My Little Slice of Heaven

While on a very enjoyable spring break road trip to Boulder, Colorado I came into contact with the greatest morsel. It was a thirteen hour drive from Dallas, Texas in a car or should I say beastmobile with no working speedometer, an oil pressure gauge that said the car was going to explode any minute, a crack that extended all the way across the windshield, and faulty windshield wipers. Anyhow while we were shredding by day and raging by night, we needed a certain something to hold us over both before and after the mountain, luckily we found something that could do both over multiple days. This saving grace was a sandwich shop called Salvagio's and the taste will never leave my memory, one because it was so good and two because we must have eaten there at least 6 times in four days. The thing to order was the steak and cheese but this was no ordinary philly. The savory beef and melty cheese were perfectly combined with a little bit of mayo and hot sauce, and while this sounds like a heartburn sandwich it was well worth it. Not to mention the fresh home baked bread they put all the ingredients on which I wish I knew the recipe for. All in all this place was so good that I asked my parents if we could make a two hour detour from Denver on our way to Brekenridge so that I could have a Salvagio's, unfortunately they shot me down.

The Future of Facebook

In a world where social networks are truly beginning to run the world as we know it, at least as far as communication is concerned, what is the world going to be doing in five years. Facebook as I learned today in my Ad Literacy class has grown to over 500,000,000 registered users according to one student. With numbers like that, it puts facebook as about the 3rd largest country in terms of population if I'm not mistaken. So in a world were people can video chat on their phones, and where advertisements are able to be seen by 500,000,000 people, how is facebook going to change? We now have 3-D televisions and movies, interactive computer screens and websites, imagine if in three years instead of chatting with someone in a little white box, we could produce a three dimensional fully functional image of the person so it is literally like they are in the room talking with us, while still being at home; you could literally almost be in four places at once.

A Little Entertainment

Since I got docked a few points last semester for not making my blog very 'fun' and engaging with the lack of media and all I figured for this post I'd simply give you all a golden nugget of new music. It may not be your style Dr. G but its been in my head the last three days. This is the Laidback Luke remix of Do! Do! Do!, you should add it to your class playlist for next semester's class.

Cavemen?

As I walked over to the barbell rack at Deadman to grab the necessary weights for my 21's I started spacing off in my head. Every day so many SMU students make their way to the gym to run or swim or lift weights to stay in prime, sexy shape, but when did the concept of using tools to stay in shape arise. I'm sure the neanderthals weren't too worried about lifting rocks and trees to tone their shoulders and biceps. Obviously they got stronger just trying to survive in a world where, let's be honest, they weren't exactly the top of the food chain. I don't know whether the cavemen and women were in shape or not nor do I think it mattered because they were always active simply trying to exist, but at some point our activity diminished so that people no longer had to stay in good health and shape to live. Now you see people going to the gym everyday to tone their bodies and trim fat, at some point someone must have realized, "hmmm when I exert myself, my muscles hurt all over" and their reaction must have been to refrain from whatever it was that caused their body physical pain. Eventually someone learned that by stressing and shocking your body that it will result it it growing and becoming stronger. I guess its like the first time someone tried a chilli pepper, it burned their eyes nose and mouth but eventually people learned of its flavor enhancing ability.

New Years Eve

Now while some of us may not be of the legal drinking age that is not to say that a majority of people won’t be partying/ celebrating the New Year on December 31^st. However, instead of sitting at someone’s house binge drinking and struggling to find a sober ride home, only to risk getting hit by a not-so-sober driver, some of my friends and myself will be celebrating in a relatively safe environment known as the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The event is called Together As One, more commonly known as TAO, and it is a massive (large dance music festival) expecting to reach an attendance of at least 75,000. Now while this sounds overwhelming, it is exactly the opposite. At an event where a lot of people are taking party drugs intended to make you more happy and tolerant of everything around you, TAO is a place where everyone can come together for one night for the common goal of celebrating a successful year and their same love for upbeat dance music. Featuring huge name artists like Wolfgang Gartner, Markus Schulz, Laidback Luke, Dada Life, Rusko, Nero, Diplo, Major Lazer, 12^th Planet, Kill the Noise, Pendulum, Jack Beats and many more it is sure to blow everyone who attends’ minds. But the point is not to get extremely F’ed up, but instead to enjoy each other and share one another’s passion for love and light. I went last year and I must say the countdown was pretty magical while David Guetta counted down from 30 seconds to midnight at which point the crowd, ERRUPTED. If you haven’t seen anything like this before, I would highly suggest researching what type of celebrations are in your area because it is an eye-opening experience.

Beuler....Beuler....Beuler

If you didn't get the title reference 1. shame on you 2. its from Ferris Beuler's Day Off, true classic. The scene I am referencing i when the professor is taking attendance for the class, which is the topic of this post. I can understand roll calls in elementary school to ensure that all the students are accounted for since there is a huge amount of liability when dealing with children, and as far as high school is concerned it seems appropriate because not going to class actually begins to be a possible choice. What I have the hardest time understanding is attendance policies in college. Aren't we adults now who are supposed to be learning how to make our own decisions about life? I mean we don't live at home with our parents anymore, we don't have curfews , we schedule our own classes, so why don't we have the other luxury of adults. I mean the fact that missing class hurts your grade is ridiculous, what if you can learn all the material on your own and ace the tests? If the point of taking attendance is to make sure that students come to class to learn the material so they don't do poorly in the class, then why would a professor hurt their grade. I'm sick of having to try and remember how many absences I have to make sure i don't get 10% of my grade knocked off.

