Final Talon Marks issue of the semester

The final issue came out today and I have to pat the Talon Marks staff on the back.

Editor-in-Chief Scott Watkins, Online Editor Steven Martin, myself, and page designer Kyle Edquist all worked hard to get those pages done and we did an outstanding job.

This was a way to go out with a bang.

Former Editor-in-Chief Erick Galindo deserves props for his inside pages. They are amazing.

I hope the Spring staff next year can produce something like that to keep it as a running tradition for the Talon Marks.

I also hope it produces a magazine over Spring Break.

We didn't make one this year because we simply did not have the skill sets to put one out.

There were three active editors this semester. Even if we were all experienced enough to make a magazine, we still wouldn't have had the manpower for a magazine.

But that's fine. We have had a good semester and I'd like to thank the entire staff for all the efforts it put forth.

Iron Man pre-screening

I saw only a couple Cerritos College students at the Iron Man pre-screening last night.

I was worried about not being able to get into the theater so I went early to stand in line.

The theatre didn't even fill up, like Paramount hoped would happen by overbooking.

About the movie, I loved it. Robert Downey Jr. plays a perfect Tony Stark.

It had a lot of great humor (with a great Stan Lee cameo), great special effects and great action.

The story was well thought-out.

I wasn't sure at the beginning, because the film goes right into the story with Tony Stark in the explosion.

I thought we would need a better introduction first.

But then there was a flashback that fully explains the Stark character for those that don't know already what he's about.

So it was better this way.

There was a foreshadow for what will happen in the sequel if this makes a lot of money.

I'm not going to post a spoiler of what exactly happens.

Since I read the comic book and have been for a long time, I know what will (or should) go down for the sequel.

I really recommend everyone check this out. It's amazing.

Campus Transformation Plan

I was pleasantly surprised last week when the concerns for Cerritos's Master Plan were addressed by Roger Ernest, English instructor.

I'm not sure what the Campus Transformation Committee feels about Ernest's plan, but I like it better than its plan.

The current Master Plan is good but needs some work done on it.

Ernest put the tennis courts back.

That was the main concern I had. The school has plenty of parking and the tennis team shouldn't suffer for more parking.

The Burnight Theatre is moved to the corner of campus. I don't think it's a big deal that the Burnight Center is being moved to the back of campus.

At first, I thought the Hill being moved to Falcon Square would've been a great idea.

That was before I talked to Holly Bogdanovich, director of Student Activities.

Where Ernest put the Hill, it's too close to the Student Center.

If someone wanted to put on an event at the Hill and someone else wanted to put on an event on the Student Center stage, it couldn't happen.

The noise would conflict with each other.

It's good that ideas are being thrown around for the Hill. It shouldn't interfere with other events though.

MySpace revisited

Faculty Senate Liaison James Lee said at the Senate meeting yesterday that the Faculty Senate discussed a block on MySpace in the computer labs.

I thought this was a great idea. The signs obviously aren't enough to keep people from browsing the Internet when other students need to do their work.

However, I went into the computer lab today and saw a few people on MySpace.

I bumped into Lee at the food court and asked him about it. He said that was just what he heard and didn't confirm whether it's true or not.

One senator at the meeting mentioned a Web site that can override a block onto another site.

It's possible that these students I saw did this. I'm not sure.

However, if the block isn't there, there needs to be one.

Though there are school-related MySpace pages such as Talon Marks, other clubs and an ASCC one (coming soon?), these are not the pages students are going to.

Students are looking at their friends' pictures while other students are waiting for open computers to write their term papers on.

A block on MySpace would be important, as well as YouTube and Facebook while the Faculty Senate is at it.

Concrete Underground

Today at 11 a.m., Concrete Underground featured an experimental band, Cosa Nostra, and hip hop artist, Young Blaze.

I enjoyed the whole concert, even Young Blaze. I am not a rap or hip hop fan, as anyone who knows me knows.

What I thought was cool about Cosa Nostra is that since the drummer wasn't able to make it to the concert, the band wrote all new music the night before and experimented with a couple different key things to make up for the lack of percussions.

What I thought sounded particularly good was how one guitarist was patting on his guitar. It let out a really good sound.

It was also the first time the band used vocals. It was just the prolonged "Yeah" the entire time, but it works with some music.

Also, this story gave me the opportunity to play around with audio editing a little. Due to an appointment (and one story turning into three this week), I couldn't do enough with it.

I hope it gets done though. A lot of page design is coming up for me, so I can't spend too much more time on the audio.

JACC Conference

The conference was fun as always.

While I was waiting to go into the critical review writing lab, I was talking to some people from San Francisco City College about what kind of things it runs on its Arts page.

One person said he writes short comic book reviews.

I had been thinking about that idea for a while now.

My two main concerns for that were:
- Do many students care? Let's face it, the comic book crowd isn't what it used to be.
- Will they be of sufficient length? A comic book is maybe about 300 words. How long can the review be?

I think it might be something interesting to experiment with.

I checked out San Francisco's online site now, TheGuardsman.com, and it sometimes runs one section that has two to three-paragraph reviews.

In other news, TalonMarks.com won general excellence and the "Heroes" ad won second place. I'm proud of that.

I'm happy for Werner Gomez, former staff member, for winning first place in the on-the-spot sports photo contest.

As for myself, I didn't win anything in the on-the-spot competitions.

However, for mail-ins, I got some good feedback.

For my "Hollywood Revisited" review, it said that I needed a little more description of what the event is.

I remember when I was writing it, I was trying to not give too much "plot" in it. I guess I went overboard there.

And my page design for the floats on Oct. 31, 2007 issue, which I was very proud of, needed a clearer explanation of what the numbers mean on the photos. Good advice.

I hope next semester I'll win something. I'm not in this to win anything, but I'd like to next time.

Harland Williams

Source: The Channel Guide

The morning before we left for the JACC conference, Editor-in-Chief Scott Watkins told me to check out TalonMarks.com.

Apparently, Harland Williams himself posted a comment thanking me for my "Bachelor Party 2" review.

If this was a real comment, that is really cool. It might be true.

He was on Love Line on KROQ before the movie came out. He might be checking out promotions in the SoCal area.

So I ask, what if it's just a joke somebody's playing on me or on the Talon Marks?

If that's the case, it's not a funny joke.

In any case, it's cool if it's true.

Harland Williams is an extremely funny and underrated actor and it's an honor for me to get that comment.