Views on XXI Winter Olympic Games

What kind of Canadian would I be if I did not mention the Olympic Winter Games that happened right here in my own backyard (if only that were literal..). The XXI winter games that happened at Vancouver had many high points and low points. I am here to offer my perspective on the games themselves as a whole.

To begin, I offer my prayers to the much noted Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, who perished during a trainer run at the sliding center. May he rest in piece after such a tragic accident. On the same subject, however, why in all the hells in all the worlds did the CTV (Canadian Television) station broadcast his fatal crash? I mean, the guy just died and you keep showing it like a sports blooper! All you needed was some special effects and funny sounds.. Shame on the CTV for doing such a thing.

Moving on, the sliding center came under fire from athletes and coaches as being too dangerous, which in my opinion, it was a little dangerous. But lets look at the facts: You are sliding down ice on a piece of wood with blades attached at upwards of 145 Kilometers per hour with nothing but a helmet and a speedo-like suit. The entire sport is dangerous. If you do not like danger and adreneline rushes, you are in the wrong event my friend. Teams of note that were particularly vocal about this were the Germans and the French. No one's forcing you to go down the track. But hear this out: This is not just an event during the regular season of sliding leading up to the World Cup, where the track is easy and uneventful. This is not a World Cup where you win a trophy for yourself. This is the Olympics, where the best athletes converge to represent their country. If the track is not difficult, then what is the point of the sport during the olympics when even the most inexperienced slider can race down and win? I am happy that they raised the turn where Nodar perished to accomodate safety, but stop your whining and go down the track already.

On a different note, the protesters of the Olympics merit a mention. Everyone should have the right to free speech. Its what allows bloggers such as my newly found self to voice their opinions, perspectives, and voices to what they deem needs voicing. But the protesters at these games did not only voice their opinions, they made sure to cause havoc in the streets of Vancouver. During the torch relay, protesters blocked the entrance of one of the runners and would not move in protest for the games. The runner had to make a detour to get to his destination. What was the point? Did you really think by blocking one road of the torch relay that you would stop the games? Did that get your voice heard? All that was broadcast was your lack of patriotism and love for your respective countries, wherever you may come from. Your goal was not only left unaccomplished, but it failed miserably in reaching the masses. Also, one of the things that need mentioning is what I found to be called Riot 2010. According to their Facebook page, they plan on breaking down shops near the olympic games, giving tourists wrong directions, blocking traffic, causing havoc, and another random craziness. I just want to clarify one thing for these people that are part of Riot 2010: The people you are creating trouble for had nothing to do with the Olympics coming to Vancouver!

On another note, one of the protests I did see during these games was a peaceful protest that happened during a broadcast session that had a crowd in the background. Many of them held signs pointing viewers to specific websites to demonstrate to people why they feel the need to protest. This, I wholeheartedly believe is the best way to protest. Groups like Riot 2010 cause havoc in downtown Vancouver, and no one really knows why they are doing this unless you are a member of that group. It is a useless protest that has no cause but to create havoc. They are anarchists who are willing to fight for whatever comes by, be it an olympic games or a new dentistry office opening near their living space in their mother's basements. Those who performed like on the broadcast, however, got their message out to the masses. It opened the public to why they were there in the first place. Isn't that why your protesting in the first place, to raise public awareness?

I feel like parts of that was a rant, and for that I apologize. There were upsides to the Olympic games in Vancouver as well.

To begin with, I was proud to be viewing the first event that the first ever Ghana Olympic skier named Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong who raced int he Alpine skiing. Nicknamed the Snow Leopard, he represented his African nation's first ever skier for the winter games. And while he was at least 20 seconds behind the pace set by leading skiers, he received a standing ovation by the crowd at Cypress Hill. It is stories such as that of Kwame that make Olympic dreams come true and send shivers down your spine (he placed 53/102, due to many disqualifications)

What better way to finish this off than with Hockey? Canada's game. It is our Football of the US, our Soccer of Europe, our martial arts of the East Asias. The Men's Hockey was a fascinating game to watch, not because Canada won the gold in one of the best games in the history of the sport, but because most of the teams were equal enough to be really close games. Case in points: Canada's shootout win against Switzerland, Belarus's win over Sweden, Slovakia's win over Russia, and Canada's win over Russia. It is always sweet to win gold; it is even sweeter to win gold after facing such tough opponents, after the dramas of overtimes and shootouts and losses.

The Olympic Games held in Vancouver might hace caused a few controversies (Evgeni Plushenko, anyone?) but all-in-all and nationality aside, it was one of the best winter games I've seen in a long time. It was made all the sweeter by Sidney Crosby.

Click Here  to see just how important this game was to so many people across the world. And here.

I believed..

