The slow mental decay of development day Part 1

Back to posting! Now that the internship is over, I decided to include some self-portraits from our lecture filled fridays.

Happiness of Team-building

Oh hello there lady in yellow.  Did you know I own my own van?

It's blue like my heart without you.

random

Phelps

Finally! I can’t believe it, but the Phelps show is finally over. Don’t get me wrong, what he did is unbelievable and his skill should be recognized, but the coverage of the event has been getting on my nerve.s The things that annoyed me the most was the coverage right after the incredible 4by100 freestyle, where Lezak pulled off an incredible split in order to shutdown the French, one of the most exciting ends to a race that I have ever seen. The next day all reporters were talking about is how this helped continued Phelps dream and one reporter even had the nerve to ask Lezak if that is what gave him the energy to win the race. Lezak’s reply was perfect. He said that at that point it was not about a single member of the team and that every member worked their hardest in order to win the medal and they weren’t thinking at tall about Phelps’s chance at history. When Phelps celebrated with his teams, NBC would always taint the moment saying that he was only happy because it helped him on his journey to beat Spitz. They completely disregarded the idea that he was happy for the team and was cheering on friends…
I also hate those McDonalds Chicken Sandwich commercials with a passion.

Antitechnological and anticapitalist propaganda?

Raking in around 300 million worldwide, Wall-E was one of the few animated movies seen in this summer of superhero blockbusters. Though many think that the movie is not of the same quality as the other Pixar movies, Wall-E is still a hit and a great love story for the family. I do know a couple people who did not really enjoy the film, but I was surprised when I read an article by Gennady Stolyarov II, who actually seems to have a deep hatred for the movie and the ideas behind it.

In WALL-E: Economic Ignorance and the War on Modernity, Stolyarov describes Wall-E as blatant "environmentalist, anticapitalist, and antitechnological propaganda. The author feels that the film presents several situations that are not only impossible in reality, but they also present disturbingly incorrect ideas about our society. Click the following link for the article http://mises.org/story/3037.

I do have to admit that while I was watching Wall-E I was a bit surprised about how apparent and in your face several of the movies underlying messages were. It is not hard to see that there is a definite environmentalist message and it is hard not to relate the BnL company with WalMart, but for some reason I was not nearly as disturbed by any of this because most of it worked so well in the story. Though there is a point to some of what the author says, I feel that he/she is reading way too much into the movie. It is obvious that he went into the movie with their own notions of the world and when the movie presented another view, the author took it upon himself to take some scenes of the movie and jump to drastic conclusions about intent. I also find it hard to call a movie where the main heroes are robots completely antitechnological, but oh well. The article is still an interesting read and though some parts of the article seem to contradict the others, it is definitely worth reading.

Newsweek

I still need to get this week's Newsweek, but i may have chosen the wrong topic for this magazine because, at least in last week's edition, they refuse to talk about the Olympics. They only talk about the election, the green movement, oil, war, and other important things like why Anne Hathaway left her boyfriend...

Movie Post : 02

Kung Fu Panda

Very entertaining and the fight sequences were so well done that i actually found myself forgetting that it was an artificial world of nonexistent 3d animals that i was watching. Unlike many animated movies I watch,I found the voice acting and casting to be very well done in this movie. I usually get pulled out of a movie because the voice actors usually have such a recognizable voice and I apply it more to the actual actor and their previous roles, than the character I am watching at that moment, but i didn't feel that way in this movie. The voices fit very well with mostly all of the characters.


I would have to say that the aesthetics of every shot were the most appealing part of the movie. The lighting and the mood it set was perfect for every scene.

Wall-E
I loved this movie. The Incredibles is still my favorite PIXAR film, but wall-e was still a very entertaining film to watch. I will delete or update this later. I have to run.

Favorite character: M-O

Olympics Watch: Day ?

The Olympics are starting to get interesting. I have been watching some of the trials and reading up on some of the heartbreaks that have already occurred. For instance just this past week two athletes broke their legs during training. Shayla Worley of the U.S Olympic gymnastics team broke her leg while training on the balance beam. Abby Wambach of the U.S women's soccer team broke her leg during an exhibition with Brazil. I can’t help, but feel incredibly sad for both of these athletes because their Olympics dreams were cut so short. They dedicate years of training to be mentally and physically ready to represent their counties, only to miss the chance because of one terribly unlucky moment in time.

On a more positive note there are a few inspiring stories like that of 41yr old swimmer Dara Torres, who has qualified with some of the best times in her events and shows that age will not hinder her. She won the first of her nine Olympic medals in 1984 and is looking to bring home a couple more at Beijing.

That six pack is unbelievable.