Teen Witch

So, Teen Witch is a 1989 fantasy movie (according to ABC Family) that comes on ABC Family every Halloween as part of their 13 Nights Of Halloween.

Teen Witch is also pretty much the greatest movie ever. Though it came out in 1989, much like movies that came out in the super early 90s, it is quintessentially 80s. And even though my best friend insists that I am pretty much the gayest person ever for liking this movie so intensely I say, "Not true!" This movie is simply awesome.

Summary/Spoilers: There's this chick named Louise. She has a best friend named Polly. They live in a world where people believe shoulders are simply too small and must be altered with shoulder pads. It's kind of like how a lot of chicks wear padded bras when they think they're boobs should be none-surgically bigger, except the shoulder pad thing is for guys and girls. People also tease their hair in many different fashions, wear large scrunchies, and listen to music heavy with hooks and power chords.

Now, Louise and Polly, despite living in this awesome world of shoulder pads and power chords and adhering to the dress code of the times, are total losers. They are the things upon which bottomfeeders feed. However, after a night on a date with a total creep, Louise stumbles upon this psychic's shop and finds out that she's a witch--for real real. And then she's all, "Oh my god! This is *so* great!" She takes Polly to this great concert and she ends up getting this rock goddess' jean jacket and she uses said jacket in a spell to make her the most popular girl in school.

It totally works too, because the next day, when she walks outside a walk track is playing for her. A walk track, people. And then she ditches Polly, who she used to ride bikes with every day to school, and rides with these cool kids in their awesome car instead. [And then there are some interesting things involving theatre and there's this one scene where Polly raps against these three cool eighties dudes, but all that's not important part].

Louise is loving her new found popularity and everything is perfect. Then there's Brad. Just by the way she says his name you can tell she's head over heels in love with him. And he starts giving her the eye and then some Kenny G like music starts to play and she gets in his car and they go to this under construction/abandoned house and he kisses her.

And she's so happy and everything's great...And then she goes back to the psychic to ask if the kiss was real. But she's unhelpful at first, asking her what's the difference if he only likes her because of the spell. However, she changes her mind and tells Louise how to reverse it, just in time for the dance.

Then it's the night of the dance. Brad is there with Randa--because Louise, afraid of his love/like for her being fake, told him to go with her. She breaks the spell. They lock eyes and...he still likes her, yay!

End of Summary/Spoilers

So, yeah. It's the best.

Glee, The View, & GQ, Oh My!

Today on The View Patricia Heaton filled in for Joy. Patricia is on The Middle, which I don't watch. At one point, they were talking about the television show Glee, which I do watch. Cory Monteith [Finn], Dianna Agron [Quinn], and Lea Michele [Rachel] made the cover of November's GQ their spread in the magazine is supposedly risque.

Sherri complained about the "sexualization of young girls" and said she didn't like seeing these types of pictures. Patricia complained about how she lives in LA and billboards with girls posed in questionable positions. Barbra pointed out that these girls are only acting on the show and they're not really sixteen or what not.

Sherri also told this story about some chick who was 35, but played a 15 year old on television wasn't allowed to drink in public because the network she worked for wouldn't let her. She portrayed this situation of a tyrannical network having too much say in your life outside of work as the ideal. Putting so much emphasis on the impact of television and actors and is damaging to all involved. It makes society look to television for how to live their lives, it creates no separation between actor and role [which leads to typecasting], and creates a society of weak minded fools who cannot differentiate fictional entertainment from reality.

However, Sherri shouldn't be worried about the supposed sexualization of young girls when the young girls in question are in their mid twenties. They're women and it's their personal choice to dress or pose how they want.

She also tried to blame the magazine in an effort to make someone responsible. She made this comment about how "Playboy is in a mylar package, but GQ is out in the open!" However, this isn't true. There certainly have been issues that have been obscured by a divider because of their cover has someone naked or nearly naked on the cover. And even though Playboy is in that mylar bag, these same dividers cover issues of playboy as well.

Barbra pointed out that if anyone young is seeing these pictures it isn't going to be the first time they've seen such images. Still, Sherri and Patricia seemed worried for the children who watch Glee seeing these photos, but maybe they should be worried for the children who watch Glee because they watch Glee.

Glee is has used the words damn, hell, ass, and bitch multiple times. In season one they had episodes that involved premature ejaculation, teenage pregnancy, and being bribed for your panties. I've yet to know a child that lives in a house with cable and without a guardian. If they think they're kids are too young to watch Glee or read GQ then they shouldn't let them, but the content should still be available to the general public. By not wanting these images available in such a way, they are asking society to do their parenting for them.

