WALL-E..Animated, Entertaining, and Trashy!

So I must admit that I am pretty excited that we are watching the movie Wall-E in Eng tomorrow. As lame as it may sound it's one of my favorite animated movies that has come out recently. It's safe to say that I'm not alone in that aspect considering this movie just won best animated film of the year at the Oscars.

I like the movie mainly because while it was entertaining to children it also held a deeper message to the rest of us. I mean the concept behind the purpose of the movie seriously sounds like what someone in America would come up with to solve the overload of trash on this planet. Simply send people on a vacation in space while the robots clean up our mess. However the creator of the movie, Andrew Stanton, states that the purpose of the movie was only to be a love story and if anyone got any different message than that was on their own.

I mean most of the film plays on imagination but some of the movie could seem realistic. Could our planet look like that in the future? Who knows but it definitely makes me think twice about how much I throw away/recycle.

Ok with all the serious real life relations aside...I think the movie is adorable. Who knew that even a robot could fall in love. Eeeeeeva! haha

I think the detail is phenomenal. Definite props goes out to the animators, artists, writers, voices, etc. Also in addition to detail, it is amazing how great the film is even when there is no talking for at least half of it.

One of the biggest eye-openers of the movie is the fact that unlike most humans, this little robot sees most trash as treasure and finds means for its use. At one point he even finds a diamond ring in a case...he tosses away the ring and is fascinated with case. haha

I was about to end this blog until I just remembered I can't end it until I say what I think is the funniest part of the movie. How hilarious is it when Wall-E gets on the big cruise ship and everyone is sooooooo huge! haha..and no the funny part is not the fact that they are fat because I have no room to talk about that...but the reason why they are fat. It is so true that if technology was advanced enough people would be that lazy. I mean think about all the technology that has already come out that makes people a little more lazy each day....elevators, escalators, cars, machinery, etc. I don't know that's just my opinion.

Topic for Paper 2...and then some...

For the next paper I decided to choose a newspaper article (found online) about the effects of global warming on polar bears and compare it to the commercial on TV sponsored by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) talking about the extinction of the polar bears based on climate change.

The article is titled Is "Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?" By Jim Carlton (Staff reporter of the Wall Street Journal). I chose this article because it was from a pretty reliable source being that the Wall Street Journal is a pretty popular newspaper. I also chose it because one of the things I will bring up in my paper is the question of who will people pay more attention to and find their information more reliable when it comes to talking about environment and polar bears? The random reporter from the Wall Street Journal or the guy stating facts based on the World Wildlife Fund people who pretty much worship animals and dedicate their lives to the preservation of species?

I guess there also the whole idea that the commercial is more appealing than just reading the article due the whole visual thing. In other words, the depressing mood setting music and visuals of the polar bears in despair could easily attract someone faster than an article could in most cases. I mean come on I was practically in tears when the guy was talking about the momma bear not being able to feed the baby bear..and then they just jump in the water not knowing their fate. So yea the commercial worked its magic on me..I am even considering donating to that fund of theirs...and BINGO thats what they want you to do!

The article on the other hand isn't really trying to get you to do anything. The writer is actually just stating information based on the U.S. Minerals Managment Service and other sources. He isn't trying to convince everyone to stop global warming...he is honestly just giving information about the situation as a whole.

The fact that a celebrity is speaking in the commercial may boost people's want or interest to pay attention. I mean BAM it's right there at the beginning of the commercial when the dude starts talking...it says "Noah Wyle- actor and WWF supporter"...I mean they even listed the actor part before the fact that he is a WWF supporter. The article isn't written by a celebrity...or some super famous reporter (I mean I've never heard of Jim Carlton)..so would that make a difference in who reads the article or not? Well I don't think so simply because there are people who like to read the newspaper despite the popularity of the reporter or writer...however for the typical person it might make a difference.

The article goes more in depth when it comes to info about the polar bears etc.

However, the commercial covers the basics in about a minute of appealing visual and persuasive, sympathetic speech compared to a page of words with no pictures. (I guess it all depends on what you like more..to read or watch a commercial)

Anyways..I think I have gotten a pretty good idea of where I am going to go with my paper...so that's exciting lol.

