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.

mock trial memoir

     What a nail-biter! I can't believe how emotionally involved I was. I feel really mixed about the results, while I believe that the movie played a role I'm not so sure that it means Oliver Stone and co. should give any compensation. Weren't there greater factors? If Oliver Stone pays then shouldn't the parents of the assailants pay? What about their peers who socialized them? The dealer of the LSD? You could go on forever. In reality media has an effect great or small and that effect size can be mediated/moderated by other factors such as LSD. I think the lesson learned is don't watch a crazy violent movie, when you're psychologically unstable and tripping on LSD.
     Ultimately the whole thing was a lot of fun. I'll admit I had a good time being Richard Rhodes. I should apologize to Rowell Huesmann for calling "her" a "biased and a poor scientist" that seemed to be what he said in his article though, not directly but it was implied. My compliments to the prosecution as well they did a phenomenal job! I couldn't believe some of the objections they were pulling out, crazy.

Sexual or Sensual?

     I've been running a question over and over in my head for the past few days. It all started with the sexual content assignment. I watched Lost, Community and Chopped. Chopped and Lost were void of sexual content but Community was not. In this particular episode one of the characters didn't want to play pool in a gym uniform so he quit the class. Then after realizing that if he was secure with who he was that changing "his style" was okay, so he decided to play in the uniform. He played against the gym coach who taunted him consistently about how he loved clothes more than pool. This lead to both of them ripping off their clothes and playing nude for the victory. And now the question i've been pondering for over a week is: "is that sexual content?" "is that sensual content?" I first watched this episode with a couple of guys. The one laughed hysterically, the other didn't react to basically any part of the show. When I saw this section I wasn't offended nor did I think it was weird. The big question that this has brought to mind is, what is sexual content? I'm not exactly sure but I do believe that we are very confused about this in society today.
     I asked my wife about this and she said that for a woman watching the show this was sexual content. I thought about it some more and realized that if two women would have done the same thing I would have felt it much more strange and inappropriate than a couple of guys. Thus sexual content is different for genders and also can depend on the sexual orientation of the person. In our ever-changing world this type of differentiation is common in many aspects of life. For example, when I go to the gym I generally take a shower. It doesn't bother me to shower with men, I've done it since high school and it's not a big deal. However, I've noticed that some guys do not shower in the public showers but prefer the private stalls, I'd say this comes from an obvious discomfort with naked men or being naked with naked men. Which regardless of sexual orientation could make a person feel awkward, it was a very awkward thing when I began taking showers after sports practices in high school but after time became fairly commonplace. Personally I do not feel that showering is a sexual experience however I do feel that because nudity has become synonymous with sex, showering has consequently become a "sexual" experience for some people. Let me now clarify that I am not demeaning people who dislike showering with others I'm simply saying that our culture has sexualized something that in the past (i.e. Turkish or Roman baths)  was not sexual, and the current reactions are caused by contemporary trends in thinking.
     Another example of this is breast-feeding. While many college freshman scoff at Freud's psychosexual theory, specifically the oedipus complex, they seem also to believe it. Even in Utah where breast-feeding in public is legal many refer to it as strange and seem as though they would consign the mother to privacy as if the experience between mother and child was too intimate for a public setting. While I don't believe this is true, generally people show a fair amount of disdain for public breast-feeding. I'll be honest, I felt the same way in the past but since my wife began to breast-feed I have felt quite a bit different. It seems to me that this act is a quintessential part of mothering. The attitude that many in American culture have about breast-feeding is best highlighting when viewed in contrast with other cultures. Almost every foreign missionary has a story about a woman breast-feeding in a lesson and how it was "so weird". It obviously wasn't weird for the woman or for her husband sitting next to her. However, it was for the missionary, to the point that in some cases they have to leave because they couldn't focus. This is an obvious difference in culture and another thing which we've overly sexualized. Is breast-feeding sexual content, a lot of people react to it as if it is.
     Who has been doing their scripture reading lately? If you have you may or may not have noticed that we skipped some chapters in Genesis. The chapters that we skipped have to do with sex. Namely Lot's daughters involving themselves with their father to preserve their seed. Later Jacob's sons become heavily involved in a wide variety of sexual sins. Is that sexual content? Yes. But should we have clearplay for the Bible? Or are we supposed to be mature enough to handle these types of situations and realize why they were written. Genesis is a revelation given to Moses from God. God told Moses about these encounters. However, we skip over them because our society today can't handle it, it would be way too difficult to handle something like this in sunday school because sex has become so taboo.
     Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that sensual and sexual have become the same thing. People don't even talk to their children about sex because it's become such an awkward topic. I'm not really sure why but I think it's because we have over-sensualized sexuality. It's no longer just a biological function. It seems to me that what is termed as sexual and sensual is really a personal thing. Everyone reacts differently, this was illustrated nicely by Dr. Coyne's story of her mom giving the book to the neighbor. Or by reactions to the Twilight series. Personally, I think it's silly. I think we need to differentiate between sexual and sensual. Sexuality is an important part of life, our kids need to know about it, we need to know about it. However, when are children turn to media for answers what they get is typically sensual. They tend to get a bastardized version of sex when parents are unwilling to talk about such an important subject. Perhaps by sorting this out we can reduce some of the confusion and put a more definitive label on sexual and sensual.

