methodwriter85

It's fine. Let's just take another moment to drool over Colton Haynes aka John Hobart. It really is funny that Colton is actually playing a lacrosse player on Teen Wolf now. Man, talk about an appropriate pick. LOL. I guess just imagine the jersey saying "Menlo" instead. LOL. What are the school colors there anyway, Tommy?

Anne Hathaway Is Fearless About Aging You go, Anne. I'm not approaching 30 quite yet, but I really admired Anne's attitude about it. I met a guy once who started getting collagen injections at 24-25 to hide wrinkles, and liked to tell people he was 19, and I don't know- why not get credit for the years you've lived? It's still kinda weird to think that Mia Thermopolis is getting ready to turn 30 in November 2012, or that Jessica Alba is now playing the mom in the next Spy Kids movie. Time really does march on fast.

Yeah, but, Stefan doesn't seem like a tennis person, and this family in general seems to prefer big metro cities(usually Europe) when it comes to vacations, or the beach. Wouldn't they be more likely to have a vacation home not just in Colorado for sking, but a place in Australia and or some other place that doesn't have winter at the same time California does? My guess would be St. Bart's, because that's Mark's favorite vacation spot. What's the point in being warm and dry in some otherwise unappealing place(remember, Mark doesn't like Palm Springs therefore Stefan doesn't like it) in Southern California if you've got the ability to jet off to other places to escape the rainy Los Angeles winters? Clothing optional resorts seem like about the only thing there that I can see appealing to Stefan. I still think Mark, and likely Stefan, would take jetting off to St. Barts in January over taking a drive out to Palm Springs. Just pretend that that Stefan and Greg used to have a spot in Palm Springs and Stefan sold it after he died. I wonder if Harvard-Westlake is relaxed enough that they'd be willing to let JJ take a three-week leave of absence from 10th grade to attend the Salt Lake City Games with Stefan and JP. I could just see JJ there on the sidelines, looking at Sara Hughes and fuming inwardly about how if he had only started skating a few years earlier than at 12, he might have had a shot at the '02 Olympics. I think not getting in the Olympics for '02 will be a nice hard reality check and a much-needed bitchslap for JJ. LOL. Although, I don't know- I think 2002 will be a generally good year for Mark and the CAP saga to skip over. We don't have to cover every year of the 2000's, and I think 2003 will be a better year to start with after Mark gets done with 9/11. Plus it'd be good to let the family have a "quiet" year in which nothing really happens, which they haven't had since 1997. I nominate 2002 for that, and picking up with the family again in 2003. Lots more interesting things that year, including the music. *looks at Mark with a pleading, puppy dog face*

And thus, Stefan isn't. It's likely the same reason why no one's an Oakland Raiders fan. I do like that Mark let Robbie be a Phillies fan. I hope this means that Darius is also a Phillies fan over being a Dodgers fan, especially since they had a pretty strong run when he was about 10 in the early '90s, and being close to Robbie means that they might have gone to baseball a lot. Of course the Phillies are going through an awful period right now, but true fanhood sustains all that, right? I wonder if that means that Robbie is also an Eagles fan. I kinda figure they'd be the type of people who weren't doggedly loyal to one team and one city, like the Pittsburgh people. Dear god. Pittsburgh fans. Anyway, I could see Robbie as a Phillies fan at heart but enjoying the Dogers, being an Eagles fan at heart but liking the St. Louis Rams because Brad is a fan. I think they'd all rally around the Lakers, though- Southern California seems to be more about basketball than it is about football, barring USC. Of course Los Angeles not having had a decent football team since 1989 would be a high factor in that, I bet. (I'm just estimating there- the Wiki page says that the Rams started faltering in the early '90's, and that the L.A. Raiders basically sucked through the late 80's.Then they were both gone in 1995, leaving Los Angeles without a team.) Anyway, given how Stefan really seems to like playing hosts to the kids, I think he'd take that into consideration when choosing vacation homes. Ski house in Colorado I can see for winters, not a place to play golf. I can't see Palm Springs as being that appealing to a young kid, barring that episode of the O.C. where Oliver Trask tried to worm his way into Marissa Cooper's life. Although you never know. 1975 to 1979, then 1982 to 1984, 1987 to 1990, 1992 to 1994- all of these were years that the CAPverse didn't cover, and Stefan and Greg could have very well had a house in Palm Springs. Stefan probably would have been pissed at all the golf that Greg was playing instead of paying attention to him, and then sold the house after one particularly bad argument in which Stefan broke Greg's golf clubs. LOL. To make it more "Stefan", he would have sold the house just before the real estate bust of the late '80s, making a profit while he still could.

