Evolution am i kidding myself?

I have had my perspective of life not change for about 30 years and it is very hard to see someone’s view on evolution without thinking that it’s a joke. But I have recently challenged myself to see things in a different view.

The person I reviewed has a blog of his belief and shared with me. With all tests of theories you do try to use the facts that you do know and facts help direct us into a path to try our theories. Roy does feel that evolution does have data to back up some of the theory. It’s a “reasonable source of data”

His background has is deep in his family having grown up with a father that is a geologist having had fossils and rocks and minerals readily available and in his face. The things that he touched felt and smelt are defiantly knowledge that you can’t say doesn’t exist. Where did it come from? If god created man why is this here? Time is not on the scientist’s side for helping them prove their theories. It’s not easy to get to the bottom of the ocean and to see some of the oldest material on earth.

As he said scientist can’t get to places to give substance to their thinking because it gets to hot closer to the center of the earth so they are limited on time. Like this Story

I watched this most recently and it was very eye opening. I see that in my own theory I have immediate answers they are most all in my head and my thinking. that can be very easy to give answers right now and not put much effort into new ideas.

If there is one thing that I learned from what I heard from Roy and what things I watched I can say that I should look more into the age of things and find what carbon dating is and how it works can it be fixed or altered. And also I may never in my lifetime find the facts because of the lack of effort put into machinery that will help us go to places that we can’t go to that might just give us the answers.

3Dgamelab ?

“3Dgamelab”

What do I think of it? Well it at first seemed more of a hassle and that getting a good grade wasn’t going to be easy. I however have different feelings now. I like the facts that I can work most quests at my own pace that’s one thing I like about games the I play it may only take my son 2 hours to finish a part to a game but it takes me 3 to do the same. That’s because I try to find everything I can and do everything I can before moving on. I felt a little like I could do just that. I did find one issue with the program setup though. When looking at the quests I would have a problem of clicking start quest rather than view quest because that would pop up first and it seemed like that should be the button that tells me what to do. So before I know what I was doing it would start the quest. Not that I wanted to but that I just didn’t process the information correctly. Then it was not easy getting back to information right away. If I would change things one would be to get rid of the start quest over the view quest and just have view quests there and put the start quest button at the bottom of the information given after you viewed the details of the quest. Or at least don’t put it on top of the two buttons. Put it under the view quest button. the other issue I had was where is the button that I would click to get help right away from my instructor. Like at least a send email same as with students. Just a simple I want to email a question to Coby or Forrest or Sukey oh here is the button click. And off I go asking the question. Maybe not even email just a message link that when the start up for the day a message pops up asking the question that I had. I overall liked the experience and wouldn’t mind having more classes In this format.

Movie posters Do they really catch my Eye?

One of my favorite movies that I enjoyed watching when I was a child was this movie:

Yes King Kong. I did not know at the time when I first watched this that there had been an earlier make of this movie. Just looking at this poster, it sucks me in. The biggest gorilla in the biggest city on top of the tallest towers with Army helicopters and him holding a girl, this poster says everything about the movie that I liked. I remember that I would draw or doodle during classes at school using the same design of airplane that was drawn in this poster, over and over again. This poster is designed to draw in the men that enjoy action based movies.

Now I said I didn’t know at the time that this was a remake of the original and to tell you the truth I still haven’t seen the original movie in its entirety. And it’s not likely that I ever will. The movie poster that I found though looked like the cover of a Conan comic book that I had as a kid, and because I had such a nice collection of them when I first looked at the poster for the original movie I automatically found a connection between them.

Even though my collection consisted of pretty old comics I think that this poster was aimed directly at teens and men in general. You know, the hero saves the girl from the bad guys and the monster.

The last movie remake of King Kong I feel through this poster tries to bring the emotional part back to the movie, by trying to bring the attachment we all had for the death of Kong.

