Well, it's over! My take on the blogs.

Here is my blog post in which I talk about what I have learned in the process of making my blogs. When I first started, I thought I would be able to complete the assigned blogs every week and be done before classes ended. However, as you can see, a couple of the blogs were completed after the end of classes. What happened?.....Classes and a rough semester! I did do better than some of the other people in my class : ) I mostly enjoyed the topics that I had to write about because it made me think about something other than Stargate, movies, and the next paper that was due. Without looking at the previous blog posts, I can say my favorites were the one that I had to write about IMDb, and the "Photo Finish" one. Writing a story from one picture was really refreshing, because I set the rules of the story and was not told what to do by anyone.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!

The commencement speech by Steve Jobs was very insightful. The quote at the end is definitely a slogan for the creative age that is before us. If people stay interested in the things they love and pursue it then the world will see some very unique ideas and products. Like he said, not until we look backwards do we see how our past shaped our future. I hope that in my future I can look back and see how my college education impacted my life. Just in this class, I made my first video published on Youtube, and kept an actual blog. Maybe "Ramblings of a Stargate Fan," will become famous...we will see.

One Vs. Many

So thinking about the groups I participate in on Facebook, I notice that I do not join groups that cater to social change. I have been invited to many groups that are bases for social change that have tons of members in them, like the one about animal torture and child abuse, but I never add them, I just let them stay in limbo on my request list. I don't know if I am really socially out there on Facebook. I mean I am apart of 81 groups and all of them are something off my entertainment or work related interests. However, I did join a group about Megan Williams and brought awareness to her situation then my other friends saw it and joined too. I have since left the group, but her awful rape still makes me cringe. Her plight should change some laws cause her case was being ignored. I also joined one of the many "free rice" groups, and I stayed in it for awhile and then left. I donated over a hundred bowls of rice. I feel for the Burmese and Tibet-China struggle, but not enough to join a group and stay in it.

Picturing Myself at Ninety

Looking back at my life 70 years in the future, I think I would be well off. I pray that I am still married to my husband. We will live in a tiny cottage somewhere in New England. My three children will be living all over the world. I would have been the producer/CEO in my own film production company (I don't want to give the name away). I would have been a globe trotter, visiting all over-taking tons of photos and making films. I would be an active senior. However, I know I do not take good care of my body now, and I am short. I will shrink, making me shorter than I am already. I would have contributed to the Academy of Arts and Sciences. I would have made Oscar winning films. Hopefully I will have no regrets, because changing the past will change the future.

Death by Facebook or Evil People?

So, after reading about the girl who was killed because she had an on-line friendship with a boy, I think it is ridiculous that it happened. Although Facebook is a culturally geared towards freer restraints (American), it should not be blamed for a father's overzealous actions. I understand that girls should not have interaction with boys in that religion, but the boy is not really meeting the girl in person. I do I feel like things went to far, and under religion people can go too far. I can not really explain what I am feeling now about the topic, but it is pretty much disgust. The Internet is a place to detach from the physical personality and become someone else.

Kids Rule, NOT!

I love the books premise, but the content is so-so. I feel like part of the book should be scanned into a computer and given as an on-line reading. I got the book for a small bit of money, but I feel like there are better books out there that deals with cable, networks, and the history of those topics. Do not get me wrong, the book has great points about Nickelodeon and how the cable industry became corrupt. All the books we have read have information that is very important for us to know media and the culture now. I just wish some of the books were sectioned, so we would not have to pay for extra stuff. Kids Rule first couple chapters are dense, and is a bore to read. The later chapters are really interesting and are great discussion points.

I Googled Myself!

When I put in my name-"so and so- I really don't want to write it on here," I saw I had 83,300 hits. One surprising hit was for the UMBCretrevers donor list, where I'm under the Hilltop section, one to 100 dollars. I think this is when I gave the Sailing Club twenty dollars. A total of four hits were related to me in some way, from SEB and Tea Empire. I do not have any Googlegangers. My name/me Googles well, because I show up on the first page, and all the other gibberish is after that. Just doing my first or last name will produce anything from a town/university, an actress, food, or emperor.