In other news, Elton John and Leon Russell made a record together called The Union and it's out and I'm probably going to buy it.

Dish Network

I've never had Dish Network so I can't comment on their service, but they really annoy me. See, I don't look to ever have Dish and I'm super tired of all their stupid little commercials about how they're "so much better than any other network out there" because it's inaccurate and subjective.

The last commercial that I saw really annoys me. "Tired of paying for channels you don't use? Like children's channels but you don't have any kids? Or shopping channels and you're a guy?"

Um, excuse me? When did being a guy make it impossible for someone to shop through an 800 number put on their television? And what about being a woman made it automatic that you would want a shopping channel even if you never used it? So sexist.

It'd be a better angle if they went on that whole, "kid's channels when you don't have kids" thing and did other things. Like:

-Satellite radio channels when you hate music
-Home/Gardening Channels when you hate designing/gardening
-Fox News Channel when you're not a right wing conservative

Marketing campaigns need to go to lowest common denominator, I understand that. That's how they make their money. However, aiming for the lowest rung in such a way is still not an excuse to just state blatantly stupid and bigoted things.

Reality

I would by no means categorize myself as one of those reality television addicts. I really only watch the auditions for American Idol [with the notable exception of Adam Lambert's season, which I watched in it's entirety] and those marathons of America's Next Top Model, but I by no means HAVE to see a reality show.

And then of course My Life As Liz had to go and pop up on the television. I'm caught between wanting to shake my fist and say, "Damn you Liz Lee!" and having to watch it whenever it comes on. Granted, I'm pretty sure I just saw the last episode and that I am beyond late in seeing it, but still. I have never really cared this much about the life of someone else that I did not personally know that was not a fictional character.

However, I think that aside from her being absurdly cool, I really like the show because of the parallels I find between her life and mine. I'm not saying by any means that my life is as interesting as hers or even really resembles her very much, but there were enough similarities to hold my interest.

See, she's kind of a music snob and the show chronicled her senior year. She abstained from things like high school parties and other things that were and still are pretty much a no-no for a typical nonconformist or "enlightened" high schooler. But I liked how she was honest too. Like how she said it was her senior year and even though she wouldn't typically do things like parties and prom, she did want to try new things.

But mainly, aside from being a sometimes funny, nerve wracking, and always interesting look into someone else's life, Liz kind of epitomizes two things I really value--living life without regrets and going after your dreams.

But yeah. It'd be cool if they followed her to New York and things like that, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't watch. Not because I don't think she'd not be interesting, but because I'm actually trying to cut down my television consumption and because I think the main reason I watched was because she was a high school senior trying to figure out the shit in her life and I was a high school senior doing much the same.

Now she's in New York and living her life and I am still trying to get where I'm going.

Wow, that previous line sounded a little depressing. It wasn't meant to be.

Continuing About Commercials

I love the Fruit Of The Loom commercials, they're doing the whole "back to school shopping" song right. And the "Flawless" commercial is cool too.

I love those crazy fruits.

Remember that Payless Commercial?

From last post? Well, Macy's and K-mart have their own batches of kids singing songs while all decked out in their new school clothes.

And they're both terrible.

There's...

A rather crummy kids pop style cover of "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Tears For Fears on a Payless commercial. I have no real problems with covers and nothing wrong with kids covering songs. I do however have a problem when they're average or terrible and this one was definitely the latter, no offense to the little girl singing.

Anyway. Working on another project. One third of the way done.

Glee, The Music

Showstoppers 3 Deluxe is a soundtrack for the show Glee and it's the one that has almost all the songs that I want. See, I'm not a complete and total fanboy of Glee. I adore the show, but I much prefer the songs of the second half of the season to the first. The songs from the first half are good, but I'm not eager to listen to them outside of the context of the show.

The only songs this CD doesn't have that I want are Bohemian Rhapsody and To Sir, With Love. Those songs, like all songs from the finale, are on a special CD all by themselves and I was not about to shell out eight bucks for five or six songs. They're good and the former is one of the best Queen covers I've heard, but I can live without having them on my mp3 player.

Back to the record. Lea Michele may be talented, but I flat out don't like her voice. However, I still like the songs she's featured on. The tracks I have on heavy rotation are Hello, A House Is Not A Home, One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home, Home, Physical, Rose's Turn, Dream On, Safety Dance, Loser, and Bad Romance. So that's ten out of the twenty tracks.

It was incredibly worth it, because now I can listen to Chris Colfer's voice on the way to school and jam to the new version of Physical. I would love to hear a remixed version of that song that made it even more danceable.

