Why I love Hunger Games (and you should too)

I've always been sort of obsessed with dystopian literature. Ever since I read The Giver in fifth grade I've always been fascinated with a world that is created to be Utopian but has this awful underbelly. Also I'm not a huge fan of capitalism and therefore I like reading about what happens when capitalism goes to its extremes. Also, I'm morbid and like when the world gets all messed up and the future is pretty fucking bleak. So enter The Hunger Games. I read the first book after the second book came out because it got a lot of hype and I'm a sucker for that sort of stuff. I consumed it, bought the next book and impatiently waited for the final book to come out. And as a lover of this series, I shall now present the awesome things about this book (and a few things that aren't that great but I overlook for the love of the genre).

1. Katniss is an antihero: Let's be straight, Katniss is pretty annoying, especially in the third book. You sort of start rooting against her and hope the rest of the series is from Peeta's perspective. It's pretty rare to find a series you love but you hate the narrator. But this is actually what I love about her- she's real. She's 16 years old in the first book. She's selfish, annoying, self righteous and doesn't want to take orders. Basically she's a teenager. She doesn't claim to be anything more than what she is, and the author doesn't give you more than that. She isn't a hero, and doesn't claim to be either. She doesn't want to be the Mockingjay but does it because she wants to save Peeta. She is not an altruistic person. Her one and only good deed was volunteering in her sisters place. But this is because Katniss knows something about herself: she is capable of killing, and her sister isn't. We are rooting for a person to be the last one standing in a battle to the death with other kids her own age who have done nothing wrong other than get their name drawn in a shitty lottery. She isn't a good person, she's a survivor in a world that downright blows.

2. Panem is awesome: For those of us who are fans, we want more Harry Potter books. Not because there is more to understand, but because we don't want it to end. We don't care what form it takes, be it about Dumbledore's adventures before Hogwarts or the first War with Voldemort or about Voldemort himself- we just want it because we love the world that JK Rowling created. With Panem though, there is so much to understand. Where are the districts located? How did the Hunger Games start? What were they like in the beginning? What started the first Rebellion? How did the Capitol control the districts before the Hunger Games? How did it become established that the districts would be focused on a sort of USSR production type society? Why was District 13 the one destroyed? These are all unanswered questions that will more than likely never be answered. But Panem is a really awesome world that exists without existing. It's America, only the continent got smaller and the states are districts that we don't know the exact location of (other than Colorado gets to be the Capitol and District 12 is the Appalachian mountains somewhere around VA/NC).

3. Peeta and Gale both have pros and cons: Let's face it- we love Peeta because he is a smooth talker. He says some pretty romantic things. But the kid is sort of useless. He would have died in the games without Katniss and he's pretty gullible to think there would be no fallout for the whole berry situation. But he's very loyal and loves Katniss despite her being an utter bitch. Then there's Gale. Gale is strong, a fighter, and let's face it- hot. But Gale is also an egotistical asshole who believes the ends justify the means. Maybe it was character assassination, but I think we were always supposed to believe that he and Katniss were very much alike. If Gale had been chosen to be in the games, he would have been just like Cato, and though he wouldn't have killed Katniss himself, he would have wanted to be the last one standing. The point is they each have good and bad qualities, just like real people. Katniss chose the person whom she felt best complimented her own personality and gave her something she desperately needed.

4. President Snow is legit scary: I'm happy they got Donald Sutherland to be President Snow in the movie because for some reason that guy freaks me out no matter what his character is. Snow is scary. He isn't a Stephen King character but he knows how to manipulate a crowd and suggest to you what will happen if you cross him. When he visits Katniss in Catching Fire you're scared for her because he's someone she isn't smart enough to fight. She might be physically strong but that guy is smart and always two steps ahead on how to work the situation. He and Katniss understand each other that way, but it doesn't mean she can compete.

5. Other people did it first (but not necessarily better): Look, I understand, Battle Royale came out in 1999 and the movie came out in 2000 (I think). It has the same concept: A group of kids are forced to kill each other until there is only one survivor and it's government controlled. That is where the similarities end. For starters, no one else knows this is going on. The kids are on a field trip, are drugged, and wake up in this situation. No one is watching it on TV and making bets on it and even though it's government operated the general public doesn't know what is going down on this island. Also, there are way too many characters to keep up with. Battle Royale is awesome, but I don't think it's right to say it's a straight up rip off. The Running Man by Stephen King focused on this concept of televised violence. But it's also somewhat of a choice. The people are poor and dying and are going there as a last resort but they are choosing to be on this "game show" all on their own. No one made them audition. But it doesn't make the concept any worse, and it is a very astute commentary on our culture made before the whole reality show mania got out of hand.

6. There are a slew of plot holes: I know he says it in the movie and I am pretty sure he talks about it in the book too but Gale makes the point that if no one watches, then the Hunger Games won't have any power. And this is true, but the only place that it really matters where they watch is the Capitol and they'll never stop watching because their children aren't the ones being killed. Part of me doesn't understand how they became so disenfranchised that they don't care to watch kids die, while another part of me thinks maybe they don't know it's real. Maybe they think they don't really die and it's all fake and they would never know because they don't go visit the districts. But they have to know it's real because they sponsor them and send medicine and food and stuff. I don't know, it's a question that is never answered: how they can justifiably accept that human sacrifice is necessary for rebellion. Also, why don't the kids just refuse to kill each other? I mean, the Capitol can just blow the arena up and they'd all die, but that goes against the whole concept of the Games. If the kids all got in there, looked around and said "I don't really want to kill you, let's just hang out" the Games couldn't exist. Instead they just accept that they need to become cold hearted killing machines. Maybe that's the point of brainwashing the Career districts, they'll kill at random so everyone else better get with the program too. This is something Battle Royale does better, if they don't kill anyone or participate, their collars get detonated and their heads explode. Why can't people move from their district? It's never discussed that they can't but Katniss never gives an indication that they can. I guess it makes sense with the whole totalitarian concept but you'd think you could move from your district (just not to the safety of the Capitol). These plot holes make me love the series more, mostly because I keep thinking I'll get the answers. I love the mystery of it all!

7. We don't focus too much on who loves who: Katniss doesn't sit around wondering if she should pick Peeta or Gale. She actually doesn't spend a whole lot of time on that at all. She thinks about it, but she doesn't obsess about it. If she was Bella all she'd do is sit around thinking about which boy she was going to love forever and ever. Peeta doesn't spend the whole time trying to convince Katniss of his love and Gale doesn't do much of that either. They all know there is something more important going on and spend an appropriate amount of time swooning over one another. I like the balance (even though there were times I didn't want some of the more romantic moments to end).

