Monday, November 25, 2013
Arctic Monkeys "AM"
Since their breakthrough in 2005, Arctic Monkeys have been crashing their way through the music industry. The four Sheffield boys Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Nick O’Malley, and Matt Helders formed together in early 2002 and debuted their EP album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not in 2005. The indie rock band has released four more albums since then with AM being their most recent released on September 6th, 2013. Twelve songs make up this collection with hits like “R U Mine?”, “Do I Wanna Know?”, and “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” This album has a sense of coolness in it. The songs from beginning to start flow nicely -almost like they all twine together to make a story. It should not be classified under one style or genre of music; realistically the whole album is a mix of hip-hop, rock, and funk soul-pop, somehow making it all work.
Tunes like “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? make your foot tap to the beat and makes for a smooth melody. “Knee Socks” is one of the better songs on the album- sexy and the smooth vocals from Turner mixed with the guitar makes this one of the more daring songs the band has sung. Arctic Monkeys give off this feel of 50s rock n roll with their leather jackets and slicked back hair; it most certainly works for them. This is not an innocent album- it gives off messages of getting high, alcohol, sex, lust, dissatisfaction and loneliness. The track “One For The Road” is all about having that one last drink before you leave. The title of the tune is repeated as the chorus throughout the whole song, you can hear it softly playing in the background along with the strumming bass guitar. “Mad Sounds” is one of my favorite songs on the album. It makes you think: does music have healing powers? You feel like you get lost inside the song and drift away from the world. For anyone new to the Arctic Monkeys- I would recommend that they listen to this song first.
Overall, I enjoyed the whole album. There were only two songs that I disliked- “Fireside” and “I Want It All.” Fireside was very dull and boring compared to the rest of the songs that surrounded it. It felt like a typical love song- how hard it is to move on from the one you love and reminisces his past relationship. Very predictable. “I Want It All” shows more of the rock side to the Arctic Monkeys; Turner wants to keep all the women that he encounters. The first chorus is all of the things that make up a relationship or a fling with someone. It just did not catch my attention throughout any part of the song. I would give the album overall a 8/10 and would recommend it to someone who was looking to listen to new music. I found that the best way to listen to Arctic Monkey’s music was with headphone, volume on high, and with no distractions. I just listened to the whole thing without doing anything else and really got a feel for it. The Arctic Monkeys really nailed this album and it is something worth listening to.Where Has The True Spirit of Christmas Gone?
The meaning of Christmas has evolved from family to a more commercial time of year. Instead of gifting each other with just being together, people go out and buy expensive gifts that usually do not get a second glance. Holiday shoppers this year plan to spend an average of $801 on gifts for family and friends. $801 dollars. You know what that could buy? $801 could be used to buy gallons and gallons of water for people out in Cambodia. It could given to a homeless shelter that really needs the money to improve their conditions, a school could use it to buy new textbooks, it could be saved up for a future college fund or even put away in savings. Spending that huge amount of money on small, meaningless gifts is a waste. Christmas is not even about the privilege of spending time with your family, it is all about “What gift am I going to get next?” Holidays should be a time where you set your busy life aside and really take in and enjoy what you have. Never mind about getting the latest gadget or that cute sweater you saw in the mall; you should sit back and appreciate what has been given to you. That $801 dollars that was spent on t-shirts and jeans, even though you have more than enough already, could have been used to buy clothes for children who have little to none. I'm not saying that you should not get anything for Christmas but the amount of money and what people receive should be cut down.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Album Reviews
Favorable Reviews:
The Civil Wars “Barton Hollow” Contact Music- Folk
After being released last year in their native United States, duo Civil Wars' debut album, Barton Hollow, has now been released in the UK for their fans to get their hands on. The album has already won two Grammy awards and a support slot with Adele who has lavished praise on them, calling them the best live act she has ever seen. Not bad for a band whose popularity has snowballed since one of their songs featured on medical dram, Grey's Anatomy.
