Shrunken Heads

Thor and his friend Herman flew to the country where the balsa trees were that they needed for their boat.  To get to the trees they had to go into the jungle, but they couldn't because it was the rainy season.  Because of this they decided to fly to the opposite side of the jungle where there were mountains. 

The first day their pilot, Jorge, tried to find someone who would show them the way to the balsa trees. That night Thor, Herman and Jorge met to have dinner and to discuss what Jorge had found out.  Jorge did not have any encouraging news.  He told them that no one wanted to go because of the rainy season and also because of the head hunters. 

The head hunters were a group of uncivilized Indians who would kill their enemies and then take the heads and shrink them.  They would do this by cutting off the head then taking out the brain and the rest of the insides and filling the head with hot sand.  The men would then sell these heads to people who had lots of money.  This was outlawed by the Indian government, but the outlaws didn't care. 

Jorge told them a story of how once his friend had been killed by a head hunter.  Jorge had followed the trail of the head hunter and had eventually caught up with him.  He told the murderer that he would only spare his life if he gave his friend's head back.  The man did and Jorge brought it home and put it in a chest.  Later when he opened the chest he found green mold growing on his friends head so he brought it outside to dry in the sun.  It hung very well on a clothesline so he would hang it there. 

When his wife went outside to hang up the clothes, she saw the head and fainted.  Eventually a mouse chewed its way through the chest and made a mess of Jorge's friend.  Instead of keeping a chewed up friend Jorge decided to bury his friend, so he went outside to his airstrip and dug a tiny hole and buried his friend there.        

The Screwtape Letters

We need to be careful what friends we make, because they can influence us in good ways or bad ways.  In the Screwtape letters, Wormwood's patient became friends with two very rich, worldly people. Those people introduced the patient to their other friends.   Screwtape encouraged Wormwood to keep his patient as a friend to those people if he could.  The patient thought he was just as good as the people he hung out with and thought he was on their level.  (In his mind pretty high up.)

When the patient would hang out with those friends he would act a certain way while when he was at church he would act in a totally different way, as if he was two different people.  The patient would do a lot of laughing when he was with his worldly friends and Wormwood thought that it was all laughter that was bad.  Screwtape told him that there were different kinds of laughter, joy, fun, joke proper, and flippancy.  The last two are the bad ones, the first one is good, and the second one can be either good or bad.

Kon-Tiki chapter two cont.

Thor found men three more men who wanted to go on the voyage so now there are six men.  They have to work quickly because there are only three months left until they wanted to set off on the voyage.  Because of this fact, they have to hurry to get everything taken care of.

The American army gave them rations to test and a lot of other equipment all for free. Because of all the rushing from country to country, they ran out of money.  They sent to the man in New York who was sponsoring them for the trip, but he was sick and could not give them money at the time.  That meant they did not have any money to keep going and yet they had to keep going.  Some people who knew about their trip came and gave them money and said they could pay them back when they returned.  Now they could go and make the boat.

To make a boat they had to go to Peru to get the wood that the men who originally crossed would have used.  To make it easier for them in the long run they had to go to the United Nations headquarters to talk to the President of Peru.  For if they were to just come into Peru taking wood, people would become very suspicious and they could probably be thrown into jail.
They spoke to the president and also to the Ambassador of Ecuador and they said that they would help them as much as they could.  

The Irony in Ozymandias

In the poem Ozymandias, Shelly describes a very proud and haughty king.  This king had, in his day made a great name for himself by building many great structures.  He also had a statue built of himself standing near his buildings.  Shelly says that a man once told him a story about seeing the remains of Ozymandias' statue which was two legs with the sneering head broken off and lying on the ground in the desert.  On the ground next to these was a plaque, it read as follows, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works ye mighty and despair."  Around the head and legs there was nothing else, no buildings.  Just a sandy desert for as far as the eye could see.

Whatever Happened to Justice?

In the constitution it says, "All men are created equal."  This means that no man should get punished unjustly while another man in the same circumstance wouldn't get punished at all.  It also means that no man is greater then others, and no one should have to bow to someone else.  Sometimes black people get punished unjustly or aren't treated like they should be, and sometimes it's the other way around with white people getting the short end of the stick.  This should not be! 

