Final Vlog, Mama-Jammas!!!!

See Title.

Final Blog

I learned a whole lot of stuff in Media Class, which I am currently in my LAST DAY OF!!!! I'm so freaking excited, mama-jammas!!!!!!!! Now that I've gotten that out of my system, we can continue.

I learned a whole bunch of stuff this year in Media Class. Some of the first things I learned how to do was blog, podcast, and Vlog. We stayed on this for a while. Just look through my history to see just what it was I blogged about. I did take my podcasts off of Youtube because I just didn't want them up there anymore, they were only taking up space. My Vlogs are still up, though.

After Vlogging and such, we learned about epic fantasy. We watched The Lord of the Rings for about two months. We also learned about how to upload power points to the internet.

After that, we learned about Media Literacy. Now we have a good idea about how companies promote things to us, and what it is they really think. It's all really just one big conspiracy, and at the heart of it is $. The food industry, the music industry, and movies and television are all trying their hardest to separate the teen from his money.

It was a hell of a year, and one interesting ride. The epics were a little out of place, but overall the class was a good time. This may well be my last blog, so all I have to say is, stay frosty.

Dresden Files: Changes

The latest novel in the Dresden Files series, called Changes, really lives up to it's name. Seeing as how this is book 12 of the series, Butcher decided to make some serious shake-ups to the world he created, which is actually pretty cool. Most authors just tend to leave the world around the protagonist pretty static, which works alright for a trilogy, but a series of 12+ books is only made more interesting by changes to the hero's world.

The first big change comes in the first sentence of the book: I answered the phone, and Susan Rodriguez said, "They've taken our daughter." When I read that line, I was all like, "What the hell!" However, compared to the changes that come around later in the book, this is pretty minor. Yeah, you heard me right, Harry Dresden having a seven year old daughter that he doesn't know about is minor compared to what comes later. I'm not going to spoil anything major, especially since if you haven't read any of the books before this one, you probably wouldn't understand what I was talking about anyway. However, if you've read the series, this book is just going to leave you both speechless and freaked out. The internal conflict comes from what Harry would be willing to do to get his daughter back, while the external comes from him against the ones who took her.

The picture isn't from this book. It's from book 5, Dead Beat, where he made a zombie T-Rex, and then rode it around town.

Food Inc.

Food Inc. is one of the freakiest movies I've seen in years. The way the food companies treat both their animals and their farmers is just reprehensible. The first animal they talk about is chickens, who live in an almost Auschwitz-like atmosphere, crushed in by thousands of other chickens, wallowing in their own filth. And for what? To make them fatter, more plump, so that the companies can grow fatter still, while they drown the farmers in debt.

The farming of grain was just as bad. The most grown, processed, and eaten grain? Corn. Corn starch is in most of our food. Cows are fed corn to make them fatter, which causes their stomachs to produce the E. Coli bacteria. In order to check this, the farmers fistulate the cows, which is a hole they surgically implant to view the inside of their stomach.

Monsanto, a grain company, is tyranical over their patent rights of their seeds. Farmers are not allowed, by law, to clean their own seed, or save it for the next year. Even if you don't use their seed, if some of it contaminates your field, they will still take you to court. And since a lot of government people are food industry workers, they will probably win.

In short, our taste buds are seriously boned.

VLOG 4

My fourth VLOG.

English 4 Project

This is my project for my English 4 Class over Macbeth.

VLOG 3

Here's my latest VLOG.

Power Point Reactions

Okay, we’re almost done with the epic stuff. I just need to type these 500 words and then I finally get to do other stuff. Here, I have to talk about three of the power point presentations that we had in class, which were really very good. They all made mine look like crap.
The first one I’m going to talk about is Brant’s comparison between Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. It was pretty good, but he left the entire original trilogy out. He made no mention of Boba Fett, Han Solo, Darth Vader, or any of the other really great characters in the original trilogy. He didn’t even mention the totally sweet Death Star! I think he should have talked about the new movies, yes, but he should also have talked about the second half of the story, which some consider to be the best.
If his epic hero was Anakin/ Vader, he should have talked about his fall from grace, becoming the horribly scarred, fearsome man in black, and finally his redemption with the death of the Emperor.
I’ve got nothing against the prequel trilogy, except for Jar-Jar, but I just think the original trilogy was better. George Lucas was working uphill, since everybody knew how the prequel trilogy would have to end, but he could have been a little more creative with the origin of Darth Vader. If I were telling the story, I would have had Anakin get caught in some kind of horrible explosion about a quarter of the way into Episode Three, and get trapped in the suit. Then, the Emperor would have offered him a way to get out of the suit, and that would be the vehicle for his fall from grace.

The next power point I am going to talk about is Chris’ presentation on Avatar. I thought his presentation was pretty good. He talked about all the important stuff, about all the spiritual stuff and what not.
The setting for Avatar is pretty epic. It’s this whole other planet in a whole other galaxy, where things are totally different than they would be on Earth. There’s trees as big as mountains, and everything has some kind of appendage that allows them to hook up into each other, and into the planet itself. There were flying mountains, for crying out loud.
The effects were pretty impressive, too. During the final fight scene between the Mercenaries and the natives of the planet Pandora was just spectacular. I saw it in 3D, and it was just wholly ridiculous. It was a great movie.

The third power point I’m going to talk about is Justine’s presentation on Harry Potter. It was very well presented, especially considering that she’s not a native English teacher. I was quite impressed. There were even a few times where she broke out into French, and that was just incredible. I’m just a country boy, so it’s probably the last time I’m ever going to hear French spoken.
I really do like Harry Potter. I’ve read all the books, I’ve seen almost all the movies, I’ve even played a few of the video games. But one thing I’ve noticed is that he’s a terrible detective. It takes him a whole year just to solve one mystery, and sometimes even then he’s way off on his deductions. Sherlock Holmes would figure it out in like five minutes.

So, there you have it. We’re about done with all the epic stuff. I hope next we get to make our own videos.
Stupid blogger won't let me upload images. Sorry, everybody.

AOD LOTR

My Powerpoint comparing Army of Darkness to Lord of the Rings.

VLOG Numero Two-o

Okay, the reason I didn't cut that stuff out was because I was in a hurry. I missed out last week thanks to the cops.

My First VLOG

Here's my first VLOG, folks.