Review of a political blog

The one political blog I picked was called Pam's House Blend...always steamin'!. The woman that runs it is called Pam who is African American, I think. She leans to the left. When I finally looked at the blog, I noticed that she has a new nephew (she had a picture with him in the upper left hand corner of the page). She deals with many issues, not only political, but many have a political lean. She dealt with how many people are marrying for Health Insurance. Also, she dealt with the issue of Washington University honoring a woman with a honorary doctorate who is an anti-feminism and also anti-gay. The advertising is geared towards women and some for African American women. There are many ads that clearly show that she is a liberal blogger. The blog won awards for many things, and it is listed as one of the best LGBT blogs. The people who comment are mostly women, and might be gay. However, there are some guys that comment.

I was attracted by this blog because of the simple color, and layout. I did not like the ads, but I understand that a professional blog needs it to stay afloat.

My Political Identity

My political identity is complicated. My parents talked politics at the dinner table, and we watched the news together, but they could not vote. However, they instilled in me that I should look at a candidates' policy instead of party affiliation. I grew up in the Bill Clinton era and my first real it for politics happen in 1996 when I made fake ballots and had a face off between Clinton and Dole, in which Clinton of course won. I really liked him when I was little (8 years old or so), he was very personable on camera. I kinda leaned towards democrats, but one situation altered that view. When Salisbury was running for Governor of Maryland I wanted her to win, even though she was Republican. I did not feel for the current Governor at the time, he always bothered me. When Ehrlich was running for Governor, I actually rooted for him. Baltimore is not a great place for great voting, cause incumbents just stay in their place unless they leave on their own.

I got to vote in the past Gubernatorial elections and local city elections. Now, I can vote on both policies and personality. I am registered under Independent, but in Maryland that just makes you miss the primary because of the closed elections.

Testing

After testing myself through some on-line websites, I was pretty amazed by what I found out. The first site that visited was "Spot the fake smile," a BBC test. I received 15 out of 20 faces correct. I felt like it was an easy test to do. Some faces were hard to tell, but many were really easy to figure out.

The empathy quotient test was a bit tricky, because I was not totally truthful. I got a 32, which is low empathy, and I blame it on my tiredness when I took the test. Also, I blame it on the feeling I felt when I was taking the test and the reliance on what my gut told me was what I really felt about the questions. I took this quiz later on in the night, and by then I did not feel like I related to any one.

For the eye recognition test, I got a 25 which fits between the average/typical score. The point was to match the eyes to what emotion fit it. I would have did better, I think, if only I did not take this test when I was tired. I do see the connection between tiredness and poor skills.

Overall, I think I am pretty average. This was a great activity to do.

Girls rule when writing on the Internet.

I think there are some in roads to women breaking into Computer Science. I know of some that even major/minor in it at UMBC. I think young girls on the Internet creating blogs should not be a surprise because they are usually the ones writing in diaries and journals. It is just that now they moving from paper to digital and more people see their work. The only reason people think Computer Science is a male field is because we think of Bill Gates and other male geeks. Also, it makes me think of making boring codes.

Riff on Opening Lines.

"One day- eyes bloodshot, thumbs blistered, and hopped up on Mountain Dew- you will finally beat Halo 3."* With all of your might you step outside into a new world. I world of LSD color, and machines. The machines that were mere machines a second ago will be the rulers of the world. Why didn't you realize that this had happen, you ask? Well, the machine that you were playing, was in fact playing you. As this reality sinks into your mind, you quickly run back into your house and see that every machine based technology that you ever had is gone. Even your sleep number bed rolled out. In a matter of minutes your life is changed forever.

You wake up.
(Transition of point of view)
Thank God, that was a dream. It was really Twilight Zone-ish. I must have fell asleep watching Terminator and that crappy machine take-over movie. Ewww, Mountain Dew is gross, why did I drink that in my dream. But, Wow, I can't believe I still haven't finish Halo 3. Its been one week, I'm getting old, back in the day I finished games within a couple of days.

*First line provided by Urbanite March 2008 issue.

Stepping on the Humor Scale.

http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/selftest/item_8508.html

It was fun, and quick. However, it did tell a lot about my current humor situation. At least I did not score super low to be called "a poor old gloomy thing". I did however score a 40. It told me, "If your total score is between 40 and 50, you use humor sometimes, but perhaps you could learn to let yourself go and enjoy more variety."

