Skin Beware: Fall has arrived

When carved pumpkins meet hay, it means that fall has arrived. Tell your knuckles to be prepared for some severe crackage. There is Steve Boyle at Casey's Bar and Restaurant in Towson. He looks quite nice if I do say so myself.

The Towson Tiger in front of Stephens Hall looks fierce as he stands proud. The tiger is the king of the jungle around Towson.

Taking good pictures is not as easy as you may think. The first thing that you need to do is the "hand test." That's right. You must do this because you need to make sure that if you are taking a picture of someone, they have the right amount of light on their face. All you do is you turn around in a circle with your hand in front of you. You will notice that the amount of light on your hand is changing. When you get to that perfect position where the right light is on your hand. Snap that photo there.

Also you must make sure to follow the rule of thirds. You don't want your object to be directly in the center of the photo. You want a little bit of their body in each frame as if you chopped the photo into thirds.

The "Dot Gobbler" Pacman is out again

Adam "Pacman" Jones has been suspended for a minimum of four games by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for violation of the league's personal conduct policy, ESPN.com said on Tuesday.

Jones was involved in an alcohol-related fight with a bodyguard that was assigned to him on October 8, 2008. Commissioner Roger Goodell is not ruling out the possibility of suspending the troublesome Jones for the season or maybe for the rest of his life.

In a letter sent to Pacman Jones from Commissioner Goodell to inform him of his recent suspension, he said that "the disturbing pattern of behavior was clearly inconsistent with the conditions I set for your continued participation in the NFL."

This incident occurred only 16 weeks after Jones was reinstated from a 17-month suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy. It is still uncertain just how many more games Jones will play this season or if he could be done for good.

Beer Tasting; Drink while you work

I realize that I'm a little late on posting this blog, but my 21st birthday was last Tuesday. And I wasn't exactly in prime condition to be coming to class on Wednesday, as I spent the majority of the night and early morning with the wrong kind of cheek on the toilet seat.

However, I did find an event that is taking place in Perry Hall this Friday night at Perry Hall Liquors. They will be having a beer tasting from 4-7 pm. The beer that will be tasted is Miller Chill and the Miller Brewers Collection: Amber, Wheat, and Blonde Ale. I also received information that the "Miller Girls" will be pouring the brewskis and that's a little extra incentive.

My main sources will probably not be the "Miller Girls," because let's be honest, they're not exactly sent there because of their knowledge of the beer, but I will be speaking to the owners/managers of the liquor store, as well as some employees and other customers.

Questions:

What is it about this beer that makes it different?

Would you consider it better than Bud Light Lime? (Chill and Lime are very comparable)

How often do you hold these tastings?
What kind of other products do you hold tastings for?
Are there any upcoming tastings?

And then I would get some background information from them to throw in some anecdotes

Press Releases,weak;Original Reporting, wicked Hardcore

As I was reading up on press releases and the definition. I realized how retarded they were. (pardon my political incorrectness) But seriously, basically the CEO of some big firm calls up or faxes the editor of a newspaper some big story about his company, and the newspaper hops right on it. (the story, not his..., well both actually) Here is a story from the Baltimore Sun that I feel was definitely influenced by a press release.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-dow0916,0,4527391.story

Stock is up! Oh my! Seriously this stuff may be interesting to the "hoity toity" folks in Ruxton, but this isn't news to us common folk. I came to the conclusion that this was influenced by a press release because of how stocks have been down so much lately, and I'm sure as soon Wells Fargo Incorporated's stock went up 13 percent they sent a fax right over. Just isn't something that a normal reporter would really go out looking to do a story on.

Original reporting is way more bad ass. Let's go out and find something to report about ourselves. It isn't a copout like writing a press release. I found a story on the Baltimore Sun about a girl being grazed by a bullet, not exactly a great story, but at least it showed initiative and original reporting.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-girl0916,0,4571703.story

People being shot, wicked hardcore; stock market, weak as shit

Summary Ledes and Short Reports

Summary Ledes are pretty much a thesis statement as to what the rest of the article will cover. They are used to draw the reader's attention and attempt to answer all of the questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. It is usually only about 20 words in length and strives to provide the most information with the greatest detail in limited words.

The story that I chose to use as my example for my summary lede was about how the Baltimore Ravens/Houston Texans game was postponed this Sunday due to the ever-popular Hurricane Ike. It says:

"The devastation caused by Hurricane Ike forced the NFL to reschedule the Ravens' road opener at Houston for a second time, postponing the game to Nov. 9."

