methodwriter85

I plan on being DNR. If I ever need machines to live, I don't want to live.

I really do hope Wade goes back to Washington after graduation in '02 to work as an activist. The Bush administration sure is something to see up close.

Chapter 65 -When Wade talks with his mother, who is getting ready to check into rehab. "Lullaby" by Shawn Collins -When Brian confronts the family, and is completely shut out. "Last Resort" by Papa Roach

That sounds pretty awesome, but I wouldn't want to live to be 100. I think I'll be fine with going out in my 50's or my 60's.

Tommy B, you do realize that George Granger is only 21 years old, right? Took me awhile to catch that.

Chapter 64 -When Elizabeth Danfield realizes she has ammo over Alexandra, and gleefully calls her up. "Suck My Dick" by Lil' Kim *Warning: This song is explicit and contains words and imagery that may or may not be appropriate for minors. -When Robbie surprises Brad in D.C., leading to a passionate kiss. "The Shoop-Shoop Song" (It's In His Kiss) by Betty Everett http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV4aywItsKI

Nah, they'd go after Will before JJ. Everyone knows he's Brad's favorite.

Chapter 63 -When the gang watches a rather disturbing porn. "Sweet Dreams" by Marilyn Manson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESOEuBMygbU

That's great, Andy! Only children can be pretty great little kids.

Well, you know what Adam wanted to have happen to JP, sweet guy that Adam is. And to think, you wanted to make JJ straight and a bit butchier. Much more fun this way, right? In any event, the best part about JJ being a bitchy diva is that it's totally natural. JJ, having lived in the shadow as the neglected middle child finally has something that sets him apart from his brothers. He's 14, doing great in a high-profile sport, and he's getting tons of praise heaped on him. Of course it's getting to his head. Which will make his eventual reality check- no '02 Olympics- much, much more delicious when it happens. It looks like for Gen 4, you've got Darius as the party animal and smoothtalker. JJ is the cheerful, happy-go-lucky guy with a flair for being dramatic and somewhat bitchy. And Will's the quiet, serious, and shy one. although he's not completely an introvert like Brad was. And Will seems a little more laidback and a bit less of a control freak than Brad was. The dynamics and personalities for this gen seem completely different from the dynamics of the Be Rad gen, which is a great thing. I think the key to that was not really having an Ace- Darius is close to Ace's personality, but since Darius was four years ahead of the bulk of the group, he wasn't really around to push them into being a cohesive social group at school. And it seems like the dynamics of Malibu High/Middle School are much more laidback and less status-obsessed like 1980 Gunn High was.

There are the exceptions, though. Billy came from a stable home, but because of the permissiveness of his parents, particularly his mother, he got out of control and became doomed. And then, of course, you've got Gen 4. All of the kids grew up in a stable environment. Darius and Will seem like sure-headed kids, but JJ seems like the question mark here. He's devoting himself into the high stakes of competitive pro sports, and there's no way to tell how well he's going to handle it. Being at the top of your game at 14 in no way guarentees that you'll be at the top of your game at 20 in '06, and JJ's struggles to stay on top and gunning for the Gold will make for an interesting story. Especially since, if Mark doesn't want to revise history, Evengei Plushenko wins the gold in '06 and Evan Lycasek wins the gold in '10. How JJ handles realizing that he's not the best could be some meaty, dramatic stuff there. I had a coach who wasn't quite good enough for the Olympics- he spent 4 years chasing it, made the semi-finals, but couldn't quite get there. It took him a long time to get over it.

Well, gee Mark, when you set not just one, not just two, but THREE stories that take place in 1999/2000, it's really hard not to run out of material. Especially since this story has run sixty-something chapters. Can the next story skip to at least 2001 so I have more material to work with? I'm itching to start using Linkin Park, Good Charlotte, and New Found Glory. I'm actually most excited about hitting 2003-2004 at some point. That was a pretty good year for music. I was in 11th grade, so I knew a lot of the songs at this point. I'm thinking JJ and Will are throwing a senior year rager to this tune... This song's eight years old and it still makes me wanna get up and dance.

Chapter 62 -When Wade makes a clear stand against his dad, and we learn Elizabeth Danfield's secret. "Freak On A Leash" by Korn

I realized that I waited too long to look for a summer internship. Crap. I'm so screwed. I guess I'll have to do an internship during my 2nd year of grad school.

Right. I'm thinking that in another 15 years or so, Brad's going to be Will's best man at Will's (legal) wedding. Which will be cool.

I'm Will and JJ's age, and trust me- we knew about Destiny's Child even early in that year. I'm guessing it might have been the influence of Brad's kids on this one.

On the other hand, Destiny's Child not being that big yet might be WHY they were able to get Beyonce Knowles out for the wedding. By about late 2000-early 2001, Beyonce's going to be on a decade-long ascent of music stardom...it's actually more realistic that they could get her to come out just before she really made it big. The scene with Will was cute, but seriously- a 13-year old boy thought he'd be best man? Dude. LOL. I'm thinking I've got this totally wrong in thinking that Will's the laidback one. I'm getting the feeling that he's going to be as much of a neurotic mess as Brad was as a teenager.

Chapter 61 -When Brad and Robbie fiddle with Brad's bowtie on their big day. "I Do" (Cherish You) by 98 Degrees - For the wedding. "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" by Elton John "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Elton John and RuPaul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtO_jSbNN6I *** Thank you, Mark, for doing my work for me. LOL.

