Once a month, I get really excited to work out because I can simultaneously read the new ‘Rolling Stone’ issue while sweating off some calories on the Stair Master. And I knew I had to do a blog post on one article I will forever remember: August’s issue covering the show ‘True Blood.’ For so long I thought the show was some weird sci-fi show about vampires who have crazy vampire sex. Not the most appealing storyline, for me atleast. But after reading the issue with the hottest photo ever to graze ‘Rolling Stone’s’ cover, I was forever changed.

The main reason why I love ‘Rolling Stone’ is because the articles written on the most popular music or TV shows talk about more than the obvious. The articles break stereotypes, wake up the naive and reveal the hidden truths of anything related to modern pop culture. Most recently, Rolling Stone exposed to me that the director of ‘Mad Men’ portrays the kind of person he’s always wanted to be through its  different characters, as well as what a ten-year-old interview between John Lennon and a Rolling Stone writer entailed. And for ‘True Blood,’ it is no exception.

The show is so much more than blood and sex. It’s about finding your identity and accepting that sex is such a big part of our culture. The underlying themes mirror our modern-day culture because identity is something everyone, human or vampire, struggle with.

I have yet to really watch an episode, but thank you Rolling Stone for showing me how hott vampires are a lot more similar to me than I would ever think.

Who doesn’t love a show that has attractive people with attractive voices singing classics and the best modern pop songs? And that is the main reason why the show ‘Glee’ does so well. Any age or gender can find pleasure in watching this show. But all innocence comes to an end when their photoshoot is exposed throughout ‘GQ’s’ pages. And the inevitable arises: parents complain and actors respond. I was appalled at how Dianna Agron responded to the complaints.

“If you are hurt or these photos make you uncomfortable, it was never our intention.”

How could you wear a skirt that shows the crevice of your bottom and NOT make people feel uncomfortable? I was dumbfounded.

But another one of Agron’s statements made me think twice about bestowing judgment on her.

“In the land of Madonna, Britney, Miley, Gossip Girl, other public figures and shows that have pushed the envelope and challenged the levels of comfort in their viewers and fans…we are not the first.”

She’s right. It happens every single time with new public figures: they drop the innocent act and embrace the sexuality that leaves fans flaberghasted. This got me thinking: Why do actors and artists that so many fans put on a pedastool botch up that image for something so superficial and unoriginal?

And I realized: people grow up, even fictitious TV characters. And with that growth comes the journey in finding yourself and how you fit into this world. So yeah, it’s unfortunate that Miley Cyrus isn’t the cute Southern girl we all know so well. Now she looks like the “I’m a Slave 4 U”-phase Britney Spears. But can you blame the girl? As human beings, it’s part of the natural evolution that we change, even if that means disappointing people around you.

We also forget that actors are humans, too. They mess up, wake up with blackheads and eat hamburgers. They are just like us. And really, we’re all taking the same journey, it’s just that actors travel it in the public eye.

When I was really supposed to be taking diligent notes on economic policy during my Poli Sci 104 lecture, I was going through the website of the campaign called ‘Falling Whistles.’

I was immersed.

The ‘Falling Whistles’ website’s use of black and white subconsciously brings out this strong emotion and appeal to their campaign, which is halting the brutal war in Congo. So obviously with a campaign that should stir strong emotion, color scheme as well as pictures are keys in luring attention. But what also kept me from listening to Professor Cannon’s lecture was their ‘Story’ page. The story of how this whole campaign started is told through the clicking of arrows, and the website takes you on a virtual ride that consists of short but very descriptive sentences in crisp font, and photos that speak louder than words. I feel like there are so many campaigns that focus on Africa and its child soldiers. It’s hard to be original with a popular issue. But with the ‘Falling Whistles’ website, the strategies it uses to get their message across is through little things like good use of color, photos and fonts that resonate powerfully. Little things make a big difference, and I think this campaign did that beautifully.

Okay, one of my many celebrity crushes has to be the pretty brown eyed, silly boy Ashton Kutcher. Best known for his ‘That 70s Show’ character and being married to one of the hottest cougars in Hollywood, Kutcher seems to be just an average joe movie star who just so happened to be born with beautiful genes. However, after this particular article I read on my Twitter newsfeed, my celebrity crush has turned into like a celebrity love. A tad creepy, but now I see there is more to him than those dark brown eyes.

So he writes an article for the high-fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar about how the new social media replaced genuine gestures of expressing romantic feelings to others. Instead of written love notes, texts easily generated by T9 replaced the romantic exchange that used to be so humanly genuine. I admit, texting is my main form of communication and I get giddy when my Blueberry lets me know that I received a short message from a cute boy. Texting, emailing, facebooking and tweeting are great ways to organize your thoughts and getting your message across without the hassle of getting out of your house. When all is said and done, take away the technological fancies of expressing romantic interest to others, but isn’t it the actual human interaction that makes love the most irrational emotion, but the realest emotion there is?

Here’s his new movie’s trailer, No Strings Attached. A typical, but way too cute, Ashton Kutcher kind of flick.

I found this article on my Twitter feed strangely intriguing. After reading it over several times, I couldn’t help but wonder what the article was REALLY about and why I couldn’t stop thinking about this odd but wise Afghanistan man who owned his own TV show in Kabul. But after thinking about it, I realized that this article focuses on a man that views journalism as telling stories. But they’re not just any kind of story. They’re stories that carry history, culture and timeless lessons stemmed from classic literature. And based on that, I also realized the reason why I was so attracted to the article was because that very story-telling foundation is the one I hold when I carry out my journalistic writing. To me, a good article or story needs so much more than facts and numbers. It’s about informing and from that inspiring readers to think and act. And in the midst of the evolving media in getting the news out, it is so easy to forget the simplicity of what journalism should be, and how the article’s content should resonate with the readers. This interesting Afghan man reminded me that good journalism doesn’t have to be the most informative piece of article ever written, but that it can be something as simple as telling a story over a warm cup of tea.