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    <title>Crash</title>
    <link>http://virb.com/justian</link>
    <description><![CDATA[My name is Ian, and I'm a 19 yr old student currently attending LCC (Lower Columbia College). I happen to be a laid back kind of person, timid, quiet, and I'm not exactly outgoing. I'm new to Virb and I hope to find a lot of new people here. Honestly I am tired of Myspace, because of their adverts and their horrible layout, add to that a bunch of random people trying to be your friend. Hopefully this is a community that I come to accept.

I enjoy bike riding and I love to go swimming. My strong taste for music has me loving all types of musicians and artists, such as Eric Clapton, Snoop Dogg, Kurt Cobain, Alicia Keys, Sting, and others. I spend a lot of my time playing various videogames, or just happen to surf the net if there is nothing else to do. I also enjoy various cartoons and tv sitcoms from the late 80s and the early 90s, when most of the shows then were actually entertaining and intriguing. There are some shows out today that I enjoy, such as The Office and The Venture Brothers, but other than that I've watched less and less television, due to that there just aren't that many good shows anymore like there was.

I'm currently joining up any group that is devoted to a certain cartoon or tv sitcom that I really loved to watch back in the 90s. Just created a couple groups of two shows, and I hope to add more later on. I will be messing around with my profile, trying to get a good layout and to see how others have tinkered with theirs.

So with all that put aside, I hope to have a good experience and environment at this place. Hopefully Virb will be a strong competitor to Myspace, which is just god awful in my humble opinion.]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Space Needle, Seattle WA</title>
      <link>http://virb.com/justian/photos/1358460</link>
      <description><![CDATA[<a href="http://virb.com/justian/photos/1358460"><img src="http://g.virbcdn.com/i/resize_575x575/Image-59092-696772-SpaceNeedleSeattleWA.jpg" /></a>]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:02:22 -0700</pubDate>
      <guid>http://virb.com/justian/photos/1358460</guid>
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      <title>The Simpsons Movie</title>
      <link>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/165337</link>
      <description><![CDATA[
In recent years, The Simpsons has lost some of it's magic that entertained many generations of viewers back in it's heyday. Throughout the 90s I often found myself laughing hard at the hilarious one-liners, whether it was Bart Simpson making a prank phone call to Moe's Tavern or Homer making an entire fool out of himself. But since the year 2000 I was left disappointed with the show because it wasn't quite as funny as it used to be and that Homer lost his depth, as well as being constantly angry. I'm still baffled as to how the Simpsons has managed to run for over 17 years, which may be considered one of the greatest achievements in entertainment. This cartoon has won more awards, received more attention, and impacted society more than anything else out there. None of the other cartoons have come close to what the Simpsons have achieved, and it is likely that they will be around for a few more years before it finally decides to burn out.

The Simpsons Movie came as a shock for me. At first, I thought the movie to be just as bad as the regular season episodes, given that the previews didn't show much. The footage they did show was perhaps the worst parts in the entire movie. When I watched the movie I felt that they went back to the old writers who wrote the glory days of the show. I find myself being entertained in almost every single moment of the movie. The jokes were funny and I found a few quotes that were hilarious. Overall it was fast paced and laugh out loud entertainment. What may be the biggest fresh of relief, is that a 2-D animated movie finally got to the big screen receiving much success. I probably haven't seen that since Disney's The Lion King.

To end this blog, The Simpsons still have a chance to go on for a few more years, entertaining old and new generations alike. Hopefully, I can see more hilarious moments from Homer and Bart Simpson.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:05:31 -0700</pubDate>
      <guid>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/165337</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>90s Cartoons &gt; Modern Cartoons</title>
      <link>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/164954</link>
      <description><![CDATA[It seems it wasn't that long ago when you could pull up a bowl of cereal and tune in to watch some of your favorite cartoons. Yep that was the 90s. Cartoon Network hosted a whole variety of shows, some of which haven't been aired in ages, Nickelodean had many shows that were bent on comedy, yet very funny to watch. Disney also had a great lineup, as well as a few Disney movie titles that blew me away (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King). Those days were fun while they lasted, but now I tune in to any of those three channels and they're just a disgrace. I begin to wonder, what went wrong?

