Podcast Paper

Valentine’s Day Podcast Valentine’s Day is a holiday that can divide our opinions as much as any other major holiday we celebrate. Some people really love the holiday and give more love on February 14 than any other day. Other people might think that this holiday is good but that they should show love every day of the year. And then you have those people who think that this holiday is the worst thing ever and a complete waste of time. Here at Lyndon State College, we see those same divisions as there are wide arrays of opinions even in this small community. Our group ventured out into the world of Lyndon to see these very opinions. Upon walking the halls and computer labs of campus, as well as some off-campus apartments, we noticed that Valentine’s Day was greeted with hate and love. First, we find one student in the Hornet’s Nest thinks that a night in with a bottle of wine and a movie would be the best way to spend the day and night. She valued the holiday as a way to treat herself and have a nice night in. We then interviewed faculty and staff who are both married and they saw the holiday as a way to spend time with the ones they love. They were both going to spend time together and have a nice dinner together. They saw the love of one another every day so this was a nice change of pace for them. After we interviewed a few people that were married, we then interviewed some students who all had different ideas on the holiday and who were mostly spending it the same way. They saw the holiday as an unnecessary day because that if you are with someone that you love, that every day should be like Valentine’s Day. One student even said that Valentine’s Day was a, “crock of shit.” But either way they look at it, they are all single and they didn’t see a reason to celebrate more than they would any other Tuesday. They all believed that if they were in a relationship with someone, they would probably see the benefit of having a Valentine’s Day so they could, “spend more money that I could be saving.” I thought it was pretty funny. Although Valentine’s Day was originally a day to show love to your significant other, by hand-writing out cards and giving flowers, it has transformed into something much bigger than that. This holiday has grown from something small into the chaotic day that is February 14, Valentine’s Day remains popular and seems to keep growing every year.

Slideshow, no sound

http://www.moderntimephoto.com/ipad_index.php This slideshow is of wedding compilations and the pictures before and after the ceremony. This can tell a story pretty well because most people know what a wedding procession is like and will be able to follow the story based on the photos. If there was sound either from the wedding or some songs in the background, it would have been a lot better but at the same time it was pretty efficient to see the progression in the pictures.

Slideshow, with sound

http://www.marcodilauro.com/ This slideshow with sound definitely told the story in the best way of the three. This slideshow told the tale of war through photo and video clips that it showed and included sound that would reflect the picture. The sound played a huge role in the seriousness and severity of these photos as it shows some people actually dead. The emphasis of the photos are backed up with the soundtrack and the music puts the viewers in the moods as if they were actually at the photo scenes themselves. Sound makes all the difference in the world when it comes to setting the tone of the story.

Photo Gallery critique

http://www.virginiasports.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?&&&&&DB_OEM_ID=17800&PALBID=436335 This photo gallery is of the University of Virginia's baseball team in their game against William and Mary on February 24. I don't think that this photo gallery does a good job in terms of telling a story because we have no idea what is going on in the majority of these pictures. Often times when there was a picture of a pitcher or fielder making a play, we do not know whether there was anyone on base, what the score was, or who was on the other end of the play. There are a lot of parts to the story that are trying to be told but simply cannot without context. This game could have been a history-making game in terms of a win streak, or a single player's achievements but we cannot tell this just from the photo gallery itself. This style of photo gallery is not a great storyteller.

Valentine's Day Podcast

Podcast Idea

Outline – Valentine’s Day Podcast

Our podcast will end up being about Valentine’s Day on campus and with the Lyndon community as a whole. We are interviewing students, faculty, and staff about their opinions on Valentine’s Day while incorporating a brief history of the holiday and any other relevant information we can find on the topic. We hope to get people who love and hate this holiday, and hopefully we get some interesting responses to our questions because this holiday is all over social media and the news and it seems to create a lot of interesting debates on relationships and love for everyone involved. 

