I wish I had written that: Week four

This week I'm giving a shout out to my own university's student newspaper, The Oakland Post, by focusing on writing published in it.

Excerpt One

"Back in my day we had to rewind our video tapes. None of this fancy skipping about with a DVD player remote, we had to sit right next to this giant black machine and hold down a button to skip ahead or rewind it. Special features? If you were lucky, they were after the credits, and that too you had to hold a button down to skip. Did I mention the primary diet of a VCR machine is to eat video tapes?

Back in my day, we had to blow on our video games to make them work. Smacking your Super Nintendo was a legitimate trouble-shooting technique. There was no auto save feature and sometimes there wasn’t a save feature at all. If your dog accidentally bumped your Sega, Sonic blinked out of existence, the Sega logo popped up again and Dr. Robotnik was still a pain in the ass. We only had 151 Pokemon, and damn it, we liked it.

Back in my day, when we wanted to go online, we used a damned phone line. And when it tried to connect (Yes kids, it didn’t work every time) it made this soul-rendering abomination of a noise that sounded like a robot was giving birth in an electric storm. You know this sound. It is the soundtrack to your nightmares."

-- Dan Simons, The Oakland Post

Is my generation old enough to reminisce about "the old days"? Dan Simons thinks so. And upon reading his ornery-on-purpose description of the collective childhood of my generation, I agree with him. Times have changed, and his colorful, humorous description of those bygone days make that absolutely clear.

And that's what's impressive about this excerpt. Simons, the editor of the Oakland Post's "Mouthing Off" section, creates a humorous snapshot of the past that's believable and also fun to read.

This isn't just my opinion, though, as about five people would agree with me. Just read the comments. It's probably safe to say that more people

read it and liked it, but just didn't comment, too.

Excerpt Two

"But no. Instead of getting a beautiful fairy-dust-spewing “magical” tablet with the newest Mac OS to make da Vinci worthy Photoshop pieces with our hands, I get what I already have. An iPod Touch. Magnified x277."

-- Kaitlyn Chornoby, The Oakland Post

Kaitlyn Chornoby -- a copy editor for The Oakland Post, who, according to her Facebook, enjoys tech blogging (my goal is to share a little bit about the author, per assignment requirements, but writing that felt weird) -- is a little frustrated with Apple's latest tech release, the iPad. I believe her frustrations are representative of a lot of people, and I felt a strange sense of satisfaction when I read this excerpt. It felt like I was vicariously venting my frustrations with Apple releasing a device that is really NOT new.

That's what's great with the excerpt from Chornoby's article on the iPad. It vents. It calls Apple out on what the iPad really is. And it doesn't pull any punches: "

An iPod Touch. Magnified x277."

The comments section at the bottom of the article calls it a "fabulous review." I agree.

But what's even better are the tags at the bottom: "Steve Jobs is a turd." Nice.

Excerpt Three

"With Oakland’s enrollment annually rising, the pressure to get a close parking spot has never been greater. Few words can describe the joy when you’re running late and at the last minute you see that first open spot in front of the OC. Many words, some unmentionable during PG-13 movies, can explain the anger when that spot is claimed the moment you activate your blinker."

-- Chris Hagan, The Oakland Post

I'm going to start this by being completely transparent: Chris Hagan, an OU journalism student, is a friend of mine. I went to Lake Orion High School with him. But his article on parking at OU was just too entertaining to not write about.

Hagan is describing a situation that every OU commuter student can relate to -- finding a parking spot. And that's what's great about the excerpt: he's encapsulating an experience that is common among the student body.

My favorite part of this is "many words, some unmentionable during PG-13 movies" because it gets the point across without having to use those annoying asterisks (***). It made me laugh, and it relates the frustration that every commuter student has probably felt at some point during their college career, though not all would express it the same way. I myself usually make incomprehensible noises or growl.

The experience of OU students is what backs up Hagan's writing. It's great writing because it manages to capture something nebulous -- the emotions of a collective body -- in a humorous way. Talk to any OU student that commutes and they'll back me up on this.

Parking is part of OU's experience.