Kon-Tiki chapter two

Thor had the energy; he just needed supplies, money and about six people.  First he set out to find supplies.  He was part of an exclusive explorers club in New York where he went whenever he was in town.  That day there was someone giving a speech about the new army equipment that had been made.  The other members in his club didn't think they were good because they had tried things like the ones the man had brought before and had nearly died because of it.  The zipper had frozen in place on the tent and the man couldn't get into it and so on. 
 
The man who was advocating the new army equipment said that anyone could have any or all of the supplies if when he was done his trip he would say if it worked or not.  Thor needed supplies like that in case his boat sank or something, and because they would be free made it sound even better.  When most of the men in the club had left Thor asked the man if he could try out the supplies and the man let him.  On his way out, a man from the club asked him what he needed with the supplies.  When Thor told him, he said he wanted to come too.  Thor also knew someone else who wanted to come as well, so they were now up to three men in total. 

The next thing they needed was money.  Thankfully Thor knew someone who had been in the army before who had lots of money.  Thor went to see him.  When he told the man about his trip the man said he would sponsor the trip if Thor would come home and tell the newspaper reporters what he had done and what it was like.  Thor agreed.  So the last thing they needed to do was make the boat and then eventually get more men.

My Translation of Sonnet of 18

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18

Should I compare you to a summer day?
You are more beautiful and more self-controlled.
Harsh winds blow the early May buds,
and summer is too short.
Sometimes the sun is too hot,
and often it is too cloudy;
and every beautiful thing sometimes gets less beautiful,
by chance or the changing ways or nature.
But you will always be beautiful,
nor lose your beauty,
nor will you be forgotten in death,
for by this poem people will remember you.
So long as life remains you will be remembered by this poem.

I Promessi Sposi

Lorenzo had a girlfriend named Lucia.  He got betrothed to her, but a rich nobleman got between them and said they couldn't get married.  They tried to any way but it didn't work and they had to flee their village.
They went to a Nun who said she would help them stay safe until a time would come that they could get married.  She housed Lucia and Lucia's mother who had come with her, but she sent Lorenzo to a Monastery in Milan.  When Lorenzo arrived in Milan he found a riot going on and deciding to see what it was all about, set off for center city.  The present year  was not a good year for the crops and there was a large famine raging about the land.  The common people thought it was all the fault of the bakers and it just so happened that the day when Lorenzo arrived, they decided to attack all the bakeries and get as much flour and bread as they could.  At the days end Lorenzo went to an inn where he got a drink and some dinner.  He wasn't normally a big drinker, but that night he drank more and more until he was very drunk.  The innkeeper said that Lorenzo needed to give his name and where he was from, but Lorenzo didn't want to.  Lorenzo slept in the inn that night and in the morning he got a big surprise.  There were too police men and one other man that Lorenzo had seen the night before.  They said he needed to come with them to court.  They thought he was a ringleader of the riot that had occurred the day before.  On the way to the courthouse he was able to get away and he ran as fast as he could to get away.  That night he came to an inn where he ate and when he was done got on his way again.

The beggining

 Sitting there on the beach he had remembered one night before,

   

Thor sat on the deck of his boat, thinking.  How had this voyage started any way?  Before the voyage Thor and been a horticulturist, but he had decided to switch to South American history.  

   He remembered how ten years before he and his wife were sitting on the beach of a pacific island were he was doing horticultural research.  

  they had heard an old islander saying, "I am the only one left from the people who first came here.  There were men who taught us how to make statues and they were white men with beards."  That night he decided what he wanted to do.  When they returned home he did research about South America and its relation to the Pacific islands and found many books about it.  There were statues on some pacific islands and in South America that looked like they were made by the same people. 
   After years of research he finally decided to make a boat.  He would make one in the style that people going from South America to the Pacific islands would have made and then he would sail from South America to one of the Pacific islands.  

Screwtape Letters 1-3

   I

   My dear Wormwood, be careful what you let your victim read.  Make sure he reads only non-spiritual books with little or no values.  Do this not by argument, for that brings him into the enemies territory, but by trivial means.  For example, when I was younger I had a victim who was about to think about the enemy, so I reminded him that he was hungry.  His thoughts drifted away from the subject at hand and he got up and left.  Outside, I showed him a bus, which he boarded.  He was then safely away from any thoughts contrary to the ones I wanted him to have.   

II

My dear Wormwood, I am very disappointed to hear that your victim has become a Christian.  There are still ways that you can get at him though.  Don't get me wrong, you will still be punished according to the normal rule, but you still have things to do.  At this early stage we still have something on our side, his habits.  Be sure to keep him in them.

