Writing for the web

It's the end of the blog as we know it

2008-12-09T18:29:00.005-05:00

This is what I think is going to be the final post of this class.

Looking back at my first blog entry on what online journalism is, it is pretty clear that I have learned something from this class and that my view on the subject has changed.

In this article, I said:

Since I became a journalism major, "online journalism" has been presented to me as both a threat and a blessing for the journalism world. The way this medium has been presented to me has been contradictory at times, leading me to become perplexed enough that I would be given no other choice but to take a class on the subject. I am here to discover if journalism students should abandon all hope because of these "bloggers" that we have been led to fear, or if we should embrace this way of communication as the start of a new age in the journalism world.

Although I come from this course still unsure about what the future will bring for the world of journalism, I now realize that "online journalism" is not just restricted to the blogging world. There are many aspects of this form of journalism that may include blogging, and also forms that do not. There are collaboration sites, like The Huffington Post for instance, that include a number of blogs and links out and summaries of other news web sites. There are also local blogs, national blogs and blogs that focus on a particular view point or area of interest.

What I didn't think about before though, was the other aspect of online journalism- the use of "new media". I learned that in order for a web site to be successful it needs to adapt to some sort of use of new media technology- i.e. slideshows, video embedding, photos, html, etc. There are also new forms of media itself that are developing, like Twitter.

I didn't really consider any of this before and now realize that it is important to be able to use these tools in order to be a successful journalist- even if one plans on working for a "traditional" newspaper like the New York Times.

My conclusion? Journalism is not threatened by "bloggers". Journalists who don't adapt to online journalism, in all of its forms, are the ones who are threatened. This change is natural though, and may even make journalism better than it was before!

I'm lovin' it!

2008-12-08T15:30:00.002-05:00

It's starting to become clear that when the world ends only two things will be left- processed food, and cockroaches. This has become all the more apparent as the world economy continues to spiral deeper into recession, leaving most restaurants in a tough spot as more and more people are saving their money and eating at home. Despite this fact, however, one corporate giant is reeling in more customers than ever- Ronald McDonald.

Tales of the Golden Arches' success are popping up on news sites everywhere. Here's one of them that I read on The Daily Beast-

McDonald's Corp. (MCD) reported a 7.7% increase in November global same-store sales, with a 4.5% gain in the U.S., boosted by its breakfast business and the popularity of its chicken lineup. European same-store sales rose 7.8%, led by France, the U.K. andRussia. The company's Asia-Pacific,Middle East and Africa region saw 13% growth, driven by extended hours, the breakfast menu and menu variety. Sales growth was particularly strong in Japan and Australia. The company's shares were recently up 1.6% at $63.75 in pre-market trading. The overall restaurant sector in the U.S. has been hurt by high food and fuel prices, as well as by worries about a prolonged recession. McDonald's, however, may be benefitting from the tendency of cash-strapped consumers to trade down from more pricey eating-out options in the U.S

This reminds me of an article I read a few weeks ago, which was in the Boston Globe, I think. It was speaking to what the "new" depression would look like if it ever was to happen. Basically, it would look like a lot of TV watching since people would be out of jobs and have more time on their hands and less money for other forms of entertainment. And a lot of fast food.

It's a scary thought that Americans could become even more stereotypically dumber and fatter? Is this a reality? Or will Americans become more concerned and care more about funding for social programs, as more of us will struggle economically, and in light of our new president?

Only time will tell. For now, I'm still going nowhere near McDonald's.

Unless it's in Thailand.

Scarlet takes a tumble

2008-12-03T20:44:00.004-05:00

My friends showed me this gem while I was home this weekend.

You're probably gonna wanna fast forward for about the first 2 minutes.

Peace Corps Pictures

2008-12-02T20:40:00.002-05:00

It should work now! Pictures from the info session on the Peace Corps.

A walk in the wild

2008-12-02T15:43:00.003-05:00

Here is my slideshow.... It's a look into the "wildlife" at UMass. haha. I was inspired to take pictures of the squirrels and ducks that frequent our lovely campus due to yesterday's beautiful weather. And also because of the oddly friendly nature of these animals. I've had a couple of friends visit me who commented on how strangely close the animals get to people at UMass. It's pretty true. There was this squirrel we named Simon once who followed us around freshman year. My sister came up a couple weeks ago and said the same thing.

Here ya go. My slideshow.

Thanksgiving mayhem

2008-12-01T23:10:00.003-05:00

Thanksgiving, as some of you may remember, has and always has been my least favorite holiday. This year, of course, was no exception. However, that does not imply that the following three days were not reasonably enjoyable. I went to Vermont for the holiday, ate potatoes and a bit of squash, and then Friday morning I left. I decided that I missed home a bit so I headed off to New Jersey for the next few days.

Car I saw on the way, in Mass.:

yo.

Tappan Zee Bridge! With over 100 architectural "red flags" that need to be fixed!

I think I live over that hill somewhere...

Something fun about going home is seeing people from high school. This was definitely one of the highlights from my trip. I avoided seeing most people from high school though, so it was somewhat successful. We went to the bars near the bridge actually, in Nyack, NY which is about 10 minutes from my house, not only because it's a good place to go but also because we didn't feel like going to a bar in Jersey so we could hang out with all of the people we didn't really like anyway. Although I am curious to see them, I didn't really want to hang out with them. My co-worker put it nicely yesterday when she said, "I didn't go to the football game this year. I just did not want to do it, I drew the line. I said to myself , 'I don't really care to see who got pregnant, or fat.'"

Aside from that, my friends and I just sat around. Bored. It definitely was a plus being 21 though and being able to go out.

What we did when we were bored... Played with Photobooth on my Mac. haha. always fun times.

Also, saw my family which was nice too. No pics of them. Sorry. Haha.

Oh FYi this is not my "picture" post.

Bergen.com

2008-11-25T16:39:00.002-05:00

The primary local newspaper that people read in my area is the Bergen Record. Up until recently, I never really noticed how legitimate the paper was. For instance, they review the Jets & Giants pretty often as they play in the Meadowlands, which is in Bergen County. I also found out last night when I randomly Wikipedia-ed Christina Ricci (my friend and I were watching the episode of Grey's Anatomy where she is a paramedic), that she grew up in Montclair, N.J. and was "discovered" by the Record when she was 8 years old and performing in a children's play there.

Aside from putting out a pretty hefty paper six days a week, the Record has put together its online edition- NorthJersey.com, which grants free access to all of the Record's recent stories (I believe non-subscribers can read stories up to 30 days old or something like that), and all sorts of content. There are pretty high quality videos on local stories as well, such as the real interesting must-watch video I showed in class about cops who have voice-activation systems. Good to see tax payers $$ put to good use. BUT, under the "today's" stories- there is a SLIDESHOW and a PHOTO Gallery which I just discovered. That's cool. The slideshow is on the British invasion of Fort Lee, N.J., about 200 years ago. For New Jersey, revolutionary war ties are a big deal I guess, since we don't have nearly as many as Mass.

I guess you could say none of the content is too compelling but because it's presented well it seems cooler. There are blogs, high school sports sections, an opinion page, a "town" page where you can find out the happenings goin' on in your town. Yet, I was disappointed to find that my town's "happenings" were all business related or had to do with high school sports for the private school in town (my high school's sports teams didn't even make the town news hahah).

The community section was also lacking, as it pertained to stuff going on in Manhattan and not anything in town- proving why my friends and I do nothing but sit at Dunkin Donuts if we are not hanging out in the city. There is absolutely nothing to do.

The site did not lack ads for ritzy living places near the GW bridge, or BMWs, Volvos, etc. It's clear who reads the site- rich, business people. There was also this annoying ad that you had to click out of in order to read part of the page. And I had to put my pop-up blocker on.

Conclusion- where I live may have a nice website but it lacks culture. It's true. 1 of the reasons why I love Massachusetts and plan on going to grad school in Boston!

My Favorite Holiday

2008-11-24T14:37:00.004-05:00

After complaining about Thanksgiving in my last post, Scott asked a question that left me kind of puzzled- What is my favorite holiday? My first instinct was to say Christmas, but when I realized how annoying Christmas music becomes after you hear it for three months in every store you go into, the stupid fights my family gets into, and the fact that I no longer believe Santa Clause exists, I realized this can no longer be my favorite holiday. I almost responded with April Fools, and after finding this article on the top 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes on the Huffington Post, I realize my first instinct was correct- my favorite holiday is April Fools.

What other day of the year are blatant lies told intended to trick people, encouraged? Actually, I guess you could say Halloween is a holiday that is on par with the spirit of April Fools. So, there you have it, two holidays that I like. There needs to be more holidays like these. Probably once a month...

It wouldn't be April Fools Day though, without fake stories in the newspapers. That's my favorite part about the day, but it was definitely something I wasn't really aware of freshman year when I was reading The Collegian on April 1st. Last year's was definitely my favorite though, which featured the picture of the library covered by a giant condom, with the headline reading: "The Library is Now Safe".

Here's another good one:

On April 1, 1996 a full page ad appeared in six major American newspapers (The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and USA Today) announcing that the fast food chain Taco Bell had purchased the Liberty Bell. The full text of the ad read:
In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures. It will now be called the “Taco Liberty Bell” and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country’s debt.
In a separate press release, Taco Bell explained that the Liberty Bell would divide its time between Philadelphia and the Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine. It compared the purchase to the adoption of highways by corporations. Taco Bell argued that it was simply “going one step further by purchasing one of the country’s greatest historic treasures.“ The company boasted, “Taco Bell’s heritage and imagery have revolved around the symbolism of the bell. Now we’ve got the crown jewel of bells.“

The case for tofurky

2008-11-21T14:21:00.003-05:00

This video I found on The Daily Beast, of Sarah Palin "pardoning" some dude killing turkeys is enough to make anyone want to stop eating the stuff on Thanksgiving.

On that note, I've never really liked Thanksgiving, and I've liked it even less since I became a vegetarian a few years ago. There's never anything for me to eat except olives and crackers, so last year, my sister-in-law made a Tofurky. Although I wouldn't highly recommend it to anyone, it was still better to eat than nothing at all.

Yet, my dislike for Thanksgiving goes beyond hating the food. What I'm finding though is that people don't really want to hear about it- it seems like everyone, except me, likes Thanksgiving. Since I've taken on the title of Thanksgiving scrooge and no one can really stop me from complaining HERE, then I will take this time to list why I don't like the holiday (except the time off from school of course).

-Too much traffic/travel for a 2 day break/ not getting to see the cool relatives because they all live too far to travel for it.

-The food

-The turkeys

-Football

-Arguing with my mother

-No presents

-Most pilgrims were not friends with Indians, making the "thanksgiving feast" highly unlikely.

-People harassing me for being a vegetarian

Bah humbug.

My right to be clean

2008-11-19T23:49:00.003-05:00

Tonight I'm taking the opportunity to publicly through UMass' laundry service vendor, Automatic Laundry, under the bus. For the past couple of hours, my friend and I have been going back and forth to The Laundry Club in Amherst after my month-long boycott of doing laundry left me with an awful choice: wear the Limited Too underwear from 7th grade that is gathering cobwebs in the back of my drawer, or wade through 2 feet of water in the basement just to wait to find an available washer/dryer that will most likely overflow and/or fail to dry my clothes. This, is the reality of living in Van Meter/Butterfield, and most likely, other dorms on campus at UMass.

I'm lucky enough to have my own car, and took this time to escape the mayhem that takes place when you have only 4 or so "working" (again, this should be used loosely as this can't even be guaranteed) washers/dryers for around 400 people. Now, I peacefully sit amongst mounds of clothes that need to be put away (ugh) but are at least almost all the way DRY and clean without too much stress. In fact, the night was kind of fun.

Yet, the problem lies in the fact that, as someone who is living in the dorms, I shouldn't have to bring my laundry anywhere, especially to a place that will end up costing me twice what it would cost me to do my laundry in the building. The biggest problem with this, is that Van Meter is a freshman dorm, and as such, many of the people who live here do not have cars. Also, as students that pay thousands of dollars to come here, why should we have to deal with such misery when we want to exercise our fundamental right to have clean clothes. Isn't it a basic practice of good hygiene? What if the building was only provided with a total of 12 showers and sinks, half of which worked? Would that be okay?

Not to mention the hazard the machines pose, as the laundry rooms are always flooded. It sucks the most for the students that live in the basement though, which reeks like moldy Tide and gym socks due to the fact that at any given time at least one machine is overflowing.

One of VM's maintainers told us though, that Automatic Laundry is up to renew its contract with UMass. They've encouraged us to form a petition and that is exactly what I'm doing. Hopefully it will work because this is absolutely absurd.

