Final Essay: An Internet for Everyone

This was my final essay from my Composition 1 class last semester. I thought I had posted this but I recently realized it never was. This paper I received a 96% on it due to citation errors. After this paper I received a 93.86% for the class.

 

Everybody uses the internet. I know that is a blanket statement but it is mostly true. Unless you never leave your house and have no television or phone, you are in some form an internet user. Internet exposure is everywhere; whether you’re buying a carton of milk with a credit card or playing a video game with you friend in another country, you are an internet user. Since the early 90’s, with the introduction of America Online, the internet has been a growing part of the lives of people. Since 1969, when Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (also known as ARPANET) created the first network of interconnected computers, the system that wouldn’t be known as the “internet” until 1988 started a fast and steady climb to social and economic domination (Pendergast and Pendergast, Eds 3065). Since then there has been a growing concern to online privacy and decency. The major cable companies that connect the world are becoming greedier and want to make more money off the system that billions of people use every day. Whether people are using the internet for social, political or monetary gain the cable companies want a cut. By taking control of current networks and building a new internet that is censored and will only allow certain people access to certain websites; as long as they can afford to pay. If the cable companies have their way, the internet would no longer be an open and non-tiered medium. This outcome would be disastrous to the current web culture built around freedom of information and communication and will, also, affect the forward movement of human society.

When the internet first took off in the 90’s, the web was littered with sites that generated content direct at one certain user. Whether it was a flash based single player game or a shopping site, the web was nothing but a place for a person to kill time. Most of this content, being subscription based, put a drain on wallets and the general user wasn’t interested in paying on top of their current internet subscription; which at the time was a premium service not the cultural staple it is today. In the early 2000’s, this “web culture”, experienced a major fall. The user began to realize the internet had no true function to make their lives more productive; this allowed for the “creation” of “web 2.0.” The web 2.0 idea took off with the creation of social websites like Digg.com. Digg allowed users to create links to news articles and permitted its user base to vote on whether the article is good or not. The social interaction between people from many different cultures showed the world that the internet can be used for more than just research, time consuming games and shopping. Social sites started to pop up all over the web. Sites like Frienster.com, Myspace.com, LastFM.com and Facebook.com revolutionized the social networking landscape by allowing its users to generate their own content that the user can push out to their friends and family. This open internet paved the way for a person to truly be free on the web.

The internet can be defined as a portal to the free flow of information. Just open your browser, type something in and you can find it. The web is an open media that can be used for anything ones heart desires. There has always been limited restriction on the internet; the only real control the government has over the internet is with certain sites that break the laws set by the governing body. Sites that feature murder, child pornography and other devious acts have always been controlled by the FBI and other governmental agencies (State Legislatures 8). Unfortunately, there are people who think this isn’t enough control. Internet service providers (or ISP’s) believe that because they provide the internet to others they should be in full control of the content that is accessed. This idea would mean an internet that could be tiered, meaning, that I pay more money than my friends do so I can access these sites that my friends cannot. The ISPs believe that the internet is their property and when sites like Google.com make billions of dollars using the internet they are leaching off a system they didn’t build (Epstein). Net Neutrality means anybody can have access to the same bandwidth and the same sites and have the freedom to produce any content they choose.

Having an open network has allowed the world to interact in ways ARPANET never dreamed of. Originally, conceived as a network for universities to connect scholars and scientists to each other’s data, modern social networking sites have taken this idea and made it a staple in most families (Paultre 9). In my own family, Facebook.com has become the place for everyone to connect. Since my grandmothers death in 2010 my family has grown apart and the social network Facebook.com has kept those people we don’t get to see often, updated on our everyday lives. Posting pictures of my four children has, on many occasions, prompted other to reach out and set up play dates with people I never thought about reaching out to. I have been able to keep tabs on friends from high school and make connections that can help me on my path to a successful career. If the internet suddenly changed and my ISP started to charge me for every picture I post on Facebook, not only would I stop posting but my family in Texas would very rarely get to see pictures and videos of my kids. Facebook would be devastated by a decrease in posts if the internet collectively stopped posting on their Facebook pages. I imagine their stock would drop because advertisers would not want to continue paying Facebook when “more than 500 million active users,” drops to 100 million (Facebook). The result would mean the loss of thousands of jobs for Facebook employees and the eventual shut down of a multi-billion dollar company, because the market is no longer able to freely use the product that they are producing.

