Final Blog!!!

So the class Nanotexts is over and I am very sad! The class was pretty fun, and a break from all my other really hard science class. Although there was a lot of reading and I wouldn’t consider this class easy at all, it was very time consuming! Well I just finished the book Queen City Jazz and it was awesome! I have to say that was quite an incredible book, it had many plots and subplots that made me keep guessing what would happen next! The book was actually about a girl named verity, she was living in a closed off community called The Shakers. They believed men and women shouldn’t have sex, or use technology, and live off the earth. Verity lived in the community with her friend Blaze, her dog Cairo, her friend/elder John, and the elder Russ. These were pretty much the main characters in the beginning of the book. This all takes place way in the future. Verity and Blaze end up using some ancient technology, and John catches Blaze using it and eventually shoots at Blaze and Cairo. Verity knows she much go to Cincinnati to find some way to save Blaze & Cairo. She finds out that Cincinnati is a place of mystery and the people are trapped in some never-ending loop in Cincinnati caused by Durancy, the man who created nanorobots, and who was heartbroken because he lost his love Rose. He created the city and something went terribly wrong when he tried to revive his mother. He got caught in an endless loop and the people in Cincinnati were too! The larger point and picture of this book, is when we use technology for our own gain, at what point does technology control us? The people in Cincinnati were trapped in an endless loop and could not escape. Technology was in control of them and using them as pawns to repeat the same story over and over again. Verity broke the cycle to break the cycle she needed to use another form of technology which was nan-viruses to help get the people out of the city and give them hope and desire to go to New Orleans. In doing this she put them under the control of more technology which just made them want to go to New Orleans. Which brings up another question, how much control should we give technology in our everyday lives? These people were in control of their machines at first, but after awhile everything spun out of control. Luckily Rose had a failsafe to save them all. The people had little insets that fit behind the ears, which made them able to view maps, look at memories, and smell various metapheromonal smells that each person had. The nanobots also made them stronger, faster, and better able to learn things. The benefits were clearly able to be seen, but if this technology got into the wrong hands, or somehow malfunctioned, it would cause horrible problems for humanity, which was exactly what happened in the book. I really like this book, although it was a long read, it was really the brain food I needed!
Well moving on from the book, this week in class was very interesting. We talked about sperm recipes, which is just about the grossest thing I have ever heard of! Although it was funny to see that they had many types of food, drinks and desserts that used sperm in the recipe. I want to know who actually eats this stuff!? I would never touch it! We also did evaluations of the and teacher, and I hope Tony does not get laid off in these budget cuts, so I gave him a good markings. Actually I’ve had some really good teachers in this quarter of western, and hope none of them get laid off in these budget cuts, because a lot of them really believe in what they do and do a very good job in teaching. I’ve had one teacher in my history class who seems to want to make a difference in the world by the students he teaches, making sure they know the good and mostly the bad that went on in America and how we can learn from it. Earlier that week in class we watched a Donald Duck Video about Mathematics, and it talked about Mathematics being the key to the future. Really mathematics is, I also believe chemistry and physics hold a great portion in that future too, without physics, math, or chemistry we would never have created the atomic bomb, and it took the sum of all those parts to create it. Even though it was a deadly weapon we got something good out of it, which was nuclear power, which is a great source of energy being used nowadays. This maybe the future of energy as we become more reliant on power as a world.

Blog for the first week of march!

