Little Brother

I don't fully agree with some of the aspects of Little Brother. The main thing that I have a problem with is the concept that I have trouble with is the thought that after Marcus had been wronged he was able to form a group of a handful people that had enough skill to oppose a well-trained government agency. I also don't  know how he would be able to go back to a "normal" life after everything he went through, or how the DHS were able to declare marshal law after only one terrorist attack. While I found Little Brother to be a good book I just had trouble with some of the over-the-topness of the book.

Final Essay

Just realized that I forgot to post my essay topic. I am doing my essay based off of Jane McGonigal's TED talk of Gaming Can Make A Better World. The topic is on whether or not video games can be used to help better people and if they can be used to help better the world. At the moment I do not think that they can, but that might change as I research into it more.

Cartoons

I have not yet decided what my argument is going to be about, so I thought I'd post about an interesting video I saw on TED. This piece made a very interesting point about the usage of political cartoons. I always knew that political cartoons could be used to slightly influence people in their chooses and decisions, but I never knew that a cartoon could hold so much power. Such as the power to make people riot in the street, like when the Mohammad cartoon was published. Patrick Chappatte made good points in noting how political cartoons could be used for both the good and bad of a nation.

Ghost Caught on Video

With all the ghost sightings and ghost hunting videos, it is almost relieving to see a spoof video such as this one. Videos dealing with ghost's are currently all the rage and filling up the web. There is even a whole plethora of T.V. shows that are everywhere, which are ranging from hunting, sightings, myths, and legends all concerning ghost. To see a video that takes these ghost frenzied videos, that some could say are taken way to seriously, and makes a spoof about how ridiculous these videos really are is kind of relieving. I found this video to make a nice point and to be a funny watch, and it was pretty great to hear the narrator do his best Solid Snake impression.

Children Of Men

Children of Men was a movie that focused on a possible post-apocalyptic future, where everybody on the planet has been made infertile. For reasons which I still don't fully understand, having everyone on the Earth become infertile caused the people to break out into massive wars. I would think that if the population was stricken with a crippling disease like that, they would band together and try to find a cure, not go to war to see how fast they could kill all of the final generation. Despite that small bit of confusion Children of Men was a good movie. The movie follows Theo and Kee as they try to get Kee, and her baby, to the mythical humanity project. despite the movies general feeling of depression, there is always the slightest feeling of hope in the background. the movie even has a semi-happy ending, so I would say that it is a movie worth watching.

Dragon Ball Fire Safety PSA

When I was little I used to watch a cartoon called Dragon Ball. It was a series about a kid named Son Goku, who basically went around getting into fights with everyone until he was one of the strongest fighters in the world. The other day while I was looking around on youtube I found this video. It is only one of two educational PSA's that Dragon Ball made. It was funny for me to see them take an adventure/action series and turn it into a serious message. They never made an English version so you have to read the subtitles, but if you can get past the subtitles it is pretty cheesy and fun to watch. Watching the PSA felt really nostalgic, it was like I was in my living room watching TOONAMI after a tough day of the third grade again. So I decided to do my rhetorical analysis on the Dragon Ball video.

Living On My Own

So now that I've been living on my own (not counting my dorm mates) for about three weeks now, and I'm beginning to notice the difference from living at home. The biggest change would be the amount of freedom I now have. Stay up as late as I want, and then sleep in all day (which isn't that smart of an idea if you want to pass your classes). Most of what happens is all on you now. You decide that you don't want to go to class and nobody will say anything. Everything in college is all up to you. You don't really ease get much warning about the changes until you're here. You're just thrown in and have to get used to it as fast as possible. After awhile you begin to ease into it. So college living isn't that bad once you get used to it.

Hodge's Common's on Prezi

This is a prezi presentation that I made for my English class. It is a visual rhetoric showing just how awesome the Hodges commons are. I thought about doing it on how eerily quite and empty the study floors are in the morning, but then I thought that the commons would be cooler. So, this presentation took a lot of hard work and effort to make(mostly because I'm not really all that tech savvy) so I hope that everyone is able to enjoy it.

Disney Copyright

I thought that the Disney copyright video did a pretty good job in getting it's point across. It chose to use the movies from the Disney vault to try and get their point across about the use and abuse of copyright laws. By using a large, powerful organization like Disney that is well known to millions, they were able to talk about things that most people wouldn't normally be interested in, and gave them something that they knew so that they could understand the point that they were trying to get across. It is however a risky move to use an icon such as Disney. Many people grew up with Disney and associate it with the happy times in their childhood. To some having the symbols of their childhood shown as being shown in an evil way can be considered the same as a slap to the face. Using well known icons to try and get your message across is a risky gamble, but can be very profitable if done right.