This Is What I Think...

Citizen journalists may be bigger than anyone ever thought possible. If anything interesting happens, it is probably on somebodies blog somewhere. And using search engines such as Google, duh, enables people to find this information that otherwise would be lost in the crevices of the internet. In fact, citizen bloggers may even have a hand in the recent bringing down of newspapers. Newspaper subscriptions around the country are being canceled while the newspapers themselves become smaller and smaller. Citizen journalists provide a very useful service at a very reasonable price, free. There are not enough Journalists to be everywhere at once, but bloggers can be, and they are. Citizen journalists may very well put real Journalists out of a job, but by providing the same service at a better rate.

Now, understandably, not all citizen journalists are going to be quite up to par in terms of writing the things that they see, but most of them can be trusted to be honest about what they have seen, at least as honest as the Journalists. In a way, it will be like Wikipedia news, there will be much more information available, and it is usually accurate, but there will always be crazy people that write things that never should have been written. But overall, I think it is a service that people will find very helpful and informative.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is due to come out in the relatively distant future, but it will only be available on the PS3. I love the KH series and am not sure if I can tear myself away from it, but I hope the price of the PS3 is reduced soon because there is no way I can afford to buy a PS3, especially only for one game. The PS3 runs for about $399, give or take fifty bucks depending on if you get it used or with a larger hard drive. It all comes down to this: Is the game worth it?



My mind screams "yes" as my wallet screams "no"! Kingdom Hearts is a creative and engaging series and I fell in love with the first two games. There is no doubt in my mind that I will eventually buy this game, but how long will I have to wait. If the PS3 remains at its current price, that will not be all that I have to pay for. The game will still be fifty dollars when it comes out. I don't know about you, but I almost never pay that much for a game. Wait a few years and it will be dropped to twenty dollars. With most games I can wait that long, but I really don't think I can with Kingdom Hearts 3. I guess I must pray that the price changes before the game is released, or else I may have to wait for my beloved game longer than I would like.

I was impressed by Red's last cd, End of Silence, but I was incredibly impressed with their new release, especially their new music video, Death of Me. At first, Red struck me as an incredibly creative band that would soon become widely popular. Now I see that Red is just plain going to take over. The stringed instruments and egyptian-like counter-melodies bring to the front this band's awesome talent, especially for song-writing.

The video, Death of me, captured my interest right from the get-go. I probably watched it ten times in a row. The video focuses upon a man running away from himself, signifying an addiction that he cannot control. Just go watch it. It's really good.

As a blogger, I don't really see myself as democratizing information on the internet. I just write about the things that I like to write about, which may change sporadically and without warning. At the moment, my thoughts are absorbed in the classes that I am taking, particularly my victorian novel class, which can be seen through several of my recent posts. Democratizing the information on the internet sounds too ominous! If I'm not even sure that more than five people even read my blogs, how the heck can I be democratizing information?

But I guess I shouldn't downplay my role as a blogger. I mean, what is the average number of people that follow a blog anyway? Many people could be reading my blog and enjoying my rambling, and I wouldn't even know it. (But after reading this blog, they may not.) Who am I to question my role as a blogger. I am participating in something musch larger than myself and should not diminish the role that i have in preserving it. I should participate in the democratization of information on the internet, if not the sake for something larger than myself.

When I was young, I was enamored with the internet. I remember my dad connecting through the modem, strange sounds accompanying the connection. I wish connecting to the internet still made those sounds. Of course, now with cable internet being the standard at which all real Americans follow, there is no real reason except for a nostalgic feeling.
In my lifetime, the internet has gone from being nearly nonexistent, to absolutely necessary in weekly life, if not everyday. When I was young, 56k modems were standard, if you had the internet at all. Now, if I have to use a friend's computer that uses DSL, i feel as if everything is dragging slowly.




The internet used to be used mainly for email but is now used for everything from shopping and entertainment, to research and reading. I remember trying to play Runescape on an old 100MHz computer with a 56k internet connection. It was definitely not a fun experience. Now, if a computer cannot run a game like Runescape because of the internet connection, I would think something didn't work, either with the computer or the game, instead of blaming it upon just the slow connections and computer speed. We now live in a world of high expectations in which the internet is necessary, and if it's slow or the computer is not working, people get mad. We now rely upon the internet more than we know.

At the moment, I am reading a Victorian novel entitled Ruth that is, in my opinion, a very annoying and boring book. The main character of the book is a fallen woman, a woman that had sex before marriage, who is only sixteen years old, fifteen at the very beginning. Not unlike The Scarlet Letter, this book seems to be heading in the direction of revolving around the effects of bearing an illegitimate child. What makes this book so annoying is the main character. Ruth not only takes extra blame upon herself, while excusing the man that coerced her into such an action, but she cries constantly. I'm not sure how much more crying I can really take. She cries about this, and then she cries about that, and then she cries when the sun is shining because she feels she doesn't deserve it. You get the idea.

Although the book is annoying, it is sharply pointed in what it tries to accomplish. At the time of its publishing, fallen women were looked down upon as the lowest of the low, with blame resting solely upon their shoulders and the weight of society crushing them. I am interested in how this book will turn out, meaning that I want to know the moral conclusion that is drawn about fallen women in the Victorian Period, but I still have to get past the annoying thoughts and actions of the main character. I hope it can be accomplished.

For some reason, Gothic Novels are extremely appealing to me. There must be some reason for the infatuation I have with books involving dark and brooding characters that usually die in the end. I have recently finished reading Wuthering Heights and was thoroughly surprised to be engaged throughout the entire book. Heathcliff is, in my opinion, the most cruel and vengeful character ever to be brought to life in words. All of his actions were done in revenge. And yet there is something strangely interesting about him. Is it that I, the reader, want to know his true motives? Is it that I already know his true motives and want to see how they play out?

Are Gothic Novels this appealing to anyone else? Wuthering Heights is a Gothic Romance and yet it still appeals to me, despite my contempt for anything sappy. Of course, there is little romantic talk within the novel, rather it deals with violence and revenge stemming from the love that remained unconsummated in marriage. But what about Gothic Novels appeals to people. It can be plainly seen that it is a genre that is widely popular, especially in movies. Many horror and suspense films would fall under the category of "Gothic." Do people enjoy delving into the blackness of people's souls and seeing what comes out? Deep down we are aware that people really can sink so low as to be barely recognized as human. Gothic productions may just be another way of looking into human nature and all its intricacies, and yet it is enjoyable for all its deficiencies.

Technology certainly advanced quickly in the last few decades. Whereas the internet was nearly useless only fifteen years ago, nearly every person in America uses it their everyday lives. I'm not sure that anyone could have predicted what they were inventing when they first started networking military computers, but it certainly has changed the world. What would life be like today without the internet? No online classes, no email, no facebook, no myspace. Many people would be lost. For some, browsing the internet and communication through the internet is their life, and without it they wouldn't know what to do. How much more so will it be in fifteen years, twenty years, fifty years from now? We may have stumbled into something that will become as necessary to every person as air-conditioning in Arizona.