So I guess ROTC at Santa Clara it is. 2004 is still pretty early enough in the Iraq War- when Darius graduates, they'll only be a year in. I gotta say, I like that you're NOT going the happy frat boy route with Darius that you did with Ace. (I don't know if it was explicitly stated that Ace was a frat boy, but god he screamed it.) JJ's the question mark on this, though. I could very easily see him, after high school, either forgoing college entirely or just going part time for the 2004-2005 school year at a college with a coach that he wants to use. Then dropping out of school for what would have been his sophomore year to focus on the Olmpics. I think in his case, the family wouldn't mind so much because they kinda figure that college is always there, but JJ's prime is not. Which could be interesting- JJ giving up college and at the same time seeing his brother Will and cousin John off to it. Would there be regrets? Or no? Aside from living in Palo Alto, think about Stefan. He detests the idea of getting older, and for that principle I cannot see Stefan ever getting a place which is known as retirement central.

Mark was saying that he didn't see Darius as enlisted guy because he's from a rich family, but I gotta say, I disagree with that. Pat Tillman springs to mind. They had the storyline with Stephen in the Box becoming an officer with just a high school degree because the family pulled strings, but that was World War II. With the way in which specialization has occurred over the past 60 years since World War II, I have a hard time believing even Stefan Schluter and Brad's half-brother could pull enough strings to get Darius in as an actual officer with just his Malibu High degree. In any event, could you just IMAGINE the p.r. nightmare it'd be for Brad and Stefan if it got out they used their powerful D.C. connections to get Darius a plum post that he didn't actually have the merit for? I think they'd be getting skewered by CNN, and met with protestors holdings signs that say, "Let him enlist like anyone else!" But in much more graphic language. So he would have to go through the entire ROTC program at Santa Clara to become an officer, right? Or he'd have to enlist if he doesn't want to wait until 2004. Yeah. Gathan's brother Brent, and his friend Chord are just SCREAMING future Iraq War Veterans. I think a lot of Claremont blue-collar youth are headed there. See, this is why I really like that Will so far isn't defined by who he's dating. And if JJ does get his own story, that won't be the case for him, either, because his number 1 priority is his figure skating career. Although I think JJ is most likely going to be run down by a Greyhound. Then he'll become Will and Darius's teen angel, learning some valuable truths along the way that go beyond the merit of a Louis Vuitton handbag. JJ can be like Frankie Avalon with a much better wardrobe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRVAT2QSpmo&feature=related

Mark was thinking he'd be an officer like Stephen was when we get to the War on Terror. How would they swing that? Was connections a strong enough pull in 2000 that you could get a guy like Darius as an officer? What's the route for getting Darius into the War on Terror? Personally, I thought USC seemed like the best fit for Darius, but Mark does not seem to be going with the "happy frat boy" route for Darius.

Chapter 32 -When Will meets his new bodyguard, Pat, and tests him to see how far he can go. -When Will and Robbie talk, who talks to him about how messed up he was at 22. And that Will very likely wouldn't have been born if Robbie hadn't been arrested. "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister -When the guys drive out to Bakersfield, blasting Darius' totally beast sound system. "Still Dre" by Dr. Dre(featuring Snoop Dog) -When Darius tells them why he's going to Santa Clara University. "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" by Jackie DeShannon

Does it really matter where Darius goes to school? We all know he's going to drop out sophomore year to join the military after 9/11 hits...I like the line about Darius wanting to be a hero. With the military being in his blood, it just seems inevitable. I guess he can join the ROTC or something? I really liked this chapter. Here, it becomes clear that Darius is the glue for Generation 4- he's the only guy that can get along with everyone here. I've been wanting a chapter with a scene between the three Schluter brothers for a long time, and I'm glad we finally got it. Will and JJ are kind of just drifting off into two entirely different directions, but Darius can get them together. If/when Darius goes off to war, it'll be interesting to see how the brothers maintain their bonds with Will going off to college and JJ going off to Torino. Jeanine's from an Italian-Catholic family, right? It's not like Catholic doctrine is going to be completely foreign to Darius.

