Michael and Drew- "Sin City"

Drew and I have chosen the new comedy of this year, The Hangover. In The Hangover a group of guys spend a night in Last Vegas celebrating their friends last night of being a bachelor. What they don’t know is that it will end up being one of their craziest nights that they will experience. They start off the night by taking shots but what they don’t realize is that Alan spikes their drinks with Roofies “aka Floories.” The next morning they wake up and don’t remember a thing from the night before. Their room has been trashed but have no reason why and want to leave before the maids come and make them pay for the damage. They start to pack and remember what happened when they realize their missing Doug, they guy is getting married the next day. They start to piece things together but still don’t know what happened to Doug. They keep wondering why they don’t remember anything from the night before then Alan confesses that he had spiked their drinks at the beginning of the night. Once they piece the night together they remember they put Doug up on the roof where they began the night. They have to hurry back so Doug can make it on time to the wedding. They found a camera in the car after the wedding and decided they will look at it once and never speak of it again. I guess the saying is true “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” We find this funny because we feel like with the guys we hang out with we can relate to what happens in the movie. I could see us doing some of the things they do in the movie like leaving a car in the middle of the freeway because we ran out of gas. We always talk about what would happen if we would take a trip to Las Vegas and ask “would we make it alive?” We think that we would make it out alive but there will definitely be a good story behind the night in “Sin City.”

Jerry Seinfeld

My favorite stand up comedian/actor is Jerry Seinfeld. If you have ever seen his show you find yourself always laughing but you always ask “what is this show about?” In reality his shows aren’t about anything really other than what people encounter in everyday life. In this skit Jerry opens up with him walking around the airport and he buys a sandwich and everyone knows that the food in airports are overpriced but he says “I wonder if the people selling the sandwiches really know how much their selling them for or are they just selling them to sell them?” Then he moves on to where he is sitting on a plane and he is talking about when the pilot of the plane comes over the intercom system explaining the flight and the altitude. When I’m sitting on a plane I always notice that the pilot never seems excited he always seems very monotone, tired, and doesn’t really want to be on that flight. Also, he explains what he is going to do like the passengers actually care but in truth all they care about is that they get to their destination in a safe ordinary fashion. Then Seinfeld says “it is not like I go up to his cockpit and tell him what I’m doing and bothering him.” I think Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy is hilarious because every joke he has is something that you have encountered and you find funny. Also, he has a conversation with himself as if he’s the other person like in the case he is the pilot and changes his voice so its monotone and not very excited. Unlike Katt Williams and Dave Chapelle he is cleaner with his skit which I like more but having the cuss words every now and then is funny but not every other word that comes out.

Michael's Blog

In “Cyrano de Bergerac” there are many situations where the characters show their love for one another. I think that the character who shows their love the best is Cyrano. Cyrano unlike Christian can tell a girl what they want to hear, instead of telling them their beautiful. Cyrano sounds more truthful and more romantic than Christian. Also, Cyrano goes out of the way by writing her love letters (outside writing them for Christian) and sending them to her atleast two times a day. He even lies to Christian by saying he would only write Roxanne once every couple of weeks so he wouldn’t think anything was up. Roxanne also tells Christian that she basically loves Cyrano because she like the way he’s passionate and respects her. She says that she was in love with the words that comes out of his mouth not just looks. Most girls that I have known always love someone who is romantic and can say the right things not someone who just does the ordinary things. Because Cyrano is so good at these things he gets Roxanne to fall in love with him for his words not his looks like most girls. If Christian felt more confident and instead of asking for Cyrano’s help writing her letters he would’ve got Roxanne by just his looks but he asked for help and it changed her mind. Cyrano shows that his love is more passionate and truthful than that of Christian.

