Testing, 1, 2- Is this thing still on?

Hi everyone. I just wanted to see if anyone familiar has been around lately. How has everyone been? I tried finding my old "crowd", but I only found Vidkid and The Mare's Nest (so AE and FuryRed got some 'splaining to do!).
I'm doing alright, I guess. My life has gone another complete 180 since last year. My Father was diagnosed with lung cancer last fall and then he passed away last month. It's been really hard lately and we're trying to take it day-by-day, but I guess that's all I want to say about it because it still feels weird thinking that he's gone. I've spent a lot of time with family lately and that's been helping so far.

My brother and I got accepted and enrolled into college (I'm not naming the college for privacy reasons, once again, but I'll tell anyone who's curious privately!). I'm not exactly 100% sure what I want to major in yet, but I'm thinking about economics right now. We both got a ton of scholarships, both from outside the school and from the school itself, which is really great, because until April, we weren't even sure if we would be able to go to college due to financial issues. Insurance companies are mean, basically, so our college funds were used for hospital expenses. But thankfully we at least still get to go to college without taking out loans (at the moment *knocks on wood*). I'm just glad I'm leaving high school because basically from the second half of junior year until May of senior year I was trapped in a circle of drama and toxic people (hint: Just because you have self esteem issues doesn't mean you get to treat people like sh*t and not get called out on it or any of your rude behavior ever) and I'm glad I left before it got to me even worse.

I still play The Sims 3. I like it a lot more now than I did a while ago (like last winter or even last summer, I think). I now have added University, Supernatural, and Seasons to my collection. I bought Supernatual and Seasons on sale, because I still don't really like EA. For University, I bought it on Amazon using gift cards I earned from Swagbucks.com and Bing Rewards. You basically do online tasks like filling out surveys, watching videos, or searching phrases, and you get gift cards when you reach a certain amount of points. It's good because I don't really have any money left to spend on The Sims 3 or video games (I still can't drive, so that means no job, either), so at least I could still stay updated on my hobbies. The main Sims blog I have/go on/forget about now is Sims-etc on Tumblr. As you can see, I only have a handful of posts on, so I'm still not that active. Tumblr's CC community is way better. Here's a tip. Google "sims 3 base game compatible" for some cool stuff. They also have a lot of more diverse hairstyles, with curly hair, afros, braids, and dreads, to make up for what EA never did. I don't think I'm getting the Sims 4. It would have to come with diamonds and rubies sewn into the box for me to play. Not because I'm bored of The Sims or anything, but I'd rather just complete my TS3 collection than start completely brand new and wait for my favorite EPs to come out. I mean, if they have cool features or whatever, I might check it out, but if it's going to have more and more "goal themed" EPs like World Adventures or the Future thing, I'll pass.

Wow, I'm just looking around on my old posts over here, and I was seriously such a little kid when I wrote these stuff! So many of my complaints/issues were so small back then! Why did I have entire tags devoted to Farmville and iCarly? The only interests I still have from when I blogged here is Degrassi, The Sims (of course), Friends, and The Nanny. And this entire blog is 3 years old... I have relatives younger than that! Wow, time flies. I might actually stick around to Blogspot because I liked their format more for blogging, or if I ever need to get away from Tumblr. I wouldn't actually count on it, but yeah, hope everyone is doing well!  

For anyone who's wondering

Yeah, I guess I'm leaving this part of the Sim Blog world. I haven't been on in forever and I've realized I'm more into pictures/stories of Sims rather than the forum drama. After a while, I felt like I tried too hard to fit in with everyone else by writing in a pseudo-Nancy Grace tone. No offense, but when FuryRed vanished (seriously, where have you been?) I stopped checking these blogs daily, then weekly, then monthly, then I uninstalled Windows Live Writer, and I haven't been on in months. I'm more of a Tumblr person now, especially for their Simming community. There's never any drama there and it's easier to blog over there. It's more microblogging than original posts but yeah.

Anyway, thank you everyone for coming here for two years and for accepting me as a part of your community! This was the first fandom where I conducted myself as a (semi) mature adult (you really wouldn't wanna see me during my Pokemon phase :P). Thank you ShinyShinx, FuryRed, VidKid20, XXAngelicEvilXX, TheMaresNest, Mike, Kami, and everyone else I have met in the past 2 years! I definitely won't be forgetting you for a while! Even if some of you deleted your blogs or we never actually talked, I enjoyed coming home from school everyday knowing there would be new posts waiting for me.

When I started this blog, I was a shy and awkward 15 year old boy trying to fit in with the athletic crowd at school. Now, I found my own comfort zone and my own friend circle and I feel like I found my own voice as a person. I'm not gonna lie and say it's all because of everyone here but you definitely helped shape me as a person.

