Naeem's Bloggity: 2010

The Final Post

After many days of planning and thinking of an idea, we have finally come up with a finished product for our final assignment.

From the beginning our idea was to have a contrast between two sides. So we thought of ideas that would encompass that. Something that had two sides and was easy to split in half. Since our topic was literacy a book was the most ideal idea.

We came a long way from our initial ideas.

Which were:

An album cover. A face that was cut in half one side having a retro design, while the other was very punk and plain. We wanted to show that the punk side was plain because there was no literature and no imagination, while the retro side was very wonky and full of life.
Take a full body picture of people and arrange them side by side each with a different emotion that was connected to a part of literature. Each pose would encompass a genre.
Graffiti. We were looking at art that was drawn on the ground but was really realistic. It was almost like an illusion. So we wanted to make one like this but instead of a waterfall, it would be walking into a world of literature.
Another idea was to use silhouettes of people placed one one field. We had a few ideas of how to use the silhouettes . One idea was to arrange them on a plain field of grass, and organize them from left to right. From the left we would have some important literary figures you are taught in grade 9, and then grade 10 until you reach the end of the poster you would see important grade 12 literary figures like Hamlet, Amir from the Kite Runner and so on. The other idea was to use our friends in different poses trying to spark a love for reading.

However a lot of these ideas did not get picked because they were either to cheesy or had no meaning. Which is why we chose to go for the one we currently have. Since we had the opportunity to show something real to the school, we wanted to have something that would stop someone with some intellect so that they could ponder about what is going on in the poster.

Our idea was to have one half be a retro propaganda poster showing a historical figure, Marilyn Monroe, with tape across her face. This side would have a lot of symbols and pictures but no words.

The other side of the page was the complete opposite being complete words and typography.

We wanted to show that the books we are fed are previously picked to force a type of thinking. We are told to read come books because they have messages that other people want us to know.

We dont read books that we want to read. We are forced to read bother that others need us to read.

The words on the background were just the cherry on top to finish and polish the artwork up.

For the last time,

Thank you for reading :D

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Weeds: Superficiality of Americans

Subject: Weeds

Summary:
An American comedy/drama about a newly widowed mother of two, selling marijuana to make a living.

Significance:

This series, is spoof of the American Upper class showing their hypocrisy and making fun of the American suburbs and their lifestyle.

The main character is an excellent example of one of the housewives. Once the money making husband is dead, she does not want to get a job, instead she wants to make a lot of money really fact like every American. Thus she begins to sell weed. Throughout the series she gets caught and is placed in several life or death situations. Even though this happens she never gives up and still wants to make a quick buck.

Nonetheless this series is a play of the American lifestyle and how spoilt they are. The mentality is that if you are not in a huge house with a load of money and your wife is not working staying home with the kids, and you cant go to Cuba every year . You are a useless middle/lower class person.

Dexter: Changes our Morality?

Subject: Dexter

Summary:

A Showtime show about a lovable serial killer.

Significance:

Dexter, is a serial killer. Why is this show famous? Last time I checked, murder is a crime that will put a man in jail for the rest of his life and in some places, die for his crime.

Dexter is one of my favorite shows, because it puts you in the make believe life of a real serial killer. Normally serial killers are known for being anal lonely freaks that are very anti-social. Dexter on the other hand, is a seemingly happy man that can fool just about anyone.

The reason why I like this show is because it deals with realistic problems a serial killer would have. For example:

The show deals with Dexter's constant struggle to maintain his secret life (murdering people) while keeping his family and friends unsuspecting of his acts.

On several occasions Dexter talks about the murdering process, and the reason why he doesn't feel guilt after. Dexter's foster father was a police officer that saw at a early age Dexter was addicted to killing other beings. His father taught him how to kill a man properly without getting caught and how to do it efficiently. Later on, he teaches him to kill guilty people. Criminals that are above the law and deserve to die.

This leads me to what I wanted to discuss. Whether people deserve to die. In this show, they lead to to believe that some people do deserve to die. People above the law that can afford the best lawyers to fight their case and let them loose with a fine or a few months imprisonment. These are rapists, murderers and evil people.

Dexter goes through an extensive research, which he calls "the hunt" where he decides whether or not this person deserves to live or die.

This show deals with some themes such as, how precious a human life is, can all play god, who deserves to live or die, and the question of morality.

Thank you for reading :D

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Entourage: Man's Best Friend

Subject: Entourage

Summary:

An HBO hit comedy about a movie star and his Entourage.

Vincent Chase is a guy that lived in Queens, NY. He grew up in a house where his father never made over $100,000. Yet now hes a hit Hollywood star living with his best friends growing up making $100,000 for one commercial.

Significance:

Entourage. This show screams quality. It is THE BEST SHOW EVER. It deals with the themes of brotherhood, friendship and much more.