Overall, this series has its share of problems, but at its core it's really awesome. Katniss is a pretty crappy person, and I love that. I love that we aren't supposed to think she's a heroine because she's not. She's a normal girl who has normal girl issues (mostly with her own arrogance) and even though she has these setbacks, she achieves a lot. She makes a lot of mistakes, but she also makes a lot of smart (albeit unpopular) choices as well. She isn't a role model per se, but I'd rather be a Katniss than a Bella any day.

Why I hate Twilight (and you should too)

My sister and I read Twilight a long time ago. We are all about reading cheesy young adult novels and that made Twilight right up our alley. So we got it from the library and read it. This was before the super hyped up phenomenon started so we weren't on any kind of wait list for it. In short: it was awful. This is coming from someone who owns every single copy of Sweet Valley High- even the Senior  Year series! I say this to establish my very low standards for a romping good time. Here is a list, with a subsequent explanation as to why Twilight is horrible:

1. It is poorly written: when your main explanation for why a girl is smart is because she goes to to library and reads Withering Heights (which this book is a really bad rip-off of) that isn't an argument. Especially since she never goes back to the library or reads after she falls in love with Edward!!!! Also, I don't care how good looking Edward is, you do not have to explain it to me every fucking time he enters a scene. I get it- he's cut from marble blah blah blah, you have a creepy obsession with a perpetually 17 year old boy, Stephenie Meyer. Even Robert Pattison thinks it's creepy. Basically, she had a dream about a good looking guy and she wrote some really long fanfiction that somehow got published.

2. Apparently all girls should listen to boys, not matter what: Look, I get it, it's true love! I can totally get into that when I'm reading- it's really not that hard for me. I don't question why Romeo and Juliet killed themselves even though they knew each other for a week and were only 14 years old. I just accept true love. But when you are basically telling young girls that when your boyfriend breaks up with you, it's perfectly normal to be comatose for months on end, shit isn't cool with us anymore. Then, when you start to act like a person again and hang out with a new guy, once the old boyfriend comes back you need to drop that other guy like a hot potato! and if you even think about hanging out with that other guy again, it's perfectly natural for your old boyfriend to pull the carburetor out of your car so you can't go. Also, every idea you have is stupid and only the man can make decisions.

3. Sex is bad and that's why it is appropriate: Working in a library we get book challenges everyday. Usually because of bad language (everything), witchcraft! (Harry Potter) and sex (again...everything). The Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty is challenged a lot because Jessica wants to have sex and says the fuck word. A high schooler wanting to have sex? that's awful! That isn't even close to being true! But whatever, people can challenge whatever they want for whatever reason they want. Anyway, Bella wants to jump Edwards sexy, undead bones. It used to be that if a girl had sex with a vampire having a baby wasn't a problem (since, you know, they're dead and therefore do not produce semen that swims upstream!) but Stephenie does not care what centuries of vampire lore tells us! Her vampires are different (Mormon) and can go outside (it's sparkle time) and they don't eat people! (lame). Edward won't have sex with Bella because it's wrong to have sex if you aren't married! Edward does not have a soul. Vampires do not have souls and therefore do not know right from wrong (this is why it is easy for them to go around killing and eating people). But since this is thinly veiled Mormon, Jesus-y lecture material, the man has to teach the dumb woman all about what is right and wrong and they can't have sex unless they're married. Well, just like in olden days, Bella now wants to get married straight out of high school. She has her dowry is hand (an old truck and some werewolf friends who may come in handy once we fight the "evil" and more interesting vampires) and is ready to walk down the aisle. Edward takes his sweet time (4 books, which is 4 too many) and they finally get married, have sex and she is a vampire. The best part about this whole series is Edward believing the baby is evil and will kill Bella so they want to give her a back alley abortion! This is the most awesome thing ever because he and Jacob are going to rip open her stomach and pull the evil out. Sadly this does not happen, but still, it's pretty fucking awesome (my book would already be challeneged, I said the fuck word twice...oops, three). But either way, parents think this series is appropriate because it tells their kids not to have sex. And while I don't disagree with that (I was almost 21 when I had sex the first time, so it's not like I was a wild and crazy kid), I disagree with the way it was presented. Which brings us to...

4. It's antifeminist propaganda: I don't like when women degrade women, sort of like how I don't get women who support Rick Santorum. Maybe it's because I studied feminism in my first round of grad school (I collect degrees like baseball cards), but when people, especially other women, set our own gender back it annoys me. Bella shouldn't be listening to everything Edward says, she shouldn't be flattered that he stalks her and she should be really pissed off when she tries to choose her friends for her (telling her she can't hang out with Jacob). Instead she just listens to him and thinks the behavior is appropriate. All this does is tell young girls that this is okay. In reality, this behavior is a warning sign of an abusive relationship. If I were 14 and in love with this series, I would want an Edward, and if my boyfriend did these things, I would be flattered because he loves me like Edward, but in the real world this isn't really when it stops. This is just the beginning of something worse. Isolating a person from their friends and family, telling them what they can and cannot do- this is all bad news bears. This guy is emotionally abusive, and if it weren't a love story he would be physically abusive as well. Stuff like this is worse than reading curse words or girls who fear being the last living virgin (a la Jessica Darling). Also, Bella is always perceived as inferior to Edward. She is the human- therefore she should have the higher moral ground. I have the moral compass of Doctor Faustus (and if you don't know who that is but you can recite Twilight to me we are not friends), but even I know things that have to be "taught" to Bella. Meyer basically tells you sex is a bad and dirty thing, and maybe that's what she's been taught (I'm Catholic, and I use that term loosely. I only say it because I went through catechism and therefore earned it, so I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Mormon teachings that aren't well known to the general populous) but how is that better than being told sex is a free for all and we should have it with every person in sight? Either way you're getting a pretty fucked up view of what sex is. Bella could have been so much more. She could have been a real heroine, but instead she's Mary Sue. She's me, you, your best friend, that pretty girl on the cheerleading squad- she's everyone and no one at the same time. There is no depth to her and that's the point. You can make yourself Bella and be in love with Edward. Bella was not created in order to be a strong woman, she was created to be any woman. This is a disservice to our gender. This is the biggest problem with Twilight. Bella has nothing to fight for other than spending time with Edward while Edward gets to go out and save the world. Why can't Bella fight too? Why can't she have good ideas instead of always getting hurt and need saving? Why can't a girl be the hero without having to have some sort of special superhuman strength? Wouldn't that be a better lesson- that a girl is strong enough to fight with and be in love with a vampire even without having the super human sparkle strength to go with it? Why can't Bella have a life that isn't Edward centric? Why do readers not question the motives of this series?! And why, for the love of God, do middle aged women try to sexually molest poor Robert Pattison? It's total fontrum.

