Current Favorite Song

Ok, so I can't say I have a 'favorite' song at the moment, but this one strikes me as good, so I'm just going to go with it. This song is a parody of Toby Keith's "How do you like me now." That's pretty much what Cletus T. Judd does is make parodies of country artists' songs. I enjoy listening to songs like these because of the simple humor used. Watching the video, Cletus is from the big city and has a relative that lives on the farm. He thinks it would be fun to go to the family farm and do things such as huntin and fishin, but he finds out the family has given him a list of chores to do to expose him to farm life. In the video, he has no idea of what to expect, nor how to go about doing things. I find things like that funny because it shows how people from the city have no idea about farm life, or how things are in the country. I have done and experienced just about all there is to do on the farm, as far as work goes. I have milked a cow and fed chickens and things like that. I would have to say probably the most physically exhausting thing to do on the farm would be throwing hay, which Cletus finds out that you can't fit many bales into a fancy sports car. All in all, the focal point of the whole song is to crack fun at Toby's song. It's all done in good humor, as you can see Toby is in the video himself. Not many artists can say they'd be comfortable with crackin jokes at their own work.

Commercial Observation

I chose this commercial because of many aspects. First off, I’m familiar with the Bud-light or Budweiser beverage. I’m not going to explain to you how, but you can use your imagination. I would say I’ve become more accustomed to this brand than any other brand. Second I like horses and obviously, there are horses in this commercial. I have a lot of respect for Clydesdales because they are a large breed of horse. They’re known for their work capacity and power, like me. Third, I'm a country oriented person, which is where this takes place so I enjoy that aspect. I would say I prefer to be in the mountains than somewhere else like on a beach. I like the beauty and how majestic the horses are. I grew up around horses so this only adds to the liking for them. And finally, the horses are playing football, and I love the game of football so that works out as well. When I watch this commercial, I see the mountains and trees off in the distance. I don't hear much, but the sound of the replay machine. I love peace and quiet in the countryside. There’s not a lot of noise going on which adds to the scenery. Now, as I continue to observe, the horses are waiting for the replay, which I'm accustomed to because as I stated earlier, I love football. It’s funny because eventually, you see a zebra with his head in a replay video machine. It’s also humorous how referees are often referred to as “zebras” because of their stripes. At the end one of the cowboys stated: "this referee is a jackass," and the other replies "no, I believe that's a zebra." Just some old fashioned humor to go with the solitude of being in the mountains.

