A Cosmic Phenomenon

Cereal. Truly a cosmic phenomenon. Not only is cereal a staple of my diet, it represents a pure, timeless joy that I can experience every day with no serious bodily or financial repercussions. In fact, one could argue, and I have on several occasions, that eating cereal is a very spiritual experience. It combines two of my most favorite things: food and milk. Now, I categorize cereal under four broad, fluid categories that I have developed over a long period of exhaustive, delicious research. These categories are Sugar-based, Chocolate-based, Crunch-based, and Health-based. With Sugar cereals you've got your whole frosted family and your cinnamon family. I usually lump the honey cereals in with the sugars as well except for "Honey Smacks" or "Golden Crisp" which are obviously Crunch based and pretty much the exact same cereal. I've heard some rumors of placing these in a new "Seashell" category because of their faint resemblance, but most experts will tell you the movement is simply a red herring. The Chocolates are fairly self-explanatory and I generally stay away from them because of bad experiences with them in the past (Count Chocula almost killed me). And then comes my personal favorite: the Crunch cereals. The primary appeal of these cereals lies in their texture, shape, and in rare cases sound (Rice Krispies). Some Sugar or Chocolate enthusiasts will try to tell you that Crunch cereals are more susceptible to sogginess than the other varieties, but this is simply bunk. If those Flakes and Chockheads, as we in the biz like to call them, were as enthusiastic about Crunch cereals as we were they wouldn't get the opportunity to get soggy if you know what I mean. Some marquee Crunch cereals are Crispix, Pops, Apple Jacks, and, the mother of all crunch cereals, Captain Crunch. Now Health cereals I generally avoid actually because of health reasons. Mental health reasons. The very idea of cereal having fruit instead of chocolate or sugar is simply mind-boggling, but if you put a gun to my head and said I had to eat a healthy cereal I'd probably go with Chex or Honey Bunches of Oats. Now some cereals may fall under two categories like Honey Cheerios or Frosted Mini-Wheats that are sugary, yet somehow healthy. Their very titles are paradoxical. And other cereals will fail to be categorized entirely like the new Eggo cereals coming out. Nobody knows what's goin' on with those things. Perhaps these anomalies could be placed in their own category, but this would be quite a slap in the face to most cereal gurus out there. Well, there's my feeble attempt to create order from chaos; to define something that is essentially ineffable. Laugh if you wish, but the cosmos may have other plans in mind.

Website Evaluation

I was recently assigned to write an article based on my personal evaluation of a website's design and navigation. This is similar to a blog I was required to do earlier in the semester that was meant for me to examine a website's credibility or lack of credibility based on its appearance, credentials, design, etc., etc. I decided that since the assignment was mandatory, I'd pick a website that I had a particular interest in. Since I had just beaten Super Mario World on Super Nintendo - and, yes, it was quite super - I thought it would be interesting to evaluate a website about videogames. One website in particular that my roommates and I frequent fairly regularly when we've found we've hit a dead end is called GameFAQS. This website has been a veritable treasure trove of ideas, hints, and interesting facts since my freshman year in college. Now I'd hate to have to bite the hand that feeds me, but in order to remain impartial I will not hesitate to slam the website if it turns out its design isn't up to snuff.
The main page of the website is very appealing and lively overall. It has prominent, functional links to all of the site's major components. The site's graphics are sound. The one criticism I have of the main page is that it has many non-functional icons, which can be confusing. I tried testing the site's ability to run searches and the site took me directly to the information I needed. One interesting tool the authors of the site have created is the "platform jumper" which allows the viewer to research a specific video game console like Super Nintendo or Playstation. The website does have copyright information and the designing company's information at the bottom of the page. Also, there is a featured daily article involving videogames on the main page that gives the date and time of the update. All in all, the website succeeds in offering gamers a valuable search engine, a reliable source of topic-specific information, and a forum for fans to express their own videogame theories and opinions.


http://www.gamefaqs.com/

Prohibition P.I. Turns Party Animal

My senior year at college has seen quite a few changes. And it seems that in the next few weeks I will be attending events that celebrate these changes. First off, ever since my freshman year I've always subconsciously looked down upon alchohol - no, not just because liquor stores were made for short people (It's funny. Laugh. Now.) Heck, I was a regular Elliot Ness freshman year. Turning down drinks, shootin' down smugglers, blowin' up speak-easies. Sure I was responsible for Sean Connery getting riddled with tommy-gun fire, but I think we all knew in our hearts it was a necessary sacrifice. But those times have changed. And I guess some wing of my moral edifice fell under disrepair since then. I personally like to think that it's been been lightly refurbished by some European Interior Decorator with a penchant for postmodern upheaval. But more than likely it's been demolished to make more room for recreational activities. Either way it's a bad analogy. Basically I've come to realize that there is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol. But before I came to this conclusion I was among the opinion that I would never touch the stuff. This opinion was also nourished by a circle of friends who kept me company my first three years of college and who shared my opinions on alcohol and debauchery in general. If you're wondering what our stance was on debauchery, let me tell you that we were all for it except of course when drinking was involved. Despite our similar beliefs, we have begun to see less and less of each other this year and the circle itself has become fragmented. Not to say that we had a falling out, but let's just say that our paths diverged from changing circumstances and residences. It's kind of amazing how big a difference a couple hundred yards between people can make. At any rate, in a few weeks we're throwing a party with all of these old friends to see how they are doing. And now that we are all of age and seem to be less ensconced in our stances we decided to make the occasion even more memorable by allowing alcohol. We'll probably end up doing the same things we always did: board games, movies, sock wrestling. You get the picture. Yet for some reason it seems like it will all be so much more...interesting.

