"Charged" Image

I remember as a kid seeing pictures from the holocaust, and the genocide of the Jewish race during WWII. Looking back, I always rembered how powerful and horrible so many of the images and photographs were that I had looked at. My grandfather was a B-17 pilot for the U.S. and he married my grandmother in Germany right before the U.S. involvement int the war. My grandmother was a full blooded hardcore German woman with opinions to last a life time. Though she was against the war and against what Hitler was doing to the Jewish people, we did have some extended family members who were a part of, and in support of the Nazi agenda. I remember writing a paper about the Holocaust when i was in college at Yavapai back in 1999. I was in Terrence Pratts english-102 class. I actually interviewed my grandmother and grandfather whom i actually refer to as "Oma & Opa". With this paper I had to include some images of the autrocity and horror that the Jews had witnessed. There are so many images and pictures that show how horrible and sad that part of our worlds history was. I mean "horrible and sad" can't even begin to describe the experiance that the Jews had to endure. Images of the Hollocaust are ones that were so emotionally "charged" for me, that its almost like they're always in the back of my mind and i often think about what it had to feel like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany. There are so many images out there, but these are a few that emotionally grabbed me.http://sherryx.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/holocaust00.jpg

http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/30/holocaust.jpg

http://www.hanefesh.com/edu/Holidays/images/a6b.jpg
http://www.pocanticohills.org/amprogress/holocaust_concentration_camps.jpg

Modernity: Spectatorship, Power, & Knowledge.

When this assignment was posted I started trying to think of some of my favorite advertisements. I couldn't help but think straight to all of the hilarious Budweiser and Bud Light commercials that have been created over the past 4-5 years. Bud and Bud Light have honestly and absolutely NAILED the "comedy commercial" industry that have just simply become really fun to watch. Its like im always looking forward to the next hilarious beer commercial.
One of my favorites is the couple that goes skinny dipping in a pool, thinking that they are all alone and having a romantic night together, when infact the pool has a glass bottom, and there is a huge party going on below them with a bunch of people drinking budlight and taking pictures of them. Its hilarious!!!="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snaru_04K18&feature=player_detailpage" The spectatorship in this advertisement is hilarious... The commercial shows what would usually be thought of as "the norm" with a couple going skinny dipping, and then being shocked as they find out that a whole big party is watching them from below.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snaru_04K18.
Heineken also nailed a super hilarious beer commercial. It shows a scenario of a big house party with lots of people, and the lady of the house shows her girlfriends her new walk-in closet which is loaded with tons of fancy shoes and jewlery and such. All of her girlfriends start screaming with joy and envy of how awesome her new shoe collection and closet is. Then the man of the house shows all of his buddies his new walk-in closet, and its a walk-in closet slash walk-in beer cooler full of Heineken. And all of his buddies start screaming and jumping around with excitement and envy because he's loaded with tons of beer... Its one of the best beer commercials ever. I thought it was funny how it brings out the norm that the women could actually really act that way if something like that were to happen in real life. But mabey some "otherness" when the guy has a walk-in beer closet. Kind of showing a fundamental difference between two sexes...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0LgJo9Do-8.

Image, Power, and Politics

I tried and tried to post the image that i had found about Image, Power, and Politics. I couldn't quite get it to post to the blog site. I know everyone has seen an image of the American flag being burned . Its an image that really bugs me actually. There is always some radical group somewhere across the world that finds it necessary to burn our flag. Being the proud American that I am, i have a real hard time understanding why they feel the need to burn our flag. I know there is alot of animosity and hate directed toward our country for reasons many of us have no idea. I know that our govornment has created most of these feelings from other people and religious groups. Granted our country has been far from perfect in world relations, but at the same time we have also done more good across the world than any other country. It just seems like these other religious groups spend all their energy focusing on every negative things our country has done, and then relate it directly to each American as an individual. Our country has been there for so many different countries during times of distress or disaster, and it pisses me off that none of the great and good things we have done get exposed or appretiated. I mean we have saved several countries and ethnic groups from being wiped off the planet. Where's the "thank you so much!" for all those things. There are so many complex reasons why our country is looked at the way it is, but I feel like we deserve alot more appretiation along with the hate. I hope someday we can achieve a little peace in the world and people can stop warring over nonsense and religion.

Online video games

I honestly have never played any online video games via the internet. Nor have I joined the Video Game revelution and glued myself to my TV for hours on end like many of my friends do. I was however addicted to an original vintage 1986 Nintendo for a few years that i got for Cristmas that year. The infamous Super Mario Bros. The best game ever invented for quite a many years. So i tried to find it online and see if any original versions were available. Although there were many offers to download, none of them were the original version. How can you play Super Mario Bros. if its not the original version? I mean there was just something about sitting next to your best friend or brother, grasping that old, white, TV remote looking controler, and just knowing that you were going to beat level 6-2 before your buddy did. Those feelings just aren't there with any online versions. I mean how can they be. We used to get up hours before we had to go to school to try and beat the level that we couldn't beat the night before, just so we could brag about who got the furthest that day at school.http://www.1980-games.com/us/old-games/java-games/mariobros.php
These newer versions are obviously much more technologically advanced and the animation is ofcourse way better. I would say that the older original version is goemetrically linear in perspective. Everything in the game was certainly based from geometric shapes, and you could only keep going right across your TV screen, with the ocasional super jump. The game was never violent in any sort of way. well you had to kill a few turtles and other misc. creatures, but overall it was a peaceful, fun, "goal" oriented game in nature. There are many more features in the newer games. The link above is a newer online version of the game. I just thought it was interesting to think how this game impacted my life in whatever ways; setting goals, following through, appretiating defeat and success, and mabey a little patience. All at the age of 9-12. The game is still around and has been given numerous amounts of steriods over its lifetime... All in all nothing will ever replace the memories of the original.