There are about 40,000 car fatalities per year, in the United States. Does that mean that we should ban cars? I would guess that many Americans, if not all, would be very upset if the government decided to ban the use of cars because of the all the deaths that are caused by them. This is the same, ridiculous, approach that the federal government is going to ban a popular caffeinated alcoholic drink, ‘Four Loko’. The reason for the ban is because it led to a teen’s death in Denton, Texas. Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, Utah, and Washington have already banned the drink.  

Wow, a teen dying of drunk driving? I haven’t heard that one before, so let’s pull the trigger and start to ban everything. I say we ban cell phones because I have almost gotten into so many accidents from people talking or texting while driving. Even though it is against the law, in California, to talk or text while driving, people still do it, so let’s just ban them all together. I’m guessing people would agree to that either.

‘Four Loko’ is a popular drink for teens to get their hands on, but what teenager doesn’t underage drink? I’m not stating that underage drinking is a good thing or we should just let it happen; I’m just pointing out the fact that underage drinking does occur. The only thing we can do, as parents, is teach our children to wait until they are the proper age (21 in the United States) to start drinking, but that doesn’t even guarantee that they will be responsible when they are the appropriate age.

I’m sorry for the parents that lost their child, in that fatal car crash. Nothing is worse than losing a child, but does that mean that we should ban that certain alcoholic beverage? Maybe, it would be better idea to get together with M.A.D.D. and help their cause. Let’s start educating; instead of be so reactionary. Every since 9/11, Americans have been so reactional. When we make reactional decisions is when we make our most mistakes. When will people realize this?

It looks as if college students in London are about to go through some tuition increases and have major cuts to their university teaching budgets. The Guardian is reporting that tuition fees are going to go as high as £9,000 as well as 40% cuts to the university teaching budgets, but these fees won’t be implemented until 2012.

So, what did London College students do about it? Well, they took to the streets in a huge protest—of about 200 people, in Millbank— to make their voices heard. The protest, as many do, turned violent but it did its job. It got attention to what is going on in the London college system and shows that their students care about their education.

California college students should take a lesson from London students. I’ve been to a couple of tuition protests, when I was in college, and they were pretty weak. Not to say that I wanted violence to break-out, but I did want to see some emotion from the protestors. It would seem that California college students don’t want to make their voices heard, when it comes to the increase in college tuition, but they sure do like to complain when they don’t have money in their wallets and/or they have to take out another loan. California college students need to get off their butts and need to do something about it. California college fees are about to increase again, and this will keep happening until students do something about it. It’s a shame that California use to be a powerhouse when it came to education, but now it’s looking more like a joke.

*NOTE: Before reading this, please take the time to read the article in question. My rant/thoughts will make a lot more sense if you do.

When people ask you a question should you answer it honestly or should you just state the most popular answer? This is one reason why I don’t try to get into conversations about “hot button” issues, because I know my answers aren’t going to be the ones people want to hear. I’m the type of individual that expresses their thoughts/beliefs honesty; with no regret. This is what Marie Claire’s blogger, Maura Kelly, does in her article, “Should ‘Fatties’ Get a Room (Even on TV)?”. Kelly expresses her true thoughts when one of her editor’s asked her, “Do you [Kelly] think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?”. This is what led to the article in the first place, and people are going ballistic over what Kelly has written. People are calling Kelly a bully (which is an overused and trendy word to use know a days) for expressing her thoughts on the overweight subject. Granted, Kelly doesn’t hold anything back when describing overweight individuals, and she does use some harsh language/phrasing; for example:

“So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.”

Kelly should have seconded guessed her choice of words and tone in her article but I have to give her props for speaking her mind. The people that should be ashamed of themselves are the people in the comments section of the article. I have looked through all of the comments, and about 95% of them are brainless, useless, and/or hurtful. This is why people don’t express their true thoughts on a topic, when they know that it’s not within the populace, because they know people will ridicule them for their viewpoint. Just because Kelly, or anybody else for that matter, that doesn’t’ believe being overweight is a beautiful thing, doesn’t make them a horrible individual. What it does is make them open and honest.

After watching The Social Network I was interested in seeking out the truth behind the creation of Facebook. I was turned towards David Kirkpatrick’s book, The Facebook Effect. Kirkpatrick’s book goes through the history and possible future of Facebook. The novel gives a lot of details of how Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has grown from a Harvard student to a billionaire. Unlike the The Social Network, The Facebook Effect doesn’t spend much time on the lawsuits between Zuckerberg, Winklevoss, and Saverin. The book does touch on those cases but it doesn’t go into depth about them, which is a good thing. However, the book does go into great depth about the development of Facebook; the changes/development that the company has gone through; and how Facebook is altering our way of communicating with each other.

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Thanks to Facebook, and a number of other social networking sites, we are able to connect with as many people as we possibly can. With just a click of a button, we can keep up to date on what an individual is up to throughout their life. We can even comment, at a moment’s notice, on a picture a friend posted a few moments ago, for the world to see. We have become a society based on what we post and share with the world through our social networks. The Social Network deals with some of these ideas, but the film mostly deals with the theme of what business can do to friendships.

