E-Portfolio

http://samanthacelio.weebly.com/

Fanatic Fans

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So everyone has his or her favorite sport teams.  You have the fans that go to games every once in a while, fans that have season tickets and never miss a game, and then you have fanatic fans where their sport team becomes part of them.  In this case, Bryan Stow encountered those extreme-type fans.  While at a Dodger-Giants game, Stow was walking back to his car in Giant’s apparel when two men decked out in Dodger apparel approached him and started beating him to the pavement because he was a Giants fan. 

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This wasn’t just a simple punch and be done with.  They punched his head until he fell and continued the beating on the ground by kicking him unconscious.  Stow was rushed to the hospital by friends.  But he didn’t just walk away with some bruising and scars.  Almost a week after the incident, he remains in a medically induced coma with brutal skull fractures and bruising to his brain.  His doctor predicts a slow and long recovery process for him.  Friends and family back home are rushing to do fundraisers and collect donations for his family to pay the medical bills.  He was never known to be an aggressive man, hence the reason why he didn’t fight back (granted it was a sneak attack when they first started punching him in the head). 

I can understand being a proud supporter of your team but going to the extremes of beating an innocent man in the parking lot is ridiculous.  It would be one thing if it were a group of drunken men arguing back and forth antagonizing each other, taunting for a fight.  But he was just walking back to his car with his children and friends and he was snuck up upon and was punched from the back of his head until he fell down and was kicked unconscious.  Its so unfair to Stow and his friends and family that now he is suffering in his coma and everyone else back home is just waiting and hoping until he wakes up all because of some stupid, drunken fanatics that just went too far to an inappropriate level.
(PS-this isn't the a fight from the article, just a baseball fight in general between rivals Yankees and Red Sox fans)

It goes to show how life can be so unexpected.  This man expected to go to a baseball game with his friends and his children to enjoy the day and it ended up as a nightmare—beaten until unconscious and fell into a coma in which he still has not awoken almost a week later.   The strain this must be putting on his wife and children must be so extreme and upsetting.  Who knew that going to a simple baseball game could end in such disaster?

A Dream Come True

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So when we were younger, we grew up watching Disney movies such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc.  We always imagine having that fairytale, picture-perfect life with our prince charmings.  And for Halloween, we dressed as different princesses every year just to be able to wear the gorgeous dresses and to feel like a real princess.

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 And in every woman’s life when they are older, their favorite day to get dressed up and to feel like princesses themselves is their wedding day.  They spend months planning the place, the caterer, the flower arrangements and more importantly, dress shopping for yourself and the bridesmaids.  Well what if combining both the dreams of when you are younger and when your older could come true?  

Link

Designer Alfred Angelo has now created a line of Disney Princess inspired wedding gowns.  The princesses are all represented with their own dress and suggested shoes and jewelry: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Jasmine, Tiana (newer princess, not an original), Belle and Snow White.  The prices range from $599-$1199 with a large range of sizes from 0-30W.  The dresses are a bit pricey if one is on a budget but I think having a Disney princess wedding dress is the ultimate piece to that picture perfect wedding.  

She Stole My Dress! Not Anymore...

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Back in the high school world, girls are beginning the freak-outs of prom dress shopping.  At my school, junior prom was the first weekend in May and then senior prom was the last weekend in May so right now is prime prom dress shopping—maybe even a little late.   

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Although it may seem early to guys to be shopping for dresses but by the time you find the perfect one, you have to make appointments to get it altered and fitted just right.  And with most of the girls in your grade plus surrounding schools all using same tailors and what not, the appointments get booked pretty fast.  I remember for junior prom, I went very early with a group of my friends and we all bought ours the beginning of March and had the tailoring done about a week before.  But for senior prom, I started looking much later towards the end of March, but I wasn’t even able to get it all finished and altered until the Thursday before from (prom was on Saturday).  So going early really can make a difference if its going to be ready in time or not.

On AOL news this morning, I came across this article.  It’s about high school girls in Pennsylvania that formed a Facebook group where they post pictures of their already-bought prom dresses so no one can get the same one.  After endless dress try-ons and stopping in multiple stores until you find your perfect dress, the one thing that would be a complete mess on prom night is walking in and making awkward eye contact with a girl in the same dress, or the same dress in a different color.  Especially with all the money spent on the dress, the altering, the hair, nails and even tanning packages, you definitely don't want anything to go wrong.  But then it seems that all your hard work to get the dress just went out the window because you’re not the only one wearing that dress anymore.  It’s a great idea on those girls’ part and definitely would be beneficial to more girls getting ready for their upcoming proms.

