Good Ol' Chuck (Not Charlie Brown or Norris)

"Watch out for mastodons"

-Killing Yourself to Live
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Indeed, the Chuck I am talking about is none than the one and only Chuck Klosterman. My dear friend Chuck is a writer. He is a non-fiction writer infact, and loves to write essays. Not just any essays, but funny and entertaining essays full of wonderful cultural references that make you feel smart if you get them, and slightly dumb if you don't. Minus Chuck's slight superiority complex, I really enjoy reading Chuck and his work.

I first heard about Chuck in LA, and decided to go hit up the B&N the next chance I got. And so I did. There, i found the jackpot. A book by Chuck, ON THE CLEARANCE RACK. I must have done something good in a past life to deserve this, I thought at the time. Maybe I was a Buddhist priest, perhaps the Dalai Lama. I'll never know. Anywho, I see this book for 5 bucks, and being the great bargain shopper I am, I can't resist. So as I'm checking out, the cashier tells me this is a really good book. Well, gee, I'm stoked now. If a cashier at B&N liked my choice, it must be good. And boy was it ever. So over the next week, I read the whole book, sad to put it down at night when I had to go to bed, and by the time I get to the end, I've decided that if Chuck ever started his own religion, I would so join.

Research 3.0

Ahhh, Mr. Research paper, we meet again.

Well, since my last post on my research paper, I'm proud to say I have made leaps and bounds in my research. I have found somewhere in the neighborhood of five to six, what i feel to be, pretty reliable resources. The more and more I've looked through the information on the internet, I've been able to filter and refine my searches to get more of the kind of information about reality TV that I'm looking for. A lot of the results dealing with shows overviews and recaps don't show up anymore, and instead the relevent information does. I've come to be in love with websites run by various educational departments around the country, since they seem to be doing a good amount of research very similiar to what I've been looking for. And since it's an .edu site, I generally feel that they are trustworthy. I've have also come to the realization that finding numbers for the kind of statistics i'm looking for is a very difficult task. I've tried websites like the Nielson ratings, but that was of virtually no help. So I think I'm going to be shifting my focus more and more away from looking for statistics as I go on in my research. Another helpful thing that I have begun to use more and more is the citations and references I find on one source, potentially will lead me to other good sources just full of precious information. I want to continue to look for a primary source, such a book or some kind of encyclopedia on this subject, but have currently turned up short.

And probably the biggest chance since last time, is that I feel like my research has become more focused overall, giving me a clearer picture of what I'm trying to do.

Panic! Does Anyone Know the Number for 9-1-1!?

Please put down the phone and stop calling 911. Don't worry, for all of those out there who thought you actually had to panic, you don't. By Panic, I really meant Panic! At The Disco. Or P-!-A-T-D for short.

I knew P!ATD had been at a new CD for awhile now, but I hadn't really bothered to look up details as to when it was going to be hitting the stores. But when I opened up the Best Buy ad a couple weeks ago, guess what i saw! Nothing other than the fantastic news that the CD would be out. Hallejulah.

Thats right, P!ATD has hit the main stream again boys and girls. This time, with a CD called Pretty. Odd. I'm going to give it to you straight up. This is one killer awesome CD. If you're ever heard PATD before, you are going to be in a for a big surprise when you pop this CD on to your iTunes. Unfortunately, they still managed to include ridiculously long song titles that you'll never remember. This CD sounds nothing like P!ATD's first CD, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, which is also a very good album I would recommend. While their first CD had more of an scorned/punk/emo sound, this CD is something like a combination of western/Beatles/Patrick Stump.

If I had to describe this new sound, only one thing pops into my mind:
Pretty odd.

Sudoku

Puzzles. Everyone loves a good puzzle now and then. From 4 piece to 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. There are word puzzles, crosswords, wordfinds, word scrambles, logic puzzles, and yes, even number puzzles. Number puzzles?! Who on earth would want to do a puzzle dealing with numbers? Isnt' that what math class is for? I thought so too.

But then, I started digging into this new craze, called Sudoku. These puzzles became popular in Japan, and then in America. I'm pretty sure the translation for the word "sudoku" has been lost for centuries, but I like to think of the word meaning "a number puzzle".

Essentially, you have a box that is then subdivided into smaller boxes, which you must fill with numbers. But it gets tricky. You can't use the same number in the same little box, or the same row or column. Impossible, you say. Well, sorta, but thats what the beginner booklets are for. The puzzles range from easy to very hard, usually graded on difficulty by the number of stars next to it. 1 star is easiest, 5 stars are the hard ones.

