There's no words there?

So we haven't had a fun post in a while. This is due largely in part to us having to blog about 26 Lies and now "Meet the Lucky Ones". So I figured some fun was in order. And who is more fun than Bill O'Reilly I ask you?

So in my various youtube adventures I come across this gem. I'm not going to embed it because its more of just the backstory for the real video posted below. But the gist is that Bill O'Reilly is a jerk. He flips out at his crew because he couldn't read "play us out" on the prompter. Guys really got a temporment issue. Warning: Coarse Language. Always wanted to say that. No one uses the word coarse to discribe language anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tJjNVVwRCY

But then the real fun comes when you add techno beats and make it a remix! Very catchy.

I laughed anyway. 

After I wrote this I realized its Halloween today and I could have done a very cool and scary post and saved this post for later when I really had nothing. Oh well. If I post about Halloween in the middle of November, its because I'm using my free Halloween topic idea then. No way I'm wasteing it.

Understanding "Understanding"

So this blog post happens to be about the section "Understanding" in 26 Lies. Seems like an easy task right? I mean, all there is in this part is a set of eyes. Albeit sad eyes, but still no words. So how hard could it be? Turns out pretty hard, because its way easier to comment on something when it has words. Besides describing how something physically looks, what else are you going to say about a picture? And don't give me that "a picture is worth a thousand words" stuff. I will believe that when I see a thousand words about a picture. And I haven't yet. But anyway, understanding. I think we are probably led to believe that these are "understanding" eyes because of the title. In this sense I mean they under the same category when people say someone has caring eyes, sympathetic eyes, compassionate eyes, kindly eyes, and considerate eyes. It means you look upon someone with all those adjectives in your face. Apparently something like 80% of our non verbal communication comes from our eyes. I guess then it is appropriate then if you wanted to portray some emotion with some part of the human body, it would be the eyes. As far as what we are understanding, I haven't the slightest idea. It could be one of any number of things. The book is about so much, and the reader doesn't understand a whole lot throughout the book anyway, that this passage about understanding could mean we are trying to understand thousands of possibilities of things. So the point of "Understanding" is that we don't understand it. How ironic.

A much needed update..

So you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for a while now.. So here are a few things going on in my life that you don't necessarily have to care about......

WARNING: IF BORED EASILY BY BLOGS IN WHICH PEOPLE JUST COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW "ROUGH" THEY HAVE IT, STOP READING NOW.

- I had gastroenteritis. Yeah. I was one of those kids. I'm always one of those kids.
- I keep getting random packages in the mail from my parents. One was a nice care package from my mom including a whole bunch of healthy-type snack foods like granola, etc. Another, however was a bit more.. Shall we say.. Interesting. It included a pair of black socks, 3 packets of hot cocoa mix, and a Gamecube controller. Here's the kicker. I don't own a Gamecube, nor have I ever. Yeah. Chew on that for a while.
- I'm damn near failing every class because I'm so lazy, and I'm doing everything I can to prevent it but there's something about me that always draws me away from things I should be doing to things I'd rather be doing, ie. talking on the phone with friends from home, ordering ribs and watching football with my roommates, etc. Dr. Parent.. Are you reading this? Consider it a public, blog-style S.O.S.
- I don't give a shit who wins the World Series. The Yankees aren't in it.
- I need to make up lost ground on this whole blog tally thing.. Stand by for copious posting.

BEN PEEK! I'm calling you out!

I believe that the Understanding sections represent Ben's understanding that Geraldine is actually gone. I don't think it is entirely clear from the first picture. All you can tell is that Ben is looking at something with an emotion, along the lines, of sadness. Once you see the second picture, however, you can see he is looking at an impression in his bed next to him. Presumably that is the spot where G slept and he sees the absence realizing she is no longer there. That is just what I get from it at any rate.

Also my title is trying to get the attention of Ben if he is reading these. I don't know what to do once I have that attention. Nice book though. Could you e-sign my copy by commenting on this post?