Writing Project 1: The Farm

The Farm

When most people hear me talk about where I live, they kind of just roll their eyes, and pretend they’re listening to what I have to say. I know this is rude and all, but it doesn’t bother me too much anymore. What do they know? They don’t understand the true feelings I have about the place where I grew up. They don’t know what it’s like to put in a hard days work and when the day is done, look back at what you did, giving yourself a feeling of accomplishment. Even so, they don’t know what it’s like to work on a project for a week, and in the end be able to look at it for years to come. They just don’t know. Growing up on the farm, I’ve become accustomed to the sights, sounds, and smells. As a matter of fact, back in school, whenever we drove passed a feedlot, all my peers would say “that stinks” or “look at that cow, it’s pooping!” I’ve seen all this before for many years. The strong smell of manure doesn’t bother me at all. Often, when I come home from school, I find myself wanting to get out of the house and just walk around aimlessly. I can’t really tell you why, I just like to be outdoors. It gives me time to think and relax just for a bit, to straighten my head out when needed (which happens all too often). Something that has to be done at least once a week in the winter time is feeding the cows hay. This time of year, we’ve brought the cows off grass pastures and put them in a fenced in lot. They have no food for themselves to get to, so I, or someone at home, feeds them big round bales of hay. To someone who’s never had to do this before, I’m sure it sounds like a simple task. But when it is ten degrees out with a negative twenty degree wind chill, this simple task becomes something of a nightmare. Today’s weather is nice, so I cannot complain. I climb up on the Case 930 tractor without a cab, which means I am exposed to the elements of Mother Nature’s fury. The smell of lube grease on the steering wheel is rather pungent. I start it up and watch a big, black cloud of smoke barrel out of the smoke stack. It’s noisy as hell, being that the exhaust is coming right out the top in front of me. Vibrations from the engine rattle up the steering column and eventually make their way up to my shoulders. I can see just about everything from the seat, but when I get a load of hay, I cannot see right in front of me because I have this six foot round bale on the front bucket-fork, and directly behind me because there’s another six foot round bale on the back bale spear. I usually try to be careful when I’m feeding hay so I don’t hurt any of the cows, but when I get frustrated, I get impatient just push them out of the way using the tractor with the bale at the end. Once I fill the feeders with fresh bales, I have to walk out with a knife and cut string off the bales. This sucks, because you have to move the cows out of your way so you can get to the bale.
I struggle to pull the last few strings off this one ton “fruit by the foot.” If you’ve ever rolled up a sleeping back and tied it so it didn’t unravel, that’s pretty much how a round bale is made, except to scale. I almost marvel at the fact of how far farming has come since the days of my great-great grandfather. Back then farmers all pitched the cut hay by hand with a pitchfork into piles. Today, one person can do what would be a month’s work back then, done in about a week. When I finally do cut all the strings and pull them all off, I stand back and watch the cows eat. They seem oblivious that I’m standing right next to them. As I watch, I look around the lot and notice a few broken lines of wire. The sight of this makes me rather angry for many reasons. One, because that means calves will get out of the lot and cause trouble, like getting hit by a car, for instance. Two, my family and I spent many rough hours building this fence, and three, I have to get the supplies and tools to fix the broken sections of fence. I remember building this fence. This is probably one of the most exhausting, arduous tasks man has ever invented. Starting out, dad will string out one wire across the section he wants fenced, in this case was the north section of the lot. This is used for a reference when putting in the posts so they’re in a straight line. Then, I walk between twelve to fifteen strides and drive a post in. This is probably the hardest part of the job. It takes a fifty pound driver to put posts in the ground, which will tire even the strongest body builder’s arms out after a few hours’ work. Once all the posts are driven in place, we use wire clips to hang up the first ‘reference strand’ of wire. Then I follow up with three more wires, and the job is finished. Keep in mind this is barbed wire, so by the end of the day, everyone working on the fence will have hands that are all scratched and gashed up, looking like raw hamburger. Another winter time chore and the last thing I have to do today is chop ice. Temperature usually determines how easy or difficult this task is. If it’s really cold the ice will be more than a couple of inches thick, which makes my job rather difficult. On the other hand, if it’s warmer outside then the ice is towards the thinner side and makes the chore easier. All that is needed is a small circle, so the animals can stick their mouths down to get a drink. I grasp the handle and begin thrusting my spade on the ice, chipping away small pieces. Today is warm for the winter season, so as I continue chopping, bigger and bigger pieces chip away and I eventually reach the water. I finish making the hole, and call the cows to drink. My hands are cold from grasping the handle, and my arms are fatigued from breaking the ice. By the time tomorrow rolls around, the hole I just made will be frozen back over with the ice being a couple of inches thick. Each year I keep back replacement heifers, so have to run water to them with a hose and fill up their tank. When the tank is full, I string the hose out down the hill so the water can drain out of it. This way the water inside the hose doesn’t freeze and cause it to leak. To finish up my day, I walk back to the shed and grab a bag of feed, which is made up of compressed alfalfa pellets called creep feed. This is a great source of protein, which is imperative that these growing calves have a surplus of in order for them to grow. I pour the feed into the bunk and watch them eat ravenously. To them, this feed is like “Lucky Charms” in comparison to their regular “Cheerios” of hay they get every day. I take one last look back to check and make sure everything is done, and all the animals are fed and ok. As I walk back to the house, I feel tired from all the work I just did, I have a few scrapes on my hands from repairing the fence, and I have manure on me from walking around in the lot. At this time, my fingers, nose, and ears are all freezing cold because I’m either too stupid or too stubborn to wear gloves and a hat to keep my appendages warm. I get a sick like comfort knowing that I get to do it all again tomorrow. As I kick my boots off and hang my coat up, I wonder what the weather will be like?

Diagram

This is an Ipod. It's one of the many new devices of the 21st century. You can download music files off the internet on to this little device and play them at your leisure. Depending on the memory, a person can listen to as many as 80, or up to 300. The Apple computer company invented the iPod, as well as iTunes. These little boogers are expensive, but what isn't these days? I was lucky my junior year at our school's "post-prom party." I won my mp3 player in a raffle. This is somewhat the same concept, but not as fancy as the iPod. It just plays music. As far as the iPod goes, it can also play movies, and music videos. My mp3 player cannot do this. The iPod and mp3 players pretty much revolutionized the way people listen to music. We still have the radio, but many people do not listen anymore because they'd rather hear the songs they like and not have to listen to radio commercials. I guess I can tell you a bit about the iPod and stuff. Alot of people I know use them when they're working out. My roomate uses his in the car, and he even has a little "stereo" he hooks it up to to play out loud so he doesn't have to use earphones. They're really nice, and rather high-tech because you can sort through a lot of songs without having to rewind or fast forward through tapes or CD's. Their small size makes them really handy because a person can pretty much put them anywhere and not have to worry about it. I don't think I'm ready for the iPod. I'd love to have one but I have to download all these songs and upload them on to my iPod. This takes time, plus anymore I have to buy songs off of iTunes or something, the "legal way". I'd rather just buy a CD or listen to the radio. I'm too old fashioned, I like things old school.