The paper is written and will be handed in tomorrow morning. I will post the paper along with grade soon as I get it back.

Starting tomorrow after class (Spring Break suckas!) I am going to binge the fuck out on all the youtube videos I missed and all the DVDs I have yet to watch!!

As for the blog, I think I’m going to keep it around for a bit longer.

From here on I’m going to try to keep a log of every single thing I watch, so there should be an abundant amount of updates. And who knows, maybe I’ll even try the ADBusters TV Turn off thing in April.

For now I leave you with this video, a 1980′s masterpiece which will serve as the Blog’s theme for some time to come.

TVPARTY!!!!

Lyrics:

“TV Party”

T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!

We’re gonna have a T.V. party tonight!

Alright!

We’re gonna have a T.V. party alright!

Tonight!

We’ve got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

All our friends are gonna hang out here tonight

Alright!

We’re gonna pass out on the couch alright

Tonight!

We’ve got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don’t talk about anything else
We don’t wanna know!
We’re dedicated
To our favorite shows!

We sit glued to the T.V. set all night
And every night!
Why go into the outside world at all?
It’s such a fright!

We’ve got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

T.V. news shows what it’s really like out there
It’s a scare!

You can go out if you want
We wouldn’t dare!

We’ve got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don’t talk about anything else
We don’t wanna know!
We’re dedicated
To our favorite shows!

I wouldn’t be without my T.V. for a day
Or even a minute!

Don’t even bother to use my brain anymore
There’s nothing left in it!

We’ve got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Wait a minute! My T.V. set doesn’t work!
It’s broken!
What are we gonna do tonight? This isn’t fair!
We’re hurtin’

We’ve got nothing left to do
With no T.V. and just a couple of brews

What are we gonna talk about?
I don’t know!
We’re gonna miss our favorite shows!
NO T.V. PARTY TONIGHT!

Today I have only one class, my Major Writers of the 20th Century with Professor David Hoddeson. (One of the most interesting and entertaining professors at Rutgers-Newark.)

We have been reading Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” for class. When I walked into class I was surprised to find that we were going to watch the 2002 film based on the novel (there was also a 1958 film.)

The movie was interesting; I found Brandon Fraser and Michael Caine were kind of miscast for the movie. The characters did not look or act like anything I expected from reading the book. As with most movies based on novels, I felt like the film drained all the depth out of the novel. It was just a superficial glossed over version.

There are simply some books that don’t translate well, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera are examples of similar disasters.

The movies aren’t bad really, and The Quiet American I saw in class today wasn’t bad at all. They are just nowhere near as good as the novel and seem very soulless and lifeless when compared to the books.

I think the problem with films like this is that the books they are based on, which in many ways are unconventionally written (though “The Quiet American” is very conventional in comparison to the other two books I mentioned), simply cannot be done justice by traditional film making.

I think innovative and unconventional methods are needed to get closer to the spirit of what the author is trying to communicate. I think one of the best examples would be Fellini’s adaptation of Satyricon and though not based on any novel, Todd Hayne’s recent Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There is a perfect exemplar of a film that communicates a message using innovative methods.

In any case, this occasion marks the third time I have really fucked up the Unplugged project. All three times have been related to schoolwork, so they don’t really count; but I will be sure to add them in my final paper which I will be writing tonight.

I wake up and…

                  YAWN! 

Tuesday begins easily. I wake up after my long slumber at around 11 am.

I have classes straight from 1:00pm-3:50. Afterwards I run the the newspaper office make sure the papers have come in and call the people to distribute it. We usually have a short meeting from 5-6pm.

From 6-9pm I have a class. Not much time to think about watching TV or video even If i wasn’t doing this project.

Today was a breeze.

Sidenote: I decided to end the project and begin my paper tomorrow at 6:00 p.m.  I probably will keep off TV and video until midnight just to play it safe.

Sunday’s are usually set aside for working on the school newspaper, The Observer.

