11/18 Dear John

My older sister is a huge Nicholas Sparks fan. She has read almost all of the books he has written. I, on the other hand, am not very fond of reading. I feel like I read way too much for school, so I should not read more just for fun! But every now and then, I decide to read a book that I think I might like. About a year ago, my sister suggested one of Nicholas Sparks' novels called Dear John. I finally decided that I would try to read it over the summer :) I started it on my 26 hour road trip to Colorado..yes, I know..it wasn't the greatest thing I've ever done. The trip sucked! But the book was actually very interesting. I ended up reading almost all of it by the time I got back home. This is rare for me because I usually only read when there is absolutely nothing else in the world to do.
This book is a romance novel about a troubled boy who entered the military and came back one summer a completely changed man. He falls in love with a girl who is only in his hometown for a while for charity work. She is the only one that understands him. When he has to leave at the end of the summer, they plan to write letters back and forth until he can return home. Their plan works for a long time, until he decides to re-inlist after everything that happened with 9/11. It becomes to hard for her, and she breaks up with him in a letter. I don't want to explain the rest because I would ruin the ending for anyone reading this, and I wouldn't want to do that because this novel is being made into a movie!! :) I'm so excited about it. I can't wait to see it. John will be played by Channing Tatum..enough said!

11/16 Punk: Attitude. (cont..)

Bands like The Clash came onto the scene and began playing and asking what are we going to do about what is wrong instead of just yelling about it like the Sex Pistols did. Reggae also became a huge part of punk and an influential sound. It also introduced "smack" to these rockers and replaced the previous drug of choice, "speed." Many people didn't know what to think about punk when it first started in America, but punk became a huge hit in London! People in the U.S. were a little scared. Bondage pants and weird clothing held together by safety pins became the basic clothing of these punk rockers. The people who weren't scared sometimes made assumptions about what it was and began dressing in clothes that they "thought" was "punk attire" when in fact, it wasn't. People started wearing safety pins in their cheeks and leather jackets. Punk rock got nasty towards the end because of tabloids making the public afraid of these "disturbed" people. The Sex Pistols became known as "the craziest band in history." People were so afraid to bein the same room as them that most of the gigs on their tour were cancelled! The first place they played at was Atlanta. As they ventured on they ended up on stage with hundreds of people throwing whatever they could find at them and booing. They even through whole cans at their heads! They kept playing and won over the crowd :)

11/13 Punk: Attitude.

I was not very excited about watching this video when the class first chose to watch it. I have never really been a big fan of rock or punk music. Don't get me wrong, I like some songs, and I have nothing against the genre, I just don't really know much about it and never really cared enough to do anything about it. My older sister is a huge punk/rock fan. She even enjoys the "screamo" music or whatever it's called, so I was forced to listen to it when I was younger and she drove us everywhere. Surprisingly though, I really enjoy the video. It's interesting to learn about the different people and the history behind a genre of music. I like learning about how it got started and where it all took place. The attitudes of these punk people are ver siimilar to the attitudes of a lot of young people of that generation..even this generation in fact. At first, punk meant "a fucked up guy in prison. Rebellion." Punk-rock music came into existence when angry, frustrated people just wanted to be heard. They used lots of curse words and did a lot of screaming and yelling rather than singing. Many of the first punk bands came from England. People were angry about and sick of the Vietnam War in the 1960's. There was a lot of feelings and repressed attitudes that people began expressing.
CBGB's was one of the only places that punk groups could actually get up and play in front audiences. Bands such as Television and Patti Smith played here. Most of the bands weren't even very good! But that wasn't the point. They weren't there to be great. They put bands together to express how they felt in a fucked up world and to have fun playing music because it is what they liked to do.