As I look at it, most of the cartoons used 2-D traditional cell animation, where people drew the characters by hand and painted the backgrounds to make them look stunning. Whatever it was that the artists turned out with, I loved the variety they showed to kids. The regular shows were great as well, pertaining to a huge audience with many needs and wants. But when the turn of the century approached, the shows started to degrade in quality, and a new format, CGI, was beginning to dominate. I don't hate CGI animation, but it just pales in comparison to 2-D. Why? Because CGI lacks a few elements that 2-D has, such as squash and stretch. It feels quite different to be watching a cartoon made of CGI rather than an older 2-D traditional cell animated show. 2-D brings the characters to life and the backgrounds look sometimes real, yet suitable for 2-D. CGI looks dull and lifeless, and yet since it's done all by computer mostly, it can be done much quicker and cheaper than people can do a 2-D animated cartoon. It pains me to see shows like Jimmy Neutron, because the concept is stupid and unoriginal. The cartoon completely ripped off Dexter's Lab, which in my opinion was a better show. I don't enjoy CGI in a cartoon show, because I just think it's not quite the same feeling as watching a 2-D cartoon.

Another way to look at it is that people have lost their imagination. In the 90s and earlier it wasn't uncommon to see a show with characters that throw original but hilarious lines. Or cartoons that were bent on drama but pulled the viewers in as to what could happen next. Last but not least, you had characters you could relate to. Cartoons of today are filled with adult jokes and unlikeable characters. To make matters worse, anime has practically dominated every major network that airs cartoons. Now anime was cool, back when it wasn't quite mainstream and it focused on a heavily built storyline that could sometimes be complicated to follow. Today it is just overproduced, cheap animated crap. American cartoons now use Flash instead of the more detailed cell animation. Flash is a great program for use on the Internet, but never is it good for a cartoon! The animation is atrocious as well as the dialogue. 

I don't find myself happy finding a cartoon that is just god awful ugly in terms of quality. There aren't many cartoons worth watching, other than Family Guy, South Park, or Simpsons. But those shows are more bent for an adult audience. Kids cartoons have certainly gone down the drain, making me wonder if today's animators and writers simply got lazy and put some half assed idea into a concept that doesn't really work out that well. It seems that I can't find any good cartoon that I watched as a kid anymore. Toon Disney airs some of their older cartoons sometimes, but they are placed in a badly built schedule. The network is pretty much controlled by Jetix which contains some of the worst anime shows I've ever seen. Their other shows are just as bad. Which brings me to forming a channel dedicated to older shows. Like TV Land, the network only airs the older shows that an older audience grew up with. Until sometime decides to make a channel that airs 90s and older cartoons, my only chance to watch them is buying them on DVD sets. Right now 80s shows and cartoons are selling like hotcakes, and I don't think it will be long before we begin to remenice about the 90s and begin buying shows from that decade as well.

So to end a long rant, I'm depressed with today's crap. Cartoons haven't been quite the same as they used to be, and kids entertainment in general is just horrible. I think that in the 90s kids were worthy of attention and the entertainment industry seemed to concentrate on us, giving us all these beloved shows that we may perhaps talk about until we die. But now they receive the short end of the dough, having to watch cheaply produced anime, and god awful sitcoms and TV shows.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:45:15 -0700</pubDate>
      <guid>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/164954</guid>
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      <title>Never dealing with Myspace again</title>
      <link>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/136627</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Well, I've decided to take one last look at Myspace before leaving there for good. It's god awful in everyway, and it just shows a terrible example of what a good Social Networking site actually is. It's terribly overrated, with one of the worst layouts I've seen in a long time. I don't understand how it's still #3 on the list in Internet Traffic, oh well I'll just leave the losers who still go there to moan about themselves. The loading times can take up for a few minutes for some pages to load. Their service is a joke, and I mean a JOKE. It seems I can't go anywhere without having Myspace suddenly freeze up, ending with the message "Sorry, an error occurred! This will be sent to Myspace's technical group." Wow, how many fucking times have we've seen that before? Searching for people can be real tough, and usually the search engine fails to come up with accurate searches. I've come to the conclusion that the site is run by a bunch of assholes who don't know what they are doing. Maintenance on that website is real bad, so if you looking for a good networking site run by more respectable people, don't bother going to Myspace. It's pretty much a potential minefield over there. They have a tough time fixing basic functions when really a few good professionals can make sure a website is running well and meets people's satisfaction. Myspace fails to comply with these options.