From the first movie to the last, you see a definitive change in what direction the movie is going. I see that the last movie poster draws my attention more because of the realism of it and that it shows the heart touching part of the movie the “beauty and the Beast” ideal, and I enjoyed that part of the movie a lot. This poster did exactly what I felt it was trying say but to be completely honest the level of death in the action sequences just overwhelmed my feelings and I don’t watch that movie anymore. The second movie I have watched many times. Through that remake I get the good feelings and not all the close-up death of characters that the last remake does.

As for the layout of words I can see that in the first two movie posters the words are larger and represent the background that’s in the poster. For instance the poster for the original movie is still set in the jungle, and the words have sharp points and seem to grow bigger from the start to the end. It is also not straight, it grows at angel like plants and trees grow.

The second movie poster depicts the large writing of King Kong also, but the font is straight and fits more to the right angle of the background setting, words that fit the city of course. The picture also consists of Kong destroying something and planes and helicopters close enough for him to grab. I feel that this gives the viewer a little leeway towards the thought that he might have a chance or maybe his death is not set in stone.

The last is different I many ways, the biggest difference is that the words are smaller. That already gets the viewer looking more at the picture and getting the emotional attachment. The fount also fits both the jungle that he comes from and the city he is in when he dies. I believe it was the best of the three to tell the story.

I love this story, and enjoy parts in both remakes. I would say though that neither of them falls into the category of "this is the best of the three."

“Who has my headphones!?”

“Who has my headphones!?” how many times have I heard that in my house of five children? If its not said once a day its only because my kids are at their mothers house. I have even found myself saying that too. Why do my kids even need them heck why do I need them? Well to answer my own question I don’t believe anyone in my house has the same taste in music and now that my oldest has gotten her siblings to listen to foreign music. The variety has jumped to levels that I can’t even count. How is that wrong you ask well it’s not that my kids are downloading music off of pirated sites it’s not that I don’t understand half of what they say it’s that they spend every waking hour with those headphones in their ears and doing that is causing damage to their hearing permanently.

With the start of creating walkmans you could listen to 30 minutes to an hour of music from every tape or CD. Then you would have to flip it over or change it and when you took that break sometimes you would put it down. Now at the touch of a few buttons you can have tens of thousands of hours that you don’t even have to touch it to listen to music all day long. I have even found my kids asleep with their headphones in.

 To tell you the truth it’s not even the lack of social interaction that I want to address even though that is another issue all on its own. Its “HEY DAD WHATS FOR DINNER!!”  “why are you yelling at me?” “IM NOT YELLING!!” “Yes you are your voice is very elevated.” Then it takes a second for them to lower their voice. Or along the same lines “what do you want for dinner? Hey I said what do you want for dinner? Are you even listening to me? Hello!?” “ oh sorry dad I didn’t hear you, What do you want?” “ you couldn’t hear me we are sitting two feet apart on the same couch” “well I had my head phones in.” it just makes me want to screem. I know that many parents have said the same thing and had the same conversations with their children.

 What’s wrong with that? It’s the abuse that our kids do to their hearing. Its only now that I’ve gotten older has it been apparent that I too am suffering from hearing loss. As a teen I sat for hours a day in front of the computer playing games and listening to music or isolating in my room with my music so loud in my walkman that it would drowned out my nagging sister and mother.

This article on abc7 in Los Angeles draws my attention it talks about how a group of kids that went to a concert that the range of music decibels from 85 to 100 after the concert is showed that 71% had some time of abnormality. Then this article was written more recently taken from the journal of American medical association “Between 1988-94 and 2005-06, the percentage of teens with hearing loss jumped by about a third, from 15% of 12-to-19-year-olds to 19.5%.

What about IPods? Well I found this article in Time that said many things like the amount of iPods sold 173 million. Well I found a article saying that the numbers in January 2011 taken from apples quarterly reports were 304 million. It talks about the range from 7% t0 24% of people listen to risky levels of decibels. It also talks about a study done in 2006

I feel that the culture of listening to music with ear buds is not only in our culture but its worldwide I have ;looked into the study that the CNU did and it leads me to believe that we are on a trend that is very unhealthy to us and especially our children according to the time article about how a lot of teens do the exact opposite of what I tell them. i only see this going bad for us and how my kids will lose their hearing before me. sells in headphones will countinue to grow though and the designes will still still be cool. i wonder how cool my kids will feel with a hearing aid.