Another aspect of online media is podcasting. This medium sprung up around the creation of the iPod and the popularity of similar listening devices. The radio can be described as a static medium; no pun intended. Listeners don’t have the choice of content to listen to the content is decided on what the broadcast company thinks will make money. Of course, any listener who doesn’t agree with the local shock jock can just change the station to something else; the radio can only have so many stations before you come back to that same old shock jock. Podcasts have offered an alternative to the radio and has allowed the listener to choose the content based on their own interests, not on what broadcasters believe the listeners want. I have been listening to podcasts for almost five years and it has become a staple of my everyday life. I follow a select schedule of shows I want to hear and I listen to them when I want to hear them. The abolishment of net neutrality would mean the end of my daily routine and stop me from enjoying my commute, as well as, push me to turn off the radio because there is nothing interesting to me. For three years I have listened to a podcast provider named Scott Johnson and have religiously followed his podcast network he calls, Frogpants Studios. Scott Johnson started with one show and is now offering nineteen podcasts (ten of which he personally hosts) for selective listening to anyone with open access to the internet. I asked Scott what having an open internet means to Frogpants and he stated that “Frogpants would not exist if it were not for the internet being open and free to creators like myself. If that were to change, we would all be in a serious heap of trouble, and Frogpants would die like literally millions of other efforts around the web. It would be catastrophic to say the least (Johnson).” Scott Johnson is a clear example for why an open internet is important.

One aspect that is great about an open internet is the use it plays in academics. One of my employees at work goes to a school that utilizes an online service to handle their grades. The way it works is quite simple. The teacher uses the service to handle all her students grades, this service can be used at home and at the school or anywhere the teacher has web access. Imagine if she had full access to this service at the school but at home she is limited to what she can access. This could be an issue if the teacher is only able to access a thousand webpages a month and it is the end of marking period. If the teacher gets blocked because she went over her limit then those grades would be late which could affect her job and her students’ future. This system has the most benefits for the students and the parents of the students. My employee, Crystal, can view all her grades up to the minute they are posted. Crystal told me, “If I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t know what is going on in my classes; I would not be graduating with honors” (Furney). If she discovers any problem she can address it immediately, instead of later when report cards come in the mail. The parents also have access to it and can keep track of their child’s progress daily; instead of relying on report cards at the end of the semester and discovering their child has failed, they can know right away when their child is struggling. If parents and students can’t access this service it would affect the child’s grades and possibly their chances at getting into the college of their choice.

Colleges have a similar system called Blackboard that would have the same affect for the student if unavailable to them. More important than this is the free flow of information on the web. Research is becoming more and more online driven and to not have access to the web could prove a major inconvenience to scholars and their instructors. Without readily available information the college student would have to rely on skimming through books to find the sources they need to succeed. Some would say that we haven’t relied on the web in the past therefore people shouldn’t rely on it now. This statement is flawed in a major way; the world is changing at an enormous rate. Computers are getting faster and new technologies are being developed equally as fast. To tell someone they can’t use the fastest tools available to them would slow the progress of humanity. Someone could have an idea that could stop cancer but lacked the knowledge to bring it about. This person could publish it online and make it available to anybody who thinks they could do it. Imagine, years later, a doctor comes across this idea and uses it to cure cancer. Also, imagine the person who had the idea in the first place had limited access to the internet. The ISP decides his blog should be on a tier that isn’t available to many others and the doctor curing cancer never sees it. It could take another hundred years before someone discovers the cure. Which example would you like to happen? Sure cancer is cured no matter what but progress was slowed because the information the doctors needed was not available to them.

Losing the open access to the worldwide web would change my life. It is how I interact, communicate and it is where I get my information and my entertainment. For nearly two years, my house has been an IPTV household; meaning I don’t have any cable service, my computer is connected to my TV and I watch all my shows through the internet. By utilizing services like Netflix, Hulu and the official sites of major TV networks, I can watch all of my favorite shows and movies whenever I want and not have to pay the cable networks for hundreds of channels (90% of which I never watch), nor do I pay for the cable company to record shows I miss, they are available when I want them. If the ISP’s were to charge more money to access Netflix or Hulu because I am on a lower tiered internet, I would lose access to content that is important to me. I can’t afford to pay the outstanding fees involved with cable TV, let alone pay for a higher tier of the web. In a since, the poor would be segregated from the majority of the web and not have the resources it want or needs to succeed or just enjoy life.