I love make up

So I don't really talk about myself on here (mostly because I'm not interesting in the least) but I wanted to talk about something near and dear to my heart: make up. I have a lot of make up. I buy it all the time. I have no idea why. Lately I've not bought a lot but I recently got back into the swing of things. So today I wanted to share with you a few of my great finds and a few things I've tried that I would suggest staying away from. If you enjoy this I might do it on the regular, though I don't plan on doing MAC. Not because I don't use it, (ask Jennifer she will tell you) but because people already know that MAC makes good make up. Their eye shadows have fantastic pigment, I really enjoy some of their lipglasses, and I like fluidline. Though I will say when I don't like MAC products (like today). So without further ado, some happy faces and sad faces from the make up world.

HAPPY FACES


1. High Beam from Benefit: I love this product. It goes on smooth and really gives you a dewey complexion. I have had problems with some Benefit products because I have sensitive skin and they put fragrances in their products and it breaks me out. But this doesn't have that and I've never had a problem using it. I really suggest using it, especially going out at night or summer. This is a product I use everyday.

2. NYX Eye Shadown Sticks: Pronounced Knicks (like the basketball team), these inexpensive sticks have great pigmentation, go on smooth and they last. Sadly they are not readily available everywhere. If you have an Ulta they are sold there, they are also available online. I have heard about them being sold at random beauty stores and drug stores as well, though I have never seen it. I do not recommend their eye shadow pods though, because I don't feel the color goes on great and you have to really dig into it to get any type of pigment. I have also used lipgloss from them and I liked it, it isn't sticky and that is a big thing with me and lipgloss. I have tried hundreds of lipglosses so I sort of consider myself a lipgloss expert.

3. L'Oreal Voluminous Million Lashes Mascara: I am always on the hunt for good mascara. I have gone through so many different types it isn't funny. I bought this from the recommendation of a make up blog (at the moment I can't remember which one but I know there are several that recommend it). I'm glad I did because I really like it. First of all, it isn't clumpy. For some reason I always pick the clumpiest mascara, never fails. This goes on great and even after a full day of classes (9am-5pm) there haven't flacked or clumped once. I got blackest black and the color is great. It's a trend to have lengthening mascara right now but I already have freakishly long lashes so lengthening would be scary and this mascara makes them look fuller without making them longer. I highly recommend this if you're looking for an inexpensive mascara to try out.

4. Bobbi Brown Shimmer Lip Gloss: I love this lip gloss! The color is so beautiful and it goes on smooth. The shine doesn't have those little specks in it that make it grainy (is that glitter or something?) I know that the price is high, but I feel like it's worth it (probably until I go to Target and find one I like just as much way cheaper).

SAD FACES


1. MAC Plush Lash Mascara: STAY AWAY!!! This mascara is awful. I can't stand it. So clumpy and flakey. It smeared and it itched! For the money you pay for it you'd think it would only have one of these problems, but it had all of them. I wouldn't recommend this at all.

2. MAC Studio Sculpt Concealer: I promise this isn't a rant on MAC list. But their concealer isn't the greatest. Mostly because it doesn't...conceal. It's pancakey and way too dark, no matter how light a shade you get (I am NW20, btw). I feel like it makes your make up look heavy- the opposite of what we all want. Overall I would stay away from MAC complexion unless you've got skin that can handle anything.

3.  Benefit That Girl Primer: One of my best friends swears by this stuff. So I was excited when there was a sample of it in a kit that I bought. The problem is that it has a fragrance and I have sensitive skin. This stuff broke me out, and not with pimples, but with red splotches and hives. I was really sad about it because I like Benefit and wanted it to work. I give every sample of this I get to my friend, because it works well for her. But for me, it was a disappointment. So if you have sensitive skin and fragrances irritate you- this is something to avoid.

4. Cinique Eye Shadow: I used to be a big Clinique person. I still use their complexion since it's the only thing that won't mess up my skin, but I haven't used anything else by them since I was in high school. I used to use a duo called Strawberry Fudge- I would literally wear it everyday. I don't think I even owned other eye shadows! The problem was that it creased. At this time I didn't know about primers so I would just put foundation on my eyelids (I have heard it works just as well as using primer) but it would still crease. Before the school day was even over there was a gross line going right across my crease. I have never had that problem with MAC eye shadows, and since they're relatively the same price (MAC is a dollar or two more) I still with MAC. The shadow's from Clinique are pretty in the pot but aren't pigmented well and coupled with the creasing issue for me it's just a hot mess.

So that's it. I tried taking pictures of my products but my apartment has shitty lighting even in the daylight so sorry about that. I was thinking of doing this more often if people like it, and I might consider vlogging it if that is what people want, but if you're all okay with me just writing it I will stick with this. Also if there are products you'd like to know about I will see if I have them or I can try and get them to tell you what I think. And if you use any of these products and don't agree with what I've said- leave a comment- everyone's face is different :)

Lisa Frank

School sucks. All I do is research. I would much rather be paid to blog, but wouldn't everyone? Also not sure there is a demanding market for stuff-white-girl-in-her-twenties-likes. Alas, I'm trying to make this a priority. Sucks that the only reason I have time to blog right now is because I'm sick and the thought of walking to school in order to sit in a freezing cold archives room kills me. 

When I was young we were sort of poor, so I didn't always get to have all the stuff other kids did. Most of my clothes came from Hills or a store in the town I grew up in called Treasure Island (my mother called it Trash Island). But I always knew what was awesome, even if I couldn't own it. And Lisa Frank was, without a doubt, the most awesome of all the awesome.

you know you want to own this.

Lisa Frank has bright colors, beautiful unicorns and designs of animals in love that only someone who is really tripping on acid could think up. In fact, Miss. Frank could probably be on an episode of intervention and, like Allison, she would be walking on sunshine. I wanted it all. What I really really really wanted though, was the sticker book. 

Why on earth were sticker books so popular back in the 90s? Why did I need to transfer my stickers from their already safe place of purchased paper to a book of paper? No idea, but they were safer when they were in my diary that had a key damn it! 

She also had a trapper keeper, which I did own but had to use it for about three years because it cost so much. But I loved that trapper keeper and wish I still had those loving cats to keep me warm through the cold winter days. 

P.S: if anyone finds a Lisa Frank cell phone cover they should point me in the direction. I will pay lots of coins* for it!

obviously coins means pennies. 

Way Back Machine

The way back machine is this awesome website that lets you look at some of your favorite websites as they were way back in the day. You can watch how they evolved into what they are now and even look at some now defunct sites that you used to really love. My favorite thing is to go back and look at AOL since for some reason I'm very obsessed with AOL. Maybe because I spent so much time with it back in the early 2000s. I'm so obsessed with it I watch their old commercials!