So this week was a very crappy for me! I have been sick all week and have not been sleeping well so my sleep has been in my classes including this class, and my other classes, so I haven’t been able to take many notes in class, but I do have some. We talked about Post-Singular, and how technology is so integrated in their everyday lives, even more so then us. We rely on technology a lot for everything and its becoming more integrated in our lives. In this book though technology is part of people, people use technology to get high, to learn, and to live. Which is a where our society may be heading if you ask me, but it may be a little closer than we like to believe. We also looked at Shelly’s book, were she had the a word of her book tattooed on people, and it can only be put together if the people got together and pieced the puzzle together. Really her book could never be put together back to its originally format and parts will always remain a mystery, only known to Shelly, because she has the copy. We also looked at how technology affects the body, and had a discussion about that. I thought about it later after class and technology affects the body drastically. Let’s say someone got their arm bitten off by a shark, the surgeon would try and reconstruct the limb to fit into a prosthetic, that prosthetic was created using modern technology. Also we could look at factory emissions and people’s allergies. I am a big allergy sufferer and have to take 2 medicines a day to combat allergies, and even after those medicines I am not allergy free, but they do help. When there is low air quality in the area, or poor air quality I always take a double dose of allergy medicine because I know my allergies will get bad that day, our modern technology like cars and factories has affected my body by amplifying my bad allergies causing me to have bad headaches, red eyes, and affecting my ability to sleep, that in my opinion is one way technology affects our bodies. Also technology affects our bodies in a positive way, I was born with bad astigmatism and I am almost legally blind, to fix this problem I am going to get laser eye surgery this summer, which will remove my dependency on contacts and glasses, which will be amazing! Technology has come a long way, and can actually improve our bodies too. The next day in class we talked about the capitalism model and how companies give things away for free and then charge. This got me thinking about the two big and successful companies that spurted up in my time, Comcast and Verizon. Verizon Wireless I remember came out with the free phone, if you buy a plan and sign a 2 year contract, what they forgot to mention is that phone would become obsolete in 6 months, then you would have to buy a new phone for full retail price with new features, and they neglected to tell you that these new features would cost money to use, great! I believe Verizon has a very smart marketing campaign. Also they provide good customer service and eliminate their competition, then have crappy customer service to cut costs, horrible. Now lets shift our view to Comcast. They get you on this teaser rate for digital cable for only 19.99 a month for 6 months, which is almost free. Then I get a bill in the mail after 6 months for 80 bucks for basic digital cable and I’m like wow, they really got me! This model works very well I’m glad we learned about this in class. Then we also got into the topic of corporate advertisement, and asked would you pay 7-12% less in tuition to see ads everywhere? My answer is yes, I see them everywhere all the time on TV, on the internet, and just ignore them and don’t worry too much about them, it wouldn’t matter too much to me if I saw them all around campus, it would just be another thing for me to ignore, as I already do, and I would pay 7-12% less in tuition, that would be awesome for me I would not car at all. Where I would draw the line though is when a teacher’s curriculum is based on advertisements, and if a teacher assigns a book to read because the book company paid them money too and not because it is a great and meaningful literary novel. Or a curriculum chooses a textbook over another textbook that is written way better because the company paid them to use their textbook, when advertising starts to interfere with the curriculum is where I would draw the line that it is too much.

Blog for week of 1-22-1-28

Ok so here are some of the discussions we had on February 24th 2009.
First of all we watched a movie about how the government was educating people on malaria, and how to prevent the spread of it. I found it very funny that they suggested putting oil in water. Ok that good in theory, it kills the mosquitoes and stuff like that, but they forgot to mention that oil in water kills off many other things. These things would include fish, wildlife, pretty much anything that comes into contact with the water with oil in it. Oil is very toxic, and whatever scientists decided to do this did not d field tests to see what else oil in water would affect. I believe the mindset of people who were combating malaria, and had to deal with it were thinking so much about killing the parasite that they weren't paying attention to the repercussions this could have on other organisms in the community. Also Mosquitoes were described as killers, when in reality they aren't. The real killers are the parasites that live in mosquitoes, mosquitoes are pretty much doing what they are biologically programmed to do, and that is to survive. Which I thought was a bad interpretation of mosquitoes and the malaria parasite. Also we watched a movie about soviets and farming. During the mid 1900's the soviets were involved in a war. They depended on their agriculture for money and food for troops, so the soviets made a bunch of pro-farming videos and decided to make it look fun. They had music playing and the farmers were looking like they were having a good time. In reality farming especially for the worker is hard, and is very tough. Many people wanted to avoid farming but got stuck in it because that was one of the few ways to make a decent living. Also we looked at a news story about a poor little girl who was playing a game console and developed bad sores. It turned out she wanted to play so bad even though she had painful sores on her hands, are people starting to get that addicted to video games? It seems so, I remember when I used to play Halo 2 a lot, I remember I would play for almost 8 hours straight, it was addicting!

Moving on to February 26TH....