The web is a part of everyone’s daily life. The flow of information, whether through cell phones or Wi-Fi devices, is always around us; passing through our bodies whether we like it or not. As a human race we have gone through many changes; from a society with no readily information, to a society fighting for freedom of information and onto a society where information is ever present and openly available, regardless of race, education or monetary worth. It doesn’t seem logical to go back to a middle ground where information is there but only a select few can access it. The economic implications are too high to take away internet freedom. Web creators, like Scott Johnson, would be forced to stop making content as would all podcasters, bloggers and other architects of digital life would be forced to stop creating and try to find other jobs. The world would be forced to slow down and the advancement of the human race would come to a slow crawl. Internet needs to remain open and available. The future depends on it.

Works Cited

Epstein, Alex. "Net Neutrality vs. Internet Freedom." Newberry Observer 16 August 2006. Print.

"Statistics ." Facebook.com. Facebook, n.d. Web. 2 April 2011.

Furney, Crystal. Personal interview. 2 April 2011.

Johnson, Scott. Personal Interview. 11 April 2011.

Paultre, Alix L. "The weaponized Internet: one could say that the Internet is a weapon that got out of the control of its creators." ECN-Electronic Component News 55.3 (2011): 9. Print.

Pendergast, Sara, and Tom Pendergast, Eds. "The Internet." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 5 vols. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. 3065.

"Child porn laws cast a wide web." State Legislatures Oct. 2004/Nov. 2004: 8. Print.

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Pay It Forward

I am reminded that 2 years ago a stranger in a BMW drove in to our driveway and said that he was driving by and saw me and my kids playing and that he remembers how things were when he was younger raising kids and how tough it was. He then pulled out 200 dollars and gave it too us after explaining that we were short on rent and out bank was in the negative and that how much the help was appreciated he ran to his car saying " I have more" and then came back and handed us another 200 dollars. I have never seen that man again but I will never forget what he did. And you bet your butt I will pay that forward when I become a Chiropractor!

Essay: The American Dream Defined

The following is my most resent essay for my Composition I class. We were assigned to write an extended definition essay to define a word or abstract term. I choose “The American Dream.” I got 100% on the assignment. At the end are the comments my instructor made about the paper.

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” When this declaration was made on July 4, 1776, the world was first presented with the idea of the “American Dream”. The founding fathers, being fed up with the control enacted by King George III, sat down together as one and wrote out what it means to be an American. They had a dream of a country where “all men are created equal”; that everyone can have the same opportunities as everyone else. This single act of defiance has sent ripples throughout history, affecting the thoughts and dreams of every person who lives or will live in America[R1] . The American dream can be as simple as having kids or as complex as becoming the President of the country. It is all possible in America. This idea has driven many Americans, native or not, to seek a life full of liberty and happiness. The American dream has recently come under fire because many Americans[R2] believe the dream is dead. This is not so; there is nothing in this world that can destroy the spirit the American dream embodies.

Although the idea of the American dream has always been around, the phrase was made popular by James Truslow Adams in his book “The Epic of America.” In his book Adams wrote, “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” The American dream has been a literary term used as a main theme by many authors over the years. Such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, and Hunter S. Thompson have all used the term or theme in some way. One author, Horatio Alger, Jr., was a prolific believer in the American dream. He wrote hundreds of young boy’s in which the characters went from rags to riches. Much like Horatio Alger’s stories, Hunter S. Thompson’s novel, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream”, was a major play on the theme. A semi-autobiographical story of a sports writer sent to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race. Bringing along a car trunk full of booze, drugs and a typewriter, the protagonist seeks to discover the hallucinogenic depths of the American dream. Looking into the dark side of the theme Thompson, paints a vivid picture of what it really means to live outside normal conventions and do whatever it takes to make you happy; even if it means destroying who you are. In the last lines of the novel, Thompson writes, “I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger: A man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident” (Thompson)[R3] . By making this reference to Horatio Alger, Jr., Thompson is setting the final stone to his story, letting the reader know that all of which he has written is the American dream.

As a child I was always fascinated by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I never understood the truth to my obsession but looking back I now know why. He is the manifestation of the American dream. Born in Austria, Arnold was never favored by his cop father. His father, a member of the German army during World War 2, never believed Arnold was his son and resented him (Schwarzenegger and Hall). Arnold eventually started body building as a teenager and became a European muscle sensation. Having won many prizes as a champion bodybuilder (including seven Mr. Olympia competitions), Arnold started on a career as an actor. Throughout his career in Hollywood, Arnold established himself as a major action star. Starring in the Terminator movies, Total Recall (based on the story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick), Conan the Barbarian and the very well received True Lies. In 1969 Arnold “arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination,” and “full of desire”. Arnold said that quote in a speech at the Republican National Convention right after he became the Governor of California after a recall election in 2003. Arnold became the personification of a perfect Horatio Alger, Jr. story. From underappreciated boy to movie star unto respected politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger gives proof to the American dream.

