Now, I love Jessie.  She is a fairly brilliant popstar.  She was 1/3 of the brilliant band Shut Up Stella who had these brilliant songs.

But why would you release the above when you have an absolute MONSTER of a song in this one below:

So “Hit Man” is a few years old?  But back in the day, it was better than the first single, “Push It.”  Most people would agree.  I mean, “Push It” is amazing in how it’s  ”a love song about sex” at the same time as being “a sexy song about love.”  But that is kinda it.

And to follow “Push It” with “Let’s Get Naughty” didn’t do any favors.  Even though the “It’s a dream when you touch me there” post-chorus part sounds absolutely amazing, and the song is overall kinda fierce, the “all my hoes / touch your toes” part is obnoxious and pretty much tailor-made for the party girl whose night needs a much better soundtrack than what she’s currently listening to.

And finally “On With My Bad Self” is kind of…pretty much…terrible.  To be completely straightforward, there is nothing redeemable about it.  It does not have a soaring chorus to redeem only semi-passable lyrics or a video that doesn’t make people cringe when they see it.  It almost makes you wonder where it went wrong.

There is an elegance to “Hit Man” and even “Push It” to an extent that mixes what people see as negatives of pop music (“the trash”) with sweetness.  And her personality/pop persona comes across as being someone you kinda want to hang out with because your night would be awesome.  ”On With My Bad Self” turns her into that awkward girl screaming for attention that you really don’t want to hang out with because you know you’d both get arrested for cocaine possession.  Mostly because she’d be the one yelling to the cops that “we have it on us!!!”

In short, I hope 2013 brings great things from Jessie.  Especially new music I can legally acquire.  However, all I’m saying is that if I don’t get a HQ version of “Hit Man” either on a new EP or that ever-out-of-reach-album that I’m going to be disappointed.  It is probably too late for “Hit Man” to be a single.  Or to make waves as introducing the average Joe and Johanna to Jessie And The Toy Boys.  But it is a brilliant song.  And it was a huge mistake not to release/launch the project with it in the first place.

***

Also: Jessie And The Toy Boys, Jessie and The Toy Boys (Amazon), Jessie And The Toyboys (have unfortunately seen it this way), Jessie & The Toy Boys (see the first of the above videos)…It makes it incredibly difficult to Google properly.  This needed to be sorted out ages ago.

This picture is placed here simply to distract from the massive amount of text in this blog entry.

I was in Kroger a few days ago buying soda and I got very annoyed.  They are carrying 1.5-liter Pepsi products in massive quantities.  They are probably carrying Coke ones too, but I was only focused on getting Dr Pepper, so I wasn’t paying much attention.  BUT, it was very annoying.  You could get a 2-liter for 2/$3.00 or a 1.5 for 10/$10.00.  If I did math, I could figure out the exact “what you’re getting for what” thing, but I don’t do math.  So I’m just going to do it on principle.

My worry (and the main fuel for this rant) is that in the future, they will do away with the 2-liter soda–a staple at parties and, well, just plain America.  In America, you buy a 1 gallon milk and a 2-liter soda.  I understand about counting calories and obesity rates and high fructose corn syrup and stuff.  All of that is very important.

More important, however, is the integrity of what it means to be a staple in America. Sure, Cheerios is a staple, hot dogs are staple, even turkey is a staple once a year.

[And soda goes great with all of them except for Cheerios.  Although I occasionally have Dr. Pepper and Frosted Cheerios for breakfast, so I argue that soda goes great with Cheerios too.  Just not together in the same bowl.  Gross.]

But the 2-liter soda is on a level of its own.  It is something that shouldn’t be messed with.  ”2-liter” is pretty much synonymous with “soda” in America.  Okay, it is difficult to carry and even more difficult to get open at home without it exploding everywhere.  You don’t let five year olds carry it.  But it’s the dream of five year olds everywhere to occasionally carry the soda.  It’s a status symbol.  A symbol, when given from parent to child, that says “Yes, I trust you enough to carry this item from Point A to Point B without shaking it up too much.  And even if you do shake it up, you carried the soda.  So good for you.”

But to replace the 2-liter with a 1.5-liter just seems to be hopping on the downsizing America bandwagon.  We have already had to deal with downsizing ice cream, and chips, and other things that I can’t quite remember on the top of my head but have been downsized and I was quite upset about it.  Oh yeah, the packaging sizes of raspberries and blueberries!  Is there nothing sacred anymore?

Maybe that last .5-liter does go flat before you finish the bottle.  Maybe you don’t need it after all because it is just empty calories.  Maybe 1.5-liters are easier to carry to the checkout.  Either way, what will we use to put Mentos in it to make it explode?  How will science teachers explain tornadoes now?  Any funnels they create by taping two bottles together will be significantly smaller.  When used as water rockets, they will get less air.

As one of the few instances we allow the metric system to be used in this country, 1.5-liter will never be enough.  2-liters forever.

And I have witnessed awful*.

To make matters even worse, it took me FOREVER (split up over 2 days) to find this “About A Girl Sequin Peter Pan Collar Tank” on Kohls.com.

Here is an artistic representation of how it actually looks hanging on the rack and what I would have used as the visual if I had not found it:

However, this would have been a little more appropriate:

The existence of this “tank top” begs to ask+answer the following questions:

1) Why?

2) Doesn’t a “Peter Pan” collar that low strike through the whole purpose of a collar detail thingie?

3) Does it even do anything for your boobs?

I mean…

Maybe it exists because a bow would have been too girly.  Maybe it is that low to catch your extra tit glitter so you can wear even more.  Or maybe it will catch all those cake crumbs that you wanted to eat anyways because it wasn’t your fault they missed your mouth now, was it?  Maybe its completely awkward shape (it looks absolutely DREADFUL in person) actually does make your boobs look fantastic so all the boys and girls want you.  But I will never know because I was too disgusted to even consider picking it up and trying it on.

Now, I will confess I have always had a hatred an intense loathing that is completely justified of Peter Pan collars that are not attached to shirts.  I’ve always felt that there is no point to have a collar just chilling around your neck that is not connected to your shirt.  It’s not a necklace.  You don’t wear it like one.  You don’t wear it with a tank top.  That would be the second most heinous fashion crime ever after the making of this shirt.  So why is it a good idea to mix the two?  It’s not.

But y’all.  We live in a world where it is appropriate to create a tank top with a Peter Pan collar that is significantly lower than necessary.  We live in a world where some poor person will buy this tank top and wear it, instead of not buying it and shutting this trend down like the meth lab it metaphorically is.

What is the point besides it looking different?  And it being a “different” style doesn’t even look good.

I’m sorry, but no.

*And yes.  It was so awful it made me use an adjective as a noun.

But the terrible Madonna song aside, my magic voodoo powers/good song pop-o-meter are all out of sync when it comes to “Glad You Came” by The Wanted.

Q: Is it a good song?

A: I have no idea.  I sure did spend all Wednesday night dying to listen to it for an hour while my computer’s speakers were all out of wack.

***

Okay, so let’s discuss this.  It sounds like a mix between “Stereo Love” by Edward Maya featuring Vika Jigulina and “You Make Me Feel…” by Cobra Starship featuring Sabi.  The latter makes sense because they were both co-written and produced by Steve Mac.  Now is this a good thing or a bad thing?  Maybe a little of both?

