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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

School Lunch Rant

I have spring break this week, but I’m blogging about… school. I know, what a shocker.  

Anyway, a school in Chicago banned students from bringing in their own, homemade lunches. This is ridiculous. They claim they’re doing it because homemade lunches are only Cokes and other junk foods, as opposed to the wonderful healthy foods they serve. What. I’m sorry, but that’s just bullshit.

Sure, I know some kids whose parents forgot to give them money that morning so they usually just go to a drive-through that morning and get something off a dollar menu. I know people who bring Cokes as their own lunch. Heck, my own lunch consists of a bagel with cream cheese, iced tea or some other juice box, and a ‘dessert’ thing like peanut butter crackers, a muffin, cookie, Ritz crackers, and so on. I know, I’m spoiled. But yeah. Sure, some meals are unhealthy, but it’s not as bad as what schools serve, and some people bring in healthy food.

In my high school, seniors are allowed to go out for lunch. We have a lot of restaurants in the area, so they just order To Go then they eat it at school. Most people go to fast food places, but I see some healthier options, occasionally.

That ban is just a scam, in my opinion. At my friend ‘Ashley’s school, the freshmen aren’t allowed to eat out because Ashley’s school’s lunches are so horrible that if they offer people to go out, nobody would eat at the school and they’d lose money, so freshmen have to eat at the school. My friend ‘Clare’ also went to Ashley’s school, but Clare was a senior, so she went out to eat everyday. So, yeah. Ashley’s school forced freshman to stay in for lunch just so they could make money. And I know from an animal welfare club I’m in at school, we’re not allowed to sell stuff or offer food during lunch because it might take away business from the lunch people.

So… yeah. It’s stupid that they’re forcing kids to eat chemicals and other horrible stuff (Although kids with allergies get to bring their own lunches in) just for money. And I heard that Red Dye 40 makes kids hyperactive, so if they’re making kids hyperactive, then punishing them for being hyperactive… yeah.

Then there’s the costs. I know homemade lunches are sometimes expensive (Not like buying a new car expensive but compared to lunches), but I’ve seen people eat leftovers from the night before, which would be way cheaper than at least an additional 2 dollars a day. And just because the daily lunch is 2.70 or something (In my school), doesn’t mean people won’t buy additional stuff like mozzarella sticks (1 or 2 dollars), cookies (.50 cents each), drinks (1 dollar at least) and vending machine stuff (at least 1 dollar). Sure, these prices are for my school alone, but someone could hypothetically eat 5 dollars of food in one day, as opposed to leftovers from last night’s dinner or PB&J or something.

Banning homemade lunch is like turning off sinks and water fountains and plumbing in general during lunch because it’s competition to the overpriced and crappy water bottles they sell in the cafeteria. And what, are they going to convert 50 students to school lunch buyers? Is 100 dollars a day going to add up for the expenses of hiring the food provider people? :/ And are they going to walk up to people who bring their lunch and say ‘no, you can’t have that!’ and take it away?

And a last note, which is paraphrased from a comment I read on the Yahoo! article: Does this apply to teachers and principals, too?

Side note: I’m craving fast food now. xD But for Lent, I gave up McDonalds and Chinese food (In addition to Dove Chocolates) so I have to wait another two weeks. The Subway workers memorized my order because I only go there now. So… new restaurant time.

Blah

This week has been dragging on and on. The weather sucks, I have nonstop homework, and I feel like I’m being cramped up with too many deadlines. Sure, spring break starts next Friday, but I just took an APUSH test last Friday and a Biology test yesterday. I don’t need to squeeze in another 2 chapters by next week.

It’s been raining all week. Actually, that’s a lie. It looks like it’s gonna rain but it doesn’t really. It’s just cloudy, humid and windy. I don’t even know if that’s possible. I heard it’s gonna snow in the NYC area, and that it’s going to create a Nor Easter for the area which will end next Friday. I swear, if there’s a black out this weekend or spring break, I’m going to scream. Last year, there was a major Nor Easter in the area, which caused floods, black outs, broken fences, huge trees in sidewalks (I had to walk in the middle of a busy road to get to my bus stop :/), contaminated water and one angry teenager: Me. Oh, and to make things worse, things didn’t get fixed for two days because it happened on a weekend and the electric company people didn’t want to pay their workers their weekend fee. So… yeah. If I’m not online for a few days, it might be weather related.

I don’t know if I’ll have free time this weekend because of homework and real life commitments.

