Procrastination

Procrastination should be classified as an illness. If it was then maybe research would be done to have drugs that helped people overcome it. I already wrote about procrastination in one of my earlier blogs, but for this one I more want to get into the issue of procrastination. Procrastination for some people (like me) is actually a serious problem that they must overcome. The mind just thinks, why do it now when its not due until a week, or until two days, or even just tomorrow. There's no three step program to overcome this, it's really about just doing the work early even with your brain saying that it's not necessary. Procrastination is a pretty simple problem so it would seem that there would be a simple, easy solution. Coming up with a solution isn't how it would seem, however. I have been very bad with this, hence, me doing this blog now. I think that with procrastination it gets harder to do it successfully as life goes on.At least, That has been my experience so far, and that's how I know that I really have to make a change. I'm confident that I will slowly get out of procrastination, and I hope that others who have this problem will too.

Finding Your Hobby

Throughout my life I never really knew what I considered my hobby. I never actually had a hobby and didn't think I ever would get one. It feels weird now saying that watches are a hobby of mine, in my mind I just really like watches but it's something that I could totally see myself having a collection of if I wasn't the typical broke college kid. I do have three watches but I manly wear my one watch most of the time. But I still look at different watches and like learning how they work. For me, watches is my hobby. In my experience someone doesn't really find a hobby it's more like a hobby finds them. Before I got my first watch I never had interests in watches, I never set out to find out about watches before then. But, looking for a hobby myself never really worked, I ended up just finding things I enjoyed, like hiking, but I could never get myself to commit to it like a hobby. It's like the super corny saying "I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me,"(I hated myself for writing that.) Finding a hobby isn't a necessary thing but when one's found it gives a little more entertainment to life.

The CW Shows

The CW channel has many different shows, but the ones I'll be covering are the superhero shows, like The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. To get it out of the way my favorite show is the Flash, which follows Barry Allen, the Flash. That show's my favorite because I feel they got how light a superhero show should be. In that show it has elements of comedy but get's serious at times too, as opposed to say the Arrow, which is mainly a more serious show. The thing I like with what they are doing with all of these shows is that they're integrating them more and more into each other. While I can see how this would benefit the, with having people watch more shows on their channels, it really makes it more interesting all around for each show. Each show deals with their own problems still, however, they have times when they get together to take down a big enemy of some sort.

These shows are available online fore free on the CW website and on Netflix for the past seasons and I really recommend people to watch these shows.

Christians in the media world

When looking at christian movies like God's Not Dead or Fireproof, it's easy to see how most people wouldn't like it but some christian's would love it. I believe that Christians shouldn't make films solely oriented towards this audience, I think by doing that, the film doesn't really help anyone or really has much of a point really. All it does is makes the target audience agree and that's it. This idea doesn't only apply to Christians of course. It really can apply to any movie that only targets a very particular target audience. But really, the purpose of a movie can be many things, but it shouldn't just be made so some people can nod in agreement and say that the movies right.
This isn't to say Christians shouldn't make movies or anything like that. It's simply that when making a movie about Christianity it shouldn't be made with the thought of "Oh yeah, Christians are going to love this, oh well if other people don't like it ." This thought is an exaggerated way of how they went along with making Fireproof or God's Not Dead, and that's something that we should avoid.

Pixar short: The Moon

This pixar short focuses on a kid who has two different adult figures in his life. Both those figures want the kid to be like them and often argue on what methods different things should be done like. This short uses no words and only body language in a masterful way. The fisherman in this end up being the ones who change the moons cycles, They start going about it when a big star crashes in the moon. This is when the kid finds his own path to take and destroys the big star using his own methods. This short shows that everyone is different and shows this in a masterful way. I started finding that I really like all of Pixar's shorts and this is just one of many that I've become a fan of.

Short: Home Sweet Home

As an animator wanting to go into 3d, I have a big interest in 3d movies or shorts. The 3d animated short "Home Sweet Home" is an excellent example of a short that I love. It told a story about a house who set out on a journey. We don't know where the house was headed, but along the way it found an older house who followed it on it's journey. This very well made short took something like a house, and made the viewers really care about it in ten minutes. This short followed the houses along it's adventures and told the story phenomenally well. I really recommend watching this, not only is it oddly entertaining to watch but the lesson in the end is impact. It shows that people come into your life and eventually it goes away. You still have to move on in the end and continue on the journey of life without them.

#PizzagatePart2

   For part one I decided to just give information, I wanted to make it a sort of sarcastic tone and just poke fun at the whole situation, because, admittedly that entire conspiracy is pretty outrageous. But, I decided against it and to simply say what happened, with perhaps a few exceptions, to avoid being     overly biased about the whole situation.