Oh I'm star struck

Dr. Benjamin Peek

I was a huge fan of Twenty-Six Lies/ One Truth. So much so I had already read A-M way back in August when I first picked up my school books. I just started reading and couldn't put it down. I decided to re-read it so I would be able to comment on the book better in class.

The assignment for the first section was to write about our favorite entry, then go back, re-read it, and write some more on it. This is what I wrote

"My favorite entry is the one where Ben listens to a 13 year old girl's problems and is surprised that his friends think it is a bad thing. I am trying to remember what letter/chapter it was in. Regardless I was a fan of how he brings up the idea of people's perceptions and how they can stop someone from acting to do something good rather then being afraid of implied 'dangers'"

the second part went like this

"So turns out that this was in the E section and called Ethics. It is interesting because Ben is commenting on an ethical view people have and this view cold have kept someone from helping this girl. Ben's voice really comes through when he says "It had never occurred to me that I could be in danger, just for listening to a thirteen year old girl."

Viewing the Ethics section with the hindsight of reading the L section and Sixteen we certainly are left with a lot to wonder. Is Ben a pedophile? Is he trying to justify it with his descriptions of teen sex idols? Is it a societal standard? Is he implying we should act on our sexuality and desires no matter what they are? Should we judge him harshly? Why did he even include those facts in his book? Are they really a big enough part of him to be included in an autobiography? Is this an autobiography? Was any of this real?

I don't think I will get an answer to any of those questions and if Ben is really reading this then I suspect he will leave me to wonder as it adds to the artistic merit and interpretation of the work. Or something like that.

I already read the rest of the book and have been trying to keep it special for those who haven't gotten to the end just yet. I really interacted with the book. A few times toward the end I felt like I had been punched in the gut and had to walk away. Once I even threw my copy across my room in protest.

DUDE, Ben Peek reads out blogs.

Today I discovered Ben Peek reads our blogs (or did, maybe he still will because we have yet to discuss the end of the book). It was a very surreal moment when I found out. Kind of humbling as well. I mean, how often have you wanted to talk to the author about anything and everything in thier book? Reading his blog I found out he actually posted some of our responses on his blog. It looks like some of us in the class weren't expecting that, because some of the posts aren't exactly kind to the novel or to the author. I wonder to what level of offense (if any) he takes to that. I mean, I know not everyone can like a book and everyone is entitled to thier own opinions and all that jazz but if I worked hard on a book and thought it was good and worth publishing, I would be a little bias and think that it is a damn good book right? Then when people say otherwise, I would naturally get offended. But maybe real authors have learned to get over this and just ignore the critics, no matter what. 

This makes me feel really stupid about my past obligitory 26 Lies post, because looking back on it now it was just something to do quick and dirty to get the requirement done so I could get on with my yucks and youtube videos. But now knowing he actually took a look at them and probably thought "Wow this kid has nothing intelligable to say or contribute to the discussion of my book" makes me. It's cool how simply the author outside the class knowing about our blogs vindicates these posts. Blog posts I would have otherwise not cared about now become meanful and worth returning too. Interesting how that works. 

Anyway, thought it was cool the author was reading our blogs. Hi Ben Peek. 

Obligatory Post about 26 Lies/One Truth before we get back to showing you videos because apparently that's all you want from us.

So in this post, I expand upon the little passage I wrote in class about the novel "26 Lies/One Truth".  My in class post went a little something like this:

My favorite passage (or passages in this case) were the ones about different Australian or international writers who had written fiction under the guise of it being non-fiction. These authors were usually praised for their amazing work, like one got the Australian writers award or something to that extent. But then it was discovered that they "lied" and the works are pure fiction and then people get angry at them and their reputation is ruined.

Then the second one went a little something like this:

So it turns out one of these authors is Laura Albert, who wrote about a person J.T. LeRoy who wasn't really her. Another was Helen Demidenko, who wrote about her Ukrainian heritage, even though she wasn't Ukrainian.

