Alberta before time March 6, 2007

So, I have had a stressful week. I mean, I have been thinking non-stop about all these deep sociological thoughts and psychological queries and the plague me day and night (mostly because I’m being tested on how much I think about them and what conclusions I come to). Mostly, I have been completely consumed with my presentation for soci4200 on Marcuse, which I may inflict upon this blog just because no one should be without knowledge of repressive desublimation (or because I like to promote collective suffering and not just the suffering of my poor brain). Anyways, so I’m battling the wind the other day to get to my car, I sit down and turn on the ignition and what do I hear on CBC?
A NEW DINOSAUR HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!! That’s right, Land Before Time move over because right here, in Alberta, we’ve got our very own unique, indigenous species of enormous creationism-defying reptile, the “Albertaceratops nesmoi”. Whoot, whoot.

Wait, there’s more! My euphoria of talk-radio mindlessness was added to by an excited conversation between the radio host and the discoverer of this new dino. They bantered back and forth and then something great came out: the part of the species name “nesmoi” is really named after the rancher, Cecil Nesmo, whose land they found the fossils burried in. So there you go people, all you need to do to have a dino named after you is let people dig up your land, that’s much easier than purchasing a star to have it named after you.
And our narcissism continues…
Well, here’s a news story about it.
It just brightened up my day to hear about something that’s basically non-political, somewhat non-economic and listen to it being treated so very seriously, like a scientific breakthrough. And I guess it is a breakthrough, into the past, but people seem so focused on the future that, like me, they probably would have found the radio show somewhat humourous.
Not to knock the people who research dinos, paleontologists (I think), or dinos themselves, they’re pretty cool. However, dinosaurs are nothing new to Alberta, there’s Dinosaur Provincial Park where many fossils are found, Devil’s Coulee Dino Museum where they have a dino embryo, and of course the Tyrell Museum thing. After working in tourism, you learn that either people really LOVE dinosaurs or…not so much.
And now for “The Land Before Time XXXV: The Search for Al Qaeda

Jeez, there’s some pretty messed up stuff on YouTube.

Thank you News-vertisers January 29, 2007

Alright, so I’ve used that ‘infotainment’ conversation to death but I wanted to mention one simple thing tonight. I have been watching the news for the last two days and hearing about the Conservative Party’s attack ads against the Liberals. With each broadcast, they the news program also shows one of the commercials… Like this:

And so I wonder if the news programs, which are supposed to be unbiased, understand that they are basically getting these ads more viewers since people like me who hardly watch any television generally watch the news (especially since it is the only thing on my 4 channels during dinner time). Soon after this segment was a typical 10-minute filler about hockey fans, this was not in the ’sports’ section but rather a great, breaking story about fans’ dedication to the NHL… hrm, Flames make money, yes?

Well, I am not quite so dumb as to not realize that I have just put up the Conservative ad and thus, while talking about it, somewhat advertising for them. That is not my intention, I think I might as well give you all a sample since I am not a news company and it is not my duty to try and produce unbiased news. In fact, it is my opinion that attack ads are not the Canadian way; all they indicate is the fear held by the party that is producing them. I believe they are low blows and probably any politician (any person) could be caught with his/her pants down sometime and be humiliated by having that put on television. I also posted that video because, wow, in searching for an attack ad sample I found this one posted by a user that claims to be the Conservative Party of Canada, added 4 days ago. So there, I guess that is your newsflash, Canadian political parties now spreading through Youtube (if I am late to discover this and it is old news, sorry!).

