methodwriter85

Kristen Stewart Joins "Epic Romance" Remake of 1984 If you don't know who Kristen Stewart is, here's a primer: I personally think KStew's capable of good work and I've liked some of what she's done, like Adventureland and the Runways. It'll be interesting to see what she does. I'm really excited for Nichols Hoult though- I think he'll do a great job as always.

I really like the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tower:

Comcast has just announced plans to build a new tower in Philadelphia, which when you add the spire will become the first tower in Philly to go over 1,000 feet. It's expected to become the tallest building in the United States outside of Chicago and New York City. I think it's pretty exciting. Philly's skyline finally seems like it's moving ahead again. We're finally getting a supertall skyscraper! The backstory to this is that until 1987, there was a gentleman's agreement that no building in Philadelphia was allowed to be taller than the 547 foot city hall, because it was believed that it'd be "bad luck" for a building to be taller than the statue of William Penn atop the skyscraper. That obviously stunted skyscraper growth in the city, but in the past 25 years, the city has really begun to get a nice skyline going. Nothing to rival Chicago or New York City, of course, but it's great to see that Philly's done a great job rebounding after the decay of the late 20th century.

It's not a technical one, but I bet anything JP sees Riley as his great-grandchild because he's basically adopted Wade as a grandson. It's why I'm counting Riley as the start of the next CAP generation. (Well, that and because Matt was supposed to be a father to Riley, but we haven't really seen that.) I think it's funny that the story is representing the polar two sides of senior year- the senior who is already done, already moved on, and just marking the days until graduation, and the senior who is desperately clinging on and doesn't want to let go. It's funny- my good friend in college was the former- Steve was so done with college and so ready to move on with his life that he didn't even bother showing up to graduation. It was like prying teeth to try and get him to go to a college party senior year. I was more like the latter, trying to make the most out of senior year and trying really hard to enjoy it, but I don't think I was as attached as Matt seems to be. I did a 5th year of college, and while it was "senior year"...really, my senior year was 2009, and I didn't feel all that attached to the class of 2010. The bulk of the people that I had partied with when I was a sophomore/1st year junior had already moved on, particularly the Skid Row Crew. I remember being at a bar graduation weekend, watching this one bro-type crying for like 10 minutes straight after the last set with his buddies. It totally baffled me, but then again, like I said, I was a 5th year and ready to be done. I did cry the night before my graduation from grad school, though. That was a toughie. I would be serious money that Blue fell in the "Wade" category when it came to his senior year. Which, from what I understand, was truncated.

Alright...the Boyband Era. Let's get started. 1. 2. It's actually debatable if you can really call Hanson a boyband, because they actually played their own instruments and the like, but I'm including them because they had a big influence in bringing pop music back to the U.S. 3. I call this, "The Video That Jumpstarted Puberty For Me." Brian Littrell was my first major celebrity crush. 4. 5. 6. " I crushed on Brian Littrell, but I was tooootttttttalllllyyyy obsessed with Nick Lachey once 98 Degrees hit. Totally. I had a picture of him in my diary and everything. I used to follow 98 Degrees fanfiction and everything. 7. 8. 9. " 10. "Misery" by The Moffats This one I'm hesitant about, because I don't know if I really consider the Moffats a boyband, but apparently they were, and this is a song that I used to have teenaged angst to, so I'm going with this. 11. " 12. 13. Again I was obsessed with Nick Lachey. 14. 15. 16. I have no idea where I heard this one from, but I remember it anyway. Kinda weird. And what it is with this era and spiky blond tips? 17. 18. "Here We Go" by N'Sync 19. Rich Cronin was such a beautiful guy before cancer ravaged him. R.I.P. 20. Well, Aaron Carter was kind of a boyband in himself, wasn't he? Dear god I remember 8th grade girls who wouldn't shut up about him. Me? I thought he was too young and blond for me even when I was 14. LOL. 21. When I was 16-ish and saw this video, the video was silly because they looked like middle schoolers. Now that I'm nearly 30 and watching this, I want to laugh my ass off because they all look about 10. Jesse McCartney...he sure did grow up nice though, didn't he? 22. 23. God, Kristen Dunst was really everywhere when she was a teenager, wasn't she? No wonder she got "exhausted". 24. 25. 26. The double entendre of this song wasn't lost on me when I was 15. 27. 28. 29. 30. I love the irony of this song- about how pop was never fading out, yet pop imploded in the following year of the 2002 in the U.S. Boybands and pop stuck around the U.K. and other countries, but it died in the U.S. until the Jonas Brothers came around circa 2006-2007...I think it's largely because 9/11 really changed the mood of the country. Also, likely because the people that supported the late 90's pop explosion had grown up and were more interested in hip-hop by the time they were in high school/college. Also, seriously, I loved Nick Lachey sooooo much. Finally...damn, check out how baggy all the pants are. Seriously, it's hilarious.

Oh, wow, the Patriots are in an AFC Championship game. Never seen that one before.

