Monday Blogs

       Over the weekend, I watched the first Paranormal Activity. This scary movie was pretty good even with its low budget. The film is shot in a way to make it seem like a home video that the couple is making. The boyfriend tries to provoke whatever it is that is stalking his wife. He thinks that the whole situation is a joke. At first, he does not realize how serious it really is. The girl in the film is very afraid because the same kind of thing has happened to her before she moved in with her boyfriend. They try and get help, but the one person who can really help them has to leave the house because the presence of evil is too great. Throughout the film he coupe tries to find ways to get this creature on film. They use powder to track its footsteps, and a camera to capture it moving things like the door. They find that whatever it is lives in the attic. The boyfriend looks up there and finds a picture of the girl when she was little. This really scares her because that picture burnt in a house fire.


     I will not give the rest of the movie away. I am sure almost everyone has seen this movie, and wants to see the sequel that is currently out. Personally, I thought this movie was pretty good, granted that it was the cheapest film Paramount has ever made.









Future:
      If there was an apocalypse, I think it would be a Zombie Apocalypse. All the current hype about zombies will probably lead someone to create a virus that turns humans into zombies. Trying to live without getting infected would be very difficult. I imagine that my life would be much like Tallahassee's life in the film, Zombie Land. I would be that guy who is a little bit crazy, and loves to kill zombies. However, I probably would not wonder around looking for zombies to kill. I would just live my life day to day. If I came across a zombie while I am out getting groceries, I would be more than happy to take its head off. Life would be difficult, but I would use my survival skills to remain alive. My future would be different to that of Ridley Scott's. First off, it was not a nuclear apocalypse that happens in my future. Secondly, I am not trying to kill robots that have gone AWOL. I would simply be trying to survive from day to day, killing a few zombies along the way.







Scene: Blade Runner
     The lighting definitely set the mood for the scene. The dark lighting gives you that sense of sadness and death. You can also see a faint orange glow behind the characters. This glow is probably what little bit of the sun is able to shine be seen through the thick clouds. The dialogue is very simple between Rachael and Deckard. Their statements are not unusual when meeting someone for the first time. It seems that Deckard is a little suspicious of Rachael. Neither of them are overly friendly with each other. This reveals a sort of mistrust that people must have developed after the apocalypse. There really is not much to notice about the costuming. Rachael is dressed as if she were rich. Deckard looks like one would picture him to look. The main focus in this scene is on the lighting and the dialogue. This scene is much like the rest of the movie. Especially the lighting. Every scene has dark and dim lighting. Scott used the lighting to really emphasize how the earth would look after a nuclear apocalypse. Throughout the whole movie the lighting gives the viewer a sense of sadness and hopelessness. Also, the lighting can imply that there is more crime in a post apocalyptic world. Robbers are more easily concealed in the darkness of the day and night.




Tears in Rain:
 The way Roy delivers the speech definitely makes the audience and Deckard feel sadness for him. Roy talks slowly and emphasizes syllables. This shows that he is really passionate about what he is saying to Deckard. The music also helps the mood of sadness come over the viewer. Roy has murdered many people, yet we are able to mourn his death. The speech and music really touch home for the viewer. I do not the the Roy's speech would have been as effective without the music. I think that Deckard is crying at the end. Deckard can tell that Roy is deeply sorry for what he as done. He uses the last few seconds of his life to express his sorrow instead of killing Deckard. I think this really hit Deackard hard because he did not think that a rogue replicant, who has killed before, would spare is life.

Deckard's Future:
      Deckard and Rachael flee the city to a humble country abode beside a lovely toxic river. Along the way the meet seven small robots who they invite to live with them. They all live happily ever after, until Rachael is about to expire. Deckard uses the seven little robots parts to help extend Rachael's life. Ironically, Deckard dies of cancer before Rachael dies from lack of battery life. Maybe them living by a toxic river was not such a good idea. The toxins found their way into the water Deckard was drinking. These toxins were the cause of his untreatable cancer. Apparently Deckard was too love stricken and did what Rachael asked. It was her dream to live near water.



Thinking about argument Proposals:
         So far my research is going well. I have found the ten sources I need. The sources I have read thus far seem to have a lot of usable content. I have found a lot of articles about sustainable travel and ways to be less reliable on oil. I have also found information about cars that are smarter and shut down two cylinders to use less gas while high way driving. There are several possible solutions to this issue. One that will be most effective is completely electric cars. The cars will not be able to run very far, but here will be recharging stations all over the country. Another solution is developing cars that have very high MPGs. Currently there are cars that can get up to 40-50 miles to the gallon. But what if there were cars that could get 100-200 miles per gallon. The higher mile per gallon solution seems to be more practical. No one is going to want stop every 30 miles to recharge their car.