knuP tfaD

If you were to hold the title up to a mirror and rotate the letter around you would read the name of one of the most legendary House producers in the world today. They hail from France and they have been crushing the scene for the last 20 years. Although older than most of the rising young stars, they still have such a huge following that it is almost an honor to see them live. The only dilemma is that their US tours are few and far between. So if they have so many die hard fans that would travel anywhere in the country I don't understand why their latest appearance in the states was at a Phoenix concert as a special guest where they played two songs? It may be because the alternative rock group is also from France but it doesn't seem like their target audience. Either way the duo's newest project is composing the soundtrack for the awaited Disney movie, Tron. Currently the duo is apparently making appearances in large cities in order to promote the movie, I wonder how much Disney is throwing at them for all this? Must be quite a bit if it brought them all the way back to the United States when they aren't officially touring. All i know is if they announce a location where they are playing, I'll be there!

Samesies

I'm not quite sure what is included in copyright laws these days since I, 1. have nothing to copyright and 2. am not a lawyer but I do notice things that are almost identical and yet still coexist. Obviously you can't take a product, reproduce it and then label it as your own, same goes for plagiarism, but what about taking a concept and slightly altering it so that you are able to market it in the same market but under your brand? What I'm talking about is products like Coka-Cola Zero and Pepsi Max, or Nintendo Wii, Playstation Move and Xbox Kinect. I feel as though its almost unfair that after Coca-Cola came up with the idea to market a zero calorie alternative that Pepsi is able to steal this concept and make money off of it. Whether or not Coca-Cola came up with the idea first or not is irrelevant because they were the original brand to market it to consumers. Is that not intellectual property?

My Ideal Day

Every school day I wake up, frustrated that somehow it is already 9:30, and struggle to get out of bed in order to shower and get to class, only to dread going to the next one. But if I had the ability to realistically have a day where I could do whatever I wanted without any future consequences whatsoever, this is how it would go. I would wake up probably around 10:30 not feeling tired at all but make sure to appreciate about fifteen minutes of laying awake in my comfy bed. Of course my five star chef Antonio would be downstairs waiting for my order of crepes, a ham, chicken and cheese omelet and a cup of dark coffee. After finishing breakfast and enjoying a nice fifteen minute hot shower listening to a live broadcast from Ibiza of someone like Deadmau5, I would check my email and such, just to confirm that I didn't have any necessary duties for the day. Now that its around noon on a Saturday, I would enjoy an awesome college football game with some of my closest friends. We would all have nice beer and the other things we all like to enjoy that can't be mentioned here, but we would not get sloppy, because after all its the perfect day. After the football game and an hour and a half at the pool with some cute girls, the boys would all get together and play some pickup football out in the sun. Following our team barely winning by a last second score by me, we would all go back to our respective abodes to change and get ready for the night. After a quick power nap, all the girls and guys would meet up for drinks and appetizers at a nice restaurant/ bar. After a few drinks we would venture to Texas de Brazil for a filling meal and more drinks. Now that it has gotten dark out and everyone is in the party mood, we may continue drinking and possibly take some party drugs (because there are no future consequences) and head out to a massive (dance music festival with upwards of 25,000 people) at Cowboys stadium where we would have a VIP tent and backstage passes to party with the artists. After meeting some of the best DJ's in the world, we could all go back to some mansion to enjoy the rest of our night together before reality hits. Wouldn't that be nice!

Blackberry Torch

I know I have mentioned before how electronic music is taking over the pop scene, but this is just another reminder that the future is near. The "Love what you do" campaign features hit electro house artist Diplo in his everyday life using his phone. He talks about the usefulness of having this smart phone and the applications that make his life traveling around the world easier. Not only does the drop in the song get me really pumped on this product but the fact that agencies know where the music world is going makes me warm inside, because I am an avid fan of the genres. Let me reiterate, electronic music is taking over!

Advertising That Makes Me Sick

I'm sure everyone who watches tv has seen some of these disgusting ads. If anyone watches the garbage programs on stations like MTV or VH1 then they probably see them every fifteen minutes or so. I'm talking about the weight loss supplement ads that seem to air back to back to back. Supplements like Zantrac 3 and Hydroxycut, which are literally a heart attack in a bottle, are directed toward the millions of 13-19 age girls that are watching these channels at night. The first thing that bothers me is that these pills do not make a person lose weight, they simply give you enough horrible chemicals and caffeine to aid the lazy couch potatoes get out and get active and have the energy do to so. The second thing that bothers me is that in the ad it shows before and after shots of the people who supposedly used the product. I know for a fact Hydroxycut was involved in a law suit over this because in reality the 'after' picture is actually taken first and then the participants are paid to gain multiple pounds of fat to take the 'before' picture. You can easily tell especially with the men, because they are still extremely jacked just with a layer of fat on top. But the worst part of these ads, especially Zantrac 3 is their slogan which is fueling an out of control fire right now that deals with girls and their body image. At the end of the Zantrac commercial its slogan repeats, "Its great to be thin". This is torturing to young girls, I'm sure, who may not be in the best shape; they know the benefits to being in shape especially at such a vulnerable age. These weight loss commercials, make up ads, or any other beauty products show retardedly skinny models making it seem like you can only be considered beautiful if you look like this. Advertising for these products should be canceled not only because the product is horrible for your health but also because it is sending the worst possible message.