I don’t know how it happened but I somehow ended up being Editor-In-Chief this semester. I’m going to just admit off the bat that I hate being tied down by massive responsibility. But after working at the paper for a few semesters, I kind of started to care about it. Somehow I have been very consistent and dedicated to this, to the extent where I have even shocked myself.

I usually spend anywhere from 28-35 hours at the newspaper office doing layout, editing and writing stories. The task is no joke to say the least.

What made it even more daunting was the fact that I had a 5 page philosophy paper on Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals due this Tuesday night.

Through it all I would have to avoid watching any video…

My plan:

Phase 1: Call the NJ Turnpike and tell them suckers I was going to take the weekend off, and ask them to pay me for it! (Luckily I had some paid leave days left so this was easy!)

Phase 2: Do as much layout as possible on Saturday morning afternoon (My birthday)

Phase 3: Do my paper on Sunday morning, head to the newspaper office as soon as I finished it (hopefully by noon) and staying there until it’s done!

Heres how it worked out.

Phase 1: No problem I called in on Friday, got the days off. So far, so good.

Phase 2: The Philosophy paper…now this was tougher than I thought.

I woke up at 12 p.m. in the afternoon and got right to work, my first step was to copy down quotes from the four books I read for the paper.

I was done by about 1 o’clock and started the essay proper. I looked at my Nietzsche book, furrowed my brow and was ready to strive and struggle towards excellence. This essay would not beat me I would repudiate all doubt from my mind and crush it with my overflowing will power. I AM DYNAMITE

….. ahem…only it didnt work out that way

Isn’t he a handsome devil. That mustache is the shit, yo!

I won’t lie Friedrich Nietzsche kicked my ass. What began as a 5 page piece of cake turned into an epic.

1:30 I struggled with page one…

2:00 VIDEO ALERT: There is something I do when i write essays which really helps me relieve tension, I used to think it was just procrastination but doing this unplugged project I realize it’s an essential part of my essay writing process.

What I do is after every page or two I watch a few videos on the web or play some short mindless video game, preferably one in which I shoot things. I really struggled at this point to find some distraction, but due to the project I could only either face my essay or read something else to relive stress. Reading, in this instance was not a good stress reliever.

However I held my ground and resisted all urges to watch videos or to play a game.

2:30 Highly frustrated but got to page 4. I was still on part 1 of my out line which indicated that this essay was gonna be much longer than required.

3:00 Page 5 but I stop to reread everything and then got the sudden strong feeling that it was all junk. I was tempted to restart the whole thing . Then I’m tempted to watch something…a comedy, a stupid video whatever. Brimming with frustration, I throw my books against the wall instead and step away from the computer.

3:00-400 I take a break and decide to go for a walk.

4:00 I come back look over my stuff again and realize it’s not so bad. I reword a few sentences, remove a few paragraphs add some stuff and it’s looking good again.

4:00-5:00 I kick ass. I get to page seven and decide to take a break. I email the essay to myself so I can hit the newspaper office and work on the paper.

6:00 Phase 3 Begins, even though I’m not done with Phase 2!

I get to the newspaper office which is located at the Paul Robeson Campus at Rutgers. I spend A LOT of time here and today is the big day where I have to sit in front of the PC laying out the paper until I’m done.

Below is a pic of the office. Check out the retro 1970s paint job. HOT!

(Top: Sheena the Managing Editor working on a story.Center: Janebug modeling in the office. Bottom Matt Brenner, the sports editor, working on some layout)

6:00-8:00 I do some layout and joke around with the other editors. The horoscope girl shows up to layout comics and write the horoscopes so I decide to drive back home and finish my philosophy paper.

8:30-11:00 I work on my paper. After many hours of book throwing, cursing out loud, hair pulling, breaktaking and rewriting I finally complete the essay. The 5 page paper ends up being an 11 page monster. TRIUMPH!!!

Though I tried to be as concise as possible, I had a very difficult time breaking down Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Moral’s down to 5 pages. But whatever, in the end I looked at my work proudly and exclaimed a hearty “FUCK YOU NIETZSCHE, IN YOUR FACE SUCKER!”