Summary/Response & image analysis

Typing the content was not hard for me to begin. It was actually quite easy. It was easy because the blogging helped me gain an idea of what i wanted to write about in my papers. Personally, I think the summary response paper was the hardest. The image analysis paper was much easier because we had to mediums to compare. Also, it was much easier to look at the film and the novel to find similarities and differences. Once these were found, it was easy to put my ideas down on paper and determine where I wanted to go with the information at hand. The hardest part for me was, finding what differences between the film and novel I wanted to compare. Once I found the differences I wanted to use, it was very easy to come up with the required paper length. My main strength for writing is my ability to get my point across. I am able to explain what I want the reader to know about the subject I am writing about. One major weakness I have is, using filler words like, that, and which. I use these words more often than I should. When I edit my paper, I try to eliminate as many of these as possible. I think peer review is more helpful with understanding ideas than actually editing the paper. It is very helpful with helping me understand how I can better express my ideas through writing. I have notice a small change in my writing. Now, I tend to use larger words that make me seem like a college level writer.  In the next paper, I am going to incorporate all I have learned about thesis statements and introductions that have not really used in my past papers.

Obectified

      Objectified was a very interesting documentary. I have never though about not designing new objects, but redesigning older objects to make them better. I found this to be the most interesting point that the documentary made. Another interesting point the documentary made, was finding ways to make new technologies more easily disposed. They had a valid point when they said that new technology becomes old technology very quickly. New phones and computers are always being developed. So why not make them biodegradable? Lastly, the most relevant part of the documentary talked about the market price of "designed" products. The documentary discussed the pointlessness of creating a new and innovative product that could not be purchased by the average consumer. Make the new products purchasable for all people.

A Boy and His Dog

A Boy and His Dog is about a bizarre quest for sex. Vic is a man seeking sex with the help of his telepathic woman seeking dog, Blood. Blood and Vic are able to communicate telepathically. Vic is basically a rapist who uses Blood's abilities to find women he can rape. Blood catches sent of Quilla, who has sex with Vic and tricks him into coming "down under". Vic is then used as a sperm donor to help them colonize. They hook Vic up to a machine a extract his sperm. Quilla then helps Vic escapes and tries to get him to Kill everyone on the Committee. He refuses to do so, Quilla comes back up to the surface with Vic who finds Blood lying outside the door too week to walk. The ending has the biggest twist. Vic and Blood roast Quilla over a fire and eat her for nutrition then walk off into the sunset. 
      First off, that was by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen. However, I had to stay until the end to see how it ended. I do not know if I should be glad i stayed or not. All I have to say is this, " who in the hell goes from serial rapist to cannibal?"

Blade Runner: Good Scene, Bad Scene

I thought the scene where Roy was trying to kill Deckard was pretty good. The suspense of the scene really kept the viewer on the edge of their seat. Personally, I was hoping that Rick would get away without a scratch. The chase sequence was rather dramatic. The director had everything from broken fingers to free climbing the side of an apartment building. Ricks broken fingers added to the suspense of the scene. As viewers, we were not sure if he would be able to climb the building with his hand in the condition it was in.  The climax of the chase scene was came when Rick leaped across to another building and just caught the ledge. As he hung there, Roy easily jumped across and looked down upon Rick as he dangled from the building. I certainly thought that Roy was going to step on Rick's fingers causing Rick to fall to his death. However, the opposite happened. Roy actually grabbed Ricks arm and pulled him up to safety. This part of the scene really confused me. Why would the Replicant that was trying to kill Rick the entire scene save him? After pondering about this, I realized that maybe the Replicant felt remorse for his actions. Roy knew that his systems were shutting down and he help Rick up right before this happened. The unanswered question still remains; Do Replicants feel emotions?

Climax?

The climax was not what I had originally expected. I previously thought that the climax would consist of a war between the remaining humans and the Andys. The actual climax did not disappoint me, but based on the twists and turns of the book, it was not what I expected. Overall, I really enjoy the book thus far. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? started off as a slow read, but picked up quickly once pieces started to fall together. The book tended to build on previous concepts and really make you think about a possible Apocalypse.  For a majority of the reading, I wondered why animals were so important to human life. Once Rick tested Rachael Rosen using empathy questions that involved animals, I began to understand why they were so important to the story. Humans really love animals and feel empathy for the ones who are harmed or die. The Androids however, do not feel empathy towards the animals. Once it became more clear why the story was so fixed around animals, I began to understand the author's thinking behind using animals as a sort of indirect focus point.

Ch. 11 Writing as a Problem Solving Process. A&B

      I found the idea of revising your paper globally as well as locally to be interesting. Making changes locally to a rough draft is a concept I studied in high school. We did not touch on the concept of global revision. In high school English, we never revised our ideas or the structure of our papers. We simply would change local aspects of our paper to allow our papers to flow more clearly. Globally revising a paper can change the structure of your paper so that the local points of your paper better emphasize the main concept of your work. If I had studied global revision in high school, I would most likely be a better writer now.