III

My dear Wormwood, I am very happy to hear of your victim's relationship with his mother.  They fight but both of them don't think it is there fault.  They think that they are guiltless and the other is at fault.  Keep them at it and when he prays for her at night be sure to have him pray for faults that aren't hers but he thinks she has.  I once had a victim who would pray at night for his wife and children but when he had finished would straight a way beat them and yell at them. 

The hand that signed the paper felled a city

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death. The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, The finger joints are cramped with chalk; A goose's quill has put an end to murder That put an end to talk. The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, And famine grew, and locusts came; Great is the hand the holds dominion over Man by a scribbled name. The five kings count the dead but do not soften The crusted wound nor pat the brow; A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; Hands have no tears to flow. ~Dylan Thomas This poem has many examples of Metonymy. Metonymy is a word or phrase that is used to describe part of a whole.  For example, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”In that excerpt from Shakespeare's, Julies Caesar, Mark Anthony doesn't want their ears, but he wants them to listen to him.        In the first stanza it talks about a person who murdered another king.  In the second stanza it talks about the murderer and describes how he looks and how he made good laws.  In the third and fourth stanzas it says how he has no pity.  He counted the people who died from the famine but didn't care about them at all.  In this poem it talks about a hand doing things, but behind the hand there is a person.

Metaphors and Similes

A long braid of hair - The braid was a rope of happiness. Metaphor

An old woman's hand - The woman's hands were a scarred and wrinkled story of her life. Metaphor

The smell of a coming rainstorm - The air smelled like a party waiting to happen with all of creation holding it's breath. Simile

A Corvette - The smooth and shining sides sparkled like the sun. Simile

A cat's tongue - The rough, pink tongue of a cat is like a built in comb. Simile

The sound of a chainsaw - The chainsaw was a lion purring. Metaphor

Fish eyes - Wells to nothingness. Metaphor

Fire - The red, orange and yellow looked like a forest at sunset undulating rapidly. Simile

Morning mist - The mist was a white blanket. Metaphor

Umbrellas in a crowd opening all at once - The umbrellas looked like sunflowers searching for the sun. Simile

Gloopily Gross

Bedraggaly horses,

snoozeling slowly around.

Shniky soups of goo

flopping gloopily.

Great greenish glips

glide glackily in.

Fleemish flies

flipping flakily.

The silid air

melackularily molid.

Moldy makish pies

stay stakish.

Giant Sequoia

The 

300 foot giant looms 

black against the night sky.  

4,000 years old, its needle 

like scales 1/6 of an inch long 

wave in the night breeze.  The trunk,

  grey-green at the base, deep green 

above, blend with the other branches.  

The little pink and yellow flowers 

like stars make way for the cones to 

come.  The mini football like cones

with diamond  scales cling tightly to the 

branches.  Soft, thick, red bark, 20 inches thick 

in the oldest trees 

climbs to 

the very top.

Flower Pics

Wrapping Up

  Grant could now walk around on his feet and he was very proud of the fact even after one of the nurses reminded him that a baby could do what he was doing.  Later that day Brent came in looking all dejected.  "What's the matter?" asked Grant.  The problem was moaned Brent that the fact that Richard didn't really murder his nephews was a fact known by EVERYONE!  Slowly with a sinking feeling Grant realized that the great discovery they had made wasn't really a great discovery after all.  "But," he asked, "why is it still stated as a fact that he killed his nephews?"  Suddenly Brent cheered up, "I will be the ambassador for Richard and everybody will have listen to me!" 

  

  At Last the face of Richard could be identified as the face of a king who wasn't a villain.  Really there was no way he could have committed the murder because he wasn't benefited by the murder and the boys death benefited Henry in every way.       

Clotho Spider

  The Clotho spider lives under rocks in a little dome it makes for itself.  This nest is made of silk which the spider forms into a dome to which it adds more and more layers over time.  It also covers its nest in empty shells of bugs that it head devoured as you can see in the picture.                                                                                               This spider is of the kind that stays alive after the birth of its brood.  Before the eggs are hatched she sits on them like a mother hen and keeps them warm.  When they are hatched she helps them leave the nest and when they are gone she makes another nest in which to live.  This nest she will use for her next brood because her last nest was taken up by the egg cases so there wouldn't be enough room for her and more eggs.       

