methodwriter85

I was born at an Air Force Base in the Phillipines, but moved in 1986 or 1987 to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Then in 1989 we lived in Spain. I have some vague memories of seeing gypsies dancing around the town square, and you were supposed to drop coins down to them. I also remember bidets.Then in 1991, after my grandpaprents died, we moved to New Jersey and lived in their house for a bit. That's where my memories start getting really close- we lived in the town of West Belmar, New Jersey- right on the Jersey Shore. I have a lot of good memories going to the beach as a kid, making sandcastles, and of course, the Jersey boardwalk. One really cool thing I remember about early 90's New Jersey was that there was this McDonald's that was on a pier over the ocean. And of course, this great pizza place called Vinnie's. But I think despite the fact that it was a Jersey Shore town, I really loved the fall- the leaves turning, jumping into leaf piles, etc etc. Then in 1993, my family moved to Copperas Cove, Texas. That was pretty interesting- the area of Texas I lived in had pretty awesome, humidity-free weather, but otherwise it was a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. I think the highlight was the skating rink. I also really missed fall foliage over there. In 1995, my family moved to Delaware, and there's basically where I grew up, with the exception of a two-year interlude just over the state line in Elkton, MD. Delaware can be summed up by this: Basically, the part of Delaware I'm from is one big suburb of Philadelphia. Lots of tax-free shopping centers, lots of traffic, lots of housing developments not tied into a town, as the state wasn't big on incorporating towns. We have the ghetto areas, the okay areas, the good area, and what I'll call Joe Biden Millionaire Country Club area. I grew up in the ghetto/okay areas, on the outskirts of the University of Delaware campus/Newark, DE. It's one of the few places in Delaware that have a thriving downtown that isn't a summer beach town. When you grow up here, there's no such thing as 6 degrees of separation- it's more like 3 Degrees of Separation. Everybody knows everybody. If someone names a high school, you probably know someone who went there. If you walk around the mall or some big event, you'll likely run into someone you know from high school or college. Sometimes it's annoying, sometimes I consider it a gift. Then for two years, from 2010 to 2012, I lived in the Western Pennsylvania town of Indiana, PA. It was complete and total culture shock. We were five hours inland from the nearest ocean- for the mass bulk of my life I've never lived more than 90 minutes away from an ocean. The town hadn't really updated since the 1970's, and the downtown was filled with all these Mom and Pop joints. It didn't have the "Anywhere, USA" feel that Delaware has- it had a much more unique feel to it. People were much more serious in Western P.A.- Delawareans tend to joke a lot, but the people in Indiana were so much more serious and conservative. But they had a lot of that small-town pride that people talk about, and I really enjoyed being in an America that didn't have strip mall after strip mall. And I really loved, and missed, the rolling hills of the area- every time I'd walk out of my dorm, on a clear day, I'd check out the rolling hills and really be taken by their beauty. Western P.A. has probably felt the most "real" to me.

I actually kind of like the idea of JJ being GQ Junior guy as a 15-year old, and then getting experimental as he gets older. You also nailed it on the bit about how colors were subdued at the time period- colors come back in 2003-2004, but were pretty hard to find in 2000-2002, unless you were a punk kid with wild hair colors. To get an idea of how JJ dresses at this point, here's a passage describing him getting dressed: JJ is very, very "Designer this" and "custom this"...he'd be the kind of guy who'd sneer at clothes from the Gap. Prolly even Abercrombie and Fitch. He might have been okay with Express and Bananna Republic. H&M would probably horrify him. I think the only mall department stores he'd frequent would be Nordstrom's and Neiman Marcus. Macy's would probably be too low-rent for him. My general belief has been that JJ would dress in a lot of Burberry, while having Luitton Vuitton accessories like sunglasses and man-bags.

Here's a cute, "don't kids do the darndest things" story about two teenaged guys who decided to dress up, bring a tablecloth, plates, and silverware to their local Mickie D's in London, and have a real feast. What I enjoy about this story is that I love it when people take a mundane, ordinary environment, and do something really quirky and unexpected within said environment. People bitch so much about how awful teenagers are, but one thing I love about them is how creative and off-beat they can get in their quest to have some fun. Check out their photos: Pretty funny, and pretty bro-mantic. Really made me miss the days when I was a teenager and my friends would come up with off-beat, weird ideas like this. I mean, yes, I can already read Yang Bang's sarcastic, "This is earth-shattering news?" comment, but I like the off-beat, human interest stories. Plus...I mean, we can't really post much hard-hitting news here anyway as 90 percent of serious news stories can have some kind of political angle to it.