Michael Squires

In the book, “Last Chance to See”, Douglas Adams talks a lot about obsessive conservationists. I think they are so obsessive because they love what they do and no matter what happens their going to keep doing what they love to do. In the first chapter, Here Be Chickens, Adams describes Melbourne who knows anything and everything about poisonous snakes than anyone. Melbourne doesn’t like his job but he does it anyways because someone has to watch out for the researchers who get bit by them. He also has an obsession about hydroponics which he would rather talk about than snakes. These so called “obsessive” people are out trying to save the endangered species of animals so they will be living and will hopefully one day come off the endangered lists. If these people weren’t out there then some of the most extraordinary animals we have on earth won’t be living anymore. If we didn’t have obsessive people in the world then everything would be ruined, imagine if we did stop being so obsessive then we would have trash all over our streets or no animals for us to research. We can all to this in some way if you really think about it. We all have that one thing we admire, for me its baseball. I have to be obsessive about baseball if I want to be successful at it. Just like these guys have to be obsessive for the animals they are trying to save. They go out in the worst condition, for long periods of time, and for nothing at all, just the love of what their doing.

Michael's Blog

I think that us as readers will believe anything that is written in a book to an extent. We are taught at a young age that if you read books you’ll expand your mind and become more intelligent on subjects you read about. When Trout and Maggie have this conversation about “if the stuff he writes about is really true”, Trout makes up a story and Maggie believed every word that came out of his mouth. When Then trout backed it up by saying “It’s like advertising. You have to tell the truth in advertising, or you get in trouble” (pg.218). We all know that sometimes even advertising isn’t always truthful they want you to buy their product. Same thing for authors they want to write something that will sell and make them money. In slaughterhouse five Vonnegut uses many surreal scenes throughout this book but at the same time he uses pretty extreme ones as well. He wants to make this book realistic but at the same time he feels that if he does then it’ll be boring so he throws in some ridiculous scenarios like Billy getting in a plane crash and him being the only one that survives the plane crash, after the plane crash he starts telling people that he got kidnapped by the Tralfamadorian’s and was held prisoner for many years but seemed like seconds on Earth. This is when us as readers take a second and say “Wait a minute. Did this really happen? There is no way.” Us as readers have to understand what Vonnegut is trying to write about in this book. My understanding of the book is that he didn’t want to make this book so real that the audience gets bored with it after a couple of chapters and puts it down. He wanted to make it into an interesting story about a kid who entered the war and ever since he has never been the same mentally and physically.

Michael's Blog

Have you ever been so tired that you find almost anything funny even if it brings pain upon you? Almost as if you were delirious? I know I have and I think Billy feels the same way when Weary “beats the shit” out of him at the end of chapter two. Billy who is just your ordinary “college” kid and has no idea about survival techniques or anything like that is asked to go into the Second World War basically “blind”. He joins three other men behind enemy lines and has to search days for his Calvary. By the end of the chapter Billy has complained so much that it pisses Weary off so he beats him up. I think Billy finds this funny because he is delirious and how Weary is so mad about the situation. Even though Weary’s story claims that they saved Billy even though he wanted to quit but they didn’t want him to give up. In real life Weary gets tired of everything and wants to kill him. Also, I think that Billy realizes that they are about to be found by the enemy and instead of worrying about getting away from the dogs barking and the search party Weary has one thing set on his mind and that is “beating the shit” out of him.

Michael Squires Blog #3

In our culture we use words to communicate with others and different words have different meanings. In the Trickster story the authors audience are little kids because its telling a life story taught by many adults. I think the author uses the word defecate to humor his audience and keep them interested so they’ll follow the whole story to its ending and listen to the lesson he is trying to teach. At a very young age we are taught to listen and not do things that we are told not to but in the Trickster story the character feels he is of higher authority. Having this “higher authority” got the character in trouble because when he heard the voices “don’t eat me or you will defecate” he thought that it’s just a plant what could it do. After he eats the flower nothing happens so he thinks he has won the battle but really the worst is to come. As he is on his adventure he starts to “break wind” and can’t stop at first he thinks this is funny but quickly becomes aggravating. Once he thinks the breaking wind stops he starts to defecate all over the place and can’t stop until he finally falls in his own waste. I think the trees in this story are kind of like adults in an essence because he turns to them asking for advice or direction so he can survive and stay alive. I found this story humorous because I can see myself doing the same thing, because I always was a “rebellious” child. Doing differently what I was told. I can relate to what the character went through and that’s why I think I don’t do those things now because I know what it can get me into