When one thinks of the American dream as the idea that someone can do anything that makes them happy and be living the dream, then Edgar Allan Poe is also proof. Poe lived a more blessed childhood than Arnold Schwarzenegger; when he was three he lost both of his parents and was adopted by a wealthy tobacco merchant. Poe’s adopted father pushed him to become a businessman but much like his actor parents Poe was drawn to the arts. Fresh out of college, Poe would become poor and dreaming of becoming a writer. Eventually, Poe would meet his goals and become published. Following a stent in the Army, Poe would lose his adoptive mother to tuberculosis and was devastated that his adoptive father remarried right away. He would later marry his thirteen year old cousin only to lose her years later to tuberculosis. Poe would go on to publish many works including such greats as “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe was found years later wandering the streets broke and delirious. He died soon after…alone (Poe Museum ). Poe always pursued his dreams, no matter what others thought. He always did what was important to him; no one could tell him no. He was a great example of the American dream, of course, living the dream doesn’t guarantee success[R4] .

I never believed the American dream existed. I was a young, brash character with no direction in life; until I had my kids. I realized the joy one can have in life when one discovers their purpose. I was almost immediately aware of the situation I was in; a dire one, if I didn’t act right away. In high school I started delivering newspapers but years later, after I was married and my wife was pregnant, it was obvious how little I made. I started looking for a new job and found one that, even though paid a good hourly wage, gave little hours. I started to slowly realize the futility of not having a college education. I started to find other jobs and eventually landed a manager position at an A&W restaurant. I was excited for the opportunity to gain this experience and was content with the pay until my wife became, by accident, pregnant with our third child. This being my fourth kid overall I knew I needed to have a change in my life. I would never be able to raise them if I couldn’t provide for them. Even more important than my own future, was their future. Come college time for them, if I did nothing to better my life, I couldn’t pay for their education. I knew that, being able to help them start their dream, was essential to their future. I knew that their failure would mean my dream too, would be a failure. I remembered when I was a kid I used to say I wanted to be a doctor and decided there was nobody holding me back. I looked at many options and found that the best and quickest way to my goal is to become a chiropractor. Now I am living my American dream. I am going to school to become a doctor; and for the sake of my children’s future I will become one.

Living the dream doesn’t guarantee anything but “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It means a person can live their life how they want it. The American dream is more than an idea, it is the design instilled in the soil of America. Anyone that can touch the land of America can do what he wants to succeed. If you are in America you can do it. Reach out for the stars and grab what is yours. The American dream is more alive today then people like to think. One person I talked to said that they are living the dream every time they eat a slice of homemade cheesecake. The beauty of the American dream is that there is no definition[R5] ; it is lived in the manner the person living it chooses. This spirit will always be in the bedrock of this land; waiting for someone to come along and say “This is what I want and nobody is going to stop me!” The American dream lives on, strong and powerful, and always will.

Works Cited

Poe Museum . "Poe's Life: Who is Edgar Allan Poe?" 2010. Poe Museum. 20 March 2011 <http://www.poemuseum.org/life.php>.

Schwarzenegger, Arnold and Douglas Kent Hall. Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977.

Thompson, Hunter S. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. New York: Random House, 1971.

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[R1]What a fantastic transition between the Declaration and your own ideas!

[R4]You are using terrific and diverse examples to illustrate the various implications of the American Dream. Nice work.

[R5]I like this idea. My first reaction was to say that you should have made this statement earlier on in the paper. However, on second thought, I realized that rather than saying it, you demonstrated in with all of your examples. Excellent.

Essay: The eBook Revolution

The following is the essay I recently wrote for my Comp I class. I got 100 out of 100 on the essay so I thought I would post it. The assignment was to write a cause and effect essay about some new technology that is directed at an audience that is older and doesn’t fully understand newer technology.