A Different Breed

I recently read an article about Matthew Carter who is a relatively
famous typographer.  My first thoughts were obviously focused on
how big a nerd this guy probably was.  But after reading further
about all of his accomplishments, I have developed a newfound
respect for a breed of nerd I have yet to encounter.  I never truly
realized that ever since the invention of printed text the invention
of typography came with it.  I was also unaware of how exhaustive
the process of creating a unique font truly is.  To typographers,
letters must fit within an alphabet the way a poet wants words to
fit within a poem.  Going on with the analogy, a typographer is
much concerned with the proportions, character, and overall
aesthetic design of his alphabet which, respectively, could be
described as the rhyme and meter, the diction, and tone of a poem.
However, typographers must also balance their aesthetic goals
with the practical side of letters in that they must be easily legible.
It is interesting to see how the craft affects my life in such subtle
ways that I never realized up until now.  Even in my own blog, I
have unwittingly been using two different fonts (we call them
typefaces in the biz) to distinguish my own personal blogs from
the blogs associated with a topic involving a technology class I’m
taking.  This blog, based on a class topic, is in Georgia font.  I
picked it simply because it was easy for me to read and I liked the
look of it, but for all I know it could very well have been created
for a very specific purpose like subtitles on theater marquees or
footnotes on fishery pamphlets or refurbished text for highway
signs.  Incidentally, for a town so close to Illinois, St. Louis’
highway signs have an appalling disregard for serifs.  To be fair,
it’s the same typeface I see on every major highway in any state.
And apart from “Illinois”, other words which require serifs, like
“Illogical” or “Illusory,” may not be all that easy to find on highway
signs.

Holiday Havoc

Holiday season is one of my favorite times of the year, but the more I think about it I really don't know why. As much as I would love to migrate south to avoid the bitter cold, the thought of Holidays and all of the cheerful, turbid chaos they bring keep me warm and snug inside. Of course the year is filled with Holidays and most of them are as trivial as bingo night, but this time of year has all the "big ones" lined up, staring you in the face like an offensive line. Halloween for me is always something to look forward to even though I don't necessarily do anything. The last time I went trick-or-treating was in High School when I took an old cane lying around the house, put on a buttoned shirt and a waistcoat, and went out as "an Englishman." After that I naturally thought it best to officially announce my retirement from the trick-or-treating business. I guess the only thing about Halloween I have to look forward to is about ten years from now when I own a house and I can think of elaborate ways of scaring little kids as they ask for candy. Now Thanksgiving to me has suffered the worst over adolescence. Despite the fact that my mother cooks a fantabulous turkey and herbal stuffing and my father bakes his gooseberry pie (he got the recipe from my grandmother who I'm convinced beat some sort of divine being in a game of Euchre to receive it), I never really can get as excited about Thanksgiving as I used to. For some strange reason teachers love assigning projects over the Thanksgiving break so the dice are loaded from the start. This year might be different, however, because I'll be able to throw alcohol into the mix. There is also something about Christmas that has never been fully recaptured. Most of the time my family buys a Christmas tree, my mom takes out the decorations from the attic, and then we look at each other to see who will actually use them. It kind of makes me wonder if I've been duped into doing it for the last fifteen years and I was just so excited about Christmas that I never really noticed. And you can forget about Christmas Lights. But after all, who doesn't dig presents right? And New Year's is right around the corner and this Holiday has probably risen in my estimation over the years. I never really saw the point of New Year's as a child. In fact, I was usually depressed that my brothers were out partying and I only had my broken resolutions from last year to keep me company. So New Year's is probably the one Holiday that improves with age. And then you're pretty much set for awhile until Valentine's Day. Despite this small victory however I can't imagine that I will ever enjoy a Holiday as much as I did when I was a child. I guess the moral of the story is that children can wring the fun out of Holidays the way we can wring them after the Holidays.