Is it for adults or kids?

I think one of the biggest ways that pop culture in my life has given me two different views is through animation. Cartoons have been a big part in our culture from the start of the visual media. There are even 2  animated films in the top 10 grossing movies so far, and the top number 1 movie is the computer animated movie Avatar Until about 15 years ago I did not really see what was being portrayed in a lot of animation. From TV cartoon shows to animated movies to cartoons in the paper.

I remember watching the Bugs Bunny TV show as a child and it was the funniest show and I loved it. That show was the highlight of my Saturday morning cartoons and when it came on after school. As a child it was all about funny. It was slapstick humor at its best.  I can look back now as an adult and see that there may have been something wrong there.

I can watch old cartoons now and see that not only was it designed for children but a lot of humor was also designed for me as a adult the innuendoes are very strong and even though the slapstick part was more for the children and the verbal was for me as a adult it has progressively gotten worse  and now as I look at cartoons today and what my children like. The lines have not only gotten less clear the boundaries have gotten less and less. One of the shows that my son loves is Dragon Ball Z. Not only does it push the boundaries of sexuality like one of the characters has a issue with looking at pornographic magazines they make it funny to kids by having him be slapped around by some of the females on the show.

That is the same with the tv show Naruto which is very popular with kids today. The main character not only is very funny and uses slapstick humor a lot but can turn himself into a nude woman to make laughs.

I have not only seen this in cartoons that are Foreign in nature (Japanese animation) but in DreamWorks and Disney movies also. One of my favorite shows as a adult that I like watching with my kids is the movie Surfs Up, it’s about a penguin that likes to surf. It uses a lot of slapstick humor for kids to laugh but also give the verbal language for adults but where do they draw the line for what kids hear and know today. One of the parts is one of the main characters is in a hot tub and is talking but when he stands up they pixelate the area where his genitals would be. Why do that if not for the adults? The rest of the movie after that you see him as normal no blurring but he is still a animal and he still doesn’t wear clothes. The main character calls another penguin a “pecker face” again for adults and I laughed because of the humor I saw in the statement, but when I laugh and my children don’t they want to know what was so funny.

We have a issue today with people thinking video games are more violent than ever  which I have blogged about in the past because media has focused alot on violence and teens that play video games even though violence among teens really isnt able to be pinpointed to any specifics other than "modeling". How ever we have looked very little into childrens cartoons and how it might be the root of the problem. Thats because we refuse to see that it’s what we as a society have aloud from the beginning with slapstick humor.


Video games have more sex in them, like "Bayanetta" which also is a complaint but again when you have a skunk in love with a cat that uses suicide to manipulate the girl of course through time it’s going to change into sexual direction with a lot of media. Take for instance Madagascar 2 the movie portrays a male hippo that is just out to have sex with another hippo and by the end of the movie the female hippo is in love with a giraffe and a penguin is marring abobble head doll.

Cartoon Networks Adult Swim which ranked #1 in rateings among  "young adults 18-34" and Cartoon Network day and evening programs raked #1 for boys ages 2-14, has just started broadcasting in Canada this month. This shows me that animation is popular and will coutinue to grow. where is the line? Who draws it? Pop culture has done nothing but confuse the lines between adult and children humor and what is ok and what is not. You as a single parent or a family that both parents work jobs do you really have the time to sit down and watch these programs? Or do you think that its ok to watch because its on tv?

Using google search to find everything.

