Only Child

Alright, so this idea that I'm about to throw out here is not fleshed out at all whatsoever, so bear with me.

 I remember as a kid, one of my best friends was an only child. He spent much more alone time than me. A lot of that time was spent watching TV and playing Super Nintendo. He was more awkward in social situations than many of my other friends.
 
Nowadays, it seems like everyone is spending an equal amount of, "alone time," compared with my friend in the 90's.  Especially since college, when it's time to make new friends, it becomes easy, I think, to become an only child, whether you really are one or not.
 
 Because of my computer, my PS2, my Ipod, my TV, etc, I definitely do not have the same types of relationships that I did in High School, that I had with my brother and sister, that I had in elementary school.
 
 I have become an only child; I'm a little more awkward in social situations. I spend a lot more alone time. Even when I'm with my college friends I'm normally playing video games (I've moved up from Super Nintendo to PS3) or watching TV (Blu Ray!).
 

Clearly I can't speak for everybody. However, it almost seems like I'm reverting to being an only child, despite having friends and family all around me.

But instead, recently, I have been more like that friend of mine from back in the day.

It's time for a phone, to save us from our phones?

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of witnessing a commercial that really rocked my world. It was for the Windows Phone 7.

The commercial really opened my eyes. It basically shows a series of little vignettes where people are paying too much attention to their phone, and missing the world around them. Mothers are not paying attention to their children, fathers are on their phone instead of having catches with their sons, and poppas are too busy staring at their phone to realize that momma wants some, "alone time."

Like I said, it was a real eye-opener. Life with phones...sucks! Before the commercial could even end I had decided the rest of my life. I was going to get rid of my phone and live above this technology that is running peoples lives.

Then, as this informative commercial came to a close, the tag line: It's time for a phone, to save us from our phones.

Wait, what?

Turns out the commercial, which had me convinced to trash my phone Office Space style, was actually selling. Me. A. Phone.

Yeah, it's just as confusing as you think.

Mohonk Preserve

The trails at the Mohonk Preserve are truly spectacular.  I walked on the undercliff(i think that's what it's called) trail for about an hour last weekend with my parents.  The view from up there down to the Hudson Valley is seriously breathtaking.  I couldn't breathe.  Actually I could breathe, but still, it was breathtaking.

Anyway, so we are walking on this gorgeous trail, watching the rock climbers up above and the valley down below.  We are having a nice conversation about our lives, reliving memories of my childhood.  I'm telling my dad stories about high school when I got really drunk and threw up and him and mom never knew.  He's telling me stories about when he would drink back in college and high school.  My mom's not really sharing any stories.  Basically what I'm trying to say is that this was the perfect parent/son day.  Just a nice relaxing walk through nature, telling tales of the past, thinking forward to the future, all with a beautiful October in New Paltz backdrop.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because I ruined it.  Kind of. 

I'm in the middle of one particularly awesome story about myself when I feel a slight vibration in my right pant leg.  It was a text message on my phone.  Without even thinking I reached down and pulled the phone out.  I read the text, casually typed back a response, and dumped the phone back in my pocket, all the while still telling the story.

A minute later, the phone vibrates again.  Same deal.  This time, however, I keep the phone in my hand.  I can tell this is going to be an extended text conversation.

And just like that the conversation between my parents and I changed.  My mom gave one of those tsk tsk sounds and said something along the lines of, "How can you be on your phone while we're out here."

She continued, "To me this is peace, serenity.  I can have solitude for a little while.  But I guess that's just your generation, right?"

She's right.  It was second nature to me.  Even though regular beautiful ol' nature was right there, staring me in the eyes, my eyes were focused on the phone, on the texts.

Sometimes I really do wish I lived in the world before cell phones, rather than the world post cell phones.  I'm not allowed to not be available now.  I'm not allowed peace and serenity. 

Times were simpler then.

Klosterman

"In order to have a 70-degree living room I give up almost everything. 

Yet nothing that's particularly important to me."

That quote, I think, says it all.  No choice that I have made in my entire life has truly been a, "free" choice.  That is because everything I decide is based on society.  I chose to have a Blue Fender Stratocaster Guitar.  So I bought it.  But why did I buy it?  Why did I choose that?  On the surface you could say that I enjoy playing guitar, and the Strat stood out to me.  Blue is my favorite color.  Well why did the Strat stand out to me?  Why do I play guitar? 

I guess what I'm saying is that each question begs another question, and the questions would go all the way back to the day I was born.  So I guess what I'm really saying is that Klosterman is telling me that I've been somewhat of a slave to my society since the day I was born.  I don't really have any choices.

But, I am fine with this, because I do enjoy playing guitar, and I like my Stratocaster.  Ultimately I feel the same way as Klosterman.  In order to have that guitar I gave up almost everything, but nothing that is particularly important to me.

I think this is because I have never witnessed a truly free thinking person, because I've grown up in the age of technology.  I've been programmed to believe that this technological age is a fantastic thing for the human race. 

For all I know we could be headed towards a society just like that of the Matrix.  Wouldn't that be something?

This is all really confusing to me, so I can't imagine how it must read to someone else. 

(Also I have a migrane headache right now.  Possibly from technology overload last night.  Maybe from a sinus infection.  I'm not a doctor, I don't know...maybe I'll look it up on webmd.com...)

So much media

I just wanted to point out that I'm watching the Knicks on TV, surfing the net on my computer and my phone is resting on my chest.  Wow.

First Post Ever!

So this blog is for my class "Press in America."  I'm supposed to write about my interactions with the media, and more specifically, I'm supposed to question why these interactions occur, what they mean, etc.

So here it goes, bear with me.

The first thing ever that I'd like to touch upon are the "Saw" movies.  We talked about this in class for maybe two seconds today, but I had some thoughts that I wanted to share. 

These movies are grotesque, full of mutilation and are just plain obscene.  There are seven movies (the most recent of which is in 3D! Which I'll probably write about at a later date. But anyway...) full of regular people in tortuous situations.  I think that the "Saw" movies say a lot more about our media culture than you might think.

The "Saw" movies are really the "Saw" franchise.  The first movie made a lot of money because of word of mouth advertising.  I personally know that I went into the moving knowing NOTHING about it, because a friend told me I had to go, he had seen it.  I was blown away.  Without spoiling for those of you who haven't seen it (either go see it or admit you never will), the ending was phenomenal, and left me absolutely astounded.  In my opinion, the first movie was extremely well-written, well-executed, and well, good.

A year later, my television started popping up previews for "Saw II."  I remember thinking to myself, "there's no way they can top the first one."  And turns out I was right.  From then on, they've been churning out saw movies each October like they are necessities for Halloween to continue being awesome.

My point here is that a fantastic movie became a franchise, and the life was sucked out of it.  I haven't watched "Saw" in years because I just don't care about Saw anymore.  Some producers or whatever realized they could make millions off a "Saw" franchise and they are still trying to suck more life out of something that has clearly been dead and rotting for ages.

Imagine if the studio behind "Shawshank Redemption" decided that a whole slew of breaking away from prison movies could be a big cash cow.  The original would still be great, but it would be cheapened.  Sometimes movies should stand on their own.  "Saw" did that.  It was a dark but clever story.  But in this day and age no one can settle for greatness because they want that sweet money.