Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who

the article for this post is "and now a word from their cool college sponsor" by kate zernike. basically, this article tell of two highschool senior that graduate and pay for college by advertising themselves for a credit card company. the question in this article is who is taking advantage of whom. i think both sides are taking advantage of each other. from the side of the students, they paying for college by merely advertising for them. they get fame and "fortune" and get to talk about fiscal responsiblity. the credit card company gets a way to advertising even closer to the youth who "need" lost of stuff and have the "income" do buy said stuff. first, the credit card company is shelling out 80000 dollars for this. i'm suprise they're paying that much for advertising. at least it goes to a good cause. second, are the boys selling out? well, you have to ask them according to their morals and values. personally, i don't know that it would be right for myslef to be an advert even for that. but, i pay to be an advert by the shirts that i buy, etc. so, is what they are doing so horrible? what i advertise on my shirts, i can be proud of. i own five doctor who shirts, and you know what, i'm proud to advert for them. it's a quality show. the new show is very well made and is good tv. if they paid for to wear the shirt, then awesome. but a credit card company? i don't think i would. so, it all comes down to what it is that i'd be adverting. if it's something that i can be proud, then it's a mutal benefit and i wouldn't mind telling people about it. so, can these lads say that same?

Advertise Here

the article for this post is "salespeak" by roy f. fox. the gist of this article is that advertising is ridiculous. that it, though it does it in a creative way. basically, it's a piece of fiction where everything is saturated with adverts. the child's name is pepsi and childern do experiments based on adverts in science class (like which spagetti sauce is thicker: ragu or prego). the author then goes on to talk about examples in current times. adverts are ridiculous. i remember watching tv during a commercial break. all it contained was different pics of michael jordan. then it ended zooming out with michale jordan just standing there. that was it. to this day, i still have no idea what was being advertised. how many products do i own are some form of advertising? let's see, my computer says hp on the back of the screen, my tv says symphonic, my shirt say something about doctor who. that's about it for my room (i got off lucky). the point is that humans themselves have become advertising space. just by what you dress in you show off some product. is this story so far fetched and ridiculous? no. but, not all advertising is bad. without it, capitalism might not work and you wouldn't know of somethings that you might actully like to bad instead of just being told to buy something. the point is, there is a time and place for advertising. where is that line and have we crossed it already?

People I know in Real Life

the article for this post is "meet my 5000 new best pals" by janet kornblum. the gist of this article is about social networks sites and how ridiculous they can be. for those of us online (and i don't know how you're reading this if you aren't), most of us are connecting through some type of social networking site like facebook or myspace or whatever. the article talks about the fact that there are no rules for friend list and the fact that they can be faked. facebook is the main site that i use. i've already had people on there friend me who i didn't have a clue about. people from all over the world. i never friend someone that i don't know. one of my friends doesn't friend somebody unless he would actually talk to in real life for some amount of time. there have been a lot of complaints about social networking cites and about how they're breaking communication down. i say meh. i use facebook to talk to friends that i see all the time, to post various pictures (both slighty embarrassing and not at all), and, perhaps the best use for such a site, to connect with people and friends from long (well, for me anyway at age 25) ago who i wouldn't have had a clue where to find. so, bad and good but, like any product, it's just there. the worth is left up to the person who uses it.

SuperWoman

the article for this post is "supernatural girls" by kathleen sweeney. basically, the subject of this article is the semi-recent trend of super-naturally endowed/capable fictional female characters. first off, the super powers. ever since childhood, we have always wondered what it would be like to have super powers. the human condition is such that it ponders the what-ifs and what-wills of situations. therefore, one what-if is if human beings became superior in some way to what they are now. i'd love to have super powers. i myself grew up reading comic books. i use to pretend that i'd have super powers along with my friends and we'd form "super hero" groups. secondly, the rise of the female that can kick super butt. as our culture stresses on equality in real life, so too has it stressed equality in our dreams of super "heroes". one just has to compare the new doctor who series with the old one. the female companions (with maybe the exception of romana and tegan) were "helpless" girls that would scream whenever there was a monster. in the new series, they help the doctor, remind him to be compasionate, and make sure to stick up for the human race whenever the doctor makes an offhanded remark against humanity every now and again.