And I have a pep rally tomorrow. Fun. It’s just for all the jocks to be annoying and obnoxious and cut class and crap. I always end up sitting near the obnoxious kids who troll in real life to annoy others. I’ll blog about their antics tomorrow. And my grade never wins any of the events because we don’t care.

I’d blog more, but I have a 23 paged outline to do for APUSH.

But to quote Degrassi, Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through.

The Future

In October, I took the PLAN, a practice standardized test for the ACT. There was an option for if you’d like to get email and mail from colleges, and I checked that box, because the test costed 10 dollars and I figured it could only help me.

Right now, I’m going through a bag of mail from colleges and I’m feeling overwhelmed. The colleges that I really like so far are either really far away, really expensive, or both. I know there’s financial aid, but financial aid could change in 2 or 3 years. And I’ve also been on the CollegeBoard website and I used their academic tracker thing and I’ve realized some stuff:

• 4 years isn’t enough for every elective I want to take.

Last year I took an elective for graphic arts. I thought it would be like Photoshop, but it’s actually for making stickers, T shirts, paper pads and more. I regret taking the class because it didn’t fulfill my visual arts requirement and it was one year long. Now I’m wishing I took other classes (Like business or journalism classes) so I could know more about what I want to do in the future. And the business class I planned on taking is only available for freshmen through juniors now, because apparently it was too easy and seniors took it to pad their schedules, so I can’t take it because I already am taking other classes next year.

• I should’ve take the SATs last weekend.

I didn’t really have a lot of homework, and I heard there was an essay prompt for reality shows. I took SAT prep in the first semester, and frankly, I know I’m gonna forget everything by next year. I’m taking math SAT prep next year, though. I had a 1570 and 1620 when I took practice ones. And if I didn’t do as well as I wanted to last weekend, I’d have more time to retake it. And then there are subject SAT tests…

• The entire education process is a monopoly.

Kids go to school to do good on state tests to get into better middle school classes for better high schools for better high school classes for a better college for a better job. Those ‘better classes’ I mentioned cost money, if you’re taking the AP tests with them. And then the SATs cost money, and the ACT, PLAN, Pre-SAT…. yeah. And only one company runs the SAT and AP tests, so they can set the prices to whatever they want.

 

On the plus side, I’ve realized what I kind of want to do in the future: Web Design or something Social Science or History related. Web Design, because I enjoy it and the Internet isn’t going away anytime soon, and Social Science/History because I’ve loved it as a child and it sounds genuinely entertaining.

I don’t want to mention any specific colleges that I’m interested in, just in case if they find my blog and whatnot. And like I said, it’s too early to decide.

I guess I’m worried about the future for a lot of things. Being away from home, driving, relationships, jobs, paying bills, raising kids… aaahh. Everything’s going so fast.

No Title

First of all, welcome back TMN! We all miss you.

The next part of the post is a rant. Mean? Yes. Uncalled for? Probably.

No offense Vidkid, but I think you overreacted. I understand that sometimes some jerks overreact on your blog, but last night’s post wasn’t that rude. Maybe enough to close comments, but not enough to make your blog private. And we all didn’t comment on your blog negatively, so just because a few people were mean to you, that doesn’t mean you need to hide your entire blog. I understand this post is going to be viewed negatively and I’m going to be antagonized for my opinion, but guess what? That’s it. My opinion. Nothing else.

A few years ago, I had a Pokémon fansite. I got several rude comments from an unknown visitor. He wasn’t anonymous, but everyone literally knew each other in that community, so yeah. But I didn’t delete that chatbox or hide my website or anything. I just checked his IP address and ironically, it was the same IP address as my frenemy from that community. And that week, we were enemies. So yeah. And then I simply told him ‘look, your IP address matches so-and-so’s. Explain.’ . But the frenemy said it was his cousin staying over his house (who ironically also knew a lot about web design ) and his cousin just trolled. The only outside source that got involved was my other friend who was hosting the website at the time, and soon, the comments went away. I was 14, the frenemy was 13 and the hostess was 17. But we managed to keep it under control. So if a bunch of teenagers could control their problems, why can’t young adults?

And I got into a Facebook fight once. This girl, who I’ve blogged about in August I think, was acting completely psycho. Like, writing on my wall, status, wall posts, and everything else with… messages. Everything you could think of. From apologies to threats. But I handled it well and maturely (and I even got 4/5ths of the grade to be on my side ) by responding to her calmly. She just hid her wall, blocked anyone who didn’t completely support her, and printed out selected screenshots to the principal. Most of the grade thought she acted stupid about it, because she couldn’t even fight her own battle (which she started). My point is, you can’t just hide from your battles all the time. Sometimes, you gotta deal with negative people and comments, too.