So Many Commercials....

I decided to post the link for the advertisement we are supposed to find for class on monday on here. I chose the commercial for Hulu. For those of you who don't catch what it is while watching the ad, Hulu is a website that offers commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, FOX and many other networks and studios.The commercial is kind of lame but I guess after a while it grows on you...after I saw it for like a third time I chuckled a little.

When I first saw it I really didn't expect that whole alien eating our brains kinda thing. But I think that is what makes it funny.

Sorry so short....but I don't know what else to say about it haha

For my TV blog I am going to blog while watching the show Top Chef on Bravo. I really like this show because I enjoy cooking...not as fancy as they do though lol.

10:00 pm-flashbacks from previous episode...Fabio, Stefan, Carla, Hosea
The show has been moved from New York to New Orleans.

10:04 pm-introduce guest judge Emeril.

10:05 pm-intro quick fire
Three chefs from earlier in the season that were voted off are competing for a spot in the finals: Jeff, Leah, and Jamie.
The challenge is to create a dish by using crawfish.

10:08 pm-start quick fire

10:10 pm-time is up
Jeff made-crawfish and grits
Leah made-crawfish soup
Jamie made-corn cake with crawfish cream sauce

10:12 pm-announce winner
Winner is:

10:13 commercial break
Make me a supermodel commercial-new season starts March 4th on Bravo
Glad odor shield trash bags commercial
Lame Hulu commercial with Alec Baldwin
GE commercial
Toyota Venza car commercial
Jenny Craig commercial
The Art Institute commercial
Holy cow I give up on naming the commercials..there are so many

10:16-And the winner is
JEFF-He will be competing in the next challenge..but to make it to the finale he has to win the next challenge

10:17- Emeril invites chefs to dinner at his restaurant tonight

10:20- Announce Elimination challenge
Create two dishes and one cocktail including creole flavors for 100 people at the Masquerade Ball Mardi Gras style
Prepping and cooking for 5 hours and 1 hour to set up.
If Jeff wins the challenge then two chefs will be elimenated. Additional prize-new 2009 Toyota Venza

10:23-commercial break
Millionaire Matchmaker-tomorrow on Bravo
Match.com commercial
Brita commercial
Olive Garden commercial
Prego sauce commercial
Ask.com commercial
Sargento cheese snacks commercial
New movie trailor for "Knowing"
Quaker oats commercial

10:26-Chefs talking it out the night before the challenge

10:27- MORE COMMERCIALS?! wtf?
Toyota Venza commercial
Geico commercial
Wal-mart commercial
Turbo Tax commercial
Listerine commercial
Infomercial-Samurai peeler....lame
Real Houswives reunion on Bravo on Tuesday
Make Me a supermodel commercial again

10:30- Chefs head to Emeril's kitchen which is where they get to prep for this challenge
Prep time
Chef Plans: (I just listed one dish because I didn't catch the other dishes)
Carla-Oyster stew
Stefan-Duck and rabbit gumbo
Jeff-fried oyster with sausage
Fabio-sausage and rabbit maque choux
Hosea-duck and chicken gumbo

10:34- One of the head judges (Tom) comes to check on progress
He is concerned about some of the dishes.

10:36- Everybody is scrambling to finish their prep before the time is up

10:37-Each chef is given a bartender to serve a chosen drink by the chef to go along with their meal

10:38- Introduce guest judges. Guests will be coming in 15 minutes.

10:40-Commercial break
Dr. Pepper commercial
Cute but kind of creepy GE commercial
Yet again the dumb Hulu commercial with Alec Baldwin
Glad odor shield trash bags commercial
Millionaire matchmaker

10:45- Final meals served to guests and judges
Mostly positive feedback so far

10:48- Judges are eating the meals one by one and critiqueing them further

10:50- Party/ball is ending

10:51- Chefs say how they feel about the night and how it went

10:52- Previews for "Coming up"
Commercial Break

Millionaire Matchmaker
Match.com commercial
V8 soups by cambells commercial
Movie Trailor for "The Reader"
Monistat commercial..haha nice
Ask.com commercial
Brita water commercial
Season Finale of Top Chef: New York next wednesday
Bravo 2nd annual A-List awards