I know I should go out and have fun, but school sucks my soul away, lol. The score is broken further down into four sections. I scored the best on the Appreciation part (14), but the lowest on the Creativity and Performance part (6). The middle two, were Coping and Facilitation which were both 10. Each section had a huge paragraph telling me about what my score meant to me and humor. All I know is thank God I am not a complete downer.

Mourning on Facebook

I have not joined a mourning group on Facebook, but I have been invited to some. The one I want to talk about is the various VT groups I got invited to right after the shootings. When I was invited I felt that if I joined I would be a fake. I did not feel connected to the situation, so I could not really mourn for it. I know some who truly knew people at VT and was scared for them. However, all the fake people did it just for face. I rejected the invites a little after the media stopped talking about it, and when many people started leaving the groups.

I have seen some of my friends join groups for individuals who died. There were not that many people in those groups, the most was 100 people. Also, I have seen missing persons groups which had more people in them. One later turned into mourning groups because the person they were looking for, was found dead. That group made me sad. On a related topic of mourning groups, it that I have posted my Grandfather's obituary as a Facebook note. My friends gave their sympathies via the comment area, personal message, and wall.

Photo Finish

*I found this picture on the Internet. It's cute so I want to write a little story about it!

Alicia and Bobby had been friends forever, or at least since they were two. They would go everywhere together. They would hang out at the park, each other's home, and during lunch.

It was a nice Saturday afternoon so Bobby's mother took them to the park. At the park, Alicia and Bobby ran to the swings, but it was packed with other children. Then they ran to the sandbox, where they found there was no space to play. A little upset, they ran up to Bobby's mother and complained. She told them to play on the slide and so they ran to the slide. They had to wait their turn, which seemed like forever. However, they each got to the top, and looked around, and saw how high they were. People yelled at them to go down the slide or else they would lose their turn. Alicia was the first to go down the slide. She put her arms up while she went down it. She was fearless, not holding on to the sides of the slide. Bobby came down right after she got off the slide. He was not that bold, he held the sides and felt a bit embarrassed that he was not as fearless as Alicia. He met her at the bottom of the slide and both had a energetic look on their faces. They both knew that they wanted to slide down again. They went sliding for fifteen minutes, each time they became more energetic and more fearless. Bobby's mother kept watch, as they attempted different "stunts."

Alicia was wearing a pretty flower dress, so she could not do many things. Bobby took this as an opportunity to impress her, and on the last go around he went down face first. Bobby's mother was busy talking to another mother, so she did not see her son when he hit the ground. His white shirt did not have a single stain on it. And instead of crying after hitting the ground, he got up and ran after a laughing Alicia. After a while they became tired, and went over to Bobby's mother and had a little picnic. Later they decided that they wanted to slide for one last time before going home.

After sliding, Bobby and Alicia met at the bottom of the slide. Bobby's mother was walking up to them from a far. The two neighbors and best friends did not seem to be bothered by cooties. So when Bobby leaned in for the kiss, both eyes closed Alicia met him. At that moment Bobby's mother took a picture and laughed.

The "Toxic" Relationship Between Trent and Daria

Hey you all, check out my video on Trent and Daria. If you have a You-tube account comment on it. I look forward to reading them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueK6mfZni1E

I chose the song “Toxic” by Britney Spears, because out of my MP3 collection of songs I felt that it was catchy, and the lyrics fit the message. I wanted to convey the underlining relationship of Trent and Daria. I tried to make actions blend with the words. For example, when the song talks about falling, I inserted the scene from the episode of Daria’s mother and sister falling. This kind of match up is in the fan video a several of times. I put the title sequence after the first scene because it felt that it should go after Trent and Daria’s father talking. I left the sound on after the title so people could get the first half of the conversation. After everything was finished I used the old, black and white special effect to hide the logo on the bottom of the video. I did not want to use all the clips from the episode or the whole song. I did that to cover myself from being sued or my video taken down. However, it does seem that I ended the video abruptly because I ended the song early.

I like to talk, but when I'm really interested I write.

I've read all the reading for the class, even the ones on-line that I have mixed feelings about. I am not interested enough to write about some of the topics we were suppose to comment about. I'm more of a person to write about my day, and random thoughts about movie stars, etc. on my Facebook notes.