Google!

I love google. Typically I have a difficult time with giant tech conglomerates (i.e. microsoft) but I really wouldn't mind if google took over the world. It would be the best for everyone since all of their services are basically free. This morning a coworker and I were working to convince another coworker of the incredible power of google. We talked about everything from gmail to google docs, to sending texts via gchat all the way to chronium a new OS coming out for netbooks. If you haven't heard of it don't worry you'll probably end up using it someday. (The same goes for google wave). Google has essentially put my entire life online from the blogs I post on to the projects that I work on for school. I don't need a flash drive and really I'm losing reasons to have a laptop. These are just a few of the ways that Google is using media to make our lives more efficient, connected and wonderful. Thanks Google.

Hunger Banquet

So while studying for the test I read something I didn't remember. I think it was in the book but I'm not sure, anyway whatever it was said that Media was the plural of medium and a medium is a means of doing something...Wow, that's really broad but thinking about this made me expand my view of media quite a bit. So I thought about this tonight at the hunger banquet, if you've never been before they divide everyone up into three classes: really rich, rich and poor. My wife, son and I were poor and ate beans and rice and drank water out of plastic sacks. Meanwhile they have people walking around acting as tourists and then a couple others who are personifying greed and corruption. These people will sell you things, for example one couple near us bought two seats next to the keynote speaker at the "really rich" table for twenty bucks. Later they came around selling, hot dogs and chips, which was the food for the rich people, the really rich people were served food from Tucanos on big platters and were waited on. The whole point is to use this experience as a medium through which they can teach more about hunger/development in low SES nations. Plus the extra money people pay is donated to help people in parts of the world where it is needed. It was a really cool experience. Not only did I learn a lot about international development but it expanded my view of media. We really do live in a media saturated world.

a screw driver that he'll pass it just fine! (i think this might post in 6 separate posts)

t!" or something close to it. What a way to scare a new parent! But she insists on watching it. The good news is that i know now that if my son swallows

l of that was a lot of fun to write but pointless. I really wanted to post about this show my wife keeps watching on tlc called "your child swallowed tha

ffordable for the average student but for now i'll just have to deal with a phone and an ipod touch with spotty wifi that i won at a football game. Ok al

e it because of peer pressure to put pictures in my posts. That's right i'm doing this via text so no photos, hopefully one day mobile internet will be a

This is my first mobile blog post which probably in and of itself deserves a post. I set this up to be more efficient in my school work but i haven't don