Indeed old man, what will they think of next? The lady in the still shot used as the cover (or whatever it's called. I ain't no YouTube wizard!) has some awesome crunchy hair. 

Speaking of awesome videos I watch on YouTube, here are a series of commercials that AT&T did in the early 1990's to tell you about things we will be able to do in the future that they could already do but wouldn't give to us for 15 more years!!! Coincidence or conspiracy? Also, is it just me or is Tom Sellack the one doing the ads? Jennifer would know this. She likes Magnum PI.

For those of you wanting to check out the way back machine, here is the link. 

Romeo + Juliet

Guys, I have a confession. No matter how womanizing he is or how he'll only date models who are about 25 (meaning I was right in knowing he would date someone my age!) I will always be in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's a sickness. A disease. And I don't want a cure.

Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet came out in 1996, and I was only 12 years old. Does not matter. I was in love. I had read the book in school (I was advanced in those days. "Gifted" as they called it. Oh if they could see me now...) and I sort of thought it was crazy for 14 year olds to be getting married and killing themselves over it. At the tender age of 12 I knew I was not going to be doing any of that in two years time. But then I saw this movie and I knew why they were doing it. That scene, at the party, with the fish tank. Come on. Everyone could see it. Leo's face just shows you how he was falling in love with her. 

See that love? That's a love that won't quit (until they, you know, die). Lately, Leo D has been looking hot again. He allowed himself to be played by Blake Lively and now he's back on his A game, hooking up with more models and not so puffy in the face and Oh My God he just filmed The Great Gatsby!!! Seriously folks, my Leo love has come back hardcore. If it stays like this I might lift my ban on seeing the rerelease of Titanic because I have to see Leo. Maybe this is what he wants. He probably gets a piece of the profits from the film and he needs people like me to remember why we love him. I didn't want to see it because it's just greedy ass James Cameron wanting more money (we don't need to see the ship sink in 3d, and if offered to me, I will not be seeing this film in 3d). Leo, is this what you're doing too? Are you trying to suck money out of me because you want it too? James Cameron sucks on about 10 different levels even if he did make some of my favorite movies (meaning Aliens I can thankfully say to this day I haven't seen that stupid Avatar nonsense. I've already seen Fern Gully. It had Christian Slater and Robin Williams AND they sang!). 

Anyway, Leo hasn't been this hot since The Departed. Do you remember the sex scene with him and the doctor?

 

I hope I haven't completely made your day useless with Leo reminiscing.  

Hunger Games

I'm sure by now you've either read The Hunger Games or at least seen the movie preview. If all you've seen in the preview, I suggest you go read the book, because it's pretty awesome and will only take you a few hours. Then you'll want to read the other two. I'm not wanting to talk about the books as in  "here is what I think of them" more I want to discuss Katniss and if I think she makes very sound decisions. So I guess if you've never read them don't read this, or if you have no intentions of reading them and/or don't care to know what happens, continue onward. I'm making a jump for those who do care.

Gel Pens

Oh gel pens. In order to be cool at my middle school, you had to have them. Every year during the annual back to school trip to buy notebooks and such, it was essential to also buy gel pens. Usually though, if you didn't go early enough, they were sold out. Yes reader, there was a pen so popular that it would sell out.

who wouldn't want these?

Now there were a few different kinds of gel pens. There were the regular, metallic and glitter. The glitter were shit because it was actual chunks of glitter that would make it hard to write, but in order to show you were really awesome you had to have metallic. Ironically they were also about a dollar more on a set of pens that were already pretty pricey at $6. 

I'm not gonna lie to you reader, my family was poor. We couldn't really afford to buy gel pens all the time so when I received money I would save it so I could buy them. They became so popular that teachers had to start saying we couldn't turn in assignments written with gel pens, which was fine by us, the real magic was in note writing. 

Oh yes, the lost art of note writing. We would line our gel pens up on our desks and write our bff (phonetically pronounced) all about what was going on in that long, lonely period where we were away from one another. If we were really ambitious that day we would write every word in a new color, but usually each paragraph was a new color. It takes me days on end and a little bit of team work to be able to write a paper but I was able to write two pages to my friends who I had just seen about an hour ago about everything that was happening with me. That takes some dedication, I tells ya. 

I was recently at Target and looked for some gel pens and didn't see them on the shelf. I hope that means they are simply sold out and the allure of the gel pen lives on. If not, I will be very sad to know that they are only sold at specialty shops (yes, I consider Staples to be special) because that means they know that only old people like me are going to buy them, because what 11 year old asks their mom to go to Staples?

Marilyn Monroe

*Technical note: I had some internet issues but after telling AT&T that they can either fix my shit or give me my money back they fixed my shit. Everything should be going well now. Hopefully. Because I do have school work to do. Anyway, back to good stuff...

I don't like Marilyn Monroe. This will probably alienate some of you but I believe I'm going to make a great argument for it. First of all, she was not a good actress. Some Like it Hot was good because of Tony Curtis and in spite of her being in it. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was just a great production. This also brings me to my next point, which is her little girl baby voice. Apparently she never got past the age of ten because her voice is even more high pitched and girlie annoying than my six year old nieces. Her singing voice was as good as any actresses in a movie, although Baz Lurhman's version of "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" with Nicole Kidman was better, but that has other contributing factors. Anway...

She was stupid. Every year (for reasons that are baffling to me and make me angry), Vanity Fair publishes passages from her "secret" diaries. And every time there are really really really simple words misspelled. This girl could probably barely spell her own name. She was sad, depressed and lonely. And while I feel bad for here there are millions of people who suffer this same thing everyday and they're aren't hailed as some champions of society. Also, newflash, she wasn't a size 12- she was actually a size 6 or 8, and by Hollywood standards nowadays she might as well been a size 26 but for when she was famous, being a 6 was actually the norm. They weren't all anorexic yet, the only people who were really like that were models. It wasn't until the 1990's when the modeling world and the acting world blended that it became imperative for women in Hollywood to be very very skinny. She had a very nice body, but it wasn't a "bigger" body and she just defied the laws of stardom and became famous anyway. She actually looked like many of the other actresses at the time. I don't really know where these rumors came from, but people need to stop believing them.

She was a slut. She really really was. I don't care if the President was the only one she was sleeping around with. It doesn't matter. It's not like he was some random off the street and she didn't know he was married. She knew, she didn't care, and she slept around with him anyway. Everyone already knows the Kennedy's are pretty sleezy, but somehow she gets to be cool and viewed as this awesome person who was just giving the man what his prude wife wouldn't. If this is something you believe, congratulations, you will probably sleep with a married man or woman and justify it by saying if they were happy they wouldn't be sleeping around.