Since writing these two in class, I have also discovered authors such as Konrad Kujau, Norma Khouri, and Rahila Khan (apparently people with "K" last names are more likely to behave this way). I'm sure there are more in the novel too, I just haven't specifically found them. I know there are a lot. I liked these and they stuck out in my mind because they seem to be an important and integral part of the story, It's something connected, that is mentioned a lot, and it seems to me like all these stories will wrap up and make some grand and poignant point at the end. They are important, seem interesting, and are throughout the book, so that's why I liked these passages in "26 Lies/One Truth".

YOU WANT SOME DAMN VIDEOS!

This post is only for the person or persons who wanted to see more funny videos on our blog. I was thinking of cutting back on the videos but it seems our blog's role lately is to find everyone precious gems of the internet. So I will reach into my bag of tricks to pull forth some videos worth a view or two.

Now I am sure you are all familiar with or have at least heard Aha's one hit wonder "Take On Me." I bet some of you are less familiar with the music video for the song. It is a pretty good as far as 80's music videos go. Although it has very little to do with anything. I will post it now for reference. Feel free to skip to the second video if you are familiar with the video already.



Now I only posted that to familiarize you with the following video. Some guys took the classic song and wrote a "Literal Version" based on the events in the video. If you are anything like me you will wish that this is actually what the song was.


Finally I give you this bonus video that is a quickie. But oh so funny.

.

Many LOLz

I don't know about you guys, but I love comics. I remember when I was little reading Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side and loved every minute of it. Now I have grown up and I thought it was appropriate for a "Digital Literature" blog (if that's even what we are) to feature a digital comic. Get it? We are going with a theme of moving from paper literature to digital literature? I am connecting this to the class! I'm really reaching...?

At any rate, on of my favorite web comics without a doubt is xkcd. Its usually pretty hilarious, although some days you kind of have to be more of a geek to get some of the references. As the site says they are: "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.". We have a lot of language in our class, and certainly a lot of sarcasm, but I hope no romance, and probably no math, so I guess it relates to everyone in the class so, by this logic, everyone should like it. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

For the romance category. Plus Parent wanted us to be edgy and include porn and stuff. At least, that's what I think he said.

For the language category. This theory has never failed me.

For the sarcasm category. But this shouldn't be sarcastic. Everyone should do this. Seriously. You don't know how many morons frequent youtube. Example:

There ya go. Just go on youtube now if you don't believe me. Anything even slightly debatable has some idiots ranting in the comment section.

For the math section. In looking for good comics for this post, I found out a lot of the math ones aren't that funny unless you really like math and understand it. So this has a graph and numbers, I'm sure that's enough math for most of you. Especially you English Major types.

I'm Posting Pornography Richard. Try And Stop Me!

We are in a position to do whatever we want on our blogs. What are you going to do? Not vote for us? Well it is time we got edgy. So I'm breaking the one cardinal rule set by our professor and posting pornography.


Ok so it isn't exactly porn. It is PG Porn. For people who love everything about porn, except the sex! This is the first episode starring Nathan Fillion (of Firefly and Dr.Horrible fame) and Aria Giovanni (of actual porn fame.) I must remind you that Nathan Fillion is a credible Hollywood actor.

There are at least 4 other episodes already in the works starring semi-well known male actors and infamous female porn stars. One being a twisted take on Charles Schultz's Peanuts, bawdily titled Peanus

PG Porn is the brainchild of James Gunn who wrote and directed the Scooby Doo movie and Slither. He says this to justify the project.

How many times have you been watching a great porn film – you're really enjoying the story, the acting, the cinematography – when, all of the sudden, they ruin everything with PEOPLE HAVING SEX?

A bunch of times, right?

That's why I, along with my brothers Brian and Sean, have created JAMES GUNN'S PG-PORN. It's pornography everyone can enjoy, not just perverts. You and your grandmother, for instance, could sit down together and enjoy some nice clean smut.