The greatest commercial ever made

     A coworker showed this video to me this morning, I thought it was hilarious. Subsequently I decided to post it on the blog and then figured "why not analyze it to see if it really is a good commercial according to the criteria in class?" so here it is:

Perception facet (is the advertisement attention getting?)
-"Look at your man, now look at me, now back at your man"--yes

Emotional/affective facet (does the advertisement stimulate wants, touches the emotions, or elicits feelings?)
-"with two tickets to that thing you love, look again, the tickets are now diamonds!"--absolutely

Cognitive facet (does the advertisement explain what it will do for the consumer?)
-"sadly, he isn't me but if he switched to old spice instead of using ladies scented body wash he could smell like me....anything is possible when your man smells like old spice and not a lady"--anything is possible when your man uses old spice, yes.

Association facet (is the “product” transformed into something special?)
-it arises out of diamonds so, yes.

Persuasion facet (is the advertisement compelling and persuasive?)
-only if you want anything to be possible.

Behavior facet (does the advertisement make the viewer want to take some action?)
-of course, buy old spice for their "man".

Creativity (not one the facets, but important)
-"I'm on a horse"

According to our criteria in class it's possible this is the greatest commercial ever created!

Short track speed skating rocks!

I love short track speed skating! I think it's the greatest racing sport ever created. I'm sitting here knowing that I need to write my paper for SFL 351 but I can't take myself away from the action! only 10 more minutes until the final race!

Now for the media connection. Isn't it funny how television can take over our lives? My paper is probably a lot more important than the olympics, at the same time the olympics only come around ever couple of years. In contrast to that isn't it awesome that we can "be there" even though we're not actually there? I guess it's simply the great conundrum of television. I suppose the key is having enough self-discipline to put the most important things first. Which in this case I'm going to say it's short-track speed skating. GO USA!!!!

p.s. I'm really antagonizing these Korean skaters right now.

Video Games: A memoir

After the lecture yesterday I was thinking about my experiences with video games. I decided to write a memoir about it. When I was five my grandparents gave me a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) with Super Mario Bros. 3! I was extremely excited,they had one at there house that we could go and play duck hunt and Super Mario Bros. on, as well as excitabike, they also had Skate-r-die but I couldn't ever figure that game out. About this same time I was learning how to utilize a computer. My dad taught me how to use a 5.25 floppy drive and some minor DOS (Disk Operating System) commands. We only had Golf and starfall. I spent hours designing the most ridiculous golf courses you've ever seen. I didn't have patience to play the game though.

My parents didn't ever want to buy us video games, they were too expensive, but we inherited some cool computer games from my super computer savvy uncle. I remember being unable to sleep at around nine years-old because I was so excited to play SimAnt, so excited that I jumped out of bed and headed to the computer where I installed the game and played until about 5am. This would be the first of my late night digital game playing. Super Nintendo (SNES) came out sometime in this same time period. I told my parents that if Santa brought me a super nintendo that I would never need another game system ever in my life. On christmas morning there was no Super Nintendo but after breakfast there as I was heading downstairs to play with some K'nex I saw a big box on the bottom step. It was a Super Nintendo! We played Donkey Kong country in all of it's 16-bit glory the entire day!
I was already in love with video and computer games when I turned thirteen but my friends and I still spent plenty of time jumping on the trampoline, playing basketball and swimming in ditches. When my family moved my new friends were hardcore gamers. I was introduced to Warcraft 2, Starcraft and Mechwarrior. These were the first violent games to grace my home. My parents weren't especially pleased but I played them all the same. One of the greatest days was when we bought a 56K modem, wowie! What a blazing speed! It took a lot of time and effort but eventually I got hooked up onto Battle.net for some serious multiplayer action. Right as we got it hooked up Jedi Knight 2 came out and STAR WARS was just starting to get big again (The Phantom Menace) .