Double Life

the article for this post is "leading a double life" by irene sege. basically, the topic of the article is the comparison of a person in real life to their person in cyber culture/on the internet. personally, i try to be who i am both online and off. that said, there are different facets to my personality. does this mean that i'm a liar or that i'm really somebody completely different online? no. most people are at least a little different even among friends. 1. people don't act the same around the same people and 2. people act differently around different people. so, on the interweb, i'm surrounded by lots of different people, therefore, one would expect me to act at least a little differently. that said, i do still try to just be me. granted, i can be a little more charasmatic online because i can type something up, reread it, and edit it. on many sites, you can even edit long after you posted. what i'm trying to say, is that different parts of my personality are able to be accentuated online versus real life but, i'm still me online compared to the many, many people at there.

Plagiarism Plague

the article for this post is "the rules of attribution" by deborah r. gerhardt. the article talks about how plagierism "plagues" many highschool and college students because they are only given the rules one time. the author compares this to basketball. in basketball, players are not given the rules once and then thrown into the game. instead, they actually learn the rules solidly before main game play. basically, the author is saying that today's young academians are ill prepared for writing in the harsh, cruel academic world.

i always thought that some of the copyright laws made no sense at all. anyway, i don't know if college students are ill prepared. i think a lot of students are lazy and know that they are copying. citing works has been drilled into my head over and over again. what has me confused is when to simply put the work cited in the works cited and when you have to put a quotation in the paper itself. the article also mentioned about professors typing phrases into a search engines and various "plagiarism detecting" programs. i question the reliability of such programs. i like to use as little research as possible. why so? this is due to part lasiness (i have to be honest) and i like to keep my ideas informed, but as much my own as possible. so if i come up with something on my own, it happens to be similiar to something someone else wrote, and my professor looks on the internet for plagiarism, will i get punished for plagiarism? just like with composing music, i can't be informed of all the works of art that are floating around in the academic world. there's truly nothing new under the sun...

blog independence day

today is the first day that i post a real post for the blog for my class. this particular post is in response to the article "popular culture in the twenty-first century" by bill ivey and steven j. tepper. it's in our text called text messaging by john alberti. basically, the article starts off by talking about the change in pop culture as related to the elite vs. the masses at the turn of the century from th 19th to the 20th. then, as technology arose, the line between the two started to blur. now, in our day and age of expenditure, the line is starting to reappear as those with less resources ingest that of the generic and mass produced arts.

there was much in the article to think about. suddenly there are these non-professional musicians and artist that were creating these masterworks as if they were classically trained. suddenly, we are awashed in culture and diversity and i think it's brilliant. whenever i yearn for passion in an art form, i have no dearth of examples to explore. the downside is one simple question: where to start? it's no wonder that there has become a line between the elites and masses again. in order to fund our lavish tastes, we have to work more and do more in order to provide security of life and entertainment. suddenly, there's no time to explore the diversity of artful cinema, food, music, etc. only those who have the time and resources to do so can venture in and slake their thirst. this often leads to snobism unfortunately. these elites only "like" the art because they can put another badge of honor on their scout shirt of pride. i know what it's like not to have the time and resources. i'm a full time college student that works. i am often too tired and don't have enough time or money to indulge in artistic fantsy. i'm gulity of watching movies that hollywood says i should watch (although i do try to pick ones that are hollywood but are still good movies). however, i try to make some time to explore something that i haven't before. i once just started listening to ambient music ( a genre i had never encountered before). i would listen to anything and write down anything that i heard that i liked. now i love artists such as brian eno, chuck wild, jon serrie, kintaro, and many others that i would not know about if i had not tried it out. i didn't have any help from anyone i knew. i was the first in my groups of friends (as still am) that listens to ambient music. trying out new bands like explosions in the sky or mogwai mixed musical forms that i take splendid pleasure from. a great way to do this is run winamp on your computer. it's a program that streams music and plays like a radio station without the commercials. it has lots of genres and is where i started my immersion in ambient music. i'm sure you could find plenty of examples in other forms. in closing, i see the line differentiating the elites between the masses growning ever bolder and more defined. i think that the spirit of diversity that has arisen in our culture due to technology doesn't have to die out, but can be reasonably and practically kept alive and growing. i think and hope that we, as the masses, can keep that line fuzzy and faded.

humble beginnings

just a mere test of the blogging system.....beep beep beep......this has been a test of the blogging system.