This show is basically a spoof of Mark Wahlberg's first few years in the Hollywood industry. The tests, trails, and problems Vince has to go through are created by Mark's first hand experience and stuff hes seen other actors experience.

The show shows us how even when you are filthy rich, you have to remember where you came from and you initial goals. Vince is a character with strong moral values and principals and whenever Hollywood forces him to break them, he always makes a stand.

The show also deals with the importance of friendship and why your friends are always the most important people in your life. Why its also good to have good friends.

Overall, I have seen 78+ episodes of Entourage. Not one of them was a filler or stupid episode where i felt myself saying afterwards, "what the hell did i just watch". In fact, after most episodes I felt so happy that I wished I had such loyal buddies. This show is defiantly worth everyones time and every penny if you choose to buy a whole box set.

Thank you for reading :D

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Lost: About Lost

Subject: Lost

Summary:

An American hit TV show about a group of people stranded on an Island after a plane crash.

Significance:

Now, I dont want to get too much into the story since I hate giving away spoilers.

All I am going to say, is that after the first 19 episodes I was in love with this show. I am noted for hating mainstream TV shows. Shows that air on FOX, CBS, or any other channel like that. But this show still had the main element of mainstream TV, which I will discuss later.

The reason why I really like the show, was because of the depth of the characters. The characters in the show have such deep and complex stories and elements that I was shocked. There is one character that is probably my favorite for several reasons. The way this character was written, and the struggles he had gone through had made me want to cry. He was in a wheel chair, all his life people restricted him and told him he had no potential. He was a foster child, his dad met him for the first time when he was 30 only to steal his liver. And many other sad tales.

Nonetheless, before I ramble what I wanted to discuss was the difference from mainstream TV shows (LOST, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, etc.) to shows on HBO and Showtime (Dexter, Weeds, Entourage, etc.)

Now one of the main differences is you pay exclusively for HBO and Showtime. Due to that one fact, you do not get stupid commercials. You sit down and watch an episode of Entourage, you will watch approximately 28 min of footage out of the 30min you sit down for. If you sit down to watch an episode of Big Bang Theory, you will watch 18 min out of the 30 min you sit down for with over 12 min of commercials. This right here is another example of how lower class people watch these shows because they cant afford the extra high class TV shows on the other channels without commercials.

Also, I find that mainstream TV shows are structured in a way, that will create a climax or important point, only to be interrupted by a commercial break or the end of the episode. This way you HAVE to watch the commercial so you are sitting on the edge of the seat so the TV station will out your show on prime time. This is almost never the case with ther other shows.

I feel you get better quality shows, less media infused crap in the shows that air on HBO and Showtime. Whereas, on FOX and CBS you will watch a show that is structured to get the station the most amount of views and money, and keep the show you are watching for season after season.

Like Prison break. They got out of prison. They got back into prison. They are on the run. Good guys become bad. Bad guys become good. The shows are redundant and are meant for you to keep watching it. They are caught in an endless loop that once you are in you need an intervention to come out.

Thank you for reading :D

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This Weeks Theme: Popular Shows

This week Ill be focusing on some of my favorite TV Shows and why i think they are good. Ill also talk about why I think they are significant in descirbing our culture and the differences between a show on HBO or Showtime and one thats on CBS or FOX.

Thank you for reading :D

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Existentialism Assignment - Critique

Okay, if the quality is garbage its because I had to lower it to put it on youtube since the actual video is over 4Gigs in size. Also this is just a short 5 min clip of the entire thing no where near the final product.

Just to give you guys some understanding about our (Neeraj, Josh, Naeem and Awrco) idea.

The movie is basically a contrast between two people. Both these people are regular high school students but lead entirely different lives. One as you see is living life to the full extent having fun and socializing. The other which you guys haven't seen yet is the opposite. He is anti-social depressed and so on. We are trying to have no cliche moments and working with different camera angles and other effects.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to ask. Ill reply back to either answer them or clarify what we are doing.

[Edit]- So this is just a small preview of our whole movie. There is still a whole lot that we couldnt show becuase of uploading problems. Other then that I hope you guys get the basic idea of we are trying to show. A contrast between two people is basically our movie.

YouTube: The T.V. Destroyer

Subject: YouTube

Summary:

You-tube, not known to be a social network however the only people who say it is not a social network are the people who dont use it as one. It is a basic video uploading and sharing website with a profile and friend functionality.

Significance:

Youtube is my favorite website of all time. I think i have spent thousands of hours watching videos from several people. In fact because of their subscription function i get about 20-30 new videos daily and sometimes even more.

The reason why YouTube is not known as a social network is because most of the users just want to see stupid random viral videos and that is not what the YouTube community is about. The YouTube community is about creating videos and sharing them with your subscriber base and also interacting with them.