10:55-Judges' Table
All chefs asked to come face the judges
They describe why they chose the dishes they did and if they were happy with it

10:57- Judges give positive and negative comments to chefs

11:00- Judges send chefs to back so they can discuss decisions
Jeff is in top 3 favorites
They like Carla's dish
Hosea did a great job
Fabio and Stefan are in the bottom

11:05- Annoying commercial break

End- The Judges come to a decision
The chef who won the challenge is: CARLA
Since Carla won then Jeff is automatically out
The chef who is going home is: FABIO (I can't believe they sent him home)
Then they show previews for the finale next week.


Sorry if it seems all over the place..but it was hard to keep up with everything that was going on.

One of my favorite songs

I say it's one of my favorite songs because I honestly don't just have one all time favorite song.

As lame as it is one of my favorite songs is the one hit wonder "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell featuring Michael Jackson. I like it because it's catchy, hilarious, and I like Michael Jackson's voice in the chorus (back when he was still African American).

After reading the lyrics I really didn't know if there was a hidden meaning in the song or if the lyrics were just plain as day.

Either this guy is paranoid and just singing about the creepy feeling someone gets when they feel like someone is constantly watching them or like when you feel like someone is sneaking up behind you.

Or

There is a hidden meaning due to the fact that Rockwell is in fact African American and he feels like he can't live a normal life like everyone else. He feels that his race makes him feel like people are constantly watching him.

I don't know. I personally think he is just singing about the paranoia of feeling like people are watching you all the time. It's too silly of a song to have a hidden meaning...or is it?

Silly Pointless News

The other day I was surfing the internet and I found something that was quite hilarious. On Yahoo.com's home page, they listed "Most Emailed Odd News". I couldn't resist so I clicked on some of the links to read the random reports.

There was one article stating "Ore. man loses earlobe in fight over parking spot." hahaha. Apparently two roomates went at it after one guy parked in a parking spot that the other guy normally parked in. How silly. The brawl ended when one man bit off the other's earlobe. Geez we've got another Mike Tyson on our hands.

Another article read "Man hoping to get fired allegedly trashes eatery". So a man totally trashed (throwing brownies and cookies on the floor,threw pots and pans around, then went into a storage area and threw boxes of hot sauce on the floor) a Qdoba restaurant that he worked for. The man said that "he was trying to get fired and couldn't collect unemployment if he simply quit." This guy got to do something I am sure we have all wanted to do at some point at our job.

This next one made me want to barf. The title of the article was "Woman's record-length fingernails broken in crash.". It's not the title that makes you want to barf, it's the picture of this woman's fingernails and how long they are. She held the Guinness Book of World Records for her long fingernails until she lost them in a car crash. She was fine, but the nails will forever remain in our hearts. hahaha yea right! Those things were 28 feet long! Yikes!

Anyways if you click on any of the article titles you can find more odd headlines linked on those pages. I honestly got a kick out of them. It's kind of nice to read about silly stuff in the news every once in a while.

Flight 3407

On Thursday night, a plane coming from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo Niagara International Airport went down in flames about 6 miles from Buffalo, New York. How did this happen? What went wrong? Were there any survivors? Wizard of Oz effect?

Steve Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board stated, "Preliminary information recovered from the flight's cockpit voice and data recorders indicated that the plane underwent 'severe' pitching and rolling motions after the landing gear was lowered and wing flaps were set for the approach. The crew discussed significant ice buildup, ice on the windshield and leading edge of the wings.The crew attempted to raise the gear and [reset] flaps shortly before the recordings ended."

So you are telling me that there were icy conditions and planes were still flying? You couldn't pay me to get on a plane if there are icy conditions outside....especially where I am scheduled to land.

Sadly, there were no survivors from the crash. All 49 people aboard were killed upon impact. This number included 44 passengers, 4 crew members, and 1 off duty pilot. In addition to the people on board of the plane, there was a man by the name Doug Wielinski on the ground killed as well. My prayers go out to all of the families suffering their losses.