Barton Hollow kicks off with '20 years' which has some luscious acoustic guitar playing which is followed by the lovely singing voice of Joy Williams. One particular element of this album is how simplistic the instrumentation is. The album is never over layered with guitars, drums and what not. This allows Williams and John Paul White's singing to flourish without sounding impeded. The singing of the duo becomes the centrepiece for this album.
And this is reflected perfectly in 'To Whom It May Concern' as the duo's voices sing in harmony showing a particular warmth and delicacy complimented by the accompanying string arrangements and acoustic guitar.
One of the highlights on this album comes in the shape of the album's title track, Barton Hollow which is a total foot stomper of a song and reminiscent of Elbow's 'Grounds For Divorce.' Civil Wars' combined vocals constantly go from soaring right back down to a gravel like darkness. After hearing such stripped back acoustic arrangement in the prior tracks it is the most vigorous song on the album.
'Poison and Wine,' one of the album's single's, sees Williams and White's at their best, lyrically it tells the story of emotionally drained lovers. A standout song on the album for the singing's felling of fragility. White's almost quivering like vocal on this helps draw the emotion out in the song as if bringing a character to life.
Upon listening to Civil Wars, you are reminded of the work by Robert Plant and Allison Straus. But Williams and John Paul White manage to create a sound that is easily recognised due to the style of their own voices and the way they intertwine with one another. They help tell the stories in the songs and the sparse music is the perfect background to bring them to life. One of the best albums in the past few years that can delve into human emotion and create a reaction in the listener.
Darren Criss “Human” (EP) Sputnik Music- Alternative
Human touches on the basic emotions that we all experience throughout our lives, like love, heartbreak, and jealousy. Criss’ voice exhibits sincerity and passion in each of the songs on his EP.
One of the songs, “Not Alone,” which Criss performed live at the Trevor Project benefit earlier this year, showcases his vocal range from his larger drawn out notes to his falsetto. The chorus also happens to be quite catchy. I promise that you will be singing-a-long by the end of the song. Also, there’s a feeling of truthfulness in the lyrics, which serves almost as a reminder that we’re all capable of these emotions that make us inevitably human.
Production-wise, one can only imagine what Criss could accomplish if he had the time to record a full-length studio album with a full band. For recording the EP at home, the overall sound is pretty good. It’s nice to hear Criss’ raw vocals that are not glossed over by studio magic.
Two Bad Reviews:
Lana Del Ray “Born To Die” Meta Critic- Alternative
Fundamentally wary of any artist who whiffs of pop contrivance, indie-rock circles greeted singer Lana Del Rey with equal parts fascination and skepticism. After all, her aesthetic—a boutique blend of ’60s pin-up glam and indie listlessness, with a light dusting of trip-hop—was so refined that it had to have been manufactured. When details about Del Rey’s past as the much plainer singer-songwriter Lizzy Grant confirmed those suspicions, the Internet’s cynicism gave way to blunt hostility. The ensuing debates about Del Rey’s authenticity were overheated and dispiriting, riddled with gender prejudices and unfair jabs about the artist’s cosmetic overhaul. Unfortunately, Born To Die almost seems to go out of its way to vindicate even Del Rey’s smuggest detractors. Shallow and overwrought, with periodic echoes of Ke$ha’s Valley Girl aloofness, the album lives down to the harshest preconceptions against pop music.
Although Del Rey’s early marketing teased her as a “gangster Nancy Sinatra,” the creation on Born To Die is never so strong-willed. Instead, she’s a severely outmoded imagining of the ultimate male fantasy: a flighty Talking Malibu Stacy doll who pledges her complete devotion in a pouty baby voice. Her lyrics linger lustfully on her body: her pursed lips, painted nails, short dresses, and black bikini tops. She exists only to titillate.
Some of this was possible to excuse on Del Rey’s torchy breakout single, “Video Games,” wherein she fruitlessly throws herself at a distracted boyfriend. She carried that song with winking assurance. A curdle in her voice seemed meant to drolly mock her boyfriend’s obliviousness, if not the sheer melodrama of her own song. But the stifling desperation of Born To Die suggests that any cheekiness in “Video Games” must have been an illusion. If there is a joke in the song, it isn’t on the boyfriend, but on Del Rey, a one-note vixen who’s so solely self-defined by her feminine allure that sexual rejection undermines her reason for being.