Total Request Not Alive

2008-11-18T16:15:00.004-05:00

Goodbye, TRL. Watching this slideshow on the New York Times website brought back a lot of memories for me, as it captured the final episode of MTV's 10-year-old Total Request Live. This trip down memory lane did not come easily at first, though. When I first heard TRL was going off the air, or whenever I stumbled upon it while flipping through the channels, I could not help but think to myself, "This show is still on?" The artists on TRL, and MTV in general, haven't appealed to me since I was in 7th grade. Stumbling upon the New York Times slideshow though, brought back warm and fuzzy feelings from when classmates of mine used to brag that they were going to see TRL after school, LIVE because we lived right outside of NY. I would look for people I knew while watching the show as they held out signs and screamed to the artists I, and they, loved dearly. Unfortunately, I was never lucky enough to get tickets, but I probably would've peed my pants if I got to see Hanson up close, or 1 of my fav. Backstreet Boys. My critique of the slideshow is that it fails to capture the images of THIS TRL. TRL in its heyday. I don't care to see images of P-Diddy or KID ROCK, for that matter, especially pictures that were taken Sunday night.

Yet, although my departure from TRL had to do with the fact that my taste in music got better as I got older, a maturing audience is really not the reason why TRL has failed. What lies behind its failure instead stems from the music industry's inability to capture the next generation. Without the marketable artists churned out by record industries that dominated my generation like Brittany Spears and the Backstreet Boys coupled with the industry's inability to use advances in technology to their advantage. Total Request LIVE is no longer "live" at all, compared to the instant connection people have with artists and music via the internet. TRL fails in this way because live is no longer equated with watching a television show. It also failed because it should have reached out to all of the young pre-teens and teens that are out there wading through thousands of different artists from varying genres. This new generation does not limit itself to the limited material from Lil' Wayne or Rihanna, nor does it love these artists like my friends and I LOVED the Backstreet Boys and NSync.

I think this video captured it better. It wouldn't let me embed it... But here's NSync in 1998.

No assembly required

2008-11-17T15:18:00.003-05:00

It's good to know that should you ever go to Germany, be wary about any boxes that you open, as you never know if the delivery you thought were mom's famous fresh-baked cookies could in fact be an unpleasant surprise- an escaped convict. This Friday, a convicted drug dealer successfully mailed himself out of a German jail, possibly starting a creative new trend amongst other inmates someday?

The 42-year-old Turkish citizen - who was serving a seven-year sentence - had been making stationery with other prisoners destined for the shops. At the end of his shift, the inmate climbed into a cardboard box and was taken out of prison by express courier. His whereabouts are still unknown. The chief warden of the jail told the BBC this was an embarrassing incident

I feel as if I should be more troubled by the article, which I found in BBC, but I'm not. I think it's pretty creative, and funny. For some reason European inmates just don't seem as scary as American ones. Hm.

Micro-gross photos

2008-11-14T19:00:00.005-05:00

I'm sitting in this cafe in Somerville waiting for my friend to get out of work, so I decided to blog.

I checked out the "Peering into the micro world" website that we were supposed to talk about for class. All of the images are super super close-up versions of everyday things.

"For visualizing the scale, most measurements below are in microns - one micron is a millionth of a meter - human hair is approximately 100 microns thick."

Pretty interesting stuff. Made me pretty ill though, especially the ones that were close-ups of bugs. Reminds me of those 20-20 specials where Barbara Walters reveals what is REALLY living under those hotel bed sheets. Ewww. I was looking through the pictures again because I wanted to put one up on my blog, but they all really freak me out except the Obama one. It's crazy that we probably couldn't even see this as a single speck with the human eye, because it's so small.

The allure of over-priced cupcakes

2008-11-12T23:28:00.004-05:00

This Tuesday, Boston's famous John Earles a.k.a "Johnny Cupcakes" rolled into the parking lot of Worcester Dining Commons in his cupcake-mobile. Johnny, (actually, his driver), left me with no choice to park in a tow zone (luckily I didn't get caught). Anywho, I had spotted Mr. Cupcakes himself as he was preparing to talk in the Campus Center that evening on how he started up his business and fun stuff like that.

"Johnny Cupcakes", for those of you who don't know, is a trendy clothing store on Newbury Street in Boston (and now with locations in Hull, MA and in Los Angeles as well). Since Johnny opened the store in 2006, it has been an instant hit, and it is hard to not walk around Boston or even UMass and not see one of his signature shirts within any given week. I admit that there was a time that I even wanted a Johnny Cupcakes shirt, as I wanted to be cool too. Yet, despite the cool setup of the store, which is designed to resemble a bakery with pull out "baking trays" that reveal the store's supply of individually packaged cupcake shirts, I just could not bring myself to spend $35.99 on a shirt with a cupcake on it.

Even though his shirts are a bit over-priced, when I heard that Johnny was coming to UMass, I was a little excited. My friend quickly pointed out though how expensive the shirts are and how pointless the whole thing is- she could just not see the appeal. For me, this was an earth-shattering realization- what is so cool about Johnny Cupcakes? What is the appeal of a brand that is solely based off of churning out t-shirts that have a design of a common pastry on them?

This kind of pissed me off. Suddenly, Johnny did not seem so cool anymore. I was mad he took my parking spot in his excessive Mercedes cupcake-mobile.

Then, as I started to blog about it, I read this article from 2006 on Johnny in NPR.

On Boston's Newbury Street, Johnny set it up like a well-laid trap: He planted a giant dough machine in the window, and made sure the glass bakery cases and stainless-steel cooling racks were visible from the street. All day, hungry passers-by come in asking for cupcakes. And, all day, Johnny tries to contain his amusement as he explains he has no cupcakes for sale.Instead, his baker's racks hold brightly colored T-shirts, each with the image of a cupcake where you'd least expect it: the Statue of Liberty holding a cupcake; Marilyn Monroe with a tiny cupcake-shaped mole; and the cupcake-and-crossbones motif that has become the store's signature design. At $40 to $70 a piece, the tees are selling like, well, hotcakes. And the guy who's most surprised is Johnny himself.

Johnny, it seems, no longer seems like some snooty scam-artist, but instead, a creative young guy (he's only 26) with good marketing skills. The personalization and unique setup of his store really gave him the edge above just "another t-shirt store". The fact that he opened up on trendy Newbury Street that is the ideal shopping place for Boston's huge college population helped a little as well. He handed out his shirts to musicians, who wore them on MTV and Vh1, and basically made them look cool, and spread the word online and through friends, etc. His also limits the supply of his shirts and releases them for only certain periods of time, keeping them in demand.

"People come in and they're like, 'I don't get it,'" Earle says, "and there's nothing really to get about it. It's just a cupcake. It is what it is. It's just cupcakes."
It makes one wonder if the whole phenomenon is not just a little like "The Emperor's New Clothes." Is Johnny Cupcakes on Newbury Street because his shirts are so hot? Or are his shirts so hot because he's on Newbury Street?

I'm still not really sure. Although I will probably be on Newbury Street this Friday though, I still don't plan on buying one of his shirts. They're way cheaper online anyway.

SuperObama

2008-11-06T08:56:00.001-05:00

Tuesday night, he was superman. Today, he is an ordinary man again, despite the fact that America needs/hopes that he can fill superman's shoes. And by superman, I do not mean George W. Bush. What I am referring to, instead, are the weighty tasks that await Mr. Obama in his future years as president.

On election night, the media was in love with Obama. At the beginning of the evening, this love was a little less obvious, as it was shaded with nail-biting and hesitation. Discouraged from "calling" states and putting too much weight on predictions, the media was essentially just like you and me- kept in suspense, watchful, ready. Throughout the day there was coverage on the heavy participation, lines at polls. At around 10 p.m., the first signs rolled in that Obama was likely to win. It was then, that the media got excited. Even Jon Stewart, on the 10 p.m. live election show on MTV featuring himself and Stephen Colbert, couldn't hold back his excitement. He even got a little emotional.

"If he does win, it is time to take a breath, it is time, to take a moment... We will be showing that we're a show country- we are what we say we are. There are not a lot of countries that can say that. America tonight lives up to its promise."

This attitude was the theme for the night that permeated throughout all of the media sources I turned to (CNN, MSNBC, Boston Globe, NY Times). As the night progressed and Obama's victory became more obvious, MSNBC or CNN, I'm not sure which one maybe both, kept interviewing prominent African Americans in different areas of political office. It was when this happened that we realized what was really going on. This was not only a monumental day in history because our candidate was winning, George W. Bush would be gone, and the Democrats would once again take charge of the White House (not to mention the Congress AND the Senate), but also because, oh yeah, he would be the first African-American to win the presidency. The first. Something no one would ever imagine 50 years ago. The media definitely reflected this.

It is clear, though, the real interesting stuff comes now, after Americans have breathed their sighs of relief, cried their tears of joy, and shouted out their victory cries. Now, they realize that this is all real. Obama is really the president. It is no longer a dream. And because it is real, the challenges that he faces are real as well.

There's the economy. The NY Times-

A case of postelection nerves sent Wall Street plunging Wednesday as investors, looking past Barack Obama's presidential victory, returned to their fears of a deep and protracted recession. Volatility swept over the market again, with the Dow Jones industrials falling nearly 500 points and all the major indexes tumbling more than 5 percent.

The Facebook groups that want him impeached. (Only 2 exist though, with a combined total of 860 members as of yesterday.)

And of course, just general doubt about how he will face these challenges and "speculation" about how he will choose his cabinet. Fox News

Yet, most media outlets hold a realist approach to what challenges lay ahead for Obama that is still reflective of Tuesday's excitement and hope for what could come.

As a NY Times Op-Ed written yesterday says,

“Taking office at a time of crisis doesn’t guarantee greatness, but it can be an occasion for it,” argued the Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel. “That was certainly the case with Lincoln, F.D.R. and Truman.” Part of F.D.R.’s greatness, though, “was that he gradually wove a new governing political philosophy — the New Deal — out of the rubble and political disarray of the economic depression he inherited.” Obama will need to do the same, but these things take time.

Let's hope so.

Being a part of history

2008-11-05T10:07:00.004-05:00

Last night was one of the most exciting nights of my life. The whole day was awesome. From the long lines at the polls, to the "youth" participation- it was amazing just seeing how excited students were. I came back to Van Meter around 10 p.m., planning on going to the Cape Cod Lounge. Yet, as soon as I got back the excitement that was permeating throughout the building kept me there. When Obama won, screams were heard all throughout Central and Orchard Hill. Even an hour after he was declared president, screams could still be heard coming from various dorms in the area.

Southwest may get excited about sports, but for Central/Orchard Hill, it's always been about politics. It really was our night. So many of my residents throughout the past couple months have been really active in following the election and it was a really great thing for them see it all come together. They, and I, knew we were watching history in the making last night and it was really moving. I haven't been proud to be an American in so long, but last night I was really, truly proud.

Now lets see if Obama can clean up the mess that Bush made. He's got a big plate in front of him.

The day the laughter dies?

2008-11-04T07:51:00.004-05:00

The moment we've all been waiting for is FINALLY here. ELECTION DAY.

Who will it be? I'm pretty nervous about the chance that McCain could win, but I'm also excited, as this is the first election I get to vote in.

With that in mind, I've been looking over Daily Kos and Instapundit.com. Daily Kos is pretty cool. It links out to other blogs or "diaries" and has entertaining content pertaining to what has been going on. I particularly liked the piece on how much fun Saturday Night Live and political pundits like Stephen Colbert have had the past eight years with President Bush, and in the past few months with McCain and Palin. If Obama wins, "will the laughter die?"

"SNL" writer James Downey, for one, predicts that Obama will be "a lot tougher" to satirize than other presidents and presidential candidates his show has been skewering for the past three decades. "The media is kind of madly in love with Obama," Downey told a New Yorker Festival audience. "He is also such a smooth character that he doesn't give you many handles." (No such rule applied to Hillary Clinton, he noted. "Bill Clinton got a free pass, but we took it out on her.")

It makes a good point. But, the article also implies that given all the satire, wouldn't it be a cruel joke if another McCain and Palin did actually win? Either way, one thing is for sure, it has been a funny satirical election. Last night, a bunch of repeat election episodes of SNL were played, including this Saturday's, which featured McCain and Palin... playing themselves. Although McCain isn't as fun to make fun of as Palin, or as funny on SNL, I really think that Palin could have a future on the show. This would keep the viewership up for a while, which has been up 70 percent in the past few months.

A clip from Saturday's show:

Anyway, more about Daily Kos/ Instapundit comparison.

It seems clear that Daily Kos displays far more liberal-bias than Instapundit. Posts from this week highlight things that the typical liberal watching the news would recognize- there's a post making fun of Sarah Palin, one enthusiastic video showing massive support for Obama at a rally, monitoring of different polls (all of which put Obama ahead of McCain), and now, something on how some voting machines are already broken this morning.