It was spoken with such life affirming vigor that I knew my statement would’ve made the old German philosopher proud.

I could not help thinking of an old graffiti epitaph i saw scrawled on a wall in the East Village, “Nietzsche: “God is dead. Years later… God: Nietzsche is dead.”

And Jesus wrote an essay about it….

Phase 2: Nietzsche essay ass officially kicked

Phase 3: I return to the office

Hey look it’s Monday!

12 a.m. till 7:15 a.m. Monday morning: I layout, write and make the newspaper thing happen.

It’s odd the whole ordeal feels a lot less like a chore than the philosophy paper did. Through it all I remain focused, lucid and even-tempered. Everything is done efficiently and I rarely take breaks. There are absolutely no urges to watch video through it all.

Still I spend a shitload of time doing it. Around 8:23 am I realize I need to stop working on the paper and run to class if I don’t want to be late.

8:30 – Good ol’ TV & Society class with Prof. Jarah Moesch.The reason this website exists and the reason I almost went banas during my philosophy essay (I admit I was feening for video breaks, twitches and all.)
Class was alright. We covered Postmodernism and how it relates to TV. It was interesting to see how the continental philosophy was used in relation to what we have been learning in class. The readings labeled the X-Files as one of the first and most important Postmodern shows. So we watched an episode.

As hard as i tried to stay up during the show. I nodded off completely a few minutes into the screening. It usually happens on Monday, as much as I try to fight off sleep, this class is my power nap before I come back to the paper ready to put in the finishing touches.

Something interesting happened during the screening, class ended before the show did, and the majority of the class decided to stay and finish the show to see how it ends. I stayed just for a few extra minutes of sleep, but ended up staying up and watching the ending too, despite not even seeing the beginning. It wasn’t hard to fill in the loose ends.

I messed up the project again, but I decided a few days ago not to count the in class video so it’s cool.

10:00-2:30 More layout, copyediting and putting the finishing touches on the paper

2:30 I head to my Major writers of the 20th Century class – but my teacher is out (So far Ive been awake 25 hours..it was hard the first few weeks but my body seems to have gotten used to the sunday-monday ritual and it’s been getting easier every week.)

2:40:4:30 I run back and continue the layout process. By 3:30 the task is done…I wrap up by changing the pages to pdf and send them to the printer. Heres a look at the final outcome.

The cover:

One of my stories on the inside:

Every week after the paper is finally done, as a tradition I play the theme song from Rocky, throw on my hoodie, and jump around shadowboxing. Yeah I know it’s weird but you would be just as nuts after 30ish hours of staring at a computer screen.

Phase 3: Accomplished!!!!!!

5:00-5:45pm

My favorite part: I hit Tops Diner and get the most opulent breakfast I can find. This week: French Toast, with bananas, strawberries, chestnuts and whip cream! Say word!

6:00pm Monday- 11:00am Tuesday

Phase 4: Sleep my ass off!!! Operation: Hibernation

The rest of Monday is spend in bed. I sleep for a very long time. Anywhere from 12-16 hours. When I wake up on Tuesday I feel refreshed but I look like this…

To be continued….

I had a few run ins with video, and some close calls.

Early in the day I went to a friend’s house  and his younger sister was watching a DVD of No Country for Old Men a movie I desperately want to watch. I waltzed into the room a few times to chat and caught myself staring at the screen for a few seconds then leaving the room abruptly. I raised an eyebrow after repeating this a few times.

Finally it came up, “What’s wrong with you, sit still and watch the movie.”  I explained the Unplugged project to them and told them I wasn’t supposed to watch any videos. They laughed and called me a nerd. I laughed too.

But I made sure they understood I wasn’t a nerd by grabbing a can of beer and smashing it on my forehead OGRESTYLE!!

!

Other than that no visual media popped up during my bday. Lots of shit happened that you readers wish you probably could see in a video… but that’s not going to happen!

More to come….

He sprung towards the door, ready for action, and leaned down to find the following envelope!