However, YouTube and other online video storage websites are going to be the future of the entertainment industry. I mean the top subscribed YouTuber is a young Asian kid thats name is NigaHiga. Over 2million people are subscribed to him and every video he uploads gets 2-4 million views. Normal TV shows dream to reach that amount of viewers. Not just him but the top 10 subscribed users of all time get millions of views and people are starting to understand the power of the community.

Why wouldn't they? I mean your video loads super fast and no commercials or waiting times. You can watch it when ever you want and as many times you you want. The service knows what its users want and its one of the reasons why its so successful. Other websites like Crunchyroll make you sit through commercials in the middle of their videos are the reasons why their communities suck. The only disadvantage is the pop up add that you can minimize, but everyone needs to make money.

Twitter: The Privacy Destroyer

Subject: Twitter

Summary:

Twitter, is known as a social network/blog. It is mostly used on phones and portable electronic devices to let your "followers" know what you are doing. Its like a very slows instant messaging service where you are instant messaging everyone.

Significance:

I find the whole idea of Twitter ridiculous making it in my opinion the worst social network ever. Compared to Facebook where there is some sense of equality where everyone gets the same treatment, Twitter is mostly used for Hollywood celebrities to let their fans know what they are doing. I mean look at it, you are known as a "follower". You are basically showing that you are that persons "bitch".

Also I feel that it increases the other persons ego. "look I have 300,000 followers in Twitter" great...here is a cookie.

If you lower the scale and only use it to lets your friends and family know what you are up to then, sure i guess its a good idea. However I still feel like its still in a beta stage. Not everyone has a smart phone that allows them to access Twitter which makes the service flawed.

Overall, I feel that Twitter is a useless social network that has few advantages and its a service that not everyone can easily use and access at this point in time. Maybe in a few years when smart phones are dirt cheap Twitter use will soar. However untill then I still feel its something only for Upper class citizens and Hollywood celebs to use and show off. It also shows how little privacy we will have in the future.

Facebook: The Social Destroyer

Subject: Facebook

Summary:

Facebook is renown as being one of the most famous websites of our generation. It is a social networking website that anyone over the age of 13 can use. Its initial creation was to help college students keep in touch. This later spread to high school students and to this day everyone use the free service. The website has made over 300million in revenue with over 400million active users making it the most use social networking website in the world (next to MySpace).

Significance:

Facebook is a very controversial website, and in my opinion a glance at our future. Lets look at some of the advantages and disadvantages first:

Advantages:

Gives people the power to meet others
Efficient way of knowing what your friends are doing
Socialize online
Put a virtual profile of yourself online
Keep in touch with your friends
etc.

Disadvantages:

Stalk other people
Privacy issues
little physical social activity
and many more

Many people believe that Facebook is killing the way people socialize. I mean its a lot safer and easier to talk to someone online rather then in person. Online you have time to think about what you can say, use the internet for help and you dont have to worry about your current state or how you look. This is the major reason why people see Facebook as a "social destroyer" people no longer need important people skills anymore if they can talk to someone online. The major flaw is that, you can have your online conversation, but what happens when you decide to meet in person to move your relationship forward? That is the future, other online services that help you move your friendship into a relationship.

However, Facebook is criticized about killing social confrontation but it doesn't get as much recognition in other areas that it excels in. For example, Facebook "groups" help bring people together who share a certain perspective with each other depended on the type of group. Also when the recent Haitian Earthquake hit, news articles were posted on peoples status' and in seconds thousands of people knew about it and were able to send relief and spread the word. Facebook is amazing at helping people spread the word.

One recent example is the Activision vs. Infinity ward battle about royalties. A Facebook group was created to inform the gaming community about the head of Activision studious recent...for the lack of a better term "douche bag" move. Due to the media this group was getting the CEO's of Activision decided to pay Infinity Ward their royalty.

The power of Facebook is a force to be reckoned with. Overall, there are advantages and disadvantages about it, but its out there and things are only going to get worse. I project that the next 10 years people will evolve enough that we will never have to leave out house. Like the movie Surrogates.

This Weeks Theme: Social Networks

I have already done two blogs about Facebook and social networks in general, so this week I will pick some other ones and go more in depth

Last week I had two superhero themed entries and two different, I am sorry :D. I shall try to do 3 themed and if possible a 4th themed blog.

A social network is defined as a social structure made of individuals who are connected. To this day, there are thousands of these networks across the internet. Facebook, Youtube, Twitter to name a few. Hell, even a small forum is considered a social network.

Here is an article from collegehumor that goes along with this topic nicely.

Thank you for reading :D

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Existentialism Assignment - Production

Its been a while since I have updated on the movie for a few reasons.

Looking back, around Easter weekend (April 4th) we tried to film our movie which we had a fairly good idea about. Only problem was all the stupid technical difficulties:

1.) We tried to use a high end 1080p photography camera so we could have a high quality movie however, it took forever to edit and the sound quality was garbage.

2.) We found a microphone, but it was not compatible with the camera.