Also to prove how ridiculous the premise of this series is. The guy who is scoring the terribly generic porn music is Tyler Bates who is responsible for the scoring of such big movies as 300, Dawn of the Dead, and the upcoming Watchmen movie.

WARNING: Be advised it gets extremely close to porn and is best viewed in the safety of your dorm/office. It is also quite funny and only meant for comedic effect. The views and opinions in the video are not held by the bloggers of Royal With Cheese

Getting Political

So a few classes ago Dr. Parent tried to explain why we are doing so well. The truth is, we ourselves don't really know, we kind of just blog for whatever reason we feel like at the time. But that all changes now. In an effort to become more "diverse" and "pander to all you blog voters who need another reason to vote for us again" I have decided to do something crazy and controversial that hasn't been done yet on these blogs.

Talk about politics.

It seems like a great solution right? I mean in class Rich (can I call him that?) said himself how there's this blog with over a millions views a day and if you write something slightly provocative then you can get on the main page. So talking about politics seems like a real draw in this blogging world, and maybe it will prove to you guys we are a nice diverse bunch of bloggers who are committed to change and ready for leadership on day one and....wait a sec.

But seriously folks. 

I am not a fan of Sarah Palin and, quite frankly, I don't see how anyone could be. She is probably the worst vice presidential candidate in the history of vice presidential candidates. I am convinced her pick was purely to buy voters because she really has no other draw. She has very little experience (with anything) and likes to hunt wolfs from helicopters. She is hypocritical with her whole deal about that pregnant daughter of hers and wanting abstinence only education. She is not very well spoken and, quite frankly, I don't like listening to her with that terrible accent. She's got really no idea whats going on in the McCain campaign and looked like a fool in that Katie Couric interview. The best thing she's got going is she looks like Tina Fey, and Fey's portrayal of her is dead on. I think it's funny because she doesn't have to try to hard to get people to laugh at her, Sarah Palin is funny by herself and provides most of the material. A lot of what Fey says is very close to what Palin herself actually says. So without further ado, here is a funny SNL skit about the VP debate. 

I hope that was political enough for you all, because odds are I won't be doing this again. Its too hard being so serious.

MY favorite Alice.

So my favorite inanimate Alice story is the Third one, despite the cheesy games you have to play. It is the most serious and morose. I think the general trend is that they get longer and more serious. The fourth one was more serious in the fact that she herself was in danger and could have died. But I feel that the story kind of got ruined in the fourth when she said she "could have" died. If they left it up to suspense and just let it play out, I might have liked the fourth better. The third has the action and seriousness that made it enjoyable to watch and made you want to keep watching. Despite the stupid doll game you had to do. The idea that dolls can get you past armed guards is crazy, but you kind of just play along. The first one was good, and I liked, just not as much as the third. Then in the second one you kind of knew that her parents would come back and the problem would be resolved. But the problem was not resolved in the third one. Maybe that's what I liked about it, the cliffhanger ending. But then it didn't tell you in the fourth exactly what happened, so I was slightly disappointed. All in all they were pretty good. certainly not the worst story things I've seen online.

My Favorite Alice

I was kind of upset that I just spent an hour plus for what seems to be nothing more then a giant commercial for the creators to force their stori.es product on me. Viral Marketing isn't always interesting I guess.

I pick the first episode of Inanimate Alice as my favorite because I don't think any other episode quite matched the tension. I liked when things were going really fast and it got confusing and frantic and fun. Also it didn't waste 30 minutes of my day which was a plus. Screw you episode 4.

I didn't really like it when they got all "gamey." I mean the games weren't exactly fun, they kind of distracted me, and they felt hokey. It got too involved and too complex.

Also listening to the sounds was like watching a David Lynch movie. I don't know if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

Please don't make 10 of these

Things going on behind the curtain

I feel like Alice falling through the looking glass when I partake of my new glass behind the the tapestry I fashioned into a curtain.
"This caligraphy marker is dope"
Creativity is embraced behind the curtain.
"Could you imagine being fluent in chinese? that would be creepy"
Chinese is discouraged.
WE LISTEN TO RAP. and the bass bumps and bumps and bumps.
Air pressure changes when we open the window or door, let alone turn the fan on. Let's just get one thing straight, I am not the owner of the red "coming out tee-shirt." Jeff is. He is the one that brought it home he must have won it somehow then tried to frame me because you feel scared. It's ok jeff!