We started off a great discussion entailing, what are the basic themes behind rules. Rules can be interpreted many different ways, I believe language is the key to determining rules, and different cultures with different languages, and core values may see a rule very different then what you or I would see a rule. One thing is true we do have a certain core-value of rules that we all maintain. We all follow these rules and values, and we hardly ever stray from them. If we do stray from these rules or values we experience stress, because our core values or rules don't reflect our actions, to make up for this we try and justify a rule or action, maybe saying "Well everyone else is doing it", or something to that affect, so our core values still reflect our actions, but the exception is justified. Rules are also meant to be changed as society changes, or evolve, like a good example would be gay marriage, or civil rights, or women's liberation, are good examples. Also we talked about the meaning of filth and summarizing it, I belive one of the major themes in filth is pretty much anyone can be a hero. We also talked about one of them, which is love for a cat, I sort of feel sorry for the guy, because he just loves a cat and doesn't have a girlfriend lol! Really he was an ordinary guy though, and it turns out he is actually a secret agent too, and is a hero to many people. This is pretty amazing!

Another thing we talked about does condensing your writing into something smaller make you a better writer? I believe it does, as long as you can display your main themes and motifs in your writing while making it smaller, and not distorting it. An example of distorting it would be previews of a movie. We can take top gun and write a really good preview, but we can also distort the preview by making a top gun recut of the movie portraying a gay love story. After saying that, making things smaller is good, as long as you are not distorting or losing the major underlying theme of a writing, or book.

blog 1-15 - 1-21

So to kick off the week in our class we watched a video called "Immersion" from the new york times. This video was a recording, edited, showing reactions children have when playing video games. I found the video to be funny but also slightly disturbing about the reactions kids had when playing video games. I found the video to be slightly biased, because you can take a recording or just about anything and turn it into whatever you want by editing the video in a certain way. An example could be of the movie we watched in class called "Top Gun Recut", The movie had nothing to do with a gay romance between Val Kilmner and Tom Cruise, but just by editing the movie, creating your own preview, you can make it seem like the movie is about a gay love story. So if the New York Times was trying to created a film clip about how video games drain kids of emotions, or make them violent, that clip is not really good evidence. Now I don't believe that was the main purpose of the video, but definitely there were some overtones of it, while not being obvious at all. Also one big thing about the game is it seemed like it only showed first-person shooters, which I thought was a little biased, because those games get pretty bad, and people get into the game a lot.

After that we watched the ExistenZ movie. which is about people who can plug into a Virtual reality machine and play a game that is very popular, in this fantasy world. The movie is very interesting, because that reality may not be too far off. Although I doubt we will actually have to get plugged into anything (Hopefully), I bet the gaming industry in the future will be creating some new virtual reality game that will be the new craze. I really can't wait, but after watching parts of this movie, I'm not too sure lol!

The next day in class we actually watched a really cool video called Ted, and he gave his input on what is wrong with the economy, how it can be fixed, and what we need to be putting more research into. I thought this guy new exactly what he was talking about, and I wondered, maybe the government is looking at slutions to fix the economy that really doesn't fix the underlying problem. That pretty much is, banks were loaning out too much money and giving the money too everyone. this resulted in more bad loans which now has just crippled our economy. Really the Bush administration was encouraging mass amounts of spending of money that people really didn't have. By the time it caught up to the American people, we were screwed, and the banks took the fall. The truth is people should only spend the money they have and not have an entitlement on something. People just went out of control with the low interests and the tax incentives that they overspent, which is going to cripple our economy for the next 2 years at least. Ted was really onto something, to fix the problems we are having banks need to cut who they are loaning to, and the federal government may be the only entity that can do this. We want to spend, but there is not enough money to spend. Also he went on and talked about evolution, and how we as a people may evolve with our machines. We use them everyday, and they are becoming more in tune with us. We may one day become machines, that could be our next step in evolution, if you think about it. Everything we do is done with machines, and they are working more closely to us now then ever before, and its just going to get closer. For instance people are now using machines to help deaf people hear, this is called cochlear implants. Pretty soon, it will get to the point were regular people use those implants to hear better. Same with visual implants, someday people will use those to be able to see, then one day to see better. Pretty soon a "Super Human" Will have implants to be able to have super hearing, and super seeing abilites, and it may end up being a war, people against enhanced people, who knows. It is scary to think about. Just by being in this class I have learned a lot about looking at patterns in technology and trying to see what may come in the future. What will happend when we move on? There is no way to know, but I can imagine that 20 years from now people, and the world may be drastically different from what it is now.