Since coming to America, these little itty bitty puzzles have spread like wildfire. You open up your local newspaper to all those other mind boggling puzzles, and there is it. Hiding innocently enough next to the crossword. Even big time newspapers like the New York Times carry these things. You can go to your nearest bookstore, and find whole books just filled with page after page of these things. Before you know it, you'll start finding sudoku on your cereal box! They're everywhere!

Someday, if you all catch the sudoku fever, you might move up to the two star ones like me.

Flavor of Love

Yeeeeeahhhhhh Booooooiiiiii!
Wooooooooooooowwwwwww!
Flaaaaavvaaa Flaavvvvv!

-The extent of Flavor Flav's vocabulary.

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A few years ago, a season of The Surreal Life aired on VH1. If you've never seen Surreal Life, it's basically a bunch of dryed out D class celebrities with nothing better to do with their lives than appear of a television show. Well, little did the world know, on this particular season, a little known person named Flavor Flav would be released.

After creating plenty of drama on that series and it ended, some producer somewhere decided it would be a good idea to let Flavor Flav have his own show! Now, if I ever come into the possession of a time machine, one of the first things i would do is go back and de-brain whoever thought that was a good idea. But they did think of it, and create a show for him, and unfortunately for the educated of the world who have glimpsed it, those people are now dumber. The show is called Flavor of Love, and is currently running on its 3rd season. How it has made it to its third season, is something i'll never understand. Basically you have a bunch of drama making, fame seeking bimbos trying to compete for "true love". The sad part of it, is some of those girls have spawned spin offs including Charm School and I Love New York.

But culture is culture, and so over this past Easter weekend, I decided to do my part to spread it. I met up with my 18 month year old cousin, who has a very limited vocabulary. So being the corrupt kid I am, I tried to teach her to say Wooooooow and Flavvvaaa Flav!
But she was too smart
and refused.

Halo? I Don't See Any Angels

"I love halo. I don't know about all of you, but it is honest to god my most favoritest thing to do in the whole wide world. I play it at LEAST 4 hours a night before I do my homework, then another 2.5 hours after the hdub (if I do it) is finished. I feel it's nice to have a set schedule, keeps me regular."

-A ridiculous number of kids at KHS

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So earlier this year, something earth shaking happened in the gaming world. Halo 3 came out for XBox 360. I'm pretty sure the shaking part was because of all the people who rushed to stores to wait hours in lines to be one of the first person to own the game. The game set many records, including the fastest selling game of all time. Just about 3.6759 billion copies were sold in the first 3 seconds of going on sale. Impressive. It just barely surpassed the previous record of 3.5 billion set by Halo 2. Once people got the game, their whole life became devoted to it. People skipped worked, call in sick from school, and just plain gave up sleep to beat the game before all of their friends did. I even heard stories of people moving game systems to every room of their house.

And a number of months passed, and things still haven't really calmed down. It's hard to walk to through the halls without hearing somebody talking about they "totally had this killer no scope head shot" last night while they were playing 'Lo. ( Apparently, the "ha" syllable has become too difficult to pronounce for some of the intense gamers...probably from lack of sunlight and or too much exposure to their TV screens). Everyday, after my 5th hour math class, I hear kids still making plans to go over to someones house to play Halo. Half of these kids are juniors, and I mean seriously, don't you have something better to do with your life than go play video games?

Don't get me wrong, I love playing video games. Sitting down with good game of Super Smash Bros. and laying down some complete domination is a good time. But there is a point when it becomes unhealthy, and I think peoples obsession with Halo has reached that point. If these kids would just put down that xbox controller for a hour a day, think of all the benefits to society. Kittens saved from trees, old ladies helped across cross walks, and not to mention all that electricity saved. (I think I found our global warming problem, folks)

My generation has heard this slogan again and again, and next time someone asks you to go over and play Halo, just say no.

Research Paper 2.0

Well, after looking back at what i was going to do for my research topics, I realized that those were some gosh darn boring topics. And so after some thumb twiddling and thinking, I came up with a couple of ideas that are more outside the box, and those ideas happen to be:

1. Game Shows
2. Reality Television

If I had to pick between the two, I would rather research reality TV, but game shows wouldn't be far beyond.

