Say what you like about Shakespeare, his play are really easy to twist and modernize. The latest incarnation, at least as far as I know, is "Gnomeo and Juliet." I really want to see this when it comes out. It looks so cute and I love watching different adaptations of his plays, although "Romeo and Juliet" is one of my least favorite plays. The movie looks like it will follow the plot pretty closely, it's just with gnomes and is a cartoon.
I first heard about this when my sister came running up from the basement to tell me she just watched a commercial about gnomes. She didn't say anything else, so I just figured that it was a commercial for lawn care or something where there were gnomes talking. I then saw a commercial for the movie and I think it will be a movie worth seeing at least once. The first URL I posted is the information about the movie on IMDB. The second is a trailer on youtube that I encourage everyone to watch. Even if it's not a movie you want to see, I bet you'll laugh at something.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377981/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_L_5vrHoWQ
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Foot: Online Articles
"An Oral History of the Internet"
To be honest, I was a little bored while reading this article, but it did have a lot of interesting information. It just wasn't entirely information that I cared about. I did actually know that the internet started off as a way to secure information and that it was invented in the 60s. However, even though I know that, every time I come across that piece of information, I'm still a little surprised. Like everyone else in the class, I'm sure, I grew up with the internet. By the time I got interested in going online for more than just fact finding for a school project, the internet was already a personal thing. I never really think about what went into making the internet accessible to most people; to me I just take it for granted.
I did have to do a sad smile when I got to the section about "You've got mail" as a greeting amongst a generation. It just made me think of my grandfather's email notifier on Incredimail. He had an English butler who would walk out from the side of the screen, carrying a tray with a letter on it, and say "You have mail, sir." My grandma hates that thing, but I don't think she'll change it for awhile.
Facebook
Well, after reading that article, I feel like I have no need to watch the movie. I knew some of those details previously, but Rolling Stone really went in depth. However, while the timeline is sketchy and it does sound like Zuckerberg may have taken a couple of ideas and twisted them, at the same time I can't help but not care. A lot of things are based off of other things, however tightly or loosely connected. Take Twilight for example. With the exception of the vampires sparkling, it's not like that plot is that original. Either way, while I can envy him for being so successful so early in life, I can't help but feel like if I met the inventor of Facebook, I would want to hit him after a couple of minutes. The article, whether basing your opinion of him off of the quotes from people who are suing him or from Zuckerberg who says he's just an innocent little kid, made it seem like he would be really annoying.
To be honest, I was a little bored while reading this article, but it did have a lot of interesting information. It just wasn't entirely information that I cared about. I did actually know that the internet started off as a way to secure information and that it was invented in the 60s. However, even though I know that, every time I come across that piece of information, I'm still a little surprised. Like everyone else in the class, I'm sure, I grew up with the internet. By the time I got interested in going online for more than just fact finding for a school project, the internet was already a personal thing. I never really think about what went into making the internet accessible to most people; to me I just take it for granted.
I did have to do a sad smile when I got to the section about "You've got mail" as a greeting amongst a generation. It just made me think of my grandfather's email notifier on Incredimail. He had an English butler who would walk out from the side of the screen, carrying a tray with a letter on it, and say "You have mail, sir." My grandma hates that thing, but I don't think she'll change it for awhile.
Well, after reading that article, I feel like I have no need to watch the movie. I knew some of those details previously, but Rolling Stone really went in depth. However, while the timeline is sketchy and it does sound like Zuckerberg may have taken a couple of ideas and twisted them, at the same time I can't help but not care. A lot of things are based off of other things, however tightly or loosely connected. Take Twilight for example. With the exception of the vampires sparkling, it's not like that plot is that original. Either way, while I can envy him for being so successful so early in life, I can't help but feel like if I met the inventor of Facebook, I would want to hit him after a couple of minutes. The article, whether basing your opinion of him off of the quotes from people who are suing him or from Zuckerberg who says he's just an innocent little kid, made it seem like he would be really annoying.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Foot: Little Brother
I finished this book a couple of days ago, just hadn't found the time to blog about it yet. I really liked Little Brother. I thought the concept of the book was pretty fresh; not over played like a lot of the novels we see today. I'll admit that a lot of the technological sections went over my head and a lot of them, while relevant to what was going on, didn't really further the plot, so I could have done without them. Also, as I said, I really did like the book, but at the same time, the longer I read it (for more than an hour or so at a time) I found it harder and harder to concentrate and would have to re-read. Maybe it was just me, but I think the book works in little increments at a time.
