methodwriter85

Yeah. All we can really do is shame the hell out of these people. I don't care what you think, but when you act on that, then you need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Yep. That's why I want to see it, as well. Plus, I'm fascinated in seeing whether or not they can turn a "just for the shits" read into something legitimate.

Internet sleuths help police find the people who were involved with a Philadelphia gay bashing. It's absolutely baffling to me that this happened in Philadelphia in 2014. In any event, I'm glad that these people got caught pretty quickly. Although I'm pissed off to learn that they can't be charged with hate crimes because Pennsylvania doesn't have sexual orientation as a bias for hate crime law. Seriously, why is it that there is so much focus on getting same-sex marriage when this shit still isn't covered? It's ridiculous.

Well, that's good to know. Although this means we have change JJ going to the Trophee Lalique in Paris. Damn. JJ in Paris seems like it would have been an orgy of shopping.

Chapter 10 -When JJ and Alex visit the Revolutionary War sites. The Patriot Soundtrack God, that movie. The scene where the Evil British burn down a church full of women and children and kill Heath Ledger's wife? Ugh. -When JJ reflects over his night with Alex, and how thrilled he was to just hold his hand. "A Summer Place" Theme God, JJ is going to be burned so, so bad from this.

Shit. This one also flew over my head. According to good ol' Wiki, the 2002 Eastern Sectionals were in Pittsburgh. (It's funny that we don't have a date but we have the location.) Oh, well. I'm guessing JJ's referring to University of Delaware Figure Skating Club, which has hosted this event in 1993 and again in 2010. *shrugs* Eh, it doesn't make that big of a difference if they hosted them in 2002, as well. It's a shame though- Pittsburgh is a pretty cool town. Not sure I can see JJ scarfing down on Primanti Bros., though. At the same time, you're putting JJ squarely in Johnny Weir's territory so the "artistic liberty" works here. As for JJ and Alex, JJ really is the perfect Virginal Princess for him. At least until Alex decides it's time to procreate.

Another great view of Philadelphia's current skyline:

There's something interesting about pairing the guy who has never been closeted in his life, with a guy who has to be in the closet for his entire professional life. I just like Zach and Will so much for the fact that their relationship, and the dynamics that go into it, has never really been done before in CAP. I also like that Zach is so different from any Hayes we've met before- he's not a cuddly manwhore who thinks with his dick and gets validation from sex, nor is he a self-destructive guy. I like how single-mindedly determined he is.

I can see that. I'll admit that a couple of times, when I lived in Western PA, I said "pop" a few times instead of soda. I kinda liked saying it that way- I didn't fully embrace Pittsburgh Metro ways, but I did a little.

Chapter 9 -When Will and Zach get all romantic at the end. "Love Song" by The Cure

True, but it's also true that Matt NEEDS to be Mr. Popular. He does. It's been a pretty consistent character trait of Matt that he's a very social guy who needs everybody to like him. He can't stand isolation. Meanwhile, unless Zach cares about you, he could really give two shits about whether or not you want to hang out with him. Which is probably why Zach is actually pretty well suited to the guarded, closeted life he's going to lead. Damn it, I didn't catch that. As a life-long resident of Ohio, and who's only lived in California since the spring 2002 semester, Zach would be more likely to say "highway", not "freeway". Oh, well. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that I've been rather distracted and on various heightened emotions so I just didn't look that carefully. In any event, I'm glad that Will finally got to have a happy birthday that wasn't all dramatic or traumatic. I absolutely love him and Zach together.

To be honest, that's what bothers me the most. I know two people who have September 11th birthdays, and they can't just celebrate their birthdays because everyone always brings out the 9/11 stuff. I get that it was a huge event that changed America as we knew it, but a part of me thinks maybe it's time to reclaim September 11th as just another day, the 11th day of September, and not have the American media forcefeed the grief and tragedy of the September 11th of 2001 every single year. Especially when it's not a big anniversary year. I mean really, the 13th? Why does the 13th anniversary merit big media coverage?