For a Will and Zach sex scene... "Do I Wanna Know?" by Arctic Monkeys

I like that he doesn't really sugarcoat the experience. He lives in fear of getting robbed or his house getting burned down/scrapped every day. And he's met people who haven't survived Detroit.

Matt's actually 21. He would have turned 21 on April 24th, 2001. We just skipped over the event of his 21st birthday as we didn't cover the spring of '01. He's 37. The countdown to forty is officially on. I would have had a big ol' blast. They say a person's early 40's are the best. It's weird for me though that people born in the mid/late 1970's are starting to hit their late 30's/push 40. I tend to think of them as being the early 30-somethings. Buffy is turning 37 in the spring. How weird is that? So is the girl who made a hit out of her barely legal underwear video when she was 19. Ethan's not unattractive to Will because he's fat. He's unattractive to Will because of his awkward, surly personality. Will's mentioned that he likes beefy guys, so I'm sure with a cool personality he would have been all up in that early on. Ethan also seems rather immature, both physically and behavior-wise, another deterrent to Will being attracted to him.

It's impossible. People who've tried making family trees have given up. A sex chart would be even more impossible. It would be good for Matt, but I can't exactly see Mark sending off Matt to spend a year building shelters in South America. I can't even get Mark to have Will do Habitat for Humanity for Spring Break, and Will is actually supposed to do volunteer work as part of his graduation requirement from Menlo. Remember, Mark's a Reagan Generation/Generation Jones Guy. They were far more cynical than either the Baby Boomers or their kids. They didn't have the idealism of JFK to shape them, and volunteer work wasn't a requirement with them like it would have been with people in Will's generation. I remember Jamie Lee Curtis once marveling at how her kids were going off to Chile to work with impoverished people, when at that age all she cared about doing was improving her suntan.

Happy 37th birthday, Tim! Welcome to the late 30's club!

Matt has Google stock, Robbie's company stock, a trust fund that was likely set up by JP in 1998, and not to mention his Carrswold inheritance. If worse comes to worse, Matt would probably get a job after graduation working the business side of his dad's laser eye centers, but I really doubt Matt will have trouble getting into grad school, even if it's not a top-tier one. I can't see military in the cards for Matt, either- unless he had a burning desire to "avenge" Robbie's death.

Hey, guys, I just ran across this article about a young guy who became an urban pioneer in Detroit in Detroit when he was 23...check it out. It's shockingly good, because really, who expects to read something good from Buzzfeed? Why I Bought A House in Detroit for $500 by Drew Philp I thought the article was really fascinating- somewhere between the story of, "Look, Downtown Detroit has a Whole Foods now!" and "Ruins of Detroit." It's pretty honest- the guy came in with some very idealistic intentions, and things didn't pan out exactly how he wanted them to, but in the process Drew saw a lot of grit and kindness against a backdrop of overwhelming despair and ruin. I also think it's really interesting that Philp, after a few years of living there, seems to have developed a bit of disdain towards the "new" people that are moving to Detroit- the ones that are rebuilding Downtown Detroit and are part of the whole artsty Detroit crowd. His comment about Whole Foods, I thought, was interesting: My interpretation of that remark is that Drew Philp identifies with his neighbors, like the friend who told him the story about the Native Americans...like he's part of the down-and-gritty fabric of the community, and while he's glad to be able to a shop at Whole Foods, the broader implications of having a Whole Foods in Detroit means he's supporting a vision of the city that he doesn't necessarily agree in. Philp doesn't seem to have much use for the Hipster Vision of Downtown Detroit. He also seemed rather disdainful of the divesting plans, as well as the "farm" idea, but doesn't really offer up any solutions. I grew up in Suburban America...you can't get much more American Suburbia than Northern Delaware, where people have their developments listed on their licenses because there aren't that many incorporated towns, and new stripmalls pop up every year to try and lure out-of-state shoppers to take advantage of our sales-tax free status. The bulk of neighborhoods around here in my suburb were built around the 1970's to early 1990's. People don't talk to each other. There are no neighborhood schools or Mom and Pop stores. That's why I'm really fascinated by stories about "community"- because you don't really experience it that much when you're from a suburb. I definitely would love to visit Detroit someday- there's something very visceral about the photos of Detroit that makes me want to see for myself what it's really like.

Hey, guys, I just ran across this article about a young guy who became an urban pioneer in Detroit in Detroit when he was 23...check it out: Why I Bought A House in Detroit for $500 by Drew Philp I thought the article was really fascinating- somewhere between the story of, "Look, Downtown Detroit has a Whole Foods now!" and "Ruins of Detroit." I also thought it was interesting how he feels, once he became part of the fabric of the community, kind of ambivalent about "Hipster Detroit", like he's betraying the community when he shops at Whole Foods.

