Super Cam Returns

 
     It's not every day that a multimillionaire, multi-talented athlete with his own statue in front of the stadium whom left school early returns to get his degree. Yesterday, at my school at least, that happened. Yesterday, Super Cam returned.

Letter to My Aunt

            Just as a bit of a disclaimer going into this – this post is primarily for me and my family, a sort of catharsis. It’s going to be raw, emotional, and honest. I guess the best writing always is. My family is hurting right now. I’m hurting right now. My youngest aunt just passed away.

Rebirth

There comes a time in almost every person’s life when birthdays simply don’t mean what they once did. The annual anniversary meant to celebrate the very fact that we exist becomes just a reminder of how old we really are. For me, that point came at the ripe old age of 22.

We Are The Gatekeepers

Today is a day that will live in infamy, at least in the realm of the Internet. Today, on January 18, 2012, the masses and technology corporations rallied together as a host of influential websites, including such power players as Google, Craigslist, Tumblr, and Wikipedia, blacked out their websites in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that according to Wikipedia, “would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods”. This, from what I have been able to gather, means that if I, a mere blogger hoping to have some kind of positive impact on the world, were to post a link to a page that itself contained links to copyrighted material, my blog could be shut down, I could be sued, and the company that hosts my blog might even be liable to be sued. As a student of business and journalism hoping someday to have a future on this great thing called the Internet, this does not sit right with me.

Marvin's Room (Remix)

Aubrey Drake Graham, as anyone in tune with such things would know, is one of the brightest stars in hip-hop today. The 25-year-old entertainer has been lighting up the charts and the Internet with hit after hit after hit, many of which are not even officially singles. The rapper/singer’s emotional and brutally honest songs are infectious, game-changing, and addictive, subtly commanding to be played over and over again. Thank Me Later, Drake’s 2010 debut album, still gets played in its entirety every few weeks by me. In honor of the release of his second album, Take Care, I’ve rewritten one of the songs on it – the smash hit “Marvin’s Room”, which has been covered and remixed by a plethora of established artists and up-and-comers on YouTube.

No Words....

Ted Turner once allegedly said “All the money in the world won’t buy you one more day”.  This was the first thing that came to mind when I received the text tonight that rocked my world. Actually, it was the third. The first was utter disbelief. “Tell me you’re lying,” I replied back. The second was the urgent need to find a TV, computer, or internet-capable device fast. Thanks to one man, this was done within seconds. The irony is that it was this same man that drove my need to find news in the first place. I couldn’t go off a text; I needed facts. Then I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. Steve Jobs, the man who brought us Apple and everything that entails, had died.

Goin' Places

I destroyed my car last year. As much as I’d like to say I survived a fiery crash or flipped through the air several times à la Dr. Dre, the events in my life tend to be a lot less dramatic than that. In reality, all I did was put off getting an oil change… for about a month… in the middle of a very hot summer. Yet that was enough to render my poor little Mazda virtually undriveable. The car held on though, slowly huffing and puffing away throughout the semester to get me from Point A to Point B. I likened it to The Little Engine that Could. Sadly, however, by Thanksgiving, my little Japanese import could hold on no longer. I suddenly had no car, nowhere near enough money to buy another one, and too much pride to ask the majority of my friends for help. Needless to say, it was a sucky situation.

The End of an Era

Over one million words, twenty-one years, eight movies, and seven books…. It’s all led up to this. It’s all led up to the end. July 15, 2011. The date is etched into the forefront of my mind as if it were a lightning bolt scar. If you’ve never been one of the millions of readers worldwide who have witnessed the phenomenon firsthand, who have bought into and believed in the magic of J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter, then nothing I write can ever make you understand the significance and gravity of this moment. But if you’ve ever lined up outside of a bookstore or movie theater dressed as a wizard or found yourself up in the wee hours of a Saturday morning with a Potter book in hand, dying to find out the fates of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, then you’ll understand. This is the end of an era.

Why I Like Twitter

Every so often, a new form of technology comes out that wows us and boggles our minds. I’m talking jaw-dropping, how-did-they-do-that, I-gotta-have-it awesomeness. Twitter is not one of those technologies. But it is pretty cool.

Too Real For TV?

There was trouble from the very beginning. Before a single episode of MTV’s version of the television series Skins aired this past January, both uneasy and excited whispers were flying in all directions about this racy new show that depicted teenagers in a less-than-flattering light. From the promos and media coverage, audiences were led to expect hard-partying, hard-living, out-of-control adolescence. Ferris Bueller, this was not. On that end, the show didn’t disappoint. Raging raves, drug-fueled misadventures, and destroying other people's vehicles were just part of an average day in the lives of these kids. On June 9, 2011, after just one season, Skins was canceled.