Rock n Roller Cola Wars

This has been a favorite question of soda lovers since I've been coherent enough to understand it, whats better coke or pepsi? Its a unique question for each person, but I like to do this kinda thing, so I'm going to describe how each is for me while you think about it and ask yourself how close it is to your description. By the way, the thing that inspired me to do my thINK on this is the song “We Didn't Start the Fire” By Billy Joel, which at the end says “Rock n Roller Cola Wars...”

Lets start with coke, which more people seem to like. It never ceases to amaze me how different a carbonated beverage taste based on its container. My personal favorite is coke from the fountain or glass bottle. When I take a drink of ice cold Coke-a-Cola from a can it has a burning sensation in my mouth and down my throat. The taste of Coke-a-Cola is unique in and of itself, the burning sensation being part of that. Coke-a-Cola from a fountain or bottle has that same taste but not as much of the burning sensation, which I think makes it taste better and more refreshing.

Pepsi, however, doesn’t have the burning sensation of Coke-a-Cola. Although it doesn't have the burn, it does lose most of its drink ability when it is lukewarm and/or flat. It is very refreshing while iced and it has an almost vanilla like taste, which is brought out with the discontinued Pepsi Vanilla variant. Pepsi also has a substance in it that after drinking some it leaves a chalky texture in my mouth. Coke does the same but not to the same degree.

Its really your preference which one you drink, if any at all, but I just wanted to put my two cents out there for everyone to see. For the record, I'm a Mountain Dew fan. I like the citrus and fruity drinks. I find them more refreshing. I don't think there is an answer to the question of whats the best soda, but that won't stop the Rock n Roller Cola War.

A Clever Copy

    Starting about a year ago, I started to read a lot. One of the things that got me started reading was a book series by Terry Goodkind called the Sword of Truth.  After reading the 11 book series twice, I decided I needed to find a new challenge. That turned out to be another series of greater length, the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. It's been said that Goodkind blatantly copied Jordan's WoT, but when  I started it I had only read the SoT series. I picked up on some of the similarities at the start, and as a read on they got more and more frequent.

    Only recently did I learn that WoT came first, so I did some research. Main characters, places, time lines, they all touch in some way. I've read both and they are great books, some probably agree with me, but then there are those who find the need to beat on Goodkind's books and reputation.   Put side by side the series are similar, but they also have unique differences that add a build upon the bases that they share.

    After reading both series to their latest book, I think Jordan's WoT was better. They both had the same starting pointbut Jordan's build upon it better. Goodkinds books started out good, but after the first third of the series they started revolving around Goodkind's political views, which I have nothing against they just don't build upon the stories. I think that when an author follows, some might call it copying, another like this it really shows where an author shines. These two books are a great example of parallel story structure that, when analysed together, shows how different two perspectives on the same type of story can be.

Second Quarter Reading list

Even though I've already read 3 books this quarter I plan to continue reading a lot like I did last quarter. I'm going to read The Last Olympian, the 5th and presumably the last of the Percy Jackson series, in this book all the others come together in the battle between the Olympians and the Titans. Sometime in early November, the 4th or 5th, I will get Towers of Midnight in the mail, it is the 13th book of the series The Wheel of Time, I can't wait because at the end of The Gathering Storm Rand had an epiphany and found his emotions back. And I'm not sure what I'l read after, maybe I'l finish Starbucked, it just depends on if I find a good book.

Reading Reflection Q1

I really enjoy reading, I make a regular habit of reading atleast an hour a day. This happens normally in the evening after dinner. When I read I'm normally watching movies on my computer at the same time, the background noise helps. I've always thought myself a deep thinker when it comes to books. But i can see how I've improved since being in this class, linking two passages of the same book or the same series to connect a part of the book that i would have otherwise misunderstood. As annoying as your diagrams were to do in class, they really help when you read.