3.) We finally decided to use the art departments camera, but as soon as we got it and were ready to film during easter...there was no battery charger and we wasted the weekend.

4.) Once we got the charger, we started filming the day after, much to our dismay the cassette we were using, was dirty and about 3 min in to our scene it gave us a "clean filter: message which we ignored. Later when we filmed a good 15min of footage we tried to look at our footage but turns our the cassette needed cleaning and our footage was mixed in with whatever was on the tape. Another day lost.

5.) Finally we bought a new cassette tape and started filming :D...Only to change the movie

I think from the beginning of the movie pre-production till now, the idea has changed 1000000 times. However, some of it for the better some of it not. I guess the problem is that we dont have a team leader, a director. So everyone and everything is all over the place and messed up.

However, now we have a decent idea about our movie, it makes sense to all of us and were on somewhat of a roll. In fact just the other day we were looking for music to play during some scenes and I even created a beat for a sad scene of my character. I shall upload it on my next update post, probably when we will be in our editing stage.

Kick Ass was Kick Ass

Topic: Kick-Ass

Summary:

Kick-Ass is a movie based on a 2008 hit Marvel comic. To put it simply, its a Marvel version of the DC comic Watchmen.

Significance:

To be completely honest, I think that Kick-Ass was the best movie I have seen since Hangover. It combined comedy, women and ...Kick Ass scenes to be a great movie well worth a watch.

When I was going to pick a movie to watch this weekend it was between watching Death At a Funeral and Kick-Ass. Looking at the trailer I thought Kick-Ass was going to be a PG version of Watchmen because of the little girl in it. To my surprise the little girl was actually the most BAD-ASS character in the movie.

I was happy to see that there were some adult themes in the movie rather then having a clean movie about a serious topic.

This movie was really good because of the truth behind it. The basic plot of the movie is about a 18 year old guy who wonders why no one tries to be a hero. After many personal encounters and trails he chooses to become a hero and he finds other people like him who are also heroes.

The part about the movie I liked the most was the fact that everything they did in the movie was practical and realistic. For example, the villain was not a guy who fell in a pile of toxic waste and went on a rampage in the city, he was a normal crime boss that had a realistic personality and character. Also, the heroes didn't use their fists and manage to take out hundreds of enemies, they used guns to take out the bad guys.

Another realistic theme about this movie was the fact that it showed how different heroes are from us, and it brings up the theory about Existentialism and the Ubermensch. The heroes in the movie were normal people who had morals and rather then saying, "oh someone else will do it" they got up, put on a suit and did a job no one wanted to do.

This movie showed us that being a hero is a dirty job, its a hard job, its a job no one wants to do and its a job that we can all do. It shows us the difference from a worker to a leader. It showed the difficulties of juggling two separate lives and how that stress effects you. How many times do we see Batman or Superman in their room pondering about what they just did?

Overall, Kick-Ass IS a realistic superhero movie that brings up some interesting points and ideas that we should all think about. Paired up with Watchmen, these two movies complete each other.

You Wont See this on the News

Topic: 1001 inventions and The Library of Secrets

Summary:

This is a mini-film, about 13 min in length, about the crowning achievements of the oddly named Dark Ages. Sir Ben Kingsly plays a librarian in charge of teaching a couple of British kids about the contributions Islam had to our society.

Significance:

Lately the Islamic community has been stereotyped as being terrorists and extremists. The stereotypical Muslim is a brown man in his 30's, with a large beard and is known to scream "lalalala" and blow up.

However, this mini-film shows a different side of Muslims, instead of the destruction, death, and war people are used to, it shows the power of Islamic creation. I was also personally shocked at how significant their discoveries were.

From the creation of the camera and the aircraft to simple medical tools we still use in our hospitals today. In fact, Al-Jazari, and engineer was famous for several inventions that are used in cars and trains. The industrial revolution would have never happened without his inventions.

Why is it that Muslims are only known as terrorists now, but in the past they were known as brilliant inventors? In the media, all we see are terrorist men and because of that we assume that all Muslims are terrorists. It is as if, we sent videos of redneck, white trash Americans living in a hillbilly town to the rest of the world, and that is how they portrayed us. Basically the media is showing us the hillbilly's of the Muslim society.

If you ever visit Dubai or some other Middle-Eastern country, you would see what art and beauty Muslims are capable of, and you would see the real Muslim society, not the media instilled stereotype.

The A-Z of Awesome Comics

Topic: A-Z of Awesomeness

Summary:

The artist, Neil Cameron, created 26 awesome images of comic book heroes that had some connection a letter from the alphabet. This resulted in 26 images, from A-Z as seen in the picture.

Significance:

When I started creating my weekly blog theme, this archive of pictures was one of the first things I had in mind. If you have any free time, I strongly suggest you visit the link and view all 26 images. It was quite funny and entertaining for me looking at some famous comic book characters that I grew up reading about put in a new setting.

