Blog #10

I am happy that this is the last blog.  I took this class as a gen ed, and I really didn't know how I would like it.  This class did get me to read books that I probably never would have read otherwise.  I did like reading Hunger Games, but that was the only book that we read that I liked reading, the other books just weren't that interesting to me.  To be honest I probably won't read any more or any less then I would have if I didn't take this class.  Although, the class was pretty fun, and I liked working with my group talking about the books and the other topics.  I understood most of the reading which made most of the quizzes easy, which I liked.  This class was fun but I am glad that it's almost over.

Blog #9- Censorship

I think that if there were no books, the world would be a lot dumber.  If there weren't any books then people wouldn't know how to read, or write the language that they speak.  Many people probably wouldn't even miss books if they were gone, but I think that I would miss them a little bit.  I don't really read any books but at least I know that I can if I wanted to, if books were gone I wouldn't even have a choice of reading them.  If books were forbidden from being read then there would at least a few people that would read them anyway, because there are always people that go against the authority.  I think that we do sometimes "burn" books, because there are a lot of movies made from books, but a lot of people never read the book and only watch the movie and the movie is usually a little different from the book.  So, by people only watching the movies and not reading the books, the books are pretty much being forgotten about.  I don't think that there is anything dangerous about a book.  Most books are just stories, and I don't see anything dangerous about them, and I don't think there will ever be a time in real life that books will be banned.

Blog #8- Hunger Games

I thought that this was a really good book.  The other books we read so far were very boring to me, but this one caught me attention and kept it.  The book had a lot of action in it, which kept me reading to what happened next.  This book shows how people can be controlled and watch as kids kill one another.  There is nothing the people in the districts could do to fight against the Capitol, and the one time they tried they failed and the Hunger Games were their punishment.  While in the arena the book was really hard to put down and there was a lot of action.  After I read this book I thought of that song "I Will Survive".  I had no clue who sang that song so I just went to YouTube and found it.  It relates to the book because the players want to survive.  Now I have this song stuck in my head haha.

Blog # 7- Reality TV

The reality show that I watched was Kitchen Nightmares.  This show is funny and serious at the same time.  The reason I watch this show is because this British chef goes into restaurants that are doing bad, and yells and curses at them, and it's funny.  This show has a lot of reality to it, because it deals with peoples lives and how they make a living.  Having the British chef, Gordan Ramsey, yelling and screaming makes the show funny.  There are a lot of other reality shows that are more entertaining, like Jersey Shore, but when that show was on this week, the college basketball tournament was on so I wasn't going to watch the stupid Jersey Shore over that haha.  I think that this show is supposed to make the viewer feel bad for the restaurant owners, but for me I usually just laugh at them for how bad they are at running a business.  The viewers are what makes all these reality shows keep going.  Like the Jersey Shore has been on for 3 seasons now and it's because viewers find what they do entertaining.  Me personally I would rather watch sports on TV instead of reality shows, but sometimes I do like to just watch some reality shows and laugh at all the things that happen during those shows.

Blog #6

I believe that we have lost some of our privacy.  Their are ads that pop up on your facebook page, about things that you looked up when you weren't even logged into it.  We do have privacy mostly in our lives, because we don't have cameras watching our every move.  I'm sitting in my room right now and I don't think that there is a camera watching me, atleast I hope nobody is watching me haha.  So, we have some privacy, but when we are on the internet we really don't have that much privacy.  What we look up on the internet is kind of tracked.  So, online we don't have that much privacy I don't think.  I think that some people are willing to give up basic freedoms to feel safer.  These days, I believe, people are always watching out for anything bad that can happen, so they would be willing to give up some basic freedoms to ensure their safety.

Blog #5- My Feed Advertisements

The first ad that would be on my feed has to be ESPN.  I watch ESPN everyday because I am a huge sports fan, and I want to keep updated on what's going on with my teams.  I can't remember the last time that didn't turn on ESPN atleast once during the day.  SportsCenter is my favorite show on ESPN and I have to watch it everyday.  So, ESPN would be the first advertisement on my feed.