Without much further ado...

Sorry so late, guys. I'm still having difficulties incorporating my commentary into the video because apparently Vista doesn't have a movie maker. Tech support from anyone would be much appreciated.

Are You Man Enough?.....Or Woman?

We are all sitting in class right now talking about blogs. So instead of doing that go here Actually it would be more fun to go home and see your own personal computer's history.

This program looks at your browser history and determines mathematically if you are a male or female. It is a neat little thing to see if you line up with standard gender roles.

Don't worry it doesn't go into your computer and put adware on or something like that.

Post your percentages after. It goes a little slow on Internet Explorer so give it time.

In case you were wondering

I am 99% male
1% female.

I was actually surprised

I want ___ and candy. But mostly candy.

You know the saying you shouldn't go shopping when you are hungry? I think the same goes for blogging. I am trying to think of a great blog post, but all I can do is sit here and look at the fun dip on my desk or the reeses in our common room. So why not write about it, if i can't stop thinking about it anyway. So candy. It is generally made to be very tasty, yet there is a lot of controversy over which candy is good and which is not. I am going to go through my personal favorites, and some I can't stand.





First, any and all Wonka products. That book was not lying, everything is delicious. I don't think they make any bad candy. Nerds, gobstoppers, pixy stix, runts, laffy taffy, sweet tarts, and my favorite, fun dip. They all were excellent, and all had many different colors of sugar.





Milky Way was one of my favorite bars. It was smooth and creamy and melted in your mouth. There was just enough of the caramel to nougat ratio to make it appealing. For example, 3 Musketeers has a 100:0 ratio of nougat to caramel, and they really aren't that good. You needed both the caramel and nougat, and enough of both.

Twix. Whoever thought if this was a very smart person. "I know, I will combine a cookie and a candy bar". The result is a crispy but not too crunchy mix of some sort of cookie like thing with some caramel on top covered in chocolate. It is tasty and is sort of like the other side of Milky Way, if they were crispy instead of smooth.

M&M's, I am convinced, are some of the best candy on the face of the planet. I don't care of that "they melt in your mouth not in your hand" deal is a crock, they still are wonderful. I had a friend once who said each color of M&M tasted different and that he could taste the difference. Then he proceeded to guess each the color of each one he was eating. I have no idea how he did it, but it proves M&M's aren't just tasty, they are a fun party game.

100 grand's are severely underrated, albeit not worth 100 grand. But they are quite chewy and decedent and worth mentioning here.

Candy Corn is a classic, and I remembered it just because it's getting close to Halloween. They have a taste that is very distinct and different from all other candy. Kind of tastes like maple sugar candy without the maple, if that makes any sense.

Sour Patch kids/Warheads were what I ate when I needed my sour fix. SPK's were good because they were a little sour but then you were rewarded with a nice sweet gummy candy. Warhead were just pure soury pain. But you loved them and needed to eat like 3 in a minute to prove that little warning label wrong.


Thats the short list of my favorite candies. I consider myself pretty open minded when it comes to trying new candy, but some are just aweful. Like these.

Take 5. Like with anything, just because 2 or more things are good separate, doesn't mean they will be good together. Like women and hot dog eating contests. Both really cool separately, but I just don't want to watch women stuff themselves with big hot dogs. But that's just me. Anyway Take 5 goes as far as to put a pretzel into a candy bar. What a bad idea.

Necco Wafers shouldn't even be classified as candy. They are more like thin flavored Tums pills. And they aren't even good flavors either, you would think they would spring for some watermelon or something. Finding these in your Halloween candy was the equivalent of getting socks for Christmas.