I think this is about as casual as I can see JJ getting: Or if JJ was really slumming it: The classic rich snob "frat boy" look, so to speak. I didn't see the first look around until about 2006-2007, but I'm assuming that's because I didn't go to a college that had a lot of money floating around until that time period. As a leg guy, I was thrilled when shorts started getting higher than the knees circa 2007. I'm not too sure yet how I feel about the bowties, though. I can see JJ being ahead of the curve and rocking this look in 2002-2003. He'd look kind of odd compared to the softball t-shirt and baggy cargo shorts of that time, but yeah. It's a classic look and he'd probably look like he was dressing like a forty-year old, but I can see him not caring. Oh, and color. Color comes back in a big way for guys after the very subdued tones of the mid/late 90's. Think a lot of pastels (pink is really popular), and candy-colored polos. But not neon- neon makes somewhat of a comeback in 2007/2008, but not in 2002/2003. I think Yang Bang has documented his love for the neon tank top look somewhere on this site. I wonder if it's because the way the economy crashed by the late '00s that fashion had its second shift from that decade, or if it's simply that "early/mid-00s fashion was inspired by the Reagan Years", and "late '00s/early '10s fashion was inspired from the late 80's/early 90's." As for the last bit...I remember thinking in 2001/2002 how it felt like there wasn't really much of a shift yet in how people were dressing...we were all pretty much still dressing like 1998 then. If I had to see one more baggy Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt...ugh. Anyway, here's a pretty funny list: 18 Horrible '00s Men's Fashion That Should Have Never Happened I'm guilty of Livestrong bracelets (2004), a soul patch, and the Fauxhawk. For some reason, I just never bought the camo cargo shorts even though I wanted to. I did pop my collar, but I never tried layering polos. And I totally remember those leather "dress" sneakers...they were like soccer boots, I thought. I did buy a trucker's hat in 2011 and wear it around, but that was more of an ironic thing- the trend was no longer in so I thought it would be fun to wear it. My 2011-2012 roommate was so obsessed and stuck on the trucker hat trend, though. Trends they missed: - Skinny jeans for men that are somehow still baggy (mid/late '00s- they FINALLLY seem like they're fading out now) - Emo hair (mid/late-00s) *The flat iron was to the emo look what the blow dryer was when you feathered your hair in the 80's, Mark - Neon tank tops (late '00s; still in) -Lacrosse pinnies (late '00s; still in) *For some reason, in the latter part of the decade, it became cool to wear a lacrosse pinnie even if you never actually played lacrosse. This could totally be more of an East Coast thing, though.

As long as Darius isn't a Phi Kapp or Kappa Dela Rho, I'm fine with it.

1. JJ's not an anti-establisment person at all. He's very much a preppy guy who wants to look perfect and GQ at all the time. I had tons of emo type friends, but I'm not sure Mark's going to have our characters meet anyone like that. He's already skipped over and completely ignored the late 90's skater boy trend. 2. God, I remember when cordoroy's were kind of the anti-establishment, "I'm being retro" look. I think I had a pair or two back around '03-'05. Honestly though, I don't think chords look good on people with short, stubby legs like mine. You need long legs to pull them off. 3. Yes! I called it on the Diesel. I coveted them so much because they seemed so damn cool. 4. It's not too early for Chuck Taylor making their resurgence...although the thing about them is that they never really seem to go totally away. It's why you often seen people wearing Chuck Taylors in period films. They tended to be something that punk/skater kids wore at this time period, though. 5. Ah, the reconstructed trend. I had a friend in 2005 who was from Europe and very much into that. In general early 2000's jeans were baggy...I had a friend who wore jeans that just *fit* to class and he got shit about them being too tight. Guys didn't start wearing tighter jeans again until the mid-part of the decade- it was considered sexy for a guy to wear baggy jeans that sagged down and showed off his boxer's designer label. 6. I remember the weirdly colored varsity jackets with embroidery, although from what I remembered, it was more of a girl thing. I think I saw Ciara rock that look a lot back in '04-'05, as did Beyonce. Track jackets were really popular with guys, but I feel like that's more 2004-2005, especially with the rise of New Balance. 7. I have this ratty old baseball "New York" shirt from 2002 that I treasure like anything. I really liked the ringer tee look as well. 8. You totally reminded me of how layering came back in circa 2003- lots of short-sleeved shirts over long-sleeved shirts. Or if you were really adventurous, putting on a long-sleeved button-up, then putting a t-shirt over it, and then rolling up the sleeves, as seen here: Seriously Mark, if you want a good tutorial on circa 2003 collegiate fashion, watch the Social Network. Wardrobe just nailed it across the board. 9. I totally remember this bitchy queen type I knew rocking 70's style aviator sunglasses after shopping at Urban Outfitters in NYC in 2002. 10. I meant Mad Men style, like the T.V. show. Banana Republic is running a collection inspired by the show's early 60's look: This is, of course, not a popular look at all during the time period, but my point is that JJ might have been kind of quirky and old-fashioned with his choices. Kind of like a male version of Zooey Deschanel and her affinity for 50's frocks.

