Twitterrible!

It was horrible! I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when hundreds of people in matching robes came up behind me, following me, trying to put a giant '@' in front of me. Suddenly, I woke up.

I was never a fan of Twitter. I thought the whole idea of it was pointless. It seemed like a bare-bones version of Facebook, without all the extras.

My first Twitter experience began back in September, when Glenda and Jasmine challenged me to join Twitter for 3 weeks, and then say I still didn't like it. I took on the challenge, and won, but can't help but feel like I cheated them. My first 2 months of Twitter use comprised one tweet the day I signed up, and never going back again.

Now, I feel like the only person I cheated in that little contest was myself. A PR assignment, requiring singing up and following classmates, changed everything. Seeing the true potential of Twitter is exciting, and I can't believe how closed-minded I was back in September toward the website. It was a hatred, an ignorance-fueled hatred to all that is Twitter. Any mention of it, and good beginnings of rants would begin playing out in my head. The problem is that these little rants never had a point to make, and the argument of the seasoned Twitterer always prevailed.

I now realize the true potential (or at least part of it) of Twitter. Not just for sharing with friends, but for networking, for learning, for seeing others' views on a particular subject. Want breaking news? It's there.

The best way I have seen Twitter used in the short 3 days I have actually logged on regularly, would be tonight, where all of us CreComms helped each other. It was like a business conference, but more fun because there is a picture of a bird in the corner! Of course, it is more than that. Twitter takes instant messaging to a whole new level.

The capabilities with not only the web-based Twitter, but cell-phones as well are endless. Wireless messages to a cell makes connecting to the world so much easier, especially for us non-iPhone people. Simply sending an SMS to send a tweet, or retrieve another, I think that is remarkable.

So after a few months of hatred, anger, and ignorance, I finally see Twitter's potential, and not as a cult stalking me, or feeding me pointless information about what they are doing.

Lights!

The recent review assignment for journalism was cause for me to attend a concert. I thought this would be a great opportunity to go see a band I enjoy, however nothing in my interest was playing within the deadline of the assignment. I went with whatever I could find, and attended LIGHTS at the Garrick Centre.

My first impression on the idea of going to the concert was that it would not be very good, or of interest to me. the main audience LIGHTS has is 13 to 14-year-olds. Standing in line before tthe show, I felt awkward and out of place. I could see over top of everyone's head all the way to the front of the line.

Entering the building, getting my ticket ripped, I noticed a second table that all the concert-goers were skipping right past. I asked them what was hapening at that table, and it turned out it was to get a wristband as proof of age.

Several minutes later, i was in the theatre and ready to watch the show. the opening act, although had decent sounding songs, had very poor prescence on stage. the lead man made an attempt to connect with the audience and be exciting, but teh rest of the band remained motionless and he just looked awkward.

After a boring 40 minutes, the roadies began setting up the stage for LIGHTS. A wild array of keyboards and synthesizers filled the stage. eventually the stage was set, the audience was getting ancy, and the lights dimmed. The moment the stage was black, a supersonic soundwave rattled the theatre. I was worried about my eardrums breaking from the sheer vo9lume and pitch of the screaming fans.

LIGHTS took the stage and began playing a song off the new album. Issues with sound during the first two songs made first impressions of the show poor, but LIGHTS quickly won back the audience by her third song, February Air.

The visuals in the backdrop were fitting and exciting, telling the stories of the songs. Most of them were images of space and planets flying by, a field of stars moving around the screen. also in between songs comic book style cartoons were shown, depicting "captain LIGHTS" travelling around the universe searching for sounds to sample.

Overall, the concert was surprisingly well done, and I really enjoyed every part of it. It was very different from cocnerts I have been to in the past in the space themed visuals and musical style. When LIGHTS comes back to Winnipeg, I suggest going to it, I know I will.

The Doe on the Road

Driving home,
family dinner tonight,
I saw a sad,
and terrible sight.

A truck up ahead,
hazard lights flashing,
I apply the brakes,
(no sense in crashing).

slowly creep forward,
to the front of the truck,
and see what's the cause,
for all of this muck.

Framed in the headlights,
clinging to its life,
a single doe in a pool of blood,
as if stabbed several times by a knife.

Its head still moving,
trying to get up,
legs flailing wildy,
like a newborn pup.

Why the doe; what did it do,
to deserve an end in this way?
was the driver of the truck just too busy,
to slow down a moment in his day?

Or was the doe scared and tried to run,
wanted to escape its fate,
but wasn't agile enough to clear the road,
and moments later, too late.

the gravel road is a sponge to the blood,
cleaning it all away,
to be recycled into a new life,
to live another day.

so for that poor doe while it lies on the road,
as I look into its gaze,
I shed not one tear because I know,
god works in mysterious ways.

I Don't want Your $#@&* BALL!

A phrase commonly heard in my house in the evening, due to the persistence and irritation caused by a whole eight pounds of furry fury. of course, I'm talking about my little doggie, Pookie.

Pookie has been memorable since the day my family got her. She found comfort in calmly climbing up onto my lap and curling up. All in the house was quiet, and we liked it that way.

The month of quiet Pookie was Merely a calm before the storm. The dog was settled in finally, and I had discovered her natural ability to fetch, which was cause for excitment because we had never had a dog before that fetched. Any who, Pookie learned a game she could play, and we had a blast throwing a little stuffed lamb across the kitchen floor.

The following months showed a transition from sweet little puppy, to an insane beast, hellbent on getting a stupid little red ball thrown repeatedly for hours. Her persistence is astounding. She will try every tactic possible to get that ball in the air, and does it too. She uses the sweet puppy face, sitting at the edge of the couch staring. She will even try sharing, maybe to show just how fun fetch is, and she'll climb up onto you with the ball and try to put it in your mouth. Of course, the offer is appreciated, but you find yourself forced to throw the ball in an attempt to prevent future 'gifts' like those. Throwing it is exactly what Pookie wanted, and I give in every time, without even realizing it.

Give it half an hour of throwing the ball, anybody would be done in, and say, "that's enough Pookie," over and over at each of her attempts to lure you to throw it. every time she tries, your voice gets angrier and angrier, as the annoyance increases, until finally you feel the urge to just throw that damn little ball away so she can't find it. Of course, that is her goal, and she will chase after it, happier than ever. Outsmarted by a dog. How embarrassing!

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.