I think that the separation in the class is between the "people who care" and "people who will care in the future". The people who care, do the assignments as soon as they know about it. Since the class do not have a set due date for blogs , we (I'm part of the people who will care) care to do them in the future. The writers and the talkers can be the same people. I write for a living as an American Studies major, History minor, and MCS certificate. I like to talk more. It's not a procrastination thing, nor is it a plan ahead thing. Also, the people who sometimes don't speak up don't do the reading. However, I really don't know. All I know is that I do the reading, I attempt to blog every time I see something I'm interested in, and I talk in class.

Wiki-ality!! I love Steven Colbert for that term!

I love Wikipedia! I love getting lost in pages, clicking related links on people, groups, and other things. I learn so much about the inner histories of actors, characters, and shows. I look at Wikipedia for fun and entertainment. I also look at it when I want to know more about a particular topic. So I agree with Jimmy Wales statement that people my age do read Wikipedia for more knowledge. I know some of my friends that look at Wikipedia for info on movies. However, I think that is crazy when IMDb is the best on that subject. BUT, Wikipedia is the best on bios and stuff.

What Community Standards? Oh....those!

I was having a hard time choosing a community to write about. So, I have chosen the Sci-fi channel Stargate SG-1 Forum community. The community standards that we have there are mostly regulated by the Admins and the computer software. For example, people cannot curse or say anything remotely like that (the software will not let you) i.e. the word "Porn". Basically you cannot do anything that is deemed problematic according to the Sci-fi channel's rules.

However, members also have rules of what or what not to do. When you are on the Daniel Jackson/Michael Shank thread, people do not bash him. If someone does then they get "called out". People do uphold those rules whether they like it or not. New members sometimes make mistakes, but they learn the longer they are on. What we value as a member of the forum is coming together and worshiping Stargate SG-1.

Although everyone has aliases and avatars, we care about each other. We ask about people, and people talk about their lives outside of Stargate news. Some even know each other outside of the Forums when they meet at conventions. It means everything to be a member. However, nowadays there are so many other official/semi official community sites(MGM's, Gateworld, etc.) that people stop going on that often, including me.

First Blog about Consumer Citizenship and IMDb!

TRYING TO BE A CONSUMER CITIZEN!
I was taught to save my money, but I spend my money all kinds of ways. I buy DVD movies and Stargate stuff on-line. I occasionally buy tickets to see movies at the theater-Student price. I go discount shopping for clothes in stores. I try looking for discounts on various books and movies through sites like Half.com. My shopping habits seem to say that I love to spend money on things that I like, but that I’m a person that will look for bargains on those things. In the future, I want to be able to control the amount of buying that I do. I spend when I have money, and I try not to when I don’t. When there is something I really want I wait a few days (if I can) and then if I still want it, I go and buy it. This is who I am as a consumer citizen.

FOR THE LOVE OF IMDb!
I only visit around ten websites regularly. I wanted to choose my email accounts (UMBC and Yahoo) or Facebook. BUT, Facebook is a cliché since our class is titled it, and my email accounts really does not have advertising that change to have any impact on me or any one else that I could think of. On the other hand if I think about it I do go through Yahoo home page to get to my email account. The page does have one advertising area that advertises various things from cars to food, but other than that it has various news headlines around.

ANYWAY I choose IMDb. The ideal viewers of IMDb are movie lovers, anyone who wants information on a certain movies, or people who want to know entertainment news. IMDb advertises movies, and various companies (Classmates, Monster, etc.) through pop-ups (which can be avoided if you have a pop-up blocker) and in a small advertising area on the different movie pages. The ads are random, because it seems geared to older people. However, I know that many college age students view IMDb on a regular basis. I can say that the ideal viewer is the actual people viewing it.

It attracted me because it’s a movie database, and it’s really accurate. It has a Wikipedia feel to it, and it can be wrong sometimes, but it has very interesting and good information. I love movies and I love finding out little things about movies and actors in general. The news section on the main page keeps me up dated daily on entertainment news. It is actually how I can check if any thing is true or not. For example, my friend told me when Heath Ledger died , but I had to check IMDb to see if it was true.