I won't be deleting this blog because one day I want to look back at my old posts and my melodramatic high school life. Not to mention, maybe one day I will come back. It probably won't happen, but as long as TheSimsResource keeps being jerks, or Newsea and Peggy keep making weird hairs, or EA acts horrible, I could always have stuff to blog about. I'd love to give my Tumblr URL out here but I have personal info (or at least my name and my picture) up there and I'd feel weird putting it up on Blogger, which I feel is a more public website. And some of the stories I've written here definitely would do more harm than good if anyone knew I wrote them in real life. So maybe I'll privately tell anyone who wants to know, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Oh, and out of curiosity, I decided to search myself on The Mare's Nest. I was surprised when I was mentioned in a few new posts.
I got involved in some Rud3bwoy scandal, apparently? I assure you, as bad ass as that would be of me, it definitely wasn't. As much as I tried staying updated on all the drama, I definitely wouldn't care enough to go that far to rat someone out. And I was in school December 23, 2011 1:PM. :P

Then came an interesting turn of events. Someone out there decided to give the beleaguered cage builder a little tip off – our prime suspect being Armenian Twin – which led to our incoming links page getting hammered with all roads leading to Fauna Classified, and hence how we were able to go over in time to watch the fun.

Quoted from that link; it's cool that I'm being remembered as someone who would try to stop a scammer, especially after being extremely irrelevant and contributing nothing to the Sim Blogging world for 2 years.

Jen is really TtnFn04?  I was surprised when I read this. Not gonna lie, I skimmed through most of it, I didn't bother clicking any of the screenshots, and I haven't followed The Mare's Nest at all in 2012, but apparently this blogger I befriended is a bad person (or at least, in the first world- blogosphere definition of the word bad)? I mean, we never really talked other than commenting on each other's posts, but yeah. Again, it's cool that The Mare's Nest remembers who comments on an irrelevant blog's two year old blog post.

And the other posts were me being mentioned in my tirade against Jarsie9. Not too bad of a legacy, if you ask me. :P

If anyone's curious, we gave up on the Timbersons. We had a chapter all ready to be uploaded in October but then Windows Live Writer wasn't working so we kept trying for a few months but it never got uploaded. :( If you're wondering, most of the heirs remained pale brunettes with a new purple hair streak. I realized that I like playing legacies more than I like uploading them. So I guess that's the 'real' challenge of them.

So yeah, if you want to remove my link from your sidebar, I completely understand! Maybe I'll pop in once in a while to check up on everyone. Thanks for a great 2 years!

2 Months

2 months ago, one of my close friends passed away. We were in school. I unfortunately didn’t have lunch with him that day, but my brother did. He said Eric seemed fine. I found out from a phone call from school that Thursday night. I was really hoping for a snow day, but instead, they said a student had fainted in class and passed away on his way to the hospital. My brother told me about Eric fainting, on our way home from school, but I didn’t make anything out of it.

While SS was having a hard time that night, I somehow kept it together. When we went to school the next day, they had grief counselors in the library. I started to cry a lot during my English class because of how everyone was talking about Eric, like ‘I heard he just pass out and hit the floor… their ribs break if CPR works…. no autopsy’, and so on. Like he was a CSI character rather than a part of our community. I went to the grief counselors, crying, for 2 hours. A lot of my friends were also there. We were all close with Eric.

I went to his wake and that gave me some closure. The guidance counselors got all of Eric’s closest friends and the GSA club (Eric was a member) to plan a memorial for him. I went there thinking I would be an active part of it but then it was just GSA members who I know Eric wasn’t close with planning everything out. They had a lot of teachers and administrators speak at the memorial and only a few students. I wrote a letter to Eric, but I backed out at the last minute because I don’t think I’m good at public speaking and I’d get especially choked up considering it was for a close friend. Some of his other close friends also didn’t read because they felt too upset to read. So in the end it was a lot of GSA club members who he wasn’t as close with and like 3 of his friends.

I still feel like I haven’t moved on. My family members called and texted me that weekend to check up on me, but now I think they’re all thinking that it’s time for me to move on. I don’t feel like I’ve moved on anymore since the wake. I’ve started hanging out with friends more but I still feel awful about it. I know I’ll never wake up smiling about this, but I feel like I can’t talk about it without tearing up.

I think part of it is guilt. We both were a part of our school’s animal welfare club, that’s where we met. And he’d always ask to hang out but I didn’t know if he was the mall type. And I couldn’t get rides to out of school events so he’d usually go alone. I don’t even have him as a Facebook friend. I always kept forgetting about it, until about a week before. I feel like I wasn’t that close of a friend to him, and it makes me more upset. I don’t know if I can talk to my friends about it because I don’t want to bum them out. My guidance counselor told me the school child psychologist is offering grief counseling, but I don’t know if it’s too late to join, and I don’t want my parents to think I’m a complete mess.

Rest in Peace, Eric. I miss you and love you. We’ll never forget you. Sorry for not hanging out enough. 1.5.12.

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.