Amber Heard as MaryEllen? Can't you just picture her as the iciest sorositute at UVA? Wade mentioned that Mary Ellen goes back and forth on being blonde or brunette, so I picked these two to show the difference in Amber Heard's looks when she changes haircolor.

I'm actually not sure about that. JJ strikes me as someone who'd be really into vintage, Mid-Century Mad Men Style, before it became trendy for young people. I mean, John is easy- just think lots of candy-colored Abercrombie and Fitch polos, distressed jeans, and coordinating color flip-flops. But I do think JJ is going to be more challenging, because he's not really a normal teenager. I think he wants to look "older" to compensate for his lack of height, so he dresses more seriously than a 15/16-year old guy normally does. They came back in around 2008, after the 80's revival of the mid-2000's had ended. There was a fashion shift in 2002/2003, and then again in 2007/2008. The difference about Flannel being in now vs. back in the mid-90's was that flannel became much more fitted. I remember being really excited about wearing fllannel to my middle school in 1999, and then everyone ripped on me for it as Tommy Hilfiger was the way to dress by that time period. It might be one of those "localized" trends that I've seen, like how I've talked to people from other areas where people weren't wearing moccassins like they were at UD. But yeah, for some weird reason, upper-middle class kids kids in my neck of the woods started wearing Birkenstocks. That was something kind of incongrous about wearing Birks while dressing in preppy clothing, but the trend lasted for about maybe 3 years.

Fleetwood Mac's version is fantastic, and the best one. But there was something "gutteral" and grunge about the Smashing Pumpkins version, and that's why I went with it over the "pretty tone" that the original version has. I became familiar with the Smashing Pumpkins version after seeing it on an episode of Cold Case, and I really fell in love with it.

Like I told Mark, if you want to know what upper middle class teenagers from the suburbs were wearing, I've got a good idea, but haute couture, I'm totally blank on. I do think JJ would wear a lot of Burberry, though. I also remember Birkenstocks being really popular with preppy kids who wore A&F/Hollister starting around 2003: Guys and girls were wearing these, and they were popular up til about 2007.

That's funny you mentioned SAE. The University of Delaware SAE chapter got kicked off in 2008 for a pledge over-dosing on cocaine and alcohol. It was, needless to say, quite the scandal. Sig Ep was the hottest frat at our school, but of course, chapters vary. I think the only frat I can think of that have uniformly bad reputations would be TKE. They've been kicked off UD since the early 00's and legend has it they murdered a coed and dropped her body off at the train tracks. Darius always did strike me as someone who'd join a frat...it's kinda surprising he didn't do it while at Santa Clara. But maybe the frat life wasn't big there? When I went to UD, the school was 15 percent frat- frat life was there if you wanted it, but you could be GID and still have a social life. That was kind of the shocking thing about IUP- it was like more than half-frat there, and frats weren't regulated to death there like they were at UD. It was kind of shame that at 24 I was pretty much over the frat party thing.

No, it's "have some fun with the Schluters, get a new car and/or college tuition from them, and THEN get the hell away from them!"

