MichaelPoiarkoff

So how about that wikipedia guys? Not only did the little experiment we did in class open my eyes to how terrible the information you get from wikipedia can be, but it presented me with an entirely new passtime. I now have the satisfaction of knowing that i could ruin some middle-schooler's week by inserting a couple of refrences to lion taming and kazoos to the entry for George Washington. My opinion of wikipedia has completely changed. i don't understand how any of those entries are even half valid with so many college students with ill senses of humor walking around. so far i havn't gone too far with my report destroying tactics, but as soon as the rest of my conscience fades, i will all over wikipedia. my only chance for chuckles now is to hope a teacher somewhere assigns a report of waterslides, and play the waiting game.

Posted by MichaelPoiarkoff at 01:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

what's all this ridiculousness i hear about saying things politely and in a formal, comforting tone? what ever happened to short and concise? if you have something to say, say it. if you have a valid point, why bite your tongue, sugar coat your arguement, and spoon feed it to the person your criticizing? i agree that in a formal setting you should try your best to appeal to your audience and choose you words wisely and all that other jibberish, but sometimes people don't want to hear the reprocessed version of everything. and sometimes, the straight forward version is just so much more appealing.

For example, if someone gave you two papers with different headings, which whould you be more interested in?
EX. 1: Five speculated reasons why Dominic seems to occassionally voice his opinion in a less than desireable manner for the venues in which he speaks.
EX. 2: Five reasons why Dom needs to shut the hell up before i hit him in the face with a shovel.

For the sake of saving time i'm going to assume everyone voted for number 2. why? because it's just so darn interesting and fun. who wants to read the long, drawn out version of something when they can read the uncensored, impulsive response? nobody, that's who. so what if you don't express yourself in a professional manner and your actions come back to haunt you? i want to hear something interesting, and if you have juggle some backlash for providing me with it, i'm okay with that. It's about time people start putting their feet in their mouth and taking one for the team.

Posted by MichaelPoiarkoff at 03:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Throughout my life I have been known as many things: actor, writer, dancer, statesman; but never a portfolio man. Categorzing, summarizing, and completing tasks in general have never been my strong points. I believe that this task would have been much more easily accomplished had I been provided a manila folder and some post-it notes. Having stated my opinion of the task at hand, and without futher delay, I bring you my portfolio for the first semester of EL236.

Coverage
These blogs are phenomenal. Though some may fool you by being only border-line coherent, I assure you these are some of the finest quality blog i have ever written.
My first blog: It seems as if I were only a mere babe then. Still you can see the emergance of fairly sweet similies and comparisons.
A Revelation: This started out as a mere reaction to a quote which turned into an astonishing learning experience for me. The reactions to this blog opened my eyes to the outstanding abbreviations one can use while chating online.
Books are Good: This is reflection on my love of books and how i find them good.
Day of Atonement: This arcticle was in response to a prolific teacher setting in motion the ways of the future.
MySpace comparisons: Nothing excites me more than a great flashback and an in-depth analyisis of the past and present. After I was done writing this blog I believe read one.
Bush: In this blog I implenented a knew technique in which I refer to the Male author as a female. This was intentional...

Rantings
These blogs are very unique in that I used the art of run-on sentences and fragments to convey my point. I think you will find the "opinionated pessimist" style of writing really adds a lot to the overall affect of the blogs.
Words of beauty: I believe I will eventually create a spin-off childrens book from this one. I think the mentioning of colors and motion make this blog exceptionally fun.
Completely off the top of my head: This blog had no personal experiances woven into it. None at all. Just a fun Metaphor for HTML. Nothing derived from my childhood.
Fisking: This is a real treat. It has alwasy been my opinion that the best articles spur from topics that are not truly understood by the writer.

Richly Linked Blogs
I'm sad to say I only have one entry for this category, but it is something I will work to remedy. In the mean time, please enjoy this less-than-desirable acticle on nothing in particluar.

Comments
Sometimes I leave comments. This happens to be one of them.
El Commento

Honerable Blogging
In becoming a part of the blogging world I have entered into a kinship unmachable by any other means. It is for this reason that I have taken this space to honor three bloggers I find particularly interesting.
I have categorized them by adjective.

Intelligent
Humorous
Peculiar

Conculsion
This is the end of the portfolio. Sadly I can not provide you with a wildcard, for this involves talent and motivation. However I can promise more blogs to come, and maybe, just maybe, a slightly less than mediocre portfolio for next time.

Posted by MichaelPoiarkoff at 05:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever taken a class that encompassed so much information that it was amazingly hard to pick a topic for a blog entry that was due two weeks before you decided to sit your lazy butt down to write it? Well i certainly have. That's why i have decided to write about a few class topics discussed in EL236 that really tickled my fancy.
To start off, I would like to mention our intro to the class about sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Live Journal that really got the ball rolling. Not only did we get to discuss relevant topics, but we got to throw our own views out there. Instead of learning about the mechanics of a site, we had the chance to delve into in-depth conversations about the social relevance and prospective futures of the sites we use on a daily basis. This allowed for some pretty opinionated and intelligent dissection of the technology that we have grown to know and love. Some of the discussions actually became quite acrimonious.
The next topic that really ruffled my feathers spurred from an article we had to read describing the out lash of a teacher towards students that insulted her on a regular basis. There seemed to be very split views among the class on this subject. It seemed as though the class as a whole decided that it was fairly unprofessional for the teacher to lash out as she did, but there was somewhat of a dispute about whether students should be concisely reprimanded for their antics toward teachers.
The last subject that I found particularly interesting was fisking. Not only was fisking completely new to me, but the ethical reasons surrounding it baffled me. Here was a process that includes reading a person article, copy and pasting it to your article, and then ripping it to pieces. Since there were very mixed opinions on this subject, I will voice mine. My opinion is, not only is fisking mean, ridiculous, and unneeded, it is a complete waste of time. It there is something that someone has to say, they should voice their opinion in their own words.
Overall the class has had some great insight into so even better topics. I'ts not every day that you get to agrue about the relevence of a website nobody is going to care about in ten years, condone hate mail, and talk about demolishing someone's personal opinions.

Posted by MichaelPoiarkoff at 04:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

unfair, plain and simple. why does Fisk get a verb? i want a verb created in my likeness. if he gets one, i get one. there will be a "miking" soon enough....wait....not cooll. aside from me being pretty upset that my verb has already been created by someone other than me that obviously knows nothing about me, i also have an opinion on Fisking.
i dont like it.
fisking is mean.
i feel bad for fisk. if i were him, i'd ask for a new verb, but that's just me. any verb that means you can rip apart someones article and pretty much insult their entire outlook on a topic is not okay in my book (i don't really have a book, it's a figure of speech, but if i had a book it would be a good one...like.. But No Elephants...that's a good one, one of my favorites). i do not agree with fisking in the least. if you have something to say, create a blog, write it in a journal, make me a sandwich...but don't try to personally attack the person who wrote the original article. making someone look stupid with a mean response is uneeded. a lot of times they make themselves look stupid all on their own.

Posted by MichaelPoiarkoff at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)