Sly Stone "I'm Back! Family & Friends" Mikael Wood- R&B
As frustrated fans of the erratic funk legend know, this isn’t the first time Sly Stone has promised he’s back: In 1976 he and the Family Stone released “Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I’m Back”; three years later they followed it up with “Back on the Right Track.” Unlike those coolly received efforts, “I’m Back! Family & Friends” doesn’t contain much original material, which of course undercuts to some extent the very idea of Stone’s return. If he’s not writing and recording new music, what is it that he’s back to, exactly? Failing to show up on time for his live engagements?
Here he teams with a handful of fellow Woodstock-era vets — Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge — for covers of old hits like “Everyday People” and “I Want to Take You Higher.” There is no great damage done to the still-powerful material, though you might cringe slightly when Ray Manzarek drops a bit of the Doors’ “Light My Fire” into “Dance to the Music.” But these affectionate redos don’t tell you anything you didn’t already know about Stone’s music; they’re far less informative than work by his many acolytes.
Three new tracks (including a dreamy take on the gospel standard “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”) provide a glimmer of what Stone might accomplish if he ever rouses himself more fully. But only a glimmer — and only after a good deal of static.
Mixed Reviews:
Lady Gaga "Artpop" Gemma Champ - Pop
What happens when pop’s most original star releases an album that’s depressingly derivative? We’re about to find out, as Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP just about scrapes in at No 1 on the album charts.
This is an artist who has built her reputation on weirdness, shock, surprise and mystique, but the biggest shock on this record is how pedestrian the whole thing sounds. Track by track, the influences and references are not just hinted at: they are inflated in Jeff Koons-style bright plastic.
A charitable listener or an avid fan would point out that, with a visual collaborator like Koons, and a title that plays with Pop Art – a genre that turned the most obvious pop-culture references on their heads – Lady Gaga is making a point here. Possibly. But she’s also trying to sell records and keep ahead of her chart rivals, and this album adds little to the pop canon.
ARTPOP does have its moments: the opening bars of the first song, Aura, bode well, with a sort of psychedelic, surf-rock menace and a feline tone to Gaga’s voice, but it takes only a couple of phrases before a Bad Romance-style call of “Aura-ah-ah” signals a decline into repetition. The Infected Mushroom-produced song maintains an edge until the forgettable chorus: little surprise that the electronica duo had asked for their names to be taken off the credits.
Venus, purportedly inspired by the psychedelic jazz genius Sun-Ra, with a bit of Starman thrown in, is more like a tame version of Katy Perry’s ET, interspersed with a declamation that combines Blondie, Madonna and Electric Six, though without the authenticity of any of them.
The title track is a real high point, however, its propulsive, ostinato bass given a sense of menace in vowelly synths. Who’s singing? Well, it sounds like Sophie Ellis-Bextor, which makes a change from Madonna, Ke$ha, Cher, Britney and the many other artists that the chameleonic Gaga channels during the album.
Also excellent is Fashion: Bowie’s Let’s Dance appears to be a direct influence on the vocals (“Let’s Dance” and “Fa-shion” are sung on the same intervals and metre, the spare production and strong drum echoing the Bowie song). Add a Daft Punk robotic hook and electric guitar trill, and a fun, optimistic lyric – “Looking good and feeling fine” – and you have a song that, if utterly unoriginal, is deeply catchy and enjoyable.
So, back to the art: what is Gagaism? At this stage, little but a blank canvas. Album number four needs to paint a new picture.