Blog for week of 1-8 to 1-14

So the week of class started very interestingly, we got to watch a movie about two robots making out, and I was pretty shocked at what I saw! It was pretty weird, but I just thought it was funny and thought wow, this is a really amazing class, in how many classes do you get to watch robots making out on you tube. Maybe that's what robots will do in the future who knows haha! Then we move on to the discussion of when science becomes the service of law. I thought it was very interesting, and realized that it happens already. I mean science is used in the law all the time. A good example would be forensics, which uses science to prove if criminals committed a crime. So science is used as a service of the law a lot. Also DNA analysis, any DNA taken from a crime scene can be analyzed, and used to determine if someone committed a crime with a 99% accuracy. The accuracy does go down if you are comparing brothers, or fathers and sons, because they have really similar DNA. So I believe when science becomes a service of the law, the law is greatly enhanced. Look at the Kevlar vests that cops use. These have helped save many cops lives, and are totally useful for cops everywhere. Another great advance is the use of Stun guns, it took science to create them, and it has stopped many needless deaths to happen. Also the use of radars, which were created by science, has helped police track speeders, which I don't really like, but it has helped generate massive amounts of profits for many cites, and counties in the form of money from speeding tickets. Also the different weapons, the crowd suppressants used by cops, and many others were all great feats of science that has helped enhance law enforcement greatly! Now moving on to the light bright case which was a huge discussion in class, I was thinking, "Does the city really have to waste money prosecuting these two guys who obviously did not intend on a terrorist threat or anything like that. I mean really, what dumbass would waste money to get a huge bomb squad and deploy hundreds of city police and officials, and waste half a million dollars, when anyone can obviously see that those things were light brights put up by a couple of stupid guys. I sometimes wonder how much tax dollars are wasted by officials doing extremely stupid things like that. No wonder our taxes are so high, some places have retards in a high up city office who can't tell the difference between a light bright kids toy and a bomb, I mean come on guys, give me a break. This happened in 2007 and we are way passed the 01 terrorist bombings, which I believe if these were hung up in like early 2002 then I probably would say they should be prosecuted just because of the mentality of the times, and the mindsets of most Americans at the time. Still we are way past that and I sometimes don't believe how stupid officials can be. The next time in class we started off the day about a tutorial about how to pick up people on fickr, I thought that was hilarious. I feel sorry for the people who actually do pick up people on flickr haha. I don't even know what the site is about but I think its funny. Its funny because you can't really get the real message of a movie without watching the whole thing, or seeing the "big picture". If you show people only parts of a movie, you can warp the main message or theme of the movie to almost anything you want. Which I believe can also be translated into real life, and believe we should all look at the big picture, instead of briefly skimming over something, and try to find main themes, and underlying motifs around anything we see, which can be a book, or real life situations and learn from them. There are always two different sides of a story and two different perspectives someone could have about a topic. Someone could always come up with a reason for doing something wrong, such as stealing, or even murder, and justify it from their perspective, so they don't feel guilt about doing it. So really in their reality what they were doing was really just "right" to them, but to us it could be completely different.

End of class this week! 2-6-09

I found it very interesting we actually had a huge ape come into our class and ask for some bananas! I would actually find it even funnier if the free hugs guy came into our class and gave the teacher a hug that would be pretty hilarious. Now as we are getting to about midterm in the class I am now sort of wondering what will be on the final? Would the bulk of the final be on all the books we are reading, or on something else? I am not quite too sure about it but I am sort of worried about it. Anyone else been thinking about it lately? Getting back to some of the topics in class I thought about how crazy that new thing invented by Microsoft was. This thing could take a whole bunch of pictures and combine them to make a 3-d representation of an object. Which did get me wondering and also a lot of the class, what would happen if maybe an image was distorted, or something was different in one of the images, would the computer just take the average of the images, or what would happen? Really it was funny going into Britney Spears and trying to imagine how that computer would render her. She has been hot, young, thin, normal, fat, really fat, pregnant, bald, natural, liposuctioned, had plastic surgery done, and pretty much everything, how would that instrument take Britney spears and sort of make a real life model of her? I guess it kind of makes me wonder, but I really do not want to see the outcome of it, because I'm guessing it could be really bad or just plain messed up. I think that machine would really enhance military, and give the military a good 3d outlook of an area just by pictures, which I believe probably, is already developed in the military in some form. If you actually added all the pictures taken in the world could you actually have a 3-d world set up? That really gets me wondering, and if you had a 3-D world could you when we get to this point in technology just upload everyone into that 3-D world? That really makes me wonder, maybe the next step in human evolution is to upload everyone into this so-called 3-D world, and give people like enhancements, like a game, and make them live out their lives normally, or maybe it could slow everything down, and make it seem like 1 minute is really like 100 years, and have people pretty much living forever. That is a pretty cool topic to think about, you could have people living for billions of years in their so-called world. Maybe that will be the future. That actually sounds pretty awesome if you ask me but I'm not sure. Is that actually what they did in the matrix? Or was it a virtual world inside a virtual world? I'm not really sure but what if you take people, put them inside this virtual world that makes 1 minute in real time seem like 100 years in virtual time and teach them a whole bunch of new things in this virtual world, and take them back out of the virtual world, they will come out with a large amount of knowledge acquired, lets say 100 years of knowledge in just one minute, and they would come back out as like a super smart human being, maybe that will be the future of education, who knows? What I can tell you is that would be pretty exciting being plugged into a machine for only 1 minute and have like 100 years of knowledge placed into me in that period of time. That why virtual reality sounds so interesting to me for some reason, and I bet that field is like going to explode here soon into a popular field of study. Anyways that machine is pretty tight and there could be enormous opportunities for us with technology. The truth is I believe people will probably end up evolving with machines because they are becoming a big part of our daily lives. Hopefully though as what was talked about in last lecture, they don't take us all over, and consider us the inferior race, having evolved from us. Going back to that not has anyone ever watched battlestar galactica, its pretty much the same thing we are talking about now with people vs. machines, and is a very exciting TV show that everyone should watch! Who knows what the future hold, hopefully it doesn’t become too unstable during my lifetime or that could be extremely bad.