Instapundit does seem to lean towards the right but is a little less "bias" or obvious than Daily Kos on its face, (but if you look deeper it is clear that there is bias). I don't only like Daily Kos better than Instapundit for this reason, though. Instapundit's set up is just plain lame. And boring aesthetically and kind of boring content-wise. I guess it's just all in the presentation. Or maybe the website just reflects the candidate its rallying for (McCain) and his tired platform. The stories reflect this as they focus on possible "flaws" in Obama's positions on abortion and possible funding "scandals". Pointing out Obama's flaws have been a particularly prevalent thing in the McCain campaign, as are a focus on ethical/religious issues. Another common theme is a reassurance that McCain still "has a chance". Basically, it's a tired website that reflects an equally tired campaign platform.

Mac/iMovie users help help HELP

2008-11-03T16:30:00.002-05:00

So the video I posted last week is driving me NUTS. I uploaded it to YouTube but it only shows up as an image from the movie that stays on the screen all throughout the 2 minutes that the movie is supposed to run. The music runs throughout the whole thing.

I don't get it! I changed the format so it should be able to fit... I can't find this one setting menu thing that I accessed once.

I was supposed to show this video to family members months ago and I still can't upload it right ;(

A flu shot with a side of fries

2008-11-02T23:00:00.001-05:00

American laziness has reached a new low- flu shot drive-throughs.

I read this article a couple days ago about flu shot drive-throughs in MA in the Globe. Not only would I not partake in this activity because I hate getting shots, but also because I hate drive-throughs. Yeah, they show us how lazy we are, but no matter where you go it seems that if you use the drive-through they always screw something up.

This is where I'm going to take the opportunity to YELP about somewhere that has really been bothering me lately- the Dunkin Donuts by Big Y on University Drive. I read Scott's post about it, and I guess Yelp can be abused. But in some cases it's totally necessary because it can be so irritating when a food place is consistently ANNOYING.

Sorry. But really. I don't even use the drive-through anymore. I go in personally and there's still problems.

1. They are extremely slow. Like beyond belief. This is dangerous for them because you don't want to mess with people before they have gotten their coffee.

2. They mess stuff up. Consistently.

-If you ask for cream they more times than not will repeat back to you, "skim milk?"

-My friend asked for a donut the other day and the woman charged her for a breakfast sandwich

-I got a free coffee because I waited and waited and no one would come back to the register to ring it up because they were all talking, so I ended up leaving. I felt bad.

-I got one of the menu combos the other day and the girl just stared at me and rang up something else

I dunno. Maybe I just have bad luck . Maybe they were just having a bad day exactly at the times I went in the past couple weeks. Either way, AHHHH frustration.

Are we "born to party"?

2008-11-01T14:25:00.005-04:00

Ok, so I didn't fall off the face of the Earth this week, but I did get some sort of weird stomach virus that was on and off for a couple days, had two midterms, two papers and Halloween mayhem (we had 100 little trick or treaters from Springfield visit our dorm!) all within the stretch of three days. Then there were the Halloween parties, which were fun Friday, but come Saturday night I kinda just wanted the whole thing to be over. I am partied-out.

On that note, I bring you this article that I read in the Boston Globe about being "born to party"- and I'm not talking about partying in the usual sense, cause' we all know we're born to do that, but the idea that certain people are born with political attitudes that cause them to favor certain political parties.

Scientists are now discovering that our political attitudes have deep roots in our biology. Our place on the political spectrum - liberal, conservative, or in between - is powerfully influenced by genetics, new studies show. In the past year, researchers have demonstrated that the brains of liberals and conservatives are physically and functionally distinctive, suggesting that people on either side of the ideological divide are actually wired differently. And new research, published this fall in the prestigious journal Science, found that our immediate, unconscious reaction to threat - how much we startle at frightening images and noises - determines our political views on specific issues like gun control, national defense, the Iraq war, domestic surveillance, the torture of political prisoners, and even immigration.

At first, I was a total naysayer to what this article suggests... Obviously, people choose what beliefs they have based on things they've learned/the environment they're in/what they've heard from parents, friends, classmates, etc. But it does make sense that the way we inherently react to certain threats would play a part in how we think about certain issues. Brain scans suggest that conservatives are more easily startled by threats than liberals, have a harder time switching to a new response for something they do habitually and they react more "vigorously" to threats. Basically, that conservatives are more hard-wired to react to danger and liberals are more geared to adapt to change in their responses. This makes sense given the fact that conservatives tend to perceive certain issues as threats moreso than liberals and want to act on these threats more - i.e. going to war, border security, etc. The article also says that it explains why conservatives vote against things that they think will "corrode the social order", like abortion.

The most interesting part for me though was that the article says that our political attitudes are partly hereditary too.

Using data from a large-scale study of thousands of sets of twins, researchers discovered that identical twins are far more likely than fraternal twins to share political attitudes on busing, foreign aid, school prayer, gay rights, pacifism, nuclear power, and many other issues. "Political and social attitudes" are "40-50 percent heritable," the study reported.

I think this is really interesting because my family is conservative and I am liberal- but I am adopted and they are all biologically related to one another. Maybe this has something to do with that rather than just the fact that I go to school in one of the most liberal areas of the country.

Hmm, I dunno. Do you guys agree with the article?

Comparing 3 local sites

2008-10-30T16:53:00.002-04:00

It seems that Baristanet, Loundoun County News and iBrattleboro.com all overcome the 2 biggest problems local/small websites often face- a lack of readership/reader interest and a lack of upkeep of the site due to this lack of interest. Instead, these websites update frequently about issues that are really current and hit home for their readership. The readers are also really involved, which you can see from the number of comments. I'm assuming that these sites have done a decent amount of advertising around town.

Loudoun County News seemed to be the most professional. Pretty impressive for a local news site. They had video clips and neatly organized links on different topics, which made it look like a professional online news site. Baristanet is more of a blog that discusses local issues, with links on the side to other sources. Props to Montclair though. I know a decent amount of people that live there because its pretty close to where I'm from so I felt a little nostalgic while browsing it.

iBrattleboro is probably the least "professional" of the 3 sites, but it does have its perks. It seems that is almost entirely user-generated, as it serves as a forum for local people to discuss what ever is going on. I like this aspect as it is truly "citizen" journalism. It's cool to think that if there's a fire down some road or some sort of issue pertaining to a local area that you wouldn't normally hear about in the news, you would hear about it on this website. It works for Brattleboro especially, because it is a pretty politically active town.

VIDEOS

2008-10-29T00:54:00.006-04:00

OK so for some reason even though I uploaded my video onto youTube through iMovie directly (there's a thing you can click on inside iMovie that lets you do this), it is showing up as a black screen! Or fixing on one image from the video. I'm probably going to have to just upload this the old fashioned way which is kind of annoying because iMovie is well ... annoying.

In the meantime, here is a video that made me laugh. My friend sent it to me because it reminded her of something I would do when I was a kid. Honestly, I'm pretty sure there's an old rendition of a Spice Girls song on VHS somewhere with me and a bunch of girls at a sleepover in 5th grade where I employed some of the same moves this girl does in her video.

Probly why my dad put parental controls on our AOL

A day in the city of monkeys

2008-10-28T16:22:00.006-04:00

So, does anyone remember those scenes in the Wizard of Oz when the flying monkeys come out and harass people? Well, I'm pretty sure that the closest thing to what Dorothy and her friends faced that exists on Earth can be found in Lopburi, Thailand. Granted, these monkeys didn't have wings, but they still were pretty insane. They took over old temple ruins in the city years ago and when people tried to kick them out they returned. The people took it as a sacred Buddhist sign and didn't want to mess. Plus, they got to milk it for some tourism.

The monkeys don't just hang out in the temple though- they are all over the place... On the streets stealing toys from kids, hanging out on telephone wires, etc.

Needless to say, the monkeys had their way with me. I think it was because I made eye contact with one of them when I was tying my shoe. Or because I was wearing a Paul Frank shirt. Dunno.

I wanted to put together the videos a while ago but was too lazy/couldn't really find my camera so I've been trying to put it together on iMovie... It's still kinda not very good cause I put it together in like 15 mins but here you go!

Even sports can't bridge racial divides for some

2008-10-27T23:36:00.002-04:00

I read an article today about how Obama is trying to bridge a possible racial divide by appealing to the predominately white, male football fans in Pennsylvania. This reminded me of a video I watched of him playing basketball with a predominately white group of American soldiers and also videos of him bringing his game against groups of young black people.

Given the pleasant nature of the football article, I was pretty alarmed today when I opened my home page, which is the Boston Globe, and a "breaking news" bulletin said that there was a plot broken up that included the assassination of Senator Obama and a killing spree directed towards black people around the country. I checked back later and read a more thorough article on the Huffington Post. It seems clear that the guys who planned the attacks were pretty ignorant skinheads who had little chance of pulling off the charade. What's alarming though, is not just that this plot existed and that it also involved a possible attack against a predominately black school in Tennessee, but what it means for Obama's future. Will the fear of losing a president to a possible future assassination orchestrated by "smarter" racists deter people from voting for Obama? Even if this doesn't affect voters in this way, it still makes an assassination seem like a somewhat real possibility, especially given the threat that Obama received in August.

Regardless, here is a video of him playing b-ball against some middle-schoolers. My boyfriend is obsessed with the sport and when I saw him watch the man play I could tell Obama just won another voter (he was going to vote for the GREEN party of all things).

All Harlots Eve

2008-10-23T14:17:00.005-04:00

With everyone in the dorm preparing for that wonderful night that is Halloween (it's on a FRIDAY this year!), it's no wonder that this article in the Globe caught my eye. The author, Courtney Hollands, says:

Sure, Halloween is all about escaping the everyday and trying on a new personality. But you can express yourself without overexposing yourself. It's All Hallows Eve, not All Harlots Eve.

As Halloween approaches, some of my female residents have been chattering about what costumes they're going to wear. All of the ideas I've heard so far have involved some sort of lack of clothing. At our RA staff meeting, we were told to discourage them from dressing this way. This suggestion is not only futile, but pretty much a joke, especially given the fact that half of the female RAs will probably choose to go out scantily clad themselves this year. In fact, as I began typing this blog post, a fellow staff member of mine walked by. When I told her what I was writing about she said, "I'm going to dress like a skank on Halloween, I don't care."

I'm not going to be all self-righteous and tell people to wear more clothes on Halloween. I personally don't care what people wear. But it does get annoying because it puts pressure on everyone to dress this way so they don't feel like an outcast when they go to Halloween parties. This sucks all the fun and creativity out of Halloween, as the Globe article makes clear towards the end.

Don't get me wrong. I love Halloween, I have a candy addiction, and I'm no fun-hater. But where has all the creativity gone? Put some thought into your bewitching get-up. Step away from the whips. Put down the fishnet tights. Snag a faux-fur coat, a dress, some barrettes, and paint on the raccoon eyes, and you're an instant Margot Tenenbaum. Paint a sandwich board to look like the Citgo sign. And a Joan Jett or Hall & Oates impression never goes out of style.
The next person to dress up like a Muppet wins my heart. No furry G-strings allowed.

That being said- what's everyone being this year??

This woman just wasted a lifeline

2008-10-22T20:41:00.000-04:00

I'm watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and this woman didn't know what the freshman 15 was. I'm really curious as to the last time this woman smiled. It's weird.

Anyway.

So a post about trying to get comments:

Getting comments was definitely harder than I thought it would be. My first attempt at it was that Sarah Palin "sex tape" thing because my friends and I thought it was friggin hilarious. I've been okay with getting around 3 comments a day, although I want to try to get more because I think it'd be really interesting to have people open up a discussion based on something I wrote about. I'd even like to get some sort of disagreements going on. I even think it would be interesting if someone got really pissed about something I said. Or about the topic. SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

I know there are things that I have to do to get more people to come, like commenting on more websites and telling my friends and stuff. Actually, I was telling one of my friends about it on my way to our class today and she said that she LOVES reading peoples blogs and wants to read mine. That's the first time I've ever heard anyone say that, pretty much ever, so I'm definitely going to remind her to come next time I'm playing Mineswept (a Mac-friendly attempt at Minesweeper) in the class we have together.

I also think I can try to put up more interesting stuff, which I guess I did yesterday/today, to try to draw people in.

I'm going to comment/ go back to my old posts more too because I usually forget to do that but ya know just because it's yesterday's news doesn't make it worthless.

All in all, I guess what made this project more challenging I thought it would be is because although it's not HARD to get people to comment on your blog, it is definitely something that is a bit time consuming/something you have to keep up with.