2nd Quarter Annotated Reading List

Jordan, Robert. Towers of Midnight. Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 2010. 861. Print. 3 Books
By far the best book I have read in a long while. Being the 12th book in the "Wheel of Time" series, the fact that I'm at the 12th book in a series shows how much devotion I have in the book and authors. One thing I found interesting about this book is that the original author, Robert Jordan, died about a year and a half ago, while the series was lovingly picked up again by avid fan Brandon Sanderson. This being the second book written by Brandon Sanderson, with Robert Jordan's notes, its really good. After a cliff hanger at the end of "The Gathering Storm" it picks right up into a super progressive novel. This book is always moving, never stopping for too long, and when it does just enough to complement the story line. Giving really specific details on this book wouldn't be fair considering its the 12th book, so I can't get too in depth on the plot. But I really do suggest this to any fantasy reader, its worth the commitment of reading 12 books.

Martin, George R.R. A Game of Thrones. Bantam Spectra, 1996. 694. eBook. 3 Books

George R.R. Martin is one of my favorite authors. He writes slow, but for good reason. When the finished product comes out, it never ceases to amaze. "A Song of Ice and Fire" is a, currently, four book series that starts off with "A Game of Thrones". This books takes place in a Middle Ages like era with a past and possible future that contains magic. Martin wrote this book with different Points of View (PoV). This adds different perspectives of the events of the realm. Since the communication of the era was so bad the PoV give you a more complete picture of the events and brings the reader to a major understanding of all characters and happenings. One attribute of this book that makes it unique is the nonchalants of things like adulatory and incest. This gives the story a realistic spin on the fantasy, while most writers would choose to leave out these ugly truths, Martin uses them to build upon his story, making it many more times again what it would be without them. Most would consider it bad, but it adds a major part to the plot of the story. If you are looking for an epic fantasy about knights and the middle ages with a magic twist, this is it.

Riordan, Rick. The last Olympian. Hyperion, 2009. 400. Print. 2 Books

The last of the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series by Rick Riordan. After four other books, this one ends the series with a bang. The main plot of the book is the battle between the Olympians and the Titans. The title took me awhile to get, but it's very well put. While all the other Gods are out fighting the Titan only one remains, Hestia, the goddess of the Hearth. Hestia being there impacts the story in a big way and adds a major plot twist that would be cruel to give away right now. 

 

Socratic Seminar Review

I really enjoyed the Socratic seminar. It helped me understand the book a lot better, by throwing in the ideas of other people in a very equal and easy to discuss environment. Becky brought plenty of things to the table when we were discussing John and Mond's fun argument. It was a good balance, b/c I favored Mond's side more w/ Becky vise versa. The double perspective made it all the more fun. From re-reading chapter 17 I understood it a lot more. When you re-read something it helps a lot when you talk about it. I really liked it, the seminar was a great learning experience. It made talking about BNW really easy and productive. I think I did a great job myself, the topics were great and the discussion picking up momentum. One thing that would be better, though, is the length. If it were longer, and since we only have 8 in our class, it would be a lot more fun.

Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind Abundence

Dan Pink's humorous criticism reveals the wasteful abundance that allows America the luxury to seek meaning and purpose thought aesthetics and spiritual means.  This paves the way toward less and less reasonable stuff, by focusing more and more on beauty and purpose.  In the past when most people struggled to survive, they didn't have enough time to go shopping, they had to work sun up to sun down to feed their families. But now we have so much more time and so much more money that the past, when we had the purpose of survival, and the present, where we don't have a purpose, are so different that they cant be compared.  With that lack of purpose Americans try to fill that hole with designer things that focus on R-Side thinking, and say those designer things have the purpose we are striving to find.  One of the worst parts about the present compared to the past, is the shopping centers like Potomac Yards, where you would think it would be so remarkable and memeberale that everyone would be in awe at the huge abundance of everything. And the really funny thing is, its not.  Everything has become so huge and abundant in American that it is so utterly unremarkable that most people don't even notice what it is, in and of itself.  Most people are too busy with their search for purpose in this world of pure abundance that they don't appreciate, or notice, what it really is.  What I'm trying to say is that with all the stuff we have people don't take the time to smell the roses on their search for something more.

