a final theory

So we are not required to write anymore blogs, but I thought I would write one just to say goodbye. This will be my final theory. I had a lot of fun blogging for the first time in my ENG 103 class at Ball State University. I was glad we had the opportunity to do this because it is something I would have never done otherwise. I hope you all have at least found one or two of my blogs to be slightly interesting. Well, the time has come to say good-bye.

Farewell all- for this is

The "Prada Wearing" Devil Theory

The Devil Wears Prada is not the best put together, but with the actors holding their own, it is definitely an entertaining one.

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is a young journalist in New York who applies for a job at a fashion magazine. Having no idea what she is getting into, she interviews with Miranda (Meryl Streep) who is the head of the company. Something catches her attention and Andy is hired. Over time Andy changes into another typical fashion freak and pardon my french but basically becomes Miranda's bitch doing everything she asks.



Although the storyline is not to exciting, the Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep make the movie a great one. Meryl's devilish attitude is portrayed perfectly and her character is created so perfectly no one could come close to recreating her performance of Miranda. Anne Hathaway also shows an excellent portrayal of her character Andy. She provides all the qualities of a young and ambitious journalist willing to do whatever it takes to get a job, even if it means serving coffee and changing your entire personality.

My movie rating: 2 1/2 stars out of 4
My acting rating: 4 stars out of 4

Theory of what makes a good movie

For our final paper for my English 103 portfolio, we are to write a movie review and a review of other movie reviews. I love writing movie reviews. We used to do a movie review every month in one of my classes. Of course, I also love looking at movie reviews. My favorite reviewer is Robert is Roger Ebert. I was excited to see that his website was listed on the yellow paper we received of websites to go to for reviews. I will definitely use his review for my movie and I recommend others do the same.
I chose Angela's Ashes to do my review on. The 1999 movie is based off of the novel written by Frank Mc Court. The movie follows the Irish Catholic childhood of Frank in Limerick. The movie starts with Frankie and his family living in America. It is the late 1930s or early 40s and jobs are hard to come by. When Frankie's father does earn money, he drinks it all away instead of feeding and clothing his family. After the death of Frankie's sister, the family moves back to Ireland where to more of his siblings die. Frankie decides to get a job since his father left for London and did not come back. He earns money for his family, as well to get him a ticket back to America. The movie ends with Frankie smiling at the Statue of Liberty that he once had to say good bye to.
This movie definately grabs at your heart. Mc Court includes many powerful points to the story including the death of three of Frankie's mother Angela's seven children, the malnutrition, the harsh Catholic lessons, and the extreme poverty in Pre-War Limerick. This movie begs for pity on the Irish Catholic and gets it in return from everyone who sits down and watches it. Whenever children are involved in these types of movies, the hearts of all viewers are constently pulled at. Although the conditions are extremely terrible, they are still very realistic and this makes the movie something people are willing to pity. They become attached to Frankie and his story and that is key to a great story, attachment with the audience.

Click Here to learn about Frank McCourt and why he wrote Angela's Ashes. Its deep and its good. WATCH IT!

watch the trailer here!

The Pepsi Theory

Previously, I posted a blog that contained a link to a pepsi vs. coke commercial. I have always been interested in the various pepsi vs. coke commercials. Click here to see another one! They always clearly indicate that one is better than the other, but why then does half of the population prefer pepsi and the other half prefers coke? I found a really cool article on some research on brain activity and soft drinks. You should CHECK IT OUT.
I have always preferred Pepsi because that is just what my family drank all the time. I have a friend whose entire family drinks ONLY coke and will not even try pepsi. Through a blind taste test we both experienced, I chose pepsi and he chose coke. This reaction is described in the article above. The only reason we chose our favorite one was because that is what sparked our brain because that is what our brains thought of as "the better one". So obviously the blind taste test is not going to get the coke user to drink pepsi and vice versa. The companies have to come of with other ways, such as appealing to emotions like the pepsi verses coke commercial shows.
Obviously there is going to be an opposing view to something that so clearly has two sides. One side is pepsi, the other side is coke. The coke company probably would'nt appreciate the commercial I am going to promote because there is no evidencce that pepsi is better than coke. The guy drinks the pepsi and won't give it back. Although is is implied that the pepsi taste better so the coke guy wants to keep it, the coke company could argue that the commercial is not credible. However, most consumers today do not think about how credible a commercial or ad is, they just care about how entertaining it is and whether or not it is going to convince them to buy the product being advertised.

