Mario Still Kicks Ass

I just noticed upon completing my last post, I forgot my header is actually of a video game.  Surprising that I associated enough importance to a video game to put it as my header on my blog.  Perhaps there’s more to this video-gaming thing and it’s sociological implications than I had thought. Maybe I’ll find out tonight in class with the guest lecturer on video games and sociology.

Split -Infinitives are the Devil.

So in reference to Paul’s question he posed in while discussing proper paper writing skills.  According to AskOxford – This is a split infinitive:

To boldly go where no man has gone before!

The infinitive is to go, and it has been ’split’ by the adverb boldly. Split infinitives have been the cause of much controversy among teachers and grammarians, but the notion that they are ungrammatical is simply a myth: in his famous book Modern English Usage, Henry Fowler listed them among ’superstitions’!

Split infinitives are frequently poor style, but they are not strictly bad grammar. In the example above, to avoid the split infinitive would result either in weakness (to go boldly) or over-formality (boldly to go): either would ruin the rhythmic force and rhetorical pattern of the original. It is probably good practice to avoid split infinitives in formal writing, but clumsy attempts to avoid them simply by shuffling adverbs about can create far worse sentences.

I can be your Facebook Stalker

SEXYDROWNWATCH

Here is something funny for those of you who enjoyed BORAT. I thought it was one of the strangest yet oddly entertaining films around. So here is something off the special features of the DVD.  You don’t even have had to seen the movie to enjoy this.

So long Ryan, Hello media frenzy.

Well as many of you know the NHL trade deadline came and went and one of the biggest commotions of the day was the trading of Edmonton’s Ryan Smyth. I think it’s absolutely amazing how the media has covered the whole ordeal.

At first there was not much talk in the media of the Oilers moving Smyth, but once they did the media exploded trying to uncover every possible detail of the trade. Smyth himself said he found out about the trade, not through the phone call from Kevin Lowe but, through his television. Apparently Smyth was watching the little sports tracker on the bottom of the sports channel and discovered he’d been traded to the New York Islanders.

Here’s where I find this of interest in context to this class: Smyth found out about his own future through the media, via his television set. The media knew about the trade before the guy involved in it did. The media was able to relay their knowledge of the trade to the public before Kevin Lowe, the one performing the trade, even had time to call Smyth and inform him of the transaction. Kind of interesting how fast the media has become. Within minutes they are able to broadcast things as they happen.

Now for those of you who are hockey fans I will leave you this clip of Smyth’s fairwell. I don’t care if you’re not an Oiler’s fan, you can’t help but appreciate what this guy has done for his team and the city of Edmonton. Few others in the game today have such a bond with their team, fans, and the city. This clip shows it’s more than just a business. It’s people’s lives, their family’s lives, and the fans’ lives that are affected by trading away the face of a team. (Much like it would be if Joe Sakic were ever traded) I’ll put both part 1 and part 2 of his fairwell on here.

Michael Richard’s Court Speech on Racist Remarks

The Following are not my views. I merely am posting this for interest sake. This is more of a link to this blog’s article on Richard’s outburst.  This is supposedly Richard’s speech in court.
There are African Americans, Mexican Americans,
Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc.
And then there are just Americans.
You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction.
You Call me “White boy,” “Cracker,” “Honkey,”
“Whitey,” “Caveman” … and that’s
OK.
But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head,
Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink …
You call me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you,
so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?

You have the United Negro College Fund.
You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah.
You have Ma’uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP.
You have BET.
If we had WET (White Entertainment Television) we’d be
racists.
If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists.
If we had White History Month , we’d be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to “advance”
OUR lives we’d be racists.

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber
of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of
Commerce. Wonder who pays for
that?

A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American
pageant, but any color can be in the Miss America pageant.

If we had a college fund that only gave white students
scholarships you know we’d be racists.
There are over 60 openly proclaimed
Black Colleges
in the US. Yet if there were “White colleges” THAT
would be a racist college.

In the Million
Man March, you believed that you were
marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists.

You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and
you’re not afraid to announce
it. But when we announce
our white pride, you call us racists.

You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats
up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a  threat to society, you call him a racist.

I am proud.
But you call me a racist.

>> >> >>>>>Why is it that only whites can be racists?