Now, it’s bad because when I first heard it, I thought it was a new song by Cobra Starship, which would be not only disappointing and bad if I decided to first check out the band on YouTube before I Googled the song lyrics I could remember.  It’s just not cool when a song sounds like some other artist.  I mean, it’s great for trying to describe the sound to someone else, but not when you’re constantly reminded of the other artist while listening to it.  And also, what if I went to iTunes and wanted to download the song, only to fall in love with the actual new Cobra Starship single and choose to spend my $0.99 on that?  I also am a little upset that yet another song is using the combination of a dance beat with a repeated sample by an accordion.  Trend hopper.  Lastly, I have a problem with the vocals in that they are a little “thin” or “talky” at places, which is okay, but slightly grating at times.  It’s like, “Just SING to me sexy boy-band boy.  I don’t need to be talk-sung to.”

But on the other side, the “talky” vocals are British, y’all.  A British accent always positively improves overall song delivery.  And hopping on the trend works well on the radio because it sounds like a mix of the two.  (More airplay!  Yay!)  The song also sounds like 2011/2012 (it was released in Britain in 2011).  It’s not  a Max Martin clone and it has some unexpected parts about partying, such as “Give you another drink / Drink it if you can” and “I decided you look well on me / Well on me/Let’s go somewhere  where no one else can see / You and me.”  While it sounds like what we’ve heard, it’s not exact.  It feels like home, yet slightly unfamiliar.

However, the biggest plus of all about the song is that it’s titled “GLAD YOU CAME”(!!).  Now, this can be read as sweet, “My universe will never be the same / I’m glad you came.”  Or dirty.  (You don’t really need an explanation for this, do you?)  What is good about innocent-pop-songs-that-sound-dirty-at-the-same-time is that if executed well, is that when they work, they really work.  Not only does it allow for an artist to get more plays, since the innocent will hear it as innocent and the dirty will smirk at the dirty bits.  It allows for that two kinds of reads of pop lyrics-the dirty and the innocent theme-wise.  (For example: “I’ve got a house with windows and doors / I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” from B*Witched’s song “C’est La Vie.”)  But the lyrics are a little sweet too in that they’re saying in a way, “I’m glad you came to the party with me.  That we got to spend this time together.”

When it’s done right, it makes the listener feel smarter because they’ve noticed something.  When it’s done wrong, it ends up like Britney Spears’ “If You Seek Amy,” where the verses make no sense, but “oh my gosh, y’all it sounds like she’s saying something naughty in the chorus.”  Fortunately “Glad You Came” avoids this problem.  The combination of sounding like “Cobra Starship Meets Stereo Love” and a sexual innuendo works for this song, which makes me “Glad I LISTENED to it.”  Just kidding!

I think “Glad You Came” could potentially be in the running for “Song of The Summer 2012.”  If you remember that last year, LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” was released on almost the exact same date on January 25, 2011 (“Glad You Came” was officially released to mainstream US radio on January 24, 2012) and became inescapable over Summer 2011.  The only thing the song has against it is that it was released in the UK in July 2011, so it kind of sounds like Summer 2011, instead of what Summer 2012 should/would be.  Although that’s never stopped a song’s chart performance before.  I’m still out on if I’ll end up hating it after it’s overplayed in six months, but good or bad, I think it’s a pretty good song.  And I don’t feel that bad for liking listening to it.

But I have been doing things.  Loads of things.  Things I’ll be posting about shortly.  Most likely grouped in monthly installments titled “This Is What I Did In…*insert name of month*”.  I’ve also been trying to add my art and crafts to this site because people keep telling me that I can sell them, but nobody ever offers me money for my work (besides family), so it never happens.  THEREFORE in protest of all the money that I’m not getting from my fabulous ideas, I have determined it would be completely okay to give out my secrets for free.  Besides, your versions will never match up inspire me to make new things and we’ll have this whole inspiration circle of stealing each others designs borrowing ideas love thing going on.

So that’s what I’m doing and currently working on.  It’s still rough around the edges and I’m probably going to have to wait for another month to use more of my free Flickr uploading capabilities, but things are eventually going to happen.  And I’m not going to promise that things will be completely better in the future, since I’m terrible at making New Year’s Resolutions, but I do have a renewed determination to update Something Kinda Ooooh on a regular basis.  Especially since I made it so I own the domain “somethingkindaooooh.com” for another year.  I’m paying for it, so I have a need reason to do it.  So there.

As for new additions, I’ve also added a “My Infinite Playlist” page, which will eventually list every album I own, as well as a description of when and why I bought it and if it was a good idea to buy it (a modern take).  I’m looking forward to doing that.  Maybe I’ll update the list with a new album description/essay about once or twice a week.  I’d really like to start getting it done because I have probably over 300 albums, so one a week would take me about six years to do?  Which is unacceptable.  Especially since it’s a fact that I have to buy a new album about once every month and a half or so otherwise I’ll go into music withdrawal, and that’s never a good thing.

I’ve also been doing a little more of my Barbie Art photo shoots.  I haven’t finished my “Seven Deadly Sins-Barbie Style!” yet, but I’m working on it.  It’s all a long process.  I have, however, also started a new series inspired by Lady Gaga’s most recent studio album, Born This Way (it will be discussed in the blog post “This Is What I Did In…June”.  As a teaser, I will show you this, which also conveniently gives this blog post a much needed break in text:

I call this photo “Hair of Glory” because her hair just looks so awesome and she seems really happy, you know, for a Barbie doll.  I’ve also posted a few more photos on my Flickr since I couldn’t wait to see them all lit up on my computer screen and I was bored editing all the photos I took in May.  I assure you that the photos I took in May aren’t boring though.  I just really liked the colors and subjects I shot in June.

So that’s all for now and I’ll be back soon.  Unless the Internet goes down.  But what are the odds of THAT happening?

I originally got the idea after Jim Groom told us about how he really got into Twilight last semester. I used to be a major fan, but I’m a little tired of it now. Even still, I love making fun of it and discussing the characters and how Bella is basically not described because the reader is supposed to pretend to be her to some degree.

Bella (Prom):

Edward:

Jacob (please note ripped shirts):

Community Chest Clothes:

Edward: (Regular and Sparkly)


Jacob:

Make your own Bella–Put yourself in the story!

And you will make friends. Because there are people who do have the same interests as you do. (Unless your interests are really weird, but I am sure you will have something in common with some of your classmates and people who stumble upon your blog.) You will answer to a man called “Reverend” or “Jim Groom” and will be slightly terrified by his weekly emails that will begin to show up in your email inbox. For they will tell you that by the end of the week, you will have accomplished such things as that you will have a domain and it will be connected to some sort of hosting site and you will have to install this foreign thing called “WordPress” by the end of the week.

BUT STAY CALM MY YOUNG ds106 WEBHOPPER! All will be well. You will get your assignments done and you will make things–great fantastic things you will tell your mama about and try to explain to your grandparents about when they call you on the phone every Sunday night and ask you about how your homework is going–such as a video commentary in iMovie that you would have never thought possible or writing, recording, and making a 30 minute radio show (now, since it’s in the future, you’re probably doing it on ds106TV in most likely 3D!!!). You will gain many skills that you can (ab)use for fun and tell your future employers that you know how to use them now. You will show your work to your friends who are not in the class and they will be overcome by jealousy and the fact that they and their work are not known by Jim Groom.