Our dashing hero noticed the letter was sent from “Mom,” the address written neatly below in script confirmed this. But what astonished him was that the envelope was decorated by TELEVISIONS!

Was this some insidious plot. Did some discover his intention to avoid the boob-toob for a week and send this card to him as a scornful taunt! Maybe his mom’s name was forged, maybe it was sent by the devious television corporations of the United States of America.

Our hero pondered what the card could contain, should he open it was it a trap?

Ever the brave soul he tore open the envelope and was overwhelmed with shock and distress…

It was a message from

FONZIE!!!

“Your not getting older…” What could Fonzie mean by this? Was it some odd Borgesian puzzle, was it a secret code?

Was the fact that an old TV set was featured on the cover a clue… What was even more mysterious is why Fonzie did not blurt out his trademark…”AYYYY!”

Only one way to find out, Jesus bravely ventured onward and opened the card!!!

And as he opened it, prepared for whatever adventure and danger Fonzie had prepared for him, music began to blare loudly , it sounded just like this….

[sonific 0c7eafafa0b951477df055502931e82be87e24de]

and as the card opened the secret was ultimately revealed

It was an early birthday card for Jesus from Mom, Dad and even his arch-nemesis Fonzie!

Cool!

Stay tuned for a new adventure soon!

Sidenote: My birthday is actually tomorrow! WHAT! And so far no urges to watch TV or video, been keeping busy writing and reading for classes.

Just click on the link above for more info, I also pasted the contents of the home page just below it.

The idea is simple: take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days. Simple, but not at all easy. Like millions of others before you, you’ll be shocked at just how difficult – yet also how life-changing – a week spent unplugged can really be.

But there’s a lot more to TV Turnoff Week than shaking up your relationship with passive entertainment. It’s all about saying no to being bombarded with unwelcome and unhealthy commercial messages. It’s about saying no to unfettered corporate media concentration and to the democratic deficit that results. And it’s about challenging the heavily distorted reflection of the world that we see on the screen, a reflection that is keeping us ill-informed and unaware of the very real political and environmental crises that we all currently face.

For 2007, we returned to the kind of stunt that spawned the Adbusters Media Foundation and our ongoing Media Carta Legal Battle against the corporate gatekeepers that control access to the public airwaves. And students, teachers, parents and activists from around the globe – literally millions of them – found other ways to get involved, whether they spread the word with DIY poster campaigns or just spent seven days liberated from the commercial information grid.

Check out the TV Turnoff Week 2007 wrap-up to read some letters from TV Turnoff Week participants.

Looks interesting.

A side note: one thing I always wondered about Adbusters is why a magazine that prides itself on being so anti consumerist has the balls to charge 10 bucks for an issue. Don’t they realize that the people they need to reach the most can not afford that price tag? Don’t get me wrong I like Adbusters and really appreciate what their trying to do, but this is just something that always bugged me about the magazine. Theres a lot more than I can say, but I’ll save that for some other time.

In my TV & Society class we watched a few videos of Sci-Fi shows including Dr. Who, Buck Rogers and Futurama.

I really had no choice and due to this I decided this one instance didn’t count.

I figured that sooner or later the project would have to take a backseat to schoolwork. Because of this I decided not to count instances of where I am asked to watch something for class. I think this won’t be a problem as only to of five classes require me to watch video. One asks me to do it infrequently and the other (TV & Society) occurs only twice per week.

So though I may have watched some video, I think I’m still staying true to the project by using only instances where I have to fight personal urges to watch video as opposed to being asked (coerced) to do it for another external reason.

Anyway enough of that crap! I had actually never seen Futurama before and it was actually pretty funny. I think I might give the show a try some time in the future.

After class I had no real urge to watch any video. I ran directly to the Westinghouse Collapse for the school paper. I actually got some great pictures which if I’m lucky may appear in tomorrows Star Ledger. I also managed to get some great interviews and the story should come out really well.

After that I was caught up running to classes (Physics, Journalism) and making phone calls, doing interviews for this weeks paper. I was too busy too even think about anything else.

