6-1-01

A farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway is a novel we just finished reading in English. The novel is very interesting although many people would disagree. The reason some of you may not like it is because at the beginning its very descriptive making it boring for some. Its very descriptive overall but at the beginning he gives a description of his surroundings which include the effects of the war. This is partially why I like the book because he gives shows the effects of the war in the setting.The way he writes makes you imagine everything clearly. One thing that was stressed in our class was his use of the ice burg technique. This is when something is told with as little words as possible. Basically 20% of what he's trying to say can be taken from the book but the rest for you to think about or find between the lines. This is best shown in his short story Hills Like White Elephants but it is also used in the novel. The novel is about Henry who is an American ambulance driver for the Italians in WWI. During the war he meets Catharine who is a nurse. Both do not want to find love at first but it could not be helped. Catharine is a strange character. She is very crazy throughout the novel and says things that also sound crazy. The main reason she is strange is because she is very subservient. She only wants henry to be happy and she has the need for his approval on everything she does. For example she immediately wants to clean a drink for him after it has spilled and she insists on getting a new one. Many people believe this is just part of him being sexist I almost agree in some sense because Catharine is too good of an example. The book is partially anti war which is why Henry and most of the characters in the book hate the war. It is also shown when henry goes AWOL and moves to Switzerland with Catharine. I do not want to give away too many details because some still haven't finished the book. It isn't a happy ending but because most of the book had a dark sad tone it was expected. I did not want to give too much plot summery but overall I will say that I liked the book very much. It was interesting and it has two genres of romance and action that appeal to allot of people.

5-25-09

One big problem that came with the Internet is the growth of piracy. Today you can find anything from music to movies without even paying a cent. Programs like lime wire allow for you to download files like songs weather it be old or new. There are even web sites where you can watch "bootleg quality" of movies that are still in theaters. Some people will say its a way to save money but others will say your actually stealing money from the people who create these things. I like to do all these things its a lot easier. But I also feel it is wrong. A while ago I was debating wether to buy a new C.D or download it until my friend said "yea cause your 12 dollars will really make a difference in how much money they'll make". That made my decision because it made sense at the time. But If everyone thought this way then they really wouldn't make any money. I think this is most shown in the piracy of video games. It is because it is so easy to listen to a song online or even record one that's on the radio. For games you have to pay money to modify your system and its allot more work trying to pirate them. Developers spen allot of time and work on their games, I'm not saying its any different for a singer writing their song but either way hard work is going down the drain if they aren't making anything from it. The idea is being "rewarded" for their hard work. So if your downloading that new song on lime wire are you helping yourself or cheating someone else?

5-18-09

I finished reading most of the Def Poetry Jam poems and I think they are really good. Most of the poems are very real and you can tell a lot of them come from the heart. I like the fact that it reminds me a lot of rap which we learned today fits well with poetry. One thing that bothered me a little was some of the words used like cat, and a few others that we wouldn't normally say. At first I thought the poets were teens our age and that is what I pictured before realizing they weren't. When I first opened the book I just wanted to look at it and I started reading Poetri's poems. These were Urges, End Of Story and If I Ever Lost You. This was in the section after the brief character summary. These were more serious poems and I didn't acknowledge him until later on. After I started reading the play/poems from the start I kept note of the ones I liked. I liked the ones that were not as personal and were somewhat funny which turned out to be Poetri's poems. He wrote Poems like Money, Dating Myself and Krispy Kream. These poems were very funny but he even admits that he was serious when writing them. The next day we learned that it was better to hear the poem the way it was read. So I went on youtube.com and checked some of his videos. I even found another poem I liked called "Monsters" which also had a deeper meaning to it. I have to be honest though it was not what I expected. I expected a deeper voice and a tougher way of saying the poems. He sounded more like a stand up comedian which I liked allot because I like stand up comedy. If its his style then I like it but it could be how all the poets presented their poems on the stage. As I was reading, another poet that I was interested in was Beau. He seems like he has a huge ego but I liked his poems. I pictured him yelling them out which is why I was interested in them. One poem that I liked in the book was "Shine" by Lemon on page 41. It is about a black man who managed to swim to Harlem during the Titanic while the other white passengers drowned. This sort of reminds me of "I Too Sing America" by Langston Hughes. The very first sentence even says "while white America sings". In fact I saw allot of poems that reminded me of Hughes and even Maya Angelou. I have not liked a lot of poetry before this class but I'm glad I got to read these types of poems which are not so boring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht9lB-hebJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFhFaRKVpTY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNlVNhTBu-A

