Dallas Museum of Art: Body Beautiful

Went to the Dallas Museum of Art on Thursday with Tien to go see my favorite type of art: Greek/Roman art! The exhibit is open until October 6th, so if you haven't gone, then you should!

Attacking Catholics: Is This Something You Want to Include in Your Portfolio?

So I'm browsing through the graphic design tag on Tumblr when I come across this: a series of "posters" about pedophilia in Catholic churches:
http://overthewembo.tumblr.com/post/
32265987330/posters-about-pedophilia-in-catholic-churches

Okay. I'm about to go on this huge angry rant. Like, forreal. This  kind of stuff is not okay. Alright, I understand that the Catholic religion has been getting a lot of bad press because of child molestation charges against a few priests. But it's not like it's only happened to the Catholic church. I'm sure that there are some cases like this involving Baptist pastors. It's not like anyone is hating on Baptists. On top of that, is it really fair to attack a religion as a whole for the actions of a select few? People say it's insensitive to attack all Muslims for the actions of a few radicals that decided to carry out the September 11th attacks. Isn't it insensitive to do the same to Catholics?

ON TOP OF THAT, these images are a series done by a 24-year-old graphic designer to include in his portfolio. HIS PORTFOLIO. Really, is this something that you would want to include in your portfolio? Do you honestly think that your potential employers would find this a "tasteful" piece? I'm pretty sure that if this is the kind of aesthetics that you're into that you're going to have a hard time finding a job. These aren't even that cleverly done. Like, what the heck. All the guy did was throw in a few penises. The composition and the execution just suck. How long would it take to make all these "posters?" Probably less than 20 minutes. You know that kind of effort is going to land you a graphic design job.

Alright. End of my angry rant.

The Mark of Athena

Oh man. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan comes out in 13 days! So excited! The first chapter has been posted on Rick Riordan's website already, but I've restrained myself from reading it because doing so will cause me to be more anxious. On top of that, I should be reading the Wizard of Oz novels for my fantasy literature test on Thursday instead. I'm debating whether or not I should pre-order The Mark of Athena...

For those of you who don't know what I'm blabbing about, The Mark of Athena is the 3rd book in Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series. This series is kind of like a sequel to the Percy Jackson series, but instead of following Greek mythology it follows Roman mythology instead. The premise of the books is that in modern times there is still the existence of Greek and Roman gods. These gods sometimes do the bang bang with mortals and they end up making demigod kids. These kids can be sent to one of two camps for survival training based on their godly parents' form during conception: Camp Half Blood for Greek kids and Camp Jupiter for Roman kids. At these camps, kids learn how to sword fight and stuff like that to fight off mythical monsters and stop the invasion of Titans and giants.

So these books are obviously more suited for 12-year-old kids instead of college seniors. Why do I enjoy them so much? They're really entertaining and educational at the same time. I love the humor that Rick Riordan incorporates into the books. Some of it is in-your-face and some of it is subtle, sarcastic humor. What's educational about these books is that they help teach me about Greek and Roman mythology. I can name all 12 of the main Olympians using their Greek names and can probably match up their Roman counterparts. This information came in very helpful during my art history class.

Rick Riordan has another series called the Kane Chronicles which is based on Egyptian mythology. I only read the first book and it was okay. I believe there are now 3 books in the series. I wasn't fond of the setup of the book. Rick Riordan wrote these books to resemble an audio transcript of a brother and sister retelling their encounters with Egyptian gods.

I guess if I have nothing better to do then I'll read books 2 and 3 for the Kane Chronicles. Too bad I have to read the Chronicles of Narnia next for my fantasy literature class. Still a better story than Twilight. I can't believe I used to like that stuff. I actually reread the series and now I realize how horrible of a writer Stephanie Meyer is. My goodness. Now I gotta find a way to get rid of my Twilight books. They're worth almost nothing on Half.com and Amazon. Bleh.

To learn more about Rick Riordan's books, click the link below:
http://www.rickriordan.com/home.aspx