I've been searching the Internet for things dealing with reality TV, trying to get an idea of what exactly is out there. It's really easy to find general information about the shows and peoples reviews and opions, but when I try to search for specific information about reality tv, like statistics, is it good or bad?, what sort of studies are there?, etc. etc., I can't really find much. Mind you, this is all coming from searches related to Google. Some of the helpful things I did find are sites like: Reality Check, Reality TV Impact, and How Real is Reality TV. These are helpful, but not exactly material to base a whole reseach paper about. I have come across references to Media Psychology, a journal that I could see to be potentially quite useful. Unfortunately, I can't find the full article/story online that I think would be most useful.

I looked through EBSCO, but I didn't find anything there. Either I was just searching for the wrong kind of material, which is probably the case, or they really don't have anything worthwhile concerning reality TV. I feel like hard copy sources are going to be more useful for me if i want to pursue this topic than online sources are going to be.

I think the biggest obstactle for me in this search has been a focus problem. I know I want to do something with reality tv, but I feel like this is a large topic, and feel that I lack a clear focus and goal of what I really want to find out about it.

Juno...Not the City in Alaska

So far, I have seen the movie Juno, twice now. And each time, I have absolutely loved it. Personally, if you haven't seen it by now, you should. It's a witty, goofy, comedy that revolves around an unplanned teenage pregnancy. The movie also has a great cast of actors, including Ellen Page and Michael Cera( aka Evan, from Superbad). But one of the great elements of this movie that cannot be ignored is the music.

The Juno soundtrack is quite possibly the best soundtrack I've ever heard.( Minus Motion City Soundtrack, which is a name of a band, and therefore, doesn't count). Anywho, listening to this soundtrack is a must. But beware: The songs are amazingly addicting, their beats just worming their way into your brain and never leaving. It features artists such as The Velvet Underground, Buddy Holly, and Belle and Sebastion. But the artist who really takes the cake with this CD is none other than Kimya Dawson. (Yeah, I had never heard of her before either)

Along with a killer first name, Kimya provides just about half of the songs on this soundtrack. Not to mention, by far the best song on the CD, "Loose Lips", is written by Kimya. But just incase you all don't go out and buy the soundtrack right away, I feel it's only fair to give you a sampling of Kimya at her myspace page: Right Here

You + Tube = YouTube

YouTube. It's really a very simple concept. You record a video. Put it on your computer. And then upload it to YouTube. And voila! You're done. And yet, this oh so simple idea has been transformed into one of the most popular sites on the Internet today. It ranks up there in popularity with Google, Facebook, and Myspace. (Coincidentally, Google bought out YouTube in 2006 for the meager sum of 1.65 billion dollars).

Anything that has ever been recorded, you can probably find on YouTube. With upwords of 77 million videos currently on the site, it's hard to imagine what isn't on there. From talking unicorns, to old tv shows such as Are You Afraid of The Dark?, to music videos, to prison inmates performing Soulja Boy. It's all there, waiting for some poor unsuspecting web surfer to stumble upon and become trapped in the YouTube world. A friend sends you a link to a five minute video. You need a break from your homework anyway, so you decide to watch it. Three and a half hours later, you realize you're still on YouTube, no closer to finishing your homework, thanks to the recommend other videos you would enjoy so graciously provided by YouTube. Sad, but true.

I've always wondered what inspired the creators of YouTube. Did they wake up on morning, hop on to their computer, want to watch some random person make farting sounds in public, only to be disappointed when they couldn't find it? Some people I'll never understand.

Here are a few of my favorites from YouTube:

• Charlie The Unicorn
• Farting In Public
• Muffins
• Things You Can't Do When You're Not in a Pool

Waiting...Waiting...Waiting...

Male Customer #1: It's too bad Chlamydia has to be a venereal disease. It's such a pleasant-sounding word.

Male Customer #2: Chlamydia?

Male Customer #1: Chlamydia.

Male Customer #2: Chlamydia. I think I might name my daughter Chlamydia

Probably one of my favorite quotes from the movie "Waiting", because when you think about it, it's kind of true.

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So the other night, I sat down to watch the movie "Waiting" with Mandi. She had wanted to watch it, after hearing it was a pretty funny movie. I had seen it before though. This is a movie that takes place in a restaurant full of disfucntional employees and the experiences of their jobs. I agree, it is a pretty funny movie, full of witty quips and raunchy humor. What Mandi didn't know though, was that the movie also had a more disturbing side to it. I tried to warn her before hand, but trying to explain it without totally ruining the movie, was kind of difficult. So I sat down and zipped my lips.