Hulu

Lately we talked about ads and allot of the feelings on ads were that they are made to get peoples attention. This is very true and we have even seen some controversial adds. But what about commercials?, many commercials are made the same way. They are made to capture peoples attention and sell or advertise something. The only thing is they are seen by more people then a billboard is. A billboard that really grabs people's attention makes people stop and examine it more. Commercials are easy to tune out or even change the channel that's why its probably less noticeable. The super bowl is a time where the most interesting commercials are shown. Some commercials that I found very interesting are the hulu commercials. Hulu advertises something to get t.v shows onto your computer or something like that. The commercials have stars telling you how TV does rot your brains. They even point out how we still watch it even after they told us the "truth". I love these commercials because they are some what funny and creepy at the same time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4MwJQvZuLg this one caught my eye recently and then I found the others. From what I understand the commercials started coming out during the super bowl which I already mentioned above. So this commercial is interesting because its some what true and even after looking at the other commercials I found that others agreed or were offended by it. There was also one comment that said "They give subtle/insignificant clues. they shove it right in your face and the sheeple continue to notice nothing . These people are openly saying the future does nt need you , and are planning to wipe out most of the worlds population". That Sounds crazy but some actually agree, for me its funny to think about. Many people feel this way and you could say hulu has grabbed many viewer's attention. One person even claimed in a comment that the government does these things which reminds me of our class discussion. So does t.v really rot our brains. I have not noticed it in a literal sense but maybe in some way it does.

the links to the other hulu commercials are here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48CZDXbczMI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CMWkesiVD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcc4QRRKns

I hate to say it but they are probably some of my favorite commercials, heck ill probably even look into this hulu stuff. (yea its working)

i just saw this comment that interested me
"idk bout you but that was not funny. i dont like yto sound like those complaining dumbshits who get offended by everything, but that commercial set off a red flag in my head. they were making fun of conspiracy therories. only to prove that they want you to think its a joke. and the show on the tv screen was family guy, not a big deal for a normal american, but family guy is owned by williams street, or has relations with it. that corp, is doing crazy shit and is linked with the new world order. "

so yea there are allot of people with different feelings on these commercials,weather they know the true facts or not. where do you stand on it?

5-4-09

Lately the economy has been down and everyone is upset.As young adults in our area I wonder if all this really effects us as much as everyone else . I hear everyday about the economy but never how it affects you. People would say "oh the economy, the economy" but that's basically all. I just saw another news story about how hundreds of people were fired. I have not met any of these people and that is what brings up the question. Should we care if its not affecting us?. I think we should. Even if your financially stable and your parents still have their job you should care, maybe even consider yourself lucky. It will only get worse if everyone thinks that it wont affect them. Its like during the roaring twenties where everyone thought prosperity will not end. Instead now we feel that it cant get worse so allot of us don't worry. I know at the beginning I was not worried because that was how the stock market is it goes up and down. I didn't know enough to know that it could be serious. So is there anything we can do to fix it?. Honestly I do not know what we can do to fix it but we should be able to understand what exactly is going on or how we could help. Other then that we pretty much have to rely on the government to make sure you keep your jobs.

Today was a very scary day for Manhattan workers. It was an early Monday morning, people had just gotten to work from their busy weekends. Two planes an airliner and a super sonic fighter jet flew close to many New York skylines. This scared tons of people and it only brought memories of the tragic 9/11. Buildings were evacuated and workers called loved ones to tell them this news. The good news is that it was nothing more then a photo op. No one really knew about this which is why it scared allot of people. The president and the mayor also claim they didn't know anything of this photo op. This brings up allot of questions including one that would fall along the lines of "is this a conspiracy?". Many people don't believe that no one would know about this especially after 9/11. You would think people would be informed. I'm not sure what to believe but for now I will trust what the news are saying. You cant really say I'm only following the media, its just that there are no facts to prove everything else. This event also kind of goes with the law that states you cant say or do anything that would put people in a state of panic. For example you cant yell fire in a movie theater where there is no fire. It would make panic and run away. So this is very similar to today's incident. It was not really a terror attack but it made people panic to the point where they had to be evacuated. This is partially all because no one told anyone about it. It is also bad because many people are still afraid of low flying planes let alone ones near sky scrappers. This shows how New Yorkers will never get over 9/11. Were not supposed to forget, but this was not the way everyone should be reminded.

War has been apart of the world for a long time. I recently got interested in all this after hearing more about WWII and WWI. In class we've talked about reasons why war began and what happened. Recently after watching part of a movie in English I started getting interested in the technology and strategies used in war. I started to realize why there were some people strictly against war. Watching the movie and learning what went on from different sources like novels (although they are fictional they all try to be as real as possible) I started to think about how most people who fought in war died. It was hard to think about it, especially how soldiers managed to survive. I am not promoting or going against the idea of having a war but I just feel that its not a game. I play VIDEO games based on wars and some people online would say "it would be cool if I was in war" or "I want to join the marines" its funny and sad that people especially some younger kids feel this way without knowing that its not easy to be a soldier. In real war you probably wont be able to go in, kill six people and run away safely and for the most part THERE ARE NO RESPAWNS. Today's war is different from WWI and II its not comparable. There are newer weapons but also newer ways to stay protected. I cant say its safer but it is deadlier. Allot of people die and that's sad, in my own opinion if I HAD to fight in a war I would. I would also pray everyday to make it back in one piece (literally with newer weapons today this would be hard to do). War is bad but we sometimes benefit from it especially if were defending ourselves. When it comes to being pro/anti war I am in the middle.