The End is Here!

So we have come to the end of the semester and for me the end of my college career! I cannot believe how fast four years has gone by!  I think I have learned a lot of great things about stuff that actually interests me during my time at BSC.  This class was very educational and I enjoyed all the topics discussed each week.  I really wish I could say that I am going to miss college, but to tell you the truth I am really excited not to have to right another research paper, or any paper really every again! haha  Now lets see if I can find a job! hmmm....

youtube fun!!

ok that last post doesn't count! So I was looking on youtube...like a week ago...not during finals week! and I discovered the how to videos.  They are great because they teach you how to do anything. You just type in "how to" in the search window and see what comes up.  Then you can go to the "Howcast".  They have tons of videos some are actually very education while others are just kind of funny! But I do recommend checking it out! Oh and while you are on youtube check out Susan Boyle (if you don't know who she is by now you have been living under a rock!) and also check out "sneezing panda"!

You know what really grinds my gears!!!

FORGETTING TO BLOG!!!!! AHHH 

Media Effects

Reading this chapter on Audiences It got me thinking about how much what I watch on TV effects me in my life? When I watch a certain movie and I really it, it tends to stick with me for a few days and I think about it a lot.  But I never want to go and act like the person in the film, it doesn't effect me in that way! I saw twilight recently and I don't want to go be a vampire now! haha 

But it did get me thinking about other types of media and how that effects me.  For instance I like to follow celebrity gossip (I know lame) but I do...That effects me only in that I tend to know whats going on in that world and am often telling my friends did you hear about so and so haha and it just gives us something stupid to talk about for a few minutes.  I also like to see what people are wearing cause I am interested in fashion like that and I love shopping so if i like a certain outfit someone is wearing in a picture, I might try and find something similiar...It's not that I try to dress like a celebrity because I don't and I really don't like when people do (big sunglasses etc) I am just using that as an example of how the media effects me, because I can't really think of another way it effects me in life.  I was just curious how the media effected people if just in thought or physically etc.  

It also got me thinking about a research paper I did for my comm 396 class on celebrity endorsements of products.  If a celebrity uses a product are you more likely to trust that product and use that product than if it was just a no name brand?  I think celebs effect us more than we think.  

The Good Old Disney Days

While I was reading another blog about Disney it got me thinking about the good old days with the old Disney Classics like Lion King, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid!! They just don't make movies like that anymore! 

Of course they make better quality movies now with all the new animation technology and CGI etc.  Animated movies these days always have some hidden jokes that only adults would get (Shrek).  I still love the old disney classics...simple stories that in some cases have been redone over and over again in countless other movies.  I don't know how many different versions there have been of Cinderella!  I think kids today are to immersed in new technology and new animated films that they wouldn't even get the old animation, they would look at it and think it was so "fake" looking maybe haha! 

I have little cousins and they have never seen The Little Mermaid! very sad!

Twilight Phenomenon

So I finally gave in and rented Twilight the other day.  I had never read the books so didn't have that many expectations but since it seems to be everywhere and it seems to be bigger (dare i say it) than Harry Potter! I admit I was curious to see what all the fuss was about! I have to say...I didn't hate it! But I still don't know if I would call myself a Twilight fan. I don't think I quite meet the criteria...I am not a little teeny bopper girl between the ages of 12-16 haha! But I did like the movie and I can start to see what all the fuss was about!

This got me thinking about our culture or pop culture and how something like Twilight or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, Narnia etc. can just have this mass following.  It is usually a book series usually involving fantasy elements and it just gets people hooked! All of a sudden there are tshirts, lunch boxes, happy meals, other memorabilia related to the thing and it is everywhere! Once you have something that people love then businesses, advertisers and movie studios just want to maximize on it and its like they hit the jackpot.  I feel like you could be selling toilet paper and as long as it had Edward Cullen on the front it would sell way more than any other toilet paper.  Okay I'm ranting but you know what I mean?

I'm sure we have all been hooked by something like this at one point in our lives.  I can't wait to see what the next phenomenon will be that will have all the girls screaming!!!

Give me Back My Filet o' Fish!

Okay so this might not have anything to do with this class...or maybe it does lets see!

I really can't help but like that knew McDonalds commercial about the filet o fish, you know the one I'm talking about! The one with the singing fish on the wall! I don't know why but I find it quite well delightful! Most people I have come across find it either very funny and like to sing the song, or find it really annoying! There is no happy medium with this commercial.  

