Friday the 13th

The movie i watched was friday the 13th. It's an old movie from the 80's where a killer goes around a summer camp type of place killing the people who live there. The killers name is jason. I found this movie more comical then scary. It was made well back in the 80's when it came out, but now it is just funny to watch with all the upgrades in technology and horror movies. The way most of the kids are killed in this movie is very cheesy and can be prevented. It is also very easy to predict what will happen next and to see something coming before it even happens. The cabin all the counselors stay in is cabin 13 and the movie happens to take place on friday the 13th. The killer actually turns out to be a camper that drowned many years ago by the name of jason. The counselors never realize this because none of them really paid attention to what they were taught, warned, or told. Jason kills them one by one by isolating them and then slaughtering them. There is of course though one survivor as there is in every horror movie ever made like this whose name is alice. The movie ends on a cliffhanger when she wakes up in the hospital and asks about jason, and the police say they never found him.

I woke up this morning and decided to go outside my dorm for a quick cig before i grabbed some breakfast when i noticed something was wrong. It wasnt very hard to notice that there were two of my dorm mates walking down the hall covered in blood screaming brains!!! I thought this was a joke at first untill they tried to bite me. As i made my way outside i was in shock, it looked as if half the campus had been destroyed by something big, seeing as how there was a giant crater that took up what used to be jeff hill. There were also many other people looking like the ones i saw in my dorm chasing around the few lucky survivors. The smell in the air was horrible too, a mixture of death and rotten eggs. It seemed as if it was coming from the dust that was quickly rising out of the crater and blanketing all of campus. The only noises i could hear were brains!!! or the occasional scream from help from one of the few survivors. That is when i realized i had a zombie apocalypse on my hands. The future i see is way different then ridley scotts because there are no androids, there is no society or rules, just humans trying to survive as long as possible. The only similarity is the bad smelling haze that grows by the minute. Other than that my future resembles zombieland more than Blade Runner.

This scene was very dark and sketchy. The lighting made it hard to see a lot of what was going on, and most of the light was directed on the faces, with a lot of the background or bodies blacked out. There was also ominous music playing in the background which magnified the darkness and made it even sketchier. The costumes also added to this effect, being very simple and very dark, brown and black. The dialogue between the characters was simple, short, and somewhat ominous. It was obvious that there was a lot of tension during that scene, and i think the dark lighting, dark costumes, and "dark" dialogue set that feeling up very well. Most of the sentences between the two characters were short, and somewhat accusatory. It was quite obvious that it was a tense moment when they met each other and began to speak. They also tended to give each other dirty looks which were discrete but added to the overall feeling of the scene.

This scene was supposed to be very tense, and very dramatic. The person talking was very slow and direct with his words, in a creepy low kind of voice. There was very dramatic music playing softly in the background the entire time so it was meant to evoke emotions and create a dramatic end to this characters life. Deckard was supposed to feel some sympathy for this character, and also grateful that he survived. The lighting was dark and it was raining the entire scene, so that also set up the drama. It was a typical dramatic death scene that was supposed to evoke emotion from the audience which was supposed to be a mixture of sadness, confusion, and a little bit of worry. Music and dialogue can be used to evoke many different types of emotions, whether anger, sadness, or humor. This was more directed towards sadness with how slow and direct the character was speaking. It was also a change from the characters normal demeanor through the rest of the movie, and that was intended to catch the audiences attention too.

Now that all the replicants and tyrell are dead, deckard has no job to do anymore. His life will spiral downwards into a life of drugs, alcohol, and cheap women. He will resort to stealing or committing crimes to support this lifestyle. He already had very obvious emotional problems in his life, and now that there is nothing more for him to do in his job, he will just drink and use drugs all day. He really has nothing to live for anymore. He really didnt have any talents other than killing androids, and has no real chance of getting back on the police force, so his life has become quite meaningless. He will work series of meaningless jobs, and this will cause him to spiral even further downwards, untill he reaches a black hole of depression, when he will most likely die while doing something stupid while under the influence. That is of course unless somehow the manufacturing of androids is continued by another person with the same abilities as Tyrell, Then deckard will be fine untill he drinks himself to death.

