Junior Year

I know I haven’t been on for like a month now. But you know how it is with school and stuff, and junior year is a double whammy of stress. I’ve been working harder in school which means less time online. And I’ve been going on Tumblr more, so yeah. I’ve joined the Spanish club in school in addition to the animal welfare club, and I might join another volunteer club because I need service hours for National Honor Society. I know it’s not exactly great to join clubs just for service hours but I’ll still be going to the meetings and participating so it’s not like I’ll just be getting other people to sign in for me all the time, unlike other people in my grade. And I’m in 5 honors and AP classes, and I don’t feel out of place in any of them, so that’s a good sign. I don’t know why I’m making this post, other than giving some kind of explanation for where I’ve been.

I don’t know if I should drop one of my electives, Contemporary Issues Honors, for Math SAT Prep. I’m doing some practice math SAT questions now and most of them are hard, and I don’t really like my CIH teacher (okay, so I’ve never had her, but compared to the other teachers who taught it, she seems to be the worst possible choice.), but if I do switch, I’d have to change all of my classes which sucks because I like/tolerate most of them. Even though SS isn’t in most of them, I like being alone because it’s making me a little more independent and outgoing then I was last year. Maybe I could switch out of CIH, switch around some of my classes like gym and my current elective, and get to keep most of my classes. But then again, guidance counselors aren’t magicians.

In my Simming news, our game got screwed over because of… actually, we don’t know. We think it’s some custom content we downloaded (just wings for Halloween. ), but we uninstalled it and it still didn’t work. So we reinstalled the games and tried getting the patch but only one specific household works, and it crashed for the other households.

Earthquake?

Wow, there was an earthquake over here. Well, not here here (NJ), but in Virginia. Virginia is like 8 or 9 hours away from here, but we felt it here in NJ. Even people as north as Rhode Island felt it. It was weird because it was a 5.9 which is something California would be getting. My couch was shaking and I didn’t think anything was going on. Then all of the news stations started covering it and I was like ‘oh my gosh, that was an earthquake!’. Thankfully everything is alright so if there aren’t any aftershocks, we should be safe. But I have to cancel my plans for today (just going to the mall ) because of earthquake safety stuff.

Did you feel the earthquake where you live?

The Drive to Drive

I don’t feel like driving yet, even though I turned 16 in January. Over here it’s a big deal if you can’t drive because you have to take the bus to school or your parents drop you off, so if you get a study in senior year then you can’t leave the school. And all the part time jobs are literally highways away so it’s not like you could walk to work. But everytime I think about getting my permit, it just feels like one big panic attack. For starters, I don’t think I’d be a good driver. I can’t even stay focused in Mario Kart Wii without flinching or pausing to let go and look around for a few seconds (It’s just keeping my hands on the wheel that’s annoying. I could pay attention in school and stuff). And a lot of the ‘etiquette’ sounds complicated. Like the 3 car distance rule thing. Apparently you have to be 3 cars behind someone on the roads. How do you know? What if I suck at visualizing the 3 car distance? Or the intersection stuff. There were a lot of factors for intersections. Like waiting for the other car, realizing if you go first because of distance, how to turn the light thing on that says which way you’re going… . And I actually did pay attention in Driver’s Ed. It’s just been a while.

And then getting my permit seems like a long, impossible process. Do I go to the DMV first? A driving school? Is the driving school just a fancy way of driving in an empty parking lot with your parent? How long does it take to get an appointment? What if my driving instructor is rude? In my Spanish class a kid was talking about how his driver was really rude to him, and then a bunch of other kids were like ‘Oh, you got stuck with him too?’. What if I get stuck with someone who’s too nice to tell me I’m driving incorrectly? Google hasn’t helped answer my questions. I know I just have to ask someone, but anytime I tell someone I don’t have my permit yet, they look at me like I’m an alien.

Then the entire thing against people with driving anxiety bothers me. Over here in NJ, you need your permit for 6 months before you get your license. But it has to be 6 months before your 17th birthday (I suck at explaining things) so my birthday is January 31st, so I needed to get my permit by July 31st if I wanted my license on my 17th birthday. However, I have midterms on my 17th birthday, so I’d have to go to the DMV and wait for my test, do the driving test thing and then come home and study for 2 midterms and then celebrate my birthday. I already celebrate my birthday on the weekend closest to it now because of midterms and the driving test would be the last thing I need to make my birthday more stressful. Not to mention, the roads are covered in snow, ice, and slush, so the driving test thing would be harder. But when I told my cousin this, she acted like I was being so high maintenance! Honestly, just because she doesn’t care about school or grades doesn’t mean I don’t. And what if I failed my license test thing? Then I’d be depressed about that on my birthday, lose time to study, be upset about that for the rest of my midterms and the week, then I’d have to reschedule. I know this is all melodramatic and stupid but people act like if you can drive you have to drive. And my other cousin (lower 30’s) acted surprised when I told her I didn’t get my permit yet at a family party. She was all ‘driving isn’t scary’ and stuff, but later at that same party, her mother told me that she didn’t get her permit until she was in her 20’s because she was scared of driving. Now she lives in the city so she just uses public transit. And when she has to drive, her husband just drives for her. So yeah. Her advice wasn’t helpful at all.