Appeal to Tradition, Snob Appeal and Appeal to Hi-Tech

Appeal to tradition is when you are doing something just because you've always done it.  Or just because the company has been around for 100 years doesn't mean you should go with that company.  

Snob appeal is when you are doing something or buying something just to be different from everybody else.  Being different from everybody else is not always a good idea though, because being different might mean buying skunk perfume or eating poison Ivy.  This would not be a good idea!  

Appeal to Hi-Tech is when someone uses big words that don't make any sense, but it makes them sound like they know what their doing which might make you buy what they're selling.  

Ivanhoe, The End

  Ivanhoe married Rowena with great celebrations and feasting.  After the wedding Rebecca came to see Rowena to say goodbye because she was leaving with her father.  They were leaving so that they would be safe and would not have to worry about being killed.

  Athelstane punished the monks that had kept him in captivity with imprisonment for three days and giving them only bread and water to eat and drink.  He had wanted to kill them, but his mother had implored him not to because she herself was in the holy order.  Albert Malvoisin and his brother were both beheaded by King Richard for their base acts in trying to kill Rebecca.  The king let Lucas Beaumanoir go free though and also the other knights Templar.  Richard also forgave his brother, John for all the offences he had given him.

Joan's Death

  Joan, the savior of her country, who was loved by all her country men, and who was worshiped by some, was burned at the stake.  The head judge had finally won the battle.  The day before her death he had laughed because he had beaten her, a poor peasant girl.   

  Her story reminds me of Jesus, who came to earth as a lowly carpenter's son and was loved by all until he died a cruel death with no one to pity him except His closest followers.   

  One man who had betrayed Joan asked for her forgiveness when she was on her way to be killed and she gave it.  She was then chained to the stake and was heard praying while the fire burnt around her.  As the flames billowed about her, blocking her from sight, she died.

  When her father heard of her death he died of grief.  Her mother lived for a while after her martyrdom and was even at the place where the pope took Joan's case and said that she was not guilty. 

Tony Pandy

  Everything seemed to be turning into tony pandy!  The man who had supposedly killed Richard's nephews for Richard and also supposedly admitted to the crime when he was captured really never said anything of the kind.  And Edward's wife, after her two sons were supposedly murdered, made friends with Richard the supposed murderer of them.  Strange.  She then got a pension from Richard and came back into court life with her daughters.  She even wrote a letter to her one son who was over sees to come back because Richard would be good to him!  Only someone who was insane or with something else wrong with their brain would make friends with the murderer of her sons.  This made Grant and Brent, the woolly lamb, think that Richard didn't kill his nephews.  Grant also noticed that historians do not seem to have any brain, because some of the things they say about people don't make any sense.  Things just didn't line up, and yet the whole world just took it for granted that what they said was true.  

Joan is Defeated

  Since Joan had gotten a good rest after her last time court, she came back, awake and ready to meet the judges.  The first day she did very well and beat the judges with flying colors.  The next day was the same and this lasted for five days.  The people started making jokes about the head judge and because his name, said a little differently meant pig, they used that to make fun of him.  They painted pictures on the walls of the courtroom of pigs wearing the priestly garments or pigs doing other things that made the h.j. mad.  Finally so as to stop being made fun of, the h.j. brought Joan to the torture chamber where the stretcher was and standing beside it were the men that used it on people.  He hoped that under the threat of death by being stretched, Joan would be so afraid that she would say things that would condemn her to death.  Joan just looked him in the face and said she would only say the things she had said already, so, since the h.j. couldn't force anything out of her, he sent her back to her cell.  Then the h.j. had the list of lies be made into a sentence for Joan's death and so upon the following day after the list was finished she would be burned at the stake.

Helpful Logic Tips.(Transfer)

 

  Transfer is when you use someone's feelings about something to make them buy a certain product or do something you want them to do.   For example, buy a Ford truck or buy Marlboro cigarettes.  The only reason you would buy one of these things is because you like the picture of a Ford on a mountain or you like that Marlboro man is a cowboy and so you want to be one as well, as if the cigarettes will make you a cowboy or cowgirl.  

This picture makes you think that this truck is the best
just because it is on a mountain and in a dangerous position.

This picture used peoples feelings toward women to transfer
them to the car.