The research for file sharing online is going pretty well so far, there is alot of information but i have to be careful about points of view, because there are different people who are very passionate about one side of the argument or the other, and i need to not listen to those, and compile all the facts and find more neutral viewpoints. My research question is how can we make file sharing legal without hurting the music/movie industry? I have found information on the amount of money that is lost from file sharing, whether illegal or "legal", and the different types of file sharing and the loopholes in some of the laws that pertain to file sharing, as well as p2p sharing. One solution i have found is to completely make file sharing and p2p sharing completely illegal, or to make it a subscription type of service where you pay each month or once a year to download or share music and movie files. The one that seems best so far is making it completely illegal because this is the only way that the loopholes could be fixed and it could be monitored easily.

Two papers, two different styles of writing

While the two papers we have written so far were on the same sort of content, they were very different. I thought that the summary/response to the cloning article that we did for the first paper was far easier. It was alot easier to write a 4-5 page paper summarizing the material and then choosing one side of the issue and writing about that. I also enjoy an educated argument so that made it very easy for me to write the paper. The visual analysis was a little harder to do, but not much. The biggest problem i had with the visual analysis was to keep coming up with new, fresh, ideas, and not repeating myself at all. I also did not think that blogging helped very much. I found that writing a rough draft, peer-reviewing, then writing a final draft was the most helpful. The rough draft gave me a base to start with, and then once i got three students opinions on my rough draft it made it alot easier for me to make changes, and add things into the paper as compared to starting from scratch and writing 5-6 pages. I feel like my writing has improved a little bit this year from the first to second paper, but it would have been alot easier to start with the visual analysis and move to the summary response. The easiest part out of either paper was by far the summary, because all you had to do was give the reader a very condensed version of what I was summarizing. That is why i preferred the summary/response paper.

Technology

There were a few things that i found interesting in what we watched today in class. The first is when they were talking about the handles on peelers, which are very simple and dont get much thought. They went around and did multiple studies and looked into multiple ideas, just to improve the handle on a potato peeler. This seems like its alsmot dumb to put all this work in but if they users of the product like the changes then it will create alot of revenue. Another thing i found interesting is how much work goes into designing and manufactiruing what seems like simple everyday objects, such as toothbrushes, or chairs, or potato peelers. There are so many steps in this process and so many things that have to all go right to make these, not to mention the people behind the scenes brainstorming and coming up with ideas, all in an effort to advance technology. The third thing i found interesting is how much the inventors and the people in charge of this technology really look into even the smallest deatails. The one asian designer of that cell phone was talking about how part of the reason he designed it the way he did is because people like to play with their phones in their hand and pockets, so he needed to make a design that made that possible. Its crazy that designers look into things so much and look at even the smallest details that seem completely irrelevant, but i guess thats what needs to be done to further advance technology

Farenheit 451

The apocalyptic movie I chose to watch was Farenheit 451, and this movie was awful. The plot of the movie is basically firefighters burn books instead of put out fires in an attempt to curb individualism. The main character in this movie is Guy Montag, who is a firefighter that in the end becomes an advocate for books. His wife is Linda montag, and she is a very proper and nice lady who is a housewive. Those are the only two characters who are specifically named and focued on in the movie, however there are many smaller characters. The movie was made in 1966, so the setting is portrayed to be futuristic which is far from true watching it today.

Guy meets a woman on a train who follows him after he gets off, and after finding out that he is a firefighter she asks him many questions, such as why do they burn books, did they ever used to extinguish fires instead of putting out books, and if he has ever read any of the books they burn. This triggers his imagination, and at the sites where they burn books that have been found, he tends to take a couple home with him. This is very risky due to the fact that books are illegal, and his wife is totally against this. As he brings more and more books home and reads more he realizes what he is doing at the fire department is wrong, and after being told abotu a society that embraces books, he decides to quit his job. The day he quits the chief talks him into one more mission, and ironically enough he ends up at his own house. He burns his books, but also burns the chief, killing him. Guy then escapes and makes it to the society in the woods where all the book advocates, including the lady on the train live. Overall this movie was not very well put together, didnt make sense at times, and was also very predictable.