When I first heard that a Facebook movie was going to be made I was a bit skeptical, but when I heard that David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin were behind it is when I had some hope. Sorkin’s script is amazing. There isn’t much that takes place on screen, but there is so much dialogue being exchanged by each character that it feels as if a war of words is taking place. This is the type of dialogue that Diablo Cody wishes she could write into her films. Even the very first scene of the movie is like an action sequence but with dialogue, and David Fincher’s directing is remarkable. Every shot of this film is stunning. There are a few row boating scenes that take place that took my breath away. I didn’t know that rowing a boat can look so cool.

This leads me to the acting. The acting in this film is top notch. Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Mark Zuckerbeg, is great and should not be known as the “Michael Cera wannabe” anymore. But the surprise of this film is Andrew Garfield, who plays Eduardo Saverin (Co-Founder of Facebook). Garfield is the shining star of this film, and shows everyone that he can act. Garfield is slated to play Spider-Man in the untitled reboot, and I can’t wait to see what he does with the role of Peter Parker.

Another amazing thing about this film is the score. Trent Reznor (the man behind NIN) and Atticus Ross compose one of the best scores of the year. Every song plays such an important role throughout the film and sets the mood, perfectly. Reznor is one musical artiest that I have tremendous respect for. This is Reznor’s first time co-creating a film score, and I can’t wait to see what other film scores he decides to create later on down the road.

The Social Network is going to be talked about when Oscar time rolls around, and I hope Andrew Garfield is nominated, for best supporting actor, the score nominated, and the movie for best film of the year. This is a film of my (20 something’s) generation.  It’s a shame that people will full heartily believe that is how Facebook was created. There is some truth to what went down (the cases and the people involved) but the specific conversations and how everyone acted aren’t 100% accurate. I hope people walk away from The Social Network with a smile on their face but take everything that takes place on screen with a grain of salt.

P.S. You can listen to five sample tracks from The Social Network score here.

Some of the most important life lessons come from where you least expect it. I have learned some key lessons about life through the world of film. There are five films, in general, that have taught me about the world around me. Some people might believe that I take movies too seriously, but there is always something to learn from any form of entertainment.

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Mad Men is one of those shows that invoke thoughts and emotions to their viewers. Not many shows do this, but there is one topic, in general, that has piqued my interest throughout this season of Mad Men. That topic is the idea of the modern women. I didn’t just want to read web articles on the subject so I decided to search for scholarly articles on the topic, and I discovered a few articles that cover this particular subject. Out of these three articles, there was one that piqued my interested the most and that was Anna-Maija Lamsa’s article, “A Discursive Approach to Understanding Women Leaders in Working Life”.

The main idea of Lamsa’s article is that women, in leadership positions, are less respected than men (duh), but the reason for this is because we, society, hold on to traditional cultural values about the roles of men and women. When women go into the work force, they have to totally change their identity, but this is very hard to do when our culture still holds on to the idea that men and women are suppose to play certain roles. It is because of this change in identity that career driven women develop a conflict within themselves.

I believe this clash that career women have is because of all the different roles that they have to balance. It’s normal, now-a- days, to see a woman have her first child at the age of 30. More and more women are making their careers first and placing the “white-picket-fence” life on the back burner. This juggling of roles can be very hard on women, but this is the price that all career women must face if they want to achieve their goal/dream of being independent. Because of this, we will all, one day, become mad men.

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Just finished watching season 1 of Deadwood and I was blown away. It’s very Shakespearean, but with four letter words thrown all over the place. I’ll be booting up season 2 later this weekend. I can’t wait!

I have one question, why aren’t men rough, hard, and willing to defend their honor any more? My guess is society. Men are so soft now a days.

Is having regret a good or bad thing? For the past couple of months I have talked to a handful of friends that have told me that they don’t have any regrets and I shouldn’t have any in my life either. At first, I was all gung-ho, but then I thought about it and realized that without regret in my life I would repeat the same mistakes. Life is too short to keep on making the same mistakes.

Oxford English Dictionary explains that regret is “[t]he expression of grief, distress, or sorrow; lamentation; an instance of this”. So, for an individual to not have any regret is for them not to feel disappointment or sorrow. It would seem that an individual that doesn’t have any regret is bound to make the same mistakes. Without regret how can one grow and change as a person? Having regret should be a personal learning experience, and not something to turn away from.

One regret I have is that I took my time graduating from college. I took the minimum amount of units (12) and didn’t study as hard as I should have. I relaxed and let things come to me. Doing this made things a lot harder on me to get my career going. Since realizing this (which was the last year of my college career; a bit too late) I have started to take destiny into my own hands, which is something I should have done a long time ago. Without my regret, or rather disappointment in myself, I would still be that same individual I once was.

People view regret as a negative factor because they see it a weakness, but in reality it isn’t a weakness at all. It’s a tool to help create a better you. I’m not saying to dwell on a regret, because that would just turn out to be a bad thing, but one should have some in their life. By being disappointed in myself has changed me into a better person, and it’s something I will never live without. Maybe, you shouldn’t either.