Then we moved again, my new friends weren't into gaming. In fact they were all seniors and I was a freshman, they were much more interested in cars and women. So I had to adapt making sure to keep up some gaming on the side. One new thing I learned in this era was that you could auto-run sports games through entire seasons and bet on who would be the winner, it was a great way to gamble! Ok, I never actually did this but it sounded pretty sweet at the time.
Once all my friends graduated, the residue of the group took up some old school gaming. With our small teenage fortunes we went about buying as many NES and SNES games as we could get our hands on. Life was good and we were playing a lot of Mortal Kombat and as an added bonus I was the good at it! So good that no one wanted to play anymore. We soon started playing a lot more Playstation 2, Tekken 3 was the game of choice. I was pretty good at it until my friend, Ben, started practicing. We hung out a lot my junior year and played a lot of "vids" as we came to call them.

My senior year I became a lot more interested in my high school activities, student council, dances, choir, drama etc. I didn't have much time for video games but occasionally would play with friends when we were hanging out. The big game around this time was Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Grand Theft Auto 2 (GTA2). This was the first time I realized that video games could have an effect on a person. Leaving a friend's house one day after playing GTA I had this insatiable desire to run over a mailbox. I didn't do it but I wanted to do it so bad and felt like it wouldn't be a bad thing to the point that I realized the game was affecting me a lot! This turned me off from GTA but not video games as a whole.

Now for the climax, I was now a freshman in college and living life to the fullest. I chose to live at home and attend the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Warcraft 3 came out at this time and I spent many late nights trying to beat the game, which I never did. My first semester I dated, met a girl and we started dating. But after the first semester I reconnected with my friend Ben and we started playing vids again. I decided that video games and hanging out with the guys was a lot better than a girlfriend. Plus, I was a premie anyway so big deal! We began to live for Thursday and Friday nights. I didn't have class on Friday so we would play until 5 or 6am. Mostly Halo, but the occasional Tekken or Parapa the Rapa (we reserved that for when we were really tired and had fully imbibed ourselves with Mountain Dew, the real gamers drink). The most ironic thing that happened during this time was that Ben my old gamer friend admitted that he didn't really care for video games but that they bred sociality so he bought them for that reason. We enlisted another guy during this time, he actually introduced us to Halo, we called him Obi. We also became really interested in Razor scooters, specifically customizing the decks (that isn't relevant but it makes me laugh).

During my mission, my friend Ben moved to Utah to ski. Obi moved back and forth between Utah and Missouri and ended up back in Montana with his family. When I returned home I tried to get back together for some vids but it wasn't the same in fact, Ben was engaged...lame. The good news was that I still had Warcraft III and my family had purchased decent internet and put a Local area network in. So my brother and I enjoyed some fearsome battles together. In fact I once told my then girlfriend, now wife that I was tired so she would go home and I could play Warcraft with my brother. She wasn't too happy when she found out the truth. Guitar Hero was now on the rise as well and I became very interested in it along with Dance Dance Revolution. I realized that these games, which promoted socializing, were a lot more fun than the solitary games. Eventually I got engaged and moved to Utah to go to school. My fiance was not the slightest bit interested in vids much to my chagrin. I poked and prodded but she wouldn't budge, she really hated video games. So it was something I sacrificed, needless to say I was really surprised when she bought me a Playstation 2! It functions as a DVD player more than anything else now, except for a guitar hero stint when I got to the end guy and then my brother and his friend came into town and stayed at our place, it hasn't work correctly since, and yes I'm still bitter about it.

