DevilSpeak

I just read over Anthony’s entry regarding the “old school’ internet.  I remember actually staying home from school to mess around with my free 350 hours of AOL that came on that free cd in the mail. I was obsessed. It took FOREVER, and there really weren’t that many web pages if I recall, and the ones that were out there  sucked.  

It was mostly AOL.  And I thought IM was the coolest thing ever. After school my friends and I would IM and have our own chat rooms and talk all night via the internet.  We’d also go into other chat rooms and make friends from other schools and find parties to go to and stuff….Until the phone rang and we got kicked off or someone needed to make a call. (it was so new we didn’t have extra data lines yet.)  

My how the web has changed. Perhaps that was the dawn of the social media/networking age we are in now.  These social engines, facebook, myspace, twitter, blogger, etc. are now crucial to businesses, especially in the PR field I hope to get into.  They are free, and simple ways to get names and info out there. 

I have already heard umpteen times how important these will be in my career and using them to support my future clients.  I feel very fortunate to have grown up with the internet, but am also able to remember life before it.  I seriously cannot imagine not being “connected.”  I don’t go an hour a day without being on the web in one way or another. 

It’s only going to get more crucial.  It’s rare that I do anything thru the mail anymore, why should I when I can do it online? Same with school, I have had one class in the last 2 years that I actually printed out a hard copy of anything, besides a math class.  99% of my peers respond, “on-line”, when asked where we get our news on that first day of a new journalism class. 

We are at a point as a society where we no longer have to wait for any information.  It’s immediate. It’s always on-line, as long as we are connected and updating.  There are more and more cell phones bringing the web to our hands 24/7 as well, its no longer the ‘business’ type phones, everyone has a blackberry or smart phone because we all want to be connected to the web.

I’m not big on podcasts, as a matter of fact I had never listened to one until this assignment. Honestly I didn’t even know what a podcast really was. When I would listen to ESPN radio they would always say how you could catch up on their shows by listening to their podcasts. Colin Cowherd and MIke and Mike are my two favorites to listen to, yet I had never considered checking them out if it wasn’t during their regularly scheduled shows.

I decided that the sports route would be the best podcast for me to listen to, even though sports news changes so rapidly that hearing what Colin Cowherd said on the herd at 9:30 am probably isn’t even news when you hear it at 10 pm. I listened and found that it actually is worthwile. Particularly if the personality you are tuning in to hear is one that entertains you no matter what the topic is. That’s how Colin is. Unlike most sports radio talk show hosts he is actually an intelligent human being. He understands logic, economics and ways to solve problems. Not just the infield fly rule, zone blitzes and full court presses.

Colin can be heard on espn.com at the following link.

http://espnradio.espn.go.com/espnradio/show?showId=theherd

I remember the early days of the internet. The days when “logging on” actually meant just that; waiting for the dial-up modem to log on to the network. The days when there weren’t just Web site addresses, but AOL Keywords as well. The days when downloading a song took a good 30 minutes if you were lucky. The days when multimedia sections of Web sites consisted of still pictures and videos you had to squint to see and were always buffering at their 56K bit rate. At some point over the past couple of years, those days vanished and transformed into Web 2.0.

The difference between what the Web was when I was in middle school and what it is now is astounding. Most of the world has abandoned dial-up for DSL or Cable Internet. AOL Keywords are a thing of the past. Downloading a song takes mere seconds now. Multimedia sections of Web sites are now truly that with pictures, slideshows, podcasts, flash animations and high-qquality videos. Where just 10 years ago people had to purchase CDs, a newspaper or watch television to get all of those things, the Internet has become the one-stop shop for everyone’s needs.

Web 2.0 has meant a nonstop flow of information. Where a news cycle once lasted a day until the next newscast or newspaper, a news cycle now lasts mere hours. A story hits the net, hits the blogosphere, hits cable news, hit the nightly news and then its done, leaving the newspaper in the dust. Where newspapers once broke stories, it has now become a source for next-day, in-depth follow-up stories.

Another thing that Web 2.0 has done is make the world a smaller place. Networking sites have broken down barriers once held up by distance and lack of tecnology. People no longer rely on news sources for their world news since they are now connected to their world themselves.

While it may make the job market and the newsroom a scarier place for those of us who are entering the industry, Web 2.0 is clearly for the best. The fact that everyone is now connected, information is out there faster and high-quality media is now easily is accessible is great.

