The grand question of this generation is whether a single person can simultaneously use more than 5 forms of Media at once, say for example, writing a blog, watching the Jimmer-Jazz game on TV, listening to music, texting, and playing Plants vs. Zombies on my husbands Ipod.......

Let's just say this blog post is taking a little longer than usual to write.

The funniest show on TV...

... is obviously Top Gear. But since a friend of mine introduced me and my husband to the Disney cartoon Phineas and Ferb, I have decided to put it on the list. I find it surprisingly amusing, which often makes me wonder of kids are enjoying it as much as I do. After all, some of the jokes seem kind of... adult. Not "adult" in the sense of being inappropriate, but its not an easy cheap laugh that I would expect from a kids show. Like when they play on grammar: "I, for one, am starting to get bored, and boredom is something of up with which I will not put!". Or how the best jokes require you to remember random scenes from previous episodes (I obviously won't give an example of this because... it just couldn't be appreciate out of context). Or how everything is so off the wall and unexpected - I mean, they have a pet platypus for goodness sake! You just have to experience it people. Or maybe I just have a childish sense of humor - I would accept this conclusion. 
But now it's time for a Phineas and Ferb Best Moments Tribute!

"Behold, the Melt-inator 6-5000! It has a melting capacity... of 7! That's on a scale from 1 to 5, so that's a big number." 

Isabella: Hey Phineas. 
Phineas: Hey Isabella. 
Isabella: Watcha doin'? 
Phineas: We're making S'Winter. 
Isabella: S'Winter? 
Ferb: It's a unique and logic defying amalgam of Winter and Summer.

Dr. Doofenshmirtz: Ah, Perry the Platypus, what an unexpected surprise... and by unexpected, I mean completely expected!

Linda: I see your point, Candace. No crazy person would scream at a post like that. I'll be in the dairy section if you want to come yell at some cheese or anything. 

Phineas: We're gonna need a blowtorch and some more peanut butter. 

Phineas [when he sees a satellite]: You know, if that thing falls to Earth, Candace is in charge.

My plan to get fat

We often hear that the media, and television in particular, is contributing to obesity in this country. However, I'm going to put a slightly different spin on this idea, and describe how the media is going to help me get fat and get healthy, all in one! Amazing, I know. Here's the plan:
I have always had problems keeping to a healthy weight. For some reason, I cannot keep fat on my poor skinny bones. Since I am tired of my mom piling man-sized piles of meat on my plate every time I visit, I have decided that I need to get fat and healthy. And thus, my new favorite website in the whole entire world is choosemyplate.gov. If you haven't seen it yet, please, click the link and enjoy a wonderland of healthy wholesomeness. As well as a ton of resources on exercise and healthy eating, you can personalize your account to your own fitness and eating goals. You can keep track of your exercise hours and  plan new activities and schedules. You can get nutritional information for all your favorite foods, and keeps tabs on how close you are to your calorie limits or your folic-acid intake. You can even get a personalized coach to send you annoying emails to remind you to be healthy! I've been distracting myself from doing my homework for a long time now, and I haven't even begun to plumb its depths... so for all of you who are procrastinating writing that essay, go now and get healthy! That's as good of an excuse as any :)

Dear Friends,
It was a day like any other in the Howard Household. After a long hard day of working and studying and cleaning and general productivity, the assignments were finally completed and the dinner was eaten and cleaned up. "Won't it be fun," says my husband, "to sit down and watch something together?". Together we logged on to our shiny new netflix accounts and settled down enjoy some media. Several hours later (slight exaggeration), we had  narrowed it down to these choices:
Tangled
Mythbusters
Doctor Who
North and South
Prince of Persia
Daddy Daycare
A Knight's Tale
Dirty Dancing
That Thing You Do!
Star Trek (I'm going to clarify here- the movie, not the TV show. Sorry Trekkies, I am not one of you...)
Psych
Secretariat
Sense and Sensibility
Phineas and Ferb

Gone are the days when we would just go to out rather limited movie shelf and say "Well... I guess it's Pirates of the Caribbean again!" Life was so simple then...

P.S Just to clarify, and in case my father-in-law (who gifted us the netflix subscription) reads this, Netflix is actually really cool and I am grateful for it :)

In which Emily saves the world, one game at a time.

My Husband and I own a Playstation 3. We love it -we have Netflix and all sort of fun family-friendly games to enjoy together, like Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, Ratchet and Clank, and Little Big Planet. However, we do have one video game that would be unquestioning classed as a violent video game. This game is Call of Duty: World at War. In the game you re-enact battles from World War II as either an American or Russian Soldier. It's an exciting, fast paced cooperative game, and my husband and I really enjoy playing it together. The game cleverly appeals to my national pride and sense of morality through assigning you important tasks, such as securing airfields, ridding the world of bad guys, and basically saving the world. All of this, however, cannot overshadow the fact that the main point of the game is to kill other human beings. Violently. And therein lies my dilemma. Is this okay? Is the violence having a negative effect on me and my family?
Most of the current debate on violent video games centers around children and adolescents. Considering the things we read in chapter 1 of our Media Textbook, it seems sensible to be concerned that children may not be able to distinguish the media from reality. I, however, am an adult. I know that a bowl of popcorn on the TV does not spill when you turn the TV over. I know that the people in movies are actors, and I'm even skeptical of the things I hear on the news. I'm not going to start going out and killing people just because I've had practice. So is there anything I should be concerned about?
Just last night, my husband had a nightmare about killing people. And this morning, as stupid as it might sound, I had to check behind the shower curtain for bloody corpse. Do we know that it's not real? Of course. Does that stop it having a effect on us?
I'm still not entirely sure about this issue, but it's worth thinking about.

Why I hate the Hunger Games

There are several reasons why recommending that my husband Chris read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was a bad idea. One, he spent all yesterday reading instead of doing his homework. Two, I spent all of yesterday reading over his shoulder instead of doing my homework. Three, we're starting to have dreams about people eating our legs. Four, I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to convince Katniss to appreciate Peeta. Five, I'm starting to find deep moral lessons in its words. And six, I watched the movie trailer this morning and cried because it was so powerful. I repeat: the movie TRAILER. The Hunger Games is officially taking over my life, and I've already read it once! I know exactly what happens, and still I can't let it go! I propose that The Hunger Games should be required to carry a label saying
WARNING: This book will consume at least 65% of your thoughts for the next 6 months.
Seriously though, if you want to do anything productive in 2012, don't read this book. If you want to live a real life, and have relationships with real people, and worry about real problems, if you have any pride in living.... just stay away.
That's all I have time for.... I have to go read The Hunger Games now.