If you're thinking of starting a blog, maybe what I have learned so far can help. As a weekly blogger for the past two months, I’ve learned a few things about the challenges and joys of maintaining a blog.

Posts
I’ve learned that it’s difficult to come up with an interesting topic every week. In the first week or two of having a blog set up, it was easy to come up with a new post every few days. Now, with increasing stress school work, it’s getting difficult to find the time to write just one every Friday. I don’t understand how anyone can have daily or hourly posts like my Ad instructor, Kenton, and still have it be topical and interesting. I suppose skill and creativity in writing a blog comes with time and practice. Just as a famous Winnipeg blogger who once came to speak to my class said, you could start your blog on one topic, but after a while in maintaining that blog, realize what you are actually writing about every time, and see that your topic has changed. When that happens, your blog becomes so much better because the new topic is something you are actually good at writing about.

Networking
I’ve learned how much fun it can be to have a blog. Knowing that your opinion is read and responded to with comments left, is the fuel that keeps the blog alive. Writing your views on something, anything, feels rewarding knowing that it is now accessible to the entire world. Having 25 classmates that also keep a blog, and read and respond to yours is good social practice. The thrill of typing out a post or reading one that is clearly directed at my class brings us all closer together. It is cause for conversation and debate at school the next day, which can quickly get very heated.

Ideas
Probably the most important thing I’ve learned about blogging is that inspiration for the next post can strike at any moment. It could be while you’re working, driving, on the bus, you never know when, so carry a pen and paper everywhere to jot down ideas. Even if the idea you came up with is super lame, it could be a lifesaver when it’s Friday afternoon, and you have no ideas for this week’s blog. There is bound to be a good story in every idea you came up with.

Freedom
My favourite thing about blogs is that there aren’t any rules. I have the freedom to write about anything, it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the main topic. Of course, if it is related, all the better, but if you’re feeling like writing about something completely different, nobody is going to dock marks or criticize. The blog is, in my opinion the freest way to write. It is similar to poetry, in that if you want to make ridiculous statements or comparisons, you can, and nobody can dispute what you say. If you want to talk about why apples are the best fruit, nobody can say they aren’t because a blog is your opinion. Just as in poetry, it’s all how the author interpreted it while they wrote it.

If you are looking for a new way to write and get your opinion out, the blog is the way to go. I think they have the perfect mix of challenge in coming up with and writing an interesting topic, and the fun of sharing your piece with the world.

Those Darn Teenagers and their Grafitti!

So I'm doing kind of a sixth reason for Glenda's Five Indicators that you've sold your Soul to CreComm.

While driving home from the wonderful Red River College, I had noticed a new ad on the side of many city busses. It read,
"COMM NITY without YOU there would be no way."
It was for the United Way, and, I thought, very clever. Anyways, upon seeing it, I had the urge to snap a picture of it as I drove by, which turned out to be very dangerous to do while in rush hour on portage avenue. But I did it for the commitment to CreComm! I simply could not pass up the chance to apply some newfound Photoshop skills in conjunction with the COMM part of the advertisment.

You can only imagine my excitement to get home and post it on facebook, and my frustration at the construction on route 90 preventing me from doing so! A few quick strokes of the paintbrush at home, and voila! A tell-tale sign that I have sold my soul to CreComm! Within moments of the post on Facebook, I believe the word 'superlike' in all capitals was thrown around a few times. Anywho... Enjoy, all you CreComm addicts!

Buyer Beware: Chemical-Diluted Cleaning Products Should Not be in the Air!

This past month or so was dedicated more or less to the Buyer Beware project, which required my Ad class to break into groups and come up with a product to warn, or provide more information to the consumer about. My group comprised of Jasmine Tara, Jeffery Ward, Jérémie Wookey, and Zachary Samborski. We decided to test out how "green" cleaning products measured up against more traditional, chemical-based cleaning products.

First off, we had to decide what exactly we were testing in environmental products. To do so, we conducted a survey on the streets of Winnipeg, asking what people found most important in a product, if they would switch to more "green" products if they worked as well, not as well, and if they costed 23 percent more. To narrow down who we asked these questions of, they had to of answered yes to one of these questions: Are you responsible for buying cleaning products for your home? Are you responsible for cleaning your home? After brewing all of this information in our heads, we landed on the idea to test if environmentally friendly products measured up to the traditional, and trusted products.

After much debate, we decided on the Clorox Green Works line of natural cleaning products. They were perfect for what we were looking for. Because we had no access to a lab, or chemist to test how environmentally friendly, and chemical-free the products were, we needed something that had third-party authentication. Green Works had that. It is verified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) as containing only low-risk chemicals, used just as preservatives and colouring. Another reason Green Works had the products for us was their accessibility. They could be found at pretty well any large retailer such as Wal-Mart, Sobeys, Safeway, and Superstore. The last thing that made Green Works the perfect product to test was that they claimed to work as well as the traditional cleaners.

We eventually decided on Green Works Natural Dish washing Liquid, its competition Palmolive Original, Green Works Natural Bathroom Cleaner, its competition Tilex Bathroom Cleaner, Green Works Natural Glass & Surface Cleaner, and its competition Windex Original.