Podcast Pickin'

As I am sure is the case with everyone in the class, I chose my podcasts based on my own interests and what I would be willing to sit at my computer and listen to. As I was searching on iTunes and through the hundreds of podcasts, I couldn't settle on three podcasts at first. I found out that there was a lot more going on in the world that I could be learning about. So as a solution to my problem, I went to twitter. I took one computer screen's worth of posts and read them from the groups or people that I follow, and came up with the following three podcasts - The Onion News Network, ESPN First Take, and Official Barclay's Premier League Podcast. I am in love with playing and watching soccer; The Onion has always cracked me up and; I can never turn down well-thought, intelligent sports debates which is what ESPN First Take is all about.

My sister first introduced me to The Onion News Network a few years ago when social media sites were finally getting popular (it takes a while for things to reach little old Vermont). She watched the videos online and had always read them to me and wanted me to follow up on them. Since I dove into Twitter, and instantly fell in love with it, I followed TheOnion's verified account and not a post goes by that I don't laugh. Once I subscribed to the podcast, I found out that the same was true. Something about the little one-liners and punch-lines makes me laugh so much that I couldn't resist subscribing to their podcast. One thing that I disliked about the podcast is that they are really short; once they finally get going it seems like they are over. But after listening to the podcast, I fell in love with The Onion all over again, and it won't even make your breath stink.

As mentioned earlier, soccer is my favorite sport to play and to watch. And, by far, the most popular soccer league in the world is the Barclay's Premier League. Some of my favorite teams in the world play in this league (Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal) and my favorite player (Steven Gerrard, Liverpool midfielder) is a player I watch and follow very closely. I love statistics and listening to the recap of the week and listen to how my players did in their matches. Sadly though, one of my best teams is in a pretty bad spell and the news isn't always good to hear. My biggest complaint about this podcast is the British accent that all of the newscasters have. I'm not trying to be racist, country-ist, or any other -ist that someone could call me, but I get annoyed by accents, especially the southern accent that my brother has acquired after living in Jackson, Miss. for the past ten years or so. Any time I talk to him on the phone I tell him to talk normally which only makes him more annoying to me. I can get over it though.

Out of the three podcasts that I subscribed to, ESPN First Take is by far my favorite. Back before I had 9:30 a.m. classes to attend four days a week (ugh) I would always watch ESPN First Take with one of my roommates. It plays most weekday mornings at 10 a.m. and it stars the great debaters Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. The great thing about this show is that I love Skip and I hate Stephen A. Even better, my roommate hates Skip and loves Stephen A. The topics that are debated range from any sport to any athlete to any relevant topic in the athletic world. I like listening to this podcast because now that I miss the show, I can still be up-to-date on the beatings that Skip Bayless can put onto Stephen A. I follow them on Twitter and Facebook as well and their debates go on past the show. I like the podcast because it goes the length of the show so nothing is left out, but at the same time it is over an hour and a half long. One thing that I would change is that I would have little clips of specific topics instead of the full-length show.

I can definitely see myself continuing to follow these podcasts, especially if I can't make a show of First Take or if I miss some things on my social media sites from the Premier League or from The Onion. I don't see myself putting them on my iPod but that can change if I get into them more than I expect I will. For now, though, I'll keep them on my iTunes.

Big BFG Blog Bumpin

The title doesn't really have anything to do with this post, I just wanted to use some words that started with the letter 'b.' 

I tried to pimp my blog, but it turned out to be a memorial to my old lifestyle before I had classes that made me stay in and do my homework. I searched through my phone and found the craziest, wildest picture of myself to upload as my blog background - and I did.

I wanted to share some YouTube videos on my blog, so I added the gadget on the side to show some primetime ginger videos on the web. Some of them are a little crude, but that just makes them all the more hilarious for everyone. 

I also noticed that the only two pictures that I had of myself on my phone I was making a half-hearted attempt to "blaze my guns" so I thought, "Why not put this picture up on the blog and make fun of myself?" So I did that too. I think it adds a little comic relief to those lost souls who probably think I am a psychopath.

I like stats, so I put a pageview tally up on the sidebar as well as a redhead-related poll question which got a grand total of two (that's right, two!) responses. One of them was from myself, and the other was from Kristen who has the unfortunate circumstance of sitting next to me in class. I made her vote.

In a nutshell, that is my pimped out blog, with hopefully some more dope pimpin' to go along in the future.