Blog 8: Look Who's Talking!

I know we already did a video post but that was more about the context and focal point of the video. This video is for fun. It was just recently sent me this video of Einstein the bird talking on Animal Planet and it amazes me the intelligence we are unaware of in some animals. I am sure almost all of you own a dog or have owned a dog, and the fact it can high five you when you ask or play dead is pretty shocking. We always wonder what would happen if animals could talk. In this video Einstein can make multiple sounds including animal sounds, sound effects, word phrases and others. He does sound effects I can’t even do! I don’t even know how you would begin to teach an animal how to speak and off of cue words. Though it is probably off of only cue words it sure does make Einstein sound like he knows what he is talking about. For example in the introduction he knows his own name, that is hilarious. I noticed the judge’s jaws dropped a few times. Not only does Einstein do sounds he can move. Have you ever seen a bird get his groove on and do a little dance and be crazy? Now I have. This clip is just cute and interesting and I thought you guys would like to see it, something fun. Just imagine if that was your pet dog or cat. Your friends come over and your dog introduced himself to everyone or if you throw a party you could ask your cat for a dance. What a crazy thought, but then again it could happen.

As Einstein says,“Goodbye”.

Blog 7: Look no feet!

Look no feet! Next time I am going to try no hands! I just turned 9 years old last week and received every little girl’s dream as a present from my grandparents. Not only did I get a brand new pink and purple bike (my favorite colors) with brand new, shiny training wheels and a white helmet, I also got a crazy track to ride my new bike on. My grandparents bought the land then built the track for me. As you can see they started this project long before I was even conceived, it’s a bit old looking. The first time I tried it a few days ago I was kind of scared because we don’t have lights on it yet, but it was so much fun. It is hard to carry my bike up the 85 steps up to this starting point, but it is so worth it! It is so big, every time I go it is a good 10 minutes of craziness. My brother makes fun of me for still having training wheels but I am too scared to ride with just two wheels, no way! I just feel safer. People get out of their cars and stare and yell, I don’t know why, I think they are just jealous but they can try it if they want, I love to share my toys. I am bummed though because next Friday is show and tell and I really wanted to bring this but I can’t, so I am showing everyone on here!

Blog 6: Pop Culture for all

I was assigned to look at a blog on USA’s website titled “Pop Candy, Unwrapping pop culture’s hip and hidden treasures” , written by Whitney Matheson. I really, really liked this blog it was fun and tasteful. She updates you on current events dealing with pop culture including TV shows, comic book events, news about celebrities, movies, and so on. Her blog uses so many conventions. I found myself looking at it for quite a while, it definitely caught my interest, you should check it out. The first is along the left side of her blog there are five separate sections to locate you to different places including: Recent Posts, Categories, Archives, Other USA Today blogs, and Worth Reading. Under each of those titles in the box there are about 10-18 links that if you push will direct you to whatever it says. That is so convenient, if I want just to see the gossip blogs I just have to click gossip under Categories. The second use of conventions was in her texts. She used links great in her text. The way she included them flowed well, she would just make the words links, the color is the only thing indicating it’s a link other than that it’s just part of the sentence, incorporated great. In one of her blogs she ends with headlines and she did used links very well. Here are some examples.

- Here's a preview of next week's HRG-heavy Heroes.

- ABC's Six Degrees will return with new episodes March 23.
- We give The Number 23 one-and-a-half stars.
- Are you ready for Edward Scissorhands, The Musical
-Here's a list of the 10 best moments from Reno 911! -- with video.
- Nick Cannon may have secretly married a Victoria's Secret model in Las Vegas last weekend.
Third, a convention she utilizes is pictures. She doesn’t have a lot but when she does they relate to the subject of that blog. Her blog is different from mine in a few ways. The title of her blog stands out more than mine. It is a fun font with polka dots, pink, and is a huge font. She also has advertising on her blog which of course I don’t, but this is because she is working for a newspaper corporation. I also don’t have the different sections on the side to direct views to certain places or categories. I could incorporate those in my blog somehow I suppose. Also maybe I can figure out how to make my title stand out more and be fun like hers. She also has some humor in some of her blogs, as do I, but not as much. For example in the latest blog about the comic book convention and star wars cast and fans being there she ends her blog with the quote of the day “"Dude, Chewbacca's riding the same escalator as us!" she went on to explain that the actor who played Chewbacca was walking ahead of her. I thought that was a funny way to end her blog. As I mentioned, before this blog is very entertaining and her writing obviously adds very much to it because I think she writes well and chooses great things to write about and pop culture almost everyone wants to know about. Also what a fun job, if you read her blogs you can see how she gets to meet a lot of famous people and experience numerous events.