Now that we had our products chosen, it was time to get down to business. In order to keep the results un-biased, we each took turns taking the products home, and using them as we would for general cleaning to see if they work in normal conditions. In addition to that, we kept the results of those tests secret from each other until the final group testing was complete.

After we all had a turn, we got together to test the products in a more controlled atmosphere. To test the dish soaps, we smeared two plates with chocolate sauce, and ketchup, letting it dry on for about an hour. We then filled up two sinks with water, and added an equal amount of soap in each sink. Letting the plates soak for 15 minutes, we examined each, concluding that there was no difference in how well each soap performed. To test the glass cleaners, we separated a window with tape and cleaned each side with the cleaners. We did the same with a mirror, and also smeared olive oil on a mirror to see how the products would do with an extremely filthy piece of glass. Both products worked equally well, cleaning the window and mirror satisfactorily. Our final test was the bathroom cleaners. to test them, we separated a bathtub, again with tape, and cleaned each side with a different cleaner. we did the same with the bathroom sink. Again, both products performed similarly, the only difference we found being the "power of the spray" in the Green Works product. It was much more powerful than the Tilex product.

In addition to our primary testing, we conducted secondary research. Zach found information on US EPA, discussed above, Jasmine found professional reviews of the products, and I found what the average consumer had to say in consumer reviews on the Green Works website.

What I learned about these products was that they are, in fact, just as good as the traditional cleaning products. From the testing we did, all products performed identically. Very small differences were present, such as a little more chocolate sauce had dissolved off one plate at the one-minute mark, and then at the three-minute mark the other plate was doing a little better. I think those sort of differences are irrelevant, as after the full 15 minutes, the plates were identically clean.

Should everyone switch to green products? Yes. There is really no reason why anyone should not. With Green Works, far less chemicals run down the drain and into the lakes and oceans, causig damage to the environment. Also, the cost is pretty insignificant. While most environmental products cost 50-100 percent more than traditional products, and can only be found online or in specialty stores, Green Works cost just 23 percent more per millilitre, and is available at most grocery stores.

In summary, Green Works products perform as well as traditional cleaners. They have all the muscle needed to remove stuck-on-food, and any soap scum on the bottom of your tub. They also leave your windows invisibly clean. So next time you're at the grocery store, instead of reaching for that Windex, or other chemical-based cleaner, grab the bottle next to it, the one that reads Green Works. You owe it to the Earth.

Dessert Day!

Imagine arriving at school to a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, or getting out of a seminar to the smell of delicious brownies. Good idea? I think so!

In class today, just before Public Relations started, Kiran and I were discussing sweets, and other baked goods when we came up with a wonderful plan. Every Thursday, 2 or 3 of us should bake something tasty, and bring it for the class to share at some point during the day. Of course, it would be different people baking every week. I believe this would make the long, eight-hour Thursdays go by so much better, and some of us may even start to look forward to the now dreaded Thursday.

This would also be a great opportunity to try out more unique treats. I'm sure we all know a recipe that nobody else has ever heard of. Imagine the possibilities!

C'mon guys, let's make our Thursdays the most exciting day of the week! Who's with me?

This past summer brought lots of crazy adventures, including snowboarding in July, wild bonfires, and general mayhem. A particularly mayhem-filled event was the spontaneous decision to construct a potato cannon with PVC pipe.

A short trip to Rona Home-Building Centre, and 40 dollars later, we had all the materials necessary to build an impressive looking cannon. The first attempt ended in failure, with nothing at all happening. Cannon 2.0 worked a little better, but still needed work. A few modifications later, and we were finally getting ignition of the fuel, only it was shooting flames out the top, side, and everywhere but the barrel of the cannon.

Cannon 3.0 involved a fair amount of duct-tape added on, after the whole backside of the cannon shot off and hit me in the stomach. It was now igniting the fuel every time, but still having problems. It was back to the work bench, trying to make it work. While doing so, a friend that was “helping” us build the cannon, decided to look around at the various screwdrivers and other tools, and found an old pair of children’s’ handcuffs, the older all metal kind.

He started to play with them, closing and opening them, and told another friend helping out, Krystal, to try them on. She was skeptical at first, of course, but agreed once he showed her that the safety unlock tabs worked. Krystal put them on, and when the novelty of it wore off, wanted to take them off. The only problem was the safety on one of the handcuffs was malfunctioning. Krystal began to freak out, getting anxious about the thought of going home to her parents stuck in handcuffs. It was simple, she had to get out of them, by any means possible.

We, of course, had a solution. It was simple really, a hacksaw, piece of Kevlar, and a big vice. Krystal put her arm in the vice, with the Kevlar between the handcuff and her wrist, and my friend Alan pulled out his trusty hacksaw, proceeding to cut the cuff off. In tears, Krystal watched as the razor-sharp blade passed just inches over her arm, slowly freeing her.

Alan stopped about 5 minutes in, realizing it was going nowhere. We needed a different tactic. Alan pried off the casing on the handcuffs, and mangled the locking mechanism inside, freeing Krystal, finally.

The outcome of that night was not only a hilarious memory, but an impressive potato cannon, that we were, and still are proud of.