Maus

I enjoyed reading Maus as a comic. Although often throughout the book I found myself just reading the words and having to go back and look at the pictures. They added to the story, especially the mouse/pig aspect of people really helped differentiate who was of help and who was not. Adding pictures to the book also made it more interesting to read, things that would normally take lines upon lines of descriptive text to paint a picture were simply just pictured. A great example is when he is sneaking around to find food, you can see the darkness and danger involved without even reading a single word. When the author is describing the secret bunkers, one can truly understand how it was laid out because he simply drew it. If it was only text, it would have been very difficult to understand exactly how the bunker was made. There are however some drawbacks in making the comic. On some pages it was difficult to follow exactly where to go next. Sometimes I would accidentally skip over a scene and all of the sudden get very confused and have to go back. The comic also must have taken absolutely forever to draw, every scene is depicted with great detail, I could have never drawn something like that, given I cannot draw very well in the first place.

There are several parts of Maus that really would only work, or work best in comic form. One is the description of the bunkers as a mention earlier. Also, the dialog in a comic is much more real. I feel that if Maus had been just a book, I would have not had nearly the same understanding of the dialog. This is due to the fact the author can write the dialog however he chooses, in different font styles, in all CAPS, with weird punctuation, etc. It really helps you get a feel of what the characters are feeling. Another thing that would only work in comic form is the whole mouse idea. In the book the artist uses mice, to symbolize the Jews, and pigs to symbolize pretty much everyone else. During parts of the book the main character wheres a pig mask to show that he is disguised, which provides some light humor. The whole symbolism could not really be put into words, and it would have really taken away from the story.

 

Many books could potentially be turned into comics. I do not really have the creative talent that the author of Maus did, but I believe someone with his talent could turn nearly any book into a comic. Even Into the Wild could be turned into a comic strip about mice. I think that turning it into a comic strip would tell a totally different story, however if done right it could probably be a pretty decent comic strip.

McCandless/Zine

After reading the beginning portion of Into the Wild, one can form an opinion about Chris Mc Candless. Personally, I do not like him, I feel that he is crazy and wasting opportunities that were given to him. Chris is a smart man, his parents payed his way through school, he was all set up to be a successful young man. Many people would die for the opportunities Chris had, and he just pissed it all away and went on a “journey.” If his parents are getting to him and he needs some time to go find himself and figure out who he is, that is perfectly fine, but do it in a somewhat intelligent manor.  All he had to do was go on a vacation, maybe a camping trip. He should have at least had some sort of plan in case something went wrong, being as smart as he is, he makes some very very poor choices. It is very hard for me to comprehend how someone could be so bright and not want to use their knowledge to better the world. His hatred for government and anti-establishment mindset also makes me upset. If you hate the government fine, but not buying car insurance or a licence makes no sense. Car insurance has nothing to do with establishment, it is simply a method of protecting yourself in case you get in an accident and harm yourself or others. Driving is not a right, it is a privilege. The government owns the land he is driving on. The government built the roads so he could drive on them. If the government says you need a licence to drive on their roads, you better get one. If the government was not in power, who knows what the world would be like today. It would be complete madness. Lastly Chris is ridiculously unprepared for the tasks he will need to achieve. One of the reasons he is ridiculously unprepared is he has no idea of what or where his is planning on going. Chris has no formal survival training and very little of the gear he would need to survive in the “wild.” Chris makes a big point of not taking any handouts, but then he does on many occasions. Also, even though he says it is more fun when he has no money, he goes and gets a job several times. This makes Chris quite hypocritical and I really do not see his overall point or what he is trying to accomplish from his journey. Those are some of the reasons why I do not like Chris McCandless.

 

 

I have not really decided what I want to do for my Zine yet. Since a Zine is suppose to be about something you are passionate about I tried to think of some things I am passionate about. I am very interested in cars and motor-sports in general so that could easily be a decent topic. I also like a lot of sports, so I have quite a bit to pick from there as well. However, neither of those really strike me as GREAT ideas so I may end up going a completely different route. Hopefully after I complete my Zine review tonight something will strike my interest.