Observational Essay: Coffee to Comfort

The aroma is pleasant , the sounds of several different conversations surround me, and the atmosphere is cozy. Caffeine, something most crave in the early hours of the day, before work or after dropping the kids off at school. A place is known for their mastery in making caffeine drinks of many flavors and sorts. Starbucks Coffee is that place. Millions all over the world love Starbucks, they offer various coffee drinks from hot mochas and sweet lattes or cold frappuchinos to just a plain black coffee. They offer tasty drinks for non-coffee lovers as well, also they make homemade delicious pastries each day including: cinnamon sugar coffee cakes, blueberry and chocolate chip muffins, big snicker doodle and sugar cookies, almond chocolate chip toffee bars, banana chocolate chip bread, and many more. Besides their great food, they always have a friendly and warm atmosphere. A local Starbucks at 64th and Ward in suburban Arvada brings people in day in and day out.

You can tell Valentine’s Day is near, holiday retail is everywhere, a red coffee mug with pink hearts holding a little teddy bear, chocolates, and gift cards with hearts all over them. This all adds to the cozy feeling. It was mid-morning around ten and still quite busy. The majority of the customers are older, most retired and joining a friend and discussing each other’s lives. As time went by a variety of people came in, showing how all ages love their coffee. A high school couple passes through to get a drink, then seconds later another couple fifty years older gets their to go coffee mugs filled with their drink of choice and are out the door. Among the retired adults, a couple of businessmen beginning their career enjoyed their coffee as well. The first one waits in line holding his briefcase, he looks sharp with his tie and collard white shirt. After a few short minutes, he takes his coffee, sits down behind me and goes through papers for work and makes phone calls on his slick, high-tech cell phone. Meanwhile, another business man with the same attire enters but goes straight back to the restroom, hurries out gets coffee and walks out while chatting on his cell phone as well. In addition, students who are in the process of learning about their desired career need their coffee too. A college looking student enters with a Stephen King novel in hand. After getting his coffee he starts reading the novel, then plays with his phone, and shortly after I catch him gazing out the window. He is pondering something, but no one knows.

I have yet to see anyone expressing any anger or even a hint of unhappiness. Everyone is very content and enjoying themselves. I hear the clinks and clanks of change falling into the register as an employee does a transaction. Laughter is heard all around me in all different pitches. One comes from a lady in the corner across the room, its a short loud shriek but it is laughter. The employees behind the counter sing along to the music playing, they joke around with each other and are laughing pretty hard, they must not hate their job, but then again it is Starbucks. “The people I work with is what makes it fun”, Ruth says with a smile. Starbucks is a place for leisure as well as a good drink. It’s apparent in this Starbucks as they provide four big, blue velvet, comfy chairs for people to use. It’s nice, not all coffee shops provide this luxury. Later, an older man enters gets his coffee and sits at the table besides me, opens a new pack of red inked pens, and begins his daily routine of filling out the crossword puzzle in the local newspaper.

I hear the sounds of creating a caramel macchiato while they top the drink with whip cream, and I hear a steamer go off several times to heat someone’s drink to just the right temperature. Starbucks’ hot drinks are never too hot to drink right away, many appreciate this Starbuck‘s specialty as everyone sips their coffee seconds after picking it up. On the other hand, as cold drinks are ordered I see and hear a woman scooping ice and the blender going off. Usually people think a blender’s noise is the most annoying sound, not here it fits in and just works with all the other sounds that are going off, no one even notices. Alarms are going off and the phone rings once while I am there; who needs to call Starbucks? Everyone knows their drink they always get. It’s not like you need directions to one. A great thing is that they are everywhere. You just need step outside your neighborhood and you are bound to see one, there is a Starbucks at every block.
There is a cart to the side of where you pick up your order. The cart contains three different pitchers of milk, several different kinds of sugars, sleeves for your coffee, stir sticks, and napkins. An older man with a duffle bag awaits for his coffee as he leans on his cane. His order, two coffees in the middle size, a box with a pastry, and a bag with another pastry came up quickly. This was ironic because he had ordered the most out of anyone so far, yet has only one available hand to carry anything with because the other is occupied with his cane. Will anyone help him? As a man goes over to the cart to add cream, they exchange conversation, I assume the man offers help. The man must have declined, next he puts his pastries in his duffle, asks for a to go holder for his coffee and leaves full handed. I feel sorry for him, though he leaves pleased.

Busy, busy, busy, everyone is so busy in their lives, they need to get coffee so they can continue staying busy. It’s the norm but Starbucks is different from the norm and that’s why it’s not the ordinary coffee shop, their variety makes them the one that everyone wants. Many come to this well known coffee place to pause that busy lifestyle for either a few seconds or several minutes. I noticed how they sell everything possible to create your own Starbucks at home. The exact machines and steamers, several different kinds of coffee beans, flavored syrups (caramel, white chocolate, vanilla…), and other Starbucks’ items, yet only one woman bought something other than coffee. Even so, she only bought a simple mug. People don’t buy these things to create a Starbucks at home because part of getting your Starbucks is going there and enjoying the people you run into, the leisure reading, or even the meaningless gaze out the window. Whatever it may be people like going to Starbucks and look forward to the warm atmosphere where disappoint is seldom and relaxation is guaranteed whether it’s a tall, grande, or veinte.