She was not a figure of feminism. She wasn't trying to help the cause for women. She wasn't making any statements about body image or confidence or trying to be your own person. She was like a high schooler the way she fell in love. She was very insecure and relied off of the compliments of others to make her feel good and she wanted nothing more than to lead a normal life and be a housewife. Instead she was so sad and drug addicted that she killed herself. Which is sad. But nothing to be worshipped.

LeAnn Rimes vs. Trisha Yearwood

Back in the 90’s everyone loved these two- and by everyone I mean your mom’s and people who listened to country music, and I am neither so I didn’t really have an opinion about them either way. I knew who Yearwood was because she sang that “She’s in Love with the Boy” song that I felt was the anthem I would ride off into the sunset with JTT to (JTT= Jonathon Taylor Thomas, who will get his own blog at a later date). LeAnn Rimes became famous when she was like 13 (I don’t check facts, this stuff scarily comes from memory. 90’s pop culture knowledge takes up the space that should house math and science in my brain). She apparently sang “Blue” (Pasty Cline? Is this correct?) really well so people in the county music world went nuts. None of this matters, it’s all back story.

In 1997 or 1998 both of them wanted to sing the title song for the Nicholas Cage movie Con Air which happens to be a pretty good movie. Rumor has it Rimes was all sulky and pissed that they chose old hag Trisha Yearwood instead of her and she went off and recorded the song anyway. Her version was more popesque and benefited from that weird time in music where country music singers were making “crossover” hits (oddly enough pop people weren’t trying to do any crossing over, this just shows you where the money comes from). Anyway, her version was more universally popular and I guess she felt vindicated. Then awards season came around and they were both nominated for Best Country Vocal at the Grammy’s for the same song! This was back when awards shows mattered, by the way. Now the only show that matters are the Oscars- even the Grammy’s are shrug worthy in regards to talent receiving recognition. Anyway, it’s about to get really freaky with my memory. Because I actually remember how this shit went down.

So LeAnn sang her little “Blue” heart out to a song that wasn’t “Blue” and was in fact, “How Do I Live?” Now the category was either right after this performance or pretty close because she was still backstage when they were announcing it and Trisha fucking Yearwood won. Hold on while I check YouTube to see if there’s a video of this precious moment. There is!!!

Sadly, there is no shot of LeAnn’s reaction even though I thought there was. Also, if you put that search into YouTube there are a lot of people who think they can hit that note on “how will I ever, ever survive” and they cannot. But listening to Trisha’s speech is so gosh darn amazing. First of all, it’s one long jab at Rimes who had been bragging about how her version was better and reached a wider audience (ie those who listen to pop), which is why Yearwood threw in that thing about country radio. Personally I hate both of these women, they both cheated with married men (Rimes with that Eddie Cibiran creature and Yearwood with Garth Brooks) but Yearwood isn’t narcissistic on the outside and a toasted crazy on the inside like Rimes is so good on her for being the winner. This is odd since I usually have a gold star and special place in my heart for girls who wear these outfits:

I can't believe this hot piece lost

But for a hot minute this is what constituted as rivalry in music. Two women recording the same song, being nominated for said song and one of them coming out the winner. Personally, I think the lady who sang “Did I Shave My Legs For This?” definitely should have been the winner, because indeed by losing, she had no reason to shave her legs. 

Zack Morris

I hate Twilight. Hate actually isn’t a strong enough word for the violent emotions I feel towards that piece of anti feminist garbage that is more poorly written than this here blog. So this argument to me is very delightful. Before any of that sparkly vampire bullshit came out we had one of the greatest television shows of all time: Saved by the Bell. Why do I bring up “Saved,” as I call it? Because while prepubescent girls and their 40-something moms embarrassingly fight over the whole Edward or Jacob conundrum, the real battle has already been fought: Zack vs. AC.

If you will recall, loyal reader, both Zack and AC were often gunning for the beautiful Kelly Kapowski. She was the head cheerleader, had exotic features (for California in the late 80s/90s) and awesome boobs! She was also pretty dim witted and strung both guys along while somehow being able to maintain a relationship with them both. (Sound familiar Stephenie Meyer?!)

Now let’s not forget that eventually the pairing goes to Zack and Kelly and AC and Jessie, but the triangle lived on and became a square! Remember when Zack and Jessie kissed?! Zack is her oldest friend and he took care of her when she needed to do her schoolwork but also wanted to do the singing/dance competition at Max’s diner so she started popping over the counter caffeine pills and immediately became addicted! She was so excited until she was just so scared!

This video is poignant though not as telling as the episode of 90210 where Kelly overdoses on weight loss pills because she pops them like candy and doesn’t eat any food.

AC is no saint either! He would often fool Zack with his intelligence so he could get Kelly alone and take her to the movies or something. It was trickery! This show was pretty incestual, actually. Zack made out with all the girls (even Lisa!) and AC wasn’t much better. When the “tough girl” Tori came on the scene (I really thought she was a lesbian) the feud between Zack and AC recommenced on who would get to be her guy.

All I’m saying is, Twilight ain’t got nothin on my Saturday morning shows! Bella/Edward/Jacob? PSSH! Child’s play compared to Zack/Kelly/AC/Jessie (and sometimes Lisa). These kids schemed their ways in and out of high school relationships the way you’re supposed to go through life. At least this is how I think relationships work. For all I know though pulling the carburetor out of one’s crappy truck and debating on who is going to rip her unborn monster baby out of her stomach is what is really supposed to go down with young love. The couple that aborts together usually doesn’t stay together- keep that in mind kids! No sex before marriage you unclean young women with all your hormones who need a soulless (apparently) gorgeous vampire to keep your sin at bay! They didn't talk about it much on "Saved" (that I remember, and I'm too lazy to look it up) but I'm pretty sure Zack was having sex. With and without Kelly. Also, if the Kapowski is good enough for the Biebs, she's good enough for us all: 

CK One

CK One

Oh loyal reader, I know you’re getting a plethora of knowledge from reading this blog and I know this is the last week of Christmas shopping and you’re thinking “Erica, what am I going to buy my mother/friend/lover/dog walker?” Well have no fear because I have the one gift that will please everyone on your gift list.

This'll bring all the boys to the yard

 Back in middle school when I was super poor, my mother couldn’t afford to buy me perfume from the department stores and up until that point I was under the impression Baby Soft was the premier perfume on the market. So when I was in 8^th grade I was officially a teenager. I thought being 13 meant I was going to be an adult and finally get my period (hint: nope, I’m still prepubescent to this day), but one thing I knew for sure was that I was going to be “sexy” and that meant getting rid of the ole Baby Soft. I knew I needed something sophisticated that would showcase how mature I was, so I went to Phar-Mor and started smelling the luscious fragrances such as Charlie and Joop. Then I came across CK One.