And apparently Hollywood and other show producers have no idea how getting a car works. I hate how every character could drive perfectly at the age of 16 and gets their own car during junior year, too. My cousin (notice a pattern?) got an average (I don’t know. I’m not a car person.) looking car that wasn’t pimped out and stuff for her graduation. The only reason her sister (cousin 1 in this post) got a car at the beginning of senior year was because her Mom or Dad or someone was buying a new one and they didn’t want to get rid of it or something. Heck, when I walk near the student parking lot at my school, most of the cars look average and from the mid-2000’s, with maybe one or two pimped out brand new car each row. But on Degrassi, any character who could drive not only drives, but has their own car! Eli Goldsworthy has a hearse, while Jake Martin has a pick up truck. Peter Stone had a brand new convertible. And all three were only juniors! I think I remember Peter’s Dad being a car salesmen, but still. I remember my driver’s ed teacher telling us to get average first cars because we’d be first time drivers and accidents would be really likely then, so it wasn’t worth it to get a pimped out car. I could think of way more fictional high school students who had a car then didn’t.

And people act like just because I don’t have my permit now, I never want to drive and I’m gonna live in my parents’ basement for the rest of my life. Obviously I want to drive. Just not yet. And saying ‘you could go to the mall 24/7!’ isn’t a great promise because I need to be with a licensed driver over 21 until I’ve been driving for a year or something, so basically a permit is useless. I mean, you could only have 1 licensed passenger with you, so why not let them drive?

Okay, I think I’m done.

Edit: Oh yeah, remember how a few weeks ago I said that 90’s Nickelodeon took over Twitter?

Here’s that screenshot. Only Sister Sister wasn’t from 90’s Nickelodeon but it was still from the 90’s so it counts. And Mano A Mano in el Bano was promoted so yeah. They still haven’t changed the lineup, though.

Sims 2 Things I’d Want in The Sims 3

I’ve never played The Sims 2 but there are several features I’d really want in The Sims 3.

Career Rewards- Career Rewards look really fun and interesting. It makes careers useful after your family doesn’t need the money anymore (which happens after a few generations in legacies). The Obstacle Course one, the plastic surgery one, the pinball machine thing, and the koi pond look interesting. I like that there were goofier rewards, too.

University- Maybe I’ve been watching too much Undeclared lately, but college looks fun on TV and it probably would be interesting in TS2. I guess it’s probably because I’m going into my junior year at high school and everyone is all ‘omg college SATs scholarships!!!!’ and stuff but the scholarships and majors intrigue me.  

The old supernatural stuff- TS2 had more interesting life states, in my opinion. Plant Sims, Witches, Werewolves, Zombies and Aliens look more interesting than what TS3 offers, IMO. And apparently they have hybrids? The TS3 Simbot and Imaginary friend are really similar to me, but then again, this is EA that we’re talking about. And does the Mummy even have any advantages?  Maybe EA is saving all the good ones for last. And apparently Pets is bringing a unicorn? Honestly? That sounds so stupid. You could bring a unicorn with a magic EP but you can’t bring a werewolf with any other EP. And as least the other ones were human-shaped. I swear. EA’s next life state is gonna be a rock or something even stupider.

The usual stuff- seasons, old careers, less glitches, a company that cares, etc.

Okay, so this entire rant could be summarized as ‘If you want these features, play The Sims 2.’, as Jarsie would say. That’s a good point, actually. Especially with all the collections that are 20 dollars. I could own the entire series for less, I could skip EPs that I’m not interested in, and the game would probably work better on my laptop. The only thing I’d miss would be Create a Style and the trait system.

Rambling

LiveJournal is seriously complicated for a blogging website. It’s impossible for me to successfully use the ‘read more’ part without wasting half an hour trying to figure out how to use it. At least on Blogger and Tumblr you just press ‘split post’ or you press ‘insert read more break’ and it works. But I shouldn’t have to go to the FAQ each time I want to use the ‘read more’ option.

Oh, and I hate Blogger’s new website. I can’t use it without the window freezing up. And I want to update the blog links section but I can’t because of Blogger.

In other news, NewSea left TSR. Good for them, I guess. Looks like I lost all my reasons to check PMBD, then.

The 90s are not All That

So TeenNick recently started airing old 90s shows at midnight. Everybody else is happy and I should be too, but I’m not. List time. And the second person refers to people on my newsfeed, not you specifically.  

• I saw several people my age (born in 1995) or younger (1996, 1997, etc) last night on my Facebook news feed with ‘yay it’s like my childhood again <3’ and stuff. By 2000, people born in 1995 would be 5 AT MOST and people born in 1996 would be 4 and so on. How much of your childhood do you remember from when you were 5 and younger? Especially what you watched? And a lot of these stuff strike me as older kids/ tween and up stuff. When I was a kid, I watched whatever was on PBS and Kids WB and stuff. I barely watched Nickelodeon, and if I did, it wasn’t Clarrisa Explains it All (which ended before I was born) or Kenan & Kel, but cartoons (Rugrats mostly ). And I know there’s syndication and everything but seriously. And a lot of people didn’t even refer to Clarissa as the show, but literally ‘the blonde girl’. If you can’t name her now, how would you remember watching her over a decade ago?
• The seizurific commercials. I don’t really have vision problems or anything, but there’s this one commercial that has clips of random shows and cartoons in 10 seconds… except they all flash before my eyes while I try to figure out which clip belongs to which show. For some reason the video won’t embed in here, so here’s a link.
• They got rid of Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared, which ironically got cancelled because of low ratings. I don’t care much for Freaks & Geeks but it was pretty good and Undeclared was really funny. They only started airing them in the middle of June, too! I get they both barely have 40 episodes combined but still.
• They’re airing them at the worst time of the day (night?). I get that it’s for teens and up so they could stay up late, but on the forums I visit most people were commenting how they had to TiVo it. Also, once the school year starts nobody will be able to watch it, and they’ll cancel it. They could air it several times a day, like from 12 to 2 PM, 6 to 8 PM, then one more time from 12 AM to 2 AM so more then one crowd could watch it. Okay, so that would be 1/4th of their programming, but still.
• And the worst offender… THEY SHOULD BE DOING THIS ON A REGULAR BASIS ANYWAY. The N used to show All That, Caitlin’s Way and other shows frequently. Now it’s just Dan Schneider’s old shows, including some that currently air on Nickelodeon. I don’t mind how often they show What I Like About You, Drake & Josh, or even Zoey 101 but I get so pissed off when they show iCarly, Victorious or Big Time Rush. We shouldn’t even have to be asking for it. Instead of showing iCarly or Spongebob for 20 hours a day, they could air these shows on Nickelodeon instead.
• Oh, and they’re milking it for all it’s worth. In every commercial, I see a Facebook or Twitter logo telling us to talk about it on Facebook or Tweet about it. During the actual shows, they show the twitter # (hashtag?) telling us to go online as if we forgot. And it worked. Last night most of the trending topics on Twitter related to the 90s are all that. I don’t have a screenshot on the laptop I’m typing on now but I’ll have it up later.

