Laugh Tracks

Prior to reading "'Ha ha," he said. "Ha, ha.'" I never gave laugh tracks much thought, they have always seemed to be just another component of most TV shows. After reading this, however, I had a lot of different ideas flowing through my mind. Chuck Klosterman is completely against the use of laugh tracks, I am honestly not sure what to think of it. I feel like Klosterman is being a little drastic, he thinks that laugh tracks are in a way "programming" us to know when to laugh, and also taking away our natural ability to decide what is funny and what isn't. Personally I think that everyone's ideas about what is funny differs depending on personality, and I don't think that a laugh track has the ability to undermine how we feel about things. Also, another point that Chuck makes is that the absence of a laugh track makes a sitcom funnier, I disagree. I think that it can alter the type of humor that is present. For instance, Friends uses a laugh track but Always Sunny in Philadelphia doesn't. I find both comedies really funny and thoroughly enjoy them equally just in different ways. Friends is stupid funny, everyday type of funny.  Its Always Sunny  is more of a perverted, dark and sometimes dry humor. Therefore they obviously both have different types of humor, but even if one or the other changed, they would still have different vibes as well as still being humorous. I suppose that I disagree more than agree with Mr. Chuck Kolsterman, laugh tracks might be a little cheesy and over the top at times, but I don't think that they have such a negative effect on society as Chuck says.

Human Growth Hormone? Nah...

Although we did the exercise on Moodle to help gain ideas about what to write about for our Annotated Bibliography, the idea I chose had nothing to do with what I previously came up with. First I thought it would be pretty cool to do some research on whether or not Pluto should be a planet, which I wish it still was. However Pluto failed me- there was not enough info against its un-planet like characteristics. So after going through a few ideas I decided on this one: Human Growth Hormone, and why it is pointless to give to children with insufficient height for their age. Love yourself! I really feel like we need to stop pumping this younger generation full of stuff that is unhealthy for them (and things that really don't work...like HGH). I started a little research, but I've also been super busy so as a start here is a few things I found, thank you EBSCOhost.

According to Acta Paediatrica; Nov2010, Vol. 99 Issue 11 and its various authors, we like to use HGH for children with Prader Willi Syndrome. For those of you who don't know what Prader Willi Syndrome is, (which was me before researching this) it is when babies are born unable to control their eating habits, are constantly hungry and later in life this becomes obesity. If you are anything like me then you probably asked yourself "why the heck are we giving obese kids a growth hormone?!"...great question. According to a study described in this article, there were 20 patients who received HGH and at a 10 year follow up they were taller, but still very obese. The HGH also did basically nothing for their over all quality of health. So my question is- If all the HGH is doing is making them taller, why do we prescribe it? Hopefully I can find more evidence against it, and I'll keep you all posted!
oh and here are a few questions I have:
-What are the ill effects of HGH on your health.
-If HGH doesn't really do a significant amount to help you, then why do Doctors prescribe it?
-What exactly does HGH do?
-What are the positive effects of HGH?

annotated bibliography

I have never done an annotated bibliography and I am not positive about how to do it, so hopefully this goes well!?

 The source that I read and will be annotating is called Home Sweet Home Ec.  It is written by Emily McCombs.

  This essay basically talks about what the real meaning of Family and Consumer Sciences is. When most people think of this they think of cooking, sewing, ironing, and household chores, but it is so much more than that. This source was very informative because it depicts every aspect of FCS, how people percieve it and then what it actually entails. Surprisingly  FCS was founded by women advocating our rights and empowerment and employment. Although this article was no doubt written by an FCS teacher it is strictly informative and lacks a personal bias-which is great! Home Sweet Home Ec. also distinguishes the history of FCS from the former Home Economics and how it had evolved and progressed over time. Although there is no bias, this is still a great source, it is written by an experienced FCS teacher, and it also includes quotes from other FCS teachers as well.

So I definitely thought I posted this a while ago when it was due but apparently I made a new blog instead of a new post?