I like that Will, even though he hates shopping, wants Pat to get a makeover. I'm thinking Diesel jeans and crew-neck t-shirts.

Because actually seeing the guy that Darius is helping makes it more real than Darius just saying, "I'm giving up my spot in Annapolis for some stranger I've never seen in my life." Darius has to be glad he's 18 and therefore able to get away with turning down the guards. JJ's sounds like a pain in the ass.

And a darn good lacrosse program.

Rags to riches? The only person in this story you could apply that to would be Gathan, and that's because he got a trust fund, not because he actually earned the money. There's also Robbie, but he was springboarded from a comfortably middle-class family. albeit with white trash roots. I guess you could say Frank, because he managed to do quite well from himself, but I wouldn't say he became rich- just married a rich woman. (Are they married?) I'm trying to think of a character who started with nothing and built an empire based on pure hard work without getting the magical Schluter/Crampton trust fund infusion, and I'm coming up blank. I think Father Tim might come close, although it's more of a "spiritual riches" deal. Maybe Lou as well? He's got to be doing well for himself if he's on the order of an Anderson Cooper news anchor. I want to count Isidore, but I can't because that construction company was a spin-off of the Crampton Construction company. And you really think America is going to recover from this economy? I'm already thinking about immigrating to Canada. LOL. The 90's really were the last decade of America's true dominence in the world.

Well, since we found out John Hobart is a lacrosse player, it seems reasonable enough to send John there. The East Coast is where the heartland for serious collegiate lacrosse is, with Maryland as its pulse. As you've said before, lacrosse takes the backseat to water polo in California, so why wouldn't John want to go to a college in an area where lacrosse is a first-rate sport and not just a club? Sports can usually be a big persuader in where people go to school. I love John being a lacrosse player. It'll add some personal reactions to the Duke University Lacrosse case when he's a freshman in college. I imagine him and his teammates dressing up as the Duke Lacrosse guys, with Claire hitting the roof when Marie tells her about the pictures on Facebook. I knew an entire lacrosse team that all dressed up like the Duke Lacrosse team for Halloween '06. That was the Halloween I debated dressing up like Steve Irwin, but decided against it.

Alright. You got me there. I guess I just meant that if you took out that circumstance. It's just...I don't know, Brad and Robbie come off as such permissive parents in nearly everything that it's not really the lack of punishment for the Italian trip that bothers me, just the lack of punishment and disclipline in general that bothers me. How they somehow lucked into three kids who don't take that permissive parenting and become out of control kids is kinda amazing to me. My life experience has been that the kids who are given that kind of freedom tend to have at least one nutty phase. I'm holding out hope that Claire and Jack aren't nearly as lax with their kids as Brad and Robbie have been with theirs. I need to think that, for some reason. I guess it's just...I had parents who didn't really parent. They let us do whatever we wanted to do, and all four of us went off the rails in different ways at different times. So maybe that's why it bothers me- I wish my parents had set boundaries for me as a little kid because a part of me blames that lack of strict disclipline as the reason why I had a really rough transition into my late teens/early 20's. It's weird. When CAP was focusing on Brad and Robbie coming of age, I didn't have such personal reactions to it. I think it's the fact that Will and JJ are my age that it's almost kinda getting me back into remembering myself as a 14-year old in 2000, and I'm reading so much personal stuff into it.

It's depressing, but I think it'll get tempered when I start using and "Candy Shop" as music recs. Nah, but seriously, there are a lot of parallels to Vietnam and Iraq, but the big difference is that we didn't have nearly as many casualties, and the all-volunteer army made it so that there was no huge anti-war movement among students. I did some protesting- it was always a few students and some Baby Boomers. That was about it. Honestly, my peers seemed more about Laguna Beach and updating their cell phones and Ipods than caring about what was going on Iraq. But god, just think about it. The Dot-Com Crash. George Bush stealing the election from Al Gore. 9/11. Aghanistan. The Beltway Sniper. The Iraq War. The London Metro bombings. The Asian Tsunami. Hurricane Katrina. Virginia Tech. The Great Recession. Sarah Palin. What a horrible, horribe decade.