Strange Happenings

  When King Richard and Ivanhoe reached Aelthelstane's house, where Aethelstane's funeral banquet was going on, Cedric welcomed them and showed them to the room in which they would be staying.  Then the door opened and in came Aethelstane, alive!  Cedric and Richard asked how Aelthelstane came to be where he was and not dead.  Aelthestane replied that when he had been knocked down in the battle he had not really been killed, but made unconscious.  The monks that were in charge of him in the church had found out that he was alive and so fed him on bread and water to keep him alive, but they gave him some wine that must have been drugged because he fell back to sleep immediately.  When he awoke again he was in his own house in the coffin but his feet were tied up so he couldn't move.  Thankfully he was able to free himself and make it to where Cedric was.  When he had finished telling his story he told Rowena that she didn't have to marry him, because he knew that she didn't want to.  Then a message came and Ivanhoe and Richard were seen dashing off on their horses.

  Meanwhile Rebecca was sitting in the lists waiting for someone to come and fight on her behalf, but so far no one had.  Then, in came Ivanhoe all tired out from riding so fast and he said he would fight for Rebecca.  At first Brian refused to fight with him because Ivanhoe was wounded but when Ivanhoe threatened to tell everyone that Brian was a coward, he agreed to fight.  They rode to opposite ends of the field and then they rode thunderously at each other and met at the middle.  They both fell off their horses, but Brian did not get back off the ground again.  The head of the Templars, Lucas, said that that was a sign from heaven that Rebecca was guiltless, so she was able to go away in peace.        

My Bedtime

       When at night I close my  eyes,
     my mommy sings me lullabies. My  
   Daddy kisses me and reads, A bedtime
story just for me. In the dark I hear a sound,
   The hamster on his wheel goes round.
      I fall asleep again and dream, Of
           monkeys eating ice cream.

Daughter of Time, the saga continues

  After Edward took Richard's throne he wanted to make sure he was able to keep it.  So he accused Richard of all sorts of things, but of all the things Edward accused Richard of doing he didn't include the base act of Richard killing his nephews.  Grant couldn't figure out why this was since everyone in those days knew about it.  Since this question wouldn't stop nagging him, he asked everyone who came into his room the question.  No one knew but when Carradine, Marta's woolly lamb, came that afternoon he had brought his research papers with him.  These he read to Grant which made things much clearer.  There were some things that people thought really happened, but different people gave different accounts about it so they really were not true.  For example, one historian said that six people killed this one man.  Another, that only three killed him.  So you see that it must be false since people are giving different accounts about it.  This helped Grant because it made him think that Richard may not have really killed his nephews.  

Helpful Logic Tips. (Repetition)

  Repetition is when you say something over and over again to someone to try to get your point across, even if you are giving them no reason to do what you say.  Politicians can use repetition to make you think that you should vote for them.  Don't use repetition!  Don't use repetition!  Don't use repetition!

Calvin is using repetition to get his mom to let him bring Hobbes to the store.

Miss Information is using repetition to make you think that spiders evolved.

Joan Fools Them Again

  When the last court of the second trial ended Joan was sent back to her cell.  There she contracted the fever.  The judges didn't want her to die so they called in physicians to cure her.  She was cured, but the next day she was ill again.  This time she was ill for two weeks when the head judge thought she was well enough to continue the trial.

  Meanwhile, the judges were busy at work writing up a list of lies, of which to convict Joan.  The head judge was planning to have a third trial and he was going to use the list of lies to somehow trick Joan.  He narrowed the judges down to a very few for this trial so he had the very meanest on his side.  The list was a very long one and took two days to read.  Her friends thought they were reading the whole thing to her in the hopes that she would die of fatigue, but she didn't and she answered every question well, winning the third trial.  

The Banquet

  When Ivanhoe reached the King the fighting was done.  Ivanhoe told the King that he shouldn't have fought because he could have been killed.  The King just shrugged and told Ivanhoe not to worry.  The King was hungry and he asked if Robin Hood had any food.  Robin Hood replied that he did and he then invited the King to have a feast with him and his men.  Previously Robin's men had been shy and reverent to the King, but now as they were eating they were boisterous and merry.  This familiarity between the King and the outlaws made Robin and Ivanhoe nervous so they resolved to break up the feast.  They wanted to break up the feast because they didn't want one of the men to say something to the King that angered him because the King could do some serious damage to whosoever he pleased.  So Robin called one of his men to him and told him to blow a horn the way the Normans did.  The man did, which made all the men eating and merry making stop what they were doing and draw their weapons including the King.  Robin then went up to the Richard and asked his forgiveness because he had tricked him.  Richard gave it and then they got ready to leave.  