To add insult to injury, I made a fake Myspace account a while back just to see what would happen. Soon I was bombarded with spam messages, friend requests from people I didn't even know (this includes ladies showing their boobs, random picture profiles, etc), and a ton of unwanted advertisements. The worst thing was trying to make your page look nice. You were pretty much out of luck if you didn't have CSS or HTML experience prior to adding code to your profile. It looked ugly, especially trying to add it in one of the categories specifically listed to show your interests or personality. You couldn't even add another category to your profile, instead you had to stick it with one of the pre-made categories, which ended up in one big mess for me. The only way you could have your profile look a tiny bit decent was depend on third-party developers (big mistake!). If you copied a code from say Geocities or Angelfire to use on your Myspace profile, you then had advertisements floating about. I actually had to delete part of the code that actually held the advertisement so it wouldn't look like some monkey flung poo at somebody, that's how bad it really was. Even then it wasn't worth it, because so many others also depend on third-parties so they could make their profile look halfway decent, if not worse.

There is another factor I like to point out about the god awful Myspace. It's simply a Social Networking site designed specifically for kids and people who just don't know any better. While I refer to VIRB as the more mature, grown-up social site, Myspace is filled with ignorant people like you wouldn't believe. It seems I can't carry a good conversation over there without some hot-head making a big ass out of himself. It's like being in highschool when your the innocent little boy/girl and some mean, buff dude comes and picks on you simply because your smaller. I am simply disappointed by just how many people at Myspace can't spell worth of shit. It's like they are insulting our own intellect, insulting how much we can learn and grow in this ever changing world. Truly a sad place, Myspace. I figure it's where all the goths, punks, gangstas, sex offenders, guys looking for sex, and especially EMO kids hang out. I know that's not true for everybody over there, but the amount of these people combined had it for me. Most of these people I bet didn't really finish college, either that or get a job right after highschool.

So to make this long winded rant to an end, I hate Myspace. I won't go on there even if somebody tells me to make an account and be their friend. Maybe when Facebook and Virb become popular people will wake up and realize how terrible Myspace is. I'm thinking about joining Facebook because until recently it was restricted to college university students who had an e-mail account set up. While I don't know if it's any better than here at Virb, I've been hearing it's a good social networking site compared to Myspace. I love it here a lot better than I will ever love that shit hole. You can pretty much do things here you couldn't imagine earlier. Add categories, make nicknames, swap categories, etc. The coding to use on Virb is much easier, and better. People here actually know common sense among all things, and I don't feel like I'm talking to a random person who is actually targeting advertisements to innocent victims. In fact I love how Virb is pretty much ad-free, compared to other websites. I'm here to stay, and even though I may not check in my account very often, at least I'll be here in a friendly community with good things to come. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:44:55 -0700</pubDate>
      <guid>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/136627</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Virb is the better Myspace.</title>
      <link>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/15340</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Well, I am completely new here and I have yet to make any new friends. I have gotten sick and tired of Myspace after being spammed with messages from guys I don't even know. Again like I said in my other blog, Myspace has a terrible layout, and the way you have to hack your way through to make your own profile layout is difficult. I just made this account a couple days ago, and I'm hoping Virb will be the new and improved Myspace. So far this place looks to be a comfortable and relaxing social environment. Hopefully I will fit in with the rest.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:17:13 -0700</pubDate>
      <guid>http://virb.com/justian/posts/text/15340</guid>
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