Haiku about Obamas stimulus package

This stimulus bill
better get me some money
becuase I have none!

Lol Here is my Haiku on the obama stimulus package found at www.yahoo.com, the top searches there.

This week in class!

Thoughts this week on Class.
Well actually let’s start with Tuesday. We watched a movie on how the Germans pretty much brainwashed their people into believing Hitler was their almighty righteous leader and that Germany was pretty much a superior race. He used different methods, like scaring the German people, if they didn’t follow him they would incur a great punishment or death. The funny part was when they had reason, and I’m not sure what the other one was called, but it was pretty much like instant attainable desires, or your wanted desires. Reason fights with it and they come to a compromise. This reminds me a lot about my old psychology class, about Sigmund Freud’s theory of the id, the ego, and the superego. The id was your basic primal desires, like food, warmth, and pleasure; it is the first structure present at birth. That’s why babies want their needs meant immediately. Then the next structure is called the ego which pretty much says you well maybe all your needs cannot be satisfied, which is sort of the mediator of the structures. The last structure present is called the Superego, which pretty much is like the one that remembers rules of society and is the polar opposite of the id, and says you can’t do that! The reason sort of reminded me of the superego and I believe they made the film based on these principles. The little child reminded me of actually the id, because it just wanted to do everything immediately and wanted needs fulfilled right away. I actually researched WWII way back in the day for one of my classes, and found out why Germany was the way they were, and why they bought into Hitler. After WWI the Germans were handed over a crushing defeat and were forced to pay money to other Nations that it lost to during the war. The Germans were in a deep recession and living very poorly because all the money made from its economy went straight to the Nations it lost to during war. This led to the deep feelings of depression and inferiority the German people endured. Then one day Hitler came along and promised to make the nation great again, and put the Germany as one of the superpowers in the world, the German people just bought right into Hitler’s radical facades about the German people being a superior race, and the German people just fell in Love with Hitler, so as in the movie Patriotism was one of the strong motivational factors for the German people believing so much in Hitler. Actually after WWII many things were changed because of what happened and many lessons were learned especially now if a country invades another country especially if it’s a superpower it ends up being that countries moral obligation to rebuild that country. Also the United Nations was created to help prevent something like this from ever happening again. Although the united Nations now is seen as a largely ineffective way of getting rid of corrupt leader, and will not act unless provoked, the one good thing about the UN is that it does have the ability to provide large amounts of economic aide, and help to poor and underdeveloped countries in time of natural disasters, or war, but is largely ineffective, because of the large amount of politics that does go on in the UN. Getting back to the movie it seems hypocritical and obvious that Disney did send the same message it was trying to say was bad. Very contradicting, but then again when I think about it the movie was aimed at young kids and America along with many other countries manipulated children a lot over its time. I believe we do and did not do so as much to the extreme as other countries did. Getting back to the book Radical Alterity I am having a hard time really getting a grasp on the message of the book. Probably one of the big reasons is I have only finished about 30 pages of the book, but I do think it may turn out to be like the book “The Ticket that Exploded.” Which was pretty much agony for me to read. I read the first part of the book and he mention Buillard’s text a lot and I’m trying to figure out what he means, maybe this is another author he doesn’t like or something, but there is really no way of knowing. Well I better get to reading the book!