The world is always changing. New life is being discovered in places humans never thought possible. Humans have always had a deep seeded need to push on and build up. From the Tower of Babel to the Titanic, mankind has always tried to reach new heights and test limits. When Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple built the first personal computers I am certain the revolutionary dream was not lost on them. They pushed technology to new parameters. The computer age revolutionized the way we think. Humanity moved beyond the confines of the old ways. We disconnected phone lines and replaced them with cell phones. We tossed the records and switched to tapes then compact discs and now are keeping thousands of songs on one small device. The last bastion of the old world, the printed word, is still running strong but, like many other technologies in human history,  is under threat by innovation. EBooks are coming to the forefront of our lives. The eBook reader is becoming more prominent in the lives of humanity and is pushing the printed books out of our hands and into library rummage sales. If this revolution continues there will be a decline in printed book sales, creating an increase in self-published books and lowered production costs for major publishers.

               You may be asking yourself, what is an eBook? To answer that simply, it is a digitized book; digitized meaning that someone has transcribed the book on a computer to preserve it for the digital age. In 2004, an eBook reader, a device you can store these eBooks on to read whenever you want, was kind of a myth, something tech nerds call vaporware; a device the manufacturers keep promising to produce but never actually release. In 2005, Sony finally released the first eBook reader with a price tag of over $600. I am certain after seeing the interest sparked by this device Amazon.com, an internet book retailer, decided to create their own and in 2007 they released the first Kindle eBook reader. The Kindle had many features the Sony Reader did not have and had a lower price tag, just under $300. Before Amazon.com there were very few options available for purchasing eBooks but that changed with the Kindle. Amazon.com created a special store for eBooks purchases and allowed the user to even purchase eBooks from the Kindle device without having to use a computer. This breakthrough has caused a major shift in the book market and more people are buying eBooks. This trend is growing steadily. Paul S. Kemp a prominent science fiction/fantasy writer even said that “E-books are 50% of his net sales” and that the “percentage has been increasing every quarter” (@Paulskemp, 2011).

               This trend is, of course, a scary trend for “brick and mortar” stores like Borders or Barnes & Noble. The decrease in printed book sales is affecting their “bottom line” already. Borders themselves just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating “it expects to close about 30% of its more than 600 stores nationwide”, and listing “assets of $1.28 billion and debt of $1.29 billion (Kellogg). This has been a major hit to the publishing world, not only because Borders is one of the largest chain book stores but having that kind of debt means that the publishers are not getting paid for the books they sell.

               Facing this crisis, I think we can expect Borders to push more into the online market by concentrating on increasing the advertising of their online book store, especially the eBook section of the website. This will mean they will have to come up with new ways to reach their audience. They will have to increase the amount of books they offer; currently if you go to Amazon.com and view their printed book selection you find they offer 22,902,167 books. Do the same at Borders and you can see they offer 2,009,564 printed books. That is 2 books for every 23 offered though Amazon.com. Go to the eBook sections of the websites and you come up with 3 eBooks for every 8 eBooks offered though Amazon.com. I think it is fair to say that we can expect a lot of changes to Borders online store if they want to increase their overall sales and break into a market dominated by Amazon.com.

               The best thing about eBooks is the cost. As an eBook reader and a Kindle owner, I am paying around an average of 40% to 50% less to purchase an eBook (I also don’t have to get rid of books because they are cluttering up my house). There are also many classic books that are offered for free because they are public domain. Retailers are able to offer these free books because volunteers transcribe the books into eBook versions. If one wanted a printed copy of Treasure Island, one would have to pay for the production costs; if Treasure Island was purchased though the Kindle, it would be free. The real matter at hand though is not that it saves the consumer money but that it saves the publisher money. That is why the eBook format is a dream for publishers. A typical hardcover book in store can cost a consumer $25 but costs $2.50 to print whereas an eBook costs anywhere from $0.99 to $14.99 with $12.99 the typical cost for a new release book but with no printing costs. Take out cost for printing, author royalties and the retailers cut you find that a hardcover will net “the publisher $5.80 (or 23.2% of the cover price)”, and “an e-book $6.82 (52.5%)” (Derrico, 2010). The lowered cost for purchase and the higher percent in net sales for the publisher will create a win-win situation for the publisher and the consumer.

