Wall Street Journal

I liked reading the Wall Street Journal for class instead of having a textbook. I became more aware of what was currently going on in the world and learned about all different things that I wouldn't have reading a textbook. Since it comes out everyday the news was always up to date and was very useful in knowing about mass communications. I learned about Comcast not letting their channels be watched on Direct tv or the other networks and the chairman for the FCC is Julius Genachowski. Those are some things that probably wouldn't have been in an ordianry textbook. I loved the stories on the front cover that we had to read. My favorite story was the one about the hot dog stand in Chicago, Felony Franks. I'm not going to lie there were times where I just didn't feel like reading the paper but overall it was great actually reading about current events going on in mass communications then reading a textbook about the history of it. If I actually had the time to read the paper everyday and not let them pile up on my desk I would be very likely to renew my subscription. The Wall Street Journal was interesting and gave me a lot more interesting things to talk about with my family and friends. My mom was even surprised at some of the things I knew by just reading that paper everyday.

The Road book vs movie

I went to see the movie The Road on black Friday. I had to go to Winter Park just to see this movie, but it didn't matter. I had read the book and seeing the trailer for the movie got me excited. There were a few differences in the movie from the book. First of all there were more memories of the mom in the movie than in the book. But of course they needed to make up something so we could see more of Charlize Theron, who played the mom. The scene were they are by the house that the boy sees another little boy, the dad picks up something and out flew a beetle. That was not in the book at all, and to my understanding everything was dead in the book. I think they added that in th emovie as a sign of hope that they can survive. Also added into the movie was a scene where the father throws his wedding ring and a picture of his wife over the bridge. I feel that symbolized him finally letting her go. The boat scene in the book where the father finds the map and the flare gun was not in the movie. You do see him swim to the boat but the movie never showed what he was actually doing inside, he just shows back up with the flare gun. I enjoyed the book more than the movie. I think I went into the theater expecting so much more. I went with my mom and I had her read the book too before we went to see it and she agrees with me that the book was better. As I was reading the book I played each scene out in my head and the movie wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I loved Viggo Mortenson's performance and Charlize Theron was great and of course beautiful. I think they could have chose a better actor to play the little boy. I'm not sure I believed him so much. He wasn't horrible but I was expecting him to not just play the role of the little boy but actually become the little boy. Honestly, the movie didn't hold my attention like the book did. I found myself drifting to sleep at times. I've never seen a movie that was better than the book and The Road was definitely no exception.

Social-networking Services

The social-networking services I use the most are Myspace and Facebook. I have both because I have some friends who only have a Myspace account and others who only have Facebook. I like how on Myspace I can personalize my page by changing the background, adding different music and putting a bunch of pictures on it. I can change things to fit my personality or how I feel at the moment. If you look at my page it spells GABY all over it. People can get a little taste of who I am. On Facebook there isn't much you can do to the main page people see besides write the typical personal information and update your status, which you can also do on Myspace. I hate when people try to use Myspace and Facebook as a dating website. No I'm not going to give you, a complete stranger my number, and no I do not want to meet up with you later. It's crazy to me, you might be some insane stalker or something. A lot of people lie on both sites, posting fake pictures and pretending to be someone they're not. Also, it seems like more and more girls are using Myspace to compete with other girls, who the most friends, or who has the most comments on their super, almost too sexy pictures. You see young girls posting picture all the time half naked in suggestive poses trying to catch attention of guys. They're getting the wrong type of attention and end up catching the eye of some creep or predator. I just like to keep in touch with my friends and family, I'll leave them comments telling them I haven't forgotten about them in the mist of all the craziness between work and school. Myspace, for me is more for having fun and staying in touch with your friends. Facebook is more for networking. You meet people who are doing what you want to do and can help you get there. It has a lot less weirdos and is not so much a show n tell contest but truly just a place where friends and family from all over the world can get together. I do wish I could personalize my page a little more. I love music so adding a song would be nice. I also hate all the applications they have. It gets so annoying logging into Facebook and I have 100 app invites and having to ignore all of them. They need to keep it simple. I wouldn't pay for either of these services. It's really not worth paying for in my opinion. I can most definitely live without it. I'd just find another way to keep in contact with my friends and family. Maybe I'd just go back to good old fashioned e-mails.