I guess it’s nice that they’re doing this, but I feel like it’s for the wrong reasons. And I’d like some reunions or other special features. I could go on YouTube to watch the same things whenever I want.

Melodramatic Teen Angst

I feel so blank lately. School ended a month ago (Shit, has it been that fast already?) but I still feel like I just got out of school so I could get away with doing nothing. I’ve just been so lazy lately that everything feels like a chore now. Like I have a summer reading assignment to just talk about my positive/negative reactions, comment on a literary style, talk about 2 short passages and compare and contrast and normally I’d be able to finish that up within a day or two but in the summer it just takes forever to get stuff done. I feel like getting rid of everything, Facebook, this blog, my LiveJournal. I don’t know why. I don’t talk to anybody at all on Facebook besides saying happy birthday so it’s basically useless to me at this point. I barely use this blog anymore because I have nothing to say. I’ve grown out of writing legacies so that makes my LiveJournal a waste of Internet bandwidth.

Okay, so this is probably just a combination of me procrastinating on my summer reading and learning how to drive in addition to watching Freaks and Geeks and knowing myself I’ll probably go under another personality metamorphosis before summer ends.

In other news, Rest in Peace Amy Winehouse. I’m not gonna lie and say I listened to her non-Rehab songs or ignore the druggy-jokes I made about her frequently but yeah, RIP.

Casey Anthony Trial Rant

I think that the Casey Anthony trial thing has been taken completely out of hand. People are treating it like it’s a soap opera or a reality show, when it’s just a trial. I understand that people are emotionally invested to Caylee but goodness. Things like this go on everyday and just focusing on Caylee is a slap in the face to other victims. Not to mention, Casey Anthony will probably be getting a book deal, a LifeTime movie, and weekly updates online.

I think Casey’s not the only one who’s cashing in on this. HLN, a ‘fluff news’ network, has their greatest ratings ever because of this trial. They’ve added way more commercials to their programming as well as forcing all of their anchor people to cover the trial. I understand Nancy Grace should talk about it because she’s been covering this since 2008, and Jane Valez Mitchell kind of covers this kind of stuff, but Dr. Drew, aka the Celebrity Rehab guy, normally doesn’t cover this kind of stuff. He normally covers things like celebrity addicts or that kind of stuff, but unless if he’s interviewing people who are addicted to trials or addicted to killing children, then Casey Anthony is irrelevant. And Joy Behar usually covers lighter things like interviewing random people. Casey Anthony doesn’t belong there either. Showbiz Tonight exists to basically cover trainwrecks like Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen’s every move, and now they’re covering ‘celebrities’ like Casey Anthony. Yes, because killing your child is totally celebrity like.

HLN doesn’t even produce their own content for this trial. They interview people on the streets, quote Facebook comments, and play clips from the trial. Then they’ll have Nancy Grace shouting for a few minutes and cut to commercials.

I feel like Nancy Grace is the wrong person to cover this. She’s too shouty and loud and way too emotionally invested in this. She’s just encouraging mob mentality. And she actually drove someone to suicide. In 2006, she interviewed Melinda Duckett and just acted crazy towards her, and then Melinda killed herself. And Nancy claims her interview had absolutely no impact whatsoever! What a heartless bitch! Ugh.

I don’t know what to think about this trial. I don’t know if Casey actually killed Caylee, but even if she didn’t, she should be arrested for not reporting her missing daughter for 31 days. I hope she doesn’t try to make money off of this trial.

Degrassi: Season 4 Review

I actually finished watching this at the end of April. School and stuff just got in the way, as usual, and… now I’m watching season 8. And seeing as the show has like 25 characters plus reoccurring characters, I’m not going to do the chart anymore.

I like Paige because she’s really grown as a person. The old Paige wouldn’t be nice to Rick or Alex but she’s becoming a nicer person. She’s also building an identity outside her relationship with Spinner, by dumping him.

I originally liked Ellie because she was the most unique girl on the show. And she stood up to old Paige. Now I like her because she has an emotional, non-relationship storyline. And she’s cute with Sean. Unfortunately, this is her last season as her own person. After the episode Queen of Hearts, Ellie gambles to earn rent to keep her and Sean’s apartment, but she loses and has to move back with her Mom. This would be a GREAT storyline to go back to. But the show never did. They just turned her into some boy crazy girl who shops at Hot Topic, not the goth girl we knew and love. But that’s for season 5 and on, so yeah. Did you know the people who wrote Juno modeled Juno after Ellie/Stacey (her actress)? I didn’t. I wonder why she wasn’t in the movie.

