Who give a hoot about Owl City?

Kari Williams

by Kari Williams, Alestle Reporter

It seems like lately all I’ve been hearing about is the Owl City and their amazing song “Fireflies.” It’s all over the Internet. Song lyrics are being posted as Facebook statuses. There is also a fan page on Facebook for the band. You can’t even flip from Z107.7 to Y98.1 without hearing that dreadful tune.

Needless to say, Owl City isn’t that great.

In fact, “Fireflies” is downright awful. It sounds like a melody for a children’s cartoon from the ‘90s that everybody wishes they could forget. Sure, there’s a catchy melody, but the same can be said for Hanson’s “Mmm…Bop” and the Spice Girls’ “Spice up Your Life.” And let’s be honest, how many people still listen to Hanson and the Spice Girls?

The lead singer Adam Young’s annoying voice doesn’t help to convince me that this band should stick around for any length of time either.

As far as I can see, Owl City will become either a one-hit wonder band like The Rembrandts or a ‘teen phenomenon’ that will fly away in about a year, give or take.

Sappy lyrics and an annoyingly memorable melody make me wonder what has happened to the quality bands that used to populate the music industry. Bands like The Beatles, Audioslave and Slayer—which were all listed on AVRev’s Top 100 Rock bands of all time—get lost in the shuffle with the emergence of fluffy pop-bands like Owl City.

Here’s an idea, if Owl City wants make a contribution to music industry, they should guy buy a CD from a band with staying power and leave the radio waves open for artists that are more than a passing craze.

Remember the origins of blockbuster video game movies

by Lindsey Oyler, Alestle photographer and reporter

Lindsey Oyler

“Dear PlayStation, I got my boyfriend a PS3 and he still hasn’t hooked it up to the Internet.”

“What? What is this 1992?”

The entertaining commercials on TV reveal the technology of the PlayStation 3 console. With new consoles come new media hype and with the media, comes more publicity and ideas to milk those great video games all their worth.

What is one way to exploit a video game system? Make movies from the individual games. The first of its kind was released as a Japanese anime film based on “Super Mario Bros.” in 1986. After that, it was one 90s movie after another, with “Street Fighter,” “Double Dragon” and “Mortal Combat.”

However, what seemed to be a cult following turned into a mass hypnosis over viewers, bringing in $275 million with “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” in 2001. Now,  with the release of the new “Assassin’s Creed” for PS3, the “Assassin’s Creed: Lineage” movie will come to theaters using green screen throughout the entire film. “Spyro” is becoming an animated film in 2012 and “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” due in 2010, has Jake Gylenhaal on its cast list.

While entertaining, the original sense of video game entertainment is lost with these movies. Remember who is behind the making of such films: the people who sit in their rooms eating pizza and playing “Halo” are the ones that should be given credit for making the video game world what is it today. Don’t let the “big dogs” take over one of the greatest support groups of geeks and nerds everywhere.

The best and worst Halloween costumes

Hunter Creel

by Hunter Creel, Alestle photographer

Costumes of Halloween’s past used to be gory and ghoulish, but they’ve devolved into parody or just plain tacky.  After watching a parade of costumes this past Friday and Saturday, I have some costumes that were creative and comical, and others that missed the mark completely.

First I am going to start with the men’s costumes, which are usually comedic characters from pop culture. But where are the costumes from the great horror movies of our time? Where are Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, The Leprechaun, or even the zombies, vampires, and the occasional Frankenstein?

Since the horror genre was lacking, I’ll go over my favorite men’s costumes of the night. First, one costumed duo that I enjoyed was Dale Denton and Saw from “Pineapple Express.” Saw even brought the schnickelfritz and Pineapple Express, which was actually kale, but a nice recreation.

I also saw Billy Mays selling Oxy Clean to all the partiers in anticipation of spills and stains to come. Sting from the WWF made an appearance Saturday night, but eventually fell into the fire, receiving burns to his hands and back. Not a very good end to the night for Sting.

My favorite men’s costume of the night was a custom-made, bright lavender Grateful Dead Bear. He eventually took on the name Bear for the rest of the evening. To you, Bear, well done.

Now unfortunately I have to start with the women’s costumes, which I was very unimpressed with. On Friday I night I caught flack for being dressed up as Jason from the “Friday the 13th” series, and this was coming from a woman who had barely any clothes. Why has Halloween turned into the weekend where women feel its necessary to wear as little as possible? I must have seen at least 20 different ways to be as revealing as possible.

Women are being an image rather than a character of the imagination, because you leave nothing to it. To all the women who wore clothes, I applause you for not falling into the stereotypical female costume of next to nothing.

Next Halloween, revelers should return to the original message of the holiday and break out the horror. After all, that is what Halloween is really about: ghosts, ghouls and serial killers.