Saturday, March 12, 2011

Home Stretch!

Ladies and Gentlemen, all we have left is finals week and then it's time for a nice, relaxing break from school. Study hard this weekend and just hold out a little longer. Good luck to everyone! :)

Monday, March 7, 2011

New Episodes of Rocket Power, Doug, Rugrats, Hey Arnold, the Angry Beavers are being produced!

Talk about a blast from our past. You all have to defintely check this article out!

Jacob Suarez
Online Editor
Teenagers can finally rejoice because they now will be receiving what they have been talking about for years. For awhile now teens have been wishing that Nickelodeon will finally put their favorite cartoons back on the air and now their wish will come true.
Starting March 14, 2011, Nickelodeon will go back into the studios to produce new episodes for classic cartoons such as: Rocket Power, Doug, Rugrats, Hey Arnold, the Angry Beavers, and many more.
Cyma Zarghami, who runs the television station was quoted saying, "We have noticed a significant drop in ratings since our show from the late 1990's. We have strayed from our cartoons and we believe that was our biggest mistake. We have contacted the producers from these shows and we were able to work out a deal to get them back to making new episodes."
It is not known whether or not the shows will try to create new concepts for the characters, or if they will pick up from where they left off years ago. Rumors have been circulating that the kids in the shows have now aged and will be moving on with their lives. For instance, the gang from Rocket Power now have taken the leap into their teenage years and now attend high school in Ocean Shores, or Arnold and his pals from Hey Arnold, have now moved on from elementary school to middle school in New York.
Whatever new ideas they bring to the table they will be welcomed with open arms and hopefully they can remove the bad taste in our mouths from terrible shows that are on Nick now like iCarly, Big Time Rush, and TUFF Puppy.
Zarghami has not stated if the shows will be brought back full time or if it is making a comeback for a limited time to revitalize the Nickelodeon networks poor reputation in the new Millennium for cartoons and other shows. After the last episode of Rocket Power was aired, kids thought the only hope for Nickelodeon was Spongebob Squarepants but even that once great cartoon has had its own fall from grace.
Teenagers have wanted to show kids now-a-days what a real cartoon is made of but never had the evidence to convince these pups. Starting next month; these kids are in for the surprise of their lives

Sunday, March 6, 2011

A Question For Everyone In The Class!

I know Blogging is a lot about posting and sharing information with others, but for this post I'm sorta asking for information from you. I'm just curious what your guys majors are and what you'd like to do with them. Mostly due to curiosity and possibly to inspire others. Hit me with what you've got!!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Future of the Music Industry

Koleman Strumpf seems to be the most optimistic of all commentators by saying the record business can't really fizzle away. He brings up good points, but a lot of his statistics are from the 80's, 90's and early 2000's which is important to take a look at, however, the more recent years would seem to be the most important to me. I wish he would have have looked more into that data.
Fredric Dannen I think brings up a good point when he says, "The industry could have adopted and embraced MP3 as the new dominant format, had it understood why it was unstoppable. But the business’ failure to understand has been striking for its persistence." Technology is always changing and business's have to follow the advances too or will crash and burn. Really, this has been for all industries and for the music industry to try to spend money opposing it instead of embracing it was clearly a regrettable decision.
My favorite of all the commentators was George Drakoulias. With all the possible ways for anyone to share music with others we see a lot more good music, but at the same time a lot more BAD music. That and no one seems to commit to bands anymore or wear clothes with bands. All we see is shirts with bands like AC/DC. Don't get me wrong that's probably my favorite "time period" for music so I can see why, but it's sad people don't embrace that sorta thing with new music too.
Peter Rojas jumps straight to the point by saying "the Internet happened" which honestly says it all. The Internet is with out a doubt why the record industry declines and it's as simple as that.
Then finally Steve Gottlieb who has important things to say, but for the interest of your time I can say he basically just says the same thing as Fredric Dannen.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Attempting To Do Homework On the Weekends

From Saturday to Sunday a college student has much more free time in their day compared to a weekday. This should mean I could catch up on homework and get a lot of studying done right? I don't know about you guys, but for whatever reason I cannot concentrate on the weekend. Usually I can get more homework done on Monday then the amount of homework in an entire weekend. This makes no sense and drives me insane. All I want to do is be lazy and just relax today. Maybe homework is easier on a school day because you're in a work mode and in a routine. Whatever the reason....I just can't help but procrastinate.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Winter Term.....The Least Best Term?