Millionaire update: I seriously feel bad for this woman. She was getting all of these Qs that only college-aged people would know, and she's probably in her early 60s. She just lost because 70% of audience members said the album Kid A was made by Limp Bizkit. What!?@ I thought more people listened to Radiohead. What a shame. I could've answered these Qs! But then again, I bet if I went on the show they'd give me pop culture Qs from the 50s that I would never know.

How Bush got elected

2008-10-21T19:01:00.006-04:00

You know how there's that video out there, with celebrities sarcastically telling people DON'T VOTE. I think this woman should watch that.

Why does it seem like the dumbest people vote? There's millions of Americans out there who don't vote and we never really hear from them. Meanwhile, it's the crazy people who base their beliefs on the dumbest stuff that actually DO vote.

Watching this video was almost painful as this e-mail forward I got once telling me not to vote for Obama because he's a terrorist.

Anyone seen Bill Maher's Religilous? If you haven't, you should. (He grew up in my hometown by the way and he sits in my church in the opening scene!). Because this is what this video reminded me of. How messed up things get in our country when people use religion as the primary basis for voting/life. I really don't care if people are religious. That's great when religion promotes family values and all of that. But it's a completely different thing when people use it in the way this woman does. Almost as an "untouchable" unquestionable excuse allowing her to be blatantly racist and ignorant.

The sad thing is, she has friends. And they're all voting for McCain.

DAs fight Question 2 because they couldn't handle bong rips

2008-10-20T12:42:00.003-04:00

Question 2- Which calls for the "decriminalization" of marijuana in Massachusetts, would fine the perpetrator $100 for less than an ounce and not record the offense on their "criminal" record (it would be like having a parking ticket).

The DAs in Massachusetts, according to this article in the Globe, are against this law.

Yet, they don't cite any real evidence for why they are opposed to it. Instead, there is vague mention of how, if passed, the initiative would "send the wrong message and lead to a host of social problems."

The main reason though, which starts the article off, is that the DAs, like Gerry Leone pictured to the left, tried smoking weed but never really liked it.

As a student at Stonehill College, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley found himself in a room with guys passing around a bong. "When it came to me, I inhaled so hard that it burned my lungs," he says. "I don't want to sound Clintonesque; I inhaled, but I couldn't handle it."
Gerry Leone, Middlesex district attorney, also admits to smoking pot. "It was years ago, when I was a young man," he said. "I tried it once, and it wasn't something I was ever into."

Interesting. I doubt that if I had to write up one of my residents for doing a keg stand in the hallway, it would be okay for me to tell them to stop because I myself could never handle doing one. That 18-year-old who is doing a keg stand in the hallway will never face the kind of criminal prosecution that an 18-year-old smoking a joint would face under current Massachusetts law. Even if the keg stand, or the 10 shots of Jack Daniels he drank LEGALLY as a 21-year-old caused him to beat someone, get in a fight, throw chairs out windows, and act like a total lunatic. And forget about driving.

Meanwhile, one possession of marijuana offense could ruin his life.

Proponents argue, however, that if the question passed, possession of small amounts would remain illegal but would no longer tarnish someone's future. All arrests for marijuana possession are archived by the state's Criminal History Systems Board - even when there isn't a conviction. The board is obliged to disclose such Criminal Offender Record Information, known as CORI, to any employer seeking to hire a teacher, police officer, day-care center employee, school bus driver, or nursing home worker, as well as prosecutors.

What surprised me though, was how nearly every person who commented on the article on Boston.com were in full support of the decriminalization. Maybe it's because, as the article says, over 100 million Americans have tried it.

Harvard hides its food nutrition labels

2008-10-16T13:51:00.003-04:00

In an effort to help people with eating disorders, Harvard removed its nutrition labels from its dining halls.

Dining Services spokeswoman Crista Martin said several students and families asked the university to consider the effect of making detailed nutritional information known to students.
"The feeling was that for people who have eating disorders or who struggle with issues around the literal value of food, the emphasis on nutrition information does not always lead people to eat in a healthy manner," Martin said.

The literal value of food. It's a weird phrase. But what's even weirder is that Harvard reassures us that nutritional information on all of the food served in their dining halls can be found online and also at information "kiosks" located inside the dining halls.

Huh? Isn't this practically the same thing as putting it up in front of the food, if it's easy to access anyway? Sure, more people who wouldn't go through the trouble of looking up the food info will see the information because it's right in front of them. But those aren't the people that Harvard is trying help by getting rid of the food labels. Anyone who didn't care enough to look up the nutritional info of the food they're eating most likely did not have an eating disorder, which the article claims pushes people to fixate on the "literal" value of the food. I've known people with eating problems and honestly the people with the eating disorders will just find the information on the kiosks or online anyway, a little roadblock like this won't stop them.

I read this article a couple weeks ago, I think when I was looking for UWire stuff for the Collegian... I thought of it today because I'm sitting in Franklin dining hall for the first time in forever... Franklin, and all the DCs at UMass, have labels on stuff, but I think it's helpful to so people know what the f they're eating. Especially people with little experience thinking about what food they eat anyway because they're used to their parents telling them what to eat/cooking for them.

Anyway, yeah I don't really feel that strongly that they should keep the things or not, but I do think it's kind of pointless.

P.O.W.

2008-10-15T20:41:00.004-04:00

There's no doubt, Stephen Colbert says, that the next president will be a P.O.W.

No, not a Prisoner of War, but a "Prisoner of W." According to a slip-up? made by John McCain, however, we're all prisoners.

Last night's word- P.O.W... "The Word" starts about 2 minutes in.

There's nothing like listening to the Colbert Report to not only get an idea of what's going on, but to cheer yourself up. Especially with all the economic crap going on, the debate, and all the heaty political hublub that's been circulating. Even my dorm's maintainers haven't failed to get in on the action. First, they put up signs that urged people to vote. Okay, that's cool. But now they've been pasting things to my bulletin boards that mock certain candidates and even worse, urge people to vote yes and no for "Question 1" and "Question 2". The people who see these signs are freshmen, who are voting for the first time. Even though it seems like most of them know what's going on when it comes to the presidential stuff, a lot of them don't know what Question 1 or Question 2 is! Not to mention the fact that I put up "unbiased" stuff about voting and the candidates already so they can make their own decisions. Bleh.

Question 1 by the way, if anyone doesn't know, would provide over 3 million Massachusetts workers with around $3,600 each due to an income tax repeal, but would cut funding to state-sponsored programs like town budgets and school systems (the town of Amherst for instance, would lose over 90% of its public school funding from the state). Here's a site that weighs the pros and cons.

Question 2 calls for the "decriminalization" of marijuana. People caught with a certain amount in their possession (an ounce or less) would have to pay $100. There would still be stricter punishments for people who grow, sell, traffick the drug, though and those who are caught driving under the influence. A website I found on "ballotpedia" on Q 2.

What do you guys think?

New Disney movie- Alaskan hockey mom becomes VP

2008-10-15T00:29:00.006-04:00

Okay, so I know I've been putting up a lot of political stuff lately (I'm a political science major so I can't really help it), but here is something I saw on College Humor. I was going to avoid posting it, as I'm tired of Sarah Palin frequenting my online domain, but oh well, it's funny.

The Sarah Palin Disney Trailer: An alaskan hockey mom becomes Vice President in the wackiest family comedy of the year! Sound familiar?"

This seriously does bear a striking resemblance to some Disney movie. It's weird. The resemblance is so uncanny, in fact, that you almost forget how little the woman playing Sarah Palin in the video looks like her. C'mon College Humor. With all those Sarah Palin look-alikes out and about, you'd think you would be able to get someone who looked a little more like her.

Twits on parade

2008-10-13T20:01:00.011-04:00

When I was on The Daily Beast today this article jumped out at me- Twits on Parade. The article talks about how "Twittering is the newest of the new media. And the worst," painting tweeting as somewhat silly, trendy and unnecessary.

It is true that Twitter is a bit silly and trendy, but I think it does serve a purpose. Particularly in the context of the high-paced presidential and vice-presidential debates.

That's why God invented Twitter--God or whoever. Twitter is for people who find the pace of blogs too sleepy, the content too wordy, the whole blog thing way, way too 2005. It's an Internet service and a new form of communication that's about to transform political commentary in much the way blogs have, just as decisively, just as permanently. That's what I hear, anyway. CNET News, a respectable source of news about the Internet, if you can imagine such a thing, says this: If the 2004 elections hailed the debut of bloggers and the 2006 mid-term elections were when YouTube popped onto the scene, it's looking like 2008 will be the election cycle where Twitter sped to the forefront of the political Web. . . . The microblogging site has proven to be a must-use tool for opinionated news junkies and aspiring pundits.

What do you guys think? Does Twitter actually achieve some journalistic purpose, or is it just a fun way to update people about random goings on in your lives?

The author of the article, Andrew Ferguson, seems to side with the latter.

Suddenly, thanks to the power of Twitter, it seems to be more consequential than it would ever have been thought to be in any earlier age in human history. That delicious falafel you just ate; the chunk of chick pea that got caught in your teeth; your curiosity about that awesome tattoo on the cute counterguy who took your order--all can now pass through your consciousness and be placed on public display nearly simultaneously. It's like you're being turned inside out. The fulfillment of a dream.

Allowances take a big blow

2008-10-11T12:31:00.005-04:00

Since I've been completely cut off from society for two days because of an international law midterm (who gives midterms this early in the month?!), I finally had the time to read news today that went beyond just a quick glance at the plummeting stock market and world economic woes.

This article about the economy affecting teenagers in the NY Times stood out to me. (I think it was because it had a cartoon).

At first, I was kind of annoyed with the cartoon and the article. Big deal, teenagers have to buy clothes that are on sale- are these the worst of our worries? Is America really this materialistic that in one of the top newspapers in the nation, there is an article that focuses on the woes of a 16-year-old that can't buy a new iPod? Or some girl whose allowance is no longer $100 dollars a week, but maybe, $50? Or some youngster that charged $5,000 on their credit card?

Meanwhile, I've been reading about teens in the Middle East for one of my classes, who worry about jobs and food and their family, oh yeah, and their education. I couldn't help but feel some sort of resentment towards how spoiled we are in America.

“I tried to tell Kaitlyn, ‘We’ll get the Hollister jeans at a thrift store,’ ” Mrs. Postle recalled. “She got angry and said: ‘That’s gross! Other people wore them!’ ” Indulged. Entitled. Those labels have become hot-glued to middle-class and affluent teenagers born after the last major economic downturn, in the late 1980s. They were raised in comparatively flush times by parents who believed that keeping children happy, stimulated and successful, no matter the cost, was an unassailable virtue. A 2007 study by the Harrison Group, a market research firm in Waterbury, Conn., found that nearly 75 percent of parents caved in to their children’s nagging for new video games, half within two weeks.

I don't blame the kids though, I blame their parents. I grew up in an upper middle class area 20 minutes outside of NYC where people make fun of you in middle school if your parents drove a car that was older than 5 years. Needless to say, my mom's crappy station wagon wasn't a huge hit.

My experience growing up there though has taught me that the kids whose parents had more ordinary restrictions on them were the ones that grew up to be better people. The parents who handed their kids everything they wanted with barely any limitations really ended up getting screwed in the end. Like my ex-best friend who forgot her iPod at home before getting on a train that left from Stamford, CT to Boston for college. She called her mom crying and her mom deposited enough money to get an iPod mini or nano or whatever, in her bank account (about $150 I think) even though the girl was going home the NEXT WEEKEND. Needless to say, there are a number of reasons why we are no longer friends and they all stem from this way that she was raised.

Like the article says, this has given a chance for people to focus more on values, instead of a materialistic culture that comes from giving their kids whatever they want, when they want it.

Anecdotes like these prompt economists and therapists to find something positive in all the economic turbulence. “The sooner we have these conversations in the family and as a society,” said Dr. Manning, the economist, “the sooner we can focus on core values, and have a more realistic dialogue about the meaning of happiness and money.”

That One should really stop with the earmarks

2008-10-08T20:05:00.009-04:00

So, yeah. Anyone who watched the debate knows what I'm talkin' bout.

Earmarks. McCain loved talking about them. A couple times he even got fancy and talked about "pork-barrel" ones.

According to Wikipedia, a "pork-barrel" is

The appropriation of government spending for projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular constituents or campaign contributors.

And an earmark:

Congressional provisions that direct approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that direct specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees.

Wow. Talk about avoiding the question and avoiding naming more than one specific instance that wasn't even necessarily true (The Fannie Mae reference).