I think we'd need to see a photo of your boyfriend before we could judge. Right now I've got him pictured as gothy wan type with long hair, white make-up, and black lipstick.

I would imagine that the way they have the school set up would retard most major bullying that seems so common at public high schools, and at the mean-spirited Catholic prep schools. I think just having kids who want to be there and are challenged tends to cut down on fights and the like. I went to a high school that was, for the most part, a pretty safe place for kids and we didn't have half of the rigor that HW seems to have. But it was a public high school you had to apply to get into, and if you fell out of line there were hundreds of kids waiting to take your spot, so we had basically what we called the "Annual Cab Calloway Fight" and that was about it. The small classes, the committment to social service, the peer mentoring program- it really does seem like kids who might not normally fit in would find a niche at a place like Harvard-Westlake, and would not be bullied. It'll be good for JJ to start over in a place where he wasn't the weird short kid everyone made fun of.

Tet, it's a shame that you were born in '92 and were therefore too young to experience MTV during it's better days. The grunge era for MTV was awesome. This video was just hilarious. In case you guys don't remember the mid-90's, this video was basically making fun of all the Mentos commercials that were airing at the time.

Still, given what we know about Claire, I think John would have definitely gotten a stronger punishment than, "Okay, you can't go to Italy for the rest of the summer." At least ground him for the weekend or something! Claire and Jack probably aren't strict displinarians, but I seriously doubt they're as relaxed as Brad and Robbie were. I don't think Darius would have gotten away with the slacking he did in high school if Claire had been his mother. Claire strikes me as someone who sets more boundaries with her kids than Brad and Robbie do with theirs. Or actually, Claire sets boundaries and Brad and Robbie don't. LOL. JJ could go through a religous phase after 9/11. A lot of people did that, including my two sisters. It lasted for two, three years. They were definitely influenced by their peers. And given that the skating world leans more towards the conservative side, I'd have a hard time believing that JJ wouldn't make some friends who were Good Christian Bitches. It'd add to the feeling of JJ not really fitting into his family, which has been a theme throughout his entire life.

I thought Logan said he was a swimmer in the first chapter?

Alright, you have a point. It just would be nice to have a contrast there, with Will as the lovelorn teenager and JJ as the guy who keeps it nice and casual because he's not the least bit interested in settling down. Especially since as a skater, JJ's not really able to hold any serious relationships down because of all the traveling and the need to look as if he's not having pre-marital sex. LOL. Most figure skaters wait until they're done with competing, it seems like. I'm just hoping that I don't have to write "JJ angsts about [insert love interest's name]" as much as I have to do that for Brad and Will for the music recs. LOL. You are right that JJ's not that controlled emotionally, but I think that would be the reason why JJ would avoid getting seriously attached to anyone, because he knows what he gets like when he cares about someone. I guess I was thinking about this because I was reading about Chris Colfer, the actor from Glee, and he's apparently very driven on his career and not really thinking that much about romance because that can wait while his career needs to happen now. I like that a lot. And actors and skaters are similiar in the sense that there's a short window of opportunity to strike it big, so I think they'd hold similiar viewpoints about settling down and relationships.

It'd be purely a P.R. move. He definitely wouldn't say anything about being raised by an Atheist. Maybe he'll just wear a cross and pretend, like Daisy said. I like the idea of JJ being pushed by his handlers into talking on Good Morning America about how Christian faith got him through his hard life as an orphan. Cue Brad crushing his coffee mug in anger. LOL It'd be interesting. I think JJ's in better control of his emotions than Will is because he mainly keeps to superficial aquaintances and avoids emotional attachments. JJ's also not a hopeless romantic like Will is. JJ knows he's got a limited time to compete, therefore worrying about romantic entanglements would be a waste of time. He'd know that intellectually, but of course it would be funny to see him lose his head over someone at the same time knowing that he's not supposed to have a serious relationship while he's still competing.

True. I've talked to my friend Mason. He lost a pinkie in Iraq, but most of all he just lost that happy twinkle in his eyes that he had when I knew him in high school, and he's apparently battling a drinking problem. It's just weird reading CAP now. It's the start of the 2000's, and these people really have no clue how horrible the proceeding decade is going to be.