the construct :: weblog

There are a couple things many things that bug me about the world/people/U.S. Today I’m going to discuss a couple.
1)) Hillary Clinton’s $90 million study on video games and children and
2)) The Urban Outfitters “New Mexico is cleaner than regular Mexico” t-shirt

1)) Hillary Clinton video game study
WHY?? Seriously. Is this some stunt to get all the concerned/angry mothers on her side? Is this some political media stunt to gain attention? Video games and violence have gone hand in hand for years, along with studies of their effects. Why the huge media attention now? The article Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over [7/27/05] by Steven Johnson in the LA Times is a perfect response to the issue.

I’d like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.

I’m talking, of course, about high school football.

One thing he didn’t really touch on: the money being spent studying video games. The only good thing about it, is that people have jobs! Hooray for employment! The other side is, isn’t there alot better things to be spending money on? Grand Theft Auto has created media attention since GTA3 Vice City. Oh and get this, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the game that has sparked all this attention by Hillary, was released in October 2004! I guess it took her awhile to play the game, then decide it’s better to make a big deal about it because she couldn’t beat it.

2))Urban Outfitters “New Mexico is cleaner than regular Mexico” t-shirt
Guess what, there are tons of offensive t-shirts out there. It just depends on who you talk to. That’s what free speech is. Big deals like this make me want to shop at the store more / buy the shirt. I like to shop at Urban Outfitters and I won’t stop. Don’t forget the business side of it. Funny sells. Especially when it comes to t-shirts, and even more so in the 15-28 age range. It’s things like this that I wonder who first decided it would be a good idea to attack Urban Outfitters. Was it an angry customer? Somebody with an agenda? Both? However it may have started, this is just another trend in the media. Pick on something that everybody else can pick on to. Also, Urban Outfitters didn’t create that shirt, they just bought a bunch from… well lets see if you can find the original seller/creator.

If all else fails. Blog some photos.

Fantastic Four was decent overall. I kept on hearing that it was bad, so I went into the movie thinking that it would be bad, yet it was not all that bad.

I was not expecting anything spectacular except for visual effects, and they delivered on that. The dialogue, well was not good, yet it was lots of fun to watch. Jessica Alba is the eye candy, which she does a great job at. Chris Evans was cool/funny as flameboy which I think made the whole movie. Ioan Gruffudd (crazy name by the way) was the kinda boring Mr. Stretch/Reed Richards but what can I say since he did get Jessica Alba/Sue Storm. Then there is “The Thing” Michael Chiklis who was funny in some ways, ridiculous in others. Like for instance you are made to feel sad for him, but he ends up choosing to be that way. Some kind of personal revelation that I thought was corny. And last but not least, the villain, Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom. I think that he was the best actor in the whole film besides the cool doorman in the Fantastic Fours penthouse building.

In the end, it’s your average story (very old story) of the good guys beating the bad guys, and how pretty the special effects people can do it. Fun movie if you feel like it.

Why do things like this happen?

Weird.

AHHH! More! This one found by Jessica. I bet there is alot more… [view here]

They are actually all over the place when I zoomed out over New York and moved around a bit. Kiinda strange.

And now here it is at a high of 101 degrees.

So now at 4:10pm it is supposed to get hotter! And it’s still 101 outside! AHH!!

It is so hot right now. I don’t understand how today there is going to be a thunder storm yet a high of 101 degrees. Wow. Summer is good in some ways, sucky in others.

Charlie and the Cholcolate Factory was quite the amazing film. Most of everybody knows the story, yet there were different things added in that added an extra goodness to the film. One of those things was the history of Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka in the original [Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory ] was a mysterious man. In this new film, Willy Wonka is still a little mysterious, but you find out more about why he is the way he is and how he started his chocolate empire.

Johnny Depp who played Willy Wonka was not as odd as I thought he would be. In the trailers they only showed him talking wierd and looking extrememly pale white and almost sickly. The good part was that he wasn’t like that throughout the whole film. One thing to note is that this is not a musical like the orginal. There is some very entertaining musical pieces of the singing Oompa Loompas.

Overall I really enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tim Burton did an amazing job at directing and bringing a new version of the chocolate factory to theatres. I highly recommend this as a fun movie to watch this summer.

Time for me to write more. Maybe here on this weblog, maybe not. There is something great about writing with a pen on paper, sometimes. Most of the good writing times are when it is something I want to write about.

This post was to remind myself to write more. To write to remember.

I discoverd how to use my manual focus which really made my day. It’s kind of difficult, but nonetheless I know how to use the feature! So I took some some shots today in downtown and others.

Click here to view today’s photos

Just a photo for today, or for right now. Lots of work to do. Was a great weekend.

Hello Saturday. An uneventful day. A day to catch up from the week. Sometimes a day to do work. Most of the time, like today I don’t want to do any. So I’m not.