Anywho, I'm very tired right now so I won't get into this. In my opinion, Obama definitely dominated the debate, and I think the general consensus of news sources across the board agree with me. I also did catch the end of the debate on TV last night and there were scorecards on the side of the screen that indicated that Obama won. According to a CBS poll:

Forty percent of the 516 uncommitted voters surveyed identified Barack Obama as tonight's winner; 26 percent said John McCain won, while 34 percent saw the debate as a draw.

I think this segment of Arianna Huffington's blog on the debate sums up why Obama "won" well.

In the first debate, McCain wouldn't look at Obama. In this one, he refered to him as "that one". The contempt was palpable, and unpalatable. In the run-up to the debate, McCain lowered himself into the sewer in a desperate attempt to portray Obama as dangerous, untrustworthy, a risk too big to take. But Obama's measured reasonableness totally countered that caricature. You could fault Obama for not being particularly inspiring, but you could not miss the rock steady competence he exuded- authoritatively delivering substantive answers to questions on the economy, health care, taxes, and foreign policy.

One big thing that stood out to me in the debate was the way that Obama answered the questions. He kept his cool and he spoke at people's level in a way which was both understandable and un-creepy (unlike McCain, who constantly called the audience his "friends"). The tweets I read on the #umassprez2 page seemed to agree with this. At least regarding the creepy friends remark. The tweeters also seemed to agree that the fact that McCain called Obama "that one" was a pretty big mistake. Whoops... degrading, much?

Personalities, (or lack thereof on McCain's part), aside, Obama also won because he clearly outlined his goals and because McCain dug himself into a hole by showing everyone that by electing him they really would be ushering in another four years of the same old crap. No government spending except for defense and veterans' aid and a few pertinent "other" categories, McCain said. Oh, and he wants to stay in Iraq so we can exit "proudly" and on top. Like that will happen. Meanwhile, Obama actually wants to try to help the American people with the government's money rather than continue to direct it towards the military. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for veterans' benefits and I think they should be a priority of ours. But defense? War? I don't think so.

Another thing I loved was how much McCain LOVES nuclear energy. That is the ultimate solution to all of our energy problems and global warming. Oh yeah, and drilling in Alaska, where we may be able to get a drop or two of oil. Forget cutting back on our extreme consumption of the stuff (the U.S. consumes 25% of the world's supply, as Obama pointed out). Instead, lets just find another quick fix. While we're at it, we can also start developing an energy source that is highly dangerous and basically has been defunct (except for some already existing plants) for decades.

One of the top highlights of the debate, though, came at the end when Obama called McCain out as the "guy who sang 'bomb bomb bomb Iran!'". Hahaha. Thanks Obama, this gave me a good chuckle. I liked McCain's response too- "I was just kidding when I said that!" Heh. Oh McCain, you know you don't have a sense of humor.

All in all, I just really hope Obama wins. I'm going to be really really crushed if he doesn't. Really. So far though, he's leading in polls (6 points!), so I'll just have to cross my fingers.

The Daily BEAST

2008-10-07T19:19:00.004-04:00

Yes! Finally a website that gets me! Unlike The Huffington Post and the Drudge Report, The Daily Beast is organized and succinct and makes it real easy to get a lot of news really fast, allowing you to BEAST through the day's news. Ha. Even the website's slogan is "Read this, skip that", which is exactly how I read news.

I like that the website has videos that are easy to access and a moving screen of pictures/headlines. But nothing is too cluttered (unlike huff and drudge) so it's easy to take it all in. My favorite part of the whole thing though, is the Cheat Sheet. This allowed me to read a bunch of stories in about four minutes. They're all neatly summarized with links to the news source and are accompanied by some short descriptive word- like "heh" or "against the grain".

These were two stories that I got to read in full.

One, about Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G and Borat)'s new movie based on his gay character, Bruno.

Two, a rather amusing article about Sarah Palin's below-the-belt remarks on Obama.

Yay Comments!

2008-10-07T13:47:00.002-04:00

This has nothing to do with the "comments" assignment, but the link that we were supposed to check out, which outlines what you would have today for the $1,000 you invested in the stock market a year ago. Oh yeah, and beer.

If you bought $1000 of stock a year ago, you would now have:
$91.28 if you bought Washington Mutual
$37.50 if you bought Neomagic
$21.29 if you bought Freddie Mac
$20.79 if you bought Fannie Mae
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the recycling REFUND... You would have $... 214.00 in cash.
So the best investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.
It's called the 401-Keg Plan

Pretty clever... and pathetic, in the way of what it implies in regards to the state of the economy these days. I'm not really surprised by these figures as I've always been skeptical/completely ignorant when it comes to the stock market (then again, I'm only 21). At one time, I was skeptical of beer too. I always shyed away from the stuff at parties and instead opted for mixed concoctions my friends and I would down before we got to the place. I HATED beer. But then, I went to Thailand and drank Beer Chang every night and it changed my life. I finally explored a realm of beer that was not the Busch Light/Natural Ice that filled the kegs that I only drank out of if I was completely desperate. I am now a beer drinker.

Anyway, I think the comments that proceeded this main comment did enrich the article, because it was entertaining and interesting to read other people having an indepth discussion about beer.

Mainly, I learned a think or two.

-User "bwanab" for instance, alerted me that McEwans beer has 8.0% alcohol per beer. About two times the amount of most beers in the U.S.

-I learned that these guys in Michigan tried to run away with $500,000 from redeeming bottles from Ohio, which are taxed 5 cents less per bottle.

-One person said AA was for quitters

-Another person said, "It's 10 a.m. and I'm on my 3rd vodka. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

-I also learned that I should start investing in gold.

Someone even sang a song:

Well, you go to the saloon and take yer brick of gold with ya.
Then ya take yer whitlin' knife and shave off a sliver of gold and give it to the bartender.
Then ya drink until the bartender thinks he has a fair trade.
Then ya argue with the bartender about it for a while.
Then ya whittle off another sliver of gold to him.
Then ya drink some more.

Comments aren't always the best thing though, especially when people start fighting over petty things and get really annoying. Or if it is very clear that the commenters have NO idea what they're talking about. The best example of this can be found if you ever search a question on Google. One of the first things that comes up are responses on Yahoo! Answers and Wiki Answers. I think a lot of people asking questions and commenting are kids or just really don't know what they're talking about. It's pretty bad.

What also is pretty bad is having half of your face numb. I just came back from getting my first cavities filled and I can't smile on half of my face. I think people seriously should stop making fun of John McCain for this because it's a really annoying thing to deal with.

Sarah Palin's Sex Tape

2008-10-07T09:08:00.004-04:00

HA! Made you look!

No, but really, there is a fake sex video of Sarah Palin circulating around Youtube. In fact, I bet there are several, but this one that I keep stumbling upon is pretty funny. And there's nothing really indecent in there at all but I guess I'll link it instead of embed it just because well, this is a class ? Haha- Sarah Palin sex tape.

The "tape" is green screen style and features a girl who really has the accent down pretty well. There are some dressing up like polar bears and even a surprise phone call from John McCain.

Dubya

2008-10-06T17:55:00.004-04:00

As today brings yet another day of people flipping out on Wall Street, which of course is bringing additional shame to the Bush administration (if that was even possible), it seemed fitting to make my post bout' Bush.

If anyone hasn't heard already, there's a movie coming out about Bush called "W." I posted a link to the trailer on Facebook recently, to which one of my friends commented that they felt kind of bad for Bush. This made me feel kinda bad too. But not for very long.

First of all, the movie is pretty accurate, depicting real events that happened in Bush's life. Like the time when he crashed his car into his house. Or when he challenged his dad to a fist fight. Or when he did coke. All in all, I don't think the movie attempts to depict Bush as some evil villian, but rather a real man who somehow became president (hence the Talking Heads song that plays in the beginning of the trailer- "And you may find yourself in a beautiful house. With a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?") Bush is just an average Joe that became president, and "W." is his story. But then again, this is all guess work since the movie hasn't been released yet, but the leaked script which people have talked about seems to be aiming towards this goal.

Either way, I don't think anyone should feel bad for Bush. He's our president. The ultimate symbol of power and leadership and therefore he deserves to be under the highest level of public scrutiny. Like any celebrity, public mockery comes with the territory.

Besides, it's definitely not the worst stuff out there on him anyway, and he's LEAVING soon.

An innocent iPhone falls victim to NEGLECT

2008-10-03T15:21:00.007-04:00

I've started reading The Onion and this article "Police: iPhone left in hot car for three hours" jumped out at me.

"Responding to calls from concerned passersby, who observed the iPhone sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot of the Westfield Shopping Center, police arrived on the scene at approximately 4 p.m. and immediately intervened to save the device," said Winnetka police chief Douglas Blaine. "Security cameras have shown that the iPhone had been in the car—with the doors locked and the windows rolled up—since 1 p.m. Due to the tragic and highly emotional nature of this case, we cannot say any more at this time."

Hmm. Well, I've discovered JUST how gullible I am, because right after this paragraph the article went on to explain how the iPhone was in critical condition and was rushed to the hospital via ambulance. HA! Funny stuff. Thankfully, though,"Many have come forward offering to take the iPhone into their custody, and still more have donated free downloads, ringtones, and MP3s to the victimized object."

I wish people would put this much effort into rescuing kids and dogs people leave in cars. I worked at Trader Joe's this summer and there were a number of incidents where customers have complained about someone leaving a dog in a car in the heat. My bosses, though, wouldn't let us do anything about it.

This article also reminded me of how awful I treat my electronics. Just an hour ago I dropped a large can of febreeze on my dvd player and it made a bad sound.

So, they debated

2008-10-03T02:23:00.003-04:00

Tonight, the VP nominees, Sarah Palin & Joe Biden, debated. Luckily, I got to watch it on CNN.com in the cluster office because I had to "RA duty" haha.

All in all, I was pretty taken aback by how interested people were in the whole thing. On Twitter, my fellow "vpdebate" tweeters commented on how this debate attracted way more tweeters than the actual presidential candidates last Friday. As I went on rounds at the end of the debate, there were countless residents crowded around television sets together. The level of intensity was enormous- I made the mistake of asking for a granola bar at one point and they shushed

me. Meanwhile, there was one guy outside who I heard scream in exasperation that"PALIN IS FLIRTING WITH AMERICA!"

I was quite impressed, especially given the fact that these are freshmen we are talking about. I'm glad the VP debate had a way of getting people more interested in the election as a whole, which is a good thing, but I do find it kind of sad that the presidential debate didn't attract this much attention (maybe because it was on a Friday night?) It is also even sadder that the reason why the debate attracted so much attention probably had something to do with Palin's "celebrity" status (both good and bad) in the media.

What do I have to say?

Although I compulsively tweeted for about an hour with random comments on what the candidates (namely, Palin), said, I never really got to look at the event as a whole. Someone on CNN said after the debate that regardless of who argued better (I would say, Biden) it didn't change anything- people who want to vote for Obama thought Biden did a wonderful job and people who want McCain to win thought Palin did great too. There were no big mishaps or profound statements or "game changers". I agree. Yet, the whole thing sure was entertaining, particularly Palin's little touches of motherhood that she threw in here and there. There were plenty of shout-outs to the hockey and soccer moms, all of her fellow "mavericks", and her peeps in Alaska. "Six pack Joe" had a cameo as well.

It was strange watching her up there. When she talked she made me feel like I was she was the president of the PTA, rather than a vice-presidential candidate who could someday be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES if something happened to McCain. Scary thought.

I do know her purpose though, and that is exactly it- to connect with people on that "human level". As eerie and robotic as she seemed (never breaking a smile) to some, others actually find the way she talks comforting and warm. They like her. Plus, she was a governor of a state that has oil, something most Republicans are eager to dig into.

Personally though, I still find it frightening that she could be president or even vice-president. I don't find her professional or experienced enough for the job and last night just reinforced that. Bidden, on the other hand, did a great job. He actually answered the questions and gave solid, eloquently put responses at that. Nothing earth-shattering though. I thought he could have pointed out inconsistencies in Palin's voting record and her lack of experience.

Here's a link to a CNN article that details how a lot of reporters went online after the debates in the wee hours of the morning to write about it (sounds familiar), and also how many of them were somewhat disappointed by the debate.

Who needs to go abroad when you've got Epcot?

2008-10-01T23:50:00.001-04:00

Ahhhh. So in anticipation of tomorrow's VP debate, it seems fitting that this blog should be about Sarah Palin.

According to this article I found on The Onion, Sarah Palin is now trying to boost the foreign policy section of her resume by traveling to Disney World. I suppose this will go near the section that details her extensive relations with Russia (Alaska, don't ya know, is pretty darn close). Oh, I also think there was a country where she bought a sandwich in.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin sought to silence those who have criticized her lack of foreign affairs experience Tuesday by announcing plans for a weeklong, 10-nation tour of Walt Disney World's Epcot. According to Palin, the trip—her first past Frontierland—will include speaking engagements at Norway's famous Viking ride, sausages at Germany's Kaufhaus, and, time permitting, a fact-finding mission to Future World. "This ambitious trip should finally demonstrate that I am ready to assume the vice presidency, whether by standing in long lines at Morocco's Tangierine Café or by sitting down face-to-face with Mexico's Three Caballeros."

