope he's dead so he doesn't have to feel the embarrassment.

Last and not least is B-money. He's in my ward, his name is Bryan. He's a nice guy but he's got a few issues. The interesting thing about his videos is he puts them up seriously, but they're deemed as a joke. At the same time they are pretty good. I think this case is particularly interesting because you have someone who is thinking "wow I'm getting really famous and popular in a good way" but it's almost the exact opposite.

So what do you do about videos like this? I haven't even got into sex tape scandals. Or the snowboarder who dropped out of the olympics because of his pictures. The fact is whether he have cameras implanted in our eyes or not a lot of our lives are on film  and a lot of film is on the net. I mean shoot, Dr. Coyne had her marriage proposal taped and she never even knew it. Crazy stuff.

NCAA Tournament

     Every march I look forward to filling out my bracket. The first time I ever did this was the '99 tournament. I remember getting into it because of some friends at school. Since then my family has started putting together a bracket group every year and for the most part everyone really gets into it. It's interesting to me how media has been able to do this. You can watch every game online and you can all post your brackets online for everyone to see. It makes it possible for the whole family to do something together that they wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Even when I was on my mission my dad would send me a bracket and I would blindly fill it out (having no idea what had happened during the basketball season. Last year when my wife and I were in Romania and my brother in Brazil and my family in St. Louis we were still able to come together via the NCAA tourney online and via mail. I think it's a pretty cool thing.

     Today at church everyone was talking about it, especially BYU and KUs losses. It was a common topic that you could feel comfortable talking to just about anyone about. In reality the media has made it that way, without the internet and television it wouldn't be able to reach as many people as it does. In fact sports in general, like the weather in some respects, are common to most everyone. I had a friend who was really into sports and he boasted that because he knew so much about sports he could strike up a conversation with almost anyone, and it was true. Almost anyone he met he would try to talk sports to them and was successful in building friendships because of it. It is something that most everyone at least knows a little bit about and so we all hold it in common and it's because the media makes it widely available.