Jimmy kind of grew as a person, so I guess I like him now. I admit, most of the reason why I like him is because he got shot and I feel bad for him, especially considering the circumstances of how he got shot. I’d like to say he became more interesting after he got shot, but no, he didn’t.

I like Hazel because she supported Jimmy. Most people say she’s a shallow character but I think that’s rude. A shallow character would’ve leave Jimmy, but Hazel stayed with him and supported him when he needed her. And Andrea had a good performance when she found out Jimmy got shot.

I still like Ashley because she was dramatic and I agreed with her on most of her actions. I think she did a good job of supporting Craig when he needed her but she left when she felt uncomfortable. She showed that people should leave relationships that make them feel uncomfortable.

Liberty and JT finally hooked up this season. So that makes both characters more likeable, because their only plots aren’t Liberty wants JT but JT doesn’t want Liberty. Toby was forgettable this season, but I guess he was okay during the Rick storyline.

This is the last time I like Sean. I think he had a strong performance, but I want to know why Daniel Clark left the show. Especially if he decided to come back later. Oh well. He grew as a character and it feels like a full circle moment.

Emma and Manny are intolerable now. Manny breaks up yet ANOTHER couple (Paige and Spinner) while Emma becomes even more self righteous and hypocritical. Manny and Spinner was possibly the stupidest thing I’ve seen on Degrassi so far. Emma is slowly becoming out of character because the writers realized no teenager would protest for the environment during high school. Emma gained a new nickname from me: GonnorEmma, because… well, she did stuff with a guy in a van. Ironically, she also broke up a couple.

I liked Alex, the new bully girl, even if she caused the shooting. She was nice in Mercy Street, King of Pain and Queen of Hearts. She interacted with a LOT of groups, and represents the demographic Degrassi doesn’t represent but should. She had funny dialogue (“Look at me, beautiful and a virgin!” “Now that’s acting”) as well. She’s that character that says what’s on the viewer’s mind at this point.

I DESPISE Spinner. At least before, he was just annoying or my hatred was just what I thought. But he actually got his best friend SHOT. What the hell? He also cheated on Paige (sort of) with Manny. And he got such a stupid haircut. Normally I don’t pick on the actors or their looks but goodness. He was terrible.

I hate Craig because he hogged most of the season and he didn’t even interest me as a character. I just got bored by all of the relationship drama, screen time and everything else he got.

Marco started to get boring this season. He starts off strong and independent and even comes out to his Mom. But then he discovers his boyfriend is cheating on him and his character falls apart as clingy and boring. Yawn. At least Ashley’s depression featured music. Marco just got whiny.

The Shooting

I want to know why Rick came back to Degrassi. They don’t have anything education wise, so it’s not like he’s missing out on much. I think Radditch should’ve have an assembly the day before he came back or have a teacher walk him from class to class or SOMETHING. The paint-and-feather scene reminded me of Carrie. I think Ephraim Ellis was a great actor.

Paige and Spinner and Some Other Drama

I think the relationship fell apart because Spinner became ‘in charge’ and started to abuse his power. I’m glad Paige dumped him before he got serious with Manny or he was worse to Paige. I think this started a downfall of Paige, sort of. She started to have a crush on Mr.Oleander and then he gave her pot and she befriended Alex who taught her to be more carefree and then her breakdown happened… I’m getting ahead of myself. And then Spinner started hanging out with Jay then the shooting happened. So yeah, they kind of needed each other. Spinner and Manny annoyed me because the build up was longer than their relationship. Paige and Mr.Oleander was forgettable.

More Craig Drama

The season starts with a Craig B plot and continues with a Craig and Ashley relationship. But Ashley became an accessory to Craig this season. Then he gets diagnosed with bipolar disorder, becomes attached to Ashley until he drives her away and runs away. But the show can’t go on without Craig, so he comes back. I don’t like how the show revolved around Craig, especially because he never paid for his consequences.

Degrassi Jumps the Shark

The season started out great, but got extremely boring after Time Stands Still. Too much Craig drama. Then the show started to bring famous people. And I use that term loosely. Kevin Smith, an American director or something, had to film his latest movie at their school. This created an extremely boring and unrealistic arc. And the point where Degrassi jumps the shark.

 

Overall, it was a good season, but the second half fails by featuring too much relationships and not enough issues, a problem the show would later have more frequently. And people started to become out of character for the plot.

Happily Divorced

I watched Fran Drescher’s new sitcom, Happily Divorced, right now. It’s alright. It’s based off of Fran’s real life. Fran’s husband of 18 years came out to her, but they can’t afford to move out so they still live together. Now we have to watch all of their wacky hijinks and shenanigans as Fran is now back into the dating pool and Peter is gay.

I think that based off of the pilot so far, the show feels like one big gay joke. Peter, the ex husband, goes to sing along nights for Sound of Music at bars, grooms himself (Okay, so this isn’t exactly a gay stereotype because I tweeze my eyebrows but I’m straight; but Peter obsesses over his appearance, waxes his chest, has blue contacts [just for his appearance], and dyed his hair blond apparently, so I guess this falls under the feminine stereotype), and he’s into ‘feminine’ things like landscaping the house, watching Glee or Gray’s Anatomy, and so on.

This really surprised me because Fran Drescher seems like a nice, non-homophobic person. She even posed for the N0h8 campaign. And she didn’t make gay jokes on The Nanny, which featured 2 episodes with gay people and a reoccurring joke that Max was gay because he works in Broadway. Then again, I don’t think she’s the writer, so I don’t completely hate her for it, and I guess anybody would be surprised/bitter if their spouse came out after 18 years of marriage. Peter, Fran’s husband in real life, also is working on this show, so as long as he’s okay with it, I guess it’s fine.