               Also benefiting from the emergence of eBooks into popular culture is the author. The cheaper price on eBooks (combined with the ease that a consumer can purchase them), will drive people to purchase more books. Leaving the author with higher sales compared to having sold the book at the $25 price. There is also the unpublished author to consider. The unpublished author has for years had no outlets for their work. If they published their own books, the cost of printing and trying to sell is just as high, if not higher, then the publishers. A self-published author would have to print a lot of books, paying thousands of dollars just to have the books sit around while they try to reach their audience. The beauty of eBooks is that it costs nothing to produce. An author would just have to type up their novel, convert it using many free programs that can be found on the internet and submit it to Amazon.com for sale. By eliminating the major publisher the author can receive their full royalties, for example if you sell your eBook through Amazon.com, “you’ll earn 70% royalties on your eBook sales, as opposed to 17.5% on your eBooks sales under contracts with traditional publishers” (Kemp). While the author will lose out on the advertising that major publishers utilize, they will not have to stress that they can’t get published and doing it themselves would be better than not at all.

               Eventually, we may see eBook readers as a social norm in every home, kind of in the same way the television is. I am certain that most casual reading done in the future will be exclusive to eBook readers. On the other hand, I believe we will find textbooks for school or work will still continue to be on printed books. Will printed books ever go away? I think the answer is no. They are too much of a staple to human life to fully get rid of them. EBook production will continue to be a must for publishers. Amazon.com currently has over 840 thousand eBooks offered in their Kindle store; that’s 4 for every 115 printed books. There may be a day when 8 eBooks for every 10 printed is the standard; or possibly even 1 for 1. There is one thing that is definite, while there will be hard times for retailers and publishers not following new trends, the sale of eBooks will continue to revolutionize the way we read. Through the sale of eBooks the publishing world will grow stronger. The increase in sales will push for better technology and the surge in self-published authors will create a fair and competitive market for aspiring writers. The eBook revolution will continue and the decrease in sales from printed books will keep in balance with the sale of eBooks due to the decrease in production costs.  Unlike the television, this revolution will not be televised; it will be downloaded directly to the reading device of our choice.

Works Cited

@Paulskemp. Web log post. Twitter.com. 21 Jan. 2011. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. http://twitter.com/#!/Paulskemp/status/28481513460858880

Derrico, David. David Derrico: Always Write Blog. 29 September 2010. 17 February 2011 <http://www.davidderrico.com/cost-breakdowns-e-books-vs-printed-books/>.

—. David Derrico: Always Write Blog. 29 September 2010. 17 2 2011 <http://www.davidderrico.com/cost-breakdowns-e-books-vs-printed-books/>.

Kellogg, Carolyn. Jacket Copy: BOOKS, AUTHORS AND ALL THINGS BOOKISH. 16 February 2011. 16 February 2011 <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/02/borders-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy.html>.

Kemp, Paul S. Paul S. Kemp: Blog. 4 1 2011. 17 January 2011 <http://paulskemp.com/blog/to-self-publishing-or-not-to-self-publish/>.

A Few Things On My Mind

I have a few things on my mind and figured I should get them out. First up I have been catching up on the Dexter TV show. I have read all the books, the newest book “Dexter is Delicious was great but not what I was hoping for as far as the books go. Of course, like many, season 4 is probably my favorite. John Lithgow blew me away in that season and I was not sure that they would be able to live up to it with season 5. Watching this season I have been in love with the plot and even better than that is the cast. Julia Stiles, Peter Weller, Shawn Hatosy, Scott Grimes and one of my favorite actors Jonny Lee Miller. Aside from Julia Stiles, who is doing an amazing job, all these actors have had an impact on my childhood. Peter Weller was RoboCop; Shawn Hatosy was in The Faculty which was a favorite movie when I was a teen. Scott Grimes played Malarkey in Band of Brothers and was on Party of Five a show I really enjoyed as a kid. Jonny Lee Miller has always been a favorite of mine. He played Sick Boy in Trainspotting one of my all time favorite movies, he was Zero Cool in Hackers and he did a short lived TV series called Eli Stone that was a favorite of mine. All these great actors being very insignificant in Hollywood over all have come together to create the ultimate cast. It is sad to see that most of them may not be in the next season although I really hope Julia Stiles stays for the rest of the series. Anyways, I have also been reading Star Wars: Red Harvest a Zombie horror book based in the Star Wars Universe, so, my dreams have been very interesting. I started school again tonight and I looking forward to this semester. My Elementary Algebra class is so far seeming to work for me so I feel excited to see be back in school. The kids have been little sweethearts lately a bit of a handful but what child isn’t. Liam and I went grocery shopping together today and we had a good time normally at the store he is an obnoxious brat but I think being alone with his daddy made happy. He kept asking what we needed and I would tell him and he would search for it. I, of course, steered him in the right direction to the items. I have to go to be though I have class in the morning and need to be up early since I have to drive to the Orchard Ridge Campus and I have never been there before.