So Cara and I have now been engaged for almost four months. Our wedding is almost a year away and there are lots of things to plan for. Thankfully right now we're in a casual time frame and aside from booking the reception site, don't need to stress too much over anything right now. One exciting part is that Cara has already picked out and bought her dress. I (at my own request) won't know a single aspect of her dress until I see her walk down the aisle. I'm pretty sure that, in doing so, I've set myself up to cry/faint/make "heavy pants" or all of the above when I see her.
Planning a wedding does have its hard times though. We were looking at Save The Date ideas earlier and we're having a hard time meeting in the middle. I know, I know... why can't I just say "yes dear, I like that...or I like those colors as well." Because I know traditionally that's what guys do. Just don't care about the details. Well I'm not like that. I care about the color scheme and what personality our special day conveys to our guests. I care about the type of food and alcohol we will provide to them. But it's not like I'm a groomzilla, just a modern thinking guy who cares to share every part of this day with the love of his life.
Ok, let's get off this wedding talk. We are currently in the midst of our yearly week-long vacation. Last year we went to the Wilmington-area coast in North Carolina and it was simply amazing. This year, since we're saving for the wedding, we are staying home to save money. It definitely helps you grasp the term "stacation." It's a very different style of vacation. Nice, but different.
I'm currently waiting for Cara to finish her DVR'ed episode of ABC Family's "Make it or break it" so we can watch our netflix movie. I can't say anything bad because she sat there while I watched all 13 innings of the cub's game tonight (soriano won in with a walk-off grand slam). And Cara hates baseball. If baseball were a person, Cara would beat it up for being boring and making her miss new episodes of Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill when games run late.
So here I am, sitting in our Illini Room (the guest bedroom/where my computer is), writing on my blog for the first time in a long time and having the dog lay down next to me. Ok, she's laying behind me. I had to check.
My goal is to start blogging more, mainly about the wedding planning and how it's going. But most likely it will be posts about nothing, filled with words concerning something, all ending in a big paragraph of certainty...or uncertainty. Either way.
word,
-Kage
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, October 1, 2007
I Want My MTV!
Here is a column I wrote for the Daily Eastern News that never made it on:
Like being able to still sing the theme song from “Salute Your Shorts,” we yearn for the old MTV. But if they really did go back to the programming we all use to love, we would discover that we can’t stand it. The old way of programming worked fine for us back when cell phones and the internet were no where near the way they are today. We could sit in the house for hours watching their music videos and occasional segments of Jenny McCarthy working her magic on the set of “Singled Out.”
But today we are a much faster moving generation. We can’t take in the information fast enough. The fast paced style of MTV and its programming brethren seem to fit perfectly into our lives. No longer do we want, or have time, to sit for hours watching their music videos. We still want the videos, but only to casually look at online or to post to our networking sites.
We may think we miss part of what we use to love; but really we are seemingly catered to better now then before. Seemingly because of the thought that MTV has merely sold us, in essence, ourselves (but much cooler and more profitable). We’ve been sold the idea of the Mook (the sexually obsessed male) and Midriff (the female who desires sexual desirability). Shallow, self-absorbed characters who focus on physical appearance and personal satisfaction.
Look more closely at what you watch and you can be sure to play “Where’s Waldo” with these characters. Everything is done to make us feel good and we seem to enjoy it. We sometimes think we liked how it use to be, but we don’t. There is only one certainty in this whole mess: Music Television is no longer about the music.
MTV. Music Television. At one time this was a true statement. But in the past years MTV has shifted its focus away from Music and beefed up its actor based programs. Granted, back in the day there were still shows on MTV like Real World, Liquid Television, and Beavis and Butthead. But those were the night programs they ran. During the day it was a lot of videos. This changed slowly and has now evolved into hardly ever showing a music video in its entirety.
Their focus has completely shifted away from music and into cheap, low-end programming. And for most of us, there are a few shows we’ll watch, but there is also a want. A feeling of nostalgia. There are times when a lot of us sit in front of MTV and just wish there were playing hours of music videos like they use to.Like being able to still sing the theme song from “Salute Your Shorts,” we yearn for the old MTV. But if they really did go back to the programming we all use to love, we would discover that we can’t stand it. The old way of programming worked fine for us back when cell phones and the internet were no where near the way they are today. We could sit in the house for hours watching their music videos and occasional segments of Jenny McCarthy working her magic on the set of “Singled Out.”
But today we are a much faster moving generation. We can’t take in the information fast enough. The fast paced style of MTV and its programming brethren seem to fit perfectly into our lives. No longer do we want, or have time, to sit for hours watching their music videos. We still want the videos, but only to casually look at online or to post to our networking sites.