In other news, Dr. Todd on the Miracle Channel believes God cares so much about my financial situation that if I give $100 to Dr. Todd, I will be superbly blessed for the next 100+ days. Dude. I guess if I am watching this, I really may want to think about getting satellite out here in the country. Heh, actually it is pretty fun that I never know what I will find on this channel. Meh, it could happen or it could not, I am not trying to make fun of anyone, just be aware.
That’s Dr. Todd, boy is he hardcore, this is from his webpage:
“Imagine being saved, healed of ADHD, and preaching your first message at the age of ten, that’s exactly what happened to Dr. Todd Coontz. He started preaching on a consistent basis at the age of fifteen and attended Bible College just after turning nineteen. One year later he began full time evangelistic ministry.”
And here’s a link to a report that associates Dr. Todd with a different church guy that has been accused of shady financial dealings (note – you do need to look a bit to find his name in the article).

Bloggity, Blog, Blog January 26, 2007

Things that rock my world:
- hookahs with orange juice in the base instead of water and orange shisha (not for marijuana, just so you know)
- Apple’s mighty mouse. I mean, come on, just because it always thinks you are right clicking does not mean that the scroll ball and squishy side buttoms are not awesome. Anyways, it beats the finger pad thing that is on my laptop. (not for marijuana, just so you know)

There, now that I have gotten those two tidbits of mindlessness out of the way, I will proceed with trying to make a post. Just wanted an easy way for people to know this one for sure is not going to be marked Soci 3390. However, rest assured, it was going to be. I was going to write a kickass post after I read a reading for the week because, frankly, I think I am just wasting time if I do not know anything and expect people to reply to my junk for marks (or to feed my ego). So I read Ch 6 The Web (dun dun dunn) since Paul said the text chapters were of highest priority. Now, here is where we cut the textbook some slack, please consider:
- it is a sociology textbook. Soc texts have a long history of suckiness and constant outdated-ness
- it is trying to be simple, this is why I need a whole bullet paragraph to tell me what “external links” are
- sure it is the fourth edition, but that usually means updating a few pictures and changing the page numbers so the company gets money from all the kids that cannot use the Used ones. Therefore, yes, it is expected the text would explain how graphics really suck on a 56K modem but even my hippie parents have high speed now
- the authors are wimps, and they have to be to please everyone. I am glad Paul is going to teach a class on porn because the book reeeally backed out of that subject
- it is trying to be Canadian, whatever that may be
Alright, so you get it hey? My main beef is that in order to look at how the internet is a component of mass communication and how it affects us, I do not need to know the innerworkings of the gear itself (such as what bandwidth or a fibre optic cable are). So, with hope and an itchy brain, I will move on to the other readings, it is such a very good thing that they have been provided. **Please note though, this is not a knock to the choice of textbook because, having experienced many worse soci texts than this, I bet there really is not much else out there. So cudos to Paul for giving us alternatives too.
Yes, even though that is my opinion, you can classify it as sucking up and give me a wedgie after class.
Well … You know what I am going to do, I am going to post this and then write a better entry. Until then, here is my story about this video. I was online last night doing my WebCT assignment for a class where we all have to reply to a question on the discussion board, much like blogging but with less options. So this week we are talking about drug companies and how they make so much money. We have over 60 people in the class and many of them had posted already so I could not think of anything new to say and was on youtube looking for vids of drug commercials and found this. In my lack of sleep state, I almost posted it but considering it is a fairly serious class it would not have been in good taste. Rather I can inflict it on all of you:

Muh hah hah hah, happy friday everyone.

Video killed the Radio Star? Not Quite January 17, 2007

Ask a Ninja: What is Podcasting?