Stellastarr "Harmonies For The Haunted" Rob Theaksen- Indie Rock
Almost two years to the day have passed since stellastarr*'s eponymous debut won over the hearts of hipsters and nostalgia addicts with their audio smoothie of everything '80s and '90s. During this time Interpol released Antics, and there was no doubt that stellastarr* was quietly lurking in the background, scribbling notes about song arrangements and dynamics. The homework and study paid off, and the bandmembers took what they learned and applied it to their own sound for Harmonies for the Haunted. And while they've done a good job, the same problem that plagued their first album has swollen immensely. Harmonies for the Haunted is an interesting paradox: they have presented something new without it really being new. A game of "name that influence" runs rampant from the album's start to its closing seconds. The album shows promise thematically with its opener, "Lost in Time," which sounds a bit like Coldplay covering the Cure's "Pictures of You," but only after Chris Martin sucked on lemons for an hour. From the first song onward, the group wanes and retreats into one predictable musical exercise after another. Shawn Christensen flexes his vocal muscles to reveal a hybrid between the booming vocal delivery of Interpol's Paul Banks, the Cure's Robert Smith, and the Chameleons UK's Mark Burgess, with a little bit of a whiny Danzig thrown in the stew for good measure, and the band sounds good from a technical standpoint. The production is heavy and dense, but very well polished -- crafted with the finest post-punk dynamics in mind for maximum hipster enjoyment. But strip away the gloss and the group is really, in the words of James Brown, "talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'."
The Civil Wars “Barton Hollow” Contact Music- Folk
After being released last year in their native United States, duo Civil Wars' debut album, Barton Hollow, has now been released in the UK for their fans to get their hands on. The album has already won two Grammy awards and a support slot with Adele who has lavished praise on them, calling them the best live act she has ever seen. Not bad for a band whose popularity has snowballed since one of their songs featured on medical dram, Grey's Anatomy.
Barton Hollow kicks off with '20 years' which has some luscious acoustic guitar playing which is followed by the lovely singing voice of Joy Williams. One particular element of this album is how simplistic the instrumentation is. The album is never over layered with guitars, drums and what not. This allows Williams and John Paul White's singing to flourish without sounding impeded. The singing of the duo becomes the centrepiece for this album.
And this is reflected perfectly in 'To Whom It May Concern' as the duo's voices sing in harmony showing a particular warmth and delicacy complimented by the accompanying string arrangements and acoustic guitar.
One of the highlights on this album comes in the shape of the album's title track, Barton Hollow which is a total foot stomper of a song and reminiscent of Elbow's 'Grounds For Divorce.' Civil Wars' combined vocals constantly go from soaring right back down to a gravel like darkness. After hearing such stripped back acoustic arrangement in the prior tracks it is the most vigorous song on the album.
'Poison and Wine,' one of the album's single's, sees Williams and White's at their best, lyrically it tells the story of emotionally drained lovers. A standout song on the album for the singing's felling of fragility. White's almost quivering like vocal on this helps draw the emotion out in the song as if bringing a character to life.
Upon listening to Civil Wars, you are reminded of the work by Robert Plant and Allison Straus. But Williams and John Paul White manage to create a sound that is easily recognised due to the style of their own voices and the way they intertwine with one another. They help tell the stories in the songs and the sparse music is the perfect background to bring them to life. One of the best albums in the past few years that can delve into human emotion and create a reaction in the listener.
Darren Criss “Human” (EP) Sputnik Music- Alternative
Human touches on the basic emotions that we all experience throughout our lives, like love, heartbreak, and jealousy. Criss’ voice exhibits sincerity and passion in each of the songs on his EP.
One of the songs, “Not Alone,” which Criss performed live at the Trevor Project benefit earlier this year, showcases his vocal range from his larger drawn out notes to his falsetto. The chorus also happens to be quite catchy. I promise that you will be singing-a-long by the end of the song. Also, there’s a feeling of truthfulness in the lyrics, which serves almost as a reminder that we’re all capable of these emotions that make us inevitably human.
Production-wise, one can only imagine what Criss could accomplish if he had the time to record a full-length studio album with a full band. For recording the EP at home, the overall sound is pretty good. It’s nice to hear Criss’ raw vocals that are not glossed over by studio magic.