Among other things, one of the more disturbing parts of the movie is when a rather unruly and rude customer demands that her food be taken back to the kitchen and fixed because the meal wasn't to her liking. Up to this point, the customer has been nothing but rude,mean, and obnoxious to the waitress, and after a vote in the kitchen, the employees decide to get the customer back. This involves mixing a number bodily ingredients, such as spit, dandruff, and sweat on to the food. Let me tell you, they show it all. Of course, the food is taken back out to the customer where she takes what appears to be a bite she enjoys immensely. Gross. As the main character would put it, "I guess we should feel some sort of guilt, but she broke the cardinal rule; never f**k with people who handle your food"

When the movie gets over, you began to wonder what if something like that really happens. There's enough plausibility in the movie mixed in that just adds a dimension of uncertainty next time you want to go out to eat. I'll tell ya one thing, next time I send my food back to the kitchen, I'm going to take a reeaaallll close inspection before and after.

Bon Apetite!

Survivor...Is Still Surviving?

So, the other night, I was participating in the best kind of surfing Iowa has to offer: Channel Surfing. I was doing pretty good, weaving in and out of waves, until suddenly, the whole wave came crashing down on me. As I stared at the TV in disbelief, as Jeff Probst described a challenge to two groups of emaciated, malnurished, and weary looking contestants.

I couldn't believe it. There's just no way. Survivor was still on television! I was shocked. My first thought was, "You mean someone still watches this show?" my next one was, "Jeez, it must be season 3785 by now." (I would later find out it was only season 16, but I wasn't too far off) Flashback time! I remember watching the first season, way back yonder in 2000, and thinking the idea of a reality show was something totally radical. Back then, they had two tribes with 18 people, each one competing for an ultimate cash prize at the end of the show, if they could "Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast" all the other players. They would compete in challenges, the winning tribe gaining immunity from having a member voted off, until the game was over and someone had won. There were always people making making secret aliances, back stabbing, and the general drama of dramatic people.

As I watched this latest episode, I realized, there was basically nothing different from the show I watched eight years ago. How disappointing. You still had the token drama queens and the six pack toting guys, the smart ones, and the just plain clueless ones. They still competed for immunity and what not, with a few minor twists thrown in there. But overall, it was still the same old boring plot. Sure, I understand people will watch something for the first few seasons, but by season 5 or 6, I just don't see the appeal anymore.

But for all of you die hard fans out there, I hope that you never have to go throw the trauma of Tribal Council.

Research Topics

So, last night, I was sitting in Mock Trial and probably should have been paying attention, I began to ponder to myself, "Hrmmm, what should I do for my research topics?" I momentarily had myself stumped, sort of like a tree that had just been cut down. Then a flurry of ideas hit me. 1) Why not do something with No Child Left Behind!? Or 2) the overuse of anti-bacterial products in society!? Oooh, 3) what about doing something about MP3 files and illegal download and the music industry?! 4) My final idea was to research the concept of various forms of birthcontrol in schools, and the controversy surrounding it.

I'm still currently throwing around which one of these I want to do the most, but haven't decided.

PeaceOut

Pop Into...Pop Culture!

Helllooooooo ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, audience of all ages!
Welcome to my blog on "Ooohs!" and "Aaahs" and "OMGSTFU's" of pop culture!

Some of you maybe asking yourselves, "Just what is pop culture?" I too, asked myself that question, and I came up with, "anything and everything that worms its way into the popular culture and media of the times." This is a very broad and general sort of category, and it's meant to be. It includes everything from music, to TV, to video games, and yes, even Britney Spears. Of course, I wanted to make sure my definition was fitting so I decided to check my favorite cultural dictionary, Urbandictionary.com. Here is what I found:

pop culture: Brainwashed Zombies who Deserve to be stoned to death

Well, maybe not entirely true, but Ryan Seacrest sure fits that. Good enough for me.

It may already be too late for some, but I would like to apologize in advance if I happen to sink my potentially vicious teeth into an aspect of pop culture you hold dear to your heart. There isn't a part of pop culture that will be specifically targeted, just whatever strikes my fancy at the time. No intentional bad feelings are meant, it's is all in good fun.


Until Next Time, Dudes and Dudettes!