Terrible end

I thought the last scene started out well with Deckard going into the apartments and being confronted and killing the first android swiftly, but then it started to get drawn out. Leon, the last surviving android first comes down from Tyrell's home and sees that Pris has been killed and is visibly upset. He then runs behind a wall and actually reaches through, grabs Deckard's arm, takes his gun, breaks his fingers, and then gives his gun back and tells him he has a few seconds to run. After that the chase is on. This is where the scene starts to get monotonous and very annoying. First they chase eachother through the bottom floor, then when all looks doomed for Deckard he manages to poke a hole through the cieling and get up to the next floor, which is very unrealistic. Then Leon busts his head through a wall and goes after Deckard again. This brings nothing new to the scene, just repetition. After this Deckard goes out the window (we clearly know hes not going to fall to his death) and somehow manages to scale the side of a building with 2 broken fingers in the rain. (once again highly unrealistic)  He then attempts to jump from one building to the other when Leon comes on the roof (Woah, didnt see this once coming) and of course he lands on the edge and is holding on for dear life. For some reason Leon jumps over and lifts him up over the edge onto the roof, then sits down and says "time to die," lowers his head, and shuts down. I dont think i have ever watched what im guessing was to be an action scene end this terribly.

Climax

I thought the climax of this book was somewhat predictable, but good at the same time. I was however shocked when it was revealed that Mercerism is completely false and Mercer doesn't even exist. That meant that the empathy boxes in which you fused with mercer were a complete hoax too and was only a figure of the Humans imagination. I was not shocked when it was revealed that Buster Friendly was an android, i got a feeling that he was when it was revealed that he did 40 hours a day of tv and radio which is not even possible for a human to do. I did think that Rick was going to successfully retire all six androids in one day, however i did not think it would be that easy for him to do the last three. It helped that John told him about the androids in his apartment, even after promising the androids he wouldnt. I think that john didnt mean to give up that information, but since he is a special he accidently let it slip without even realizing what he was doing. Now that Rick has retired those six androids he is contemplating retiring as a bounty hunter and joining anothewr section of the department which is kind of suprising, but at the same time he is beginning to feel empathy towards androis because he now view them as living so he has a good reason to quit. Overall this book met my ecpectations, and i thought it flowed very well and made alot of sense. It was easy to follow and easy to get into as well.

How well can an android blend in?

One scene that i found particularly interesting in this novel is the one where Rick is arrested while attempting to administer an empathy test to Luba Luft. He is utterly confused when the policeman doesnt not recognize him or his superior and claims that Rick is not a bounty hunter. He is taken down to the station and booked on multiple charges. He is also shocked when he is taken into the station since it is not the one he is used to operating out of, and has never seen or heard of it before. He also does not recognize the police chief, any of the officers, or the bounty hunters from that station.When he attempts to call his wife, he dials his phone number and a random lady shows up on the screen. After talking to the police chief for a while, he finds out that the police chief as well as some of the officers are in fact androids posing as human police officers. Thew bounty hunter, Phil Resch, is not aware of this, and ends up killing the police chief when he finds out. I find it shocking that these androids could run a fake police station and have everyone, even a proffesional bounty hunter convinced that they are humans. Rick came very close to being killed that day, as did Phil, all because they could not tell that they were essentialy surrounded by androids. I also found it interesting that these androids are so technilogicallly advanced that they can pose as humans no problem, and run something like this without any humans, even the police being aware of what is going on. I just want to know, how did the SF PD not know about this at all or discover it?

