And the razzie goes to...

"Everyone knows the glorious story of a child born in a far away manger. Well this isn't that story. This is Monty Python's, The Life of Brian."

Voted the greatest comedy film of all time by British, Total Film Magazine in 2000 and again by UK's channel 14 in 2006, The Life of Brian is a religious satire that pokes fun not at religion but the mindless masses that often follow it. The troop has a go at Roman history, Latin language lessons, Christ as an alien prophet, and even address gender identity issues.

Brian is a boy born a few doors down from Jesus and spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah. As a baby Brian is visited by three wise men who come bearing gifts for the "child king", one of which is mistaken for a bomb ("Who'd want to give a baby a bomb?!). The gifts are immediately taken away and the wise men leave in a huff when they discover that he is not the baby they were searching for.

Later in his life, while trying to escape from Roman soldiers, he pretends to be a religious prophet and, even though he does a pretty terrible job of it, finds himself chased by a group of religious fanatics who insist that he perform miracles and healings.

Eventually Brian is even cruicified. Of course you can always count on the Monty Python troop to remind us, even while being crucified, to "always look on the bright side of life!"

Response to Grading Professors (Wendy Kim)

As I read the essay I couldn't stop thinking how dry and boring it seemed. It was filled with facts but no fun. The first half of the essay is filled with description of how the web site was set up and what it looked like, down to the last little detail. Considering that the introduction to the essay told us that the site had been redesigned since this essay was written I couldn't help thinking how pointless her description was. Especially since I knew that I could easily go online and see the site for myself much quicker than I could read her essay. I kept finding myself wanting to just skip over it and move on to the next essay so that I could finish my homework faster.
The writing did become more interesting when she started to explain the rating process and just what kind of information could be found about my potential college professors. Even then it was still peppered with boring technical information that I really just didn't care about.
It was a good subject and lead to some useful information, but I think it would have been just as informative and a lot less boring if she had just said, "RateMyProfessors.com is a great website where you can find students ratings and opinions of thousands of college professors across the country. If you are interested in information on professors at your college it's a good place to start."
The essay did get me interested enough to check out the website, which I guess was the whole purpose. (No, Chelsi isn't on it, maybe we'll have to add her.)

Grammar post #6

So my post this week is about when you should combine words and when you shouldn't
like, when can not should be cannot or when no one should be noone (which I think is never), and should throughout ever be through out?

I've often come across these words when reading always thought that the combined versions were just a lazy persons way of writing.
This was a fairly hard subject to research and most of the sites I found seemed to add more confusions instead of clear up my confusion.

Can not is sometimes used to indicate that that you can NOT do something. "I can not eat the cake if I wish." indicates that someone has a choice in eating cake. However, "I cannot eat the cake if I wish." indicates that there is no choice, you simply may not eat the cake.
It seems that can not can always be used in place of cannot but sometimes you cannot use cannot in place of can not.

No-one is generally used when referring to people but can also be written as no one, which can also refer to objects. Though this is more commonly written as not one. Under no circumstances should it be written as noone.
No-one should ever use noone but, can sometimes use no one which can sometimes also be not one.

This site indicates that through out is never correct and should be thrown out for throughout.

That should make everything as clear as a stained glass window.

My essay concern.

The biggest concern I have with my essay right now is that I can't manage to properly connect the thesis statement with the rest of my essay. I think I have a good thesis statement and a good closing statement that go together nicely but I can't seem to make the information in between say the right things to tie it all together.

My Three Elements

For my essay I've decided to profile the Fiat "purist". The Fiat owner or restorer who believes you should use only original parts to restore a Fiat, (except for safety reasons). These purest are constantly on the look out for the coveted Abarth engine. Carlo Abarth was a designer who contracted for Fiat and designed their most powerful small engine. If you can obtain one of these engines you can have all the power your little car needs and still have a "pure" Fiat.
Oh and in case you don't know Fiat is an Italian car manufacturer. They haven't produced cars for sale in the U.S. for many years but are still going strong in other parts of the world. There has been talk of a partnership with an American car manufacturer to start production of the Fiat 500 here in the U.S.

Grammar post #5

So this week's grammar post will be on the same grammar issue that I will be giving my presentation on next week: Subject, Verb agreement.

How do you determine the proper verb form to use with singular or plural nouns?
Obviously the most basic rule is that singular verbs go with singular nouns and plural verbs go with plural nouns. The thing that is a little odd is that singular verbs tend to end in s and plural verbs do not. This is the opposite of singular and plural nouns.
The girls talk. The boy talks.
There are many variations of this rule that can be found here but this is the first and most important rule.

Ethenographic essay

For my essay I will be profiling a group of Fiat850 enthusiasts. I am still deciding what particular aspect I will focus my essay on. Possibly whether a Fiat was their first car purchase and how it has effected any subsequent car purchases. Maybe determining what has made them so devoted to this particular make and model of car, or even if the 850 is their model of choice. I've also considered focusing on the few in the group who repair or race these cars as a career instead of just a hobby or focus specifically on those who build them just for racing or for car shows.