Theories on Advertising

I chose a commercial to write about for my next paper.
Click Here to watch it.
The commercial is about a battle between Pepsi and Coke. I think it is a good commercial because Pepsi shows who the competition is and why they are better than Coke. I think it is good to see who the competition is so they know who your competitor is. Your commercial should tell the consumers to buy your product instead of the competitor because yours is better than theirs in some sort of way.
I thought this commercial was very good because they started out with a coke guy and a pepsi guy sitting down in a diner and they slowy start to talk to eachother. They shows pictures of their kids and make small talk. The coke guy then offers the pepsi guy a sip of his coke. Then the pepsi guy offers the coke guy a sip of his. The guy guys tries it and won't give it back. Here, Pepsi shows that their product is so much better than Cokes, even the Coke salesman perfers the pepsi.

Theories on the Meaning of Success

SUCCESS
Like the people I have interviewed, I too have struggled with the meaning of success. I used to always say happiness like many of those interviewed. I knew that fame and money and cars were not the keys to success, however when I would watch tv and see a famous person and their big house, I would think of them as successful. But the truth is, I don't think they were necessarily "happy". How can I think someone who is unhappy is successful if I think happiness is needed in order to be successful? I began pondering this last year and decided to look up some information on people that were famous. I wanted to know how they lived their life and if they were happy. I had problems finding the truth about all of the famous people because there was so much gossip and it was hard to distinguish between what was real and what wasn't. So I had to look at the facts. I looked at the large number of short marriages and divorces (why would you get divorced if you were happy?) and the number of arrests of famous people. I also looked at a few other factors and determined that many of them do not seem happy. Since they are not happy, they must not be successful. Many people think of these famous people as being successful as well. The media is tricking us into thinking fame and money and cars are the compenents for being successful, but if we just take time to realize that those "components" do not match with what our definition of success is, then we can begin to see that success does not have to be defined as the media would like us to define it. Happiness may indeed be the main key to success, as long as we know if the so called "successful" person is truly happy.

I found this link of the shortest celebrity marriages.
The shortest one was 6 hours! and Britney's may be determined as even shorter than that.
Check it Out:
http://weddings.about.com/cs/justforfun/a/ShortCelebWeds.htm

Theory on Mein Kampf

Hitler's view of propaganda was interesting. He said it should be looked at as a weapon. He defines propaganda as being a way of persuading someone. When I heard this, I thought of a big lie. It makes sense too. Propaganda is when ways are taken to extremes in order to persuade someone. It takes a lot to persuade some people, and one way that normally works is lying. So in a way Propaganda is like one huge lie.
The writings Hitler made about this are in the Mein Kampf, which seems pretty interesting to me and I may just have to check it out.
I also went to the newspaper archives online to see if I could find out more about Mein Kampf.
I found an article that looks really good and some of you may find it interesting as well.
The link is below:
Hitler and Mein Kampf

Theory of Team Work

My group, b2k, had the semicolon for our presentation. I already knew most ways to use a semicolon, but there were some things I learned. there aren't actually that many arguments on when to use a semicolon. All of the books we looked at at the same rules for the semicolon. I thought that was interesting because the other groups that presented had punctuation marks that don't have real clear rules that everyone follows.
I decided to check out youtube and see what informational videos they had on semicolons. I was actually amazed to find a really interesting and somewhat helpful video on commas, semicolons, and parenthesis. Its cool. You jshould check it out if you get bored.
Anyway, I thought our group worked really well together. We found a fun way to teach the class about semicolons instead of just standing up there and talking monotone. Yay B2K !

Theory of Fairness

Fair Use
The website did a good job on explaining what fair use is, however I am not sure I agree with it. I do not understand why you are not allowed to use the entire work even if you site it. I have used entire songs for projects before as background music and I never once thought I was plagiarizing?! I do believe people should receive credit for their work, but how are we supposed to get the information we need to use if we can not use the "main points" of the article. If I was looking for a topic other than that of the article I was reading, then I would be reading a different article. There should definitely be a mandatory bibliography for everything that has borrowed work, but if credit is given where credit is due, why are we not allowed to use the credited source?

Theory of Self Motivation

I recently read a literacy narrative on Malcom X. I found it a little crazy that a man would actually read the dictionary. I looked online to see if I could find out if other people really do read the dictionary and I found a youtube video (below) of a man actually reading straight out of the dictionary. I always thought the dictionary would be boring to read, but until listening to this guy, I didn't gain the respect for Malcolm X that he deserved. This guy had a lot of determination and must have been very eager to learn those words. I knew Malcolm X never had a lot of education, and it makes me wonder whether i could learn more in jail than I am learning in school. I wonder if that kind of situation would motivate you to educate yourself.
The other literary narrative I read seemed just as interesting. I guess it is possible to learn whatever you want whenever you want as long as you want to do it. The little boy began reading when he was three, that;s amazing. I was quick to learn how to read as well, but it took me a long time to learn how to tell time and this kid was doing that as well. I give most of the credit to the grandparents though, because they were the boy's motivation. The only reason the boy wanted to learn how to read and tell time was so he could be like his grandmother. Her encouragement for the boy allowed him to be the first in the family to graduate college. Kudos to Grandma!