It has a good supporting cast. Rita Moreno is playing Fran’s Mom, and the Mom from Everybody Hates Chris is Fran’s best friend. There’s also Ernie from George Lopez who I’m meh about. I didn’t recognize anyone else, though.

I think the show would’ve been better if it was slowed down. Peter comes out to Fran and then there’s a time lapse thing where the show goes 6 months into the future. I thought it was weird. They could’ve have the first episode with Peter coming out or Fran dealing with Peter coming out. Also, when Peter came out, Fran looked completely bored. Her face was literally a type of face. I know she couldn’t be surprised because it’s based off of her real life, she has control over it, and they probably rehearsed it several times, so she had no reaction to it, but still. She’s on a show and she’s expected to act. Then the episode continued with Fran meeting a new guy (Asking if he’s gay, first), then their first date, the morning after, Fran’s parents coming again, and Fran’s second date. I don’t know how to describe it. It just felt really rushed. I really really hope that this was supposed to be a made for TV movie first and it was 90 minutes but they had to chop it down because TV Land liked it so much that they wanted to turn it into a show.

I’d give the show a 76 out of 100, which is surprising because I really love Fran Drescher. I hope the show gets better as it moves along. I remember Melissa and Joey had a bad first episode, but they’re coming back tonight and I’m actually looking forward to it. And Raven’s new show is on tonight as well. And there’s a third episode of Happily Divorced airing tonight, so that’s 3 shows in one night. Then once Degrassi comes back, that’s four shows in one night. Is it sad that my definition of making plans is watching TV? Yes? I thought so.  

 

 

The Jersey Shore

It bothers me when I see articles from ‘professionals’ on Yahoo! complaining about something on the Jersey Shore. A few weeks ago, there was an article about how people are annoyed that there weren’t any bathrooms nearby. And all the comments were cliché jokes like ‘Snooki flooded them’ or something. It’s really ridiculous. I mean, the boardwalk and the Jersey Shore are like the one thing that people like about New Jersey and sort of help us generate money, but ever since the Jersey Shore premiered on MTV, people have been treating us like we’re filthy, backwards people who are useless to society. And only one third of that is true.  

I read one comment complaining about how the beaches are dirty 24/7. I understand the beach is supposed to maintain everything, but 4 out of 5 cars I see are from other states. And people still think it’s NJ’s fault that we have obnoxious tourists. But anytime someone says something MILDLY negative about NYC, the first thing I hear is ‘it’s the tourists’ faults’. I swear. When I grow up, I want to work for MTV so I can have a reality show about NYC and watch them get crappy articles on Yahoo.

Now I read an article about some jellyfish-like thing washing up at the beach. There have been jellyfish over there forever and they’re only starting to complain now? Gosh. And it’s probably at other beaches, too, but ‘Jellyfish at Delaware’ isn’t as interesting as a title.

This reminds me of how in the ‘80s (I think?) Oprah said she stopped eating meat or whatever during the peak of Mad Cow Disease. Then the beef industry claimed she hurt their business and they sued her. Can’t New Jersey do that to MTV or Viacom? I’d rather have a show about mallrats on TeenNick or something instead, and it could be in the style of Jersey Shore. With people like ‘Orange’ Julius, DJ Mickey D… I swear. One day this is going to be made into a show and they’ll be making millions off of this idea.

Free EA Store Content

If any of you are interested in EA’s Regal Living Kitchen set, today it’s available for free. It normally costs 350 SimPoints and includes 7 items, but today it’s free. The sale ends tomorrow, so download it while you can. It’s nothing special, and I would much rather get something else, but hey, it looks pretty and it’s free. I like some of their clothes but I don’t plan on buying it anytime soon. And it’s EA, so they’re probably gonna do something stupid like make it free with a certain EP after you buy it. Didn’t that happen with OLS and Generations?

Finals are Over

Finals are over at my school. Tomorrow’s my last day of school. I know, what an entertaining post haha. I don’t think I did too well on my finals but I can’t change that so no point in dwelling on the past, right?

That’s it for now. I’ll be spending the rest of today chilling and stuff.

Again?

What’s with EA and making a million EPs and SPs so close to each other? Who could afford to spend 40 dollars an EP and 20 dollars and SP every 2 or 3 months? I mean, I still haven’t done everything in Ambitions, which I have almost owned for a year. I haven’t even gone clubbing in Late Night yet. I still don’t even know all the features in Generations. Honestly, they’re just gonna go through the Sims 3 way too quickly then in 2013 it’s gonna be all ‘Coming soon: Sims 4!’. And it’s not that they’re making so much EPs too quickly, it’s that they’re all identical. Generations, Town Stuff and Pets all have a suburby feeling to me. At least in TS2 they’d have box sets of stuff like University then Teen Stuff. But now they’re not even doing that so having all of these similar EPs is poor planning on their behalf.

Wish Me Luck!

Finals start tomorrow for me. I’m really nervous this time. I forgot a lot of stuff while I was working on my reviews so that’s not a good sign. And I’m really unmotivated right now. Fun times.

And in honor of finals, I’ll express my feelings with some Sally Forth comic strips I found from this website.

^ How I felt last week. Especially because I had absolutely no homework last week and it was 95 degrees ish.

^ My thoughts while working on my review guides.

^ Hillary’s last line made me chuckle.

 

But yeah. Time to study and stuff. :/ Wish me luck!

I’m kind of back

And I use that loosely.

I’m going to be honest: School ends on the 23rd, finals start next Friday. And I have a lot of review work until then so I won’t be on as much. But I have a lot of post ideas to make including… 2 Degrassi reviews, what sophomore year has really taught me, Just Dance reviews, and my usual EA shenanigan rants.  

