Procrastination, Linsanity and technology

It's always nice having an extra day off school but I don't know why I always think I'm going to use that time to do something productive, because I never do. So here I am, again, on a Thursday night, waiting for the new Jersey Shore episode while doing homework that I've had a week to do. But looking through your guys' blogs, I don't think I'm alone. ;]

In the past two weeks, I've learned more about professional basketball than I ever thought I would know. I'm not one to follow sports, and while I cheered for basketball and football, I only knew the moves that required a cheer (rebounds, free throws, touchdowns...yeah it ends about there) and even then it didn't really mean anything for me. But recently newspapers, blogs, sports pages and tweets have been blowing up with Jeremy Lin from the New York Knicks. Normally I'd brush this off, but he is literally everywhere. Turns out, he's been warming the bench on the Knicks for quite some time now, and once the two good guys Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire (had to Google how to spell his name) were out of the game because of injury and family emergency, this Lin guy goes in and totally blows everyone away with his basketball skills. I'm not kidding, he's awesome, and he's from Harvard so he's smart too. I even watched a real basketball game today and was excited about it, unreal. The Knicks played the Miami Heat and lost, but I guess they're really good so I let this one slide.

On a completely unrelated note, one of our readings was 'Rethinking the Multimedia Experience' from Poynter University. I really liked this reading for two reasons. One, because when I did my semester in Vienna, one of my courses was taught by a professor from Poynter and it was hands down one of my favourite classes - he was an incredible teacher, so now in my eyes, Poynter can do no wrong. Two, I think Ferris made a really good point, writing, "We wanted content to drive the stories, not technology, with the end goal being a richer viewing experience for our audience." I think with the constantly advancing technology, many professors and newspapers are focused more on using social media, videos, audio, getting reader comments, etc., than on the story itself. It's important to remember that using technology isn't automatically a plus, you have to use it right.