Does it bother anyone else that every single year there has to be massive media coverage about 9/11? Every single year they have to bring out the 9/11 footage, show off the memorials at Ground Zero, etc etc. I can understand for the big anniversaries- like the 10th in 2011 was a big deal, and there's the 15th in 2016. But really, for the 13th it has to be a big leading new story? There's this deep cynical part of me that doesn't think it's about honoring the memory of the dead- that it's a media ratings grab by re-visiting the biggest news story of the 21st century. 'Cause why don't we do this for Pearl Harbour Day? Or even the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, which is still very much in living memory? Why can't we just let September 11th be an ordinary day, and let the victims grieve in peace at their memorials without shoving cameras in their faces? Why can't we let people with September 11th birthdays get to celebrate their birthdays without seeing their Facebook friends pontificate about 9/11 with statuses that end in #9/11Anniversary? I mean, like I said, maybe I'm an asshole for thinking this. But do we really need to drag out this tragedy every single time the calender says September 11th?

Elders React to the 50 Shades of Grey Trailer... I seriously lost it when they started reading the passages. "My very own Christian Grey flavored popsicle..." If the movie wants any kind of chance of being taken seriously, I hope they took out Ana's narrative voice. Dear god.

I went to New York City for the first time in 12 years, and wow, I couldn't get over all the new buildings that have been put up, least of all the new World Trade Center. It really is a breathtaking display of chaos and an assault on the senses. Philly will never really be like that (it would have to get a population of like 10 million to achieve that kind of density), but it'll be interesting to see how the skyline evolves. Here's the skyline when One Liberty Place was new: I definitely think it's come a long way.

I was watching an episode of Cold Case, from 2006, and they made a reference to Fishtown. Basically about Fishtown isn't exactly a place where you'd expect people with money would be from. It made me think about the fact that in recent years, it's become a place where affluence is starting to creep in. As seen in: Fishtown's Coffee Shop Boom It feels very true that the key to a neighborhood revival is a good coffee shop. There's this single block in Wilmington- it's the one part of Market Street that's actually good, and it's anchored by a coffee shop.

The Hollywood Sign Trail- Battle Brewing Does anyone else think it's hilarious that people bought houses near the Hollywood sign, and bitch now because they're dealing with tourists? Although to be fair to them, it sounds like the Hollywood sign tourism wasn't intrusive until recent years with the advent of GPS. I love that movies make it look like you can actually go to the sign, but I'm sure the actual sign is enclosed with laser-reinforced fences or something. Still, I bet back in the 1970's you could have totally done that. It was a shithole sign then before the letters got replaced with the current ones.

Chapter 8 -When Zach realizes that Will showed up for his game, instead of celebrating his 16th birthday in Boston. "If You Were Here" by the Thompson Twins -During the game, and when Zach decides to let his ankle get fucked up than lose possession of the ball. "'Til I Collapse" by Eminem -When Will and Zach kiss at the hospital. "The Tide Is High" by Atomic Kitten

Other than "Memory", I couldn't stand Cats: The Musical.

So you guys have heard all about my internship that went incredibly south, and the incredibly humiliating way I was released from the internship. As a bit of a post-script, I had to fill out a survey. I vented out some of my anger at the situation, but I managed to keep it from going too over the top After mentioning my points that I think my supervisor needed to be more direct with constructive criticism and not engage her interns in so many private conversations, I was able to suggest this: (more or less) If the decision has been made to release an intern from their internship, I believe the news should be delivered to the intern in a face-to-face meeting with the superior making the decision and a neutral third party who has not personally worked with the intern. The neutral third party can ensure that the superior relays to the intern a firm understanding of why the internship has been ended, but also done in a way that is polite, respectful, and non-inflammatory to the intern. I mean, I don't know if that's ever going to change anything, but I liked being able to speak my peace. I can deal with the fact that I fucked up and I closed a door permanently shut. What bothers me is that the director of the internship felt that he could yell at me on the phone, relay to me gossip from 7 to 10 years ago, and then questioned my mental status. There's something rich about about being called out by a superior about your lack of professionalism, in a way that was INCREDIBLY unprofessional.That's not okay, and I hope I was able to convey it that way without sounding like a big ol' crybaby. I was also able to applaud the very awesome volunteer coordinator I'll call "Amanda". She was a cool chick, and made my exit interview far less painful than it could have been. I'm not going to lie- I'm still angry and hurt, but I think I'm moving on. I think, anyway.