Day of the Stock Market, continued

2008-09-30T20:00:00.007-04:00

So, it is now 8:00 p.m., exactly.

I have been checking back to NYTimes, The Huffington Post and the Drudge Report periodically throughout the day. Here is the synopsis, thus far.

NYTIMES:

The Times has done a good job of updating their content throughout the day. There are some updates on the stock market stuff from the day on the left hand side, but the main article is about NY Mayor Bloomberg, who is seeking a third term. The opinion section is still the same, but there are some new articles disbursed throughout the page, including a new election article about Billy Joel and Bruce Springstein's fundraiser for Barack Obama.

Huff:

Woah! Okay so The Huffington Post just updated this hour. They had changed a couple of things since 9 a.m., but kept things generally the same when I checked last at 7 o' clock- namely their headline about McCain being at a "political deadend" because of the market fall and their blog about McCain and Reaganomics. The link about McCain still exists, but has been trumped by an article with a title pertaining to Bush's 70% disapproval rating. Yet, unsurprisingly, once I clicked on this link it turned out it was not about Bush's disapproval rating, but rather, Obama and McCain via the economy. McCain, of course, seems to be at a disadvantage compared to Obama, following the Huff's tendency to come off as pro-Obama. New blog highlighting America's imperialism in light of the current economic crisis. Generally though, same stuff as this morning.

Drudge:

Oh site of little change. Drudge has changed some links, but kept its headliners and its images, from this morning. Then again, it's hard to tell given the fact that every link looks the same. Anyway, there are definitely a couple new ones, a few that are even in red [snow on Mars! consumer confidence improves in Sept.! US writing too "insular" to compete - take that, Foer].

Drudge's doomsday reports of earlier this morning and its lump of links in the upper left hand corner that all relate to the economy gives me the most gloomy outlook out of the 3 sites...

Stock Market Plunges 1293802320 Points

2008-09-30T09:31:00.003-04:00

So, I usually do the best I can to avoid reading financial news.

But it's kinda hard when every news website declared that the Dow plummeted 777 points last night, the biggest drop in one day, ever.

At least it wasn't 666.

So, this is the big news of the day... THE ECONOMY. How did The New York Times, the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post cover this, and the other things that happened to also exist on this day?

9:40 a.m.: Just woke up about 40 minutes ago. Clutching a box of "Marshmallow Treasures" (Target Lucky Charms).

The Times:

-The economy has dominated the top half of the times, and its columns. I read this article about Bush's attempt to get his economic bailout plan passed again, and the impact of yesterday's stock market plunge on foreign markets. NYTimes is where I usually go to get the "real news" about what the **** is going on. There are useful links around this main article about "Is my money safe?", and opinion columns on the side from different points of view - (namely "we're doomed", "we're screwed", "we're temporarily doomed"). Oddly enough, (although I do not think this is a coincidence) there are two articles (along the lines of 'what to do when you're sick' and 'why even if you try your best to be healthy, this will most likely fail') near the economic stuff. Losing all of my money would make me sick too, so I understand this.

-There is some stuff about the election. Actually, really just one article questioning Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin's readiness for the VP debate this week.

-Also, some car stuff on the side. (Spend that cash and make the economy better ! Plz!)

The Huff:

-Apparently, the fact that Bush's economic stimulus plan failed to gain approval in the House of Reps. is John McCain's fault. "McCain at political deadend since bailout failure". Yet, the article itself doesn't really read this way, just the title. I think that's something typical of the Huff to draw people to articles. This site also leads me to believe that foreign stocks are pretty unstable, while when you really read the story you discover that it's not as bad as the Huff advertises. There is a blog on the side about whether McCain agrees with Reaganomics, that there shouldn't be gov. interference with the economy.

-A lot of election stuff and about 3 or 4 articles making fun of Sarah Palin in some way.

-It seems, in general, that the economy is an issue on this website, but that it is seen through an election-oriented [pro-Democrat] lense.

The Drudge:

-Things seem a bit calmer on the Drudge, as it does not give me the feeling that I should abandon all hope, withdraw all my money from my bank and become a hermit somewhere. In fact, the main title on the site is "Calm returns after sell-off". Yet, if you notice, this link is to a Yahoo! page, not something produced by the Drudge. Underneath this and a few related links on the side, there are the three columns of news that have little to do with the economy. This news is diverse, too, as it covers election stuff, random stuff, stuff about the debate on Friday, a California immigration sweep, a Nasa thing, news from OTHER countries! (oh my), and a lot of random findings. There was this link about tracking people's carbon usage by their cell phone use, which was in red, so of course I had to click on it. Yet, the link deceived me because I thought it would be people tracking US, but its rather a way to track your OWN carbon usage. Oh well.

-I also found this lovely photo:

Extremely Awkward and Incredibly Strange

2008-09-29T15:19:00.006-04:00

If you haven't already guessed, this blog post is about Jonathan Foer [pictured to the right], author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated, who spoke at UMass last Tuesday. The blogging class got to tweet as the event was happening, flooding the Twitter search engine at our every whim whenever a thought crossed our minds that we wanted to express concerning the event. This in itself made the whole ordeal much more entertaining. Being able to write my thoughts down onto Twitter, with a character limit so I wouldn't ramble, kept me engaged. I also liked how I felt like I was chatting with others about the event as it was happening without the obligation to actually respond to them or keep up with the chat, which would deflect my attention from the event. It was cool, like we were reporting on a live sports event or something.

Now, back to Foer.

As the title of this post suggests, Foer's talk at UMass was... well, awkward, to say the least. It was also strange, as I've never seen an author act so hostile towards his audience. Needless to say, the whole event exceeded my expectations by entertaining, rather than boring me [unlike the author who visited for last year's Dean's Book, "Terror in the Name of God".... DOWNER].

First, the awkwardness. This was definitely something that the evening's twitters picked up on right away. After some strange, robotic announcement about turning off phones, being quiet, etc., there was a dry introduction by the guy who picks the books for Commonwealth College. Awkward. "This intro is soooooooooo cliche." as "ajmil0" twitted. Next, I believe, some Comcol student awkwardly tried to candidly introduce Foer. Again, awkward.

It was here, thankfully, that Foer actually saved us from this awkwardness by embracing it as people with experience being awkward gracefully do. Hence, Foer's discussion of his wardrobe malfunctions. This was graciously picked up by twitters. As edoody101 said, " foer starts off with a somewhat comical story about 3 missing buttons and lack of nice clothes". Mel soon pointed out that no one would have noticed Foer's wardrobe problems if he hadn't pointed it out. Shame on you, Foer.

Anywho, the real awkward/strangeness ensued though, when it came time for Foer to start answering questions from the audience. This was something that Foer already told the audience in the beginning that he did not like to do. It's hard to really capture how much contempt he really seemed to have with answering questions, but I'll try.

When people asked questions, Foer responded first by mocking/picking apart their question/grilling them, all with a smile on his face. This was frequently reflected in our "twitting".

As Mel remarked via Twitter, "I think he just made fun of some kid's voice!!" Next, there was a question posed by the Comcol girl trying to be candid, by comparing studying for a test all night and failing, to an author not realizing his/her happiness till the end of their life?

Whoops. Foer really nailed her for that one.

This trend continued. As mhands09 twitted, "Ask questions at you own risk, foer will bring you down a notch if you dont bring your a game."

Soon afterwards, Scott Feldman picked up on the fact that people were trying to sound smart just to dodge the wrath of Foer's "I'm-a-writer-I'm-smarter-than-you" wrath. He asked, "Why does everyones questions sound like they want to sound hyper intellectual?"

This technique, however, was of little advantage to anyone who attempted it.

Conclusion: Yes, Foer is somewhat arrogant, which annoyed me and a lot of other people, I am sure. Yet, at the same time it didn't annoy me so much, and I think others may agree, from the likes of the tweets that I read.

I think our lack of contempt for Foer stems from the fact that he still created an interesting piece of art, which still makes him an intriguing person almost "worthy" of his seemingly arrogant attitude. He said a lotta smart stuff too.

Here are some of my faves, which I wouldn't have remembered if we didn't tweet!

"People think art is free... in reality freedom constrains you"
"I can't make good things on purpose. I have no interest in realizing my potential. what interests me is transcending my potential."
"Books are like vessels, readers put their experiences into it."
"The whole point of art is to make things that aren't average"

Basically, I can see why we respect him, and also why he shouldn't have to answer questions. Answering too many questions about an art form dissects the art form no longer making it art.

Disturbing Crop Circles

2008-09-26T15:26:00.005-04:00

Someone in Ohio needs to be punished.

I am deeply disturbed by this 16-acre "maze" that an artist plowed into a cornfield in Ohio. The purpose of having people "lose themselves" in Sarah Palin's face? "To generate excitement for the upcoming campaign", a farmer says.

Unfortunately for the farmer and Mrs. Palin, however, the only people who are even going to see this are pilots and extraterrestrials riding by in their UFOs.

Yet, bearing resemblance to the GOP's Vice-Presidential nominee isn't all fun and games, as one TV news anchor in Maine can attest to.

The unlucky anchor, Cindy Michael has apparently been receiving hate mail and angry phone calls accusing her of copying Sarah Palin's style. Cindy claims that she is innocent to the charges, but I find this hard to believe. I mean, c'mon what are the odds that two women with brown hair and rectangular glasses will have both bangs and their hair pulled back?

Phony.

This controversy has sparked even more ridiculousness on behalf of the Boston Globe, which went through the trouble of putting together a "gallery" of sorts on their website to compare how much other people, mainly celebrities, bear resemblance to the VP nominee.

What do I think? I think they should get over it. Or, at least be fair and hold a similar look-alike contest for Obama's VP nominee, Joe Biden. Qualifications- white guy, nice suit, gray hair. Hmm, I wonder if we can find anyone who fits those qualifications.

Congress?

explosive hot dogs

2008-09-25T13:11:00.003-04:00

It seems like some people in Philadelphia have uncovered the latest threat to humanity: hot dogs.

I always thought hot dogs were pretty gross, but now, it turns out, they can be dangerous as well.

The unfortunate incident occurred last night at the Philadelphia Phillies baseball stadium, where three hot dogs wrapped in aluminum foil were discovered on the ground. Stadium employees were evacuated and the bomb squad was called in.

Turns out, it was this guy, Philadelphia Phillies mascot "The Phillie Phantic", pictured to the right with Pres. Bush, that was at fault. The bomb squad discovered that the "bombs" were simply leftover hot dogs that the mascot was "shooting" into the audience during last night's game.

I think, however, there's still cause for concern. First of all, it kind of goes without saying that someone who calls themselves a "fanatic", regardless of how it is spelled, should generally not be trusted. Second of all, what is this guy doing with a gun? Third of all, why would he shoot hot dogs, out of all of the foods typically offered at a baseball stadium? Don't hot dogs hurt when shot out at such high speeds? Did the hot dogs come with ketchup or mustard? My guess is no, which would mean that the hot dogs that the audience received were probably pretty gross since this food is basically useless without condiments.

Finally, isn't it cause for concern that this mascot, who has been behind a bomb scare, has such close ties with President Bush? Isn't this now a matter of national security?

You can read the article about the Phillies, here.

It's almost as scary as the Cartoon Network light bright esq ad that freaked people out on the T last year in Boston. The whole scare ended up costing Turner Networks, which owns Cartoon Network, $2 million - half for the Boston Police Dept. and the other half for the Dept. of Homeland Security. What will they think of next?

Foust, again

2008-09-23T15:53:00.004-04:00

I just finished reading Chapter 8 in Foust's "Online Journalism".

I was not taken aback or interested in most of the chapter, to be honest, but I did learn about "named anchors" which I never knew about before. I thought this is a cool thing to utilize if I was blogging on a website that I ran myself, rather than this blog which is hosted on Blogger. These named anchors are good because they can direct your reader to specific sections of a webpage so they don't have to do a lot of searching and scrolling to find the relevant content.

Cool.

So as TV becomes crappier...

2008-09-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

So as the content on network TV (and arguably, some cable stations as well) becomes crappier, it should come as no surprise that the pinnacle TV moment for the year, the Emmy Awards, would represent this crappiness best.

Boy, was I right.

I did not watch the Emmy's. In fact, I would not even have known that they were taking place had there not been a little box on the front page of The Boston Globe website with Hugh Laurie (House)'s face on it.

