"Eyewitnessing" the media part 3

On my last day of my media encounters I watched another episode of the television program "The Office" and rented the movie "Knocked Up." The episode of "The Office" I watched was titled "Product Recall." Someone from an educational organization called the office complaining of a vulgar watermark on the paper featuring "a cartoon duck and a cartoon mouse." This happened because of an employee, Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton), who skipped a quality assurance meeting and failed to catch the mistake in the watermark. Michael Scott (Steve Carell) holds a press conference to give the lady who complained of the watermark free paper, but she refuses and wants Michael to resign. Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kailing) trains the accounting staff in customer service. Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey), the head accountant, is more prideful than the rest of her accounting colleagues and thinks she does not have to apologize because the Dunder-Mifflin company has already apologized. Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) are sent to the school to calm the school principal who used the paper to send invitations to the prom. Andy discovers his "frozen yogurt chef girlfriend" is a high school student and goes crazy. Michael makes an apology video explaining that the watermark incident was not his fault and that he was being made an "escape goat." As I watched this episode I realized some of the craziness that can happen in the workplace thanks to a variety of different (and sometimes dumb) personalities. There are many politics involved between people and the people from whom they buy things.

"Knocked Up" is a movie about a stoner/slacker guy named Ben (Seth Rogen) and career-oriented girl Alison (Katherine Heigl) who wind up meeting in a nightclub and going home drunk to wind up sleeping with each other. As a result of their good night's sleep, Alison winds up pregnant by Ben. Ben and Alison go through many stages in their newfound relationship such as like, love, anger, frustration, confusion, and committed love. Ben also has his stoner/slacker friends (played by Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Jay Baruchel, and Jonah Hill) with whom he runs a Web site. Alison has a job working for E! Entertainment Television, where she starts out doing behind-the-scenes camera work and then is promoted to on-camera personality. Alison and Ben also spend a lot of time with this other couple, Alison's sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd). Ben and Pete, as well as Alison and Debbie, have a lot of separate bonding moments in these movies and learn a lot about each other, about themselves, and about how they each handle their respective relationships. This movie taught me more about what it takes to be in a committed relationship, what it is like to go through parenthood, why some people may or may not be right for each other, about trust and honesty, about the value of solitary time away from responsibilities, and about the value of friendships, family, and relationships. It was also a mixture of witty and some physical comedy which made for a few good laughs and, more importantly, a recognition of ourselves and our lives through these characters and their individual situations.

This is the conclusion of "Eyewitnessing" the media. That does not mean, however, that I am finished blogging on here. Have a great weekend!

"Eyewitnessing" the media part 2

Throughout Tuesday I had many more encounters with the media. I was watching the news for half the time that I had been watching television. The rain (though good for us) was a bit of a horror because of how much there was, the flash flood warnings, and even some tornado warnings in counties near Spartanburg. What I got from the people who cover these things is that we should not take our local news and weather crews for granted. They are hard-working and sometimes have to work long, hard hours at the radio or television stations. They are letting us know that they are examining the weather situations so that we do not have to examine them. Some will go to great lengths to let us know of severe weather. They go to these great lengths when they probably risk angering a lot of people by cutting into their favorite programs with 10-15 minute long weather alerts, they may work around-the-clock (double-shift, anyone?) at the station (day until night), and those who are outside get completely soaked, have to risk driving in the huge storm, and sometimes even get nearly blown away from where they are standing.

I did not have a lot of other media encounters, but I did watch a couple of reruns of two television shows, "Two and a half Men" and "The Office." If you read my first part of this blog (or watch the show), you will understand that "Two and a half Men" characters Charlie Harper and Alan Harper both have trouble relating with women. The episode I watched last night was about Charlie dating a woman who seemed to be exactly like him (playing hard-to-get, having a phobia of commitment). The other part of the show was about Alan having to talk his son, Jake Harper (Angus T. Jones), into doing his homework early on the weekends (and generally doing homework). Jake reminds me of a lot of other people that I knew when I was his age. They will lie to get out of anything, put everything off until the last minute, and I guess you could say their saying was "Fun first, work last." (Hey I was kind of like that, too!) The episode I watched of "The Office" was kind of a battle between the white-collar man and the blue-collar man. Both the office and the warehouse workers (at Dunder-Mifflin, a paper plant) were holding safety seminars. Here comes Dunder-Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) who tries to find ways to prove that working in an office can be just as "dangerous" as working in a warehouse (where, because of the machinery and physical work, more serious accidents could happen-including one caused by Michael in an earlier episode). When the office workers had their safety seminar, human resources representative Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) was naming things that someone working in an office should do to stay healthier (take a walk for ten minutes, leave the computer screen for two minutes, wearing something long-sleeved to stay warm in a cool environment). Michael tries to counter by using Internet statistics that say that working in an office can cause depression. Depression is known to lead to suicide. Obviously the dangers of working in an office are more subtle and not as visual as those of working in a warehouse. Michael tries to prove his point with the help of Assistant (to the) Regional Manager Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) by faking a jump off the top of the building (with a trampoline and a jumping castle on the ground). It is a pretty funny episode; for those of you who have not watched this episode, I will not give you anymore details. I will be bringing you my media encounters for Wednesday later this evening or Thursday morning.