Almond Joy's also weren't too good. Didn't they have some coconut in there too? And the chocolate wasn't nearly good enough to make up for the poor nut taste you would get. It was just a bad experience.

Finally, those circus peanut things. They don't even warrant discussion.

Final Draft Digital Story!!!

Final Draft of Digital Story.

So here it is. Have barrels of fun.

It's close to midnight, and something evil is lurking in the dark.

So, when I am having a writers block, the first thing I usually do is go to youtube or wikipedia. Great practices, I know. Its probably more for procrastination purposes than to actually get ideas, but on occasion it actually works. Take today. I didn't know what to write on this blog, so I perused my "Favorites" section on youtube. And lo and behold what did I find? Prisoners doing "Thriller". When I first saw this a few things crossed my mind. A) How did they get the idea for this? I mean, I know you are bored in prison, but how does recreating a MJ music video become the first thing you want to do? B) How did they organize/get permission for this? I always pictured prison from "The Shawshank Redemption", and those people did not seem like they would be up for any sort of singing and dancing. If your the one guy who thought of this, do you just go around asking people if they want to sing and dance in a music video? That seems grounds for getting beaten. Even if everyone was up for it (and apparently something like 100 of these inmates were) how do you convince the guards to let you do this? It must seem like the most far fetched idea ever. But maybe the guards wanted some entertainment? Although it seemed to be organized and choreographed too well to just be something the guards wanted for entertainment. They must have been involved I think. At any rate, it is done quite well and it worth watching (plus, who doesn't love the song "Thriller"? Everyone does.).








I'm not sure if this gives me much more or significantly less faith in our rehabilitation system.

I also hope someone just mindlessly watches the youtube video and doesn't read the post and thinks this is my digital story.

It Has Been Done-D.S

This is my finished copy. I hope people are able derive enjoyment from it

Also I wish someone else would post to break up my posts from one another

I'm Taking Back Irony!

Irony is no doubt English's most fickle bitch. It is a pretty hard concept to grasp correctly and everyone screws it up now and again, myself included. But what I'm talking about here is the gross misuse of the word. People wearing hats ironically? People liking ironic music? What has become of the word that was once held as the holy grail of literature?

I think the root of the problem can be traced back to Alanis Morissette. In her 1995 hit album, Jagged Little Pill, a song was released entitled Ironic. Now the crazy little thing about that song is that none of the events described are actually ironic. Rain on your wedding day? That isn't ironic, just shitty luck. But wait don't discredit it just yet; a song that is entitled Ironic that doesn't actually contain any irony is fundamentally ironic! Canadians are tricky like that. It was probably the greatest literary joke of the 20th century. But this witty statement was lost as millions listened to the song and thought "...yeah. Yeah! Good advice you didn't take is ironic"



So there we were in 1995. Our world's perception had been forever changed. Many people tried to stand up and stop the misconception right then and there but they were silenced by Morissette's platinum selling record and rhythmic melodies. The battle had been lost. Irony would never be the same. Then in the new millennium an enemy of irony arose. His name was Ashton Kutcher. He would deliver the blow that would break irony's back.


Kutcher was different from Morissette in that he intentionally went out of his way to attack irony. Kutcher began to sport trucker hats in what was considered an "ironic manner." What the fuck did that even mean? I didn't know enough about Ashton Kutcher to believe that his hat wearing was ironic, nor did I care. Instead of ignoring it like everyone should have kids picked up on the fad and blew it out of proportion. Ironic apparel made its move from the head to the rest of the clothing family. Some thought it clever to wear Carebears or Darkwing Duck shirts "to make an ironic fashion statement". The flaw in that plan was that no one knew enough about the wearer to realize that by wearing a My Little Pony shirt they were actually making a bold declaration. Instead one would assume they are fans of My Little Pony which would be pretty cool, rather they seemed like pretentious asshats instead. Was that the irony of the situation?

Today we stand poised to lose the very definition of irony. Misuse of the word runs rampant to the point where public misconception could influence understanding in the future. Please do what you can to save this dieing word.