Now I am sure you are wondering why I put the "Wizard of Oz Effect?" up at the top. Well did you read, see, or hear where the plane crashed? RIGHT ON TOP OF A HOUSE! So instead of a house falling on top of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, a plane crashed into a house consisting of two people. Ok maybe it's a wierd comparison but whatever. A woman, her daughter, and her daughter's husband were in the home that the plane crashed into at 10:20 pm on that Thursday. The woman and her daughter escaped, but the daughter's husband (Doug Wielinski) was killed.

To get a more detailed report, I linked the news report in here and you can pretty much look it up anywhere in the news. I chose to write about it because I think it is really wierd how there have been a lot of airplane accidents lately. News report after news report about things going wrong with planes. I tell you what, air travel is beginning to not be my first choice for long distance travel.

WWF- "Who We Are-Environmental Conservation"

For this blog we are asked to find an organization or association for nature. We then have to determine the specific group's goals/message and how effectively they display it.

To begin with, I chose the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). To be honest, I chose to research this one because I saw some random dude walking on campus today with the familar panda mascot and "WWF" written in big letters. I had seen this shirt before when I went to the zoo in Asheboro a couple of years ago.

Anyways, the first thing that caught my eye on the website (besides the cool pictures) was the fact that on the top of the page it states "WWF HAS 2,000 ACTIVE PROJECTS IN MORE THAN 100 COUNTRIES." Well that right there sends a pretty straightfoward idea so far and made me want to know more. They offer tabs you can click on such as "Who We Are", "What We Do", "Places", "Species", "Science", "Climate", and "Act Now". Just looking at it now I am just blown away at how informative the website is. Under "Act Now" you can see to the side in bigger print "5 Ways to Make a Difference-Become a Member, Adopt an Animal, Stay informed, Take Action, or Good Stuff". There are a lot of places to click on things to find out more detail. The pictures are awesome and appealing.

I can clearly understand the message and goal of this organization after reading the "Who We Are" and "What We Do". It even has additional tabs on the left hand side that offer "Vision", "History", "Financial Info", "Annual Report", etc. The ultimate mission of WWF is the conservation of nature but more specifically as follows:

• protecting natural areas and wild populations of plants and animals, including endangered species



• promoting sustainable approaches to the use of renewable natural resources



• promoting more efficient use of resources and energy and the maximum reduction of pollution

"We are committed to reversing the degradation of our planet's natural environment and to building a future in which human needs are met in harmony with nature. We recognize the critical relevance of human numbers, poverty and consumption patterns to meeting these goals."
-WWF

The goal they provide is "By 2020 WWF will conserve 19 of the world's most important natural places and significantly change global markets to protect the future of nature."

The vision for this organization is so simple but has so much meaning behind it: "to save a planet; a world of life."

The messages and goals are clearly provided, the vision is strong, and the website gives you a lot of background and facts to assure you that any money donated goes to a good cause and not just someone's pocket. In addition to looking at the site, I watched a few videos sponsored by the WWF. I liked the one about climate change in the arctic. My favorite animal is the polar bear so it kind of made me sad to watch the videos about their numbers in population dwindling.

All in all I kinda enjoyed this assignment.

A Little Wordy...

The assignment we have been given for this blog is to think about the words you use the most in daily conversation and write (well type) them down. I've been making little notes of words I've used since yesterday so I think I have a pretty good idea of the main ones I use.

The top words I use by themselves are "totally", "awesome", "like", "what?" (I drag this one out like whaaaaaat?), "well...", "dude", "chick", "homegirl", "homeboy", "geez" (not sure if that one is even a word), "ridiculous", "crazy", "ah yea", "nah", "alrighty then", "hokay", "awkward", "lame", and "yesssss". Top phrases I use are "no way", "are you serious", "oh my god", "you have got to be kidding me", "true that", "I have no idea", "I mean...", and "that's ridiculous".

I also tend to quote movies constantly in everyday conversation. Actually most of the inside jokes I have with my friends come from movie quotes. I probably quote characters played by Will Ferrell the most. Then Jim Carrey probably comes next. I mean I'm sure I'm not the only one who quotes movies....well I guess I'm hoping I'm not the only one who has said "I'll be back" with the Arnold terminator accent or "Houston, we have a problem". hahaha ok so maybe I'm just lame.