We may think we miss part of what we use to love; but really we are seemingly catered to better now then before. Seemingly because of the thought that MTV has merely sold us, in essence, ourselves (but much cooler and more profitable). We’ve been sold the idea of the Mook (the sexually obsessed male) and Midriff (the female who desires sexual desirability). Shallow, self-absorbed characters who focus on physical appearance and personal satisfaction.
Look more closely at what you watch and you can be sure to play “Where’s Waldo” with these characters. Everything is done to make us feel good and we seem to enjoy it. We sometimes think we liked how it use to be, but we don’t. There is only one certainty in this whole mess: Music Television is no longer about the music.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Stay Tuned For Further Commercials
This is an opinion column I did for the Eastern Illinois University student newspaper. It ran on a Wednesday a month or so ago:
We did it! We finally got the upper hand on the media! No longer do we have to wait for a show and sit there and watch it during the designated time. Oh no, we DVR, TiVo, and record it any way we can. We choose the time and zap through the advertisements. Man it feels so good to no longer be a slave to time requirements and the commercial media.
Feels good to think they that, doesn’t it? Oh but the truth is far much further away from that then we could imagine. We do truly believe that we have risen above the force-feeding of advertisements with the advancement of digital video recording, but we haven’t. You may be zapping through the obvious commercials to get back to your show, but all you are really doing is fast forwarding to get to the other advertisements: the hidden ones.
And these can be sneaky to many of us who simply just enjoy watching our favorite shows and getting sucked in by the plot lines long enough for the advertisers to plant their messages and products everywhere. Do you think it’s just mere coincidence that Lauren from MTV’s “The Hills” works at Teen Vogue? Or that most everything everyone wears in that show is of the latest fashion and always presented in a good way?
It’s all for you! Not in the nice, cuddly “ here’s an ice cream cone to enjoy” way. But more as in the “you think this story is why you are here but really it’s to want to buy this stuff.” Now granted, the show “The Hills” does follow Lauren Conrad’s life; for the most part. But don’t think that those producers for that show are not trying every which way they can to mold her story and present the products those companies have paid for to be in the show.
Cause let’s face it, folks. It is all a show. A show for us, the consumers. We are not, and have never been, the “viewers.” That is just a word to make us feel better about what we subjugate ourselves to on almost a nightly basis. Now this isn’t something that we are easily going to overcome. It’s just the way the television is set up. We are all victims of it. The important thing is just being aware of what goes on around us and understanding how much all these people want our money. But no worries, right? You’re not one of those people. You don’t get sucked in by such things. Just don’t look in the mirror.
We did it! We finally got the upper hand on the media! No longer do we have to wait for a show and sit there and watch it during the designated time. Oh no, we DVR, TiVo, and record it any way we can. We choose the time and zap through the advertisements. Man it feels so good to no longer be a slave to time requirements and the commercial media.
Feels good to think they that, doesn’t it? Oh but the truth is far much further away from that then we could imagine. We do truly believe that we have risen above the force-feeding of advertisements with the advancement of digital video recording, but we haven’t. You may be zapping through the obvious commercials to get back to your show, but all you are really doing is fast forwarding to get to the other advertisements: the hidden ones.
And these can be sneaky to many of us who simply just enjoy watching our favorite shows and getting sucked in by the plot lines long enough for the advertisers to plant their messages and products everywhere. Do you think it’s just mere coincidence that Lauren from MTV’s “The Hills” works at Teen Vogue? Or that most everything everyone wears in that show is of the latest fashion and always presented in a good way?
It’s all for you! Not in the nice, cuddly “ here’s an ice cream cone to enjoy” way. But more as in the “you think this story is why you are here but really it’s to want to buy this stuff.” Now granted, the show “The Hills” does follow Lauren Conrad’s life; for the most part. But don’t think that those producers for that show are not trying every which way they can to mold her story and present the products those companies have paid for to be in the show.
Cause let’s face it, folks. It is all a show. A show for us, the consumers. We are not, and have never been, the “viewers.” That is just a word to make us feel better about what we subjugate ourselves to on almost a nightly basis. Now this isn’t something that we are easily going to overcome. It’s just the way the television is set up. We are all victims of it. The important thing is just being aware of what goes on around us and understanding how much all these people want our money. But no worries, right? You’re not one of those people. You don’t get sucked in by such things. Just don’t look in the mirror.
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I'd like to welcome you to my blog. Whether you find my posts witty, clever, works of modern art...or just bantha fodder, I hope you find my blog an interesting place to hang for a while.
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