By Any Other Nerd

Toys are used to foster affection for McDonald's Letter to the Editor in the Boston Globe : July 29, 2010 JOANNA WEISS’S discussion on Happy Meals (“Happy Meals and Old Spice guy,’’ Op-ed, July 25), advertising, and parenting has some great insights, but misses one major element. While the ads are an important factor, the problem with Happy Meals is the toy itself. That’s not just an advertisement, it provides repeated engagement with the company (or more important, the unhealthy food) for the child and the parent, too. The toy is a focal point for imaginative play, reemergence in favorite stories, and a tactile object for a developing set of hands — all of which is branded with the McDonald’s logo in the child’s mind and thus creates a strong positive relationship between the child and the product (the unhealthy food, not the actual toy). This seduction through association focused on children has been increasingly problematic, which is why other countries regulate advertisem...

This post from the NY Times posits some interesting (albeit not entirely new) ideas on the concept of human and potential-alien encounters.  The author, Robert Wright is drawing upon a quote of Stephen Hawking, the work of Peter Singer, and his own (which he promotes just below "too much" but it did evoke a scene from " The Critic " for me).  The discussion also seems to come in a year following two rather influential and powerful films impressed audiences throughout the world.  The first is District 9 , directed by Neil Blomkamp.  Though the film was not as widespread, it was certainly well-received (made over $100 million) and had a compelling and intriguing premise about the types of aliens we might expect to encounter when they come here.  By contrast, there was Avatar , which of course, became the highest grossing film ever (until another film beats it…probably by James Cameron…probably in about 10 years).  Again, here we see an interaction b...

2010 marks a major shift in viewing trends among Americans that will most likely grow worldwide by the end of the 2010s to be a more dominant market share of leisure time .  Apparently, 2010 marked the first year that more people prized their Internet over their television.  Beyond a doubt, I'm in this camp.  My television hasn't been hooked up to cable in over a year and I don't miss it a bit.  I watch movies from Netflix and the library on the television; or now that Netflix has expanded its services; I can watch their "Watch Instantly" selection on my television through the use of my Wii. So why the shift?  Convenience is an obvious answer.  Why situate my life around the TV to catch the programs I want; when I can call them up at will online.  Sure, there are devices (VCRs in the old days; Tivo nowadays) that can do this, but in both cases they require additional contraptions, costs, and programming. But another answer that speaks volumes about...

L aura Miller over at Salon.com has highlighted an interesting debate within the online writing community and that is where to put your links; within the text or at the end.  It’s an interesting debate with some discussion about the benefits and drawbacks for both the reader and the writer.  Without a doubt to a student, this may seem like one of those obtuse discussions that intellectuals get immersed in that seem to matter little.  And I suppose there’s some truth to that.   But given that we look to the Internet more and more for our news, information, research, etc, it’s a needed discussion.  It’s also a discussion that has had infinite traction within that old dinosaur medium:  print. In composition courses and hopefully elsewhere, students are told about the importance of citing, the reasons for citing , and the ways to cite.  I certainly emphasize its importance in my courses.  For some, it’s important that you cite in a specific format:...

Much like other industries, the comics world has been trying to crackdown on illegal digital copies of its work; with varying success.  More recently, Japanese and American publishers of manga have joined forces to create a coalition against some of the major agregators of what are commonly referred to " scanlations ."     Unlike American comics, "scanlations" are scanned comics with added translations (often added by the person who is scanning or a community of manga readers/translators).  These have become popular enough (or the fear is that they will be) that the publishers are trying to crackdown on published and copyrighted works; particularly those that are in the process of being translated (or have been) and published in the US. The discussion here isn't going to focus on the rights and wrongs of acquiring/offering digital content or profiting off things that aren't technically yours to begin with.  Rather, I think this situation is an interestin...

Peter Kuper ’s on my mind today (the visual imagery of that line is crushing-hahaha).  Like I do with many authors, artists, creators, etc, I stumbled upon him a few different times before realizing it was the same person and then proceeded to swallow up as much as I could and find out more about him. The first time I encountered him was with the publication of Give It Up and other stories, which was a series of comic adaptations of Kafka’s work.  Later on, I would read his adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (before going on to read that actual book) and that I was reminded of Kuper recently when reading The Jungle while at the same time a friend had recently purchased a comic adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial (not by Kuper, but the overlapping moments converged into one of those universal conflagrations that demand action be done or else the universe will implode:  see Star Trek—any Star Trek—I’m sure it will make sense). Speechless  Thus, with my inter...

As the trip came to a close, I became fixated on my next endeavor: prepping for a class on Love and Erotica.  To get to teach the class was pretty exciting; but I also had to think about solid and interesting material to use for the class that could effectively communicate the complex thought for a younger audience (read: first year students).  Like a variety of courses I teach (like comics and cultural diversity), it has the possibility of going drastically wrong.  So my mind reeled with ideas but being away, I had little material to directly depend upon. The Delta of Venus   by Anais Nin  So I did what seems to be the best course of action to start the train of thought; I asked for recommendations from friends and colleagues on Facebook.  And got some good ones.  One, in particular, was Anais Nin.  I had heard (vaguely) of her but never explored her much; but then a few people highly recommended her.  I figured I had a good few leads f...

I should posit that I haven’t actually read Kill Shakespeare yet.  I’ve checked out comic’s websit e  and read this post in the Globe and Mail .  I will most likely read it in the future and provide an addendum either reiterating my dubiousness or reiterating the fact that I’m an idiot (or both—quite likely).   The series like a mixture of fan fiction, intertexuality, meta-fiction, tempered with perverse comments in iambic pentameter and epic action.  That does actually sound like Shakespeare. But I’m dubious about a venture that sets out from the beginning to compare itself to the Lord of the Rings and other highly epic and influential material.  I also found the comment that if Shakespeare was alive today, he’s be doing comics.  Those comments seem to undermine the ability to think creatively and perform some amazing linguistic and psychological feats with characters that represented Shakespeare.  I’m not positing that Shakespeare is the end...

So often I hear a great many people complain about “Sequel-Mania” or the number of remakes being made of movies that aren’t even old (at least to the person making the statement).  Even the Washington Post wasted ink on the subject ; believing it is detrimental to the creative world.  The elitism can be heard in a great many of these arguments.  People just don’t have fresh ideas and aren’t as creative as they “used to be.” Bahhh.  I don’t buy it.  In fact, I remember watching the first X-Men movie when it came out and I knew that I only enjoyed it as much as I did because I knew there would be sequels.  If X-Men 1 was all there would be, I would have been deeply disappointed. As Thomas Foster  reminds us, there is only 1 story it and keeps getting retold time and time again.  So the fact that sequels are abundant is not entirely surprising.  More importantly though, I think the Washington Times and others miss the point.  Yes, stud...

6 Enlightened Ideas Brought to You by Evil Empires is an interesting entry from Cracked.com.  It reveals as the title indicates compelling ideas that we generally appreciate in the modern world from some rather unlikely sources.  Thus from Nazis we get anti-smoking campaigns, childhood education from the Aztecs, egalitarian society from the Mongols and the Soviets, cultural diversity from the Akkadians, and essential elements of modern government from the Persians.   But one paragraph I think is particular striking here:  " We put this on the list at great risk to our future political careers. You really can't say anything good about the Nazis without it getting taken out of context in a campaign ad, and obviously pointing out that, say, Hitler's soldiers were well-groomed doesn't excuse their many, many, many atrocities.” Indeed, it’s quite hard to say positive things about a people whom we use as our epitome of “evil.”  You quickly draw the comparison o...