I don't think Zach is headed for a future of complete misery. It might inconvenient, but Zach very much seems willing to pay the price to get what he wants, and that's a trip to The Show. The thing is, Zach doesn't need too many people. He's not like Matt, who needs lots of close friends. He has a few people he can be honest with, and I think that's good enough for him.The rest he can snow. And I think as Zach's shown, he doesn't give a damn about people he doesn't really care about. That's his mercenary, "Lone Soldier" side.

Yeah, I really don't think Zach having a career-ending injury would be the Happily Ever After here. We've gotten hint after hint that Zach is seriously good, and a real contender for an college, and likely pro, career. Just like JJ wouldn't be happy skating for a high school skating team, Zach wouldn't be happy playing football for a rec league, like Matt is with his hockey team. Zach also doesn't strike me as someone that would be content to just slide by his college courses. He's been written as being pretty smart, and having vastly improved as a student once he transferred out of Claremont High. I don't know if he'll be Dean's List material, but I can see him doing pretty well and getting something out of college beside just a lot of great party stories. Although, since he's doing the Christian Bibleboy thing, he probably can't even really do the crazy parties, anyway. His college years will probably consist of football and dedicated study, because he doesn't really have room to do much else.

See, I grew up in the 1990's, where we at least pretended that greed was bad, and social justice/equality for all/corporations-are-bad were celebrated values. Then again, greed resurfaced in a rather big way during the 2000's. Hmm. That was the interesting thing about 9/11. It was a big equalizer for them- waitresses were lost right along with high-powered executives and the like. That firefighter who evacuated JJ from his hotel room didn't give a damn who he was. In any event, it's going to be interesting to see how Brad and Stefan deal with the fact that they're going to profit big-time off the Iraq War, which is going to kill thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. How the Iraq War effects Claremont, which is probably going to see prosperity but also lose their sons and daughters to the war, is going to be interesting.

I think the thing is, Will's been a front-burner character through Poor's Man's Son, Paternity, 9.11, and Flux (although to a lesser extent.) This is the furthest in the background we've seen him- it's the first time since Millennium where Will isn't really driving the theme/action etc etc of the CAP story forward. When you have a character that is on that much, it opens the character up to a lot of criticism from the readers. Especially when readers were used to the idea that someone might be main narrator for two stories straight at most and then recede to the background (this was the case for JP- CAP, 1968, then Brad- Be Rad, Man In Motion), and were then treated to three straight stories that were incredibly heavy on Will and Will's issues, and then a 4th one on top of that that was still somewhat heavy on Will. And in order to keep someone that front-burner of a character, you need to give them issues and dramas and conflict, and therefore they can't be calm, rational, and cool all the time. They have to make stupid mistakes, misjudgements, etc etc in order to keep that drama going. Which Will did, and which also got him a lot of criticism because Will is not held to the standard of a teenager, because it has been judged in CAP World that Will is supposed to be mature enough to be an adult even though he's still only 16. So there's that disconnect that's felt by the Will-haters- being told that Will is supposed to be this worldly, mature-beyond-his-years guy, and seeing him doing stupid teen crap like what happened with Erik Delgado. I seriously came to blows with Mark after being pissed off that Will dealt with exactly zero fallout from his camping trip shenanigans freshmen year at Harvard-Westlake. Which is another facet of why people tend to have issues with Will- because he represents the privileged rich kids who can do whatever they want, and then get a pass because they're rich. I don't think it bothered people as much that JP, Brad, and Stefan have done a lot of shady things, but we were also weren't told that they're Social Justice Warriors Who Are Wise And Mature Beyond Their Years, with Will being positioned as the Second Coming of Tonto. It's a cold hard reality that the world works this way (I got a reminder of that recently with a Delaware judge who let a DuPont get away with molesting his own children), and Mark doesn't shy away from that. Still, it bugged and I got angry. Particularly because again, Will has been presented as thinking he has high moral ground on a lot, yet he constantly got away with things he shouldn't have because again, he's rich. I've backed off from that, and I think Mark started writing Will as a much better character in 9.11. Will's realization that he's not ALWAYS in the right and the way he finally kicked Tony to the curb did a lot to redeem Will in my eyes during that story. And I gotta admit, his budding relationship with Zach did a lot, as well. He's come a long way from the Will I wanted to throttle during Paternity and almost quit the story because of it.

Yeah, I don't think it's been worn by hot college boy types since at least circa 2004. It definitely wasn't "in" where I went to college.