My Snowball!!

This is my snowball, You try and guess the meaning, becuase its there!
I
He
She
Says
That
There
Cannot
Bewilder
Different
Distortion
Undergone
Changers
Ground
Below
This
Off
To
N

Blog for this week 1-23-09 Thoughts on this book!

So we are really into the book called, "The Ticket That Exploded" and pretty much it has made no sense to me at all, so lets jump back in time to last week and my discoveries about the book to help clear things up...

Last week 1-15ish...
First I am taking a look at this book and am wondering what its really about! I mean "The Ticket that Exploded"! I mean the title did not make any sense at all, so I start reading the outside cover and the back cover to try and get a grasp of what this book is about, and that did not tell me much. It was pretty much just meaningless and did not get any hints about what the book was about whatsoever. I did read some people saying how great an author Burroughs was, but thats about it. Nothing really special. So I get into reading the book and determine its some kind of sci fi detective book thats a really extrememly hard read. As I get into the book more though there is weird alien sex describing texts that are just way out there and I am pretty much starting to hate the book. I start to wonder, "Is this author gay or something"? Large portions of this book seem to be about Alien gay sex, I mean really I don't want to read this! That pretty much concluded my thoughts for the end of that week.

Middle of This Week...
Things have not really changed about this book. I have tried to sit there and understand it picking out little paragraphs and analyzing them to no avail. Seems the book in just supposed to make no sense at all, and I am just never going to get the book. Besides the Bizarre sex acts in the book just really freak me out and make me not want to read the book at all! I find myself sitting there gazing at the pages reading the book but thinking about other stuff like what I'm going to eat later on in the day, or my new car that I want, or that really pretty girl in my microbiology class, anything but the book at all. So I'm about half-way through the book and just have sort of been trying to figure out the book but really just have gotten more confused than ever!

Now 1-23-09
It finally came to me! After class on thursday I know why the book makes absolutely no sense at all! It's becuase it's not supposed to! The style of writing this author used is called "The Cut Up Technique", which can be demostrated if you follow this link.



This book did make sense at one time (Although I don't see how)! It was then just cut up and made into a completely new unmeaningful story! Wow! All those relentless, tireless hours of thinking about what this book is about, was really unecessary ha! I really should have figured it out sooner! Well I always try to look on the bright side of things no matter how grim things tend to look, and I have to say maybe I did improve my reading and literary skills by really analyzing this book. I am also happy I learned a new technique of writing which may seem strange to some, but others absolutely love this guys work, and in this english class I believe it is a good idea to analyze different texts no matter how bad or how meaningless they may seem. After all there is meaning in almost anything no matter how small, or how simple something is, it has a meaning and a purpose even if we do not know the meaning or purpose.

Well and the book sort of does have a story to it. Mostly its about a virus, some police called the nova police, and a gang called the nova gang. It seems in the beginning of the book everyone was infected by a virus! Also this book was about alien sex but I really don't want to go into that. It seems as though the main character was a detective of some kind, and he was trying to find the origins of the virus? From what I gathered. i am still working on the book so I have a lot of reading to do beofre i can establish whats going on, but in class it sounded to me as though the book was really just meaningless and maybe the point of the book was to do something that was really tough, like read a random book thats not an easy read, that does not make sense from front to back, and call it good! So thats what I'll have to do!

Movie!

So we watched groundhogs day yesterday in class and let me tell you it is the funniest movie ever. I really am trying to figure out what is supposed to happen to him. Obviously he is supposed to learn a lesson, but what is that lesson? I have been contemplationg but I can't quite figure it out! I know by the end it should be revealed, but I am still guessing. I believe the bartender has something to do with him repeating days. What is he supposed to learn? Is he supposed to think of others before he thinks of himself? He is obviously a very self-centered person and is sort of all about himself. I guess I will just have to watch the resty of the movie. BTW plurking is addicting lol!

The Worst songs ever!

I think this has got to be the complete worst song ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtHEmVjVw8

I also went on google and found some pretty horrible songs, and some of them were actually on the top of charts at some point in time.

http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=786

It's pretty sad that the artist actually invested millions of dollars into making music videos for some of these songs.