And it is true that in times of great struggle with assignments or if Audacity decides to fail on you and erase your whole project that, yes, you may curse the name of Jim Groom once, or twice, or 3.333339 million times. But don’t worry, my child, it is okay. It is all part of the process. He will ask you to fight back eventually and you must use your creative power to defeat all the obstacles projects he challenges with you each week. He really only wants you to succeed.

In the end, if you stick it out and try a little, you will go on a wonderous journey to the ends of the internet and you will make great art. When you have finished this class, I ask that you return to this post and leave a comment of your own. For if you succeed and remember to come back, when all is said and done that there is only one more thing I can say to you…

My child, you are no longer a “webhopper,” but have fully achieved the title of “web wanderer.”

Now, go forth and conquer the internet.

I first heard about Florrie on Popjustice.com. Her “Introduction” EP is one of the best things I’ve ever downloaded. If you like good pop music, especially anything by Girls Aloud or produced by Xenomania, or you need a good soundtrack of upbeat and amazing songs to get you through exam week next week, I highly suggest you check out Florrie. “Summer Nights” is my favorite song on the EP and “Left Too Late” is drop dead gorgeous.

I’ve been working on this mashup since Tuesday evening in Audacity and this is the tenth “take” on the track. Every so often, I would export the track and put it on my MP3 player and listen to it while I was walking to see if it worked. As I listened to the takes, it seemed that it sounded better when I let the chorus just be the piano mostly, which I think follows the assignment and changes the feel of the song from sort of a anticipating dance stomper to something more bittersweet and chill by letting the piano beats be the “ticks of the time bomb.”

When Florrie Takes Over by Call_lean

I hope it does Florrie justice and I send her a million thanks for letting me use her acappella tracks. If you want to listen to other remixes made by fans or make you own, you should go here.

In case you haven’t heard the original version, here is “When Love Takes Over.” The instrumental track that I used isn’t as crisp in the piano as this one, but I still think it is pretty nonetheless.

I’ve had ideas for mashups, but since I didn’t have the technology (or if I did, I didn’t know I did or how to use it) I’ve never made any. My most recent one (that I feel like sharing) is a mix of Lady Gaga’s “Born This way”, Glee’s version of “Express Yourself”, P!nk’s “God Is A DJ”, and Kelly Rowland’s “When Love Take’s Over”. I think there are mixes of “Born This Way” and “Express Yourself” on YouTube, and I heard talk that “Born This Way” sounds like “When Love Takes Over” and “God Is A DJ,” but I’m unsure if there has been a mix of all three. If there hasn’t, please make one. If you need inspiration, I know how it should sound. If there is, I guess we’re on the same wavelength. Very cool. Please let me listen to it ASAP.

In general, I don’t think a remix or mashup is an “assault on originality” if you bring something new to the table when you use it. When looking at music, yeah, I get a little ticked when someone speeds up a song and calls it a “remix.” True, it’s a new mix of the song, but what else did you bring to the table. Although I do know of quite a few songs that I like listening to them sped up because they sound better. A remix should reinterpret the song (or work) to some degree. I mean, for many techno remixes, you basically just add a dance track, but you know the best ones are the ones that take a way out there dance sample and completely change the song.

Is the art of remix and mashup a “new” art? I don’t think so. I think the act of using something created by one person and using it for your own (or making it your own by using it in a way that is different from what it was intended to be) has always been around. With the rise of Web 2.0, it’s just made the act of getting the materials and making a mashup more accessible and more easier to be found/shared.

I never really considered that remixes or mashups can be used for educational purposes, per say, and I’m still a little confused about the article. On the topic of if you can be taught, I think the art of remix/mashup can be explained and given an example of, however the first and probably many times you attempt to make one. You learn more from the experience of doing it than having someone say “this is how you do it.”

After reading these articles (by Melanie McBride and Brian Lamb), especially Melanie McBride’s, I was wondering if it would be an interesting experiment (or assignment) to have a number of individuals all create original works and then swap them or put them in a pool where everyone must then draw from the original works in the pool to create their own remix or mashup. It doesn’t answer the copyright problem, but it might allow for students to do something perhaps more satisfying or what they want than working with what they may not like that’s free in the archives.

It’s currently being hosted on Vimeo. So yeah.

But listen all, you’ve just got to face the facts that you are not Scott Pilgrim.

Scott Pilgrim defines everything that is amazing in life and enhances it threefold by just his mere presence. You may scoff and say that I’m in love with a 2D Manga-drawn fictional character or just the character that Michael Cera plays in the movie version. But you are wrong. So wrong.

Real life should be like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (the movie version). And this I will show you. Probably by class on Thursday when my videoessay is due.

So far I’ve downloaded the Fastest YouTube Downloader thingie and tried to get clips (because even though I do own the DVD, I do not want anything to “harm my precious Scott”). It didn’t really work last night when I tried to download a clip, but I’m going to see if it works tonight because I’m getting this thing done ASAP. I have too much crap to do this week for classes and for my dance show on Sat/Sun to lose sleep over you, video. I’m hoping to beat you silly with the epic awesomeness of Scott Pilgrim.

So in short: Scott Pilgrim vs the videoessay should be coming soon. Unless it fails to work properly, and then you will see Inception the videoessay, since I have the ability to legally download a digital copy of that.

Just wanted to let you know that today I made a calendar of all the crap I have to do for everything before the end of the semester. I know I should be “cherishing” the time I have left with ds106 Section 3 and my apartment, but frankly, I don’t want to. I want it to be late spring/early summer now. If it could actually be May 8 tomorrow, that would be even better. Partly, because I would have a diploma and partly because I will have a huge mound of birthday gifts to open, but most of all because I would have a great amount of free time. And there is the slight possibility that I’d never have to step inside a school again. Of course, I may end up getting a Masters at some point, but I’m just going to believe I’ll never have to be a student again until the end of this blog entry, so I can at least remain partly sane and excited to never go to school again.

Since I really just want everything to end right now and I have no motivation to get anything done, I’ve made a list of things that I might eventually do once I never have to wake up and do homework again to get me through these next few weeks in my boring, untidy, over humid apartment.

Things I will do with my free time once I graduate/5-6 weeks are up:
-Sleep. I know it’s the old college kid standby, but seriously, I have not gotten like any sleep this semester and it’s really ticking me off. I keep telling people that once I graduate, I’m sleeping for a week straight and only waking up to eat and take showers. It’s funny how they laugh and don’t really believe me…
-My Seven Deadly Sins Barbies. Now since I will have all the time in the world, I will get out my Barbie trunks and make the five I need–Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, Lust, and Greed. I had an idea for two of them yesterday. Should be pretty cool. I’m more excited for this than writing that long paper for Rochantasy…
-Finishing my Rubix cube pillow/purse. Two springs ago, I took a fabric dying and painting class and made 12 colors on the color wheel. Long story short, I took 6 of these and cut them into 3×3 squares and started sewing them onto black fabric to make a cube. I have maybe 2.5 sides done (they’re all hand sewn). And I want to finish them. I have no idea if it’s going to be a pillow or a purse, but it definitely won’t be one of those tacky pillow-pet things for sure.
-Clean all the crap off of my computer. I gave it a good DVD back up and purge yesterday, but I eventually want to remove all of my school related Word Documents that I will hopefully never need again off of my computer. And you know, since I’m an English major, I have what can only be correctly referred to scientifically as a metric crap ton.
-Buy the three books from the Scott Pilgrim series that I’m missing. (Hey, I have to have something on this list that is easily accomplished.)
-Maybe attempt to do an assignment from each category for fun, but this is a very little maybe and it might be squashed by sunblock and strawberry plants.
-Buy two new strawberry plants. I had two last summer and it was the best thing in the world to go out back and pick fresh berries off of them. For anyone who doesn’t know, I LOVE strawberries and will give someone a lot of money and nominate them for a Nobel Prize if they figure out a way that prevents strawberries from molding and becoming overripe in transit.
-Buy, listen, and love Lady Gaga’s new album. It’s out May 23, 2011. I cannot wait to hear “Government Hooker” in full/headphones/cd quality.