Interview with Seth Gordon

Seth Gordon is the director of King of Kong:A fist full of quarters. His interview helps in understanding the purpose behind the movie. Gordon was originally an architect before switching to movies. In his work he always tried to see the stories behind buildings, so now he tries to see the stories behind movies. The story that lead to King of Kong was basically accidentally stumbled upon. One of the co producers had a mutual friend with Steve Wiebe and heard the story of the goons breaking into his garage. Obviously the story became intriguing from there and they decided to do a documentary on it, however, it did not lead to the story they had planned. The original plan was the whole movie was going to lead to a showdown at fun spot arcade between the two gamers, Steve and Billy. However, Billy decided not to go to funspot at the last second. The movie is clearly a fairly unbiased very considering they had no successful plan while making it; they were just there to film and the story laid itself out. This fact also helps us really understand just how manipulating Billy is; he even manipulated the film makers. This also brings credit to the producers because it shows that Billy truly is the person they portrayed in the movie through editing. Another interesting fact is that the movie was going to end without Steve beating the high score. Steve actually called them a few months after they stopped filming and were nearly done editing to let them know he had broken the score. Once again this shows that the producers really did do a fair representation of the situation because they were originally planning to end it without a happy ending. Another interesting fact that helps viewers understand Billys character even more is that he claims he has never seen and never will watch the documentary. How many people could star in a movie and then never watch it? I believe he just just doing it to build his ego even more. Thousands of people have seen his movie and judged him based on it and yet he does not care. He truly believes that he is better than everyone else and assumes that the movie protrays him as such. Gordon admits that he plays arcade games at funspot and it played a role in his childhood. Clearly funspot had some significance to Gordon and this is shown in the film. There are many scenes of people describing fun spot as the best arcade in the world. According to Gordon Twin Galaxies has gone down hill since the premiere of his movie. The situation in the movie has put people against each other and has even led to people being kicked off the board; one of them being Billy. Once again this builds Billy’s reputation that is blatantly shown in the movie.

Movies

I never used to be a very politics orientated person. When I was younger I always just assumed that the government had thousands of people looking into the various issues of the world and that they knew what they were doing. For a class in my freshmen year of high school I was forced to watch An Inconvenient Truth, a movie about global warming by Al Gore. After seeing this movie, I was intrigued as to how a man with such little evidence could convince an entire country of something so serious. After seeing this movie I really looked into the science behind global warming and how much I disagreed with the movie An Inconvenient Truth.   Clearly watching the movie was not the only factor that made me dive into politics.  Most of my family is of a republican background, so, I may have had a little bais all my life. Also, I doubt many kids are very interested in politics prior to high school, and even to this day it surprises me how many voters know absolutely nothing of world affairs. This idea clearly explains how many people just take what they see in Al Gore’s movie as the unquestionable truth. Most young voters just take what they hear on TV, and vote the way all their friends are. However, I truly believe that watching and deciphering the jibberish, that I was able to root my political beliefs even more.  Even now I tend to read articles relating to politics that I would have fallen asleep trying to read years ago. Even in this past week I decided to take time out of my schedule to look at Obama’s plan for our economy, if I had never seen this movie or never rooted my political beliefs I would not even car. I would just assume that whatever plan they came up with was well thought out and will work, and even if it does not, what can I do? However, after reading it and reading a few economists opinions on it was able to find a few ideas I liked, and many many more I did not. Many economists actually predict that over the next 10 years this plan will lower our GDP by a tenth of a point. Of course in ten years Obama will not be president, and the common people will blame whoever is in power at that time. No one will look back and say, maybe this was caused by that 800 billion dollar stimulus package. This is very similar to how the common American would blame president Bush for the current economic situation. I am glad that I now have a desire to care about my government and world affairs. It brings out a feeling of intellectualism to watch very educated people discuss and be able to pick a side and understand where they are coming from. It also is very fun to converse with friends and family about world affairs and actually understand and care about the topic.

tattoos

If I had to get a tattoo, I would get one of David Mackillop’s face. He would be smiling with two thumbs up on either side of his face. I would get this tattoo to honor Dave as my idol and mentor. Without Dave I would never know how to tie a tie, although I still cannot do that. Also, I feel that in tattoo form Dave might look a little bit like Christopher “Big Black” Boykin(Rob Dydrek’s side kick on the mtv show “Rob and Big”). Most people know and like the show so that would be a fun conversation starter. I would even consider throwing a quote from Dave underneath, similar to Big Black’s “DO WORK”, but it would have to be something inspirational that Dave says. Actually getting this tattoo might pose a serious problem later in life, but it would definitely be fun for now. I doubt that when im old and retired I would still want Dave tattooed on my body. I would most likely get this tattoo on my back, right below the neckline. That location would probably be the least intrusive and would be a good place to get a tattoo.