Eh, I'm 25. It's old by college town standards.

But's 2011 on YOUR side, therefore you are 18 and in 12th grade. And lusting after an 8th grade boy. I'm soooo telling everyone! Nah seriously though...I remember when I was in 10th grade, this dude was dating an 8th grade girl. We teased him mercilessly about that. Andy, believe me, I feel your pain. Seven years old for me was 1993- the year of the Clintons coming into power and the Waco stand-off. This Tommy kid was a damn baby at that point. It absolutely frightens me that this year, people born in 1990 are old enough to drink. I mean, I was four in 1990! It can't have been that long ago that people born that year can legally drink! Andy, you and me should go out to a bar and mourn being old men together.

Ace wasn't actually married in "on-book" though, was he? He was single in 1991 with A Summer Love, and by If It Fits he had gotten married to his high school sweatheart Cass, with Courtney being born in 1995. I don't think Ace's wedding ever got shown.

I came of age in the 2000's, and I thought it'd been interesting to talk about upcoming trends, slang, movies, pop culture, etc etc that's coming up for the CAP characters. One thing about Mark's writing is that he really likes incorporating contemporary touches into the pieces, because he likes caputuring the "feel" of the period. So what are some things you'd like to see Mark incorporate into CAP? (This thread is different from the other one, as the "How Should The CAP World End" one is more about world events and character events you'd like to see in the story.) Here are some touches I'd like to see Mark bring into the story... 1. Emo kids. Seriously, they' WERE the 2000's, in my opinion. Straight-edge kids were closely related. For whatever reason, circa 2001 the goth kids were replaced by the emo kids, who were all about wearing Buddy Holly glasses and shopping at Hot Topic. They blogged about their angst on Livejournal until Myspace rose circa 2004. Which brings me to... 2. Social networking sites. Tim's right, it's somewhat weird that none of the main characters are on the internet or social networking sites. It's going to be completely unavoidable for when Mark gets around to documenting the class of 2004 with JJ, Marie, and Will. First it was LiveJournal, then it was Myspace, and then Facebook...although you gotta remember that Facebook only allowed college kids until about 2006, 2007. Some kids were on Friendster as well. There really weren't that many kids from JJ's cohort who weren't on the internet, chatting online and using social networking sites. 3. Mean Girls. I think Mean Girls is probably the closest movie I've ever seen to getting that generation right. It's also the one chick flick I remember guys were able to admit they liked. 4. The O.C. EVERYONE was talking about this show circa 2003-2004. It was huge with girls, but it was also big with guys because, as they said, "The girls were hot". 5. Grand Theft Auto at this point (2000), Halo by 2004-2005, and then Guitar Hero by 2006-2007. Dance Dance Revolution and Lazer Tag are also big. 6. Brad's probably going to get an IPod within a year...most techie-adults started carrying those around early in the decade. By about 2003, that's when IPods started showing up at an average high school. 7. Camera cell phones start showing up in common teenaged usage around 2003 as well. 8. Hipsters. They were the yuppies of the 2000's, just dressed badly and drinking PBR for the irony. I didn't start seeing them until about 2006, but I'm assuming that hipsters were around well before that on the West Coast. I think Marie Hobart will wind up a hipster after spending high school and college as a hippie vegan war protestor. 9. Some early 2000's clothing trends: short-sleeved shirts over long sleeved-shirts over a pair of cargo shorts and flip-flops for guys, peasant skirts/blouses on girls. Another girl trend would be low-rider jeans to show a girl's thong, i.e. the whale tail. That's big starting around 2001-ish, and lasts until about 2006/2007. I can see Jack flipping out about Marie wearing thongs when she's in 9th grade. 10. Livestrong bracelets, starting around 2004. They were EVERYWHERE. You literally couldn't walk without seeing a teenager/college-aged guy wearing a Livestrong bracelet. Any trends for this past decade you'd like for Mark to incorporate into CAP?

If it was 2011 in CAP world, he would be. However, since it's only 2000 in CAP world, Will's only 13, so you're a major perve, you perve. I'm going to tell the whole school you wanna date an 8th grader!

Will's only 13, you perve.;-)

It's a topic I find fascinating, and with urban renewal being a theme of "Millenium", I thought I'd share with you guys this article about the latest attempt to jumpstart the city of Wilmington, Delwaware into becoming a bustling city once again.Wilmington Pins Its Hopes on the Queen Theater Here's some background: Wilmington was your typical East Coast industrial city throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. When its industries- such as shipbuilding- started becoming obsolete, the city became less attractive to people. New industries that popped up only came to the perimeter and only supported the white-collar suburbanites. People started fleeing for the suburbs in the mid-20th century. The population peaked in 1940 at about 112k, and dropped in population until it stabilized at about 70k in 1990- that's about where it's remained. The inner-city gained a reputation for being unsafe, and with suburban malls such as the Christiana Mall, once-prosperous Market Street just got gutted. They're trying hard to revive that area. They've had varying degrees of success over the years in trying to revive the inner-city Wilmington- there have been some major blunders(like an outlet shopping center that became a dead mall), but there have been some successes, like the Delaware Theatre Company. It's been pretty fascinating to watch the progress. Anyway, I thought that since we're reading about a ficiticious urban renewal process, it'd be interesting to read about a real one in a real city.