I was watching the news and they had a segment on the people behind the catchy jingle, they are actually local people.  They were saying how it has become part of pop culture now, and I have to agree.  Just the other day my friend called me and said "you have something of mine give it back" and I said what?  He then proceeded to sing "give me back my filet o fish..." to funny! See it is already becoming one of those commercials that you may never forget even if you might want to!

If it ain't broke...Don't Confuse Us!!!

Dear Facebook, your site is fine the way it is...stop trying to make it fancy and different because it is just the same just, harder to see what we are looking at and who can see what...live stream what?!?!!? so confusing!

So I log on to facebook today and as you all may know they have redesigned it...again! Why do they do this, nobody every likes it when they do this all you get is people complaining about how they want the old way way.  It was fine the way it was! 

This go me thinking about how nothing ever stays the same and we should be used to it by now. Technology is always changin and improving and sometimes it is hard to keep up with it.  especially when you got used to something certain way or just got the hang of something, then BAM they come out with the newer version and your left thinking, what was the point of learning the old way, when in a few months they wil just come out with some think "way better".  

Oscars!!!!

So I don't know about you, but I love awards season! I love watching the awards shows and seeing who will win and what everyone is wearing! I thought the Oscars this year were different then they have been in other years but I found it refreshing.  I thought Hugh Jackman did a great job as host and I loved how the whole thing played out like pre-production, set design, costumes, then on set and post production showing the timeline of the awards given out.  I thought that was very clever and all the sets on the stage were very good as well.  I loved how they introduced the nominees for best supporting actor/actress and best actor/actress with past winners of these awards saying something about each nominee.  I am however glad they did not present every award in this way or the show would have been 10 hours long! 

So overall I enjoyed the Oscars this year. Slumdog Millionaire (predictably) swept the board.  I was so glad Kate Winslet won best actress! Sean Penn won best actor for his role as Harvey Milk in Milk.    Of course Heath Ledger won for best supporting actor for the joker, well deserved and a shame he was not there to bask in his accomplishments.  

So overall I thought it was a good show...but I still can't figure out how Miley Cyrus got invited haha

Genres

So this weeks assignment got me thinking about Genre and how it isn't so classified as we all might think or actually maybe we did know this.  I was thinking about many movies and searching on imdb.com and not one film had just one genre.  They were all classified in many different genres like comdedy, drama, fantasy etc.  

I was watching the film notting hill last night so I decided I would guess what genre it would fall into then look on imdb.com and see if i was right.  I guessed it fell under the romance genre and found that it is also classified as comedy.  So then i spent some time looking up different movies just to see the genres.  I looked up Spiderman (action, crime, sci-fi, thriller) I basically went through my dvd list,  Atonement (drama, mystery, romance, war) Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind (drama, romance) stand by me (adventure drama)...just to name a few!

I thought it was interesting that everyone has trouble classifying a film into one genre...it is an impossible task!

The Perfect date Movie

I went to see "He's Just Not That Into You" the other day and I think it is funny first of all how in advertisements for the movie they are saying its the perfect date movie.  A movie called he's just not that into you is the perfect date movie?  Go and see it on Valentines Day! 

But really after watching it I think it is a good date movie, I mean a definite chick flick for sure but I think it gives some real insightful notions of how men and women view dating, exagerated of course but humorous and overall I enjoyed it.  

Anyone who is anyone is in this film: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Scarlett Johansson etc.  But the one person who I thought really stood out was Gennifer Goodwin.  I think this film is really going to help launch her career.  She has been in other things before but is not as famous as the other people in the film but I feel like she was the main character and really carried the film and I thought she was really good.  

If anyone has seen this movie and has any thoughts please share, if you haven't seen it, hey it's the perfect Valentines Day Date Movie! haha

Can't Live Without My Cell Phone

So I was at work yesterday and my manager was complaining about the kids with their cell phones that come into the store and have loud conversations with their friends so everyone can hear.  It is a real pet peeve of hers when someone even comes into the store talking on their cell phone.  You want to stare way clear of her if anyone dares to come up to the counter to check out and is still on their cell phone!  I think it is definitely a generational thing with us younger generations not thinking it is that rude to be on our cell phones in a store, but her ranting and raving yesterday got me thinking how rude is it?

It is a debatable topic to say the least.  She was giving me the old line of "you know ten years ago we didn't even have cell phones and we survived!"  I was thinking "ya how did you survive??!?!??"  My cell phone is sort of a sense of comfort for me and if I leave the house without it I get nervous...what if i break down or run out of gas and I can't call anyone, what do i do?  You are telling me I have to walk to a pay phone?  Do pay phones even exist anymore?? haha

So I was just wondering how rude do you think it is to be on your cell phone in a store?  Or to even be texting in a store while the sales person is trying to ask you if you need help or while you are checking out?  