When I was a freshman playing games at Ben's his brother-in-laws would come hang out with us, drink dew, and play vids all night. I dreamed of a day when I would do that with my own brother-in-laws or at least my own brothers. I'm still waiting. My brother-in-laws aren't too interested and my brothers didn't catch the video game bug that I did. They'd rather go to sleep than stay up half the night playing vids. For whatever reason, I have no idea, video games really bring people together. I say people but I mean men. Yeah, for the most part they are a real waste of time but when I think back about nostalgic periods of life I think back to that magical freshman year when we played and played and played until we crashed. Life was good, in a different way than today. So ladies, when your husband needs time to go play some ridiculously violent video game (I say violent in jest) with his buddies let him. You probably don't understand it but he doesn't understand the things that you do with your friends either so just let him. In a strange way, I think he'll be a better man for it.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way saying that your husband, boyfriend, brother or otherwise should engross himself in a digital world of asocial activity in which he throws his life away. I'm only saying that once in a while it's kinda nice.*

A 24 year old's entry into the world of Harry Potter

I don't feel like I read for fun that often but reflecting on the past year I realized that I don't do too bad. Especially if I can count audiobooks, and I do. I missed the whole Harry Potter thing as a child. I was one too many years old when the first book came out and was too concerned with other things when the craze began. So after putting it off for about a decade I decided to catch up with pop culture last fall. I successfully listened to all seven books in audio format in the course of about two months. At the time I had a job in which I could listen to music/books at the same time as working. However, after the second book I could no longer limit myself to just listening at work and I started listening whenever I had a free moment. This culminated with me finishing the seventh book at 4:30AM sometime in November. Yeah, it was sweet.
Needless to say the Harry Potter series is a set of books about a orphan boy who finds out he is the most well known wizard in the "wizarding world" it chronicles his journeys for seven years as he attends wizarding school and eventually defeats the extremely powerful dark wizard...well you know.

I don't think that Harry Potter changed my life in anyway, it was simply a lot of fun to read. It did change my feelings about the Harry Potter movement however, prior to reading the books I'd seen a few of the movies and came away feeling like wizards were pretty lame. The book changed my perspective. If I learned anything from these books it was that your imagination can do a much better job than a movie if for no other reason than that you can customize your own version of the characters. For example, in my version of Harry Potter the competitors in The Goblet of Fire don't wear lame jerseys. Everything is a lot more hardcore in my version as well. And finally the Weasley boys aren't as ugly in my version (this might sound like a strange one but Fred and George were my favorite characters and they were grossly different than the version in my head, I simply chose the most blatantly skewed characteristic).
Books are awesome, all the best ideas start out in written form and they aren't limited by technology nor do they become laughable with time. Books are timeless, otherwise we wouldn't still be reading the Odyssey and the Illiad, or the Bible for that matter. I don't feel like I've read too many books in my lifetime that have resulted in some sort of epiphany but that doesn't mean that there isn't an impact in some way or another.

Walk Two Moons

I started using heavily in the ninth grade (cliff notes that is) I have always had a difficult time getting into a book. However, I remember really enjoying the book Walk Two Moons when I was about ten years old. I remember very little about the book, in fact the only thing I remembered before looking it up for the book assignment was that someone was bitten by a cottonmouth water moccasin and they cut two slits in the persons leg and then someone else sucked the venom out. I decided to read up on the book and began to remember as I read a brief synopsis. The book is about a girl whose mother has died, and throughout the book she tells her story as well as her friends as she journeys across the country with her grandparents.
I don't know why I enjoyed this book as a kid. I remember really getting into it one night and staying up reading the book by night-light until the wee hours of the morning. I remember not being able to remember what the book was about just a few months later though. I think it's interesting that the only thing I really remembered was the grandma being bit by a cottonmouth water moccasin. I grew up in Idaho and never had heard of such a snake, but I assumed they were prevalent in the midwest. When my family moved to the midwest I went on a camping trip with the young men and we were out swimming when we saw one gliding along the lake. No one acted like it was a big deal. They obviously hadn't read Walk Two Moons.
I remember being intrigued that the grandpa sucked out the venom. When I learned later that the better treatment for such an injury was a tourniquet I wondered if the grandma would have lived if they used that method instead of trying to suck it out. Perhaps this was the first time in my life that I ever really connected with the characters of a story.
Overall, I don't think this book had a very long lasting impression on me. Except for the part about the snake. Which for whatever reason I have thought back on several times in the course of my life.

