Why the Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero

You would think from the title "Why the Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero" that this article would be about... well why the music industry hates Guitar Hero.  Well you would be dead wrong.  This article doesn't even mention what the title suggests the subject will be!  Instead Mr. Jeff Howe talks about what the music industry is doing to stop Guitar Hero and how the music industry would benefit from going into business with the game.  Although Mr. Howe does fill his article with very well chosen words, I must say I did not think this article was a good one.  For one, no matter how good his word choice, the article was just plain boring.  After the first paragraph, I found myself barely even reading the darn thing!  Instead I found myself kind of moving my eyes over the text without really even trying to see what he was writing.  I actually had to go back and force myself to take in the words and make them register in my mind rather than have my mind pretend to read something for English class.  I found out why my mind didn't really read Mr. Howe's article.  It all just kind of runs together.  It's like he's say the same thing in different words in a different order in each paragraph!  He keeps repeating that the music industry would get more money from pairing up with Guitar Hero.  He says it several times.  Yeah, Jeff, I got it.  They'll make more money.  Please stop telling me that.  I have a longer memory span than a goldfish, thank you.  I think if Mr. Howe just stated some more facts, instead of reusing the ones he found in Google, that the article would be much more interesting.

On Facebook, Biggest Threat to Your Private Data May Be You

“Don’t friend me!  I mean it.”  That first sentence of the article alone grabs your attention.  Why don’t you want me to friend you?  So, you start to read the article, in an effort to find out why Jacquielynn Floyd doesn’t want to be friends with you on Facebook and instead you are force-fed a very dull and repetitive article on how posting things like “I just went to the bathroom” might lead to you putting information about yourself that you don’t want others to know.  In the article of course, she doesn’t tell you WHAT exactly you might say that shouldn’t be said, she just gives a very vague idea that you might give more information about yourself than needed.  The article is also lacking any form of support.  No stories about embarrassed people on face book, or someone who had had their identity stolen because of information they put on Facebook.  This lack of evidence leads me to believe that I am in no real danger of sharing too much personal information on Facebook as long as I don’t put my credit card number, social security number, or my mom’s maiden name in any of my ramblings on the site.  Jacquielynn also warns her readers to watch who you friend on Facebook.  Still she lacks any support for her idea of the fact that the person I “haven’t seen in twenty years” and “didn’t really talk to in the first place” is going to try to steal my identity or embarrass me in some way.  Frankly, I felt like I was reading the same paragraph over and over again, it was just worded differently, every version warning me to be careful what I post on Facebook.  Well I have news for Jacquielynn.  I will not post things I don’t want other people to know on Facebook.  Know why?  I am not a complete idiot, that’s why.

Response to "A Little Civility, Please"

Reading “A Little Civility, Please” by Mark Davis, really got me thinking about freedom of speech in high school.  Although, this article is mainly about freedom of speech on teenagers’ T-shirts, you have to think about how much freedom is being taken away from high schoolers.  You can’t talk about certain subjects in the halls (e.g. drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.), you can’t say certain words, heck, you can’t even give your significant other a peck on the cheek without getting in trouble.  So, why would you be able to wear a T-shirt saying “homosexuals are possessed by demons?”  Short answer, you shouldn’t be able to wear something like that to a high school.  It’s offensive to a lot of people, not just homosexuals.  However, what if you wear the T-shirt just to “spark a debate,” and don’t intend to offend anyone?  Well let’s look at it this way, if you saw a T-shirt like that, would you go up to the wearer and start a discussion about why he or she is wrong, or would you give the wearer a dirty look and think to yourself how horrible and ignorant he or she is?  You would probably choose the second option.


This article said pretty much the same thing, just longer and with different words and examples.  It was a very well written article, and the author made it interesting to read.  I had only intended to read a few paragraphs to see if it would be a good article to blog about, but I ended up reading the whole thing before I even thought to stop.  Mark’s points were very valid and well supported, but he didn’t present the other side, the side of the teenager wearing the T-shirt.  There may actually be some teens who would wear a controversial shirt to spark debate, but will never get the chance because of how offensive it would be to his or her peers.  Others may argue that there is no other side to the issue, people who wear stuff like that are ignorant and should not be allowed to wear a shirt like that.  So maybe he did cover all the bases.