I'm not sure this is a rule, but...wow, Schluter mothers have almost as bad of a death rate as the Hayes, don't they? There's Stefan's mother, Brad's mother, Bitty, and now Jeanine. Ella should be counting her lucky stars that Darius didn't get her pregnant. It seems like the Schluters in general get a lot of trauma heaped on them in general.

Did my post get deleted? That's kind of weird, but I'll just assume that it got eaten or something after Blue replied to it. I think it's just one of those things where we just have to shrug and figure that's what Darius decided on. I mean, Rivers Cuomo, when he was in his 30's and going back to Harvard, decided to live in the dorms. I don't doubt that Darius will probably get a nearby apartment junior year. Maybe Darius just really liked the dorm life from his year of doing it at Santa Clara? I think despite the negatives, dorms are really the best way of building friendships in college, especially during the first year or two. I gotta admit, when I lived on campus again for grad school after living at home for junior and senior year, there were some pretty fun things about it. What struck me about the peek inside JJ's psyche was that the guy was so incredibly bitter and angry. Understandable, of course, but wow. There was like nothing left of that sweet, happy 9-year old we met in If It Fits. Hopefully by his mid-20's JJ will be okay, and he'll spend the rest of his teen years just quietly keeping his nose to the grindstone and secure his spot at Torino while occasionally popping up to make bitchy comments about his brothers' behavior and avoiding any more trauma. I'm not sure that's what Mark has in mind, though. LOL.

That was true for me as well, and I always had some experience with Residence Life. I had a friend who was an R.A. who stuck around for summer session '09, and I myself had to apply for permission to come early to my dorm for the spring 2012 semester. If Darius was an athlete, an R.A., or had taken summer session, I could've believed it, but otherwise it's just not believable. You can't have college kids roaming around dorms without a reason to be there early. It makes sense from a liability standpoint. Maybe this was something that changed about colleges from the early/mid-90's, when Private Tim's co-horts went, vs. the early/mid '00s, when our generation started going off to college. Kinda similiar to how back when Mark Arbour went to college, they actually used to have on-campus bars, whereas nowadays that seems so impossible.

Thanks, Mark. I think the last time you were that effusive for a chapter was the one I did for If It Fits, so I take that as high praise. The alternative pick for that moment is this: "Gonna Take A Miracle" by Laura Nyro and Labelle I almost picked that, but I wanted something not quite so strong and overpowering...so I went with a quieter tune. I'm sure I'll eventually use this for Brad at some point, though. Plus, Unchained Melody has the Ghost connection...Ghost is easily one of my favorite movies from my early 90's childhood. I probably saw that movie like 20 times on VHS before I was 9.

Chapter 42 -When the gang gets back home, discuss funeral arrangements, and Will comforts Brad again. "Landslide" by The Smashing Pumpkins -When Brad comforts Frank, and imagines Robbie in his place. "Everything I Own" by Bread -When Brad gets comforted by Cody. "Unchained Melody" by The Righteous Brothers -When Will wakes up to find himself being comforted by John. "Dreams" by The Cranberries -When Will loses it while hugging Jeff Grimes. "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by The Smith

One goof here: The fall 2001 quarter at UCLA starts September 25th- it wouldn't make sense for Darius to have already moved his stuff in. Move-in Weekend will probably be September 23rd through September 24th. If Darius was living at a nearby house with roommates, or if Darius was in varsity sport, it'd be one thing, but he really shouldn't already have his things moved in. Something I didn't catch before: That should be two-thirds, actually. I mean, I'm not sure any of these guys thought of Hank as a parent. They might have as time went on, but she died before they could. Always glad to see Jeff.

Very true. Unless you're like an accountant or something, which is kind of ironic, if you think about it. Accountants, nurses, and business majors are pretty much the only people I know who got jobs right out of school.

Have a good one!