*prepares to get ostracized*

Irony

Remember how I made a post about people being too selfless to care about Libya?
I apologize.
Why?
Let’s just say I’m a little more than pissed off right now because the laptop charger isn’t going to come. Ever. And we found the exact same one on Amazon but my parents are just telling us to wait ‘just in case’.
And it doesn’t help that the next time I might actually be able to play the Sims 3 is… Spring break, 7 weeks away?

So if you felt insulted by my last post, I apologize. Because now, I’m treating my issue like it’s the biggest thing in the world.
And I’m gonna turn comments off for this post. Not for the ‘I told you so!’s. You could do that in other posts. But because I don’t want any pity or anything and I just need this post to clear my mind and vent and crap.

No Offense, But...

Isn't what's going on in Libya important too? I understand that everybody reads the Mare's Nest, but if you were that close with them or they were that important to you, wouldn't you have some sort of outside contact with them? I mean, people over there are being killed, and their corrupt government is getting away with it, and then some people are worrying about a trio's blog being down?
I'm worried too, but I'm pretty sure they've had other mini-hiatuses as well, although not this long. But other times they've been down this long, they've severely owned and damaged some troll reputations. Maybe this time, it's Jarsie's turn?

I'm reading some Libyan tweets and they're horrible. They're being killed and they can't do anything about it. According to this article, you can't even mention their leader's name without attracting attention and discussing national policy with foreigners can imprison someone for 3 years. I understand that Sims 3 blogs are escapes, but still. It's not like one URL is going to change what's on my mind.

Bieber Fever

Recently, Justin Bieber and his fans have gone a bit psychotic. If any of you remember my thoughts on him and Lily Allen, then you should know I don't really like him. But I can tolerate him. I don't like when people say they're for gay rights or LGBT friendly and go like 'Don't make fun of Justin Bieber, what has she done to you?' and those kinds of jokes. Or 'Hey Justin, once you get your first kiss/your first WooHoo, your songs will really get good' stuff. I don't like how the media gives Justin the personality of an Amish prude and insults him for it, but Miley Cyrus is a druggie-party animal and the media hates her for that. And those random people who hate Justin a lot for no reason, to the point of wanting to kill him. Like goodness. If you're jealous of a 16 year old or however old he is, then you should reevaluate yourself. But yeah, where was I?
So last Sunday on the Grammys, Justin lost the best new artist award and some Esperanza Spalding girl won. Apparently, angry Bieber fans harassed Esperanza on Twitter because he lost to her. o.O That's a bit too much, don't you think? I don't listen to Esperanza, and frankly, I never heard of her before the Twitter thing, but you don't just harass someone because they won an award!
Then he had a Rolling Stone interview and he said that he was against abortion. Even for rape and incest. To specify, he said 'everything happens for a reason'. Um... okay? I think he had a single teen mom or something, so he could've been aborted and stuff and he's sensitive about abortion, but not letting rape and incest victims get abortions? That's ridiculous. Besides, Justin is Canadian (IE, not a politician or an American citizen), 16 and a boy, so he shouldn't even be asked for his opinion on abortion. And I don't know if Canadians treat abortion with so much controversy, but still. And what's even worse is that I saw a Tweet screenshot circulating the Internet of him allegedly saying 'only true beliebers would agree with me' or something to that effect. I heard it's a rumor, but still. Telling/guilting your demographic into agreeing with you? Like, 12 year old girls? What if one of his fans got raped or sexually abused or is pro choice? Do they have to move on to another artist?
And I heard a theory/conspiracy on the Joy Behar show that he's in an alliance with the Palins to get a new voting demographic for the 2012 election, because his fans could vote by then, and the pro life thing would make them become Republicans. I'm not even going to comment on that because it sounds like something from the National Enquirer, but it doesn't sound too far fetched. Justin's clean cut image and Bristol's DWTS success could help Sarah Palin in the election.
Then again, probably not. 4 years ago, the Jonas Brothers were really famous. Now, they're basically gone. Who says Justin could last?

