Shameless Showing Off

So, I had my baby! She was born at 12:33 a.m. December 2nd, exactly one week overdue. She was 18.5 inches long and 7 pounds 4 ounces. Her name is Savannah Emily Merrill. I've suddenly realized what a blessing digital cameras are. I'm so grateful to be able to take hundreds of pictures. So, in the name of showing my new favorite media (aka looking for an excuse to show off my little girl) here are some pictures (It was very hard to narrow down to these ones): For some reason, they loaded backwards. So, they start at the bottom.

Testing the car seat

First Family Picture

Daddy's Little Girl

Love at First Sight

On the way to be induced

The 100 Hour Board

One of my favorite websites is The 100 Hour Board. I've been reading it almost daily for 4 years now. It's a bunch of anonymous BYU students who will answer any question you ask within 100 hours. The answers are often funny and clever. It's a great way to find out useless trivia or helpful information. It updates every day (except Sundays) and is a fun way to waste time on the internet. Here is a sampling of my favorite questions: This one for being very informative, and this one for making me laugh every time I read it.

Up

Today the movie Up was released on DVD. One of my best friends had a movie release party so I was able to see it for the third time. I love that movie! I think it's such a great example of positive media. It's family friendly, funny, and touching. The animation is beautiful and so much fun to watch. It also has a really good message. It helps you realize what matters in life. It doesn't matter if you have a big house or a glamorous lifestyle. All that really matters is that you treat the people you love well. I love that in the end it was Carl and Ellie's marriage that a lot of people would consider boring that was her wonderful adventure. It makes me want to appreciate the little things in my life more and see them as my adventure instead of always looking toward the next big thing.

Cyber Bullying

Last night I was wasting time on facebook. I was looking at the profile of a friend from my freshman year and I saw that recently, another freshman year "friend" had written a mean comment about me on the wall. I was floored because I haven't really talked to either of these people for about 3 years and I don't ever remember offending them. And, as silly as it is, my feelings were kind of hurt. And I was embarrassed. I wished there was a way I could erase that comment so no one else I know would ever see it, even though the vast majority of the people I know now wouldn't care one bit what those girls said. I really have moved on from my freshman year, but I still spent a few minutes feeling sad.

Anyway, it got me thinking. I know cyber bullying is a huge problem and now I understand why a little better. I mean, if one little comment from a person who's opinion I don't really care about anymore bothered me that much, what must it feel like to be a teen who has horrible comments made about them from people who they do care about? I can see why it's so effective and damaging.

I think the biggest problem with cyber bullying is the lack of ability to regulate it. I really can't think of a singe thing that can be done to fix the problem, besides trying to influence the teens in my life to refrain from it.

Everyone can see what we write...

I was looking through some of my older blog posts and I noticed a comment from a person that I don't know who isn't in our class. It really surprised me. I mean, I know that my blog is public and everyone on the internet can see it, but I never thought that they actually did. I'm not too stressed about it since this blog is meant to be public. But, it makes me want to be much more careful about what I put on my personal blog, especially in regard to my family.

And, speaking of family, does anyone have strong opinions about whether or not to put pictures of a baby on facebook? I want to because I know a lot of my friends will want to see pictures of my baby and I'm sure I'll want to show her off, but the paranoid worrier part of me thinks it might be a bad idea. If my profile is private, do you think there's any harm?

Natural Born Killers

In order to prepare for the mock trial tomorrow, I decided to read the synopsis of Natural Born Killers on Wikipedia. I think I'm going to be sick. I seriously feel ill. If I feel like this after reading about something for 5 minutes, how much worse is it to watch it for two hours? It's a horrible, evil movie. I don't understand why anyone would ever watch something like that. The violence sounds so graphic. The murderers kill about 45 people and get away with it. I don't care that Oliver Stone claims it's supposed to be satirical. Satire can go too far. There is no reason to ever watch something so disgusting. I believe in freedom of speech, but I wish that people had the decency to not make movies like this one. The Wikipedia article also talked about copycat crimes from this movie. Some of these crimes were done by young adolescents. Why are parents letting their kids watch this movie?!? It's horrible.

Anyway, I'm disgusted with every person who produced that movie. It makes me very sad that filth like that exists and is so mainstream. I think I'll listen to some hymns now to help me feel the Spirit again...

Horrorcore Rap

This definitely isn't a happy post, but I think the effect media can have on a person is fascinating. In the news recently (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32974921/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts//) there's a story about a girl who was really into horrorcore music (a music genre that glorifies killing and things like cannibalism). She met a fellow fan online and they started dating. A few weeks ago, he went to stay with her and her family and a few days later her, her parents, and friend were found murdered. This guy is the main suspect. He was suspected when he hitched a ride from someone and smelled like a corpse. Here are some of his lyrics:

"They just want me to murder continuously.

"They want me to take lives on a mass murder spree.

"They love the smell of a body that's rotten and decayed.

"That's what I think about when I'm stalking my prey."

In another article I read about this story, friends of the parents said the parents didn't know what to do about their daughter's obsession with this evil music. They were against it, but were worried that if they tried to force her to stop listening to it, she would rebel and listen to it anyway plus she would hate them. They seemed like good parents trying to do the right thing and I feel so bad for them that this was their consequence. I keep wondering what I would do if one of my kids tried to get into this kind of music... It makes me scared to raise kids in a world like our's. Hopefully my kids take after their parents and never think this type of thing is anything but disgusting.