When I got home it was a different story. I had a very strong urge to just sit back relax and watch a DVD with my girlfriend. At that point I was really annoyed with the project. It may have been the feeling that I was being kept constrained from doing what I felt like at the moment. Or maybe I always get these urges and just never noticed because I had no reason to resist.

Anyway I wrenched myself away from the DVD stack, picked up the latest issue of the New Yorker and distracted myself. The urge quickly faded.

Day 2 was a bit tougher than I imagined, I wonder if it will get easier or if it will be worse tomorrow.

Considering my last post where i stated that I practically grew up in front of a Television set…I think this explains a lot! <makes a crazy face> Look what TV did to me!!!

A One-Eyed Invader in the Bedroom

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Here’s one simple way to keep your children healthy: Ban the bedroom TV.

By some estimates, half of American children have a television in their bedroom; one study of third graders put the number at 70 percent. And a growing body of research shows strong associations between TV in the bedroom and numerous health and educational problems.

Children with bedroom TVs score lower on school tests and are more likely to have sleep problems. Having a television in the bedroom is strongly associated with being overweight and a higher risk for smoking.

One of the most obvious consequences is that the child will simply end up watching far more television — and many parents won’t even know.

In a study of 80 children in Buffalo, ages 4 to 7, the presence of a television in the bedroom increased average viewing time by nearly nine hours a week, to 30 hours from 21. And parents of those children were more likely to underestimate their child’s viewing time.

“If it’s in the bedroom, the parents don’t even really know what the kids are watching,” said Leonard H. Epstein, professor of pediatrics and social and preventive medicine at the School of Medicine and Biomedical Science at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “Oftentimes, parents who have a TV in the kids’ bedrooms have TVs in their bedrooms.”

Moreover, once the set is in the child’s room, it is very likely to stay. “In our experience, it is often hard for parents to remove a television set from a child’s bedroom,” Dr. Epstein said.

Dr. Epstein and his colleagues put monitoring devices on bedroom TVs and all the other sets in the house. In one two-year study, the devices in half the homes were programmed to reduce children’s overall viewing time by half. (Children had to use a code to turn on any TV in the home, and the code stopped working once the allocated TV time for the week had been reached.)

Although all the children in the study gained weight as they grew, relative body mass index dropped among those with mandatory time limits. The researchers found that cutting into TV time did not increase exercise levels. Instead, the children snacked less, lowering their consumption more than 100 calories a day. The study, published Monday in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, did not break down the data by bedroom television viewing.

But in 2002, the journal Pediatrics reported that preschool children with bedroom TVs were more likely to be overweight. In October, the journal Obesity suggested that the risk might be highest for boys. In a study among French adolescents, boys with a bedroom television were more likely than their peers to have a larger waist size and higher body fat and body mass index.

The French study also showed, not surprisingly, that boys and girls with bedroom TVs spent less time reading than others.

Other data suggest that bedroom television affects a child’s schoolwork. In a 2005 study in The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, researchers looked at the television, computer and video game habits of almost 400 children in six Northern California schools for a year. About 70 percent of the children in the study had their own TV in the bedroom; they scored significantly and consistently lower on math, reading and language-arts tests. Students who said they had computers in their homes scored higher.

Why a bedroom television appears to have such a pronounced impact is unclear. It may be that it’s a distraction during homework time or that it interferes with sleep, resulting in poorer performance at school. It could also suggest less overall parental involvement.

Another October study, published in Pediatrics, showed that kindergartners with bedroom TVs had more sleep problems. Those kids were also less “emotionally reactive,” meaning that they weren’t as moody or as bothered by changes in routine. While that sounds like a good thing, the researchers speculated that having a TV in the bedroom dampened the intensity with which a child responded to stimulation.

Another study of more than 700 middle-school students, ages 12 to 14, found that those with bedroom TVs were twice as likely to start smoking — even after controlling for such risk factors as having a parent or friend who smokes or low parental engagement. Among kids who had a TV in the bedroom 42 percent smoked; among the others, the figure was 16 percent.