I should probably change my comment settings for this post to avoid angry Justin fans. *Grabs shield and armor*

Starting Over

Well, our Sims 3 laptop died yesterday. I'm pissed off about it. Our laptop charger had been acting really stupid lately. Like, we could only plug it in one specific outlet and other ones wouldn't charge it. So then, it died. And new charger parts cost from 30 to 50 dollars, and who knows when they'll ship it to our house. :| And I had like no homework this weekend, AND winter break is coming up. :(
So then SS and I checked our other laptop and computer, to see if we could play the Sims 3 on them. According to System Requirements Lab, both of our computers failed. My Dad has a really fancy computer that probably can play it, but he gets possessive over it. Once I had to print out a slide show, but only that computer has Microsoft Power Point or whatever it's called, so I used that one to print it out. Then when he came home he flipped and went all 'If something happens to this computer, it's YOUR fault'. I remember once he tried to fix our printer/scanner/copier, but then it broke and he acted like it was our fault. Oh, and once he downloaded some annoying virus scanner thing on our computer, and it's always downloading crap to make sure there aren't any viruses or whatever. He's acting like anytime I touch a computer, something explodes. Sure, I could be a little clumsy with the laptop, but it's not like he's always perfect with the computer, either.
And I wanted to buy Late Night with some birthday money, too. I don't care about 'boycotting'  EA, because people will still buy their games the second they come out, and it's not like my purchase is going to necessarily keep EA open. I guess this is a sign that I need to wait more.
Maybe I can go back to Zoo Tycoon 2? I got the Ultimate Collection one for like 40 dollars (Yeah, like 5 games [4 expansions + 1 base game] for 40 dollars :D), but I only played for a few months, because then that computer got screwed over. Oh, and their CC community makes full expansion packs for free, 4 years after the official games stopped coming out. [/shameless plug in]
But on a happier note, happy 1 year anniversary to the Timbersons! I'd make an update, but all of the pictures are saved on my other laptop that died. :(

Legacy Rant

I hate it when I’m reading like 5 legacies at a time and I get all of them confused with each other. They’re great, but I swear, all of their Sims look the same, their (LiveJournal BTW) blog layouts look the same… EVERYTHING is the same. So I don’t even know what I’m reading anymore. I remember a few years ago when I was reading like 90 legacies or something, I just made a Wordpad document with little notes and stuff about their Sims, with custom fonts and colors to specifically remember who was who. Maybe I should do that again.

 

And most of their updates are so sporadic that I even forget to check their page sometimes. I have like a bookmark folder of legacies that haven’t been updated for months, or legacies I haven’t checked and forgot I read them. D:

Maybe I should add them to the nav bar on the right?

New Semester Stress

Two days into the new semester, AKA right after midterms, and what do I have to do?

- A 26 page APUSH outline. There are pictures and stuff, but still. It takes me like 5 hours to do a 20 paged one.

- A creative writing piece for English. Like, based off of The Catcher in the Rye. With JD Salinger’s writing style. I just have to revise it, but it’s still a hassle.

- A presentation on a cell project (I did that this weekend so I guess that’s okay)

- A quiz on computer science stuff.

- A Spanish Quiz.

-_________________- Ugh.

On the plus side, Roseanne had a Super Bowl commercial yesterday, but the Steelers lost. And we only have 1 snow day left.

 

9 school days until winter break!

I Never Thought I Would Say This…

But I think I became a soap opera addict. xD Okay, well, teen soap opera. Degrassi. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s basically a Canadian high school/town and the lives of It’s students. It used to be ‘good’, like with real issues and plots and stuff, but after American parents got all angry, so they had to turn it down a little. Now it’s just another teen soap opera. Well, they still have ‘issues’, but it’s not as scandalous anymore, if that makes sense.

But yeah. It all started out when I didn’t have anything to watch on Nick @ Nite or TVLand, and I remembered that we have TeeNick now, so I checked what was on, and it was Degrassi. I never thought I would like it and I thought it would be fun to make fun of them, but… yeah, that didn’t work out. I watched like 4 episodes last night, and 6 today. I’m such a soap opera junkie.

I guess I also like that it’s on TeeNick. I like how now it’s not just random reruns of Nick’s library from the 90’s, but they have a ‘theme’, if that makes sense. They know it’s for teens, not preteens who think they’re cool, or people in their 20’s who still live at home and sit in their pajamas all day. Seriously. The old The N used to have a lot of texting commercials, and promotions for Nickelodeon shows on. And those online college commercials. There was this one girl in the commercials who claimed people who went to online colleges only went to online college so they could be in their pajamas all day. :/

And that was just the COMMERCIALS. The actual shows on were either iCarly, True Jackson VP, and whatever else you could normally watch on Nickelodeon. I don’t know about other people, but The N was a premium channel for me, so I got annoyed when I saw Miranda Cosgrove on yet another channel. Or even worse, shows from the 90s which I’ve NEVER seen anyone complain about missing, like all of those game shows. At least All That and stuff were well known. But most of these short lived game shows were just irritating. Now, they have Ned’s Declassified (Which is like one of my favorite shows of all time), Drake & Josh (Which is still somehow relevant after like 3 or 4 years of cancellation), Zoey 101, What I like about you (I have a feeling Dan Schneider forced them to do it), That 70’s show (Which I never grew to like, but whatever), Degrassi, and some other show called Gigantic.