Two Bad Reviews:
Lana Del Ray “Born To Die” Meta Critic- Alternative
Fundamentally wary of any artist who whiffs of pop contrivance, indie-rock circles greeted singer Lana Del Rey with equal parts fascination and skepticism. After all, her aesthetic—a boutique blend of ’60s pin-up glam and indie listlessness, with a light dusting of trip-hop—was so refined that it had to have been manufactured. When details about Del Rey’s past as the much plainer singer-songwriter Lizzy Grant confirmed those suspicions, the Internet’s cynicism gave way to blunt hostility. The ensuing debates about Del Rey’s authenticity were overheated and dispiriting, riddled with gender prejudices and unfair jabs about the artist’s cosmetic overhaul. Unfortunately, Born To Die almost seems to go out of its way to vindicate even Del Rey’s smuggest detractors. Shallow and overwrought, with periodic echoes of Ke$ha’s Valley Girl aloofness, the album lives down to the harshest preconceptions against pop music.
Although Del Rey’s early marketing teased her as a “gangster Nancy Sinatra,” the creation on Born To Die is never so strong-willed. Instead, she’s a severely outmoded imagining of the ultimate male fantasy: a flighty Talking Malibu Stacy doll who pledges her complete devotion in a pouty baby voice. Her lyrics linger lustfully on her body: her pursed lips, painted nails, short dresses, and black bikini tops. She exists only to titillate.
Some of this was possible to excuse on Del Rey’s torchy breakout single, “Video Games,” wherein she fruitlessly throws herself at a distracted boyfriend. She carried that song with winking assurance. A curdle in her voice seemed meant to drolly mock her boyfriend’s obliviousness, if not the sheer melodrama of her own song. But the stifling desperation of Born To Die suggests that any cheekiness in “Video Games” must have been an illusion. If there is a joke in the song, it isn’t on the boyfriend, but on Del Rey, a one-note vixen who’s so solely self-defined by her feminine allure that sexual rejection undermines her reason for being.
Sly Stone "I'm Back! Family & Friends" Mikael Wood- R&B
As frustrated fans of the erratic funk legend know, this isn’t the first time Sly Stone has promised he’s back: In 1976 he and the Family Stone released “Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I’m Back”; three years later they followed it up with “Back on the Right Track.” Unlike those coolly received efforts, “I’m Back! Family & Friends” doesn’t contain much original material, which of course undercuts to some extent the very idea of Stone’s return. If he’s not writing and recording new music, what is it that he’s back to, exactly? Failing to show up on time for his live engagements?
Here he teams with a handful of fellow Woodstock-era vets — Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge — for covers of old hits like “Everyday People” and “I Want to Take You Higher.” There is no great damage done to the still-powerful material, though you might cringe slightly when Ray Manzarek drops a bit of the Doors’ “Light My Fire” into “Dance to the Music.” But these affectionate redos don’t tell you anything you didn’t already know about Stone’s music; they’re far less informative than work by his many acolytes.
Three new tracks (including a dreamy take on the gospel standard “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”) provide a glimmer of what Stone might accomplish if he ever rouses himself more fully. But only a glimmer — and only after a good deal of static.
Mixed Reviews:
Lady Gaga "Artpop" Gemma Champ - Pop
What happens when pop’s most original star releases an album that’s depressingly derivative? We’re about to find out, as Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP just about scrapes in at No 1 on the album charts.
This is an artist who has built her reputation on weirdness, shock, surprise and mystique, but the biggest shock on this record is how pedestrian the whole thing sounds. Track by track, the influences and references are not just hinted at: they are inflated in Jeff Koons-style bright plastic.
A charitable listener or an avid fan would point out that, with a visual collaborator like Koons, and a title that plays with Pop Art – a genre that turned the most obvious pop-culture references on their heads – Lady Gaga is making a point here. Possibly. But she’s also trying to sell records and keep ahead of her chart rivals, and this album adds little to the pop canon.
ARTPOP does have its moments: the opening bars of the first song, Aura, bode well, with a sort of psychedelic, surf-rock menace and a feline tone to Gaga’s voice, but it takes only a couple of phrases before a Bad Romance-style call of “Aura-ah-ah” signals a decline into repetition. The Infected Mushroom-produced song maintains an edge until the forgettable chorus: little surprise that the electronica duo had asked for their names to be taken off the credits.