   This whole pizzagate incident really shows how easy it is for misinformation to spread across the internet. It’s so easy for any lie to become widespread across the internet. The pizzagate incident, unfortunately, was bound to happen. If say, the pizzagate conspiracy never caught on, another conspiracy or misinformation would in the future and would cause someone like Welch to do the same thing. Luckily, this time nobody got hurt. But, that’s not to say that in the future something that causes people to get injured won’t happen because of the internet.

   When dealing with things that matter to you on the internet, it’s important to check source, and to make sure that what’s being said isn’t just something that’s not backed up by any data at all. The power of the internet is scary really. Literally anyone can post anything and if it gets out there, millions of people can be fed misinformation and the effects of that are unknown.

This whole ordeal reminds me of a video I saw which perfectly discussed this issue and covers the myth of us eating 8 spiders in our sleep. This video really shows how easy it is for false information to be widespread throughout the entire web in an interesting way.

#PizzagatePart1

    Pizzagate, for those who don’t know, is a fake conspiracy that arisen from the wikileaks of Hillary Clinton’s emails conspired by some of the users in 4chan. The false conspiracy theory said that a pizza place named Comet Ping Pong mentioned in some of Hillary’s emails was the headquarters for a child sex trafficking ring. It said that there were code words for different things in Hillary’s emails, the code words ranged from “pizza”, “cheese”, or “hotdogs”. This 4chan conspiracy spread like wildfire to many different sources from Twitter to Reddit to fake news sources. Pizzagate even reached different languages from countries like Saudi Arabia.

   Of course, no legal action came from these claims, because well, there was literally no evidence to back them up. However, a man named Edgar Welch decided to investigate this theory himself, by going to Comet Ping Pong with a rifle and searching for the kids he believed were held there. In that time he investigated, Welch fired a shot but nobody was injured. The people in the restaurant managed to escape and the police apprehended Welch after locking down the area. Welch never did find any evidence to the conspiracy.

   Now, Welch wasn’t the only person to have threatened the restaurant because of pizzagate. The manager, as well as the employees received many death threats and many people went to the restaurant just to investigate for themselves. None of them finding anything.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pizzagate-from-rumor-to-hashtag-to-gunfire-in-dc/2016/12/06/4c7def50-bbd4-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.b15bf7d29088

http://time.com/4590255/pizzagate-fake-news-what-to-know/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/pizzagate-comet-ping-pong-edgar-maddison-welch.html?_r=0

The Art of Procrastination

When you think about it, extreme procrastination is actually really impressive. So, before I starting writing this blog I opened up the blog window and sat there at the empty template page for a couple minutes, trying to think of what to write for this blog. After those couple minutes I gave up trying to think and opened a new tab with my intent to look up blog ideas. But, when I opened the new tab page a little Santa on the bottom appeared saying "Skydive with Santa and boogie with elves in Santa’s Village". Naturally, I clicked it, now wanting to skydive with Santa. Well, 30 minutes later and here I am, now just starting my blog. (update Now, this could be argued that my curiousity got the better of me, but really I just didn't know what to write for this blog and didn't want to write this blog for that reason. So I put it off. (Update: I actually got distracted again by a different game on the site.) The problem with procrastination is that its so easy to fall into it, it's a constant phenominon. I have always fought with procrastination, but really it's too easy to procrastinate in life, which is a terrible trait to have, especcially during the end of the semester. So I suppose this blog is to raise awareness to not be like me and procrastinate so easily. Just do the work and don't wait until the last moment.

Connected to the World

We live in the most connected era that ever existed. Throughout history the means of communicating around the world have been slow and not nearly as efficient as we have it today. In today's society we can communicate to nearly everyone around the world, without leaving our houses. We have found ways to make this easy access of the world for use as entertainment, from Facebook or Twitter, to Youtube, to forum sites like Reddit or Tumblr. We have found a way for everybody online to get connected to each other. But this doesn't only serve the purpose of entertainment, it's used for technological advancements as well. Before the internet or even cellphones, the ways of communicating new findings lied in word of mouth, or by newspapers, or mail or many other ways, but none so fast as the internet. We didn't have the internet to post it so that billions of people could see it. So, the point of this blog post is to bring awareness to the often overlooked fact, that the internet, is really an amazing thing. It's easy to forget because we use it so often it's just become a way of life for us, but it really is amazing considering it's only almost 28 years old.