Well because I use Google to search everything I was able to find this image very easy. After looking at letter I picked key things like the date and proper names and what I thought the image was when I entered in the search “1939 letter about daughters of American revolution” it was the first thing that popped up in the list so this was very easy to find. This is the URL to the page: http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/tmirhfee.html

The second image I had the hardest of them all to find I searched word strings of everything on the picture from arrests amount per state to AP background map of arrests from April to December but I could find nothing I spent 30 minutes trying to find word strings that would work but nothing came up. Then a light came on to just search images so I went to Google images and typed in exactly what it was “arrest background map AP” and it was the 5^th image down.  This is the URL:

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1525&bih=716&tbm=isch&tbnid=AMvYzbudZkkE0M:&imgrefurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr071.html&docid=qRbhjL9GpxhRxM&imgurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/s84.6p1.jpg&w=640&h=612&ei=DD77T86rJvLE2QXRz7SDBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=187&vpy=322&dur=4607&hovh=220&hovw=230&tx=127&ty=91&sig=117167606935282526599&page=1&tbnh=161&tbnw=168&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:92

Again the third image was very easy I again looked at image and picked out key things I could see. I typed in “1955 police report in Montgomery j.f. Blake” and again it was the first link that popped up. It looked like I was batting 66% on with what my thought process was telling me in how to search the images. After that I was able to see a pattern to the images but to stay with just looking up images themselves. This is the URL to the third is: http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/rosaparks/0/inquiry/intro/

Now the last image I thought I typed into the search which was “roll call 1964 88th congress January” but that didn’t come up with the image in at least the first 4 links so I then added “290-130” to the search I already had and that gave it to me. The URL is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CivilRightsAct1964-HouseRollCall-HR7152.jpg

So in all the only one that took me more than 1 minute to find was the map and that I had to just change my thinking from thinking that I could only find it by finding the page that it was on to just finding the image itself. I feel I had a good plan on how I search things but I did learn to broaden my searches just a little more.

I have tried using other search engines in the past but I found that a lot of things pop up that I just don’t want to see. I feel that Google weeds a lot of the “bad” sites out. I really like for myself and my kids, so I just stay with Google.

Lovemarks? Really?

I recently watched this program on frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view/ section two of this program talks about emotional branding or "lovemarks" http://www.lovemarks.com/.

It’s hard for me to say that I have any love mark on anything I use or buy. I have always stayed out of the mainstream media, watching TV or listening to the radio has trough out my live never been a mainstay I always as a kid liked going places and because my parents never went anywhere I would hike out into the woods or go fishing or ride my bike to places when I was older I never had a car until I was 23 I spent a hour riding to work a hour riding home. So at those times I feel I was never bought into anything that was better than something else today if I shop it’s to find the cheapest thing it doesn’t matter what’s out there as long as I can save a penny I will buy it. Cars cloths toilet paper it doesn’t matter I as I see things now the cheapest is what sells like the only time I see Gatorade shelves empty is when it’s half the price that they normally have. I have to go to the store to find a specific item that’s on sell the very moment they open the door because if it’s on sell for a good price its gone by the afternoon. But I’ve tried to think of anything that I have that kind of loyalty to I think it would be my PS3, and it’s not really that I love it more than anything else it’s that I can’t stand putting more money into Bill Gates pocket. It was only after my son couldn’t stop talking about the Xbox 360 that all his friends have I caved. In all reality I only caved to buying one was because I found one that  was a used system for a hundred dollars, if I buy games and they are available in the ps3 I will buy that rather than the Xbox.  After talking to my son about why he felt that the one was better than the other it was because the Xbox online capability was better than the PS3 and all his friends were into playing online games. After explaining to him that that shouldn’t matter because I didn’t have Internet access he preceded to tell me that it was better compatible to other systems like my laptop and that it had a easily removable memory so he could take it to his friends houses. He did have a convincing argument. After looking back at his argument I see a clearer picture of how making things faster and more accessible is a way of selling your product in a fast paced culture like ours. It puzzles me that the ps3 is a foreign system and the Xbox is a system based in America. What is it really like in the eastern cultures is their lives based on how fast and easy things can be?  But I just can’t say that I have anything that really is a “lovemark”to me.