11/11 Rupert Murdoch

What is this guys problem? Rupert Murdoch seems like an intelligent, driven man. He has to be to accomplish all of the things he's done in his lifetime. But if this man is so smart, then why is he freaking out and bashing Google? He believes that Google and other search engines are stealing his news! He is "talking" about how he is going to set up pay walls to keep Google from using his material and benefitting from it without him getting any money from it. The key word is "talking" though. He hasn't actually filed any lawsuits and hasn't even added robots.txt to his sites. Why is this? If he didn't want his material being used by these search engines, then all he had to do was block it. One reason that he probably hasn't done this is because he knows that it wouldn't be good for business and would probably end up hurting rather than helping his cause. He wants money and popularity. Well, by blocking his newspapers from online search engines, he would be reducing the amount of viewers and prescribers to his newspaper. This man is all talk and is only threatening these organizations and causing drama to bring recognition to his news and make other news providers follow in his footsteps. There is absolutely no way that he would actually win a case against Google or any other huge internet site..and he knows it.

11/9 The Box

In this review of the movie The Box, John Swansburg discusses the negative and positive points of Richard Kelly's imagination and vision of the movie. I believe that Swansburg is a fan of Kelly's and that he wants Kelly to succeed, but he also critisizes him for his overly-imaginitive, weird, science fiction mind. This review paints a slightly negative picture of the movie while at the same time giving positive feedback and suggestions for Kelly in the future. The plot of the movie is that a pretty well-off couple has been having a few monetary setbacks lately and are given the oppurtunity to make $1 million if they push a tiny red button in this wooden box. This oppurtunity was posed by a stranger, an older man with a scare on his face, who randomly showed up on their doorstep one day. Sounds like an easy task right? WRONG! Apparently, if they decide to press the button, then another stranger somewhere in the world will die. This is defiinitey a difficult moral dilemma. What are they to do? How do they deal with the guilt of killing an innocent citizen just for their own economic benefit? If Iwas to be approached with the same offer, I really don't know how I would react. I don't really think anyone knows what they would do in a difficult decision until they're actually placed in that situation. In the end, I don't believe I would press the button. I mean, its not like this coupld was poor and homeless. They had enough of the good life.

11/6 another freewrite.

YouTube.

Where should I even begin with the topic of YouTube?! First of all, I think it is a wonderful thing. It has opened the doors to different cultures and experiences and given billions of people around the world something to do when they are bored. YouTube became an instant hit. People of all kinds make videos and post them on the internet in hopes that it will become a top-viewed video. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame! There was even an episode of the Tyra Show that aired about a year ago that dealt with some of the most popular YouTube video stars. It is crazy to think that millions of people watch a video that has absolutely no objective or goal other than to entertain and laugh. But some people may disagree with this. As YouTube has become more and more popular, educational videos and music videos have become a large part of the network. YouTube can now be used in school to show the history of jazz or punk or can be viewed by teenagers looking for the latest hit song. In turn, they can record their own personal remix and post it on YouTube for others to view.

Yes. I believe YouTube is a good thing. But sometimes, people can take it too far. The idiotic people that do grose and dangerous things just to be put on YouTube and get "famous" for a short period of time, bring a negative aspect of YouTube to light. When people start finding ways to set themselves apart from everyone else by doing dumb things that may harm themselves or others, attention must be paid and the madness must be stopped.

11/4 freewrite.

Photographs. The one thing that can capture a moment in time and freeze it forever. Have you ever heard the phrase "a pictures worth a thousand words?" If you have, then you probably understand what it means and would agree with the statement. If you haven't, now you have :) There is nothing better than looking back at old photographs you've found while cleaning out the attic, basement, closet, or any other room that was in need of spring cleaning. Photographs bring back memories of old friends and places you've been and also help us remember who we were at that moment in time, whether it was a year ago or thirty years ago.

Many times scrapbooks are made for friends or children as gifts. These can stay with you forever. I have a couple of scrapbooks and I've made one of my own. There was noghting like it. I loved being able to look back on my past and remember all the good memories and experiences that have made me who I am today. I never really thought that I would ever have the oppurtunity to make my own scrapbook, but high school changed that. I had to for a senior project, and I'm really glad I did now. I learned about my parents and their stories about getting married and their stories about me. I found long lost pictures of when I was little and all the friends that have come and gone throughout my life.

Photographs are remarkable. The guy/girl who made it possible for us to make them, is my hero.