So yeah. Today begins Week T Minus 5 overall and Week T Minus 4 of classes. So keep in mind, if you’re procrastinating and reading this blog entry, we only have 8 more days of Tuesday/Thursday classes. So get yo stuff done, yo.

I have two versions saved with html and I’m not happy with either of them. [Edit: Removed them.]

Once I no longer want to throw my computer off the nearest balcony, I may go back and edit them to get the adds from not repeating 5 times. But since I tried to save it as a JPG and a PNG or whatever it is and upload it to flickr, which wouldn’t recognize the files, I have given up for the time being.

Edit: I opened the ScreenGrab in Paint and saved it as a JPEG, which you can see here:

I’m pretty happy about the two below (that use Barbies for the subject/model) and I kind of wish that I had done a complete collection/answer to the scavenger hunt with them (although I don’t know if a plastic Barbie dog would count as an animal). But as I was thinking about doing more Barbie versions of the Seven Deadly Sins, I also thought it would be interesting to see how other people could make their Barbies into art and interpret the sins.

SO MY CHALLENGE:
Grab your old Barbies, grab your child’s, buy a new one, or go to GoodWill or something. Take a picture of a scene with 1 or more Barbies demonstrating one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, and Envy. Do all seven or just one. Take a photo and upload it to Flickr and tag it as requested. Explain your process and how you got to the final scene if you choose to do so.

Some examples…

Wrath:

When I was looking for inspiration, I checked Wikipedia, which says something along the lines of that suicide is the ultimate form of wrath, “a rejection of God’s gifts.” I bought this Barbie from Wal-Mart for $5.00 since I didn’t want to ruin one of my old ones full of sweet childhood memories and yadiyadiyada. I added dish detergent and popped a thin plastic glove to make the bubbles. To color the water and draw the mark on the arm, I used red acrylic paint (mixed with a little black). To make the mirror, I used a piece of plastic with aluminum foil around it and wrote on it using the tip of a pen with the mixed red and black ink. Unfortunately, when I put the blood red in the water, it turned a light pink, but I kind of liked it. It makes some sense too. Don’t you know that Barbie bleeds pink?

Envy:

When I was younger, I loved mermaids, so it’s no surprise that I have two of them. The gold one is from the mid-1990′s while the blue one is late 1990′s/early 2000 or 2001. I always liked it how the gold one allows you to remove her fishtail and allows you to let her sit or stand, while the other one, although prettier with nicer hair and it lights up, only allows her to keep the same position. (Not to mention she has an ugly battery door on her butt). I thought it would be amusing to try to take a picture where one Barbie is envious (blue one is “crying”) of the other since she can remove her tail and reveal a skin-tight skirt, wear heels, and stand.

The following mentions are things that I wish I had thought of, or done, or thought of and then done, or even had the skills to do. They are only the tip of the Sharpie (a metaphor I use rather than the cliche “iceberg” to sound more design/creative to refer to how there are many more things that have been created by the following individuals and other members of the class that I have seen or commented on or haven’t seen and will eventually discover them when I get to the massive amount of posts I still have sitting in my Google reader) of things created by my fellow members of ds106.

I love anything related to Pokemon. Except for their kind of crappy movies, but even they have their good parts. Tempy’s Pokedex entries are hilarious and amazing and I really want to make my own. Major props for the dedication to make them look legit and awesome. I hope you have caught up on your sleep.

Cali4beach’s poetry playlist with plugs is so cute and sad at the same time. I know I already mentioned this in my other post, but it is one of my favorite things she has done, besides taking this lovely picture of me…which was so much fun to do.

Everything about Jordan’s Welcome to the fruitmobile glog is brilliant. Seriously, it is one of my favorite things on the Internet. From the cartoon version of Marshall receiving the #fruitmobile gospel from God, to the perfect capturing of Marshall’s hair, to how my #fruitmobile tweet is listed in the ones below, everything is amazing. I’m really upset there were not as many people (as I expected) to jump on the #fruitmobile. If you are reading this and you HAVEN’T you should do so IMMEDIATELY! I don’t know about you, but I really want to go to Goodwill, buy a wagon, put fruit on it to make a #fruitmobile and pull it down campus walk.

electrovert’s photography from the daily shoots assignment was pretty wicked and I’m majorly jealous of many of the shots. I especially liked “Electricity” “Plugs on a String” and “Spiralbound.”

Finally, Andrew has such a soothing voice. I loved his bitch. I’m so glad he’s in my group for the 30 minute ds106 radio show. Not to be creepy, but I could listen to his chill voice and musings for hours.

So there you have it.

So a few weeks back, I was just sitting at work letting my mind wander and think about stuff, when I got the idea to combine song titles to make poetry. The main goal of this was to make a note to a boy I was talking to, with the intention of sending it if I thought it worked out all right, since we were going to be hanging out for the first time alone on that Saturday and Saturday seemed so far away. So I eventually did, after I got home from work and in between working on homework. After spending many hours debating and replacing song titles, I came up with this:

After I sent it and found out that it was a good idea (he said it made him blush), I mentioned it to a few other peoples *cough* Cali4beach *cough* Jordan *cough*. And they thought it was cool and suggested that I submit it to the ds106 submit an assignment thingie because they wanted to do it too. So I made a poetry challenge playlist and submitted the assignment. Ta-da!

Now it’s like this cool thing to do. I’m really honored and excited that other people have done the assignment. It makes me feel slightly like a trendsetter and I really like seeing what music people have in there music-playing software. There are many songs with interesting titles that I would have never heard about if not for this idea/assignment and I want to hear them now that I know they exist.

So how does this link back to how it’s basically my best idea ever besides the fact that other individuals have decided to make their own poetry playlists? (Which is a big ego boost, but don’t worry, I’m still quite humble though.) Well, yesterday in the mail, I got a belated Valentine’s Day card (from the boy I wooed) and inside just for me was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life. Seriously, my heart stopped for a second. It was a poetry playlist printed out just for me!

I don’t want to post it because the contents of this playlist note are for me to know and for you to “…”, but it seriously made my day. I hope that all of you have found love with this. Or fallen in love with the medium. Or both.