If I chose not to get the tattoo of Dave, I would probably want something more useful. In the fox tv show “Prison Break” the main character uses his body as a map by tattooing himself. Each tattoo was a symbol for something the entire thing was an escape plan for how to break out of the prison. In the show he is also an engineer, which I am aspiring to be. With that respect maybe I should tattoo prison layouts on my body in case of arrest. In the movie Memento the main character has a condition where he has very very short term memory. Due to this condition he must write everything down as he learns it and he tattoos important “rules” to his body. Throughout the movie he is trying to find the man that attacked him and killed his wife. He must tattoo things on him so when he wakes up he knows where he left off the previous day. Unfortunately, he tricks himself into killing the wrong man by tattooing a wrong piece of information on purpose. The movie ends well though, because he forgets everything he did and everything is fine. There are many other useful things that could be used as tattoos. Tattooing physics or math formulas would prove vary useful on an exam. Even tattooing the MLA guidelines to your forearm would save a lot of time when writing a paper. A road map tattoo would help if you ever got lost on a road trip, but it could probably only encompass a small area.

The last, but most prominent reason people get tattoos is for sentimental value. I cannot think of any symbol that owuld have any meaning to me. So I would most likely choose either the funny or useful tattoo route.

Quoting Paraphrasing and Summarizing.

Summary

The author makes the claim that aboloishing mandatory attendance laws in schools would be benificial to students and society. He channels his arguement by saying that students, schools, and society itself will benifit. Students will benefit because they can learn in a better enviorment and students would actually have to learn instead of just being passed from grade to grade. Schools would be able to better themselves because grades would actually reflect how a student is learning. Lastly society would benefit because money would be saved, and spent on helping or maintining those that could not attend regular schooling.

Paraphrase

In his essay, Sipher agrues that mandatory-attendance laws are hurting the education of students, and that abolishing them would have no negative effects.

Quote

A possible solution to improve state testing scores is to abolish mandatory-attendance laws, “There is no contradiction between the assertion that compulsory attendance has had little effect on the number of children attending school and the argument that repeal would be a positive step toward improving education” (1).

Subculture:Water Skiing

Competitive water skiing is not a very well known sport. When I was young I was always afraid to attempt to ski. My mom basically forced me to try it, and since then I have been hooked. After a few years I actually got decently good at skiing and really enjoyed it. I never thought I would ski competitively until I came to Purdue. Few students have even heard of the water ski team, but they are actually very good. In fact, this year they placed forth in overall nationals, and one of the members, Cale Burdick, is the world collegiate champion in the slalom event. Competitive slalom skiing is judged through a course. There are six buoys, three on each side, that the skier must navigate through. The skier that goes the fastest with the shortest rope wins the competition. Some very good skiers get to the point where the rope is actually not long enough to reach out the buoy if it was horizontal from the boat, so they actually must throw their legs out even farther to get around the buoy. If that does not sound impressive, then consider that they also have accomplish this feat with the boat going over thirty miles an hour. As if all that is not enough the skier still must maintain enough rhythm and control to do that six times and get through the exit gates. My attempts to do the course were nearly complete failures. I was attempting to do the mini course, the buoys are about half as far away as they are in competition, and the boat was traveling quite slow and still I managed to get off rythm and could not even complete all six buoys. Unfortunately there is no ski course at my cabin, so practicing is not easy. Hopefully by next season I will have improved . Their are two events besides the slalom event in a ski competition. The first is the trick event. The trick event is performed with a trick ski, which is a small board in which one foot is facing forward while the other is facing sideways. Points are given for certain maneuvers in the air and on the water. I have never tried a trick ski, and considering how poorly I wake board I have a feeling trick skiing would be difficult. The last event is jump. Jump is preformed with two jump skis, which are basically normal skis modified slightly for jumping. Skiers carve at a ramp at very precise angles to try to get optimal distance while maintaining control for landing, points are given for how far the skier jumps and lands. I have also yet to try jumping, the idea of flying at a solid ramp at very high speeds then landing hard on the water just does not sound that appealing to me. Teams get a total score based on these three events for both male and female divisions and are then ranked against the other teams. Purdue has a very good team, and with any luck I will be a part of it by next year.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!