You may recall that CK One is a very forgettable fragrance. I don’t really recall what it smelled like but I know it smelled like what I thought perfume should smell like, basically alcohol. It’s good that it’s called One because I think for a lot of girls in the 90s, it was their first real fragrance. I used to ration it because I was poor and couldn’t afford to just buy another bottle all willy nilly, so I only wore it on “special” occasions such as the first day of school, a school dance, picture day and when I was trying to get into R rated movies.

The ads for the perfume were even better:

SEE?! This perfume was supposed to make me so awesome!
And I was supposed to look like Kate Moss.

And there you have it, the best gift you could ever give! Everyone will thank you for it and not run out to the Wal-Mart to return it for $10 and curse your name for thinking they’re only worth $10 at the Wal-Mart. 

Dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are pretty damn awesome. They were gigantic, ate each other and basically didn’t take shit. We know this because we still have their remnants in the form of alligators and sharks. Two other animals I love a whole lot. Dinosaurs were badass, and if it weren’t for that whole global warming ice age problem, they’d still be pretty badass. I like to think that if that hadn’t happened, people would be really big and we would be able to go to dinosaur petting zoos.

Here’s the deal with dinos. I fell in love while watching the aptly named, underrated sitcome Dinosaurs. They were made of clay and were a working class family trying to get by with a baby that talked smack and kids who were always getting into trouble while their dad had to go off to the salt mines everyday. (I think he worked in an office and hated his boss but the details are fuzzy and I like to assume he worked in salt mines). But then, it happened.

Jurassic Park is one of my all time favorite movies. The special effects from 1993 are still ten times better than that cgi bullshit that goes on now (I hate Avatar and don’t even get me started on what George Lucas has done to Star Wars). This movie changed my life. I was determined to be the person who found a way to clone dinosaurs through mosquito dna. It did not matter to me that I sucked at both math and science. All I knew was that I needed a dinosaur. I was certain I could train it the way they train lions at the zoo to not eat you. This of course, after I stopped being scared of the movie. Because that small one that spewed acid at Newman from Seinfeld? That scared the shit out of me. Thankfully I later learned that they made that one up.

It has lately come into vogue to like dinosaurs again. I blame hipsters. I blame hipsters for a lot of things. Mainly destroying all things I’ve always loved and why people think Libertarianism is a good idea (hint: it’s not). I think the entire population of Brooklyn hates them as well so I’m in good company. But I got some facts about dinosaurs you might not know (or you do know and it makes you sad too):

Dinosaurs couldn’t survive now because the earth is too cold. When dinosaurs roamed the whole planet was really hot. Like 200 degrees hot. It’s 100 in South America on a good day in the summer. Dinosaurs would not like this. The temperature is what made them so big as well (some of them). That’s why bugs are so big in the south and half the reason why northern states are so much better.

Dinosaurs probably had feathers and weren’t as badass looking as we once thought. Scientists ruin everything I love and recently discovered hair follicles all over most of their bodies. So basically most of them were just giant chickens. Unless it was a Raptor, which was basically a rabid chicken because it was so damn small, but really angry.

Most dinosaurs didn’t live at the same time. There were several different dinosaur eras, and while a version of each species probably lived during each era, the most popular versions did not. So I’m sure the temperature and climate of the earth would never suit each breed, thus making a Raptor vs. T-Rex fight not possible.

I’m pretty sure an electric fence wouldn’t stop them. They had some pretty thick skin despite the whole feather situation. They lived on a planet that was 200 degrees on a good day. The fence would have to be so electrified that they’d die on contact. So I’m not sure the island adventure of Jurassic Park would be very safe. Also I don’t think T-Rex had an eyesight problem, just an arm problem.

Despite all these misgivings (I can’t believe a movie lied to me!) I still love dinosaurs and would accept one as a gift. I still believe if it were one of a manageable size I could train it to love me and not eat me, my friends or my family. They were pretty smart (I don’t know this for a fact) so I would assume it could be done. I mean, they have gator world and those don’t seem to eat people and alligators are basically dinosaurs themselves. I’m gonna go watch the Discovery Channel and see if there is a show where experts discuss whether or not we could ever have a dinosaur pet a la Dino from Flintstones.

Here is a picture of a dinosaur:

I had nightmares about this for months

Sloppy Firsts

Read me, bitches! You'll learn all about The Real World

Here’s the deal, if you have not read this book you need to. Now. Go to the library, go to the bookstore and read it sitting in the floor. I don’t care how you have to get this book but do it. Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty is the greatest book of all time ever. If you were born before the year 1995 then you will love this book. Hell, if you were born after the year 1995 you’ll love it. Basically, if you are on a 6^th grade reading level this book is for you. I’m gonna break it down.

Jessica Darling is a sophomore in high school, it’s the second semester and she has just found out her best friend Hope is moving away and she will be left all alone. The book follows the diary she keeps, along with letters she writes to Hope. This book is hilarious. Jessica is very intelligent, but also very self-deprecating. She often thinks she will never have sex and talks about how she is the oldest living virgin. It’s very funny.

Along the way she meets Marcus Flutie, a bad boy drug addict gone good who she develops a crush on. He is also very intelligent but he plays games with her heart (he also wears Backstreet Boys shirts). This book is full of pop culture references from the early 2000’s. This is why I personally think those of us who are 20-something will benefit most from the humor. Also they wear some really hot clothes (at one point Jessica goes to Delia’s and buys a corduroy dress that zips all the way up the front).

There are also some lovely characters dubbed the Clueless Crew. Manda, Sara and Bridget. Jessica’s so-called friends from her honors classes who seem to be more interested in boys and clothes than anything to do with school. Bridget is the only one that comes out with any redeeming qualities, though Jessica hates this since Bridget is so pretty. These three come up with some of the best lines and I sort of wish McCafferty had written a book about the three of them when they weren’t around Jessica, because we get some great stories out of them.

I must warn that this is a five book series called the Jessica Darling Series (inventive I know). All five books are worth the read but my favorites are Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. These are the two books about high school and in my opinion they are the funniest. Also, McCafferty announced there is definitely 100% going to be a movie!!!!! All the more reason to read, right?

Girl Games

I think I have no sense of shame when it comes to guys because I grew up playing games that encourage shameless behavior. My most favorite game ever growing up was Girl Talk. There were several incarnations of this beloved game but I owned two- one that I loved and one I would get the feeling that I was about to vomit whenever my friends wanted to play it. Let’s start with the one I loved, shall we?