In other news, there are three video games I want to buy that are coming out but seeing as they’re 40 dollars each (30 on Amazon) and I’m a high school student who can barely play the few video games I have on a limited budget, I won’t be getting them. Well, two of them are Pets and Generations but still.

Basically, I’m kind of back from my break, but I know I won’t be on that much. So… yeah.

In other news, it’s around 100 degrees in NJ. D: It’s not that bad because my house and school have AC, but only like 2 hallways of classes have AC so the school board thinks it’s good enough to have full days. I heard rumors of someone having heat exhaustion in the gym, but I don’t know how true they were.

Break

I’m gonna take a break from blogging for a while. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I mean, I’ll still comment and check out other people’s blogs, but I don’t feel like making any posts for a while because school is sucking the creativity out of me. And I don’t want to make posts about my personal life anymore, because I realized I’m just posting about the bad stuff and it’s not like all of you care about my melodramatic issues. I guess I’d be more positive if I let go of the bad things.

I don’t know what I want to do with the blog. I mean, as long as Charlie Sheen is a bizarre alcoholic, I’ll always have something to blog about, but… yeah. I’d love to just post my Sims and their adventures but I don’t have the time to play everyday. I guess I could post Degrassi Sims or reviews of shows and video games of something.

I’m probably gonna rejoin Live Journal because I don’t know… their Simming blogs are actually about Sims? No offense, but it’s hard to keep track of all of the Forum Drama if I only sign on to get free store items. And a lot of the legacies I read are over there, so it would be easier to keep track of stuff there. I mean, I personally don’t like LiveJournal that much because they have advertisements and premium accounts but I guess I could get over it. And it’s not like they have a Windows Live Writer equivalent so I guess I’ll always be on Blogger. But for now I’m taking a break.

Happy Mother’s Day Everyone!

Even though I’m pretty sure most of ‘us’ aren’t parents, happy Mother’s Day! I still have homework to do (Procrastinating on my part) and I’m pretty sure we’re going out to dinner later, but… yeah.  

I played Just Dance 2 last night. It’s awesome and addictive, except you get tired easily and the buyable content (like actual songs that are relevant) is expensive… 3 dollars a song. Okay, so it’s 300 WiiPoints, but it loosely converts to 3 dollars. There are three songs I want (Crying Blood by VV Brown, Nine in the Afternoon by Panic! at the Disco, and American Boy by Estelle/Kanye West), so that would cost 9 dollars in WiiPoints, and that’s ridiculous. Besides, I’d have leftover WiiPoints for 3 times because they only sell them in groups of 2000. So EA, you’re less of a concern on my ‘stupid video game company’ list right now.

And today is YoVille’s 3rd anniversary. It’s a Facebook game that’s like what The Sims online would be like, I guess. I used to play it before I had the Sims. But yeah, they usually have a lot of good stuff on ‘sale’ so I’ll be on that for a little.

Another Stress Rant

It’s official. The school year is coming to an end. How do I know? I’ve been swamped with work this week. I came home from school at 6 twice this week, because of the Spanish project. Let’s just say Julia got controlling. The Senior Girl dealt with her well. Unfortunately, we had to film outside, but Julia has allergies…. she didn’t come to school yesterday. Oh well. I hope I have enough speaking parts. I have like 7 or 8 lines but two of them are three sentences. SS and Julia have 17 or 18 or something, and Senior Girl said she’d take care of her parts.

Those same days, I had to study for an APUSH test and Bio test. I probably failed the bio test and I don’t know how I did on my APUSH test. Some questions were easy and others were hard. You know how there are those practice websites for tests with practice quizzes? Well, I studied using one for APUSH and I swear, some of the questions were on the actual test. o.O

I have to film an English commercial this weekend, combining Stephen King’s literary style and cyberbullying. The teacher said we need 3 to 5 people in the group, but I got lucky and I’m working with SS and nobody else. The hardest part will be doing the camera stuff, but oh well.

My game went faster! It loaded in 2 minutes and the game had no noticeable lag. The worst part is I got some CC off of the exchange last year and I don’t know where it is. It’s only make up and stuff like nails and leggings, but still. I guess my Sims could go natural.  

I have a lot of homework this weekend, but I guess it’s my fault for not doing any yesterday. So I probably won’t be on a lot this weekend. That, and I got Just Dance 2 for the Wii yesterday and I haven’t had the chance to play it yet, so I wanna try it out.

And I like Taylor Swift’s new song, Mean. Sure, it sounds a lot like Fireworks lyric wise, but Taylor Swift sings without flaunting her body or using controversy.

I don’t own the video, Taylor Swift, etc. I got it from Youtube.

Personal Post

Here’s a lot of short and random personal posts that are way too short for their own posts, so they’ll be clumped up here.

Yay, Osama Bin Laden was killed! I hope the war ends soon. But since I don’t know much about the war and I’m not going to blog ignorantly, that’s all I’ll say about this.

I made the script for Spanish, but Julia and my teacher didn’t understand it. Julia said she’d fix it Friday but she still didn’t send me anything, so… yeah. And I know she’d probably just fix easy stuff like minor conjugation stuff and I’d have to add more lines that make sense.

A few months ago, my laptop got a virus so I got paranoid and changed all of my passwords. I changed like at least 5 passwords at once, but I forgot all of them, so… yeah. I lost the email for this account and the account I share with SS. But the personal one only got religious forwards from my cousins and uncle and aunt, so that’s no loss. And I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t there a forgot password thing? I made some of these emails when I was 11, so… yeah. And it’s only relevant now because AE’s changed her privacy stuff due to trolls and I forgot my password over there, so I need a new email and a new account but I need to be invited to join…. I need to write my passwords down somewhere.