Venus, purportedly inspired by the psychedelic jazz genius Sun-Ra, with a bit of Starman thrown in, is more like a tame version of Katy Perry’s ET, interspersed with a declamation that combines Blondie, Madonna and Electric Six, though without the authenticity of any of them.
The title track is a real high point, however, its propulsive, ostinato bass given a sense of menace in vowelly synths. Who’s singing? Well, it sounds like Sophie Ellis-Bextor, which makes a change from Madonna, Ke$ha, Cher, Britney and the many other artists that the chameleonic Gaga channels during the album.
Also excellent is Fashion: Bowie’s Let’s Dance appears to be a direct influence on the vocals (“Let’s Dance” and “Fa-shion” are sung on the same intervals and metre, the spare production and strong drum echoing the Bowie song). Add a Daft Punk robotic hook and electric guitar trill, and a fun, optimistic lyric – “Looking good and feeling fine” – and you have a song that, if utterly unoriginal, is deeply catchy and enjoyable.
So, back to the art: what is Gagaism? At this stage, little but a blank canvas. Album number four needs to paint a new picture.
Stellastarr "Harmonies For The Haunted" Rob Theaksen- Indie Rock
Almost two years to the day have passed since stellastarr*'s eponymous debut won over the hearts of hipsters and nostalgia addicts with their audio smoothie of everything '80s and '90s. During this time Interpol released Antics, and there was no doubt that stellastarr* was quietly lurking in the background, scribbling notes about song arrangements and dynamics. The homework and study paid off, and the bandmembers took what they learned and applied it to their own sound for Harmonies for the Haunted. And while they've done a good job, the same problem that plagued their first album has swollen immensely. Harmonies for the Haunted is an interesting paradox: they have presented something new without it really being new. A game of "name that influence" runs rampant from the album's start to its closing seconds. The album shows promise thematically with its opener, "Lost in Time," which sounds a bit like Coldplay covering the Cure's "Pictures of You," but only after Chris Martin sucked on lemons for an hour. From the first song onward, the group wanes and retreats into one predictable musical exercise after another. Shawn Christensen flexes his vocal muscles to reveal a hybrid between the booming vocal delivery of Interpol's Paul Banks, the Cure's Robert Smith, and the Chameleons UK's Mark Burgess, with a little bit of a whiny Danzig thrown in the stew for good measure, and the band sounds good from a technical standpoint. The production is heavy and dense, but very well polished -- crafted with the finest post-punk dynamics in mind for maximum hipster enjoyment. But strip away the gloss and the group is really, in the words of James Brown, "talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'."
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Bears Fan Tasers Wife over Lost Packers Bet
According to NBC News, “The rivalry between Chicago and Green Bay rose to a new level after a south suburban Bears fan used a Taser on his Packers fan wife when she “lost a bet" following the Bears win Monday, according to police.” But later his wife said she did not take consent to getting tased by her husband. NBC Chicago stated that, “but cell phone footage of the incident shows her "laughing and it seemed apparent that Ms. Grant had consented," the arresting officer wrote in the complaint.” According to ESPN, “Grant was charged with felony possession of an electronic weapon.”
According to the Digital Journal, Weird Asia News, and the faster times news articles, a Chinese farmer named Wu Yulu has created an army of robots. Wu Yulu has created 26 robots over the past 30 years and is continuing to make even more to this day. Wu Yulu is 46 years old and first got interested in robotics when he was 11 years old. He calls his robots his sons, and names them after him as Wu no.1, Wu no.2, and Wu no.3, all the way to Wu no.26. The robots he made can light cigarettes, play instruments, and write calligraphy. Wu’s favorite robot he has built is called a rickshawbot, it’s his prized possession.
According to the British News Journal, British Talk and other foreign newspapers, a man named David Capaldi is going to swim down the River Thames. In the dead of winter. With no clothes on. He will attempt to swim from the London Bridge to the Waterloo Bridge and back in under two hours. One hour there and one hour back. Capaldi is known for doing these extremities; in 2007 he swam across River Pekoe in Italy, he only wore goggles. No clothes at all. He will be expected to attempt this adventure in January of 2015.