Now I’m no expert but I think this was the first version of Girl Talk. It was played in traditional board game style and involved trying to find dates for the five cards you were handed. There were so many different types of people with many different interests. None of them were stereotypes like a pretty blonde cheerleader hating math homework but loving to surf. Or a geeky nerd with glasses whose extracurricular activities were AV and chess club. Your job as matchmaker was to bring these two souls together to create the perfect date using a highly advanced method of putting the two cards into a little box connected to the radio. The box would tell you what happens when someone asks someone else out on a date. I really thought these two people were hooking up based upon what I had to say. My childlike (okay, 16) year old mind didn’t realize it was simply luck of the draw. There was a tape in that radio and when you stuck two cards in the machine the tape would start playing. So whatever “date” was on at that time was the one you got. There was no science involved. Quite like OK Cupid.

The other version of I had was Truth or Dare. This game makes me nervous. I don’t like peer pressure and I don’t like having to reveal my secrets. Most of the cards were dumb, something like “eat an entire tub of Cool Whip (uh, yeah) or telling everyone who you think is cute in art class. Unfortunately I would get the cards that say “call your crush and ask him out” or “wear your underwear on the outside.” These things made me nervous. And there was no way in hell I was called a SENIOR and telling him I liked him. When you didn’t do a dare, you got a zit sticker. I had a lot of zit stickers and to this day do not know why I ever bought that game. 

Total Request Live

Back in the summer of 1997, Carson Daly came on the scene and told me he was going to count down the 10 hottest videos of the day. I believed him because all the videos featured were by the greatest artists of our time: Britney Spears, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. I think that first year these three (and a few times Hanson or Christina Aguilera) were the only artists on the countdown, which was just fine with me. When I entered high school, TRL made it so you could vote online. A portion of my newspaper period was spent deciding which videos I felt deserved to be on this coveted list. I plotted to go to New York so I could be up there and meet all of my favorite people who would immediately think I was cool and take me away with them. I also thought they would wait until I was 18 and then would marry me. I had high hopes.

In the early years they would play the videos, premier new videos and talk to some really talented artists that were all about their craft. Later, though, they started doing some really annoying shit. Mainly they started putting people in the video saying why they liked the video. Bitch I don’t care why some 12 year old in braces likes Toxic! I know I like it and that’s why I’m watching this channel. Eventually the non-pop groups started getting voted on, mostly to annoy me. MTV is no place for the Notorious B.I.G and TuPac is dead and really wasn’t a great rapper so stop making me listen to him!!!! It’s 2000 guys, I just want to listen to the solo careers of former New Kids on the Block Jordan McKnight and Joey McIntire. Stop trying to make me like Korn’s Freak on a Leash (I kind of liked that song, actually).

Eventually, I got too old for TRL (aka they started playing stuff that wasn’t by BSB) and I stopped watching. When I found out the show was ending I decided to watch again, supporting the franchise that I believe I helped create only to find it had changed a lot. First of all Carson was gone (which I knew) only to be replaced by some girl called LaLa and some guy with a lot of dread locks that looked to be really heavy. They were both annoying. I now had no qualms with the show ending since they couldn’t get more reputable hosts. 

The Internet is Born

I don’t know where you’re from gentle reader, but where I grew up the internet wasn’t a big thing until 1997-ish. I remember when a neighbor boy (my first boyfriend, turned out to be gay. Yay!) got the internet. We all went over to his house and watched as he logged into AOL. That beautiful cracking noise and then-poof!- you’ve got mail! You could do all sorts of things on the internet back then. You could visit the White House webpage (or the porn one because you put .com and not .gov), go to a chat room, talk on AIM- the world was your oyster! I knew from that moment my whole world would be different. I went home with a new mission. One, I was going to procure a computer and two, I was going to have the internet!

You may be thinking, “bitch why were you so poor you didn’t have a computer?” the answer is simple, and twofold. I was really poor (I got reduced lunch at school and since I didn’t eat school food all my friends fought over who got to use my number to get 97 cent pizza that day) and computers weren’t as common back then, whore, stop judging! Anyway, I collected hundreds of floppy disks promising me endless amounts of free AOL internet minutes that I was going to take full advantage of as soon as I got a computer. That Christmas, I totally got a computer. This computer had a great program on it called Windows 95 and also AOL 2.0. I signed up and it turns out I didn’t need all those free minutes because it was easier to pay by the month. Those fucking disks were useless. Who cares! I had internet! I was free to do as I pleased! I could go to any site I wanted! What did I do? I did what every self respecting child did- I went to chat rooms intended for 20 somethings, made up an identity and made friends. I was under the impression that since these people seemed to like me that I was much cooler and more mature than the other kids my age. It never entered my mind that the people in these rooms could also be lying and be either kids my own age or pedophiles. Either way it was good harmless fun and I learned a lot about acronyms and the age/sex/location of several thousand people.

Fast forward about eight years and while an undergraduate in college a friend of mine whom I was hoping would be more than a friend (spoiler alert! Never happened) got a job installing wireless internet into people’s homes. Only rich people had wireless internet and being the tech unsavvy lady I was I couldn’t grasp the concept of wireless. In my mind there had to be a wire somewhere. Internet can’t just appear out of nowhere and he wasn’t explaining anything about the router. I was exasperated by the fact that there were no wires but somehow to internet needed installing. If internet could just come from thin air why had I spent so many years waiting around for the AOL guy to run across three pictures only to get booted off when someone called the house?! It turns out I’m a moron. Other things I’m a moron about:

Car phones

Bluetooth

MP3s

Liquid eyeliner

Math

Black holes

If anyone can explain any of the above it would be a real help (especially the car phones, I’m thinking of getting one.)

Lola and the Boy Next Door

We should probably understand something about each other before this relationship goes any further. I dislike hipsters. A lot. I would say hate but this relationship is new and I want you all to think I’m openminded about things and that I’m not a hateful person. I take our relationship very seriously.

Lola and the Boy Next Door is by Stephanie Perkins, who also wrote Anna and the French Kiss, a book I quite liked. So I was looking forward to this book. I read it in about six hours, so obviously this is no War and Peace. Let me break this down for you:

Lola lives in San Francisco and has two gay dads (I smell a sitcom!) She doesn’t believe in dressing like a normal person so instead she dresses like a freak on a daily basis and wears stupid wigs and “costumes” that I wouldn’t let my six year old niece wear on Halloween because they’re so ugly and she’d be bullied by full grown adults (ie: me). Lola is 16 going on 17 and has a 22 year old boyfriend named Max who is in an indie band and seems to not like that he has been cast in this book. Max is pretty cool until about halfway through the book when he is character assassinated like Dean on Gilmore Girls. Lola’s two gay dads names escape me and aren’t important- what is important is that one is a lawyer for the ACLU and the other owns a pie shop- so there’s that super hipster shit.