The second ad that would be on my feed would have to be about PlayStation 3.  I usually play video games for about an hour or two a day.  The ad would tell me about new games that are coming out that I would like.  So I play PlayStation a good amount so ads about new games would be on my feed.


The third ad on my feed would be about Adidas clothes.  A lot of my shirts are Adidas and I only wear Adidas shoes.  I have a lot of Adidas clothes, so this ad would tell me about new clothes to buy.  I don't know why but I don't wear any Nike things.  If there was the same thing made by Adidas and Nike I would buy the Adidas one, because Adidas is my brand.


The last ad on my feed would be about iTunes.  I like to listen to music so this ad would tell me about new music that I would like and should buy.  I just recently started to use iTunes and legally get music haha.  So iTunes would be an ad on my feed.

Blog #4

Could I live in a secluded house in the woods by myself for a year?  I would have to say I probably couldn't.  It would be really lonely to be in the middle of nowhere for a year.  When I think about being secluded for a year, I can't help but thinking about the movie Castaway.  If I was all alone for a year I would probably start talking to rocks or something so I could just talk to something haha.  Other than being lonely, I wouldn't know what to do with my time.  The days would seem like they last forever.  I would have to learn how to live off the land and sort of build a new life there.  Honestly I don't think that I would be able to do it.  During Thoreau's time it probably would have been a little easier to be secluded for a year because there wasn't all this technology around.  Since there is all this technology around and we use it everyday, it would be really hard for, me atleast, to live secluded in the woods for a year.

Blog #3- "Dumbest Generation"

I guess according to this Mark Bauerlein guy, I'm part of the dumbest generation ever.  I think that this guy is kind of mad that when he was growing up he didn't have all this technology.  Yes I do agree that we use all of these devices a lot but I don't think that makes up dumb.  I would say that my generation is lazy instead of dumb.  I will agree that there are dumb people in my generation (like that Miss USA girl), but that can be said for every generation, there will always be dumb people around.  My generation focuses our smarts on different things then when Mark Bauerlein was young, so he thinks that makes us dumb?  We laugh at older people because they don't know how to use a lot of these new devices, but we don't go and call them the dumbest generation.  Like I said earlier a lot of people in my generation are lazy but that doesn't mean that they are dumb.  Bauerlein is calling people that go to college and are getting good grades, (like me), dumb that just doesn't make that much sense to me.

Blog #2

I just got done reading the section of Culture Jam that we were supposed to, and all I can think is that Lasn makes people seem like robots that have no emotion and can't think for themselves.  He keeps talking about how many advertisements there are and how we don't even notice them anymore.  I have to agree with that because I personally don't read many advertisements anymore, if I see one I just walk past it not caring about it.  He talked about the Manchurian Consumer, as being people programmed to go out and buy certain things on command, I thought that was pretty funny.  Something I found interesting was the part about the Unofficial History of America.  I never knew that corporations had so much power, and that they were granted the same rights as private citizens.  I thought that whole section was interesting.
For that documentary we had to watch, all I could think about was how pathetic those people were.  That's probably not nice haha, but thats what I was thinking about.  That game was consuming their lives and they were happy about it.  I play video games a good amount, but if I play them for too long I get bored with it so I have to stop, but some of the people in that documentary played that game non-stop for hours.  Also, I thought it was funny that people were getting married to each other after they met each other playing the game.  I think some people in this world are just so weird haha.

Introduction

Hey everybody, I'm Brian and I'm from Harrisburg.  I'm a sophomore majoring in business.  I am a BIG sports fan and I like all the Philly teams.  I play video games, mostly sports games, but I am a beast at Call of Duty lol.  I don't read many books and I'm in this class because it's a gen ed, so maybe I'll like the books we read.  This class seems easy and I'm pretty sure I will get an A, because that's what I expect to get in every class.