Keeping Up With the Joneses

So getting away from the Octo-Mom...reading through some other blogs got me thinking about technology and how it is always changing! I was thinking about how much technology has changed and how far it has come in my lifetime...first there was the vhs then the dvd now we have blueray and who knows what else.  Then computers are suddenly small enough that they can fit on a desk and households can have them!  Then the internet gets going and it has just exploded into so many different aspects, wireless, cell phones (internet, gps etc)  Cars can parallel park themselves, going green! we are always evolving and changing!

Can you even imagine a time without the internet? I can remember in 6th grade when i first became aware that i could have a screenname and talk with my friends online! Each night i would wait for my turn on the family desktop haha and then wait another hour for the stupid aol dial up to actually connect me to the internet (ahhh i can still hear those sounds of the dial up) and I thought it was the coolest thing!  I look back on that now having wireless and my very own laptop and think how did i survive without my own computer!  And it really hasn't been that long since I got my own just freshman year of college! 

Also our parents! We have to teach them about all the new technologies! We being the younger generation have a responsibility to keep up with changing technology.   My dad recently got a brand new 16 gb ipod nano for christmas and he had no idea how to use it! So i taught him! They taught me how to tie my shoes and ride a bike.....I teach them how to surf the web, use their ipods, text message on their cell phones, tivo! 

Technology has changed so much in just the last 4 years (facebook is only like 4 years old!) I cannot wait to see what comes out next...flying cars maybe!!??

Octo Mom Does Dateline

So I was watching tv last night and Nadia Suleman the women who just gave birth to octuplets (and already has six other children all under the age of 8) was on dateline.  There was more of her interview with ann curry plus and extra interview done just that day where she was addressing the fact that she lied about how she provides for her children and about the plastic surgery she might of had.  She still seems to me to be living in a fantasy world, she is like obsessed with having children.  She now admits that her family gets food stamps but still no welfare...how can she not be on welfare....she soon will be if she isn't already with 14 children being a single unemployed mom.....what a pickle she has landed herself in.  The only thing she says she is living off right now is food stamps and student loans! I really feel bad for her children.  They interviews some of the children she already has and one of the said she is not excited for these babies because it will make her mom stressed out all the time!  Now I thought the reason she gave for always wanting more and more children was because her children deserved siblings, but the kids never had  say!  

The media has just latched onto this story and won't let it go quite yet.  Other news people like Bill O'Reilly and other have had their say calling this women nuts for bringing 14 lives into this world without being able to support them.  She will end up on welfare and all the citizens of California will be supporting her childen.  NBC was flooded with angry emails from people wanting to know why they were interviewing her and how they better not be paying her for the interview...which they said they did not pay Nadia for the interview which I found surprising.  All these news networks have been flooded with angry emails about how this women is crazy and very irresponsible and she is trying to be Angelina Jolie and she has had plastic surgery etc. Nadia denied she ever had her lips done which is clearly a lie since in the interview we see pictures of her when she was younger having much thinner lips...  my point is I do not know what to make of this woman...and neither does the media!

Media Coverage of the Octuplet Mom

So I find the news medias fascination with that lady who had those eight babies all at one time and already has six kids sort of fascinating myself.  Nadya Suleman is getting a lot of media attention and criticism for her decision to have implanted embryos when she already had six children.  She is unemployed and lives with her mother.  I was watching the interview she did with Ann Curry on the Today show and I find her to be a little (crazy isn't the word) but ya just a little... living in her own world!  They were saying she has a striking resemblance to Angelina Jolie and her lips do look like they have had a few injections (not judging) maybe she wants to be like Angelina Jolie? I don't know! Of course the media is going to make these sorts of accusations about her like she only wants to be famous and is enjoying her 15 minutes of fame.  Her excuse for having so many kids was that all she ever wanted in life was to be a mom and to live for her children, well I think just having once baby makes you a mom?  I understand people have the right to have as many children as they want it is a free country, but I can't help but feel like she is being irresponsible for having so many kids when she clearly cannot afford.  I am sure she got paid a lot to do the interview and she will get money for various other things because lucky for her the media is fascinated by her at the moment.  Who could blame her, she has all those kids to support so smart of her to milk it.  I just don't know about it really, did she just want to be a mom that by accident got all this attention for accidently having to many kids or does she want fame, probably a little bit of both.  Sorry for my little rant but the media fascinates me in this way.