Read and Revise

The most interesting concept i found while reading chapter eleven was to use multiple drafts. I have always only done a rough draft, and then a final draft in all my writings. I never even considered any more than that. After reading this however i learned that most successful writers use multiple drafts before they reach a final product. One of the most helpful things about writing multiple drafts is that it allows writers to overcome the limits of short term memory. That way they can have all their ideas on paper and add new ones when they come instead of trying to absorb all the knowledge on the subject they're writing about. Multiple drafts also let the writers come up with new ideas and put them all on paper, and not even worry about correctness untill later in the process of writing. It makes it alot easier to go back and eliminate useless parts of a paper as well. Some drafts can come after peer editing or others can come after the writer learns new information on the subject he's writing about. Also, when a writers produces multiple drafts it is more likely that his work will be more thorough, full of information, and grammatically correct. Overall i'd say writing multiple drafts makes the process of finishing a paper alot easier.

Animals.. the next big thing?

I found it quite interesting how big of a deal it is to own an animal in post-war days in this novel. Its understandable due to the fact that most of the animals went extinct, but it seems like animals are used to show status. The fancier or rarer the animal, the higher up in society the owner is. It seems as if your status depends on your animal. If you don't have an animal, you are no one. You could always get a "fake" animal for a good price, but if anyone found out then you were looked at differently. Rick even carries around a catalog with animal prices that vary depending on condition, age, and how rare the animals are. It seems crazy to me that having an animal is such an important matter, personally and socially. There are even animal dealers and animal catalogs where you can order animals such as ostriches, dogs, cats, mice, and many others. There are some however that you cannot find, with the rarest being an owl. Its funny how animals were once not worried about at all and just looked at as part of everyday life, but now are looked at as entitys that show your class and your worth as a person. It is also a horrible thing to let your animal die, whether accidentally or on purpose. An owner must take many steps to insure the safety and well being of his animal. Back before the war birds were a common sight, but since the war, they are the rarest animals of them all. Rick is amazed when he is shown a living owl while at the Rosen Association Building. Its crazy to think about how important even the smallest and simplest animals really are in this post war society.

A&B Concepts

Over the past few days we have done a lot of reading in the A&B Guide to Writing, and there are quite a few interesting concepts i came across. I would have to say the most interesting concept to me is the difference between closed and open prose. I was not even aware there were multiple forms of prose before reading this, and when i read the differences my mind was just about blown! I thought that every paper ever written had a thesis, and boy was I wrong. In open forms of prose there usually isn't a thesis, but rather an implicit theme instead. Closed forms of prose are more instructional and all tie back to the thesis, whereas open forms are chronological and usually are used to deepen a problem, or show its human significance. Another interesting concept is that good writing isn't usually about following the rules, but instead its about thinking critically and asking good questions. Some critical thinking skills crucial to good writing that professors love to see are; The ability to pose problematic questions, the ability to imagine alternative solutions to the problem, and the ability to write an effective argument. All through high school i had been taught that writing was a pretty straight forward process and in order to be successful one must follow the rules. In reality however, that is far from the truth. One must still follow some rules, such as grammar, formatting, punctuation and all that fun stuff, but at the same time you can branch out and be creative. A big part of a successful piece of writing is the writers angle of vision and the question the writer is attempting to ask, or the message the writer is trying to send. A writers stance on certain issues is also very crucial to a paper, and that stance can be decided by former life experiences. So not only can you be creative and branch out while writing but you can actually use experiences from your past to help you become a great writer. I was shocked to learn all of these new concepts about writing!

First Post

This blog will be one of the main areas of activity this year for Eng. 151. It is an interesting yet seemingly effective way to teach writing. Every student in the Eng. 151 class is required to create a blog and maintain it by posting on it regularly. The main focus of the class this year is apocalypse which is why you see the picture above. The reading that I am exposed to most often is either novels or news sources such as newspapers or magazines. Some of my favorite novels are detective stories, and my favorite author is John Grisham. Other than English class my senior year the extent of my recent writing is facebook wall posts or status updates. Some of my favorite writing assignments in High school were argumentative papers or persuasive papers. I feel like I'm really good at being persuasive, so when a topic strikes my interest and its a persuasive writing assignment, i can write for days. I also enjoyed research papers if it was over a topic that i was interested in. I am constantly exposed to the newest technology, whether its Blackberrys, I-pods, or computers. I love technology and i can play around with it all day. If there is ever a problem with someones electronic it seems like I'm always the person to come to if you want it fixed.