At my job there is this little section at the front of the store where we have about three aisles of really cute things that cost anywhere from $1.00-2.50. It’s called The One Spot and we get a lot of customers buying things from there because there is such a wide variety of things to get for just a dollar. Now that Christmas is coming there is a ton of cute stocking stuffers and toys to choose from, there is even headbands and jewlery and really adorable toys for kids and bath stuff for the ladies. You can put together a really cute gift basket for just a few bucks. However, the worst part of The One Spot is having to clean the damn thing. I mean, do people have common courtesy anymore or are they just plain lazy? Yesterday I had to clean the area and it was a mess, just a plain huge, mess. There was stuff on the floor and things were mixed around in different bins and tossed to and fro, I mean COME ON!!!

How hard is it to look through a bin without making it look like a tornado swept through? Instead of shoving things aside and tossing them around, can you just look through it gently? I mean, do you really need to examine every damn headband when they’re all the same?! It’s ridiculous how rude and inconsiderate some of these people are. I saw one lady dump a handful of mittens into another bin, when the mitten bin was right next to it! She couldn’t reach her hand out a few inches more and drop the mittens into the bin? I wanted to run her over with a cart. It’s just plain laziness, people are lazy. They think they can walk into a store and just trash the place just because they can. I think it’s bullsh*t. How would they feel if I went into their house and trashed it? It took me over 2 hours to fix The One Spot and when my shift ended I was walking by it and saw that it was trashed again and it had only been like 30 minutes since I left it. That really, really pisses me off that people act so stupid and disrepectful like that. I feel sorry for people that have to go around cleaning the stores, I do the same thing and it drives me nuts.

I really hate it when a customer doesn’t want something and they just stick it on the end of the aisle or they just dump it into a pile by the register. Just give it to me!!! There’s a bin under every register that we put the go-backs in in order to avoid huge piles of stuff everywhere. One time some lady tripped over a pile of clothes a lady had just dumped near the register. The lady that had dumped the clothes was standing right there too, acting like it hadn’t been her. The woman just glared at her and said “Instead of dumping them on the floor, can’t you give them to the cashier?” People can get really hurt, but some people just don’t care. One time a man just tossed a scarf onto the end rack where we have holiday candles on display and the scarfs hanger knocked into the candles and two fell off and broke all over the floor. What did the man do? Nothing. He just walked away. God, that makes me mad.

I guess these people were in the other room when manners where being handed out. Jerks.

Well, from what I saw there was no actual fire.  But a couple Thursdays ago, just as I was sitting down to my finance class, this strange, whining alarm went off.  it was so strange that it took me a moment to realize it was actually the fire alarm.  Looking around the lecture hall, I noticed that other students were as perplexed as I was on just what to do.  So we did what we’ve been conditioned to do since kindergarten– we gathered up our belongings and made an (oddly) organized line in which we poured out of the building and down the steps towards “safety.”

This was the first fire alarm I’ve had to respond to since senior year of high school.  I was not sure how long it would last, or if we were expected to wait, or what.  So I aced on  my sheep mentality and did what everyone else seemed to be doing, I stood around and waited.  I looked at the building, no sign of smoke, no firetrucks screeching up, nothing to indicate a fire what so ever.  But the alarm was still going off so we had to wait outside.  Most people stood around waiting but a few left immediately.  So, of course I waited….and waited… over half an hour…forty-five minutes, and people were leaving in droves.  Still, I waited, just in case…but an hour later, about forty-five minutes after class was supposed to start, I gave up…and decided I would go grab something to eat instead.  I stopped off across the way to schedule an appointment with an adviser…and out of the corner of my eye, to my astonishment, I saw students reentering BAC.

I was tempted to just sneak off and cut the rest of class due to the fire drill, but responsibility kicked in and I, instead, made my way back up into the classroom.  It seemed that over half the students had left earlier because the lecture hall was oddly empty.  Still, the professor was there so I knew class would resume.  However, the Professor noted just how many people were missing too, due to the fire drill, so he decided to rewards us, those who came back, by giving an attendance quiz, one of only two given during the semester and worth 2.5% of our final grade.  I thought it was pretty rotten to give this quize when he knew a lot more people would have been in class were it not for the fire drill. Granted, we were rewarded, but did they have to be punished.  It didnt seem like an accurate way to grade the class on attendance to me.

So, I checked out Wikipedia for the definition of Web 2.0 and it basically gave me a bunch of jargin (did I even spell that right?) about how it’s the idea of bringing the world wide web to the masses and setting out to show that the future is in the internet and yada yada yada. I don’t get Wikipedia, some of the entries just don’t make sense and I get mad and have to look somewhere else. Annoying. So, I guess I have to put Web 2.0 into my own definition, which won’t be so hard. I think. Haha.