I would love to see that happen, but I don't think it will...Mark's been pretty clear in his stance that he's not going to have the brothers fighting over boys. (Matt in doing so pretty much marked himself as NOT being a brother.) This is where CAP differs from the typical soap opera- on a regular soap, it would be de riguer for us to see siblings duking it out over love interests. Anyway, I knew a bisexual guy who got hit on by his wife's gay brother twice- said brother actually hit on him on the day Aaron was marrying his sister. Talk about fucked up. Really good point. I imagine this is distressing him to some extent...JJ may be pretty self-absorbed, but he also loves Matt, and he's the only one that Matt really has been a brother to.

Actually, their graduation is June 16th, 2002, as per the 2001-2002 Stanford University Academic Calendar. It's that whole quarter system thing going on...UD has a semi-quarter system going on, and as a result our graduation isn't until late May. It'd make sense that people who go to a school that is on a full quarter system don't graduate until June.

Interesting point. The United States didn't have a city with a million people until the 1870's, and we don't have a long, extensive history of urban developments like Europe or Asia do. But now we've got Detroit, which has lost 1.2 million people in 63 years. And it's interesting because it doesn't even seem the bottom has been hit yet. Baltimore and St. Louis hit their rock bottom, and are stabilizing. Pittsburgh is somewhat stabilizing. Philadelphia stabilized in the 1990's, and it's even recovering a bit of their population. It's just amazing to me though that a city the size that Detroit was even in the 1990's is now approaching the population size of Washington, D.C.

I had an e-friend back in 2000-2001 who was a Michigan transplant from California, and she wrote "Cali." I kinda figured that was a typical way of referring to the state- everyone has nicknames for their states. I know people who call New Jersey "Dirty Jerz", or the more broadly done "Jersey"....in Delaware, we say "The 302". Delaware has only one area code- 302 - so that makes it a handy way of referring to the state. When I think of Californians, I have that image that Blue described, but also that of people who are always outdoors, always outside, always doing something. JJ's pretty much always inside on the ice skating rink, and I can't picturing him outside rollerblading on the boardwalk or hiking in Topanga Canyon. My Cali friend once said to me, "I can't picture you being in California...you're a "sit inside and read a book" kind of guy, not an outdoorsy person kind of guy." JJ strikes me as being similar in that regard...the only time you'll see him outside is when he's walking to his next boutique. I've kind of always assumed that Private Tim's teen years looked like this: Tim strikes me as a cross between Brandon and Steve- I picture him as a tall blond jock like Steve Sanders (he played water polo, right?), but studious and rule-abiding like Brandon Walsh.

Florida and Texas cities are actually growing, though.

Hope you have a good one. This one's for you! "22" by Taylor Swift Is that what being 22 feels like, Matt? It's been so long I just can't remember.

In an attempt to bring a writer's colony to the struggling city of Detroit, they're piloting a program where writers will be offered a home in the city, free of charge, if they agree to stay there for two years. (Not being done by a government agency, so this is not political.) I think it's a pretty interesting idea and I hope it does wind up seeding a writer's colony there. I would totally want to go if I were a writer- I gotta admit, the idea of living in Detroit as a modern day urban pioneer seems like a pretty cool idea. I remember watching this cool video that talks about how twentysomething are moving there and buying entire buildings and such because the real estate is so cheap. The implosion and vanishing of Detroit (according to 2013 estimates, the population is already down to 681k from the 2010 population of 713k) is really fascinating...almost kind of romantic in a Greek hubris sort of way. The city was built on the promise of good American cars, and greased by the idea that gas would always be cheap and plentiful. When that failed, the city failed. Disclaimer: Please do not talk about U.S. or Detroit politics here. Thank you.

I'm not saying you need a perfect body. I'm saying that if you don't have muscle tone, it's not going to look good on a guy. A guy who's a bear will have muscle tone in a way that someone like Harry Styles, who is thin, doesn't.

Well, according to Daisy, JJ's only real competition at the East Coast Sectionals would be Johnny Weir, so he'd have a much easier time getting into Nationals. And I do think the New York City condo is going to become occupied at some point...Will is a dyed in the wool Cali guy, but JJ's not. I can see JJ moving somewhere different so that he doesn't have to deal with his family's drama all the time, and so that he can be in a place where his brother isn't instantly taking up attention as the Golden Boy. I can see him satisfied with weekly skypes and monthly visits when it comes to his family. Plus, I can see JJ really liking being able to utilize his Burberry coat collection more often if he lives in the Northeast. I don't think Will's flipped his opinion of Zach. He just appreciates Zach's honesty about himself, and finds his candor a pretty redeeming feature. Will's going into this thing with Zach where he sees Zach as pretty much a very flawed guy but who's honest with him, as opposed to with Tony, when he thought Tony was full of honor but it turned out he had none.

Right. At the very least, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson have the muscle tone for tattoos to look good on them. Harry Styles, at least at the time of the pic, doesn't. (I don't get why he's treated as the hottest guy in the group when he's clearly not.) A case of someone who went way overboard and ruined their looks in the process? Ryan Scheckler. God. He had such great, fantastic skin tone, and you can't see it anymore. And he's only 24. Unless he starts tattooing on his face the guy doesn't have much of a canvas left.

Can we just take a moment to say how hot Alexander Dreymon is? Yowza.