They really get to you

Ever since the advertising lecture I've been thinking a lot about the ways that the advertising media gets to you. I found this cool little gadget and embedded it in my blog. It's a pinball game but in actuality it's a advertisement for seven up, maybe their trying to reach the hardcore pinball crowd. However I'm not really sure how this kind of advertising works. Since adding this free advertisement to my blog I've had no more desire to drink seven up. I think about this all the time, coke and pepsi ads are extremely pervasive yet I am still not a coke or pepsi drinker, in fact I don't even drink soda (except for independent root beer brewers!). Perhaps it's just getting the product out there though. Maybe it's all about making your name synonymous with soda or whatever you're selling. I think apple has done a good job with this. For example, when you see a mac on television you think "oh there's a mac!" or maybe "oh, there's another mac." But you knew it was a mac! If you see a dell on tv you think "hmmm...there's a pc" it doesn't help sell Dell computers but it helps sell macs. In reality a Mac is a PC (personal computer) but for whatever reason (probably the operating system) they created a separate identity and it's done wonders for their advertising. Anyway, just a thought.

Music has saved my life...or at least my sleep habits

Last night I caught my son on film doing one of his favorite things, watching his mobile. We've tried all sorts of different types of music but none of them work like his mobile. Which is kind of a funny thing because it's simply a music-box-windup type machine i.e. the sound quality is pretty poor. He hasn't learned about sound quality yet though and doesn't seem to care. Whenever he hears his mobile start, regardless of how upset he is, he immediately calms down.



For the past few months I've been thinking about what an impact music has on us, or at least myself. I like angry music when I'm angry, sad music when I'm sad and so forth. Most of the time listening to this music only makes things worse or if I decided to listen to something happy then it would be a good thing. Music is interesting because it is a background type of medium, rarely do we let it take all of our time but rather it hangs out with us while we do other things. I think this is one of the reasons that we don't notice the effects of music very often.
I'm glad that it does have an effect though otherwise I wouldn't be sleeping as well as I am now, which isn't saying much.

starting them early

We've been trying to read to our 3 week old son. He can't even see the pictures yet, ha ha! I guess we're starting good habits.

Classifieds...Boom Baby!

This is just one of the great ways that the media impacts my life. A pretty easy $15.00 if you ask me.

Perfection M.D.

I watched House this week...first time in close to a year. I really like the show but here's what drives me crazy about medical dramas...they're not real. Excuse me for being a cynic for a moment but the fact of the matter is--Doctors do not know everything! I'm sorry for having committed this grevious error but in my opinion Doctors receive too much unadulterated trust. Example, someone goes to the doctor and expects that she/he will be able to tell them exactly what is wrong with them and what to do about it, and they expect this on their first visit. The truth is, while in many cases this is true, it isn't always. In some cases it takes a long time, my dad went through tests for about three years before they found out that he had a gluten intolerance. A friend of mine has been seeing doctors for two years and has undergone every test imaginible for a stomach problem to no avail. The funny thing is that when the doctor is unable to find the solution we say "oh...it must be psychosomatic" or "maybe it hasn't been discovered yet" assigning the lack of answers to either the friend's obviously poor state of mental health (which up until this point we thought was great) or to the offbeat chance that your friend has some yet-to-be-discovered illness.

My aunt is a professor at the University of Illinois (I put this in so you know that she's competent), a couple of years back she was having some health problems, when the doctors couldn't figure out what it was many of her family members decided it was psychosomatic. How interesting that when a stranger with a piece of paper on his wall (and several years of training) says that he doesn't know what it is that we automatically believe our friend/cousin/sister/brother/parent is going a little wacky! Turns out my aunt wasn't wacky she just had to find the right doctor. The truth was...she just has some health problems 'gasp!'.

