Wuthering Heights, Nice Guys, and Bad Boys

Representing books with songs seems like a garish fad.  It just reminds me how teens with lots of angst try to identify themselves with songs or bands because the song just reminds them of how they feel and not what they really are. Anyways, all of this reminded me of an 9th grade activity that I did, where a song had to picked that described some significant aspect of a book.  In that activity I had picked "Every Breath You Take" to describe Pip's relationship with Estella in Great Expectations.

I remembered this when in class Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" was played to go along with the current book.  This was probably one of the weirdest music videos I've ever seen.  Surprisingly Kate Bush hasn't taken drugs as far as Wikipedia knows, contrary to possible first reactions.  (I was told that the music video was weird because it was released when music videos were being made for the first time.)  Her video is here:

 

Using the same thinking from song and book activity, I thought that "Nice Guys" is very fitting for Wuthering Heights.  The song is sung by Kevin Wu, Ryan Higa, and Chester See.  It's about how the "bad boys" is cooler than the "nice" ones when it comes to dating.  Not that I think being a bad boy is the way to go when dating.  "Nice Giys" is here:

 

I thought it was appropriate for Wuthering Heights because Heathcliff is the "bad boy" of the novel and has the true emotional love for Catherine Earnshaw.  Heathcliff could be viewed as someone who was influenced to become a "bad boy."  Firstly Hindley abused Heathcliff as a child and as an adult. Secondly the Lintons were repulsed by Heathcliff, especially Edgar. On the other hand, On the contrast, Edgar Linton is the “nice guy” who has everything else right but the emotional passion for Catherine. Although I'm not promoting revenge or treating women badly on dates, Heathcliff does "finish" before Edgar, since Heathcliff took away Edgar's family legacy of Thrushcross Grange and the life of his love Catherine Earnshaw.  However all of this ends up as a double-edge sword unto Heathcliff, since he dies in a deprived emotional state.

Somehow this  mentality of "'bad boys' or 'alpha males' are the best" when dating is really silly because usually those most of those types of guys are really douchebags and worthless human beings.  Then again I don't count this against people who get caught up in this kind of stuff because they usually don't know better.

Thoughts on Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

I'm going to be honest about how I'm going to be doing book reviews.  I'm not going to be a prospective book critic and I don't ever plan on being one.  Despite this, I'll try to convey my thoughts as an average reader to you.

I had to read Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie over the summer for my English class.  I thought it wasn't so bad because the mystery novel seemed to have a very different style of plot than most detective stories seem to have.  (Then again I'm comparing this book to those pulp mystery novels that I used to thumb through while at Stop & Shop back in middle school.)

For me the story itself was hard to get into, especially if this is your first Hercule Poirot book.  This makes it hard to understand some (but certainly not critical) references to a previous book in the Poirot series.  The beginning is very captivating, since that's when the pivotal murder happens.  Then the story gets stagnant for about 50 pages, from what I can recall.  This is because this is when Poirot is being brought into town and he's just settling himself in.  Also this part would only be appreciated by those who've read all the other Poirot books, since they bring Spence who's a character from the series.

Besides that, the story was pretty compelling.  I don't mean it was really action-packed but it made me want to read it to the end.  I read the whole book in 1 summer day just because of this.  Not many books compel me to read the whole book in one day.

The only downside to the book was that there was this anti-climatic point of the story.  You know what it is when you read this passage, somewhere three-fourths of the book in.  It goes like this:
"[Poirot:] '... I have the idea, you see, that a lot of separated incidents might tie up more closely than anyone has thought.  Not all of them.  Probably not all of them, but several of them.'
'It sounds interesting,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'but I can't see-'..."  (p. 170) [in my edition, which I don't know and I don't have anymore.]

 In the end, Hallowe'en Party was a pretty good book.  I just don't see the historical importance or controversy about it.  Maybe it's because there are close to no accessible sources online that talk about it.

Not the Death but The Decline of Camcorders

Technology has always been changing often replacing the old with the new.  One doesn't have to look far back into recent history to see this way of the technology industry.  An excellent example of this is the smartphone, which has not only changed the way people see and use their cellphones but also even changed other technology markets.  Some technology have declined with the rise of smartphones.  Devices that have declined due to mobile technology are cameras, especially the DSLRs, voice recorders; and camcorders.  Certainly the average person doesn't go out and buy these "declining" devices.  Only people who really need them would get these less popular devices.  However just because the demand for a device is declining doesn't necessarily mean that it is or will be obsolete.  The persistence of camcorders is the most pertinent here.

Camcorders have been around since I could remember.  I remember watching America's Funniest Home Videos in the afternoon when I was in third grade (around 2004).  I always remembered that I always wanted one because I could see that other people could record cool content with camcorders.  Although I've never had a camcorder, I know they have their pros.  Camcorders are good for what they were made for: recording videos.  So there's no fear that a recorded video can only be 20 or so minutes long.  Also, camcorders are not really limited by their video quality, memory space, or battery life on one charge compared to more convenient video recording on devices like the iPhone.

For those who think that everyday video recording can be replaced by all-in-one machines (a.k.a. smartphones), think again because this case, multipurpose devices with video in them almost always have compromises to make everything fit into one convenient package, such as the iPhone.  Despite what is stated on the gung-ho info page on the iSight Camera on the iPhone 5S, the iPhone is nothing compared to dedicated camera - even a point and shoot one.  Remember that what you see on that iSight website was the iPhone only its best, which means that the pictures could only get worse than that marketing bullcrap.  Besides I've only seen my vulgar classmates use iPhone cameras to post selfies with as many people for Snapchat and those pictures are really horrible in everything technical about a digital photo, from quality to lighting.  Besides, how much can the iPhone camera improve since it still has an 8MP camera since the iPhone 4S.  Other than some very fine details, software has made the iPhone camera better compared to the hardware itself.

The decreasing popularity of a device doesn't mean that the device is useless.  For example, radio isn't the first form of media most people go to when given the choice.  There's the TV and Internet, which are more appealing than the radio because the TV and web are very visual.  Yet that doesn't take the usefulness of the radio, especially in the car or when the TV and the Internet are unavailable.  Similarly, the recent audience for camcorders have dwindled down to the ones who really are looking for a camcorder and not those who get one just because "everyone else has one."  It all goes down to functionality and specifications - just how many purposes a device can have and how well does the device do each function.  Despite smartphones winning over in functionality with their multitude of uses, the camcorder is victorious in video recording by a lot.

Camcorders are not so popular as they used to be.  Since smartphones are becoming more widespread now the use of camcorders have fallen significantly, along with many related and similar technology.  However camcorders still survive because of the niche audience who really wants or needs the functionality of a camcorder over, say, an iPhone camera.  Devices in technology should always be looked at both their aspects in function as well as specifications before deciding how popular or disused they are.