While the book is fiction, the way Doctorow wrote made the book seem like it was true, or at least something that could become true, like The Handmaid's Tale. We are all aware that there are a ton of ways the government and other factors like that can spy on us, if they choose to, and this book brings that fear to life. Because the plot does involve so much technology (heck, that's the main point of the story), this is a great book to use in multi-modal classrooms. Marcus discusses a lot of different types of technology, from movies to books to video games and the like, which in turn introduces these technologies to students. I also think this book would be able to interest a lot of reluctant readers. Besides the bits about technology, the reading doesn't get that involved; it's pretty quick and easy to read. I think a lot of boys would be interested in it because the narrator is a boy, and the book, as I've mentioned, includes stuff like video games. Not to say girls wouldn't be interested in the book, but, generally I think, boys would be more interested.
I would definitely try to use this in my classroom if I could, probably as a choice reading or something like that. I don't know if it's something I would spend a lot of time on, but I might include it as a part of a longer unit or something.
While the book is fiction, the way Doctorow wrote made the book seem like it was true, or at least something that could become true, like The Handmaid's Tale. We are all aware that there are a ton of ways the government and other factors like that can spy on us, if they choose to, and this book brings that fear to life. Because the plot does involve so much technology (heck, that's the main point of the story), this is a great book to use in multi-modal classrooms. Marcus discusses a lot of different types of technology, from movies to books to video games and the like, which in turn introduces these technologies to students. I also think this book would be able to interest a lot of reluctant readers. Besides the bits about technology, the reading doesn't get that involved; it's pretty quick and easy to read. I think a lot of boys would be interested in it because the narrator is a boy, and the book, as I've mentioned, includes stuff like video games. Not to say girls wouldn't be interested in the book, but, generally I think, boys would be more interested.
I would definitely try to use this in my classroom if I could, probably as a choice reading or something like that. I don't know if it's something I would spend a lot of time on, but I might include it as a part of a longer unit or something.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Foot:: Pleasure Reading
Over the semester break, I read a series of short stories by Dan Chaon, entitled "Among the Missing." Chaon also wrote You Remind Me of Me, if anyone is familiar with that novel. Anyway, "Among the Missing" is really great collection of short stories by him and most of them are sort of scary, in a mental type of way. By this, I mean it's not some guy running around and killing people. I guess if you were to compare it to a movie, I would say something like Mr. Brooks, Disturbia, or even Zodiac. The terror comes from knowing that something out there isn't right and you're involved somehow.
One of my favorites was the opener, called "Safety Man." It's about a woman whose mother sends her one of those dolls that are supposed to look like real people.In Two and a Half Men episode I saw recently, Rose had a similar doll that she pretended was her husband to make Charlie jealous. Anyway, the woman and her husband treat Safety Man as a kind of joke until the husband dies and the woman starts to depend on the doll to make her feel safe. Without giving away too much, the story is mostly about how the woman deals with her grief and becomes so dependent of Safety Man.
My other favorite would have to be "I Demand to Know Where You're Taking Me." This is also about a woman, but mostly deals with the terror she feels about her brother-in-law, a man who has just been accused of rape, and I think murder (it's been awhile). While he's in prison, she has to take care of his macaw which repeats a lot of the brother-in-law's phrases, such as "Smell my feet." It sounds funny, but the story hints at a foot fetish the man had and the bird is really just creepy to read about.
There are of course many more really good stories in this collection and I highly recommend it to anyone. Dan Chaon is also an Ohio writer and a pretty local one at that. According to his biography in You Remind Me of Me he lives in Cleveland Heights and teachers at Oberlin. I think he is a really good write and his books, while not classics, would be interesting to teach in a class because there is so much going on.
One of my favorites was the opener, called "Safety Man." It's about a woman whose mother sends her one of those dolls that are supposed to look like real people.In Two and a Half Men episode I saw recently, Rose had a similar doll that she pretended was her husband to make Charlie jealous. Anyway, the woman and her husband treat Safety Man as a kind of joke until the husband dies and the woman starts to depend on the doll to make her feel safe. Without giving away too much, the story is mostly about how the woman deals with her grief and becomes so dependent of Safety Man.
My other favorite would have to be "I Demand to Know Where You're Taking Me." This is also about a woman, but mostly deals with the terror she feels about her brother-in-law, a man who has just been accused of rape, and I think murder (it's been awhile). While he's in prison, she has to take care of his macaw which repeats a lot of the brother-in-law's phrases, such as "Smell my feet." It sounds funny, but the story hints at a foot fetish the man had and the bird is really just creepy to read about.
There are of course many more really good stories in this collection and I highly recommend it to anyone. Dan Chaon is also an Ohio writer and a pretty local one at that. According to his biography in You Remind Me of Me he lives in Cleveland Heights and teachers at Oberlin. I think he is a really good write and his books, while not classics, would be interesting to teach in a class because there is so much going on.
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