Unfortunately, I had drank an energy drink because of a terrible mishap at the Collegian (I was there until 2:30 a.m. Sunday night) and couldn't sleep until 4 a.m. Due to this fact, not only did I get to see some of the most bizarre hearing aid commercials, I also got to see the Emmy awards pre-show. Watching this hour-long (or more?) display of awkwardness only prompted me to go online to see if my favorite drug-popping physician had won any awards.

It was on The Boston Globe's "Viewer Discretion" blog that I discovered that not only did House not win an Emmy, but that the Emmy Awards itself carried on the same awkwardness that the pre-show did. The article alludes to the downfall of the quality of network TV, which is something that is always discussed in my Media Criticism class. One main example of this I immediately recognized- the awkward reality show hosts.

I liked this passage, particularly the first sentence.

After an intro by Oprah Winfrey, during which she managed to defend TV by reminding us she uses the medium to sell books, the hosts came onstage. Nominees in the new reality-host category, they jovially pretended to be winging it as if they were on reality TV, as if reality TV is really about winging it, as if we care. They talked over one another and didn’t manage to make a single decent joke. It was a disaster.

And people wonder why I don't watch TV anymore.

Whoops

2008-09-20T19:38:00.005-04:00

So, as you all are enjoying your weekends, I hope that you keep this video in mind...

Seems like this bartender was enjoying herself a little too much on the job perhaps.

For some reason seeing people fall never gets old.

We've been pwned

2008-09-17T17:44:00.009-04:00

Okay, so, keeping in stride with my last post about Facebook, and my recent subconscious obsession? with Sarah Palin (she's actually, right at this moment speaking on MSNBC), today I have something to say about both.

My friend posted an article on Facebook which discusses the most recent mishap to befall upon our friend Sarah Palin. Apparently, a bunch of hoodlums hacked into her e-mail account. Unfortunately, the Yahoo article my friend posted does not delve into the juicy details of the e-mails found by the hackers, but this article on Gawker does. Nothing too profound was found though [except perhaps having Track's e-mail address ;) ].

Anyway, this isn't all about her though. There is more to the dark side of the internet.

Right now, there is a lot of stuff doing down in my dorm with Facebook.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm an RA in an all-freshman dorm here. When I was doing my RA training, our senior staff members [ARDs, RD] poked around Facebook and foud a group they made "Van Meter 08-09!" In this group, these freshies made the error of planning a party with pretty graphic details such as "I'll bring the bong", etc. The senior staff flagged their names, provided them to the police to just keep on file as "red flags" and kept it in mind for future reference. The group was public, and I can somewhat understand this although I think bringing the police into it was a little much.

Anyway, as weeks have gone by this party never came to fruition as the freshmen realized what was up, I guess. I think most of it was just talk anyway as they just wanted to seem cool entering into their first year.

Now, three weeks into the school year, one of the RAs on my floor is facing termination because a picture of him smoking hookah in his room was posted by one of his friends on Facebook. Someone printed this picture out and put it under the RD's door. The university's new rules for RAs this year says that RAs are supposed to be automatically fired for breaking any code of conduct rule. This could be something as minor as having an unlit candle in your room.

This Facebook stuff has all of the RAs spooked. We also know that the senior staff checked out our Facebooks before we came to training too. Luckily, mine was private. Yet, this may not even be enough. We've discovered that by signing onto Facebook in our cluster office passwords/histories are automatically saved. Therefore, even if our Facebooks are set to "friends only", our RA friends who sign on in the cluster office are providing anyone who uses that computer with open access to our computers.

It's just a shame how the internet can be used in this way and that we all have to be paranoid about what we post [like this blog, even].

Big brother is watching. It's just a shame that my friend, a great RA loved by all of his residents, is the victim. He isn't the first though, and I'm sure he won't be the last.

Twitter vs. Facebook

2008-09-17T17:44:00.008-04:00

Okay, so I read Prof. Brodeur's post about Twitter.

He said,

I find a lot of Facebookers are reluctant at first to embrace Twitter. But once they do, many are impressed at its immediacy.

As a pretty regular Facebook user, I must say I was pretty hesitant to embrace Twitter myself. I signed up for Twitter anyway though, waited a few minutes, looked around for a bit, and then thought to myself, "Now what?"

I get what Twitter does- it immediately updates a network of people about what each other are doing- and that's about it.

Yeah, Twitter is fast, but I want to know more than just what people are doing at the moment [a.k.a maximum stalker capabilities]. Just kidding. But really though, Facebook offers the same feature with its "status" option that a lot of people update pretty regularly. The status option plus Facebook's minifeed immediately updates each user's homepage on not only what people are doing, thinking, feeling, eating, etc. but also can allow users to view other users' most recent pictures, post wall comments, see profiles, etc. etc. all within one massive interface.

That being said, I think that Facebook users are pretty adverse to change. Since I joined Facebook in the summer before my freshman year [2005], there have been a number of changes, all of which the users protested at first and later embraced. I definitely guilty of this myself.

The biggest protest users made was about Facebook's "minifeed" which streamed updates from friends in a super-fast, yet super-creepy way.

It's newest update is interesting though, because it has changed the way Facebook looks so that updates on people's status (which eerily mirrors Twitter's) are mashed in as a central feature of the homepage, amid more "important" updates like wall posts and new photos.

You gotta give them credit for constantly reinventing themselves though... I guess that's why they're raking in billions.

Huff vs. Drudge

2008-09-16T19:10:00.005-04:00

Although The Drudge Report has, what I believe to be a decidedly cooler name than The Huffington Post, I'd say I definitely prefer the Huff over the Drudge any day.

Both sites were dealing with basically the same type of blogging/similar stories. They both acted as collectors of interesting links. They both tried to display these links with catchy, sometimes funny, titles. There were even funny pictures, such as the photo on the right that I found on the Drudge taken at a London fashion show.

The Huff takes the prize, though, because its layout didn't give me a headache [I feel for the woman on the right. Ouch]. That's honestly what it comes down to. It just goes to show how important visuals are when it comes to online journalism.

Yeah, the Huff has kind of a scattered top of the page, but it's an organized scatter, if that makes any sense. The Drudge, on the other hand, was too "all over the place" for me. Plus, I didn't really like the black underlined font used for nearly every link. Websites don't need to be flashy persay, but they should use more images and make things easy to read. My eyes don't want to work that hard if they know they can have an easier time reading the same stuff elsewhere.

HTML@#!(

2008-09-16T12:18:00.004-04:00

After reading Chapter 3 of Writing for the Web's lovely Foust book, I wanted to make a few comments about HTML.

I guess I was pretty lucky that I had a really nerdy dad who loved computers (I'm pretty sure we had AOL 1.0), and that I had really good computer classes all throughout elementary school. Because of this, I started playing around with HTML stuff when I was 12, although I've forgotten a lot of it. All I do remember, though, is how picky it is.

This is exceedingly clear to me with my latest challenge of trying to break up my blog posts. After fooling around with different information websites on the topic, I realized that because I enabled "widgets" on my blog, a lot of the code was missing from the edit HTML section, unless I made sure to check the box to show the rest of that hidden HTML. Whoops. This was after around 2 hours of cumulated frustration.

Basically, how this relates to Foust is that even with the newest version of HTML "XHTML" (which he talks about in chapter 3), working with HTML code takes time and experience. Recognizing that advances in technology have pushed us to put forth less and less effort to do things, I would not be surprised if HTML code will someday become completely obsolete.

For now, HTML is still just as tedious as ever.

Word vomit

2008-09-15T23:29:00.003-04:00

I find it absurdly ironic that the phrase "word vomit" used in Tina Fey's Mean Girls has increasingly come to mind when I think of my (and many Americans) relationship with Sarah Palin. I just can't get enough. The more we dislike her and the attention she gets, the more we give her attention!

Right when I was at the peak of wallowing in this sad fact, I stumbled upon this article in The Globe.

First, there's this video where Tina Fey plays an amazing Sarah Palin.

Second, the article includes this video which highlights her support for Hillary and the bad wrap "tough ladies" get when in power.

Fortunately for myself and my new computer, my word vomit, unlike Lindsay Lohan's in Mean Girls, did not bring forth any of the real stuff.

This Blogger is bananas

2008-09-13T14:57:00.005-04:00

B-a-n-a-n-a-s

No, seriously though.

It's been messing with my posts (i.e. did not publish my post last night because of an "unknown error"), not allowing me to use block quotes anymore because of another random error, AND has still not let me do the dividing up thing so I can break up my posts.

AHHHHH

I'll figure it out, but if you ever see things looking weird or ugly, I'm working on it.

Jersey, Jihad and Journalism

2008-09-12T22:04:00.008-04:00

I wasn't trying to be clever when I named this post... I swear.

So today, I drove home to New Jersey to get my license renewed (yay turning 21!). As I was waiting at the DMV for an unreasonable amount of time, I picked up a copy of our local paper,The Bergen Record.

Most of the paper is original, but I did find a couple syndicated articles from the Associate Press. My favorite, was this one about Republican VP nominee Sarah Pallin's stance on Russia and its current conflict with Georgia. I enjoyed the article for three reasons.

1. It displayed Pallin's lack of hesitation to go to war with Russia [I told you she was in cahoots with them, this is clearly a plan of sabotage to the U.S.] due to its "bullying" of Georgia if economic sanctions against the country did not work.

Pallin: "What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against." (Who cares about the smaller, non democratic ones)

2. It showed how inexperienced she really is when it comes to foreign affairs. (Yet, she doeshave EXECUTIVE experience!)

"Palin said other than a trip to visit soldiers in Kuwait and Germany last year - "a trip of a lifetime" that "changed my life" - her only other foreign travel was to Mexico and Canada."

-However, she does cite Alaska's close proximity to Russia as a marker of her experience with the nation.

3. I learned that Pallin sees the Iraq war as a Christian jihad, or holy war, of sorts. I found this fascinating.

"Gibson also read Palin a comment she made in her former church - "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God" - and asked whether she thought the United States was fighting a holy war.
Palin said: "I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words," adding she didn't know if her son Track, who is headed to Iraq, is on a mission from God."

All things Pallin aside, I was impressed by my local newspaper because of how legitimate it was, and how well it has adapted to the online world via its web Site. After drenching myself in pride for my local paper, I headed to Starbucks, which I usually avoid, because I thought it was the only place around I could get some free wireless.

What a joke that was. After paying over four dollars for my coffee, I soon discovered that one has to sign up for T-mobile or AT&T wireless internet service. You can buy a day pass though, for $9.99 a pop.

No wonder people don't want to buy the news anymore, with coffee and Internet access draining their funds.

A woman sitting near me told her friend that she did want to "glance" at the paper. Her friend motioned to the stack of The New York Times for sale in the corner, to which the woman replied,

"Yeah, well I don't want to PAY for it."

9/11... that's weird

2008-09-11T15:20:00.007-04:00

Those were my exact words when I woke up this morning, to which my boyfriend, getting ready for his 9:30 class said, "No, not really, sounds about right..."

He thought I was referring to the time.

I'm not usually one of those people who likes to get sentimental about 9/11. I used to feel guilty about this, but today I see it as something a lot of people do who are unhappy with how the day was used/is still used today by our government to justify certain actions we disagree with (the Iraq war, restriction of civil liberties, Guantanamo detention center, etc.). We feel spiteful about the ends that the day was used to achieve, not the day itself.

9/11 does still affect me. I grew up outside of NYC, right across the Hudson River in NJ. For the entire day, after the towers were struck, I saw the smoke stacks from hilly parts of my town. We had to leave school early. Teachers and students were running around sobbing because a large majority of people who live in my town have family that work in NY. Luckily, I did not personally know anyone that was killed in NY that day, but I had friends who did.

Although I don't get upset on the anniversary of this day each year, I do feel weird. And, whether I like to admit or not, 9/11 has affected little things in my life I don't even notice.

Today, I didn't go to the Boston Globe as I usually do, I went to The New York Times.

As Ed Park notes in this article published on September 6th, it's the little things that really remind you of 9/11.

Like every time you hear a plane pass loudly overhead. Or every time you take the subway. Or an air plane into JFK.

Basically, the little subconscious things. This makes sense, given an enlightening statement Park quotes in his article:

“To forget we must not know we are doing so, or else we are not forgetting.”

This ties in with another article I read in the Times today about how, when seeing a picture that incorporates the New York sky line, we no longer look at what's going on in the picture as our eyes immediately divert to the missing towers.

As one reader of the article commented:

"It will forever be the skyline that just isn't right, no matter what they build there."

Let's make McCain interesting!

2008-09-10T23:33:00.007-04:00

I tried to embed this but my browser keeps crashing..

