Favorite Musician

My favorite band of all time are The Killers, when they first came out the had a big buzz going around, the reason I liked the was the word play they had in their music and the sound they had, it was alternative rock but their music was catchy but sentimental at the same time. The band consist of the lead singer Brandon Flowers, lead guitarist Dave Keuning, bass player Mark Stoermer, and drummer Ronnie Vannuci Jr. They formed in 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada, they practiced a lot in Ronnie’s house because he was the only one with a house, then later at night they would sneak into the band room in UNLV where Ronnie studied percussion, in that room they wrote most of the songs for their debut album Hot Fuss which came out in 2004. This cd had countless hits off the start like Somebody Told Me, a song about getting a girl in a club. Mr. Brightside a song in which the title is the meaning about a guy whose propensity for getting overly involved emotionally with women he has just met, and suffering heartbreak when his love proves to be unrequited. These two songs have a word play that you would have to read slowly to understand the meaning behind the song, and they show hints about where they live. Another great single that came from the cd is “All the things ive done” a song about asking help from god, the most memorable part of this song is when it says “ I got soul but im not a soldier” this part shows that we got faith in god but never fully encourage it. They weren’t the only band to incorporate things like this in their music but Coldplay and U2 have done the same in their music. To show their encouragements they both performed this song together with The Killers in a concert last year.

            Their second cd came out in 2006, Sams Town had many mixed reviews but if you would listen to the cd and actually pay attention it is one of their best cds they have. In Sams Town you can hear how much time and effort when into it, plus the motivation that Brandon Flowers got from his brother. The cd was meant for his brother because if it wasn’t for him he wouldn’t of liked all the music he listens to, the first single from the cd was “When You Were Young” a song about a young Latin woman who imagines her future husband is like Jesus, but she found one that doesn’t look a thing like Jesus but that he talks like a gentlemen, but it the video he cheats on her and is a thing is that Jesus would never cheat, the song is about how we all do sins but they are mistakes we commit on accident. This cd went through many aspects of life and things we believe in, Their Next album was Day and Age, their latest album in 2008 became a hit right off the start, the single Human, was another song that took a time getting used to, but it should the aspects that we may be only human but we can become great things with time and effort. All their songs have great story telling and show religious views in their lives, but overall I will always like their music, no matter what.

Video Games Through the Years

Video games have really changed since the early seventies, from going to the arcades with a large group of friends has now gone to playing at the comfort of your own home, playing against someone either in a different state or country. The first gaming console was the  Magnavox Odyssey but it didn’t have much success until the Atari came out with its hit game pong. The graphics for the games in this era was nothing but pixels with not much detail. The consoles did well in the market until 1977 when the market stock went down but Atari stayed strong because it released Space Invaders onto the console but the market yet crashed again in 1983. The whole video game market crashed by the crappy games that came out around that time, the worse on the list was E.T the game, it was so horrible that they buried the game in an unknown location in Arizona. Most companied filed to bankruptcy, or just gave up on the company, around 1984 all North American came consoles were discontinued.

            In 1985 the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in North America, with Super Mario Bros. Nintendo brought back the videogame industry by bringing back competitors until the next generation of console were released, biggest competitors at this time was Sega and Nintendo, they competed until Sega was over thrown because their console the Sega Dreamcast didn’t do so well but it was the first console to have online gaming but it was too ahead of its time. The next big competitor to release was Sony’s Playstation then after Microsoft got into the business with their Xbox, Xbox brought online gaming into view, and became first in the competitors, playstation brought games for the hardcore gamer, and Nintendo brought the family element for their games. Now we have the Xbox 360 which has us playing with different kinds of people around the world and with Hd graphics for games like Halo and Gears of War, that shows much detail in the characters, like even in sport games you can see them sweat. Sony’s Playstation 3 has a Blu-ray player and has everything Xbox has but their games are more depth in their stories like God of War and Metal Gear Solid. Nintendo has been bringing innovation with motion sensors with their Nintendo Wii; they have the same types of games like Mario and the Legend of Zelda. Xbox and Playstation have brought their versions of motion control in the gaming community Xbox with their Kinect which lets your whole body be the remote, Playstation brought a motion control version of the Wii’s remote and next year Nintendo will be releasing their new console the Wii-u which will add more innovation, which will give ideas to the other competitors. The future of the gaming community is bright, it has gotten to a broader audience and it will keep getting bigger because the stories in the games get better and the graphics will keep advancing. 

COURAGE, HEROISM, AND BRAVERY

September 11, 2001, a time of great sadness and of heroism. Some people might not know but two men named Frank Martini and Pedro Ortiz became heroes but with a cost, they worked on the 88^th floor of the north trade center. An ordinary day at work turned into a terrible day when at 8:47 am a plane crashed right into the building 4 levels up, many people in the building got trapped and killed in the impact. These two men stood up and went to go help employees in the building find their way down by the flight of stairs, while they the workers went down the building, Frank, and Pablo went up to help others. Some workers were trapped by something blocking the door, and that couldn’t find their way out. Floor after These two men helped employees but when they got to the 91^st floor they couldn’t get up any higher because the debris was blocking the way up, they had way to help anyone trapped up in the upper floors, so they decided to go back down to check all the floors again, in total they saved a total of 77 employees. The last man they helped out was in the 73^rd floor, this man was trapped in the express elevator, sadly this man did not get out, and he was only inches away before 10:29, when the North tower collapsed. The bodies of Frank and Pablo never where found, the last thing known about them were that they were in the 73^rd floor when they used the walkie talkies to contact the police that something was wrong and that they didn’t have much time, this was 10 minutes before it collapsed. They showed courage, strength, and inspired others to help out during the situation at hand. What made these two regular guys get the courage and the strength to take it in their own will to take this challenge? To risk their lives to save 77 people, even though they had a wife and kids, they thought of others and died like heroes. They showed something to those people that day, Hope, 9-11 was supposed to be a day of tragedy and terrorist thought that we all as a nation should live in fear, but they were wrong. We should follow an example out of this, sure we may no go to these extremes with helping out during a situation, but little things can be useful, like bullying, or helping homeless people.

            I remember 9-11, before I didn’t really understand what was going on, what was the purpose and how can something like this happen, before I didn’t even hear about Frank and Pablo, it took me ten years later to fully understand everything, my prayers go to their family and the people who lost loved ones. On this day we were caught off guard but were made stronger and stood together as one. We as people don’t really realize sometimes out of everyone around there lays some people that will either help us during a situation or not, but are you that kind of person?