I was sitting around with a couple friends today and we were talking about how excited we were that winter term is slowly coming to an end. It's not that we don't like our classes we are taking right now, it's more a collection of other things. Most people take the largest load of classes and more of their difficult classes during winter term because they expect to be stuck inside all day. Due to this, people always have a lot more homework to do compared to fall and spring term and less free time to hang out. Also, pretty obviously, the weather sucks. With the exception of this week, it's usually freezing out and walking to class is awful. The school spends a lot of it's activity funding at the beginning of the year too, so winter we usually just get a bunch of comedians or student created games. We came to this scientific conclusion: Fall Term=Spring Term>>>>>>bunnies>>>>>>doing taxes>>>>>>winter term

Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Effects of the Digital Generation on the Youth

New media surrounds our daily lives and is inescapable. We use it dozens of times a day, sometimes without even really realizing it. I myself love the possibilities technology has to offer, but is it good for the youth? I think, for the most part, it has a more positive effect than negative effect on children. The internet opens up new knowledge that is easy to access for school work. Phones keep kids more connected with their friends and make it easier for parents to reach them. Technology for video games and music gives them a way to be creative and find themselves. The parents that are worrisome are the parents who are afraid of change. The same kind of parents who were afraid of rock and roll or the same kind of parents who were afraid of television. As long as the parents are responsible and monitor their children's technology intake there is no problem. Just balance it with having your kids play outside and then use password protection for inappropriate material. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Back to Reality

I think the past two days probably were two of the best days of this school year. Last week was "the most depressing week of the entire year for Americans" and this week is full of midterms so it was a much needed break. Everyone on campus seemed so happy in such a great mood. Some went sledding others watched movies, but I think it's a safe to say we all had a good time. Unfortunately, we all go back to classes today even though it's cold as hell out and snow up to our knees. Why don't we reminisce of the better times and you tell me how you spent your snow day.  

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Favorite Class of This Trimester

Dam, It's that time of the trimester where midterms are right around the corner. If you've made it this far I'd say you can make two assumptions. One, you're going to take the class till the very end and then two, you've got a pretty good opinion on the classes that you're taking this term. So during this time of exams and big writing assignments I want to know, what is your favorite class you're taking right now? That one class you really don't mind studying for. Hmmmm..and to make things interesting, why don't you also tell me what your least favorite class is. Bum Bum buhhhhhh

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Public Relations and New Media

Just got back from the presentation about public relations and new media at Larrence Academic Center. Here we learned about what public relations do and examples of such like journalism, image control, publicity stunts, and campaigns. Also, the audience was taught the differences between advertisement and public relations. Then near the end the speaker mentioned how media affects public relations. She did a great job sharing her information and I do in fact feel like I learned something after listening to her lecture. My favorite part had to be either when she showed a Charmin's Youtube video because it was pretty funny or how public relations is incorporated into websites like Facebook and Wikipedia because that bit was very eye opening. I had forgotten how corporations really can show off their products literally everywhere. Overall, the presentation was well done and she kept the entire class involved. I wish her the best of luck getting a teaching position here at North Central College.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

My Reaction to Rebecca Blood's Interview

I know we only need to read one of the blogger interviews, but I thought I'd skim through all of them. Surprisingly enough, most of the Bloggers had similar responses to Blood's questions. The group of people have some sort of career that is either writing or internet based. Also, all of their lives revolve around checking their blogs periodically throughout the day, some spending more than a third of their day on the internet. New to blogs, I myself am wondering if having a Bloggers account will make me even more addicted to the internet. Have any of you guys been surfing the web like there's no tomorrow like the interviewees thanks to your new created blog?

Almighty Google

The Google Search Engine plays an important role to my daily life. I use it to help me with my homework, spell check words, find directions to places, to figure out the name of songs with bits of lyrics, and sometimes to just search for something completely random when I am trying to kill time. Basically, I use it multiple times everyday. Does this make me an addict? I wouldn't say so. I've spent weeks without Google and have been completely fine. Google is just more of a convenience in my life. I don't think there's a problem with Google being everywhere either or that it is used by so many people. Due to its power and capabilities, life is a lot easier. It saves us time while working giving us more free time for other more important things like friends and family. In fact I think one could argue that it's not powerful enough and still has room to grow as a search engine. As I said earlier, I don't think we are dependent on Google. Humans have lived without it and still can. The question really is why not rely on it? It makes life a lot less stressful and easier to navigate. We should embrace what Google has to offer.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

High Fives

I'll give a high five, free of charge, to the first person that comments on this post!