Okay, that was the intro (to either hook you, get that song stuck in your head, or annoy you to no end) and now we are going to talk intelligently. As seen in class last Wednesday, the popularity of radio has gone down…way down, almost as if it is this archaic technology that should have been thrown away with cassette tapes. Afterall, here in this city, there really is not much to choose from if you do not like adult contemporary, Nickelback, hip hop, or the eclectic mix that the university puts out. Plus, let’s face it, CBC is not always as riveting as intellectuals would like to think. So what is a person to do? Disown radio and make sure you have a stack of CDs in your car so large that you will never ever get tired of them? That is what I did. However, now you can plug in your iPod (or iPhone ) to your iTrip and listen to a whole new kind of radio…
Only it is not called radio…
PODCASTS!!!
Unlike what the Ninja told you, podcasts are files that you can download (and quite a few are free) and then you can experience them. I say experience because they come in audio form, like radio shows, or video form, like TV shows, or – according to the Apple store – even iPod game downloads that fall into the podcast category. More to my point, the pioneer podcasts (and when I say that, I mean like 2003ish) were audio and people still listen to them today. Every week my friend downloads the CBC Radio 3 podcast, sticks it on his iPod, and listens to it until he knows the words to every single song.
So why would people listen to audio podcasts when they have dropped radio from their “fun” lists? For one, podcasts can be matched to an individual’s interests – just like we were talking about how people pick their favourite TV shows and websites and the media is vast enough for everyone to only take in what they like. Right now I am subscribed to AudioDharma, a Buddhist lecture series, Learn French Podcast, and Fox’s O.C. podcast (summaries of the episodes incase I miss them). The choices go on forever.
However, I believe that the most important quality of podcasts is that they are not bound to time like radio. I cannot count the times that I have decided to give radio a chance and switched it on while I was driving only to catch the tail end of a good show or to miss something interesting completely, therefore being left with classical music or advertising. In Ch.12 of the text, it talks about the hysteria caused by the reading of War of the Worlds over the radio, well just think how much that would have been avoided if everyone had been listening from the beginning or made the conscious decision to listen to something titled “War of the Worlds – Fictional Novel” (however, the text’s mention of perceptual selection is not to be overlooked, some people may always only hear what they want). Audio Podcasts are radio when you want it, just like Youtube and video podcasts are TV when you want it. In the rush of our current society, no one has the time to sit around waiting for a good show, we all have the need to control what we do and when.
There are, of course, implications to this new technology. Whereas radio is free and accessible to most people, podcasts require that you have a computer and an internet connection at the very least, if you want to listen to them outside of your home you also need an iPod or a laptop and if you want to listen to that in your car…well there is another $60 bucks. So it seems that those who cannot afford these luxeries, like me, must still deal with the dilemma of radio. But is it not somewhat comforting to know that the tradition of oral myths and information transfer is not dead and that when you do start making money, there is an amazing technological alternative?
Oh, and almost anyone can make a podcast, just like Youtube videos, therefore big media owners like CanWest cannot monopolize the podcasts Canadians listen to. I am not trying to make this sound like the best technology on earth though, let me know what you think of it and if you can see other downsides to this phenomenon of podcasting.

Here goes… January 10, 2007

Blogging hey? I had a blog once but I started it as a cathartic teenagers and as I grew up, I didn’t want people to read my backposts about ‘hotties’ and embarassing moments. Also, the same thing that Professor Lawton was talking about happened, the most interesting people just stopped posting. Actually, there was a pretty scary rumor that someone who had deleted his/her blog account decided life was not worth it anymore (if you know what I mean) so avoiding that topic became pretty depressing and difficult – for a teenager at least. However, on the bright side, I’m sure grown-up’s blogs are much less dramatic. I wonder if we’ll talk about the trend of teens spending hours upon hours surfing the net and instant messaging. Particularly, I’ve noticed that if the 13-17 year olds want to coordinate a social gathering, they’ll IM each other and only use the phone if that doesn’t work. I think if I were to do that, I wouldn’t catch all my friends online at the same time or else someone would get the time or place wrong, etc. But these teens are probably experts at the whole thing by now.

Hey look at that, I went to google an image for “addiction” as in “internet addiction” and it brought me to a Greys Anatomy Addiction website link but that was out of commission so I actually ended up at the wordpress tag listing for Greys Anatomy. I’m sure some people in the class will be able to find conversations of interest there.

So just incase you missed anything while the professor was going over the WordPress features, I thought it was kind of neat that I was able to find WordPress tutorials on Youtube. Here’s one:

Please note: On a Mac, many of the tools look different so I still have not found the spellchecker yet.