Why Flash is the Most Overpowered Superhero

To start off, I should mention I'm not big into comic books and have never really read any to begin with. I have however always liked the flash, the power of super speed always seemed really cool to me. But I never especially got into the Flash until the show about Flash, unsurprisingly called, "the Flash", came out. As soon as it came out I was hooked, that made me want to know more about the Flash as a character. I came upon a whole bunch of things talking about Flash and it became pretty clear that as a superhero, he was pretty overpowered.
When many people think of the most overpowered hero they would think along the lines of superman or something around there. But really the Flash is the most powerful. In the comics, the Flash can literally go as fast as he wants. By as fast as he wants, I pretty much mean it literally. An example of the Flash going impossibly fast comes with his race against aliens that mastered teleportation. In he end he won the race using the speed force to allow him to go so fast that there is not a word for how fast he went. With a superhero that can go this fast, nothing can stop him, because nothing can go fast enough to touch him. So, in the end, the Flash is the most overpowered superhero.
There's a really interesting video about how fast the Flash can actually go, delving into many examples of his use of his powers. The video is here and I recommend anyone a little interested to watch this 8 minute video.

Music

Music's purpose can't be narrowed down to one thing. Music stands as a way for entertainers to tell a story, to send a message, to doing millions of different things. It serves the purpose of inspiring creativity, helping concentration, or allowing others to escape this world, as well as a million other purposes. Music has been inspired by history, or it has changed history.
A perfect example (and very interesting to read about) of music that changed history lies in the "spirituals," slaves sang in the United States, the songs they sang allowed slaves to, in a way, give encoded messages to each other. As time goes on music changes and evolves, as well as new forms being born. It has reaches all over the world making it possible for everyone to find the fit that they enjoy the most.
In the media world, music is a huge, important, tool. Allowing people to send a message to whoever listens to it. That's not to say that every song needs a message, a common misconception of music is that it exists only as a way for artists to send a story or message. But, it can be used purely for entertainment, to have good music doesn't mean it needs a deeper meaning.

Being a Follower of Jesus

A couple weeks ago we talked about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The first answer that comes to many minds, goes along the lines of making sure your actions reflect the ideas of Jesus's preaching. People should be able to see that you are a christian. Although this answer would do good for the world, however small the scale, I believe it goes deeper than that. It's not that people shouldn't try to act like Jesus, but I think people need to shape their minds to be more holy. In a way, doing good is easy. It's not hard to find a charity or a place to volunteer, it only takes time out of ones day. What becomes hard lies in changing ones thoughts. One could do good and act a certain way, but could simply be acting, this doesn't mean that the person has evil intentions or anything like that. In fact it's very easy to get into this acting of being like Jesus, in our society being good is looked up upon, making it easier to do good selfishly. But by changing ones mind, the mind shifts from doing good selfishly to doing good for others, and that, is what Jesus wants. I'm not saying that I have mastered this, or that I have changed my way of thinking. I'm still very far from it, and I have a long way to go. But, in my experience, acknowledging that there's different reasons for doing good, and choosing the right reason, becomes a crucial step in becoming a follower of Jesus.

Duel

The film Duel by Pavel Koutsky depicts the process of teaching kids school subjects as just cramming as much  information as possible in the children's brain . It first shows the kid as a baby and society allowing him to have fun with drawing and stories, but as soon as he turns a certain age they take away those things, meaning, of course, they take away "creativity". The creator then goes on to show society sticking a funnel in his head and cram as much information as they can in him in the hopes of turning him into an "adult".
This film would be correct if it were exactly how it was portrayed. If everyone went one by one and had knowledge crammed in them, then perhaps society's education ideals would take away all creativity. However, I believe the major flaw in this sort of theory would be the fact that everyone encourages friends. They put you in classrooms with others to encourage you to talk to others. Friends help keep the creativity while the education system, in my opinion, is meant to 'cram knowledge in you'.
Even the video showed the group of kids fight back against the norm' of the boring education system. Although, even this depiction has its problems. Even though nearly no kid likes to learn these things I think that instead of fighting this with their friends, kids just do things that build their imaginations together


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Prayer of the Goat

The goat in this prayer wishes to express to God his longing to explore the world and not have a routine like the sheep are content to have. This prayer resonates with me for showing the adventurous spirit, and how so many people are okay with getting in this rut with life. How, mostly everyone's fine being the sheep, who "graze and graze, all of them, always in the same direction".

The prayer speaks of the goats love to bound the heart of all of God's marvels. So like me, the goat craves for adventure, and to explore the world, to find new ways to live life away from the norm of life's routine.