I guess I also like it compared to it’s competition, ABC Family. ABC Family also has syndication (except it’s older and ABC-owned, with exceptions like That 70’s show) and teen ‘dramas’, like Secret Life of an American Teenager (Or that pregnant show, if you’ve seen ads), Pretty Little Liars (Or the one with the real-live bratz dolls lying down on the ground) and so on. There aren’t texting commercials, either! But… the commercials are aimed at women. I’m not sexist, but it’s awkward to watch commercials about air fresheners, breakfast foods, microwavable stuff, and dog food. Oh, and… female hygiene stuff. At least TeeNick has ProActive and stuff.

TeeNick is also nice because it’s a nice escape from overexposed tween stars. It’s nice to not see a Miranda Cosgrove anything in between iCarly episodes, or not seeing Big Time Rush or Victorious on every second of the day. Degrassi has like 20 characters credited in their theme song, and each episode only revolves around a few of the kids, so it’s not like they try fitting in everyone everyday, and I don’t get bored from watching the same characters over and over again. Then again, I watched a marathon, so I’d just wait an hour or so to see ‘my’ characters. If I’d be watching once a week, I’d hate to wait a month to see plots I care about. But I heard they’re trying out an episode a night, so… yeah. But if the main audience is high schoolers, I could see how someone could lose track of the show easily.

So, would I recommend Degrassi? If you can handle sappy drama, fake romances and issues, and unrealistically attractive people, then yes. But do to all the kissing and ‘I think I’m ready for my first time’ plots, I have to change the channel or mute when my parents come in the room, so don’t expect wholesome stuff. It’s extremely easily to get hooked to, too.

And here’s a character from Degrassi that looks like they have Custom content hair.

(Source)

 

(Source)

I guess that’s how NewSea wanted it to look.

I finished half of my homework, so now I have to type up my cell project and actually do it. The weather isn’t that bad over here, today.

Poor News Judgement

Recently, Egypt is in chaos, due to protesters. I'm not gonna lie, I barely know anything about it. The only news I do know is that it's because they're sick of their current president/prime minister/etc and want a new one. And I was watching an Arabic news channel (My parents speak Arabic and are from Syria so we just have an international satellite thing), and the streets were a mess and everything was going wrong and chaotic. But do you want to know what my local (NYC area) news covers?
Snow. Honestly. They act like we live in Hawaii or Ecuador or the Equator or something, and we've never seen the snow before. 75% of nights from December until March have news people end their broadcasts with 'And for tomorrow's big storm, we're extending our coverage! Now you can find out all of your snow related details from 4:30 in the morning!'. Honestly, just tell us if we're getting school off, if the public transportation is screwed up, and what roads are actually plowed.
I admit, this year the snow is way more (Currently, my lawn's snow goes up to my knee, but I'm not too tall, so that doesn't say much) and I haven't seen grass since Christmas, but they're acting like the people who watch their news are too stupid to get a shovel, snow plow machine thing, or salt and wear boots that aren't Uggs. Also, my household gives them 1 more viewer, but that's because most of the Arabic TV stations are a mess over the Egypt crisis and cable daytime shows suck. And the local news people shouldn't have a right to be on past 8 or 9 in the morning. Part of me just thinks that they have nobody to go home to and kill time at their studio.
But seriously. We don't need this much coverage for snow! Just tell people to dress in layers and problem solved. I was watching one story about how people can't walk because of the city's poor shoveling stuff, but the people were dressed in heels, boots and dress shoes. You don't go out in like 20 inch snow dressed up for prom! And it's always 'snow-pocalypse' now. Every week, there's a storm that's going to be horrendous! 5 weeks in a row? I don't think so.
And then my Dad and Aunt brought up a valuable point: Why are they complaining about what to do with all this snow when other places (IE Canada) have it worse and they never complain?
I don't even want to know what's going to happen to all this snow once it melts. Floods? Or a cycle of melted snow -> ice -> melted snow -> ice that doesn't evaporate?
Oh, and then the whole Jersey Shore going to Italy 'story'. Hey Italy, you spawned them! Suck it up!