If you look back on it some of the worst songs were in the 70's and 80's were people's taste in music was a bit off. The voice of artists singing were sometimes distorted beyond recognition and their singing was horrible, and don't even get me started on their music videos! I think we should just sort of try and forget some of the music and fashion from the 70's and 80's because it was pretty bad and I feel sorry for my parents who lived through it. However there was some very good and revolutionary artists and music that came from the 70's and 80's that set the stage for what we listen to today.

As for the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" I believe its the worst song ever because obviously the singer has no vocal talent whatsoever, and his voice is warped by 1970's voice distortion machines. Also some weird girl who sounds like she is about 12 years old is singing in the background, I mean, what is up with that? Really a good song would require good vocalization and a catchy beat within the song to keep everyone entertained.

Going back to my article about "The top 50 worst songs ever"
I looked at some of those songs and realized I used to listen to them back when I was a kid back in the mid 90's lol! How funny is that!? I do disagree with some of the song on the list, but some of them are pretty bad I must admit! I think Limp Bizkit should not be on the list at all! I do believe the song "We built this city" is probably one the worst songs ever! Anyways this list pretty much sums up some of the worst songs ever!

First 49 pages of The Invention of Morel 1-9-09 Thoughts on the book

January 9, 2009

The invention of Morel

Blog Post: Jonathan R. Van Dyke

Reading this book I am a little confused as to why the main character of this book is not trying to go out and touch people or get the attention of others. Every time he has he has just been ignored which leaves me to wonder, if any other person in his situation would do the same thing? If it were me personally I would try and go out and get someone’s attention or talk to someone to see if they even acknowledge me. So far he has approached a woman and has failed to even have acknowledgement of his existence. The main character seems very timid and shy, but stuck on his island for months with no human contact I think any person would try and talk to someone, which makes me question the validity of the book. Although remembering the book is just someone’s fantasy and did not really happen I will just go with it. I also am wondering what the invention of Morel really is. Does it have something to do with this escaped convicts hallucinations, or fantasies? I am also wondering what really happened to the people that first colonized the island, and am thinking those people that the convict is seeing could be ghosts of the first colonizers of the island. When the convict tries to listen to their conversation it is all just the same thing and they are talking about the same things over and over again. The convict thinks they are toying with him, but I believe they could be ghosts and their presence could be amplified by whatever Morel invented. Now let’s delve into the convict’s state of mind to sort of understand the man. He is on an island living in a marsh with no food, so physically and mentally he is exhausted. He also just broke out of jail and he is intensely afraid of persecution, and believes he may be swept away at anytime guards, police, or just anybody. He is also seeing things that are most likely not really there. This sounds an awful like someone who is schizophrenic. Reading past page 49 the convict talks about a horrible dream he is having about him being in a ward, and Morel being his physician, maybe the invention of Morel is an invention being used on the convict right now and he is in a psychiatric ward dreaming about this deserted island he is living on. Morel could be inventing something to try and cure the convict and maybe towards the end of the book he will be cured by the invention of Morel. Another theory I have is that maybe the food on the island or something he is eating has caused him to hallucinate. The convict explored that avenue a while back ago but has since forgotten about it, probably believing his hallucinations to be too real. Also what is up with this guy, he is stalking some gypsy lady, what is up with that? He has got to be a real weirdo. Is that how he’s always been with girls? Hopefully not, but maybe, after all we have no background history or any recollection or inclination of what his past was like or could have been like other than he says to “us”, that he was wrongfully punished for a crime he did not convict and somehow escaped from a prison. Did he leave behind a wife and kids, was the single, did he work, and these are all answers that could shed light onto why he does the things he does. Also why is he even on the island, if there are people there that he is afraid of why doesn’t he just leave? He has a little boat on the island. I also really believe he is and always has been a non-social person because when he tries to talk to the lady, he always messes up, or says something really dumb. I really have not read a book like this and it seems very odd and throws you off guard and just keeps you wondering. I am actually glad we have had the in class discussions to sort of clarify the book because I believe without the discussions I would totally be completely lost in the book. I am still wondering how the lady plays into the book because the author brought her in the book for a reason. She keeps talking to Morel about ghosts, maybe she sees or somehow notices the convict, but does not say anything about it, well I guess I will just have to read more and find out!