Views on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and other social tools

Myspace and Facebook. What is there to say about them? If you have never heard of either of the two, you have officially lived under a rock somewhere, been cut off from civilization for a large period of time without television, radio, newspapers or any other source of news, or are an alien species in disguise as a human. Whichever the case, it is clear that the two websites are more popular than ever with Facebook edging out Myspace in the popularity contest. But my question is: Why? Why are these websites so popular? What is it that attracts, not only teens and "tweens" but adults and even grandparents to the fad that is Facebook? Let's take a look:

• Lets start with the obvious: Pictures. Facebook had its humble beginings at Harvard where a wily young Mark Zuckerberg invented what will later be renamed as Facebook. Originally intended for the Harvard Alumni and current students, the potential was evident to Zuckerberg and he made it public in 2006. Pictures was and remains the top function of Facebook. It is a way to post your pictures of yourself and your friends at parties, events, at home, work, on the road or on a plane. It is a way of saying, "Hey! This is me!" to your friends and to the world.

• Pulling off the Pictures bullet, Facebook is a way for people to remain in touch even though they are a world away from each other. A mother in Pasadena, California can see her daughter in Seoul, South Korea. One of the attractions of Facebook is reuniting with old high school friends, college roomates, colleges, or those crazy people at work that you didn't know their name, but you recognized them from their profile picture.

• Social Networking is a term used all to often in the 21st Century. We hear it almost daily when listening to the news or browsing the internet. But does anyone really understand what they are doing when logging into Facebook and MySpace? Simply, it is a means of connecting people in terms of friendship, family, finance, sex, religious beliefs, and interest. In essence, it is extremely easy to play "Six Degrees of Seperation" on facebook, as literally almost everyone is connected one way or another

It is these aspects that popularized facebook and it continues to popularize the website. But why does it remain popular? It this Generation Now, we are notorious for having such a short attention span. Case in point, MySpace was popular for about a year, perhaps a year and a half before Facebook swept them off to the side. And yet Facebook was popular to the world in 2006. Four years later, it is still popular. The question remains: Why?

My theory is childish. Not a childish theory, but the world is childish. "I wanna go on Facebook if (s)he's on Facebook." "If (s)he is doing it, then it must be good!" "All my friends are on facebook, so I will join too!" "Facebook just broke records, so it must be good." The world is simply flocking to facebook like sheep being herded because everyone else is doing it. I mean, who is going to use a website like Picbook (not a real website) to post their pics to their friends if none of them are on there? With Facebook's picture uploading and status updates, you can keep your friends, your co-workers, your colleges, your roomate, your best-friend's girlfriend, your ex-girlfriend 4 year past, your dad's cousin's best friend's college roomate, and even your enemies up to date on exactly what you had for supper. Stop the presses...

On the topic of status updates, you cannot mention this without mentioning Twitter, the new fad enveloping the world. Twitter, for those living under rocks or Alien species, is essentially nothing but the status update function of facebook on a different website with a few extended functions. No pictures. No videos. And yet it has over a million subscribers. Why? It is essentially nothing but an online diary in which you tell your friends where you are and what you did 5 minutes ago. Why is this relevant information to share on the internet?

If the founding fathers of the internet at CERN would see what the internet has come to, would they still create it? The internet is unevenly divided into 3 parts:

1. Pornography (which takes up the large majority of the internet)
2. Social Networking Websites (which must take up an astronomical amount of server space and bandwidth)
3. Information, such as wikipedia and online databases (which usually are just texts formatted with HTML)

Facebook and Twitter.. Are they really benefiting the world? Or is it another facet for people losing how to write their native languages. With "lol" officially in the dictionary, and "to" being replaced by "2" on the internet, and the latest cover model of playboy getting ten times more hits than facebook and twitter combined, CERN would scrap the internet and let humanity text itself to death.

- Eric L.

Views on the 21st Century

Ahh, the 21st Century.. Already a decade in and already we have so much to talk about. From Texting to Sexting, from MySpace to Twitter, from the Nintendo 64 to the Nintendo Wii, we, as a collective group of people in the 21st century have enabled and created this technology.

But why? Why do we need the Nintendo Wii and our Blackberries and our Facebook status updates?

There are no answers to these questions. There are theories as to why we do the things we do today, but there are no definitive reasons as to why one feels the need to check their email every 10 minutes or text someone 50 times instead of placing a call that would have lasted 30 seconds. In this day and age of Instant Gratification, we need everything to be "Now". And not just "Now", but it needs to get to you quickly. Testament to this are Fast Food chains which litter our highways.

My point is not to show you everything that is wrong with the decade past, since that would not only be fruitless and pointless, but I would never stop from here on to eternity; rather, it is to offer my point of view on such matters as the Video Game Industry, Politics, Hollywood, Teenagers, Facebook, Texting, Blackberries, Sports, and anything else under the sun. It is far from a simple rant. It is a modern view on the 21st century from a member of this century. It is an analytical opinion from an observer of the "Generation 'Y'" as I've heard it's been named (a better name would be Generation Now). It is, simply, questioning where we are in this Digital World and how we got to this point in the history of the Earth as we know it.

Welcome to my Blog.

-Eric L.