To me, Web 2.0 is just another coined term to describe the rising popularity in the internet. I mean, who hasn’t experienced the web in one way or the other? You can get just about anything on the internet, anything! There’s Ebay (I once was addicted but not having money tends to extuingush that flame), Youtube (Love it), Hulu (Addiction defined!), a huge, huge variety of news sites, I mean, I can’t even remember the last time I bought an acutal newspaper! If my dad didn’t buy a copy everyday I wouldn’t even read one. The internet has just gotten so huge since it first came out and everyone has access to literally millions of things. It’s amazing to me how huge the internet it, and how scary it can be and how it can ruin peoples lives. We’ve all seen “The Net” with Sandra Bullock right? And let’s not forget all those hacker movies, scary!! I just saw “Live Free or Die Hard” and it was FREAKING SCARY the things those computer hacker people could do. Remind me never to make fun of a computer nerd.

The internet is the future, which freaks me out because my online media instructor basically told us that Print is like one of the worst areas to go into because reporters are getting laid off left and right, which really scares me because did I just waste 7 years of my life to end up working for peanuts in some newsroom? No, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be cheap labor, I worked my ass off for this degree and I want it to benefit me to the fullest! Which is why learning things about the internet is so beneficial, I can be well-rounded for future jobs. I’m taking a photography class next semester and I am excited about that because it’s a new experience for me, yay!

All in all, Web 2.0 is a pretty good thing because let’s face it, the internet is the now and learning all that you can about the internet can pretty much secure you a good job. Maybe I should change my major to online media? LoL.

OK, let me be lame for a minute. I’m an avid Harry Potter fan and noticed the first Twilight book when it came out a few years ago. I was gona read it but, I was still in the middle of HP and didn’t want to interrupt my fix for the wizarding world. Anyway… since I saw the trailer for Twilight I decided to read the books and give the series a chance. Obviously, because I’m so lame, I ended up loving the books and look forward to the movie.

Now I would say that I will be at the theater this weekend seeing the movie everyone is raving about, however, I really hate teeny boppers and that is all that will be plaguing the theaters for a while. It also took me a while to find a friend that would go see it with me. My friend Ashley volunteered for the job and we have plans to see it on Thanksgiving… It’s possible that day might be a mistake as well…

I heard on the news that most of the theaters are sold out for the weekend showings, so even if I had the balls to brave the screaming tweens, I wouldn’t be able to. It’s OK though, I’m not too sad about not being able to see it opening weekend. Going to this movie on opening weekend would be like going to a Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana concert. Haha… wow, I would def never subject myself to such horror and annoyance!

So it has long been my dream to study abroad in the United Kingdom this coming summer.  i have planned and saved for the honors study abroad program since the the spring of my freshman year at ASU and I have long waited for the honors study abroad trip to London, Dublin, and Edinburgh because the trip involves everything I’ve ever wanted out of a study abroad program.

Studying abroad is expensive but I’ve saved up and I figure, ya only live once, right?  ANYway, registration for this particular study abroad program began this past Saturday at 8:00 a.m sharp.  A little background for registrations for these honors study abroad programs– in the past, the popular programs have filled up in less than 6 minutes time.  Knowing this, and also knowing just how many people were interested in the program that only accepts about 45 people, tops…I planned my attack for registering on Saturday.

I first set up my account on the study abroad website…which led to drama # 1: once registering the site would not allow me to log in because it wasn’t registering my ASU ID number.  I spent a week trying to contact the IT deparment for the study abroad office in order to get this problem fixed and finally I was able to log in.  Next, I planned how I would fill out the registration form as quickly as possible when it was finally offered.  I practiced filling out the application by using a program that was already open to enrollment, filling it out and noting just what questions the application required.  After practicing I found I could fill the application out in less than a minute– this being fantastic news.  After that, all I had to do was wait for 8:00 am to roll around so I could enroll for the London, Dublin, Edinburgh program.

