Cowboy Bebop

Talking about a favorite TV show is difficult, considering how little TV I watch nowadays.  There aren't really any story based shows that I am keeping up with right now.  As an alternative, I will advertise to you one of my old favorites: an anime called Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy Bebop is the story of a group of bounty hunters (also known as cowboys) in the future who travel the galaxy in their ship called the Bebop in search of bounties.  The four main characters are Spike, the thin, green-haired, sarcastic protagonist, Jet, a large bald man with facial hair and a metal arm, Faye, who can be summed up as the hot chick (she has boobs, it's important, trust me), and Crazy Edward, the random comic relief hacker, who is female, but whose gender is kept ambiguous as a running joke.

A lot of the appeal of the show, for me at least, lies in the soundtrack.  It is full of catchy jazz numbers primarily, but covers a gargantuan range of music when taken in its entirety.  The music is used to great effect to enhance the storytelling in the show, as well as in the incredible Cowboy Bebop Movie.

It's a really fun one to get into, especially if you have interest in anime. The animation is good, the stories are awesome, the soundtrack is incredible, and all of the characters are quirky and fun.  Plus there are plenty of episodes that have little to nothing to do with the actual underlying story, so it is easy to jump in and out of watching as you please.  I highly recommend Cowboy Bebop!

That's all I have to say for now.  Later, internet!

Ad of loathing!

So, for this blog (which is also late *shame shame*), I must analyze an advertisement.  I have chosen to analyze the same ad that I am writing a paper about for this unit: The Yes on Proposition 8 ad, which incidentally, fills me with disgust and anger.  So this is going to be a hard essay/blog to write.

I should probably say whether I think the ad was effective.  To be honest, I don't know how it could have been, being as filled with double think and hypocrisy as it is, but Proposition 8 passed, to my dismay, so obviously those crazy Mormons throwing their life savings at it did something right.

The forum is California television, and youtube to an extent, but since only California residents could vote on it, it only really applies to California television.

My problem with the ad, beyond the fact that I disagree vehemently with everyone in it, is that it is filled with hypocrisy.  Wanting to "protect the institution of marriage" merits some hate of gays, or at least signifies alot of heterosexism, in that you are "protecting" it from gays.  So when the first man in the commercial says this isn't about hating gays or the "lifestyle," he is being ignorant of what his actions show.

All of the ad is grossly biased towards the conservative right, which makes me wonder how the hell it worked in what is considered one of the more progressive states in the country.  When the blond kid, who ironically seems pretty gay to me, says things like "people on both sides agree that Jesus set the ultimate example for love," he is not taking other viewpoints into account.  No, we don't all agree on that.  Those kind of assumptions are understandable, from a conservative right viewpoint, but they are simply wrong.

More to come on this later, because I'm too angry to write more about it right now. Later, internet!

Free Blog of Lateness!

So, this blog is late.  Very late.  And rather than talk about some subject I like and pretend that everything is fine, I thought I would talk about exactly why this blog is late.

The short answer is that I am motivated.  Whether that is a function of my Attention Deficit Disorder or something completely unrelated, I don't know, but I have always struggled against debilitating motivation issues.  I failed an algebra course in high school because of it.  It wasn't that I didn't understand the material, because I did, completely.  What happened was that I didn't do the homework.

You would think that I would learn not to do that, but it came back freshman year of college. I failed an English class, because I got behind on homework, and once I get behind on something, it feels nearly impossible to catch back up.  The work piles up faster than I can get it done, and I tend to just give up.  I stopped going to class and got a failing grade because of it.  That is, in fact, why I am in this class now.

I guess I'm saying all this to say that I'm sorry.  I know I am bad about this and I am going to try harder, but it is just so difficult for me, and I don't know why sometimes.

The problem is that I just don't care about schoolwork.  I generally care just enough not to fail, nowhere near enough to excel.  There's no way for me to force myself to care about something that I don't find personally important.  Music is important to me, so I do well in classes related to it.  English, I am good at, but it just doesn't matter to me.  Neither does math nor science, and not even art anymore.

Anyway, there it is.  My motivation issues laid out for the internet to see.  Sorry about the lateness.