I think this gallery is a decent example of defamiliarization. Seeing superheroes put in a single image each with its own theme which corresponds to a letter. One of my favorites was the letter "P". "Peter Parker Playing Ping-Pong with Pikachu".

Also these pictures also change the overall view we have on superheroes. Normally, superheroes are super, because of their morals and their powers. These pictures show that the superheroes are still people, with real complex feelings and emotions.

For example:

"C is for Capitan Britain Cuddling Cerberus"

How many superheroes have ever been given a scene where they sit and "cuddle" with... something...

"D is for Doctor Who Defeating Dr. Doom in a Deadly Disco Dance-off"

Does Batman ever try to disco battle Joker?

"G is for Galactus Geeking out with his Glove puppets of Gundum and Godzilla"

Galactus, one of the biggest most feared evil villains outs there, playing with puppets?

I like how Neil defamiliarized and humanized superheroes. I look forward to his future work.

This Weeks Theme: Superheroes

In order to make this blogging experience a little more fun. I am going to compile all the articles I find interesting and create a theme that all posts will have in common. This way all posts will be connected in some way.

To start off, my first theme will be about superheroes.

Just to give myself some leeway, I will create 3 themed blogs and 1 different blog.

Man Loves Pillow...

Topic: Man marries pillow

Summary:

A Korean guy, Lee Jin-gyu, fell in love with his dakimakura (large huggable pillow)

Significance:

What happened to the good old days when you loved someone, that you wanted to settle down with, you would marry them. I remember about a month ago, another otaku (a Japanese term that roughly translates to somewhere between 'obsessive' and 'nerd') married a video game character from a Nintendo DS game.

This "case" just goes to show the differences of the year 2010 to the year 1990. Nowadays, people get divorced more and more, and old family and marital values no longer exist as they used to. I mean, why would someone want to marry a pillow? Or a video game?

Marriage is defined as a union between two individuals. How can you create a union between a man and an intimate object? Even if this man really loves his pillow, why marry it? I feel that marriage is something you do in order to declare to the world that you and your partner are together. That is why you are branded legally and by a ring on your finger.

Another issue, is the fact that this guy is a nerd. From the looks of it, they only place he could find love is with a pillow. Another fine example of our culture. It seems like the 21st century has created this social rift, that compels people to find a lover. From all our TV and other forms of media, we are brainwashed to think that being alone is taboo, and there is always someone out there for us. Lee Jin-gyu, seems like a victim who was to scared to be alone, and chose to marry his pillow.

The Tamil Strike Again

Topic: Akon Banned from Sri Lanka

Summary:

Akon is no longer welcome in Sri Lanka, after filming a pool party video for his song with David Guetta, Sexy chick.

Significance:

People were violently protesting that Akon insulted Buddha because of a statue in the background of the music video.

This situation is fairly ridiculous and fairly far-fetched. I can understand why people were angry, after all nearly 70% of the country is Buddhist. However, their decision to ban Akon from ever entering the country is unfair. First of all, its not Akon's song or music video. Its David Guetta, Akon was just featuring in it. Guetta even apologized to Buddhists in Sri Lanka, saying "am a spiritual man, so I can understand why they are offended. But violence is never the answer and I am disheartened to hear about what happened in Sri Lanka."

However, the protesters are fairly hypocritical in their argument because one of the principles of Buddhism states that all things are impermanent. It just goes to show that everyone is ready to quickly blame someone.

The part that amazes me is that they somehow missed all the half naked women in the video and saw the Buddha in the background.

Game Rape? Raping Game?

Topic: Rapelay: Game

Summary:

Rapelay, a game created in 2006 in japan is simply a game about raping other women. However, only recently has the western media complained about the game and its controversy.

Significance:

The issue here is not about the game, since almost everyone can agree that created a rape simulator is morally wrong in so many ways. However, the issue is that out of 100,000 people, a UN survey states that Japan has the lowest rates of reported rapes. What is more shocking is that out of 100,000, the country with the highest reported rapes is none other then Canada with almost 78 out of 100,000 people raped.

When you imagine a rape frenzied country, you would imagine some third world country with no infrastructure. Looking at the rape statistics, clearly the game is not compelling/influencing Japanese gamers to rape others as they only have 2 out of 100,000 reported rapes.

Since this game is not increasing the rape statistics, should it still be available to the public? In my opinion, yes. What a person does in the privacy of his home should be respected, unless of course it effects other people. Regardless of that, in fear of shutting down the creators of Rapelay will no longer continue their rape series. In fact they are going to be creating "cleaner" adult games in the future. Also, this game could be lowering the statistics as we speak. This game gives people a legal way to get any "rape-like" feeling out of them rather then harming someone else.

However, I doubt the creators of the first video game ever would have thought that someday people will create a rape game.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship

Topic: UFC: 111

Summary:

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, more commonly known to the public as the UFC, just aired its 111th mixed martial arts event on March 26th.