Peta Human Meat

Peta, an animal activist group, used a major advertising campaign, called human meat, to show how bad it is to eat meat. Looking at it analytical, it shows they used a huge amount of Pathos in their argument, probably to use the viewers sympathy. But not much Ethos or Logos were used.

Pathos:
When Peta made these ads, they were probably trying to catch the viewers sympathy. Using many major points. One of the bigger more concrete points was the use of a brutally depicted scene of a human being packaged like meat.  The main psychological part of it was how badly they took care of the "corpse", or "product".  There was blood in the package and she was in disarray with her body crooked. Another point is that they put a price on it, a mere 785$, like they could put a price on life. Instead of being a product of some country, like China, it was the product of cruelty.  There were also other minor details that add a subtle element to the brutal ad. Like how her hair was still made up like she was going out, or that her make up and earrings were still on, this shows how the animals we kill to eat don't know when it is going to happen. That they are completely unaware. This ad is a strong force of Pathos, feeding off the viewers emotions to persuade them.

Ethos:
Of Ethos, this ad lacks. This ad wasn't using a celebrity or someone you might think is important.  It is however made by Peta and ALV, which is on the logo of the package, two animal activist groups,  both of which are big. But that's about the extent of Ethos.

Logos:
I'm really not sure they used any actual facts to solidify their argument.  All they had was "55,000,000 killed each year" on the logo.  But what they are lacking is what is being killed each year, is it an animal, the human maybe? They don't use much Logos which, again, shows they rely on Pathos.

The ad had its weak and strong points, however, for it to be called successful it had to rely o the views and emotions of the viewers and how they thought about meat.  But all in all it had a very good Pathos aspect with good enough Ethos, but Logos was almost non-existent.

English Assignment cont.

The Better Book, inspired by eBook research @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book

EVERYONE should own an eBook. Its not even a question, all people should be avid readers, myself included, eBooks make reading easy and more enjoyable. eBooks look like really big tablets, about the size of a movie case. An eBook is an, go figure, electronic book. It dosnt have a back light so you dont hurt eyes reading and you can have thousands of books on just one ebook.

I own an eBook, and I can vouch that they are worth every penny that goes into the machine and each book, which are much more cost effective than buying books even from a used book store.  eBooks are a cost effective and easy way to over 2 million books, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book, w/o having to go to any store, w/o having to go to any library. They make reading easy and more enjoyable, because there is no fighting w/ the book binding to find a comfortable postion to read.

eBooks are cool, and fun gadget that is growing more advanced by each passing month.  most eBooks have atleast a 10 hour battery life, making long days of reading easy. They have wi-fi so you can buy books almost anywhere, and some of the better ones have free 3G that makes buying books and other pieces of literature almost instantaneous.

Just think about how easy an literiture class would go if the teacher had a class room set of eBooks. eBooks arn't just for books, you know. You can get magazine and newspaper subscriptions and other things.  The was I look at it, is eBooks are I-Pods for books. You buy books online, w/ alot of free-bees, and they can be shared to all the eBooks you own if they all share the same online account, just like I-Pods.

That just scratches the surface of how many ways you can use an eBook, I personally think, and im not alone, that eBooks are one of the single most amazing inventions, I think of it more as a toy than anything else, but thats just me, of the last 5 years, better than the iPhone, better than most computers.

The idea of the eBook was a good one. eBooks make reading fun and easy, thats why I think that everyone should own one. Reading is a great way to entertain yourself when otherwise you cant, do your teachers ever yell at you and tell you to stop reading? 9 out of 10 times when your not doing something in class your teachers will let you read, and for good reason, reading the right books help you w/ life. Some books help you understand politics better, others help you understand the way people think and get around consiquences, along w/ other things reading is a great way to understand human nature, most good writers are really good about that. So do you think you should own an eBook?

English Assignment

A picture worth only 18 words...