I would also like to give a BIG thank you to the following individuals for doing my assignment:
-Jordan Kroll I love the parts “Enter The Ninja / He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)” and “All I Want / Heroine / Death and Destruction.” And major props for being the first person to do the assignment.
-Erin O’Neal I love the lines “I Will Not Go Quietly / I Will / Fight Fire With Fire” and the song titles “Indian War Woop” and “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.”
-D’Arcy Norman I love “Silicone On Sapphire / Midnight Rocker” and your use of color (the sapphire line) and “White Gold”.
-Matt Martin electrovert, we need to get together and have a music-sharing session. Seriously, our dance parties could go on for days with our similar taste in music. Do you happen to follow Popjustice?
-Alisa Cooper Yes, people still use WMP! Haha! I love your song choices. Very moving and bitter sweet. I particularly love “Have You Ever Been / Victim Of A Broken Heart” and “Help Me Be Good To You / Help Me / Be Happy”.
-Todd Conaway I really like how you restricted it to Herb Alpert and songs from Abbey Road. Another possible submit-to-ds106 assignment idea?
-cogdog Haha! I love the opening of “Taxman / Psychotic Reaction” and you theme and inspiration. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of the line/song title “Did You Steal My Money”.
-Intrepid Teacher Whoa! You have some amazing song titles here! I love the interjection of shorter titles such as “Stay Human” and especially “Hot Freak” in between the longer lines. It has a good pace. I laughed at the song title “The Power of Orange Knickers” and how the combined lines: “Naked If I Want To / This Is Why You Love Me” read.
-Cali4beach Woman, this is so cute! My heart pangs for the plug and how it’s getting no love from your cord.
-Joan Shaffer I’ve never been to Florida, but I’ve heard that it is awful if you go during the summer. The beginning to your playlist is amazing! It made me laugh, as did the lines “Look At You / Fuck Shit Up / No One Does It Like You”.
-rowan peter Short. Kind of sweet. Kind of apocalyptic as Jim Groom commented. I like it.
-David Noel I love the repetition you use and especially like the lines “By The Way / I’m Going Slightly Mad”. Infant Sorrow is my favorite fake band. I love the Get Him To The Greek soundtrack.
-mollyw YES! Life is always better with Lady Gaga! I love your mix of violent-ness with the “pain and injury,” as you called it, imagery with kind of happy Lady Gaga music, ex. “I Like It Rough / How Do You Like Me Now? / Do You Wanna / Just Dance”-Haha!
-Samantha Booth I love how you have “You / Screwed Up” on two lines rather than finding one titled “You Screwed Up”. It just has more emotion than it would have otherwise. The ending is great too. “Stronger / Without You / Ridin’ Solo / A New Day Has Come”.
-mattdietz I really like the song titles “Slow This Bird Down” and “Dance While The Devil Sleeps.” I will be expecting more. JK!
-MG79MkIV Aww! Congratulations! I hope you showed this to her.
-Chris Blough Haha! Cheesy yet satisfying! I particularly like the opening lines “If You’re Out There / Let Me Love You (Radio Mix) / Need U Bad” and the lines “If This Isn’t Love / It’s OK / I’ve Come Prepared”.
-Sofia Ahmad I really like “Right Here / Right Now (Na Na Na)”. It always reminds me of the “na na na na” part that sounds so pretty and soothing.
-Grace Sey I have no idea what’s going on, but I like it!

If I missed anyone (I went off of the list provided by the ds106 page for the assignment) or if you want me to refer to you by a different name or user-name, please let me know and I will either fix what needs to be fixed or read your poetry and then add you.

Andrew: So guys, what do we want to do?

*All check out freesound.org.*

Colleen: I just love the space sounds. Why don’t we do some kind of intergalactic space battle? (To JORDAN) Don’t you have a thing for space? Like your flickr is jordansinspace and you had something on your twitter about talking about space…?

Andrew: But there’s no sound in space.

Colleen: Well, what if we’re listening to it on the ship? And all the booms and crashes we hear are heard on the ship? Like something can be destroyed?

*All look up sounds of minute + mass destruction.*

? (possibly joint idea): Why don’t we look up yawns and alarm clocks? Especially since Jim Groom hates them so much.

*All proceed to check out alarm clock sounds and yawns.*

*Colleen finds annoying yawn heard. Jordan finds alarm.*

? (another possible joint idea): Why don’t we have him wake up to an alien invasion?

*Cue looking for beeps.*

Andrew: We should have him make coffee. *Starts looking for coffee pot sounds. Fails b/c they are all boring and unlistenable.*

Colleen: Maybe look for a microwave?

Jim Groom: SEVENTEEN MINUTES!

Colleen: I guess we should get started. *downloads sounds of yawning and horrible alarm clock* I don’t know how to work Audacity…*opens files of yawning and alarm clock*

Jordan: It should be just like Garage Band…

*After five minutes…*

Colleen: Okay, guys, if you email me the links for the clips, I’ll download them and add them to this baby.

Jordan: I think we need to add some explosions.

Jim Groom: FIVE MINUTES EVERYBODY!

Andrew: We could end it with the character waking up. It can be like Inception or something, not that I’ve seen the movie…

Jim Groom: THREE MINUTES EVERYBODY!!!

Jordan: So how should we end this thing?

*The Internet has a meltdown.*

All: Holy crap! I don’t know what to do!

Colleen: Okay guys, I’m just going to replay the alarm at the end since I can’t download a new one. *decides at third to last minute to replay yawning*

*Presents*

Presenting:

Sound Effects Story by Call_lean
Title: Inception 2.0 (Initial Mix From Class)
Artist: Krollinghachy
Album: ds106 FO LYFE
Track #: 1
Time: 1.28

“Krollinghachy” consists of Jordan, Andrew, and Colleen.

Sources:
Photo: “Chinese Kite Frame” by Thomas Smilie (Smithsonian Institute)

Audio Track: freesound.org
Alarm clock: guitarguy1985
Yawn: jackstrebor
Drone: Jovica
Running: Robinhood76

Day 5

ds446: Create a photo today that gives a sense of depth or dimension.

I had no idea what I wanted to do for this shot. I had thought “well, maybe I should check out something or try to shoot something that is deep, like a pond.” Then I thought, well, I could shoot a fountain or someone sitting by a fountain “deep” in thought, in sort of “The Thinker” pose. But I just didn’t like the shots I got and the clock was ticking and I really needed to get to dance rehearsal. It ended up being a blessing though because as I was stretching, in the dance studio, I looked in the mirror and noticed the colors in the sky were really pretty. I quickly got my camera and shot the windows and really liked how it turned out, especially with the flash.

Day 6

ds447: Go abstract today and make a photograph that focuses on form and color rather than detail.

I had no idea what to do for this day’s assignment. On a whim, I took a close-up of a rose that I got and I really like how it turned out. I didn’t use Photoshop or anything, so I’m really surprised that it looks like it has some type of sheen or filter on it. It makes me think of icing from a cake.

Day 7

ds448: Power plugs are ubiquitous. Can you make a creative photo of such a common thing? Try it today!

I made a larger scene for this. I had the idea that it would be cool to dress up a power plug and fortunately I remembered that we have this weird one in our kitchen that just hangs in the wall four feet off the ground. I ended up rooting around in my accessories drawer for the bucket hat, which I used for an umbrella and the necklace and scrunchy I used for a plant and water, respectively (although you can only see the water in the larger photo I did here). The plants came from the roses bouquet I got the day before (and used for ds447). I cropped it for the Daily Shoot because I thought it looked better.

Analysis of Week 1:
For the assignments I have an idea for, I am really excited to do them. For the ones that I have no idea about them, I just get a headache. And then panic. And then panic with a headache until I eventually get the “money shot” and then I’m slightly happy with them.