Significance:

I personally am a die hard fan of the UFC. Mainly one of the fighters, Georges "Rush" St. Pierre.

Georges is one of my favorite fights for a few reasons. First, is because he is not just a savage beast that flings his fists around in order to defeat his opponent, he himself states that, "I see every fight as a math problem, solving it is like finding my opponents weakness". Georges is also a proud French-Canadian fighter that was given the Rogers 2010 Athlete of the Year award.

The significance of this article was to prove a few facts. One, that MMA (mixed martial arts) is not a stupid past-time, but a serious sport that many compete in. Also, it deals with the recognition of Canadian athletes.

Speaking of combat sports, I believe that ever since the dawn of time, man have been drawn to other men destroying each other as a form of entertainment. Why is that? Do men feel stronger watching other men fight? Is it a question of power, because if that was the case why don't more men fight rather then watch. The romans built a Colosseum to pair gladiators against each other in 1st century AD. Now in 21st century America hundreds of stadiums have been built in order to house UFC matches.

This shows that as much as we try to hide and show that we are not barbarians but sophisticated modernized people, put two people in a cage and let them fight to the death and millions of the "sophisticated modernized people" will pay hundreds for front row seats to see the match. Even in the middle of the street, if a fight happens people will pull over to see the men fight, rarely will anyone step in.

I also wanted to address the fact that Canadian Athletes are very neglected. Why is GSP, one of the best fighters in the MMA known over Alexandre Bilodeau, the first Canadian to win Gold at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics? I believe that the media is to blame. I am not saying that GSP does not deserve to be known, he is one of the best athletes in the world, but because he is known as some one who can "kick your ass" hes known over some of the fastest most talented Canadians, participating in Canadian sports like Steve Nash-Basketball player or Sidney Crosby-Scored the winning goal in the Canada vs USA Hockey Game.

Thank you for reading :D

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I...Cant...Believe...It...!

Topic: Would You Pay Women To Play Xbox Games With You?

Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10470279-1.html

Summary:

While I was doing my normal browse of the internet today, I was shocked to find the release of a new website coming out 6pm PST. Kotaku and CNET NEWS were two of the few articles I found reporting this, however because of nudity I decided not to include the Kotaku link and chose to stick with the CNET one.

Regardless of that, this new website, GameCrush is a "service" that provides female gamers to men, for a cost of course.

Significance:

Now, I wasn't going to post another blog post today, but when I saw this, it was a too good story to save for later. Basically this is an online soft core prostitution service for gamers. I personally think of myself as a gamer, however I would never waste $8.50/hour trying to "satisfy" myself by playing online with a girl, that I don't even see.

This "service" is SOOO wrong in SOOO many ways. Kotaku even has some sample pictures of some of the prostitutes, I mean girls, that will be apart of this.

People already see gamers as overweight fat guys in their 20-30's still living with their parents with little to no social life. However, setting up a prostitution service for them to meet girls and play with them online is both an insult to gamers and females everywhere.

This issue is going to be a serious feminist issue. As it is women are still mistreated over the world, and video games has always been an issue with parents and the government. Putting both these topics together is just asking to start a flame war and unnecessary press coverage.

Also, you would have to be one desperate lonely guy to use this service. If you were to fall under that category, you are most likely a pedophile, sex-offender, or a rapist.

Thank you for reading :D

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Existentialism Assignment: Development Stage- Continued

On my last Blog post I discussed the main outline about the flow of the movie. I have recently been trying to download a good video editing software to edit and add effects to the movie. I have also been thinking of creating our own soundtrack this way we are not restricted to some other song. For now we will probably be using Adobe Premier and After Effects. For the soundtrack I was planning on using Fl Studio, that is if we have enough time.

That being said, I have found an underground artist that has good upbeat music that almost relates to the mood of our movie. Outasight.

Also I have been thinking about some of the tests in the middle of the movie that I mentioned in my last post.

Its the time for his school's prom, everyone is getting their dates and more importantly everyone is getting their friends name together for which table they are sitting at, unfortunately the main character is on no-one's list. At this time he feels more lonely
It is the main characters birthday and his mom is asking him what he wants to do for his birthday and if he wants her to get out of the house so he can have a party, however he has no one in mind to invite.

[edit]

After much collaboration we (Awrco, Josh, Neeraj and I) have made a change to the movie. We have decided to add another main character. Now instead of having one character having a "dilemma ". We have two characters going through the same dilemma.

Existentialism Assignment: Development Stage

At the moment Awrco, Josh, Neeraj and I are in the Development state of creating our existentialism movie. We have a general idea of what we what to convey and we have a solid beginning and end. However the bulk of our movie, the middle, is still being generated.

For now, our movie is about a 17 year old guy attending his last year of high school as he realises he has no true friends.