On One Less Bell To Answer, "Since he went away" is sung more effectively than in the original. Not knocking the original, because it's good, but Kristin Chenoweth's voice is stronger but not overbearing. It also marries perfectly with Matthew Morrison's vocals. She made it her own without it having that, "I can do so much better than the original," vibe that I've gotten from some covers (non-Glee covers included).

So...yeah. I know it's kind of silly to care so much about what is not only a soundtrack, but a cover album, but this one is great. I can't wait until the second half of the season is out on DVD. September 14th seems to far away.

New Design

I finally decided to try to do something with the layout. So, instead of being all white, and instead of having a mainly black and white banner (which I did have at one point), I've got this blue background for posts, that yellow image background for the page, and that blue and yellow banner which I made myself. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of proud about it.

The thing about blogger is that the whole coding isn't what I'm used to. I used to be really proficient in HTML, particularly CSS and style sheets. I haven't really done stuff like for real since I was a freshman in high school, but I saved most of the codes. And, well, that's not exactly how blogger does things, so it's was kind of a pain figuring everything out. I know it looks kind of crummy and I could've just used a template instead of doing it myself, but whatever. PRIDE, man.

Speaking of pride, Independence Day is tomorrow and seeing as it's a federal holiday, that means I won't have class on Monday. One small victory. On the news this morning they were warning about the dangers of small fireworks. They talked about three year olds getting third degree burns from sparklers and grown men getting their eyes shot out by bottle rockets.

The news didn't say much after that, on any channels. Aside from some coverage about the oil spill, it doesn't seem like very much is going on. I kind of wish that I liked sports so I could at least watch the world cup, but I actually really hate soccer. The score is always like 2-1. And currently the news is "reporting" on viral internet videos. Wow.

I hate summer. It's too hot and nothing's on but Sister, Sister reruns on the Gospel Music Channel, which means that they block out words like butt, bra, darn, dang, heck, oh my god, and the like (but they still show on captions). This turns statements like, "Get the heck out of here," sound like, "Get the --ck out of here." And I'm pretty sure that you can figure out how my brain translates that sentence.

I know that they tout themselves as a "family channel", but if Sister, Sister is so raunchy for them that they have to have frequent blank spaces, then why even show it? I mean, I can understand the darns, dangs, and hecks--even though I think that's extreme, I can get that--but butt and bra? That just seems silly since everyone has a butt (except in extreme cases) and a good portion of the adult population wears a bra.

But still, I love this show and this is the only channel that shows it. Plus, it's summer and nothing else is on. Unless I want to listen to the anchors on the news try to figure out what fractal geometry is all about.

Dates

I know I'm a little late on this, but September 14th? September 14th? I have to wait until mid September in order to get Glee: Volume 2, Road To Regionals!? It is a travesty.

The only consolation is that ABC Family is showing Boy Meets World in the morning and Fox is supposedly showing re-runs all summer. I have yet to catch one of these alleged re-runs, but that is mainly a result of my failing and poor schedules.

But, yeah. I finally decided to look it up on Amazon and I'm half tempted to pre-order it and half tempted to wait until more people pre-order it because I think that'll make the price go down.

Anyway.

Summer has officially started which means that the temperatures are rising. The heat index is just baffling. Why is the world allowed to get this hot? It's unbearable and I stay inside most of the time. So now, in addition to autumn, Glee is a reason for summer to just end right now.

Meanwhile, maybe that oil spill will be taken care of by summer's end. On the news right now they're talking about the effect this is having on the Vietnamese-American community in the gulf, which is apparently a mainly fishing/shrimping/etc employed community. Also, the ticker says that Senator Byrd died. He was ninety-two. The ticker says that the cause of death is not yet know. I say that, hello, he was ninety-two. The average US life expectancy is seventy-six.

But yeah, back to that oil spill thing.

Setting aside that it was ridiculous that it even happened, there's all these families that no longer have any work because of it. And, you know, this probably isn't helping the unemployment rate any, but it does shine some light on human nature over all.

Most everybody gets angry when things like that happen, which they rightfully should, but then the interesting thing is what they choose to do afterward. Some people get really hopeless and give up, but then other people still have a peppy, hopeful attitude in spite of it all. Such attitudes are not only inspiring, but necessary.

And they're not just necessary in particularly trying times, but at all times. The peppy part can go, but the hopeful part must stay. Because, really, if no one has any hope in anything then they aren't getting anywhere.

Anyway, that's the end of me and the sappy stuff. I've got another episode of Boy Meets World to watch ["Everybody Loves Stuart" for anyone whose interested] along with breakfast and a long day of writing ahead of me if I don't fall asleep first.