According to the Mirror News online, a construction worker named Chris Kelly, found a false widow spider hidden, while he was renovating a house in Burnley. Once he spotted the little creature, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of it. Chris came face-to-face with one of the most venomous spiders in the UK and he wasn’t going to let it just scuttle away. In doing so, he managed to capture it in his lunch box before taking it home for the weekend. While most of us would’ve quickly gotten rid of it, Chris called him Boris. As if that wasn’t enough, to keep him living and healthy, he fed him sugar puffs. Chris put holes in his lunch box to make sure that Boris could breathe and he tapped the lid down so he was sure he wouldn’t escape.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Is Bullying The Same In the Locker Room & The Work Place?
I feel as though bullying in the locker room is completely different from bullying in the work place. Up to a certain limit, it is okay in the locker room but if it is in the work place it is a completely different environment. Locker rooms are more playful and work places are more formal.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Dictionary Words- New and Created
Words that should be added to the dictionary:
"Persiev" (Noun)- Basin to store one’s thoughts in
"Niffler"-(Noun) creature to sniff out treasure
"Omniocular"-(Noun) Binoculars that can replay action and slow it down to re-see the action
"Portkey"-(Noun) Object to transport wizards from one place to another destination. They are transported by the touch of an object.
"Time Turner"-(Noun) Turns back the time from the future.
Words that I created that should be added to the dictionary anyways:
(Verb)- "Awkwarsation" The habit of accusing ones teacher for doing weird things
(Verb)- "Halkepass" The habit of filling out hall passes with false information
"Muker"-(Noun) A person who deliberately presses down harder than necessary on the Expo-Marker tips so they retreat back into the marker.
"Couplock"-(Noun) Couples who stand together in the hallway and act like they will never see each other again
"Persiev" (Noun)- Basin to store one’s thoughts in
"Niffler"-(Noun) creature to sniff out treasure
"Omniocular"-(Noun) Binoculars that can replay action and slow it down to re-see the action
"Portkey"-(Noun) Object to transport wizards from one place to another destination. They are transported by the touch of an object.
"Time Turner"-(Noun) Turns back the time from the future.
Words that I created that should be added to the dictionary anyways:
(Verb)- "Awkwarsation" The habit of accusing ones teacher for doing weird things
(Verb)- "Halkepass" The habit of filling out hall passes with false information
"Muker"-(Noun) A person who deliberately presses down harder than necessary on the Expo-Marker tips so they retreat back into the marker.
"Couplock"-(Noun) Couples who stand together in the hallway and act like they will never see each other again
(Noun)-"Sniffmas" One who enjoys to sniff Christmas trees
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
High Interest Question
Do you feel as though teenagers who read more do well in school oppose to teenagers who never read?
Why Should You Read More Often?
Ethos- reading can prevent Alzheimer's disease. When you read a book it reduces stress and puts you in a better mood.
Pathos- people who read are more likely to vote, exercise, and be more cultural. Reading is also very therapeutic. Reading makes you a better writer and expands your vocabulary. It makes you feel good when you read a book and in return, other people around you feel good.
Logos- if you read more, you are more likely to get ahead in your career and you are most likely to learn something new.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
The Question: Ban Technology?
If parents were to ban technology from their children it would have both positive and negative effects. In our 21st century, we use technology for just about everything. Our phones can house credit cards or gift cards, upload checks to bank accounts, you can even scan an item in the store and get its price. Technology can be a good thing; laptops have webcams on them which is ideal for websites such as Skype where people can video chat across the country. If parents banned their teenager from having a phone, what would they use in case if an emergency? You know most phones have a tracker inside them which the police department can locate a person down if they are next to their phone? If a teenager did not have a phone to call or text their parents that they needed help then it would make it that much harder for them to receive help. Although technology has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages. More and more teens are becoming addicted to social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. 75% of the population has an online profile. Students spend most of their school days not paying attention to the teacher but to their phones. And when they get home they are not doing homework but scrolling through Tumblr. Staring at a screen for too long causes health problems and poor eye sight. So I think too much technology is a bad thing but to have it there is a good resource to have!
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