And I uninstalled all of my CC except Riverview so the game could go faster. I get most of my CC from the same few places, so it’s not that big of a loss. I hope it works.

And happy 26th birthday, Lily Allen!

Attack of the Lag

So last Saturday night I went on a downloading binge on MTS and then my game became laggy. It’s not as laggy as it was last summer, but it took 14 minutes to load an 8 Sim household that’s like 3 or 4 weeks old in game. And once the game fully loaded, it acted slow there, too. You know how if you go to a new room everything is white or gray at first? It stays white for a longer amount of time for me. And changing camera angle stuff takes forever now.

I wanted to see if it was just that game, but I went to my other Twinbrook family and they were laggy, too. Geez. I didn’t know a few teen clothes would be the apocalypse.

So this week I didn’t have that much homework, so we uninstalled a lot of stuff. But last night, it was still laggy. :/

I understand that that’s what happens when you download CC, but after like Generation 5 in the Timbersons, the game took literally hours to load but everything was better once the game started, and we had like twice the CC and 5 generations of Sims, including in laws for everyone. This is just an 8 sim household where everyone’s single. EA, if you’re going to be glitchy, at least be consistently glitchy. *rolls eyes*

One Year!

Today’s the one year anniversary of this blog! And for nostalgic purposes, here’s a link to the first post I made. According to that list, I still have to make a Self Sim (I have one but that was before I got better custom content) and Timberson posts. And I have a math quiz tomorrow. That’s kind of like algebra homework.

And when’s the Royal Wedding? Friday, 4 AM or Saturday, 4 AM? Because every source I check says a different thing.

The Armenian Genocide

-This post is about the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians. If you don’t want your holiday mood ruined, you know what to do.-

Today’s the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. In 1915, the Ottoman Turks exiled and killed 1.5 million Armenians. But why I’m bitter about it is because Turkey and the US don’t recognize it, and people ignore that it happened. Heck, you probably haven’t even heard of Armenia, let alone the Armenian Genocide. Here’s some personal experiences I’ve had with the Genocide.

- Last year in English, we were going to read a book about the Armenian Genocide, because to quote my teacher, ‘nobody ever talks about the Armenian Genocide’. The book itself was called Forgotten Fire! But the next week she decided that we had to read a book about the Holocaust because ‘it was much shorter than Forgotten Fire’. But after we read that other book (Night), we had to read it’s sequel because it was too short.

- At lunch one day, somehow the Armenian Genocide came up at our table, and a Jewish boy (I’m not trying to be racist, just pointing out the irony that someone who was indirectly affected from the Holocaust would say this) said the Armenian Genocide as ‘A million ‘Ethan’s(Turkish kid) beating up a million 'Dylan’s(Another Armenian kid). The whole table laughed. I felt so repulsed. If I said the Holocaust was a million Heidi Klums or whatever beating up a million Fran Dreschers, I’d be exiled from the school and I’d be on the front page of Yahoo or something, not applauded.

And during the ‘08 election, Barack Obama said he’d recognize the Armenian Genocide. 3 years have gone by, but he hasn't used the word ‘Genocide’ yet. All the Armenians I know are angry about it, but I’m not that upset. It’s annoying, but I’d rather have the economy fixed or whatever before having the Genocide recognized. Not to mention, every president since 1915 has denied it. What makes Obama the chosen one?

And sadly, not recognizing the Armenian Genocide will make history repeat itself. As cliché as it sounds, other ethnic massacres have been ‘inspired’ by the Armenian Genocide. Here’s a quote by Hitler about it.

Our strength is our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children hunted down and killed, deliberately and with a gay heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. What the weak Western European civilization alleges about me, does not matter. I have given the order—and will have everyone shot who utters but one word of criticism—that the aim of this war does not consist in reaching certain geographical lines, but in the enemies' physical elimination. Thus, for the time being only in the east, I put ready my Death's Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?

Yeah. And then there’s the Rwandan genocide. And Libya can become like Armenia if we don’t do anything. History has already repeated itself 3 times (And these are only the ones I, a spoiled teenager, know about. What am I forgetting?). Let’s not continue the cycle.

I know I can’t do anything about it besides spread awareness. That’s the goal of this blog post: To spread awareness.  It’s not like there are that many Armenian celebrities to spread awareness about it, because there are the Kardashians, who don’t sound like the type to talk about the Armenian Genocide, Kim has this post on her blog. The only other Armenian celebrity I can think of is Jack Kevorkian… but he’s a doctor in trouble with the government, so yeah, no.

And Turkey denies it. They say that it was a civil war, not a Genocide. That’s just messed up. If it was a civil war, why wouldn’t they want it to be recognized? Why isn’t there Turkish literature or stories about the genocide? Why do they still have all their land? Why do they get rid of journalists who report the Genocide? Why are there pictures of Armenian refugees scattered across the Middle East?

Yeah, I’m extremely emotional on this topic, but who wouldn’t be?

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! If you celebrate it, anyway. And Happy Passover, if anyone celebrates it.

I’m going to my Aunt’s house for dinner with the family today.

-The next part of the post talks about acne. If you're grossed out by that stuff, then you know what to do.-

And I gave up chocolate and McDonald’s for Lent. My face has like no acne now! I mean, there are still acne scars (I learned this from a commercial from TeenNick ) but my face looks less like a pepperoni pizza now. But my Mom bought a lot of chocolate, not including the Dove Chocolate bunny I got for Easter, so… yeah. We’ll see how that turns out.

That Was Fast

My school week is already over. And I had no homework this week, too. I have some this weekend, but I could manage it.