The Epeira And Its Web

  Fabre wanted to see if spiders differentiate between each other's webs.  He took two spiders of the same specie and put each of them on the other's web.  The spiders just went to the center of the web and waited for their meal as usual.  Fabre then tried the same thing again, this time putting two spiders that looked very different from each other on the other ones web.  The spiders acted normally again, going to the center of the web and waiting for a meal.  He then tried putting two spiders that made webs that looked different and put them on the others web, then waited to see what would happen.  Even this time the spiders just acted normally and went to the center of the web.

 
  After going out every day on long walks to find spiders Fabre decided to bring some home and put them all on one bush, so he went out and collected them and brought them home.  A few days later when most of them had webs, he took one spider and put it with another spider on a web. The spider who owned the web tried to fight off the newcomer, but was overcome.  The triumphant victor then swathed his prey and ate him.  Disgusting!

Joan's Mistake

  Back in court with Joan, she is being badgered back and forth with questions with not much success on the judges' side, so the head judge sent away most of the judges until there were only about two dozen left, but these were the toughest of the lot, all out to win against Joan and they did not have any good feelings toward her.  He also made the trial private so that no townspeople could see, because the townspeople were starting to make fun of the judges behind their backs since they could not get the upper hand against a peasant girl with no training. 
 
   On the last day, the judges set a trap that made her friends think the judges would certainly get her that time.  They could see no way that she could make it out of her precarious predicament.  Thankfully she did and later she said something which would have saved her, but she did not know it.  She had said that if the Pope wanted to try her she would be willing to answer all the questions he would ask.  If she had asked to be tried by the Pope everything would have been fine, because the Pope would have no grudges with her and it would have been a fair trial unlike the one she was in now.  After a few more questions they sent her back to her cell and everything seemed hopeless.

The Return of the King

When the Black Knight left Robin Hood, he took Wombur with him as his servant.  Together they rode into the forest after the B.K. first said goodbye to Ivanhoe.  Ivanhoe was staying in a priory at the time, because of his wounds.  He was afraid that the B.K. would be molested in the forest, so as soon as the B.K. had left he got on a horse and went after the B.K. taking Gurth with him.
  
Riding through the forest, Wombur could not keep still and he kept moving about on his horse.  Sometimes he would be  at the very back of his horse, sometimes at the very ears.  His horse soon tired of it and Wombur found himself flat on his face in the dust.
  
As they were riding, Wombur told the B.K. that he saw the glint of metal behind some bushes, so the B.K. put down his visor.  He did this in the nick of time because from behind the bushes flew three arrows and one would have killed him right then if it hadn't been for the warning.  Then out came four men from behind the bushes, the one wearing blue armor and sitting on a horse.  The men all rushed at the B.K. and tried to kill him, but the B.K. fought them off.
  
Previously the B.K. had been given a horn from Robin Hood, which Wombur took while they were riding.  This Wombor now blew and then entered into the fray.  After a few minutes Robin Hood came with his men and saved the B.K.
  
The Black Knight now revealed that he was King Richard!  He then gave some of Robin's men offices and thanked them all heartily and went on his way.            

Helpful Logic tips. (Bandwagon)

A bandwagon is a type of propaganda.  It is often used by teenagers who want to do what everybody else is doing, although it is used by others as well.  Fill in the blank. (Politicians, Salesmen,___________)  A bandwagon is pretty much the same thing as peer pressure.

   Why shouldn't you use bandwagons?  The problem with bandwagons is that it can make something look good whereas it is really bad.  It might not even be bad, it just wouldn't be a good idea, like jumping off a cliff headfirst even if all your friends are doing it.

Examples:  My family saw that everybody was watching Frozen and everybody seemed to like it so we decided to as well.  According to my parents it is a very cheesy movie.  The only reason we watched Frozen was because everyone else was and if the movie had been a zombie movie or something else that we wouldn't have wanted to watch we would have seen it just because it seemed like everyone else liked it.

"That" $1,000 purse

Sara: "I want to buy that purse."
Dad:  "Why?"

Sara: "All my friends are."
Why shouldn't Sara buy the purse?  Just because all Sara's friends are buying the purse doesn't mean she should too.  It would probably put her in debt and the only reason she is buying it is because all her friends are.