Who: Ravens/Texans
What: Hurricane Ike
Where: Houston
When: Nov 9
Why: Devastation caused by Hurricane Ike
How: Hurricanes are bad ass like that

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/football/ravens/bal-sp.ravens14sep14,0,1288047.story

Short reports are quite similar, but different from summary ledes. For example: They are similar because they both try to provide an overview of what the story is going to entail. But they are different because the lede usually trys to tell you the 5 W's and H, where as the short report wishes to tell you in more detail instead of a brief overview. Here is an example of a short report from the Baltimore Sun:

"Rookie starter Radhames Liz, who entered the game with a 7.75 ERA, pitched eight shutout innings for just his second win in six starts. He was supported by five Orioles home runs, two each from Nick Markakis and Oscar Salazar -- as the Orioles secured a rare easy victory before an announced 18,559."

As you can see this is a little bit longer than the summary lede and gives you more detailed explanation rather than just a broad overview. More words. More details. Short report

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-osgamer0914,0,4748550.story

Baltimore Sun...Quite Newsworthy

----"A New Pratt" was the first article that I looked at and it is very newsworthy as Pratt Street will get over $100 million of work done it to add new restaurants and shops.

Unusualness - It's not every day that Baltimore City gets $100 million of new additions to it's streets.
Impact - New shops and restaurants, Pratt Street will be buzzing with hundreds more hungry shoppers a night. Everyone in Baltimore can appreciate good food.
Prominence - Mayor Sheila Dixon will be in Baltimore today to tell all about the finalized plans.
Conflict - Some citygoers may find it a bit harder to get around the area with all of the construction going on...everyone is happy about the new project, but nobody wants to wait for it.
Timeliness - It was just announced today, ladies and gentlemen.
Proximity - Taking place right in the heart of the Inner Harbor in beautiful Baltimore City, this story couldn't be more relevant to the town and people of Baltimore.
Currency - People are going to want to be updated on this renovation as it progresses, this story has started a chain of many stories for years to come in Baltimore.

----"Uniforms found with Drugs and scene of killing" was the second story that I decided to click on today. Apparently, heroin and cocaine was found in a house where a shooting took place, and Baltimore city police uniforms were found at the scene of the crime.

Unusualness - Why would there be police uniforms just chilling where there was a shooting and narcotics?
Impact - This could impact a whole lot of people. If the uniforms are believed to be fake, then the owners of the house are not only going down for drugs, but also for impersonating a police officer. At the same time, if those uniforms do belong to actual police officers that were involved with these criminals, that could mean big jail time for them as well. But more importantly, the community will be effected, because once again, the question arises: Can we trust our police?
Prominence - Not a whole lot of big names in this story except for the police spokesman, Troy Harris. But I don't think that prominence is necessary in a story like this.
Currency - This story is going to have updates on it just like "The New Pratt" story will. Because they still have no idea what's going on with these police uniforms. Whose are they? We will find out with many stories to come.
Conflict - Shooting, Drugs, Police Officers, nuff' said.
Proximity - Occured in the 2100 block of North Longwood St. Right in the Southwest District of Baltimore City.
Timeliness - The event occured last Thursday, but my guess it took a while to get all of the information from the police officers, still pretty recent.

----"Man shot 13 years ago dies; case ruled a homicide" was the last Baltimore Sun article that I decided to look into more deeply. Dominic Faw was shot on October 1, 1995 and died just this year because of the gunshot wound.

Impact - That's just pretty crazy, doesn't really have much of an impact except on the friends and family of the man, but not on the society as a whole as it occured 13 years ago.
Prominence - Like the last article, this doesn't really have a big name involved except for another police spokesman, Agent Donny Moses.
Unusualness - Usually when people are shot, they die within a couple of minutes, hours, days, weeks, and at most a month. Unusually this guy gets shot 13 years ago and he is just now dying. Nuts.
Currency - This story is done, happened 13 years ago, I don't think there will be anymore stories about Dominic Faw.
Conflict - A man was shot and killed, granted he was shot over 13 years ago and he is just now dying, it's still something people want to read about.
Timeliness - Not quite so recent, the man was admitted to a hospital back in MARCH and died that morning and now this story is just coming out, and I guess it's because they finally ruled it a homicide. But it's still not very recent at all.
Proximity - Homicides, shootings, all going down in Baltimore City, what else is new. But he was admitted to the University of Maryland Medical Center, so people have to be wondering.

Elements of Style, Whoopdie Doo

Elements of style ay? Oh look at me, I'm Jared Silfie, and I keep a copy of the Elements of Style book on me at all times because I'm such a perfect writer that I look up every single sentence to make sure that it is correct before I publish anything on my Uber cool blog. Give me a break, you know what I think this says about his writing? It's stiff and it's boring. He's like a robot. I know that with journalism everything is supposed to be spelled correctly and that every sentence is supposed to be gramatically correct, but give me a break. Writing today is about feelings and emotions, it would take me all day to write a piece if I had to look up exactly how to write every single sentence. I'm sure he's a great writer and everything, but he's not going to appeal to the younger generation. They want controversy and confrontation, feelings and emotions, and we all know that robots can't express that.