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In The Arms of an Angel

As a passionate animal lover, especially dogs, when this commercial comes on I will just start to tear up and cannot watch.

This commercial is for the SPCA End Animal Cruelty campaign.  Seeing the photos and clips of the once abused dogs rescued and living in such small quarters at the pound just breaks my heart and I’m sure it does for most other viewers.  Even though the photos and video clips are very explicit, they show the truth and don’t sugar coat anything.  The music in the background with the song “Angel” just ties the whole commercial together with its very soft beat. 

While I was youtube-ing this clip, a suggested video on the side came up for “Kitten Burned Alive.”  The video was just someone’s response to a previously posted video so I decided to search into it to see what it was all about.  All the news reports and interviews were not on YouTube so I had to Google the article myself.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/15/2009-07-15_cheyenne_cherry_taunts_animal_activists_after_getting_plea_deal_killing_kitten_i.html

This was about a girl, Cheyenne Cherry, who as a practical joke broke into her ex-roommates apartment, trashed it, and then put her young kitten in the oven to burn to death.  The reason why she claims to have fled the scene so quickly was only because she didn’t like hearing the sounds of the cat scratching to get out, for help.  This just disgusts me.  How could anyone throw a living creature into a stove and let it burn to death?  The thing that makes me most teary-eyed out of this whole sickening situation was her hearing the scratches for the little kitten to get her out and she did nothing about it.  How could someone kill a living creature, a pet somebody loved and looked after, even listening to it plea for help from the oven, just as a joke?  Cheyenne Cherry just repulses me and it sickens me that anyone could ever think to do that to a young creature just for a joke.

The Bachelor--Not So True Love

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The Bachelor is a reality show on ABC’s primetime.  This show brings in 25 women for one man to meet and they go on fantasy dates and at the end of each episode, the women will receive roses if they are asked to come back by the bachelor and if not, then they are sent home. 

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This show is awful for finding a successful relationship in my eyes.  First of all, this man is just given 25 random women.  What if he didn’t like any of them or what if there were better choices but the producers just didn’t pick them?  He is already at a disadvantage at that element.  The bachelor that is on the show now actually is a returning one back from his season a few years ago.  At the end, he is expected to propose to one and at his first shot of love, he chose neither of the two women and this basically devastated women everywhere.  In magazines and interviews, he was viewed as an awful man with commitment issues. 

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This is absolutely ridiculous.  A man is labeled as an a**hole and diagnosed with commitment issues just because he didn’t love either of the two women that he chose at the end?   This show sets expectations for the bachelor because he is expected to marry and have a beautiful life with the woman he chooses.  I think it was almost better he didn’t chose anyone.  He went against the show and it’s meaning which shocked everyone but showed that maybe you can’t find true love on reality TV.  Shows in the past, most of them end up breaking off the engagement a few months or a year after the show.  This show sets up contestants on these fantasy dates of helicopters over Hawaiian volcanoes, getting sung to by famous singers on a rooftop in New York City, etc. stuff that doesn’t really happen on first and second dates.  Who can’t help but to fall in love or think you’re falling in love with someone when you’re in such a romantic setting?

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The Bachelor is still one of my favorite shows to watch despite all of the negativity I presented towards it.  But just its morals and values just don’t add up to a successful relationship, the goal of the show.  All in all, if you are looking for true love, reality TV just is not the way to go.

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Getting Unhooked

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Smoke Free sponsors this ad.  It is promoting readers to obviously quit smoking.  The use of its visuals and statement positively comes through to the audience to quit.

The quote reads, “The average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes a year” and “get unhooked” under it in smaller font.  It is highlighted in blue against the white background to obviously stand out to the reader.  Typing out the number five thousand instead of 5,000 makes the word longer and seems like a much bigger number than it actually is.  Spacing out the word by writing it out versus using the numbers creates an illusion for the reader and making the reality of that many cigarettes seem more intimidating and frightening, backing people away from smoking. 

“Getting unhooked” is the almost punch line of the ad and that smoking is something that once you start, you can never stop.  The vivid image of the hook going through the girl’s lip and actually seeing it come out the other side again makes for a disgusted feeling for the reader and making them want to turn away from smoking.  We’ve all seen the ads of the yellow teeth and what your lungs look like as a smoker—it’s nothing new to viewers and people still continue to smoke.  But with this new image, its something new, something different and still creates that disgusted feeling in a different way and to get people to think differently about something just because the picture is totally unrelated to the physical acts of smoking.

The ad does a great job of coming through to their audience in their intended manner and this image and thought of “getting unhooked” works well for their ad campaign.