In Spanish, we have to do a project where we make a fake soap opera. I’m working with SS for it. A senior girl is working with us because she’s the only senior in the class and our group needed people. Things were working out fine, until another girl, ‘Julia’, joined. Actually, Julia was in another group, but Julia has a rep of being a workaholic control freak, so her other group kicked her out. No, I’m not making this up. 2 other members of Julia’s old group were talking in my history class which we had a few hours before Spanish, and they were thinking of ways to get Julia out of the group. Apparently, they didn’t even tell Julia she could go in, and she assumed she could, on her own.

So Julia joined and things went downhill. We spent at least 5 minutes giving each other our emails because she has three and thought it would be helpful to give us all of them. She wanted to write the script by herself this weekend, even though we already agreed to write it together after school next Monday. The Spanish Teacher stood behind our group just to eavesdrop and laugh. :\

Then Senior Girl told SS and I that we should suggest stuff, too. I said we could do like a Jerry Springer type of show, and SS and Senior Girl liked the idea. Julia, however, doesn’t know was Jerry Springer is, so we just summed it up as ‘a talk show where people talk about their problems but fight’. She just heard the talk show part and assumed we were going to be doing a Dr.Phil type of thing. But Senior Girl told her to look it up on YouTube, so we’re doing a Jerry Springer thing. IDK if we’re allowed though, because it’s soap operas and it’s a talk show, but whatever.

After class, my teacher talked to me and said if we needed an ‘outside force’ (Her) to talk to one of the group members (Julia) about being overbearing, we could just ask. But I don’t want to. I mean, she already got kicked out of one group and she has good intentions. I don’t want to hurt her feelings or anything, because that would be cruel and she’s not exactly the most popular person in the class already. But Julia is probably the most hardworking student in the class, or in the Top 5, anyway. It can’t be that bad, right?

This is why I hate group projects.

If I Could Turn Back Time

(Cher reference )

Spring break is over, so I won’t be on as much. I regret sitting around and doing nothing most of it, but then again, I didn’t have expectations. This week I only have 4 days of school, though which is good.

Oh, and I’m almost done with Season 4 of Degrassi. I started last Sunday.  

So… yeah. Bye, for now.

New Generations Info

I read some new stuff on Generations. I’m still gonna wait a while to get it though, like Christmas or Black Friday waiting. The only thing that would convince me otherwise is like, a winning lottery ticket or a billion SimPoints or something.

• Imaginary Friends- eh. They sound creepy. They look like SimBots or something and they appear from nowhere? You could have romantic relations with them?… Yeah, that’s not weird at all.
• Day care career- It sounds okay for spouse hunting in legacies. But are they gonna be actual kids from townies or people we’ll never see again?
• No new town- I’m bummed. They could’ve have a cute little 50’s town with suburban houses, or something. It could’ve have retro rabbit holes, like the Diner could’ve been a milkshake place with a jukebox or something. XD But they have the 50’s store set, so that probably has something to do with it. But maybe because there’s no new town, it’ll cost less? I remember I read that the new towns have to do with the cost, like a WA formula: 3 towns (3 * 10) + 10 dollars of online bonuses = 40 dollars.
• New community lots- I hope they put effort into them and people actually will go there.
• Treehouses- Yes, this gets its own category. I hope that it won’t be like the Jungle Gym thing which is horrible for pictures. Seriously, it’s too small and there’s no good camera angles for anyone. I heard you could use it to spy on others or do pirate attack stuff, which sounds fun.
• Rabbit hole schools: This sounds really good. Apparently, you could send kids to schools like military academies or sports academies, but it’s out of town. I’m happy because it could clear out slots in legacy houses, and I could use them to play around with genetics until I get the combo that I want.  
• Bunk beds & Loft beds- Amazing! I didn’t know what Loft beds were, but I Googled them and wow! They look cool.

All my info was from here.

Lady GaGa Rant

I’m not a fan of her new image. I mean, at least with Born This Way she was kind of trying to be equal for everyone, but with Judas it feels like she’s trying to offend people. I don’t even understand the lyrics because they’re incomprehensible because of the techno sound effect stuff. And really? Could she pick a worse time to release the song? Easter, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are next week. At least when Kelly Clarkson had a song called Judas, it was about being betrayed by someone, not whatever the lyrics are. And based on the Wikipedia article, it feels like she’s praising him.

I miss it when she sang about fame and was less abstract. I started disliking her with the Alejandro video, but Judas completed it.

I admit that I’m offended by it because I’m a Christian, but the song also masks her vocal talents. It feels like her videos are getting sloppier, too. Honestly, anyone could go the clearance aisle of a costume store and add ‘symbolism’ to everything. And her fans have gone rabid. If you dislike her, you’re automatically a racist homophobe who’s inbred, or something. What happened to being open minded, Little Monsters?

I like her metal remixes on YouTube. Well, they’re not hers, but people just made their own metal remixes of her songs. They sound better than Judas, IMO.

Oh, and I hate watching her on YouTube because her page got sold out to VEVO, a corporation thing that adds a million advertisements before, during, after videos and on their official YouTube pages, along with an annoying username.

Now, it’s time to add a bunch of videos to this post. I won’t link to the song itself because I don’t feel like giving Lady GaGa anymore views or hits, but yeah.

EDIT: That’s disgusting. I just went on a Judas video for Kelly Clarkson and a bunch of ‘Little Monsters’ just commented with Lady GaGa’s lyrics. Real mature, kids.

Judas by Kelly Clarkson. Unofficial music video.

A Lady GaGa rock remix.

Another rock remix.

Alejandro- Rock remix.

What do you think of the new GaGa?