I used to think Stephen Colbert's latest challenge presented to his viewers to "make McCain interesting" by transforming a green screen version of one of McCain's discussions on The Colbert Report was the only that the Republican presidential nominee could spice up his appeal to the American public.

Then came Sarah Palin.

The problem with Palin is that she's so darn interesting. First, there's her children, whose names are about as interesting as names can come- Trig, Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper. The family itself is interesting as well: Trig, the youngest child, has down syndrome, while her oldest daughter Bristol is five months pregnant and her oldest son, Track, is going to soon be sent to Iraq to fight in the army. Palin's husband, Todd, who she began dating in high school, is a fisherman. The family is from ALASKA. Palin likes to hunt animals and race dogs through the snow for months at a time. She was once a beauty queen. And, to top it all off, she's a WOMAN.

The American media is trapped, with their mouths now hooked to the Sarah Palin bait the McCain campaign has laid out for them. And the American people just keep on buying it, addicted to the Palin stories as if she was just another member of the celebrity world (I'd sure like to see her featured on TMZ.com myself).

I blame the young people for poking fun at McCain's for being boring. I mean, c'mon, no one wants to be boring, it doesn't matter how old they are. Also, look at his competition? How is a gray-haired war veteran going to ignite the same passion that the hip, b-ball playing Obama can?

When it comes down to it though, this is not the case. McCain is not trying to win over the youth. He knows he's lost em'. Instead, he'll get those voters that were on the fence, a bit leary of McCain's somewhat frigid demeanor and Obama's lack of experience.

All in all, McCain chose the perfect running mate (or soulmate, as he has been quoted saying). Sarah Palin fills in the interesting gap and then some. Plus, she has experience, which emphasizes Obama's lack thereof even more and puts him in an even harder position to win.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to discover 20 years later that Palin is simply a robot (Bette Midler actually compared her to one last night on TV), created by the McCain campaign.

Or Russia.

Long live the corporate giant legacy

2008-09-09T18:59:00.008-04:00

Something I found particularly interesting in James Foust's Online Journalism book, was his discussion in Chapter 1 about "legacy" web Sites and companies.

These "legacy" sites, he says, represent the few "real" journalism sites on the web (or at least those most visited by users). It is this "real" sites, which are owned by "legacy" companies the American public is familiar with for being reliable in the journalism field, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, etc. These sites are used as the basis for most news that gets translated, or "shoveled" as Foust says, into blogs and other smallweb Sites.

A few online journalism sites exist only on the Internet, but these are still, relatively speaking, rare. When the so-called Internet bubble burst in the late 1990s, it took down many such free-standing sites with it. Sites like Salon.com and Slate.com have survived, but they have never been able to build audience levels approaching those of popular media sites.

The big question I want to ask here is why? After hearing in many of my journalism classes how the Internet and the "bloggers" were the biggest threat to the existence of newspapers as we know them today, I find it intriguing that the news sites that are at the center of everyone on the net's attention are still linked back to these giant newspaper companies.

How is it that despite having unfettered access to an audience comprised of millions of Americans, no new journalistic juggernauts have arisen to the occasion?

I don't get it.

I guess it's a good and bad thing.

Good, that there's still hope for the good ol' newspapers we know and love to stay in business (Rupert Murdoch can breath a sigh of relief).

Bad, that there isn't more reliable, noteworthy, impressive, intellectual competition out there.

Since the internet, as Foust suggests, has no limits, I guess I will just have to wait for someone to seriously break through the mold and do some awesome, underground reporting, rather than simply shoveling the big guys' dirt.

What is this world coming to!? (Or was it already there)

2008-09-08T16:26:00.001-04:00

Okay, so, apologies for not blogging Friday... I tend to forget that Friday is still technically part of the week. I was extremely busy and then had to rush off to see my friend's band "Body Lice (I know, great name) play in Worcester.

Anyway, today's rant begins with Avril Lavigne, whose Myspace music is playing on my computer right now. (I'm trying to keep it turned down as far as I can to avoid any scrutiny from my neighbors.)

As most people know, whether you liked her or not, Avril Lavigne was hailed as being a somewhat rebellious figure for the pop world. Instead of some blond bombshell who sang catchy songs with stale lyrics about the downsides of young love, Avril graced our presence with such insightful lyrics like, "He was a skater boy, she said 'See ya later boy.' He wasn't good enough for her," all the while donned in ripped leggings and an outfit carefully designed by Hot Topic. Today, Avril sings to a different tune, covering Sarah McLachlan's "Adia" on her Myspace, in addition to a number of songs that are more "poppy" and "mainstream" than her old gigs.

before

These new songs, equipped with Avril's more "mainstream" personal style (goodbye black studded belt, hello bright pink Baby Grand piano), have some of her Myspace fans ripping out their hair in dismay. Yet, if you really do a side by side comparison of her old songs and the new ones, I would not say that they are really very different from one another. Both the old Avril and the new fall into the same class of mainstream pop supported by big industries, where Avril is put forth to the world as more of a product than an artist.

after

Yes, Avril wore Hot Topic clothes before her big transformation, because Hot Topic, as some might be surprised to find out, is owned by the Banana Republic. Yes, Avril covered a Sarah McLachlan song, but she will never be Sarah McLachlan.

And that's basically what I'm trying to say in a nutshell- that when it comes to most mainstream media and celebrities/musicians, what is put on display for us to see is not what is really the driving force behind these people - big money and companies often are.

Of course, we all already know this. But it's just something you don't really think about like when you're say, watching MTV's Video Music Awards. The people who play at these events and win these awards are not truly the best artists in the country, but instead are recognizable faces that make a lot of money for a bunch of old guys sitting behind a desk somewhere.

I wonder, where is the "old MTV"? The one that was supposed to be rebellious? And then I remember, there was no old MTV, just like there was no "old Avril", it's always been this way but we just may not have known it yet.

Avril's latest:

Who says you can't teach an old dinosaur new tricks?

2008-09-04T21:00:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not going to talk about being old again this time. Today, I'm going to talk about the MEDIA.

One of my assignments for my media criticism class this week is to read and discuss journalist Michael Crichton's article "Mediasaurus", which was featured on Wired.com in 1993. That's right, 1993- back when the little yellow AOL man's 15 minute walk to the other end of the screen brought unfathomable joy to some lucky households and businesses around the U.S. Today, 15 years later, the little yellow man's 15-minute journey that indicated our arrival into cyberspace in 1993 is no longer cute, but such an obsolete and tedious way to connect to the Internet that nearly everyone in cyberspace has abandoned it.

As the Internet got faster (I mean, our connections anyway), so did we. Who wants to wait on a long line at one counter if they can get the same services elsewhere without having to wait? Along with this change, the Internet also has adapted in another way: there are more things for free. Music, programs, MEDIA, etc. Although people would not normally expect these items for free in the "real world", they are offered for free on the Internet. And who, honestly, wants to buy the cow if they can get the milk for free?

Anyway, old cliches aside, the whole point of why I'm stating these pretty obvious facts has to do with Crichton's "Mediasaurus". Granted, the man did not have a crystal ball or a time machine, but I found it pretty interesting how far off he was about the impact of the Internet on the media. Throughout the article, he predicts that people will demand a higher quality media product as the Internet brings about a new form of media, noting how media is a service people PAY for and that the media's declining quality is what causes a drop in sales. This, is clearly not what drives the drop in newspaper sales today.

Crichton's focus on the media's ineptitude in providing a high quality product also ties in with another fundamental flaw I found in his predictions: that the majority of people crave detailed, deep, intellectualism in their media sources and that people are turned off by flashy sensationalism with a lot of fluff and little substance. Although I don't think that sensationalism is a good way to present the news, I can't help but disagree with Crichton that people would rather hear about Britney Spears' latest parenting mishap rather than the state of the global economy. Although this fact is very sad, it is also very true.

Finally, Crichton touches upon the fact that as technology has made our world move faster, we have grown more impatient. Yet, he does not incorporate this fact with the future of the media, emphasizing throughout his piece that people crave details!

This is particularly clear through the linguistic developments of the internet years:

[but idk i mean ppl maybe want dtails, idk, wtvr.)

As an ending note, here's an example of new media's intellectualism at its finest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o

I doubt that the web hits for CSpan's latest video came even remotely close to this guy's.

Senior

2008-09-03T21:34:00.001-04:00

Although there are several far more "important" things that have crossed my mind today thanks to the media & my journalism and political science classes, such as the upcoming presidential election, the economy, journalism and "new media", the current state of world affairs, etc. etc. etc., I cannot help but care the most about one part of my life right now:

Being a SENIOR

Like this old man pictured to the left (thanks Google image search), I have generally embraced this title with stride, ready to start kicking a## and taking names. However, now that classes have actually started, I have become overwrought with this incredible angst unlike the "senioritis" I was inflicted with during my high school days. Unlike my senior year of high school, I am not any lazier, just crazier. I find it hard to believe that I will be soon entering the "real real world", not just the "real world" I was supposed to enter after high school. It's weird, I'll tell you that much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very pumped to start exploring the world in greater detail, to enter graduate school (if I can afford it) while leaving the red tape wrath that is UMass behind me. It's just, I don't FEEL like a senior.

By this, I mean that I don't feel OLD. This year, I'm expected to be a role model of sorts. I'm a peer advisor for the journalism department, an RA in an all-freshman dorm, an editor for the Collegian and, of course, a senior. This is all well and good, except for the fact that I just don't feel like an old person, nor do I LOOK like one. Everyone in my dorm, except for my most of my residents and my fellow RAs, thinks I'm just another freshman. To top it all off, my fellow RAs don't believe that I'm a senior either.

What's so weighty about the "senior" title? I never thought it would come with this much pressure or this many expectations. It's very annoying. I think I'm going to start telling people I'm a junior.

Anyone else with me?

Who is Scott Brodeur, really?

2008-09-02T19:20:00.000-04:00

After holding a press conference with Scott Brodeur this evening, I learned that Scott, whose middle name is Paul, was born on a submarine base in Grotton, Connecticut. Scott spent most of his childhood however, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which is outside of Philadelphia. After living there, he moved to New York City, where he resided for about 10 years until he moved to his current place of residence, Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife Barbara and his three kids, ,Johnathan-10, Gabriel-7 and Elizabeth-4. He also has a cat, Cocoa, named after the cereal "Cocoa Crisp". Yet, as his blog suggested, Scott is not a cat person.

After studying journalism at Syracuse University in New York, Scott worked for magazines for a while, which led him to his current career in online journalism after one of the bosses he worked for at a Magazine took her work online. He likes to write about all different subjects, which is what he feels is the great thing about writing. He started working in the journalism field because, he said, "I like telling stories,because I knew it'd be a way to have work be interesting every single day and it turned out I was right."

Who is Scott Brodeur?

2008-09-02T18:42:00.000-04:00

So, who is Scott Brodeur?

According to the "About Scott Brodeur" section of Scott's "Writing for the Web" blog on WordPress.com, Scott is an executive editor at Advance Internet, a company that runs a number of Web sites such as NJ.com, NOLA.com, OregonLive.com, Cleveland.com and MassLive.com. He has also worked as a writer, journalist, critic and editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Source, Billboard and Details. In addition, The "About Scott" section of the blog recognizes that Scott is a journalism lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he has taught Writing for the Web in addition to courses on feedback and convergence journalism. Scott lives in Northampton with his family.

Additional research, (a.k.a Google) has also informed me that Scott not only plays in a local band, Storybox, (which is discussed on the aforementioned "About Scott" section of his Writing for the Web blog), but plays guitar and sings in this band. I discovered this, and other interesting facts about Scott, on his Masslive.com blog, "Blog Beat". According to his Blog Beat posts, Scott is an avid Red Sox fan, who likes to blog about sports, in addition to music. These seem to be the two main topics that he discusses on his blog.

Another interesting fact I discovered on Blog Beat, was that, despite being a seemingly die-hard Red Sox fan, Scott's favorite baseball mascot is, and always has been, Mr. Met. This is not only because Scott owned a "weird" Mr. Met board game as a child or because the mascot has a highly contagious theme song, but primarily because, as Scott said in a post he made on August 25, 2008: "The mascot is just crazy-cool. It is a guy in uniform with a baseball head. You have to love that."

Finally, according to Blog Beat, as of late May 2007, Scott became the reluctant owner of two cats. It is a touchy subject for him.

Online Journalism

2008-09-02T18:19:00.000-04:00

Since I became a journalism major, "online journalism" has been presented to me as both a threat and a blessing for the journalism world. The way this medium has been presented to me has been contradictory at times, leading me to become perplexed enough that I would be given no other choice but to take a class on the subject. I am here to discover if journalism students should abandon all hope because of these "bloggers" that we have been led to fear, or if we should embrace this way of communication as the start of a new age in the journalism world.