Here’s my problem with this book- it tries way too hard to be cool. There is too much cool wrapped up in this one person that I can’t stand her. I also can’t stand the characters names. The boy next door in question is named Crickett- I can’t with that. His twin sister’s name is Calliope and she is a figure skater going to the Olympics- I double can’t. We are told in the beginning of the book that Lola is not happy they have moved back to town for girl twin to train with some new coach. She used to be close to boy twin but he did something SO UNFORGIVEABLE that we are not to like him on sight (or from the fact that his name is Crickett). After a lot of build up we discover that Crickett didn’t invite Lola to his birthday party that he lied and said he wasn’t having. That is what broke her heart and made her have a need to drown her sorrows in some stupid indie band even though she should have just pumped up the Celine Dion. We later find that girl twin lied to boy twin by saying she had invited Lola to the party but Lola declined to go. We also discover that boy twin wasn’t lying when he said there was no party- it was apparently a surprise for him since girl twin got all the attention for being the next Michelle Kwan. Also, these people with the shitty names are related to Alexander Graham Bell (again, I can’t).

So Lola starts to fall back in love with boy twin and out of love with Max who wants out of this book. Max started out pretty normal but quickly turns into that guy who runs over your puppy and then laughs in your face about it (Lola has a puppy, its name is Heaven’s to Betsie because Stephanie Perkins is all that is wrong in this world). So she breaks up with Max and then tells Crickett she needs to be “whole again” before she can start dating him. Whatever. This is obviously a ploy in order to make this book 100 pages longer.

There is a side story that is much more interesting about the fact that Lola’s mom is actually her dad’s sister. He adopted her since her mom is a drug addict gypsy who should have her own show because she seems pretty damn awesome. Lola doesn’t like that her mommy is a drug addict and doesn’t tell people about it because she’d rather let people think she was found at the end of the gayelle rainbow just like all the adopted children of gays. It’s sort of like the Cabbage Patch only there’s more glitter.

A lot of other crap happens that I don’t even care about but the bottom line is that this book is hipster even when it talks about not liking hipsters. Lola is like the Annie Potts character in Pretty in Pink if John Hughes couldn’t write movies for shit and Annie Potts were a bad actress. She also talks about not like iPods and wanting to “hold her music” because she’s deep or some shit. Lola is 16 in the year 2011- that bitch doesn’t care about CD’s.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed in this book. It’s a companion book to Anna, and Anna is in the book as a coworker of Lola’s along with the boyfriend she snagged in her book, St. Clair. Their characters have been assassinated as well and they are up each other’s asses 24/7 and can’t live if livin is without you. 

1

Hello, and thank you for visiting this blog. This is undoubtedly your first visit since this is my first post. I will try to make it as enjoyable for you as possible. I believe that a bloggess (a female blogger, a term I have coined and will copyright in the near future as soon as I figure out how to copyright things unless someone informs me other people have been using this term since the invention of blogging roughly 5-10 years ago) should let her readers know exactly what they are getting themselves into and also inform them of some really intimate matters that should really be reserved for mothers, doctors and good friends who are also doctors or at least have been to a hospital at least once in their lifetimes and therefore can help decide whether or not that sore is, in fact, herpes (update: it’s not!). This first paragraph probably has you so riveted that you cannot wait to move on to the next.

Welcome to the second paragraph! If you’ve made it this far you’re probably hoping I’ll get to the good stuff about my juicy Sex and the City esque life. Unfortunately I am here to tell you that my life is not very thrilling. I’m Charlotte if Charlotte were watered down and didn’t have friends in order to push her past her stuck up limits. Sorry to disappoint. I can probably direct you to a few locations that will let you live vicariously through some pretty heavy stuff, but I don’t really have the means of opening a new Google tab because mine are all full of important things like “dinosaurs really coming back through Jurassic Park means” and “whatever happened to Six from Blossom.” This is the type of information you will be receiving from this blog. Also, I will be reviewing YA literature. Why will I be doing this? Well here is the first fact about me: I am a teen librarian. This makes you want to keep reading doesn’t it?

So here we are, at paragraph three and you’re foaming at the mouth because I have the most awesome profession ever. I’m not going to brag about being a librarian (because I am, at current, unemployed and not technically a librarian since I do not graduate for a few more months) but I will list some awesome facts about myself that you will never hear about again because this isn’t a blog about my super adventurous life. After this list I will tell you what this blog really is all about.

Things I tell people I hate but secretly love:

Christmas music (especially if it is a CD released by a boy band circa 2000)

Commercials (I am an advertisers dream come true)

Country music (Reba!)

The Hallmark Channel (there are some really good movies and episodes of Golden Girls)

Good Will (the store, not Hunting)

Things I tell people I love and should be ashamed of but really aren’t

After school special type movies

Sweet Valley High

ABC Family

Britney Spears

All boy bands ever

I still go to Hanson concerts

Really bad movies on the SciFy (is that what they call it these days?) channel where some sort of animal and another animal that may or may not be real fight

The movie She’s the Man

Gossip Girl (the show, not books- because that makes it so much better)

I know, those are really awesome lists. And here is the moment you’ve been waiting for, a list of what this blog will be all about:

My love of boy bands

My love of all things late 90’s and early 00’s

Teen lit book reviews

Dinosaurs

Commercials I love

Movies I love from long ago

Movies I love from not so long ago and in the future

TV shows I love

Why Titanic is still the best movie ever made and you can’t convince me otherwise

Why I hate reality TV

Sharks and to a lesser extent, Shark Week

Reasons why George Lucas should have to forfeit his rights to Star Wars

My love of Harrison Ford

My love of headbands

Reasons why Gwenyth Paltrow is better than everyone

My love/hate relationship with cell phones

Original Nintendo

The movie The Wizard which stars Fred Savage on a quest to get to a convention unveiling Super Mario Bros. 3

Daytime talk shows of the 90’s

A discussion as to why you shouldn’t be looking up to Marilyn Monroe as a role model

I will write about other things that strike my fancy (such as the song, Fancy, by Reba McIntire) but here are a list of things that will not be on this blog:

The economy

The presidential campaign

A discussion on how to cure global warming

The cure of cancer and/or AIDS

The answers to your math exam

The answer to who shot JR

The answer to who killed Laura Palmer (this might be, so watch Twin Peaks so you aren’t spoiled twenty years later)

The Truth that agents Mulder and Scully were seeking

The answer to what Meatloaf would not do for love

The answer to who framed Roger Rabbit

A PETA campaign (I love meat)

Cooking lessons

So there you have it, all the awesome stuff you can (and cannot) expect from this soon to be award winning blog. If you made it this long, congratulations, we are 70% on our way to being best friends! I say 70 because I don’t care about you enough for this to be a 50/50 partnership. I have someone for that. She pays my rent for me. Go visit her blog here she has a boyfriend and travels and participates in actual life activities. If you’re lucky she will post about that math exam you didn’t study for.