Source: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/02/afghanistan_january_2011.html

Source: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/02/chinese_new_year_2011.html

Source: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/02/pakistan_daily_life.html

Five Card Story: Last Friday Night

a ds106 story created by Call_lean

flickr photo by colin.maximized

flickr photo by ellipticalgalxy

flickr photo by cogdogblog

flickr photo by cogdogblog

flickr photo by elpresidante91

It was a Friday night and I was walking home from class. However, even though they were lovely and made me want to stay out in the slight cold forever writing deep poetry about the magicalness of my surroundings, the pretty blue sky and lights could not stop me from thinking about the agony I would have to face as soon as I got home. On my desk was all the homework I had to do for the weekend-French, Psychology, Calculus…I shuddered at the thought. I even continued shivering when I finally got to my desk ten minutes later and stared at the mound for forty-five minutes, comatose with tiredness and complete lack of desire to “get r dun” as my roommate had a habit of saying. “Well,” she said, “If you aren’t going to get r dun, then we should at least go out and have some fun.” So we got dressed and hopped in her blue love bug and drove to a club. However, the place was a mousetrap, so we quickly had to leave and come home and I was back to facing my mound of homework that seemed to have multiplied in the hours I was gone.

So in short, I was very excited to have the option to make my own Pokemon card for homework this week. I made it in Paint, which I know is not as fabulous as Photoshop, but it gets the job done and I like being able to attempt at creating awesome things out of something that is kind of archaic and has limitations. I decided to be a Psychic type because my favorite color is purple and usually the Psychic types are slightly more badass than all the other types. I know Sabrina and the like are usually defeated with a simple Dark type attack, however if you get one (a Psychic type) at a high enough level, they can learn loads of good attacks and usually have a really high Special Attack.

I think my card is pretty self-explanatory, although I did make myself “#4444″ because 1) it’s my favorite number (4 fours in a row and there are four letters in the number four), and 2) they keep inflating the Pokemon “gotta catch ‘em all” number with each game. They haven’t gotten to #4444 yet, but perhaps someone in the Pokemon game making business will stumble across this card and name #4444 after me when we get there.

I drew all of them in Microsoft Paint.

In case you cannot decipher them…/What should be running through your head if you’re like “WTF mate?”…
1. A pilgrim hat with the initials “SP” written in a heart.
2. Hot pink hair of a girl.
3. A “VS” or “versus” symbol.
4. The name and phone number of some person (a girl?) named “Ramona” with seven x’s underneath it. Kisses?

***Spoilers Below. ***

Analysis…
1. Scott Pilgrim-”Every Pilgrim reaches the end of its journey…some sooner than others.”-Roxy. I decided to go with a Pilgrim hat to reference that his last name is “Pilgrim” and that they often reference him as being a Mayflower pilgrim. The initials “SP” on the buckle with the heart are supposed to reference the Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt he wears when he goes to battle Gideon. I figured this was the most important depiction of him-the main character.
2. Ramona’s hairstyle and color of when we and Scott first meet her. Also references the drawing Scott holds up in the movie to ask Comeau, “Hey, Comeau, you know everybody…Have you seen a girl with hair like this?” I wanted to have Ramona as my second icon because the movie is basically about how he gets to be with her.
3. “VS” symbol seen at the beginnings of each battle between Scott and Ramona’s evil exes, usually in blue (although with Roxy’s fight it is pink). I thought this would reference the video game/fighting game aspect of the movie.
4. My attempt at a replication of the note Ramona gives Scott when he asks her for her phone number. With “seven DEADLY X’s,” not kisses like Scott originally thought. I originally just drew 7 deadly x’s, but then I thought it would be cooler to replicate the note he gives to Ramona because for awhile Scott doesn’t even realize why he has to fight.

I hope this amuses you, dear reader.

Final note: If you have not seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, please do so now. That is all.

Day 3

Even though it was a glorious day outside, I had no idea what to photograph. I originally wanted something to show the warm temperature/beautiful weather, such as a thermometer, but I could not find one. I even walked all the way to CVS to see if they had by chance the day’s temperature on their sign. In the end, I liked this shot because of the colors and I thought that the fliers are basically news trying to get people to come to and be aware of what they show. I really liked the idea of taking “news” or something you read, and changing it into “plans” or something you do.

Day 4

This photo was taken at the top of the hill at the Alumni Center. It is one of my favorite spots on the entire UMW campus. I really liked all the colors of the sky. Although my camera would probably not be able to take a good photo, downtown Fredericksburg looks even better at night. P.S. My camera’s date and time stamp reset before I remembered to set the time on my camera, so Flickr says that I took this photo on “January 4, 2004″ but I really took it February 3, 2011. Sorry for the confusion.

The Assignment:
Using Windows Media Player*, construct a playlist of songs (using song titles only) that can go together to form a sentence, a poem, a new song, etc. When you are done, print your screen, paste it in paint and upload it to your blog, flickr, etc., tagging it.

Rules:
1) No altering of the song title in ANY way. (This includes a “remix” tag.) You may, however, remove a “featuring…” from the title if you find it to be distracting.

2) Your sentence/story/poem/whatever can be funny, but it MUST make sense.

3) Format your print screen as above with song title, length, and the name of the artist. Nothing else please.

4) Also, consider signing every post you make with a signature song, such as mine, “The Shy One” by B*Witched.

*This could also possibly work with iTunes.
***
How did I come up with this fabulous idea, do you hopefully wonder ask?

Well…awhile ago I was randomly scanning the ds106 blogs and came upon this blog entry by Brad Efford. I really liked how he was telling a story by showing the links he had been recently looking at and for some reason, I connected Youtube links to music to songs and song titles in Windows Media Player and thought it would be a cool idea to tell a story using song titles. But the idea never went farther than that 2.5ish weeks ago.

Until at work, Wednesday morning, I just had this idea and I had to do it. I was sitting there, stuffing a mailing and listening to my MP3 player when I got bored. I was pretty much in dire need of new music and was at the point where I was scanning the 1,844 songs I had on it to find something listenable. While I was ransacking it A-Z, after looking at recently added and Albums and Artists, I realized that many of the songs I had started with the same thing, ex. all the “I…” and the “Who…”. From there, I started writing this note, the first of hopefully many.

I know it’s a little awkward to read at first with the lack of punctuation and spaces, (and I’ve gotten many a “WTF mate?” partnered with a blank stare when I tell first tell someone about it), but I find it to be a lot of fun and once you recognize the sentence/poem/story/whatever, it becomes pretty cool. It’s like a Post-It note via a playlist. The only thing I have not taken into consideration is if the songs sound good together. Unfortunately, many probably won’t at first, but that’s okay. Eventually, I will make more where the songs thematically follow the theme/story in the song titles.

So there you have it. Make it work, people.

I was not as pleased with this photo as with the one from yesterday’s assignment (although it does amuse me quite a bit). I’m currently using my mom’s camera and unfortunately it does not take inside shots very well (although I am told it works fairly well outside). In a copy of this photo, I tried to make it look better or more crisp, but I it ended up not looking natural, which is kind of what I want my photos to be–it is what it is and has not been tampered with in Photoshop to look better–since I kind of relate Photoshopping regular photos to airbrushing models. It’s just not a good practice and it gets all of your hopes up/mislead.