Pre-Ordering

So, I pre-ordered this one album [which is out in stores today] and it should get here in the next three to four days. Well, at least according to the e-mail I got. Initially, I was told it would get here in mid June.

Every time I pre-order something, it gets here after I could have already bought it in a physical store. Every time I wonder if it's worth it. Yet, every time I find myself doing it again. I used to tell myself I could stop anytime I wanted, but I'm starting to wonder if that's entirely true.

Also, found some old records in the garage. I knew that some were still there, but I knew most of them got thrown out when I moved. The bad news is that the soundtrack to Oklahoma! was broken in one place. Other casualties include "Green Eyes" by Jimmy Dorsey and "Garibaldi's Hymn" by Enrico Caruso.

The survivors include American Summer by The Beach Boys (which is also in packaging wrap), an album called Sisyphus by a band called Cold Blood, the soundtrack to Godspell, and the soundtrack to Hair.

I haven't gone through them all and still lack a record player, but I am hoping to soon rectify both of those problems.

Because, really, what good is summer without any music?

Also, unrelated [well, kind of]: Glee is having their finale tonight. I am both excited and sullen. At first I was all, "YAY! It's the finale!" then I was like, "Aw, that means it's over for the season. Boo!" But, it will be back, so there is hope.

It's Alive!

I spent pretty much the whole day shopping and riding in the car. The first part of the day I was listening to like a podcast that was two and half hours long and then I went out. I bought a really cool outfit, light yellow and stormy sky blue is the color scheme. I really like it, because since they're on opposites of the color wheel they complement each other.

I bought "Glee: The Power Of Madonna" by the Glee cast and "What Is Love?" by Never Shout Never. Love them both. I was going to buy "Congratulations" by MGMT, but that'll have to wait for another day. Still, I can't get "Flash Delirium" out of my head.

Time to attempt some sleep. I've got class in a few hours. And a test I think. I really need to get on that and stop being blindsided by music and television and writing. And reading. I've been doing loads of that lately too.

The Quest

The Quest

So, it's Tuesday and in a few hours it'll be Wednesday. The holidays are officially over, school has started again, and the premiere of American Idol was tonight.

As of late I've developed the unfortunate habit of slacking off, mainly by watching Cartoon Network and playing all the "new" video games I've bought recently ["new" because they're used and were first released in the early 2000s]. So, I say, no more!

So I started this thing last year where I'm going to write a certain amount of fiction [or memoir, you know, whatevs] by the end of the year. In other words, a writer's New Year's resolution. Now, I'm not going to put that number here to save myself the humiliation should I fail miserably, but it will prove to be challenging.

I haven't exactly been meeting my daily goals, but whatever, you know. I'm sure I'll catch up when I have a boring weekend and haven't the urge to fritter away time on things such as video games. Or at least I hope so.

Anyway, about the title. Yeah, I was watching Teen Titans and that was the title of the episode. It's the one where Robin goes in search of the "true master" for some extensive martial arts training. He has to climb this huge mountain in order for him to be taught so he ends up asking if there is an easier way up. So, the master ends up saying, "There is an easy way and a right way."

You can draw the parallels between that situation and novel writing if you want, but I won't [at least not here]. Mainly because the cheese factor of this post has already climbed uncomfortably high. So, I'll end it here.

Good News//Bad News

Good News//Bad News

The good news is that I'm back to editing the manuscript that I'm going to start querying. Also, I'm almost done with that editing with roughly 3-7 more scenes to add and a "final" read through. Final is in quotes because if it still doesn't read up to my standards after adding those scenes or it's still too short in my opinion, then it will just be a read that leads to more edits, but I have a feeling that it won't.

The main problem that I can see is that I keep on switching between present and past tense, which may not be that noticeable to some and is something I don't notice when I'm doing it, but it's something that I'd like to work on either way.

Okay. In more good news, I finished NaNoWriMo! I finished my NaNoNovel with roughly 54k words and a few days ahead of the deadline. Still, there is even more good news. I only work two days a week next week, one of them being on the days that I go to school. Ergo, I've only three days where I actually have to do something next week, so me and my very super best friend Sleep and I can spend some quality time together.

So, now it's time for the bad news. When I said that I finished my NaNoNovel it was kind of a lie. Kind of because I finished the NaNoWriMo requirements of it being a novel and at least 50,000 words, but it's still not done. Actually, I'm not even halfway through.

