Those unplanned things

Returning home for the tiny break in between semesters is normally a very relaxing, very stress-free experience. However, when a trip to Seattle is interrupted by the sudden death of a best friend’s father, a leisure-laden vacation suddenly turns into something much different. Timber Dick was like a second father to me, and he will be missed by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Full days free from classes shouldn’t be emotionally draining like this. I’m going to need another vacation once this one has ended.

The empires that are taking over

Acquisitions and mergers of large media companies has become a huge trend during the last few decades. It always seems like every few weeks another massive company ruthlessly gobbles up a smaller one. Two examples: the merger of the two gaming juggernauts, Vivendi and Activision. This merger came as a surprise, though not entirely without sense. Up until this merger Electronic Arts dominated the video game market with no end in sight. It’s almost as if the two smaller companies, Activision and Vivendi, joined forces in a quest to put an end to EA’s continuance of destructive entrepreneurship. However, despite the blow against the seemingly invulnerable forces of EA, EA didn’t give up so easily. To maintain its infamous reputation of demolishing the tiny development studios at its feet and callously subjecting them to its will, it recently bought out one of the more successful development studios in the world, Remedy Entertainment. This world-renowned studio is responsible for the Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, and Midnight Club franchises, all of which earn tremendous amounts of revenue whenever a new entry in their series’ is released. Clearly, Electronic Arts is doing everything it can to regain its dominance in the market and overtake its newly established rival, Vivendi Activision.

Example two: if EA is Darth Vader, than Microsoft is Emperor Palpatine— that is to say, Microsoft is “... not as forgiving as I am.” They want to buy out everything, with Yahoo being their latest corporate conquest. If you ask me, the programs we get on our computers and the content we eat up on the internet has to decrease in quality as conglomerations are formed left and right. Creativity and innovation is strong when the content which we consume in the media is controlled by small units of people belonging to small companies. Behemoths like Microsoft or Google whose life goals are focused on their company’s bottom line drive a stake through the heart of culture and creativity.

In short, conglomeration can be bad. But what say ye?

Music, as a staple of our lives

I was reading a persuasive essay written by one of my classmates about the impact music has on our society and on the individual, and there were quite a few things that interested me that I would like to share.

The main point of her essay was to convince the reader of the array of benefits that exist for those who actively listen to constructive, rather than destructive, music. She stated that almost fifty percent of music student who apply for medical school get accepted. Another statistic states that the average GPA of high school students who study music is around 3.5, as opposed to the average GPA of everyone else, which is only at about 2.9. She claimed that music stimulates brain development, and helps reestablish connections in the brain that may have been lost due to brain damage. Hospitals are starting to play classical music to patients, finding that they heal faster when it’s played to them on a regular basis. The best part was when she told us of a study some scientists did to analyze the effects that different forms of music have on people. They created a small, lab rat-sized maze, then let a small group of rats try their luck at traversing the labyrinth. During the first attempt with music the group of vermin completed the maze far faster than they had without being accompanied on their journey by Bach and Mozart. However, during another run-through when the scientists played metal tunes at a loud volume, the rats never completed the maze but instead worked themselves into a sort of berserk, eventually killing each other off entirely.

I think this says a lot about how the media we consume does affect us, whether or not we notice it. As sentient beings we can resist being affected in such a drastic manner, yet even our superior resistance will wear over time. I’m not saying that we’ll go and cannibalize our neighbor one day after listening to a Slipknot album, but I do think that music affects the more subtle attributes of our personalities. The important ones, especially.

Where has all the originality gone?

In the movie industry in our day and age, it seems to me that fewer movie makers are willing to take any creative risks with the films they produce. I definitely think that the overall quality of their productions is increasing dramatically, but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of what we’re seeing is similar, if not just remakes, of material that’s already been produced before.

One example would have to be the large number of remakes that are being made of classic films, like King Kong, Planet of the Apes, or Godzilla. I think there are two reasons for this trend, though I’m hesitant to call it a trend seeing as how movie makers have always resorted to this method now and again throughout film history. I think one of the reasons is because when the original film got its first release, it was incredibly popular, garnering a whole lot of dinero. The film industry thinks that with their new technological movie-making wonders they can improve upon the original, re-release it, and therefore tap into a large fan base that already adores the subject matter. The other reason may simply be because there isn’t enough good, original material to draw from. I mean, how many times can you make a movie about a secret spy organization, an alien invasion, a zombie infestation, or a love story without the plot feeling stale and overused?

The Dark Knight, Narnia, The Incredible Hulk, The Hobbit, Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Speed Racer, and many more. All of these movies draw from existing material, yet they're each guarenteed to make a veritable fortune at the box office. As long as existing franchises make tons of money, creativity may suffer.