Well, 8:00 a.m. rolled around…I was up a 7:00 a.m, fretting over enrollment.  I just had to get into this program, for I refused to consider the possibility that i might not, for whatever reason, be able to go on the trip I had been planning on for two years.  I was so nervous, but I was ready…I had the site up, I had my credit card ready….it was time.  I refreshed the page at 7:59, just as it turned to 8:00 a.m., fully expecting the enrollment button to appear………….and then………. the entire site froze in the loading screen….it loaded and loaded and loaded and loaded but the site would not reappear…I tried re-opening the site…and it froze again on the load screen.  i panicked…I tried again and again, 8:06 came and still I hadnt gotten on.  I wondered if other people were able to get on, to enroll.  I wondered if the program was already full, if I had missed my chance due to a terrible computer glitch…  Still, I refused to give up…and so I waited for it to load, and when the session timed out I reloaded the page and waited some more.  by 8:30 I contacted the director of the progrm and explained to her the problems I was having.  By 8:31 she responded to me, telling me tht the site was not allowing anyone access and it was not just my program.  And so I countinued to refresh the page, over and over and over and over again.  I was diligent.  An hour passed by, it was 9:00 a.m. and still I kept at it, clicking the refresh button.  By 9:30 I was ready to give up…my friend Kate, who was also hoping to apply for the program had already given up…she was crying when I called her and worried that we were not going to be able to go after all….still I kept hitting that refresh button, over and over….I was growing sleepy, my eyes strained from staring at the screen for so long…another 15 minutes passed and I wondered how long I could hold out, clicking that button.  I was about to fall asleep at the screen when….finally…an hour and forty-seven minutes after registration was supposed to begin, I was able to log on and hit the enrollment button taking me to the application page.  I flashed through that application with lightning speed and less than a minute later I had paid my $350 application fee and was done.  I then called Kate and told her the site was up so she could do the same.  Five minutes later, a mass email was sent out letting everyone know that the application page was up.

Kate and I wont know if we actually got accepted until a couple weeks from now,but I feel confident that we got in….. still, I could definitely have done without the added stress caused by the computer glitch.

Still, if all goes according to plan this summer I’ll be living in a flat in Kensington in London, England!  I’m positively giddy about that.  It was definitely worth the planning and the stree

Web 2.0 is apparently much more than a buzzword. In my opinion, Web 2.0 includes everything from facebook to myspace to aim and anything else in between. These social-networking assignments are just another way of connecting people but have slowly started seeping into the field of journalism. There are people from social-networking sights that break stories nearly as quickly or quicker than professional journalists do. Which is either a very scary or inspiring trend that is creeping up on our industry. The good? More resources. The bad? Less work for people who are training to be professional journalists to do.

Keeping the good in mind, with more people researching in the field, we have a vast variety of resources at our fingertips. Personally, I use facebook all the time simply as a way of finding people in the specific fields that I’m writing about. I have occasionally also used myspace to find younger people when I was working at a agazine targeted to a younger audience. Irregardless of what medium I’m working for, I have always and will always delve into social-networking sights to find more people to talk to. These people will also work to do research for the media. Whereas comments on stories are so obviously not well-researched or newsworthy, 2.0 web people can work to research the topics they are interested in and so we have more news than we know what to do with.

This is also the bad. There is not enough news to be covered by both professional journalists and web 2.0 people. An interesting case occurred when the underage gymnasts story was broken by a web 2.0 person, rather than a responsible journalist. I personally have a problem with this because I still remain confused as to the details of the story and feel that if a journalist had broken the story, I would have gotten every facet of it, not just the gist. Sites such as the dirty.com are a disgrace, but are still considered to be web 2.0. Is it fair to compare sites such as this to real newspapers? Hardly.

I had the best time attending the ASU homecoming parade this year! It was the first time I was able to attend the parade in all four and a half years I’ve been at ASU. I always help with building the float for my building as I am a CA/RA for those of you that never heard of a Community Assistant. It’s not as bad as many people may think, but it definitely leaves much to be desired. It helps get you through the college years, plus I could pretty much tell you about any service offered on campus!

Getting back to homecoming though, if you’ve never been and have another year around here you should check it out. People on the floats through candy and footballs at you. There are also tons of tents giving out free stuff! FREE STUFF!!! I am the queen of free stuff in case you didn’t know. I got a Cronkite School tote, a free pencil from the Mary Lou Fulton School of Education, a free duffel bag handle holder?, numerous free towels and even an alumni shirt/towel combo!

Even the Tempe Fire Department trucked along in the parade. The floats are always based on themes for ASU’s homecoming. This year there were some for Sparky’s Meadows a retirement home theme for ASU alum, a tailgate float, a float about crushing WSU and some kind of Sun Devil photo booth float. The mosty concerning floats were from two of the greek frats. One jeep was practically on the floor as well as one pick up truck. The pick up trucks chain was actually hitting the ground.

The whole thing overall was pretty great. I ate lunch for free and even sampled some candy that was thrown my way! Super weekend!