The beginning of the movie will start off with the main character in a snippet of a video log (Vlog) where he says "life sucks". The movie then goes on with a flashy intro that fades in where there is a mini-montage of the places we will be filming where the movie title will be shown.

The middle consists of several parts:

Part 1: After the intro. The main character is entering his school as he waves hello and says "hi" and "whats up" to several people. At this point he seems like a normal fairly popular person. The scene continues with the main character in the social hub of his school, the cafeteria. At this point he approaches several groups and sits down for a while trying to make conversation with them however he just makes things very awkward. At this point he gives up and walks out of the halls and roams around the school aimlessly trying to keep himself busy. He runs into a sporty group of friends where he does not fit in there either, as well as the drama, art and music groups.

Part 2: This part will consist of the creation of the vlogs that will be shown in small snippets throughout the movie. At the beginning of the vlog, the main character will be an amateur at making the video logs, constantly fidgeting and not being able to relay any personal info towards the vlog. As the movie progresses and the main character is put through several issues/tests/situations that force him to become more personal with the vlogs. This is the turning point in the movie where the main character realizes that he is lonely.

The tests and situations that were previously mentioned are still under construction.

The end of the movie will be the full vlog where we replay the snippets we showed during the movie and the vlog comes together and the viewers fully get why the main character thinks that his life sucks. He starts ranting about how his life has changed and he becomes really angry and suicidal. The vlog ends where he says life sucks, the scene fades and the date says 1992-2010.

Social Network Movie?

Topic: Facebook Movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/

Summary:

Mark Zuckerberg, the world's youngest self-made businessmen worth over a billion dollars, and one of the founders of Facebook and one of Time magazine's: The World's Most Influential People of 2008. Facebook has become so popular that the story of its founding is going to become a major motion picture directed by David Fincher.

The movie is going to feature actors such as, Jesse Eisenberg playing Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake playing Sean Parker, another co-founder of Facebook.

Significance:

Earlier I had made a blog post about "Social Networks Taking Over" where I said that I wouldn't be surprised if they made a movie about one. Sure enough, two weeks later I found out that my prediction was correct. As it currently stands, Facebook has over 400 million active users having more than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week. Its safe to say that the social network'd are not going to get any more unpopular.

I find that this "facebook movie" tells us a few things about our society.

Stupid Drama Queens...

Topic:

http://www.popeater.com/2010/03/09/lindsay-lohan-e-trade-commercial/

Summary:

Lindsay Lohan is suing the creators of a superbowl commercial, E-Trade, for $100 million dollars stating that they "made fun of her". The commercial had apparently one baby say to the other, "And that milkaholic Lindsay wasn't over?". Lindsay's lawyer had stated that the actress has the same single-name recognition as Oprah or Madonna.

Significance:

First of all, I think the whole issue is considerably stupid and a waste of time. People are in poverty and dying in the two recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti and these people are tying to make $100 million over a stupid comment. Has this what our society has come to? Personally I think Lindsay has created an image for herself as being the rebellious "party girl" and because of that people already look upon her like a drunk and drug abusive woman. To me, it seems that this among a lot of news stories that have been happening lately have been huge stunts in order to gain attention from the media. This could be a stunt in order to gain an audience for her new move Machete coming out April, 16th, in about a month.

The New Age of Heroes

Topic:

Iron Man 2 Trailer

Summary:

The attached video is a trailer for one of the movies I have been looking forward to. Iron Man 2. It releases May 7th, 2010.

Significance:

I feel that people are getting into the "fad" of superheroes again ever since the release of the newest Batman movie, The Dark Knight. I think people are beginning to release that you don't have to be one of the stereotypical geeks that hang around comic book stores and are highly anti-social, in order to like superheroes. That being said, Hollywood Directors are changing the superheroes by making the characters and plots in the new movies more complex to attract a different and larger audience.

In the comic books, some of the stories were very cliche. For example, some random evil villain appears, the superhero is the only one who can save humanity from him, superhero goes through a test, he saves the world, and he gets a prize. Adding a Hollywood touch to spruce up the movies and make them more entertaining is actually a very rewarding thing for viewers.

Also, this trend goes to show how quick our culture is advancing. Stuff that used to entertain us back in the 80's wont cut it for our current society. One major example is the hit movie Avatar. James Cameron did a fantastic job by using state of the art technology to dazzle and "wow" millions of people.

So Much for Game Developer of the Year

http://www.destructoid.com/fired-infinity-ward-bosses-sue-activision-165792.phtml

Its been difficult trying to find a somewhat credible source to cite regarding the ruckus happening at Infinity Ward and Activision. For those who do not know who Infinity Ward is, they are, in my opinion, one of the best game developers, responsible for creating the best games of the Call of Duty series.