Anyway, I think that this is mostly due to American's belief that science can solve everything and that scientists already know everything which, if it was true, Dr. Coyne probably wouldn't have a job. In addition, and more relevant to the class, is my belief that another large part of the problem is caused by our wonderful medical dramas, which of course show us only the most dramatic of experiences, because who would want to watch anything else? When it comes to M.D.s I think we could allow for a little more scrutiny and a lot more reality. Not because I have anything against Doctos personally but rather because they're human too. Perhaps this would solve the mal-practice insurance debacle, which would mean doctors wouldn't need to charge as much and patients would ask for more realistic care (meaning they wouldn't request every possible and unnecessary drug/treatment combo) thereby reducing healthcare costs and allowing everyone to receive affordable health care!

Darn you Doogie Howser!

just picked up my first "Seventeen"

For our group project I had to go and buy a "Seventeen" magazine...wow. Luckily the employees at Borders books are pretty open-minded, needless to say I felt like a real creeper. I've never looked inside of a woman's magazine let alone a teen magazine, never had the interest, and I was not disappointed by what I found. No offense to anyone that enjoys them but they are really low on the entertainment totem pole.
An Uncle of mine and I were discussing entertainment options the other day. He has a rating system for the different types, he refers to reality tv shows (which are the lowest ranked) as "burrito" shows. Meaning that they are just something that you eat to get full, and he's not saying that he doesn't like burritos it's just that they are not the most nutritious of foods. If reality TV is a burrito then "Seventeen" is like a deep fried twinkie. Sure it's probably tastey but if you eat more than one you'll chances are you'll die the next day.

So why do I think of "Seventeen" this way? It is really just my first impression, but if you want a list:

Top reasons why "Seventeen" magazine, sorry, the January 2010 issue of "Seventeen" (don't want to generalize) is like a deep fried twinkie.

Reason #1--The exterior is really dressed up
Both covers (front and back, which is funny that it has two front covers hmmm...An insult to a woman's intelligence? Could be.) Either way the fake women on the front are really just a sugary coating to make someone want to take a bite of something worthless.

Reason #2--It contains absolutely nothing of real value
Maybe this is harsh because it could be argued that there are some great beauty secrets and boy advice in there however I would counter by saying that following the make-up tips and advice are only going to make you into someone who you really don't want to be.

Reason #3--It makes you sick
This is probably different for everyone. For me it was the fact that the magazine seemed to portray that women are supposed to be extremely fit, always in fashion, etc. which on the one hand it's a great thing to be healthy and to feel good about yourself at the same time and in the words of Coach Blitzer from Cool Runnings "if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it". I like to think that women have a lot more to offer the world than the way that they look.

There are probably a lot more reasons but I'll just stop at 3. There are so many forms of entertainment in the world and all of them shape our perceptions of the world around us. This magazine gave a perception that I didn't particularly care for, namely that women are objects of desire and that it's ok for teenage girls to be running around as fountains of youthful lust (The sex questions page was particularly disturbing). Ladies, give yourself some credit, you're worth a lot more than that.

Baby's come in about 4.5 minutes

So last May my wife and I were in Miami visiting my mother-in-law. We didn't know it at the time, but Brittany (my wife) was pregnant. We were watching some show about women that didn't know they were pregnant and then had the baby in a public place of some sort. It was the weirdest show I've ever seen.

This combined with the multitude of other "emergency deliveries" that I've seen in my life (all of them on TV) caused me quite a bit of duress when after 5 hours of my wife being in labor last Saturday the nurse came in and told us that she probably had 10 more hours to go! I give the credit to the media, I knew that labor wasn't the same as it was on TV, obviously, but I didn't understand that it would take so long! Of course not all labors are that long, but the average first labor is 12 hours! Anyway, I understand why they do it the way they do it, I wouldn't watch a 12 hour labor and I don't think anyone else would. I just think it's one of the interesting ways that the media has shaped my perception of the world.