So, there's this Youtube vid that's already garned 183k views after being out for a day, and I thought it had some pretty thought-provoking material there: If I'm interepreting this video correctly, it seems to be saying: "Please do not denigrate our generation as being lazy and self-indulgent, because we're not as far along in established life goals as the Baby Boomers were. Our parents brought us all up to think that we were special, without having to really work much towards being special. Therefore, we were shocked when we graduated with an average 30k in college debt(which you guys are responsible for jacking up tuition, BTW) and no chance at a decent job (which is the fault of you Baby Boomers for gutting manufacturing in the 90's and creating the housing bubble), and we're facing a massive federal deficit to pay off because of the two quagmire wars that your generation began. Oh, and since you guys didn't save anything towards retirement, you're not retiring in droves like you should be, keeping the Gen Xers in middle-management and us either in entry-level or shut out completely. But yes, given that you guys are so awesome and did such wonderful things for our country, we'll try harder to model ourselves on you!" Pretty scathing, I thought. Is it valid criticism, or do you find it whining self-entitlement? I lean towards thinking that it'll be nice when the Baby Boomers finally start retiring more (the Baby Boom peaked in 1957, I believe, so the bulk of them should be retirement age by 2022), but I think the processes that they're talking about are far more complex than just the narrative of, "The Greedy Baby Boomers fucked us all over!" For example, with college tuition...my impression is that the reason why college tuition went up so high is based on several factors. The first is that there was an Echo Boom, so college populations expanded in the late 90's and 2000's after being dormant in the late 1970's through the early 90's, which seems like the last time period college was actually pretty affordable. (Seriously, I listen to Gen Xers tell me what they paid for tutition and I want to weep.) When college populations expanded after being dormant for so long, colleges had to scramble to keep up with the demand, leading to major college renovation/projects. Students had higher expectations for their dorms and general campus buildings, and since the 1960's/1970's era buildings that were put up to house the Baby Boomer College explosion were substandard, they were replaced with brand-new sparkling buildings. It made the colleges more competitive with the potential freshman giving tours, but those costs had to be passed on somewhere, right? I don't feel like I know enough about the gutting of the manufacturing, the gutting of unions, and the 90's housing bubble to try and explain the complexities, though... Although I will say...didn't the Silent Generation actually have a lot of power throughout the 80's and the 90's? I'm not really sure it's accurate to say that all of that happened under the Baby Boomer's watch- yes, we've had a Baby Boomer president since 1992 (Obama is borderline Baby Boomer/Generation X), but I don't really feel like the Baby Boomers had a monopoly of power since the 80's that they used to drive all the major direction of this country. What are your thoughts, if any, that you have any on this subject?

Well, to be honest, there's been a timeline roughly worked out to 2006 with JJ's career. Daisy and I came up with it...I wanna say in 2010 or so? It's actually a pretty fine line between adding JJ into actual figure skating history without really re-writing it, although how true to the real timeline we'll stay is up to Mark. The career timeline isn't a set one- we originally had JJ going off to Scotland for the December 2000 Junior Grand Prix, until Mark decided that there was too much going on and had it turn out that JJ was flunking out of HW, making Brad force JJ to stay at home instead. I believe JJ is due for a competition in November in Colorado, but I'd have to check on that. His first competition for the '01-'02 season was the Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany from September 4th through 7th. This is his first season as a senior, so we're assuming that he does well enough to look good and promising, but not enough to beat people like Todd Elderidge and the like. In male figure skating, you're not really a threat until you're closer to 20...even wunderkid Johnny Weir didn't really hit his stride until closer to '06. Evan Lysacek was actually still in the juniors for this season.

I thought this was pretty true and funny, at least from what I've observed from my lofty view of age 27. Totally nails the difference between being 22, and being 26. 7 Absolutely True Ways Guys Change from College to Mid-20's The sleep thing is probably the most true. Also the bit about how 25-year old guys have girlfirends, whereas in college you almost never see that. For me, personally, the biggest difference from 22-year old Jeremy and 27-year old Jeremy is that I'm a lot less inclined to need to attend to a huge rager to have a lot of fun. I mean, every once in awhile it's fun to dance in a bar, but I lean more towards having a few drinks with a friend in a bar where I can talk to them, not with blaring music. Anyone else wanna note differences they've seen in themselves or their friends as they moved from their early 20's to mid-20's?

Chapter 41 -When Wade and Matt have morning/mourning talk. "Porcelain" by Moby -When the family has their grief counseling session. "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas -When Wade stands off with his mother and declares a truce. "Killer Queen" by Queen This is La Danfield's "theme" song that Mark picked out, so this one is to his credit.

I watched Chris Hemsworth in the trailer for Rush and thought, "Roger?" Guy does rock the hell out of the 70's asethetic. (Which makes sense- the 70's WERE the decade of the blond.)