I took this photo in the basement of Combs on the outside of the North stairwell. I had been trying to see if I could get a picture of a lock, but it just wasn’t working. On a whim, I pointed my camera at the alarm-pulley-thingie and noticed it said “PULL FOR FIRE” if you cut off the top.

And that is how this photo for assignment 443 was born.

I’ve already tweeted this to the Daily Shoot, but I thought it would be cool to post it here and to give a little description about it. This photo was taken at the top of the stairs in the back of my apartment building at 12:50 pm. A few days ago, when I was doing laundry, I actually noticed for the first time that they were pretty cool (architectural-wise) stairs and I thought it would be cool to one day take a picture of them looking up at them (they sort of reminded me of Inception with the whole paradox Penrose stairs). When I got the assignment for today, I originally went o the stairs and pointed my camera up, but at the last minute, decided to look at them from the top down, which I thought was cooler.

I was also really excited to see my picture on the site…

I had a lot of fun making the slides for this thing and would have probably even have had more fun if I was able to make it the length I wanted it. I used OneTrueMedia and had it all set up at a running time of almost 2 minutes when I realized I wouldn’t be able to share it since in order to share it for free, I needed to cut it down to 30 seconds. I had about 39 slides and had to combine some and delete a few jokes here and there. I tried using PhotoPeach.com, and I uploaded all of my JPEGs, but it just didn’t seem to work. I also looked at RockYou, but I didn’t see where I could create video. By the end of this ordeal, I was a little more than slightly tired of looking at this project, so the above is what I have accomplished for about 9 hours of work. I spent the wee hours of yesterday making those slides and I’m still a little ticked that I couldn’t use all of them.

(A left out joke.)

I got the idea after looking at the sites for free photos on the 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Digital Story site and not being able to find the images I wanted. For some reason, I’d type in “babysitter” and get an airplane. I then decided to just make my own images out of stick figures, since I had fun making them in my Graphic Novels class last semester. I originally thought I could narrate a story (recorded by the recorder on my MP3 player) and play it as the audio, but from the snippets that I recorded of just the first three slides, it was already 22 seconds. I wanted to add a caption to make it look like subtitles, but in order to do so, I needed to have a premium account, so unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

I know it runs very fast and I tried to make it readable, but in order to keep the info I wanted in the movie, I had to put most slides at a running time of 3 seconds. Some are even at 2 or 1.

That being said, I did have a lot of fun making it. Perhaps I will break down and get a subscription since it would be nice to be able to use it to make other movies or slides of Stick Figure and Web 2.0. Eventually, if I have free time this weekend, I might return to it and see if I can edit the pictures to read more easily. But in the meantime, I hope you, gentle Internet readers, are amused.

[Edit]: I may later (after I rearrange from cutting and pasting them to bits) post the individual stills of the photos so you can get the whole effect.

(Web 2.0′s final words in the director’s cut edition.)

Anyways, after putting the little boy to bed, and finding that the baby would just not fall asleep, and being slightly bored, the baby sitter decided to take the baby girl into an upstairs bedroom to watch some TV.

She sat on the bed and flipped on the table light to its lowest setting and turned on the TV.  However, she was disturbed by a weird and creepy clown statue placed in a rocking chair in the corner of the room.  She also felt a draft in the room coming from an open window.  The rain was also coming in and making large puddles on the floor.  She then called the parents (reached the father) on the phone in the room and told them what had happened and asked them where the towels were.  They told her that they were in a storage closet down the hall.  She then asked if she could cover up the creepy statue so she could watch some TV and let the baby fall asleep in peace when she was finished.  The phone line was silent for a moment before the father said…

“Take the children and get out of the house!  We’ll call the police.  We don’t have a clown statue…”

The clown then rose, knife in hand and killed both the children and the baby sitter before vanishing into the night.  The clown happened to be a serial killer that escaped from the insane asylum.

If you don’t if you don’t repost to 10 people within 5 minutes the clown will be standing next 2 your bed at 3:00am with a knife in his hand.

***

I’m sure everyone has heard of this story.  You probably even got scared and was slightly tempted to send it (or did send it) to ten friends just in case so you would know you wouldn’t catch that murderous clown sneaking into your room in an attempt to kill you.

I was reminded of this story after reading page 3 of Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine “Web 2.0 Storytelling: The Emergence of a New Genre” when they mention “The spread of urban legends by newsgroup posts and e-mail messages constitutes something akin to a body of folklore, building up within the Internet.”  The variation of the above “The Clown Statue / The Clown Doll” is fairly interesting and I tried to base most of the one I typed above on the ones I have been sent, although there are others that make the story similar, but slightly different.  Examples–the parents don’t let their kids watch cable, so that is why she goes up to their bedroom.  The clown escaped from jail instead of an insane asylum or is supernatural in origin.  I wanted to include it and mention it here because I had never really considered it to be partly 1) an example of folklore and 2) the fact that it is technically a story that gets retold every time a person reposts it.

I also loved Hamlet by Facebook.  It reminded me of a project I heard of awhile ago about Romeo and Juliet presented on Twitter as part of a play or something.  I found an article about it.  I’ve always wanted to have a mini story or conversation between two characters via Twitter.  I actually really like it when authors post even just clips of their work and tag it a certain way so that you can look at it, such as my favorite author Sarra Manning.  Her new novel You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me comes out in February and she has been tweeting snippets of it on Twitter using the hashtag #ydhtsylm.

On page 7, when they discuss “movie trailer recuts,” especially the “Scary Mary” recut, I was reminded of my favorite recut of the Disney Princesses with the trailer audio of Mean Girls.

I also really liked the discussion on Page 8 of ARG’s.  Ever since I took Dr. Whalen’s New Media: The False and The Virtual class during the Fall 2008 semester, I have found them to be fascinating.  I really like the interactive/real world “this is not a game” aspect to them.

When the article moved to covering the use of Wiki’s and simultaneously composing, I was reminded of how in many of my classes we have started using EtherPad or PiratePad to construct and then type and fix all at once.  I like it because you don’t have to look over someone else’s shoulder.  You can also have a little chat in the corner.  In one of my classes for a group project, I remember spending most of the class talking to my group members while we were in the group using the PiratePad chat box instead of actually talking to each other out loud.

Moving to the reading “What Is Web 2.0?” by Tim O’Reilly, I thought that overall, it was really interesting and I hadn’t actually thought about the Web that way before with the moving form 1.0 to 2.0 and why I kind of prefer Amazon.com to barnesandnoble.com.  I thought it was interesting to note how we are leaning to Amazon’s category of ISBN numbers.  I believe even my “I am reading plugin” looks to Amazon’s database of ISBN numbers.

Finally, I was still a little confused about “Seven Things You Should Know About Creative Commons”.  Once, maybe 5 years ago, when I was looking up a music producer I like (Richard X), it said that he needed a liscense to create “bootlegs”-now refered to as “mash-ups” or “blends” according to Wikipedia.  I was wondering what exactly was different from his mixing or mash-ups and those of others, such as Titus Jones’ “I Wanna Bulletproof Dancer” below.  Did the rules change or would he only have to get a license if he intended to release it and make a profit?