See, the funny thing is that when I got one fourth of the way through the storyline I pretty much went, "Oh snap, this doesn't work." Not, "this doesn't work" in the way that the story itself doesn't, but in the way that the story didn't start where I started writing, but before.

That is not the end of the bad news though. It gets better. I've got a project for school that I have to do tomorrow because it's due on Monday.Yes, it's my fault for not doing it before, but in my defense I feel that the project is boring and the class is useless. Also, because of work I'm going to miss A Prairie Home Companion on NPR.

However, I've saved the worst news for last. Ready? Okay, take a deep breath.

...

I'm going to miss Glee.

I know, I nearly cried when I realized this too. It's okay though, because they show them online too, but it won't be the same. There are only two new episodes left of this season. Tension is rising. The only other chance I'll get to see it on television in the near future is if I get season one on DVD this December.

Oh well. I'll end this with more good bits of news I suppose. I won't be missing any of my other television programming for one. For another, I bought two new hats this past Black Friday (for myself) along with a cool looking V-neck t-shirt. I also bought a scarf I've had my eye on for maybe two months today.

Dick Clark?

Dick Clark?

So, because it's Monday, and my day isn't the best, I might as well show my ignorance of things outside of my bubble. For future reference, things inside my bubble include and are generally limited to the following: House M.D., The Big Bang Theory, Glee, John Green, Hank Green, dead authors, dead artists, fashion, and music (JUST the music, not the history beyond it, not all the lyrics, not even who it's by half the time).

So. Last night the AMAs happened apparently. And there was some controversy over Adam Lambert's performance being censored on the west coast. I only found out because he was a trending topic on twitter and I wondered why.

When I hear someone say AMA I think American Medical Association, not Music Awards. And so, I looked it up, and apparently it was created by Dick Clark some time ago. And it's been going on for a while. I did not know about this and I watch ABC kind of regularly. Did they advertise for this?

It's kind of a terrible feeling to wake up, go on your computer, and wonder why people are talking about Adam Lambert and the American Medical Association.

Oh well. I'm going to chalk up my not knowing the dual meaning of the acronym AMA to the fact that me and live television don't mix. I mean, heck, I didn't even know about the Oscars until I was in maybe seventh or eighth grade. Kind of sad, seeing as I knew that whole Sally Fields, "You like me, you really, really like me!" when I was about three. There will probably be some other crazy live award show that happens that I don't know about until after the fact. I'll give it a few months.

Too Much Hype?

Too Much Hype?

The wonderful thing about Glee is that Glee is a wonderful thing...

And that's where I stop plagiarizing A. A. Milne.

But seriously, I really do like the show.

My Very Best Friend and I had one of our characteristically long, long talks and it came across that he doesn't like Glee. Well, he doesn't watch Glee. Mainly because of the hype.

This I can understand, because when you don't watch something, having everyone around you never shut up about it is annoying. There is such a thing as too much hype in my opinion. I think he would absolutely love Glee [or at least like it], but having everyone talk about it all the time is very off putting. This is for anything, like music, television, music television, and even books.

See, I like discussing things that I like with other people, but the majority of things it seems that you can't really discuss them so much as freak out about how awesome they are. Besides, even if you do pinpoint what makes them so awesome, discussing how awesome they are isn't going to make them anymore awesome [but could possibly make them less awesome to other people who don't care who awesome they are in the first place].

The upside of hype is that people who want to get your references to whatever you think is so awesome will get into it. The down side is that it will drive away those who are really tired of hearing that high pitched squeal a lot of people seem to emit to express how super they think something is.

Think of it this way: you hear you favorite comedian tell the funniest joke in the world, no lie. But your friend wasn't there to hear it. Oh no! So you tell them it, but you're laughing during half of it and you get the set up punchline wrong twice that by the time you finish it properly you are laughing to the point of tears and everyone thinks you're insane.

And your friend? Well, they're sitting there, not amused at all, and not just because you screwed up the joke, because even if you told it correctly it would have only been a pale comparison to the original. That special thing is missing. I'm willing to bet that special thing is voice.

I think voice is the thing that makes a book ask, "How awesome am I?" and the fans of it go, "OHMIGAWD you are *so* awesome!" Even if the book has no literary merit. Even if it's full of plot holes. Even if there is some massive duex es machina at the end. None of that matters if pacing and voice is right because while voice makes you read pacing keeps you reading. They're two halves of a whole.

Too much hype ends up drawing certain people and repelling others, but either way typically speaking hype dies down. Sure, people still like it, but not as many people are freaking out about it. Plus, there is an upside to the hype dying down, and that is having all the people who were repelled by all the hype in the first place get into the show/book/song/whatever and really enjoy it.