Blog:5 Easy as A B C

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Blog:4 The $Bucks from Starbucks

The place that I have chosen to observe is the infamous Starbucks. You may think that is not very original, but honestly I am not as “related” to Starbucks than most. Yes, I like their drinks but nearly not as much as some people, as you will find out. I am not even a big fan of coffee in general so that reduces my choices by a few. I chose Starbucks because I don’t go in that much and it is a huge enterprise for coffee and I want to observe why and exactly how hectic a morning in Starbucks gets. Obviously, one of the sites I researched on was Starbuck’s homepage. On their site there are several different options relating to their stores like where to find store locations, how to reload your Starbucks card, nutrition facts, and many more. They have places if you want to hear live music or you can buy retail items on the site such as shirts or coffee mugs and even coffee machines and coffee beans. This is such a great source of marketing for them, not that they don’t have enough. This site shows all the aspects of Starbucks besides just coffee. According to Starbucks Fact Sheet, I found on Wikipedia, there are a total of 12,440 locations of Starbucks Coffee in the world, that was updated November 2006. Of that total 8,830 are located within the U.S. and 3,604 are located in 36 other countries worldwide. That is incredible. Seattle is where the headquarters is for Starbucks, and on a local online news source, Seattle Pi talks about how Starbucks will most likely have as many locations as McDonalds or more. McDonald’s has around 29,000 locations throughout the world as of now, Starbucks is well on their way to reaching their goal. Another interesting site I found was the Starbucks Gossip site , a very popular site for people who love the coffee. As I tried to find out how much the average Starbucks customer spends annually on their coffee I found it was hard to find that so I found this similar fact instead. The average customer visits Starbucks 6 times a month, but the same spokesperson said that the loyal customers will visit 18 times a month. Since we are involved in blogging so much in this class, you can scroll down on the page with this statistic and see what others have to say in response. One person comments how she has a Starbucks built into her apartment complex and that she visits at least three times a day!! I guess it varies with each person, but I definitely know people that go six times a week let alone a month. Starbucks has definitely become a phenomenon for coffee and they have such a huge diverse demographic. My audience for this next observation blog is within this demographic and I know most of you have had a Starbucks coffee more than once in your lifetime. I am interested in observing all the different kinds of people that visit such a common place for a simple product of coffee, and I want to see how much people really do spend for it. There are probably questions that will be answered that I didn’t even think of when I am sitting in a local Starbucks at a peak time.

Blog:3 Bridezilla is out!

The video from Youtube I chose is titled “Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out”, as you watch you can see it’s about a bride who gets her hair done for her wedding and ends up hating it. This is all an hour before her wedding begins, so her solution is to cut the curls off. The beginning is not as amusing, but it leads up to the focal point. It is the introduction, it kind of gives you a setting of where they are what is going on. Also, it shows you how fast everyone’s mood changed once the bride entered the room, it was instantaneously. I was told about this video by my mother who owns a bridal store so the interest is obvious. This clip got so much attention on Youtube that it appeared on the Today show last week.

The focal point of this video is when she is actually cutting her own hair in angry rage. There is a lot of content in the video. It contains home video catching this unplanned action taking place. There is the bride and bridesmaids which include her sister and close friends. They try to calm her down but once she goes crazy with nearby scissors, they have no control, later the bride asks, “Why did you let me cut my hair”. She should look back on the video because as she would see, there was nothing they could do, she was seriously in a state of temporary insanity. They even tried getting her to down champagne. I think the calmest part was when she was cutting her hair and telling the other girls “to relax”. There is a little example of irony. Honestly, I don’t think that the video was altered at all. It is funny because I am sure the bride wishes the video was altered in some way to make her look not as crazy, but it was not. The video ends in her curdling scream, “TURN THE CAMERA OFF!”. Very amusing. The reason I am watching this strangers’ crisis online is because it’s funny and shocks me how crazy we humans can get from stress. If you notice her friend can’t even keep her giggles in because it is so outrageous. Throughout my childhood I hated the phrase “We aren’t laughing at you, we are laughing with you”, I hated it, because I would have a bad fall or do something humiliating and my friends would laugh and say that phrase. I would be crying which is why they couldn’t be laughing with me because I wasn’t laughing! This video reminds me of all those times because here is a woman freaking out, humiliated, and so upset, yet there is still humor within the situation as her friend laughs at it. I can relate in that way, but I still chuckled when I saw this video. At my mom’s shop they have a joke, that some of the brides shopping have P.M.S, Pre-Martial Stress, and this video can prove that. This poor woman is so unhappy and thinks she is so terrifyingly ugly with the hairstyle given to her, that she really thinks cutting off the curls will improve the look? All the girls reading this, would you ever do that? You would think not, but stress and anxiety can bring the worst out of us. This online video caught so much attention that it was shown on National television, that has to show you the different kinds of entertainment in this world of media. Therefore, this video’s context, involving the bride’s discomfort and pain, helps me understand what she is going through and although I chuckle while watching it helps me have sympathy as well.