The ruckus that's happening is that the producers of the Call of duty series, Activision, have just recently fired the two CEO's at Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella. Aside from rumors, the most coherent reason why they were fired is because the were charged for "insubordination" and "breach of fiduciary duty". From what I gather, the CEO's were suspected of co-operating with a rival producer (EA).

However there are always two sides to every story. As many people know, Infinity Ward released the best selling game of all time, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This game made apparently over a billion dollars. However, this money went entirely to Activision, and Infinity Ward did not receive a single dollar in ROYALTIES. I mean if the product I made made a billion dollars, I personally would also like a piece of that.

However I could not care less about this overflowed talk of policies and lawsuits and stupid white collar crime mumbo jumbo. The reason why I thought this was an important blog topic is because this type of activity could set a premise for ways people act in the future. I mean if you dumb it down it just seems like a stupid argument between 8 year olds. Tom (Infinity Ward) and Tim (Activision) made a snow fort (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) and Tim took all the credit and kicked Tom out of the fort, and Tim refuses to share the fort with Tom.

What happened to the good old days where everything was fair and these deals would be done straight up without any sort of legal contract. At this day and age its easier to find gold then trust.

Thank You for Increasing the American Stereotype

http://tv.gawker.com/5483354/jon-stewart-eviscerates-rick-sanchez-over-tsunami-coverage

Above is a link to a video where comedian Jon Stewart rightfully mocks and humiliates a reporter, Rick Sanchez, for single handily increasing the "stupid American" stereotype. The video overall was one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a while, aside from a few things.

After watching video:

The reason why I felt that this "issue" had to be addressed is because the reporter makes some seriously insulting and stupid remarks which distracts the viewers from the topic and focus on his stupidity. The topic he was "trying" to discuss was the 8.8 Earthquake that hit Chile. Some people may not see this as an issue however, this earthquake was so massive that it SHOOK the entire country of Brazil. However, just to clarify how CRAZY this earthquake was, NASA Scientists believe that the Chilean earthquake likely shifted Earth’s Axis. Basically the earthquake was so massive that the world is about 1.26 microseconds shorter.

The reason why I chose to blog about this today is mainly for two reasons:

Being a proud Canadian citizen, the world often has its stereotypes about countries. I personally dislike it when people who did not originate from North America to consider Americans and Canadians alike. Exactly for this specific case. People often believe that most Americans are like Rick Sanchez, which is obviously not true. The last thing I want for people to believe that Canadians are like Rick Sanchez. Also I fear for the Americans, as people already consider them to be a race of obese, ignorant people...like Homer Simpson. Since clearly Rick Sanchez is not helping remove that stereotype.

Stupid Impatient Gamers...

http://mashable.com/2010/02/28/psn-down-8001050f

The Article above, explains a "horrifying" day for Playstation Network Users around the world. As many people know February is the only moth in the year with either 28 or 29 days. More information can be found on why there are 28 or 29 days in February can be found:

Here

Well because of this leap year business the online severs thought the date was 29/02/10 instead of 01/03/10 and it resulted in an error that stopped people from being able to play any game on their PS3's.

The reason why I chose to blog about this is because of the virtual explosion on forums and several other game related websites because of this error. Normal people would find this as a reason to put down the controller and engage in some other activity, but that was not the case. Instead what many people did was rigorously comment and spend their day blaming and virtually attacking Sony for this error.

Some people may not see this as an issue, however what many people don't realize is how massive the gaming industry has gotten in such a few years. For example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 released on Nov 11th, 2010. The largest selling game of all time, made over $500 million upon its first week of release.

So, should people be freaking out because there console is not working properly? NO! "Are you playing the game or is the game playing you?". In fact the only people that should be aggravated about this are EA and DICE (Electronic Arts Digital Illusions CE) game developers as they are releasing the much sought after Battlefield: Bad Company 2 today.

However I personally am unaffected by this issue because I made the right decision when I bought my Xbox 360. Till next time.

Naeem's Bloggity

The Final Post

Weeds: Superficiality of Americans

Dexter: Changes our Morality?

Entourage: Man's Best Friend

Lost: About Lost

This Weeks Theme: Popular Shows

Existentialism Assignment - Critique

YouTube: The T.V. Destroyer

Twitter: The Privacy Destroyer

Facebook: The Social Destroyer

This Weeks Theme: Social Networks

Existentialism Assignment - Production

Kick Ass was Kick Ass

You Wont See this on the News

The A-Z of Awesome Comics

This Weeks Theme: Superheroes

Man Loves Pillow...

The Tamil Strike Again

Game Rape? Raping Game?

The Ultimate Fighting Championship

I...Cant...Believe...It...!

Existentialism Assignment: Development Stage- Continued

Existentialism Assignment: Development Stage

Social Network Movie?

Stupid Drama Queens...

The New Age of Heroes

So Much for Game Developer of the Year

Thank You for Increasing the American Stereotype

Stupid Impatient Gamers...

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