Email Is SO Passe

Does anyone else remember the good old days when Jeff Goldblum was doing commercials about how exciting and cool email was? Now it seems that the generation that witnessed email's birth has cast it aside like an old glove into the vast pit of obsolescence. Although campus email is still in full effect* at my university, colleges have started to use alternate services like text messaging and Myspace to transmit information to students and many students are finding the change agreeable. Am I one of these students? Not at all. It seems like the appeal of Myspace, facebook, and text messaging resides primarily in their trendiness and their utter remoteness from authority/elderly figures. Now we're just gonna let teachers waltz right into our fragile social world and muck everything about?! I would find it rather disheartening to receive a text message or a friend invite from someone only to realize it's from my grizzled American Politics teacher. No offense to teachers or anything (heck, I'm an education major), but I feel as though work should be separated from social life, especially schoolwork. I mean teachers are already moving in on the podcast front, which in my mind's eye is similar to Hitler's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. And I think we all know how that worked out. I suppose there is something useful in having different channels and networks designed to spread information, especially if the information is urgent. But there's a small voice in the back of my mind that's telling me the whole thing might snowball out of control as technology inevitably does and instead of getting a weekly email from a professor we might be constantly bombarded by text and facebook messages as well as emails and the occasional podcast about deadlines, requirements, and school policy. And that, my friends, is enough to make Jeff Goldblum blush.

*as in completely ineffective...

Plagiarise This!!!

Fairly recently, various schools and universities around the world have purchased a new academic service called Turnitin, which is designed to catch plagiarists in the act by cross-referencing specific papers with thousands upon thousands of other student papers. The main issues at stake involve privacy and intellectual property. Since the company is basically profiting from the scholarly work of students and the students obviously aren't getting a stipend, some consider the company to be violating property laws. Some students argue that the very nature of taking a student's paper and broadcasting it across a database for whatever end is simply an infringement on one's intellectual privacy. This last point concerns me since there is basically nothing to keep this company from handling student papers however they see fit. But what concerns me the most about the issue is that the students are upset and it's safe to assume that a large majority of the dissenting students probably don't perform or condone plagiarism, but simply find the company repugnant in some way. I suppose it really comes down to the particular school or university. If the institution finds that deterring and catching their student body in the act of plagiarism is worth undermining the values of that student population than I don't have any strong objections toward it. I certainly would not want to attend an institution like that however.

If you are interested and would like to read an article about the subject, here is a link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101800_2.html

We Are Not Alone!!!

So I was perusing Amazon the other day in hopes of finding something interesting to buy. And eventually my interests were bent towards 80’s music. Needless to say, I had little choice in the matter. So I type in ‘80’s compilations’ just to see what’s floating out there, and BAM… 3 hours are gone. Believe it or not there are loads and loads of 80’s comp. series out there and as far as I could tell each series had at least a dozen volumes. Apparently, there was like an entire decade of music made in the 80’s. Go figure. Anyways, one of the most well known of these series is “New Wave Hits of the 80’s” and you should hear some of the stuff these people said in the Customer Review section. Now, I’m a guy who digs his 80’s music, but these people are borderline militant. The owner of the first comment struck me as particularly sardonic, so much so that it forced a chuckle out of me.

Fascist_OMD_BachXer wrote: Sure beats the heck out of today's "music."

BlindedbyXyence wrote: It also reminded me that there was a standard of music and talent in the 80's that we don't see nowadays (sorry, Eminem, but you suck!)

Depeche Mormon76 wrote: 80’s music is basically the best music ever. PERIOD.

FlockOSeagrams wrote: This compilation and all of its counterparts are prime examples of music in its supreme form. In fact, considering the drivel we listen to today, I would go so far as to say that the 80’s was the age of musical enlightenment. Simon Lebon was Rousseau, Morrissey was John Locke, and David Byrne was Benjamin freakin’ Franklin!!!

Ok, so maybe that last quote was a little fabricated. Ok, I forged the last one altogether. And I forged the names to protect their identities, but this was basically what they said. Ok, fine. I forged the whole thing, but you still get the idea. I still agree with these people despite the fact they don't exist. Most people underestimate how influential it was. The 80’s gave birth to rave culture as we know it, the hip-hop dynasty, and a smorgasbord of indie bands we now have coming out the butthole. Apart from this, 80’s music is just plain exciting and fun. So my theory on 80’s music basically runs something like this: 80’s music = Good. This is somewhat similar to my theory on milk which reads: milk + X = good. We all know that milk can’t really stand by itself because it isn’t exactly the best thirst-quencher out there, but it goes well with basically anything.

Top 7 favorite 80’s songs at present:

1. Kirsty Maccoll – A New England
2. Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
3. Duran Duran – Union Of The Snake
4. Squeeze – Another Nail In My Heart
5. Big Country – In A Big Country
6. Happy Mondays – God’s Cop
7. Total Coelo – I Eat Cannibals

p.s. I actually haven’t even heard this last one, but I figured the title alone made it a shoe-in.

p.p.s. Those quotes actually were pulled from Amazon except for the last one. Seriously.