“I think it matters quite a lot,” Dr. Epstein said. “There are all kinds of problems that occur when kids have TVs in their bedroom.”

So while many parents try to limit how much television and what type of shows their children watch, that may be less than half the battle. Where a child watches is important too.

well@nytimes.com

Here’s a rundown of the last few things I’ve watched.

Movie: In a theater

George Romero’s Diary of the Dead

I saw this movie a few weeks ago at the Jersey Gardens Mall. I’m a huge Romero fan and always got a kick of his zombie movies. I really enjoyed this flick a lot more than his previous one Land of the Dead. I was a bit worried because the camcorder Blair Witch style of filming tends to annoy me, but Romero managed to pull it off by incorporating multiple cameras and editing into the story. Great idea, it doesn’t totally hold up in regards to the plot but it works. Coincidently this episode’s theme is very similar to the unplugged project. The kids in the flick are so into the internet, blogs and filming the world around them that they are constantly caught off guard when things go to shit. The message is a bit heavy handed throughout the film, no where near as sublime as the consumerist criticism was in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ but the zombies save the day.

Everytime your about to roll your eyes at the incessant preaching (one character keeps talking about being plugged in “I’m not alive unless I’m plugged in!”) and not so subtle allegory a zombie pops-up to chomp someone up and saves the day.

Lots of bad acting, lot of great scenes, some gore and hey even some heavy handed allegories. You can’t go wrong with this movie.

Movie: DVD

Fritz Lang’s Doctor Mabuse the Gambler

I know what your thinking. “What a pretentious fuck!”

But wait, this movie is actually damn good.

Forget for a second that it’s in black and white, forget that it’s silent. Forget that its by a highly acclaimed German expressionist. This is still a good, captivating movie! If your thinking it’s going to be over intellectual and obscure movie Your dead wrong. This is more like an amazing spy flick mixed with some action adventure and some philosophical elements thrown into the background. (I hear at the end it turns into a ghost story.) It’s like the Matrix meets James Bond meets Bourne Supremacy but in 20′s…and filmed better!

The movie is over 3 hours long and I really dont have the time to watch it in one sitting. So I’ve been sort of picking at this movie during the semester watching an a few acts at a time. So far i’m really digging it and I plan to finish it off during spring break.

I also have a huge stack of unoponed DVDs I plan to get to…including: No Country for Old Men, Letter from Iwo Jima, Beowulf and Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville.

TV Show: Flight of the Conchords

Most of the TV shows I get nowadays I get off the net or from someone handing me a DVD of burned episodes. This is how I watched Rome seasons 1 and 2, the Sopranos, Carnival and various other shows. The latest show I started watching is Flight of the Conchords. I started watching it right when the semester started and only got a few episodes in. But the few I saw were funny in a weird subdued and ridiculously not funny way (I know it doesn’t make sense but when you watch the show and see how deadpan it is my comment will make sense.) Even before unplugged I didn’t have time to watch any episodes, but I’m looking forward to seeing more.

The Hillary/Obama debates and SNL spoofs:

I had to watch this for class. Which was a pain in the ass since I don’t have cable. Luckily MSNBC placed it on thier webite the next day and I sat through the whole 80 minute debate. I already mentioned the SNL spoofs in one of my posts below.

Frontline:

This is something I have been watching for TV & Society class. The last episode I saw was on Tuesday just before beginning the Unplugged project.I picked Frontline because I figured it would force me to watch something productive once a week. I’m supposed to watch the show and relate it to our class readings. Unfortunatly our readings which are currently focused on genres like ‘Soap Opera’, ‘Police Show’ and ‘Drama,’ barely ever align with a documentary.

I try hard as hell to relate it to, sometimes admitting going way out on a limb (I might just post this weeks paper so anyone who reads it can have a nice laugh at my attempt) and making huge stretches but it doesnt seem to be enough. Maybe when the genre ection of the readings ends it will get a bit easier.