I didn’t mean to, but I kind of avoided working on this site because it annoyed me.  I accidentally forgot to create a subdomain before installing WordPress, so my website URL looked really wonky in my eyes with the “domainname.com/example.”  I really really wanted it to be “subdomain.domain.com” and I tried to see if it would change it, but it got to the point where I would have to go into the htaccess code, I believe, which I tried.  I just couldn’t find were it is.  So, I was at a dead end and just wanted to start again.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t fix it using the name I wanted to call my blog so I chose another name that still keeps with my Girls Aloud theme.

So here is my new blog, which looks almost identical to the old one, except I’ve added some nifty Plugins.  If you look to the right, I have installed Twitter Tools and also the Plugin “I am reading,” which doesn’t look as cool as I expected or had hoped, but it will do for the time being.  I’ve gotten Google Analytics up and running as well as Akismet and allowed the comments without having to sign up and give me all of your information.  I’ve also tried to install a Plugin that lets me connect to Pandora, but I’m still in the process of learning how to use it.

After reading this article, watching the video, and later talking to a friend of mine who recently graduated from here (who is majorly jealous for never having the chance to take this class), I realized how fortunate I am to be taking a class where I get to learn/play with/secretly master these skills (and just learn general info about the web) right now and not just being kept in the dark old dungeon-y days of Blackboard and the former ideas of the old web/Web 1.0.  Although at times, I really hate having to log onto the Internet and into WordPress to do homework, in some ways, it can be kind of awesome because I can add music to whatever I’m working on and if people come and read my awesome slightly cool blog entries, they might also see that we are possibly musical soul mates, which is always a good thing to build or deepen a friendship with.

Moving along, I agree with the statements that everyone, including Dr. Campbell, have made about how Blackboard is horrible.  I will always remember the early days back when I was in fifth or sixth grade when we switched over from the teacher-leaving-your-homework-on-the-voicemail system to Blackboard.  The administrators-that-be made it out to be like it was this wonderful thing.  “All of your classes would be online!  You could find notes and take quizzes-even drop off your homework assignments!  You better learn how to use it because by the time you’ll get to high school, you’ll be using it aaaaaalllllllllll the time!”

Yeah, right.  That happened just like how they had this nasty rumor/conspiracy theory that by the time you got to high school, you would only be allowed be required-or else you would get severely punished-to write in cursive.  Well, silly me, I got to the ninth grade all scared out of my wits at the thought of writing in cursive when the last time I had truly practiced was back in fifth grade on a random drill because we had nothing better to do, and look what I found out!  In high school no one did (write in cursive, I mean) because they were required.  Most, if not 97.987352% wrote in print.  And some people’s handwriting in print were so awful that they needed to have been taught how to write better.  Well, hopefully this time around, with a move away from the traditional existence of Blackboard, instead of me being out on the joke, and having to deal with a technology full of half promises, we’ll improve it so it becomes Web 2.0-worthy.  Perhaps it could be a mix of the easy blogging technology of a setup like UMW Blogs with the file sharing/sending and testing capabilities of Blackboard.  Or maybe each student should have their own blog where they subscribe to other sites because if you have to have a blog for each different class on a different site, not only could it get complicated and time consuming, but also confusing.

In a few of my classes, instead of journals that we turn in on paper, we had to post them on a website-either on UMW Blogs or our own separate class site.  I agree with Dr. Campbell that having the ability to have an avatar and set up their own environment or signature on the Internet makes the conversation(s) more interesting.  I had him for English 295 in the spring semester of 2008 where we had our own digital forum for the class.  I didn’t like it at first, partly because I had never actually been a member of a forum before.  Of course, Blackboard has one, but no one actually reads or responds to those posts.  At this time, I also think that Blackboard didn’t allow for embedded video (I’m unsure if they do now or not, since I never use it), but I always thought it was cool when the other students added pictures and video clips.  I also liked having my own avatar and user name, which wasn’t my name.  Of course, you could recognize your fellow classmates after awhile, but it wasn’t that sort of tacky embarrassment you, or at least I, had when posting on Blackboard with my whole name.  Instead of “Colleen,” I was “SMNTHA.”  For all my initial lack of enthusiasm and dread for posting, in the end, and at this point now in my “college career” I have respect for them.  I also had the same professor twice for two parts of a class (Early & Later Shakespeare).  I took one semester back in 2009 and the other this past semester.  It made a huge difference in what you could do with posting online and also in the presentation of where you were posting and what programs you were using.  I’m always afraid Blackboard will mess up and delete all my work I just worked so hard on (Hey, it has happened before).  I like how we are moving past the whole concept of just keeping discussions like that closeted in the realms of the paid-for programs and moving them as well as other written media online in more creative ways than just by copying and pasting them on a website and claiming that it’s “online.”

I think that with the emergence of Web 2.0, it allows for an infinite increase in creativity and it requires a way to open students up to that experience.  And guess what?  You actually learn more by doing it on your own than following the way people have done it just because that was the way they’ve always done it and thought about it.  It reminded me of what my group and I had to decide when we were in English 314: The Literary Journal last semester.  It was an extremely experimental class.  Not only did we have to organize and manage getting submissions, but we also had to figure out how to set up our site.  We all knew we did not want to just copy and paste our submissions as that would be disrespectful to the work they had done.  So instead, we used Photoshop to make individual JPEG pages of their works.  Sure, it was time consuming.  I even spent one night all by my self in the Combs 3rd floor computer lab without taking a break and it got to the point where I kept thinking I saw people sitting in the front row.  (Thankfully that was towards the end and I left and went to sleep soon after.)  I think our site looks quite fantastic.

I refer to what I hope will eventually be a blog as “nogoodadvice” rather than “blog.”  Originally, I had this site set up as “graffiti” (and at one time for five minutes, “robots”) to kind of reference that this is my mark (of awesomeness) on the Internet and to keep in theme with the Girls Aloud references I’m using.  I ended up changing it because I really didn’t like the look of how it appeared above when you type it in.  Plus “graffiti” is a tad difficult to spell.  The site title is “Whole Lotta Blogging…” at the domain “somethingkindaooooh.com” which references the songs “Whole Lotta History” and “Something Kinda Ooooh.”  Girls Aloud have also recorded the song “No Good Advice,” which was their second single and went Top 5 in the UK (charted at number 2).

I’m still working on a theme and such.  I want one that differs in presentation than this one (the twentyten one I believe), but still allows me to keep the background or let me choose the background.  The photo and header are images that I found one day back when I was a freshman and messed with (amateurishly) in Paint.  The header contains lyrics from OneRepublic’s “Apologize,” which was all the rage at the time I found the image, which kind of reminded me of bleeding hearts.

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30 Second Story

How to ruin good toast:

1. Wake up.

2. Drag self to kitchen.

3. Pour V8 Pineapple Mango V-Fusion+Tea in cup while thinking of what to eat.

4. Decide toast is easier to eat than cereal.

5. Plug in toaster.

6. Stick bread in.

7. Toast.

8. While waiting, take sips from drink and decide not to use knife because you don’t want to have to wash it.

9. Freak out over the fact the toast smells like something’s burning.  (This may take a few minutes.  Or rather a few seconds that feel like minutes.)

10. Emit sigh of relief when it pops up and is not smoking.

11. Unplug machine.

12. Remove toast and place on paper towel.

13. Deposit jelly on toast.

14. Sacrifice one piece of toast to spread jelly evenly on other.

15. Consume.